Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: December 2009

Deryni Rising: Classic high epic fantasy

Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz

Katherine Kurtz is truly a mistress of fantasy — she’s been writing high epic fantasy for 40 years and should be considered one of the post-Tolkien “parents” of our genre.

The setting of the Deryni saga is an alternate medieval Europe (clearly analogous to our medieval England and Wales) and the Deryni are a magical race who look just like, and can interbreed with, humans. They have been persecuted for years by the Church (clearly meant to be our medieval Catholic church) and most people with Deryni blood choose to hide and/or deny their lineage and magical powers.

December 20th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Katherine Kurtz | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Red-Headed Stepchild: Jaye Wells knows how to take you for a ride

Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells

Sometimes being unique is not a requirement for writing a good story. Jaye Wells’ Red-Headed Stepchild is not unique. In fact, it’s cookie-cutter urban fantasy with all the clichés. But, Wells uses all the same old urban fantasy elements to crank out a decent story.

Sabina Kane, a half-vampire / half-mage assassin for the vampire governing body, has been raised by her maternal grandmother after the ill-starred match of her vampire mother and mage father leaves her an orphan. Sabina is just as sassy,

December 20th, 2009. John Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Jaye Wells | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Sorcery and the Single Girl: Great chicklit!

Sorcery and the Single Girl by Mindy Klasky

It’s been almost a year, but Jane Madison still hasn’t mastered this whole “witchcraft” thing. True, she managed to turn the Potomac River into ice, and can make small whirlpools in the sink…but those things aren’t really helpful in real life…right?

Things are looking up for Jane’s love life, however, after a handsome Brit randomly walks into Melissa’s bakery asking for a plateful of Lust. Floating on her prospects of a new beau, Jane’s euphoria is short lived when David, her warder,

December 19th, 2009. Guest | Mindy Klasky | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Laurentine Spy: Deserves more than 5 stars

The Laurentine Spy by Emily Gee

Saliel is in over her head. Masquerading as a noble lady in the fortress of Laureant’s greatest enemy, she sneaks into the old disused catacombs every other night to meet One, Two, and the Guardian, other Laurentine spies whose true identities she doesn’t know.

After foiling an enemy plan to take over another fought-over land, Saliel learns that the Prince and his consort know there are spies in the fortress and have hired a notorious and feared spycatcher. Saliel and the other spies still have work to do however,

Well of Darkness: Should have left it in the bargain bin

Well of Darkness by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

I bought Well of Darkness in hardcover years ago in the bargain bin. I should have left it there. I have tried starting it three or four times, and I, for the life of me, cannot get past the second chapter. It is totally boring and un-engaging, and I instantly disliked the characters I was reading about. Therefore, I really can’t say much more about the book. I rarely get so turned off so early in a book, and Weis and Hickman have written some pretty entertaining stuff (Dragonlance),

December 19th, 2009. Guest´s rating: 0.1 | Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Iorich: A blast for Vlad Taltos fans (if you’re not one, you should be)

Iorich by Steven Brust

Remember those episodes of Matlock in which someone is arrested for a crime, but during the investigation it turns out that the arrest was really just a front for a much larger intrigue? Steven Brust‘s newest VLAD TALTOS novel Iorich is sort of like that — except the person who is arrested is Aliera e’Kieron, and the larger intrigue involves Empress Zerika of the Dragaeran Empire. Oh, and Matlock’s role is played by Vlad Taltos, human assassin and bon-vivant,

December 18th, 2009. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Steven Brust | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Titus Alone: For completists and fans

Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake’s magnum opus began in Titus Groan, and continued in Gormenghast, two brilliant (though door-stopping) books that explored the lives of those that exist in a self-contained, self-sufficient edifice known as Gormenghast: a labyrinthine world of towers, mansions, slums, and the corridors that connect them all. It is ruled by ancient and meaningless ritual, something that the titular character of Titus, Seventy-Seventh Earl of Gormenghast, has rejected. In the final passages of Gormenghast,”

December 18th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Mervyn Peake | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Queen of Attolia: Darker, more psychological

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Eugenides ends The Thief in triumph, but within the first chapter of this sequel, he is back in the prisons of the Queen of Attolia, where he loses his hand to the executioner’s axe, while the Queen looks on impassively. Forced to deal with the rest of his life as the Queen’s Thief of Eddis, with only one hand, he bitterly retreats to his rooms in seclusion, leaving Eddis without his skills just as the peninsula erupts in warfare, from both within and without.

Thoughtful Thursday: What do you mean Mr. Darcy is a zombie?

Beth asked me a question this week, so I’m going to post her email here and see if my faithful readers have an idea of how to answer this:

Have you noticed this sudden flood of books in fantasy that are classics rewritten with paranormal creatures? Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (and now apparently Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Mansfield Park and Mummies). Apparently it’s being done to Mark Twain’s work as well, and goodness only knows who else. Some of them are rewrites and similar,

December 17th, 2009. Ruth Arnell | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 19 comments |

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: An amusing gimmick

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

This is a book that straightforwardly declares its content from the presentation of both cover and title. With the bloodied portrait and the “and zombies” appendage, what you get here is precisely what appearances promise: no more and no less. This is Jane Austen’s manuscript, almost in its entirety, with sporadic scenes of zombies inserted.

The result is an amusing gimmick, but nothing that is astoundingly witty or which sheds new light on familiar characters or situations as most parodies are wont to do.

December 17th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Seth Grahame-Smith | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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