Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Thomas M. Wagner (guest)


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Carpathia: A ship full of vampires

Carpathia by Matt Forbeck

So it’s April 1912, and here I am aboard R.M.S. Titanic, on her maiden voyage. By heaven, she’s a lovely ship! Big, too. But I’m a little worried we’re getting rather close to that iceberg. Oh I say, we’ve struck it! Not to worry, old man, everyone knows this ship is unsinkable. What’s that? We’re sinking anyway? Dash the luck! Off to the lifeboats then. What do you mean, there’s no more room? Blimey. Rest assured I’ll write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about this!


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Elidor: Thin

Elidor by Alan Garner

There are those who consider Alan Garner, an intriguing figure who was so sickly as a child he was twice legally declared dead, to be Great Britain’s master fantasist. I am not among them. Elidor, his best-known book, does have quite a lot to admire, even if it does fall far short of other acknowledged young-adult “plucky kids transported to a magical land” classics — to wit, C.S. Lewis‘s Narnia series and Susan Cooper‘s magnificent The Dark Is Rising sequence (let alone Oz).


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The Fifth Sorceress: Clutters rackspace

The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb

This ambitious debut novel is set in a realm in which two kingdoms are divided by an impassable sea. Over 300 years prior to the story’s opening, a vicious war led to the exile of a coven of evil sorceresses whose lust for power would have led to the utter destruction of peaceful Eutracia had it not been for the intervention of the noble Directorate of Wizards. The book’s startlingly blunt sexual politics, in which the heroes are all male and the villains female, is only one of its dubious qualities.


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The Empress of Earth: I’m going to miss Silence Leigh

The Empress of Earth by Melissa Scott

I wish — oh, how I wish — I could say that Melissa Scott’s Silence Leigh trilogy ends on its highest possible note. While The Empress of Earth does at long last offer the long-awaited payoff of the journey to Earth, that payoff may disappoint some readers. Some tedious and labored writing and a surprisingly conventional approach to space opera kept me from appreciating the book as well as I did its two prequels, particularly the rousing Silence in Solitude.


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Silence in Solitude: Splendid space opera escapism

Silence in Solitude by Melissa Scott

Silence in Solitude smartly continues Melissa Scott’s Roads of Heaven (Silence Leigh) trilogy, keeping the storyline fresh and invigorating by taking readers down unexpected new paths. This sophomore entry opens with Silence in training on the planet Solitudo Hermae to become the first female magus in history. Her sponsor, the magus Isambard, has agreed to train her in exchange for her taking him along once she discovers how to reach long-lost Earth.

Just to recap, Scott has developed an interesting,


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Five-Twelfths of Heaven: A trilogy worthy of rediscovery

Five-Twelfths of Heaven by Melissa Scott

The first volume of Melissa Scott‘s highly-regarded Roads of Heaven trilogy is an unusual SF novel in that it treats indistinguishable-from-magic science pretty much as if it were magic. It’s the sort of thing that makes scientific purists (and guys like me) roll our eyes much of the time. If I have a pet peeve, it’s when a “science” fiction story hits me with paranormal, unscientific concepts. If that’s what you want to write, then just write paranormal fiction. Scott avoids the claptrap trap,


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Night Child: Unoriginal, but lots of heart

Night Child by Jes Battis

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first. All of these paranormal investigator potboilers coming down the pike are more or less the same. It’s all a question of how well each one rearranges the furniture. Some do it sufficiently well so as to avoid the easiest of criticisms, that the book in question is little more than a CC of the latest Laurell K. Hamilton/Jim Butcher/Kim Harrison opus.


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Children of Amarid: Enjoyable and unpretentious

Children of Amarid by David B. Coe

The fantasy debut of historian David B. Coe is a highly readable adventure with a freshness and appeal that too many modern fantasies lack. I found the tale enjoyable, unpretentious, avoiding obvious Tolkienisms, with characterization superior to most of what is being sold and touted these days as the best of the best. Yet it has what you could term some routine first-novel flaws. Its pace is too languid, its narrative not always well focused. And it’s loaded with predictable “surprises”


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Aurian: Fine popcorn entertainment

Aurian by Maggie Furey

Aurian is a highly entertaining story that, with a boundless sense of “sky’s the limit” confidence, unapologetically runs the gamut from heroic high adventure to bodice-ripper (which is, I’m told, a very pejorative term amongst the romance set, but hey). It’s a great guilty pleasure. Don’t think I’m belittling this book, people. Sure, it’s about as arch and melodramatic a novel as you’re likely to find without the Silhouette imprint on the cover. But Maggie Furey, in what was her debut novel,


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Vellum: Empty, pretentious twaddle

Vellum by Hal Duncan

Forty pages into Vellum, I was dazzled. Hal Duncan‘s debut novel appeared to be every bit as phantasmagoric as the tidal wave of advance hype was claiming it was. A hundred pages in, my initial delight was morphing into skepticism. Yes, Duncan is a remarkably assured stylist, but is there any direction here? Is there ever going to emerge a cogent narrative to involve me beyond the author’s obvious gift for lovely and visually evocative prose? By about 175 pages,


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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