Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: January 2013

Salvage and Demolition: A lot of weirdness to pack into 160 pages

Salvage and Demolition by Tim Powers

Richard Blanzac is a 40-year-old rare books dealer in San Francisco. While examining the contents of a few old boxes someone brought in, he discovers a manuscript with some poetry written by a little known San Francisco Beat poet named Sophie Greenwald who died in 1969. Shortly after, he is summoned to the bedside of an old lady in a nursing home. She’s the executor of the poet’s estate and insists that Richard burn the manuscript. After he leaves the nursing home, Richard discovers that there are others who want that manuscript,

RASL by Jeff Smith

RASL by Jeff Smith

RASL by Jeff Smith — available in four paperback volumes — is a fifteen-issue story that recently took me by complete surprise. However, I should have known how good it would be: Smith’s well-known comic Bone — an epic work of fantasy for all ages — is one of the great contemporary comic classics. However, I must warn fans of Jeff Smith and Bone that RASL is not a book for kids.

Blood Eye: On the Edge

Blood Eye by Giles Kristian

[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]

Depending on the period being portrayed, historical fiction novels are often too graphic and too depressing for me to enjoy. The Viking era is a popular one for authors, and, until Blood Eye, I have always been unable to get into books set in that period.

Be My Enemy: No sophomore slump in the EVERNESS series

Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Be My Enemy is Ian McDonald’s second book in his alternate-universe EVERNESS series. In this book, our hero Everett Singh confronts his most powerful enemy, himself.

At the end of Planesrunner, Everett’s father was transported into a random universe by the Known Worlds villain Charlotte Villiers. Villiers used a weapon she called a jumpgun. Everett managed to grab the jumpgun, and has used it and the map of universes on his computer tablet to send the airship Everness to another universe as well.

The Hollow Man: Confused and overly-complex

The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons

I’m a huge fan of Dan Simmons’s work — when he hits. With The Hollow Man, he misses. Though his talent as a stylist is once again on full display here, the story is confused and overly-complex, leaving the objective of The Hollow Man obscure and ambiguous. One look at the plot devices at work — neuroscience, serial killers, homelessness, telepathy, depression, the mafia, quantum physics — ought to tell you the story is bogged down with excess baggage.

Article 5: Dreadfully derivative

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

So, I put this as my status on Facebook:

Guess which book I’m talking about. I’m reading this YA post-apocalyptic novel where the United States of America has been torn apart by War and now it’s all separated into regions and you can’t move between regions without permission from the central government that is set on enforcing its rules on everybody and then the girl that’s the main character gets abducted from her home by the government and sent to this brutal place with a bunch of other kids but she survives because of this guy that she’s known forever and he loves her and protects her and then they join the rebellion.

WWWednesday: January 23, 2013

I’m back and feeling good which means this column has all sorts of goodies in it for you. If you can’t find something interesting in here to read, watch, or listen to, you’re not trying hard enough!

The Sunday Rumpus interviews Margaret Atwood. Also, this week marks the 63rd anniversary of George Orwell’s death, and Margaret Atwood wrote a column about her experiences reading Orwell as a child.

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s LIADEN Universe hits its 25th anniversary this year.

January 23rd, 2013. Ruth Arnell | World Wide Wednesday | 2 comments |

The Six-Gun Tarot: A crazy-wild desert town and a roller-coaster adventure

The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher

I don’t know if I’ve seen a book as packed with ideas, tropes, storylines, and genres as The Six-Gun Tarot, by R.S. (Rod) Belcher. To give a rough idea, here is a mere sampling of what’s in the mix: Native American coyote mythology, zombies, a seemingly unkillable sheriff, Lovecraftian/Cthulhu mythos, Western genre tropes, acupuncture, Lilith mythos, steampunk, a re-examination of Christian creation myth, romance, Mormonism, Civil War stories, horror, ghosts, pirates (OK, only briefly mentioned,

January 23rd, 2013. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | R.S. (Rod) Belcher | SFF Reviews | 12 comments |

Iced: Icky

Iced by Karen Marie Moning

Iced is the first novel in Karen Marie Moning’s new DANI O’MALLEY series, which is a spin-off from her excellent FEVER series. Readers of FEVER know who Dani is — she’s the 14-year-old sidhe-seer that Mac befriends. Besides being able to see the fae, Dani has other superpowers — she moves “super-fast” and has super senses, too. Dani also has the Sword of Light — one of only two magical objects that can kill the fae.

Dani lives in Dublin during the year 1 AWC (After the Wall Crash).

Imager’s Battalion: Feels like a textbook, not a fantasy novel

Imager’s Battalion by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO has covered two eras and two separate characters and tied them together with a theme of great power and great responsibility. L.E. Modesitt Jr. has taken the time to show the evolution of magic (imaging) in a low-tech world and has given us some pretty amazing world-building. The challenge for readers, however, is that it has been at times dreadfully boring, endlessly repetitive and so heavy-handed in its statements about the social conditions and the inherent prejudices that exist in that world that even the most stalwart fan gets… tired.

January 22nd, 2013. John Hulet´s rating: 2 | L.E. Modesitt_Jr | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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