Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: September 2010


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Thoughtful Thursday: Declaration of Fantasy Reader Independence

When in the Course of reading too many crappy fantasy novels it becomes necessary for one reader to dissolve the glue which has connected the pages of the latest disaster with each other and to assume among the buyers at the bookstore, the separate and equal position on queue to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the careers of fantasy authors requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all books have not been created equal,


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The Spirit Thief: Fast-paced and cheerful debut

The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron

In the opening scene of The Spirit Thief (2010), Rachel Aaron’s charming debut novel, the notorious thief Eli Monpress is trying to escape from the royal dungeon of Mellinor. Since he’s not just a thief but also a wizard, he does this by quite literally trying to charm the dungeon’s door into opening: not by casting a spell on it, but rather by persuading, cajoling and wheedling it into letting him through, explaining that it really would be much better off without those annoying nails keeping it together (which results in the memorable line “Indecision is the bane of all hardwoods.”).


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An Artificial Night: The fae realm comes to life

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

October Daye, private investigator to San Francisco’s faerie nobility, stumbles upon her most troubling case yet. Two of her friends’ children vanish without a trace, and a third falls into an enchanted sleep from which no one can awaken her. Toby pokes around and learns that other children have been disappearing as well, both fae and human, and that an ancient and sinister power is behind the kidnappings.

Seanan McGuire wisely plays to her strengths — and Toby’s — in An Artificial Night.


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Litany of the Long Sun: A mature fantasy

Litany of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

Though not essential, it wouldn’t hurt to do some homework before reading Litany of the Long Sun, Gene Wolfe’s omnibus edition of two novels: Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun. Litany and its companion omnibus Epiphany of the Long Sun make up the Book of the Long Sun series, which is itself an independent part of Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle.


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Century of the Soldier: An excellent conclusion

Century of the Soldier by Paul Kearney

Century of the Soldieris the omnibus edition of The Iron Wars (1999), The Second Empire (2000) and Ships from the West (2002), and is the concluding volume of Paul Kearney’s re-issued The Monarchies of God. It is as compelling and readable as Hawkwood and the Kings, and while it does not enjoy five-star status with its predecessor, it is an excellent conclusion, and I stand by my statement in my previous review: any person who loves good epic fantasy must read these books.


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Song of the Dragon: Good audio can’t make up for cheesy dialog

Song of the Dragon by Tracy Hickman

Song of the Dragon is the first book of the Annals of Drakis, a new series by Tracy Hickman, an author who most fans will remember for his work with Margaret Weis writing the Dragonlance books. This solo effort left me feeling like he shouldn’t have been let out on his own.

The story starts with Drakis, a human warrior-slave, deep underground with his brother-soldiers, an odd conglomeration of warriors from the slave races — chimera,


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Sparks: The salamander is an irresistible bright spot

Sparks by Laura Bickle

In Sparks, Laura Bickle’s follow-up to Embers, Anya Kalinczyk faces another baffling case of magic and mysterious fires. The Detroit Fire Department is confounded by what seem to be instances of spontaneous human combustion. Meanwhile, huckster guru Hope Solomon is amassing wealth and power on the backs of Detroit’s desperate. Anya and her friends are in grave danger when Anya discovers a link between Hope and the fires.

Hope Solomon is incredibly creepy. She espouses a blend of the popular “law of attraction” and “pay it forward” philosophies,


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20 Heroes: Morrigan

Seventeenth in our Heroes series, by our own Robert Rhodes. Art is courtesy of Anders Finér.

One of the baron’s guardsmen grunted and pressed a candle into her hand. No sooner had she grasped it than another shoved her through the shadowed doorway. The door slammed behind her, snuffing the candle, and its iron bar thudded into place.

“Jackwits,” Morrigan snapped under her breath. The garments they’d given her, such as they were, were ridiculously inadequate in the keep’s dank catacombs, and the door-gust had chilled her skin to gooseflesh.


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Divided Allegiance: Make sure you have the next book!

Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon

I have previously reviewed Elizabeth Moon’s entire The Deed of Paksennarion, the trilogy of which Divided Allegiance is the middle book. Brilliance Audio sent us a copy of their audio book version of the story, and I was planning on listening to the first CD or two to review the quality of the production since I have read the whole series probably ten times now. But that is not what happened. Not only did I listen to the whole book,


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Day by Day Armageddon: Not as scary as sentient squirrels

Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne

Day by Day Armageddon is a fictional journal of an unnamed Navy pilot depicting the daily events of the zombie apocalypse. The journal begins with a new year’s resolution, describes newscasts about a virus outbreak in china, then continues to describe each day as things around the world get progressively worse, leading to the eventual total collapse of modern society.

J.L. Bourne has not brought anything new to the table as far as zombie lore goes. He sticks to the fundamentals laid out by George A.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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