Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: April 2010

The Sixty-eight Rooms: Great concept not fully explored

The Sixty-eight Rooms by Marianne Malone

The Sixty-Eight Rooms has a really fun premise. Sixth-graders Ruthie and Jack visit the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, and discover a magic key that enables them to shrink to doll-size and explore the rooms up close. It turns out that each room opens onto a real landscape from the time it portrays, complete with real people that Ruthie and Jack can interact with. I thought this was a great concept, and I remember thinking that Marianne Malone should set a sequel in the Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Stoneheart: YA adventure on audio

Stoneheart by Charlie Fletcher

Stoneheart, the first book in the Stoneheart trilogy by Charlie Fletcher features a cast of three main characters. George, a 12 year old boy, has a hard home life. His father died in a car accident, his mother is a self-absorbed actress who is physically and emotionally absent most of the time, and he’s a social outcast at school. When he gets unfairly blamed for an accident on a school field trip, he lashes out by breaking the head off a stone dragon carved on the outside of the museum.

Joe Abercrombie on Diamond Toilet Seats, PS3, and The Heroes

Today I’d like to welcome Joe Abercrombie to Fantasy Literature. Joe is the author of The First Law Trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They are Hanged, and The Last Argument of Kings) and the stand alone work Best Served Cold. His next book is titled The Heroes and is set to release the first quarter of 2011. All of his work has been popular and highly regarded,

April 20th, 2010. Justin Blazier | Joe Abercrombie | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 50 comments |

Shade: Enjoyable YA

Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

Everyone in the world who is Aura’s age or younger can see ghosts, while older people can’t see them. Aura dreads her “gift” (mostly) until her boyfriend, Logan, dies of a drug-alcohol overdose and returns to watch over her. Despite Logan’s lack of a physical body, their relationship deepens.

Meanwhile, Aura begins to fall for a living boy: Zachary. Zachary was born scant minutes before Aura, and whereas she was the first born with the ability to see ghosts, Zach is the last child born without that ability.

20 Heroes: Emilian IV

Eighth in our Heroes series, by our own Robert Rhodes. Art is courtesy of Leonid Kozienko. Commenters are entered to win Changes by Jim Butcher.

The high grasses of the prairie thinned after he passed the final milestone. They grew shorter, sparser, before fading into cracked soil and dust. The desert began where the eroded stones of the road ended, and with them, the Empire that had been his.

Forty-five days ago, before dawn, he slipped through a false panel in his private library.

April 19th, 2010. Rob Rhodes | 20 Heroes, Giveaway! | 11 comments |

Wish: Reviewed by Kelly the curmudgeon

Wish by Alexandra Bullen

Olivia always lived in the shadow of her outgoing twin sister Violet — until Violet died. Now, Olivia is starting over, with a new home, a new school, parents who have become strangers to her, and a hole in her life where Violet should be. Everything changes when Olivia takes one of Violet’s dresses to be mended, and meets the mysterious seamstress Mariposa of the Mission, a.k.a. Posey. Instead of repairing Violet’s dress, Posey makes Olivia a beautiful new one. This is not just any dress; it comes with a wish,

A Wizard of Mars: One of the best wizard series going

A Wizard of Mars

A Wizard of Mars is the ninth book in Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series and continues in the same strong vein as the others. At this point, there isn’t much to review in that if you’ve read the eighth book in a series, it’s pretty safe to assume you’re going to be picking up the ninth. But in a nutshell, if you do, you’ll be rewarded with the same quality you’ve become accustomed to and many of the same strengths.

The Iron King: Real pleasure for teen and adult readers

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

The Iron King (2010) is just plain fun. Julie Kagawa takes sixteen-year-old Meghan Chase on a heroic journey through the lands of Faerie, where she meets a host of vivid characters and crosses unearthly landscapes in search of her missing kid brother. Along the way, she learns a dangerous secret about her parentage, gets caught up in a Faerie political struggle, and finds herself torn between two very different fey boys.

There’s an element of pastiche to The Iron King;

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Great read

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Harry has had a miserable summer. None of his friends have written to him and he wonders whether Hogwarts and the world of wizardry that he discovered the year before is just a dream. Four weeks before he is due to return to school he has a visit from Dobby the House Elf who warns him not to return to Hogwarts. And so we embark on another year at Hogwarts and another mystery — this time involving the Chamber of Secrets.

I enjoyed Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,

Mortal Love: A Sensual Tale

Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand

Elizabeth Hand, who famously dealt with the Mother Goddess myth in Waking the Moon and the cult of Dionysus in Black Light, here tackles the subject of the fatal muse: the White Goddess, the lhiannan-sidhe, the Belle Dame Sans Merci.

Mortal Lovedrifts back and forth between several periods of history, between men throughout the years who have fallen under her seductive spell. Along the way there are Hand’s usual lush fruit-metaphors and insect-metaphors and jewel-metaphors,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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