Deadly Shores by Taylor Anderson
I love Taylor Anderson’s characters and the world he has built in his DESTROYERMEN series, and the audio editions of these books are wonderfully performed by William Dufris.
But Deadly Shores (2014) is the ninth book in the series and the war, which is pretty much the focus of the entire plot, seems like it’s still winding up. There’s just no end in sight.
There are a couple of personal changes for Captain Reddy’s crew and alliances,
October 9th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Taylor Anderson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood (pseudonym of Jon Courtenay Grimwood)
Jean-Marie Charles d’Aumont is first and foremost a chef. Even the title chef is a gross understatement. Jean-Marie is a connoisseur on an adventure to taste as many different things as he can in his lifetime. As The Last Banquet opens up, we find Jean-Marie as an orphan sitting by a dung heap munching on beetles. With each beetle consumed, he notes that they often taste like what they’d consumed prior to being eaten. There’s a very wry,
October 9th, 2014. Pat Doherty´s rating: 5 | Jon Courtenay (Jonathan) Grimwood | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
On this day in 1943, R.L. Stine, the author of the Goosebumps series, was born.
Writing, Editing, and Publishing:
Roger Sutton of The Horn Book wrote an open-letter to self-published authors this week, explaining why his publication does not review self-published children’s books. It will be interesting to see, in the next few years, if self-published children’s books follow the trend Sutton has noticed with self-published books for adults; nonetheless, as an editor, I really appreciated this statement: “An editor isn’t there to “fix mistakes.” His or her most important job is to understand what contribution your story makes–or doesn’t–to the big world of books and readers.”
October 8th, 2014. Kate Lechler | World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |
Storm Surge by Taylor Anderson
Storm Surge (2013), the eighth book in Taylor Anderson’s DESTROYERMEN series, is exactly what I was expecting, which means that while I enjoyed checking in on Captain Reddy and his crew and alliances in the alternate earth they found themselves in during WWII, I continued to wonder how long Anderson can draw out this war. Sure, world wars take years, so it’s not that I find the plot unrealistic (excepting the part about the parallel universe), but it’s just that I don’t really want to read about the same war for 154 hours (which is how long the series,
October 8th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Taylor Anderson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I stumbled on Janissaries, the first book in Chris Kennedy’s THEOGONY series, as a recommendation by Amazon after some other books that I have purchased. The description is kind of up my alley because I like the idea of the Earth fighting to preserve itself from an alien race. So, I dropped a couple of bucks and picked up this self-published story. It gets good reviews at Amazon.
Chris Kennedy has a story that he wants to tell about how the history of the earth is tied into different alien races having impacted us and left traces of them.
October 8th, 2014. John Hulet´s rating: 2 | Chris Kennedy | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
In his first book, Tome of the Undergates, Sam Sykes proved he was a versatile author. He wrote some intense, realistic battles and mixed them with some of the most peaceful, beautiful passages I’ve seen in such a violent book. Interspersed with all of this was some fantastic humor that I’ve come to associate with Sykes.
In Black Halo, he takes everything he proved himself capable of in Tome of the Undergates and perfects it.
October 8th, 2014. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 4 | Sam Sykes | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Pharos the Egyptian by Guy Boothby
Once upon a time, when the British Empire was at its zenith, adventure fiction and fantastical writings began to deal with the idea that London — and tacitly, all Britain — was under threat by some ancient, terrifying force (frequently from a place where Britain had established a colony). There was an immense fascination with the occult versus the modern, the venerable old kingdoms versus the new British Empire, and most of all, the diabolical arcane opponent versus the plucky, civilized Englishman. It’s a trend that gave us such well-known works as Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Henry Rider Haggard‘s She,
October 7th, 2014. Tim Scheidler´s rating: 2 | Guy Boothby | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu
The Deaths of Tao is the second book in Wesley Chu’s TAO series. In the first book, The Lives of Tao, we met Roen Tan, an overweight lazy guy who, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was possessed by an alien named Tao. There are two factions of aliens on Earth — the Prophus and the Genjix. They crash-landed on our planet thousands of years ago and they’re trying to get back to their own planet.
October 7th, 2014. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Wesley Chu | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Perilous Shield by Jack Campbell
The planet of Midway has seen some pretty intense activity since the fall of the Syndicate worlds after their fleets were defeated by Admiral Jack Geary, the legendary Black Jack. Former COEs Gwen Iceni and Artur Drakon now have control of the political machine that was in place under the Syndicate and are crafting something new. They also control the local fleet, have rooted out most of the Syndicate internal spies (known as Snakes) and have successfully worked with the Alliance as they have transited the Midway star system twice.
October 7th, 2014. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | Jack Campbell | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks
The State of the Art is a collection of short fiction written by Iain Banks between 1984 and 1987. Surprisingly, it is the only such collection the author has published. Given Banks’ fifteen mainstream novels and twelve science fiction novels, one would expect a much larger output of short stories and novellas. The following is a brief summary of the eight stories (most of which are science fiction stories, three which are CULTURE related).
“Road of Skulls” — Not a story in any conventional sense,
October 7th, 2014. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 2 | Iain M. Banks | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
I believe you are missing the point of this book here. I don't believe the purpose is to tell a…
I love it!
Almost as good as my friend: up-and-coming author Amber Merlini!
I don't know what kind of a writer he is, but Simon Raven got the best speculative-fiction-writing name ever!
[…] Its gotten great reviews from Publishers Weekly (starred review!), Kirkus, Locus, Booklist, Lithub, FantasyLiterature, and more. Some of whom…