A maiden is kidnapped. Her mother searches for her, disguised as an old beggar woman. A deadly fruit is eaten. The maiden dies, but not necessarily for good…
Depending on how you flesh out the rest of the tale, this could either be the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, or the fairy tale “Snow White.” Tanith Lee weaves the two together in White as Snow until it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.
June 11th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Tanith Lee | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Gears of the City by Felix Gilman
Despite a somewhat slow and haphazard beginning, I thought Felix Gilman’s Thunderer was one of the best debuts I read in 2007 and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the sequel. Alas, Gears of the City was a bit disappointing in comparison, but still a very good book.
I think the biggest issue I had with the book were the characters. Simply put, I just didn’t care about any of them,
June 11th, 2009. Robert Thompson´s rating: 3.5 | Felix Gilman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Three Sisters by Rebecca Locksley
I’d been meaning to read The Three Sisters for a long time. The cover art intrigued me. I remember seeing it in the bookstore, thinking “But there are only two sisters in the picture!” and then finally noticing the third, ghostly woman in the pool. I wanted to know what these sisters’ story was. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll ever know.
The sisters, Elena, Yanimena, and Marigoth, are members of a race called the Tari. The Tari are magically gifted,
June 10th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Rebecca Locksley | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick
Funny fact: This book got lost in the mail on its way to me and took almost a month to arrive. I started wondering if it was a bad idea to order a book with “Disappearing” in the title! It turned up in the end, though, and I’m glad. Disappearing Nightly is a lot of fun. It was just what I needed after reading a couple of really dark novels.
Both the heroine and the plot are highly original in the urban fantasy subgenre.
June 10th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Laura Resnick | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Master of Shadows by Janet Lorimer
With a single sentence, Janet Lorimer establishes the mood of Master of Shadows. And there, she starts a familiar story — Beauty meets the Beast and goes to live with him in his enchanted castle. That is, he could be a beast. Since he is always shrouded in a cowl, Ariel doesn’t know for certain.
In the story, Louvel hires Ariel to categorize the books in his extensive library. Ariel has a master’s degree in Liberal Arts — a proper degree for a the daughter of a wealthy man — and she is delighted to have a chance to actually use it.
June 9th, 2009. Tia Nevitt (guest)´s rating: 4 | Janet Lorimer | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Eric Nylund’s new novel Mortal Coils is a young adult urban fantasy which is lacking in werewolves and vampires. Thus, Mortal Coils is a wonderful entry into this genre and it doesn’t have to fall back on all things cliché.
Eliot and Fiona Post are twins being raised by a strict controlling grandmother in a small town in Northern California. They don’t get to do any of the normal things that their peers get to do. Their education is non-typical and excellent,
June 8th, 2009. John Hulet´s rating: 5 | Eric Nylund | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Karen Miller’s novel, Empress is shockingly different from her previous duology, Kingmaker, Kingbreaker. Empress shows us the rise of a barbarian warlord in a culture like the ancient Assyrian or Babylonian empires, with their city states that eventual become powerful nations. The society of Mikak is violent, worshipping a scorpion god who craves bloody ritual sacrifice. The godspeakers are the only people who are able to hear the god. They perform sacrifices and are a police force and a political entity separate from the warlord’s control.
June 8th, 2009. John Ottinger (guest)´s rating: 4 | Karen Miller | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A friend of mine simply adores Tim Pratt and so my curiosity was piqued when I saw this short story collection in the bookstore. Little Gods isn’t thick by any means (at under 300 pages) but it does include 14 short stories.
First off, I really, really love the book design. Second, the book has an introduction by Michaela Rossner, and then an afterword in which Tim Pratt talks about his stories. As for the stories themselves, the adjective that best describes them is “elegant.” Whether Pratt’s stories are very,
June 5th, 2009. Charles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 4.5 | Tim (T.A.) Pratt | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Indigo King by James A. Owen
The Indigo King has high aspirations that it sets up in terms of character and a large plot canvas, but doesn’t really meet them, though it is a solid work of fantasy. It’s major flaws are in its construction: a picaresque pastiche. The pastiche part is a myriad of legendary and mythological sources.
On the surface, one might expect such a all-encompassing field of sources ranging from Arthurian legends to Greek mythology to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain (to name only some) would offer up a rich tapestry of fiction.
June 4th, 2009. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | James A. Owen | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Liavek by Will Shetterly & Emma Bull
One of the things I love about used bookstores is stumbling across out of print books from favorite authors. I picked up Liavek because I’ve enjoyed Emma Bull since The War for the Oaks, and discovered a fun collection of short stories. Unlike most anthologies, Liavek is a shared world universe, where all the authors write short stories that are set in the same location, with the same characters. Not only do characters reoccur,
June 4th, 2009. Ruth Arnell´s rating: 4 | Emma Bull, Will Shetterly | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…