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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Ruth Arnell

Thoughtful Thursday: You never forget your first

Welcome back to Thoughtful Thursday! I’ve been mulling over something Janny Wurts said in the podcast we linked to on this blog last week.  She talked about certain archetypes reoccurring in fantasy because they serve as an entrance point to the genre for certain age groups which made me think about how I started reading fantasy.

I remember the first fantasy book I ever read.  While younger I had read other books like C.S. Lewis‘s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, or Mary Norton’s The Borrowers,


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August 27th, 2009. | Thoughtful Thursday | 11 comments |

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Sacred Scars: Shifts focus, still a pleasure

Sacred Scars by Kathleen Duey

Sacred Scars, the second book in the A Resurrection of Magic trilogy, picks up immediately where the action in Skin Hunger leaves off. Told with the same style of focusing on the two main characters, Sadima and Hahp, in alternating chapters, the book starts with Sadima, Franklin, and Somiss living in a mysterious complex of caves and tunnels outside the main city of Limori, and Hahp trying to figure out how to survive the magical training he is undergoing at the hands of sadistic wizards.


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August 27th, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Thoughtful Thursday – Egregious Errors Edition

Welcome to the second installment in the Thoughtful Thursday column. If you have questions you would like to see addressed in this space, feel free to contact us, and put Thoughtful Thursday in the subject line.

Last week we had a great discussion about what your fantasy sin is. I’d like to acknowledge and welcome all the recently out-of-the-closet Goodkind fans. This week, I’d like to focus on the other end of the reading relationship: the author. There was a spirited discussion last week about the use of the word “sin,” so to keep anyone from thinking I have serious issues,


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August 20th, 2009. | Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 27 comments |

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Daggerspell: Innovative world building, sympathetic characterization

Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr

As a young man, Nevyn’s inability to choose starts a series of events that leads to the death of his betrothed, her brother, and another man. At his beloved’s grave he swears to never rest until he has righted the wrongs he caused. The gods accept his vow, and he is gifted with immortality until he has fulfilled his promise. Daggerspell follows Nevyn’s attempts to pay the debts he owes as the spirits of the three people to whom he is spiritually tied are born and reborn.


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August 18th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Beldan’s Fire: Final showdown

Beldan’s Fire by Midori Snyder

Beldan’s Fire is the final showdown between the new Queens’ Quarter and the Fire Queen Zorah, and the plot races along to its conclusion. Midori Snyder doesn’t pull any punches as she wraps up the story, and it does not end the way you probably think it will.

She balances beautiful, lyrical writing with gritty characters from the urban underbelly. The characters continue to develop, and are still flawed human beings doing what they have to do, which I think is what makes them interesting,


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August 13th, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks: Great idea, poor execution

The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks by Nick O’Donohoe

Set during World War II, The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks (1999) concerns a young man who works at an industrial plant selling furnaces for war production. When he gets an order for a furnace sized for someone who is only three feet tall, he investigates and discovers that there are dwarves supplying the American military with some of their most essential war machinery.

The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks has a brilliant premise: what if the success of the American war machine in World War II depends upon a small band of dwarves being able to keep themselves hidden,


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August 5th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Skin Hunger: A breathtaking, heart-aching story

Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey

Skin Hunger is two stories in one. Told in alternating chapters, Skin Hunger follows the story of Sadima, a farm girl who can speak to animals. Her mother died when the magician hired to heal her instead stole the family’s few valuables and left her to die as she gave birth to Sadima. Seeking to find someone who can understand her abilities, she runs away to the distant city Limòri and starts keeping house for two budding magicians. The second story concerns Hahp,


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July 31st, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Mad Kestrel: Unoriginal, but fun

Mad Kestrel by Misty Massey

Kestrel is a Promise, a child born with magical abilities, and as such, she should have been turned over to the Danisobans, terrifying wizards who control all magic on the Nine Islands. Instead, her parents died saving her from the magic wielders, and Kestrel has spent her entire life running from the magic she fears. Fortunately for her, Danisoban abilities are neutralized by salt water, so she takes to the seas and a life of piracy. When her captain is lead into a trap by the rogue McAvery,


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July 27th, 2009. ´s rating: | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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Nobody’s Princess: Helen of Troy is a spoiled brat

Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner

Nobody’s Princess is the story of Helen of Troy as a young woman. Because the world knows who she is as an adult, but there is no record of her childhood, Esther Freisner presents us with a determined, independent woman who wants to learn how to fight like her older brothers and go on adventures and see the world.

The story kind of meanders along following Helen’s realization that she is beautiful and her decision that she wants to be more than just a pretty face.


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July 21st, 2009. ´s rating: | | | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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