Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Month: April 2018

I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land: A disquisition on the value of all books

I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land by Connie Willis

Jim is visiting Manhattan, doing publicity for his blog, Gone for Good, and hoping to sell it as a book to a publisher. The point of Jim’s blog, and his sincere belief, is that things dying out and disappearing ― payphones, elevator operators, VHS tapes, and books nobody cares about ― is part of the natural order, a sign that society doesn’t need these things any longer. If society changes its mind, they can always be brought back. Books are generally digitized,

The Heart Forger: A strong sequel

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco

The Heart Forger‘s (2018) prequel ended with the young bone witch, Tea, about to march upon the kingdom with an army of corpses and a bevy of monsters to boot. We pick up the story precisely where it was left off with Tea’s shock lover (for those of you who remember the twist ending of The Bone Witch) in tow.

Sticking to the same formula used in The Bone Witch,

Sunday Status Update: April 29, 2018

Another week, more books!

Bill: Like Kat I’m buried in final papers (only 70 more!). But also like Marion, as soon as Foundryside showed up on my Kindle I blew off a night of work to read it. She’s right—it doesn’t disappoint at all, as we’ll elaborate on in an upcoming joint review soon. My other act of self-indulgence was to exit my last class and immediately hit the theater ten minutes later to see the new Avengers movie with my family (And I did not pull my son from his last period in order to do so.

April 29th, 2018. Tim Scheidler | Status Update | 2 comments |

Sky in the Deep: Axe-wielding star-crossed lovers

Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young

Eelyn lives only to fight with her father, her best friend Mýra, and the rest of the Aska clan against their mortal enemies, the Riki clan. Every five years, the clans meet on the battlefield and do their very best to slaughter one another, then return home with the survivors to heal their wounds and train for another five years. Eelyn doesn’t question why the Aska are bound up in this eternal blood-feud; this is how things have always been, this is how they will always be,

Arm of the Sphinx: Senlin is still ascending

Arm of the Sphinx by Josiah Bancroft

Arm of the Sphinx (2018) is the sequel to Senlin Ascends (2017), Josiah Bancroft’s extremely popular novel that was originally self-published but later picked up by Orbit Books after it was highlighted by Mark Lawrence in his Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off contest a couple years ago. I loved Senlin Ascends, a story about a man named Thomas Senlin who is accidentally separated from his wife at the base of the Tower of Babel.

Thoughtful Thursday: Free Comic Book Day 2018 (Giveaway!)

Free Comic Book Day — FCBD — is always the first Saturday of May. To get your free comics on May 5, you’ll need to locate a local comic bookstore and, if in doubt, give them a call to see if they are participating. Chances are, if it’s an independent comic book store, they are offering free comics, because FCBD is designed to celebrate comics, to introduce comic books to new readers, to celebrate the unique independent comic book stores that sell them, and to support comic book stores by bringing in new customers in addition to the regular patrons.

April 26th, 2018. Brad Hawley | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 10 comments |

Penric’s Fox: Another murder mystery for Penric

Penric’s Fox by Lois McMaster Bujold

Penric’s Fox is the third (according to internal chronology) novella in Lois McMaster Bujold’s PENRIC AND DESDEMONA series, a spin-off from her well-decorated FIVE GODS trilogy. Each of these novellas is essentially a chapter in Penric’s story and I assume that someday they’ll be combined together in one volume.

This particular story takes place after the events of Penric and the Shaman, so I would recommend reading it after that story and before Penric’s Mission.

The Lady of the Rivers: The protagonist lacks the magic of her ancestors

The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

The Lady of the Rivers (2011) begins with the capture of a young French maiden. She wears a man’s cap and breeches, and tells her captors that she is following the voices of angels. When our narrator, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, calls her Joan, it quickly becomes apparent that Gregory has opened her novel with the capture of the legendary Joan of Arc. Moments in history don’t come much more momentous than this one, and it marks the first trial Jacquetta must overcome,

April 26th, 2018. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2.5 | Philippa Gregory | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Song of Blood & Stone: What if the author had loved the whole story?

Song of Blood & Stone by L. Penelope

Originally, L. Penelope published Song of Blood & Stone under her own publishing house, Heartspell. In 2016, it earned attention from the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO), where a team of prominent fantasy book bloggers evaluate 300 enlisted fantasy titles and review the very best of them. Song of Blood & Stone was so popular St. Martin’s Press picked it up and is now publishing it mainstream with a few changes.

April 25th, 2018. Taya Okerlund´s rating: 2.5 | L. Penelope | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Memory: Why Bujold is secretly revolutionary

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

My copy of Memory looks like it was reread several dozen times and then shoved in the bottom of a backpack and schlepped a few hundred thousand miles (it was). It’s my favorite book in Lois McMaster Bujold’s VORKOSIGAN SAGA, which is a series made up of some of my favorite books. But it isn’t high literature or uber-intellectual science fiction or the kind of book that people call “genre bending.” The plot is pure, fast-paced, crime-solving fun, like the rest of the series.

April 25th, 2018. Alix E. Harrow, Kat Hooper, Marion Deeds and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Lois McMaster Bujold | SFF Reviews | 20 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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