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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: April 2009

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The Becoming: Nothing to write home about

The Becoming by Jeanne C. Stein

If you don’t think about it too hard, The Becoming could be a fun book for the beach. It’s short, fast-paced, and suffused with a sun-drenched California atmosphere that’s unusual in a vampire novel. (Jeanne C. Stein’s vampires have evolved to tolerate the sun.) It’s also nice that it’s self-contained; there are sequels, but The Becoming is a complete story in itself. Unfortunately, there are all sorts of things about it that bothered me or fell flat with me.


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April 8th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Nights of Villjamur: I liked what Newton was going for

Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton

Nights of Villjamur by Mark Newton is the first in a series entitled Legends of the Red Sun. The setting is the Boreal Archipelago, though the vast majority of the action takes place in the capital of the Jamur Empire — the eponymous city of Villjamur. The empire is built on its military and the remnants of ancient technology scavenged, studied, and used or modified (not always as the original technology was intended) by a group of Cultists (who are subdivided into sects).


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April 8th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Lamentation: A rich story, beautifully told

Lamentation by Ken Scholes

Lamentation is a promising start to a new fantasy (or at least semi-fantasy) series, which is a bit ironic as its own start is a bit bumpy. The story begins with a bang — literally. We’re witness to the utter destruction of an entire city — screams, flames, toppling buildings, searing winds, etc. Many novels would end with the scene, but Ken Scholes chooses to make it the starting point of the plot, an original beginning which I liked a lot.

Unfortunately,


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April 7th, 2009. and ´s rating: , | | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

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Starfinder: Uneven

Starfinder by John Marco

Starfinder is the story of Moth, an orphaned child obsessed with learning how to fly, and Fiona, the granddaughter of the Governor of Calio, an outpost on the edge of civilization. Calio borders on the Reach, a featureless miles-wide expanse that is supposed to be impossible to cross, covered in an impenetrable mist that conceals and confuses the traveler. The Reach separates the human lands from the mythical Skylords, angelic beings who jealously guard the skies to keep any other race from achieving flight.


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April 7th, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Elfland: They just don’t write ’em like that anymore

Elfland by Freda Warrington

Cross Elizabeth Hand with Fire and Hemlock, and you might end up with something like Freda Warrington’s Elfland. This is the kind of big, sweeping modern faerie tale that you don’t see often on the adult shelves anymore. There’s been some beautiful work done in YA recently, but in the adult realm, the trend has been away from novels like this. And that’s a shame. Elfland is complex, rich, sensual, beautifully written, and sometimes heartbreaking.


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April 7th, 2009. and ´s rating: , | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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The Blue Girl: I just don’t believe any of it

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

What drew me to The Blue Girl wasn’t the bad girl trying to be a good girl premise. It wasn’t the thing about the resident student ghost or the gang of malicious fairies or being a social misfit. Been there, seen that — not just in books. It was the line about Imogene’s imaginary friend manifesting into reality that piqued my interest. Now that was something I couldn’t really recall seeing before. It tickled that whimsical part of me that my mom is so fond of talking about (and envying).


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April 6th, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Tangled Webs: A glorified Halloween episode

Tangled Webs by Anne Bishop

Warning: This review will contain some spoilers.

The Black Jewels Trilogy was and is one of my very favorite guilty pleasures. Yet I’ve been avoiding Tangled Webs (what is tagged book six in what is now called The Black Jewels Series — don’t even get me started on that) for some time. To explain why, I’ll give you a quote from the publisher’s blurb:

“The invitation is signed “Jaenelle Angelline,”


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April 6th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Mage-Guard of Hamor: Left me bored

Mage-Guard of Hamor by L.E. Modesitt Jr

Mage-Guard of Hamor is the 15th book in the Saga of Recluce series by L.E. Modesitt Jr. If you’ve gotten to this point in the series, then odds are you know what you are getting in to, and perhaps you don’t mind the comfortable repetition. But, unfortunately, this installment only left me bored.

Mage-Guard of Hamor continues the story we were following in Natural Ordermage. The main character,


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April 6th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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A Crown of Swords: Someone stuck a stick in the spokes of The Wheel of Time

A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan

My reviews of The Wheel of Time novels are getting just as repetitive as the actual books. There’s really not much more to say. A Crown of Swords is another long slow installment in which there are too many detailed descriptions of clothing, references to spanking, concerns about bosoms, and people blushing. There are pages and pages which chronicle secondary characters’ extensive internal thoughts. But what bugs me most, though, are the constant depictions of people and places as if they have a corporate personality:

Men strutted arrogantly along the streets with often ragged vests and no shirts,


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April 1st, 2009. ´s rating: | , | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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  4. So happy to hear that you enjoyed this article, Spacewaves! It was something of a labor of love for me,…

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