Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: April 2009

The Shape-Changer’s Wife: A beautiful fairytale romance

The Shape-Changer’s Wife by Sharon Shinn

Aubrey is a young wizard, apprenticed to Glynrenden, the most powerful shape-changer in the land. Aubrey wants to learn all of his magical secrets, but instead discovers a mystery surrounding the shape-changer’s wife, Lilith, which may change everything Aubrey has ever known.

The Shape-Changer’s Wife is a beautiful fairytale romance, with a haunting, slightly creepy undertone. Glynrenden is a menacing character, and Shinn does a wonderful job of eliciting a sense of dread during his interactions with the other characters.

The Betrayal: Pati Nagle’s prose is a treat!

The Betrayal by Pati Nagle

The Betrayal tells the story of a conflict between the aelven (elves, of course) and their exiled kin, the alben, who were outcast from aelven society in the distant past when they became afflicted with vampiric urges. I’m a little sick of vampires in general, but Pati Nagle‘s take on them is original, and it makes sense. The magic of the aelven is based on exchange of khi, or energy, and the alben’s blood drinking is a logical corruption of that.

April 20th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Pati Nagle | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Puck of Pook’s Hill: Very valuable

Puck of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling

The Sword Gave the Treasure, and the Treasure Gave the Law…

Puck of Pook’s Hill is certainly not as famous as Rudyard Kipling’s earlier works The Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, or even The Complete Stalky and Co.. First published in 1906, it was his final novel (only an anthology of short stories came after it) and it is certainly an odd specimen of a book.

Wings: A sorta fairytale

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Wow, faeries are everywhere in YA fantasy lately. Aprilynne Pike adds to this growing subgenre with a novel that stands out in some ways but not in others.

Pike’s best touch is her take on how faeries differ from humans biologically. It’s clever, it’s well-thought-out, and it makes sense. It’s easy to imagine how these beings could give rise to the stories humans tell about faeries. Laurel’s plantlike biology also turns out to be crucial to the plot, late in the novel.

The pace is slow in the beginning;

Lord of the Fading Lands: Entertaining romantic fantasy

Lord of the Fading Lands by C.L. Wilson

Lord of the Fading Lands has me thinking about genres, and the distinctions between them, and the places where they blur. Specifically, is the Tairen Soul series romance-with-fantasy or fantasy-with-romance? I’m going to have to come down on the side of romance-with-fantasy, though there’s a great big fantasy plot in this book alongside the love story.

The central characters are Rain, a shapeshifting Fey king with a thousand years’ worth of traumatic past; and Ellysetta, a young woman of humble background who is unappreciated in her home city but who turns out to be exceptionally powerful.

April 16th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | C.L. Wilson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

In the Night Garden: Delicious and clever (but not for Kevin)

The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente

In the Night Garden is the first in a two-book (maybe more?) series and if book one is any guide, this is as delicious and clever a tale-telling as one is likely to run into for some time. With an Arabian Nights feel and structure, we’re introduced to one engrossing story after another as the demon-girl of the garden (that’s the Sultan’s garden of course) spins them out to the enraptured young prince who disobeys orders and decorum to listen.

April 16th, 2009. Bill Capossere, Rebecca Fisher, Marion Deeds, Kat Hooper and Kevin Wei´s rating: 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |

The Path of Daggers: At least it’s shorter

The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

The best thing I can say about The Path of Daggers is that it is significantly shorter than the last few novels have been — only 700 pages (mass market paperback) compared to the 900-1100 page novels that have preceded it. There is much less of the repetitive backstory. I guess Mr. Jordan finally realized that new readers aren’t jumping in at this point.

However, that’s not to say that there are 700 pages of plot here,

Suldrun’s Garden: Beautiful and complex, full of fascinating characters

Suldrun’s Garden by Jack Vance

As I’m writing this, Jack Vance’s under-appreciated Lyonesse trilogy has been off the shelves for years. My library doesn’t even have a copy — it had to be interlibrary loaned for me. Why is that? Publishers have been printing a seemingly endless stream of vampire and werewolf novels these days — same plot, same characters, blah blah blah. If not that, it’s grit. We all want grit.

Or maybe it’s that more women are reading fantasy these days and publishers think we want to read about bad-ass heroines who kill vampires.

April 15th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Jack Vance | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |

Night of Knives: Strong characters

Night of Knives by Ian Cameron Esslemont

Any die-hard fan of the Malazan novels by Steven Erikson should know of Ian Cameron Esslemont. For the uninitiated, Mr. Esslemont and Steven Erikson are the co-creators of the Malazan world, which was originally conceived as a role-playing game.

I am a big fan of the Malazan novels. It was in 2004 that I first heard about the series thanks to the Science Fiction Book Club, which was featuring Gardens of the Moon when it was making its U.S.

April 14th, 2009. Robert Thompson and João Eira | Ian C. Esslemont | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Knights of Dark Renown: Doesn’t leave us wallowing in darkness

Knights of Dark Renown by David Gemmell

It’s been six years since the legendary Knights of the Gabala rode through a gate to hell in order to fight the evil that threatened the realm. They haven’t been heard from since. But they are desperately needed now because the King, once a noble man, has begun rounding up the nomad population in Holocaust style. People who oppose his actions are named traitors and the King’s new henchmen are very strong and very… undead. The king’s new policies have alienated a lot of people — mostly peasants.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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