Dragon Harper by Anne McCaffrey
To be honest, I don’t expect much when I pick up a Pern book anymore. These last few have ranged from middling at best (Dragonsblood) to nearly unreadable (Dragon’s Fire). While the eternal optimist in me keeps me reading the series, the realist in me can’t help but note just how long it’s been since there’s been a good book (I’m not asking for the glory of the great ones).
Sadly,
May 30th, 2008. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan
Knife of Dreams has several things going for it. It isn’t as bad as the last few for one, no slight achievement. It is relatively crisp in prose and pace. It advances story and character at a more enjoyable pace. It even has a few (though too few) strong scenes that evoke fond memories of earlier (much earlier) books in the series. It is without a doubt an improvement on the past few and anyone who has put the time into this series and felt like they were scraping along will breathe a sigh of relief.
May 26th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Expectations and presumptions are dangerous things. I opened Keith Donohue’s debut novel, The Stolen Child, with plenty of them, and found myself disillusioned with what I found myself reading. A simple plot summary is as follows: A young changeling and his hobgoblin fellows snatch seven-year-old Henry Day and takes his place in the human world. The real Henry (henceforth known as Aniday) begins his new life as a creature of the wild, whilst the changeling (now known as Henry) copes with his sudden reintegration into the human world.
May 23rd, 2008. Rebecca Fisher and Bill Capossere | Keith Donohue | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook
The Tyranny of the Night has a lot of what one would expect from Glen Cook. A gritty atmosphere, a darkly wry sense of humor, a world-weary cynicism somehow melded with optimism, complex characters, a slowly engrossing story.
What doesn’t it have? A map for one. Would it have killed the publishers to spend a few bucks having someone draw one? I’d have taken an editor’s six-year-old kid’s drawing of one if I could have.
May 14th, 2008. Bill Capossere and John Hulet´s rating: 4 | Glen Cook | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb has just concluded her Soldier Son trilogy with the third book — Renegade’s Magic. There doesn’t seem to be much point in reviewing solely Renegade’s Magic, however, as anyone who has read the first two is likely to pick up the conclusion, so instead I’ll simply review the trilogy as a whole.
Of course, the first question one has to answer as a reviewer is would you recommend the book(s) to a reader.
April 29th, 2008. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Robin Hobb | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Shaman’s Crossing was slow and at times dry, but I thought it rewarded the patient reader and that the pace was mostly appropriate for the content and character. The same complaints about book one could also be leveled at Forest Mage, and here, unfortunately, I can’t quite defend the book as strongly.
Like Shaman’s Crossing, there isn’t a lot of “action” here. One expecting large battles, political upheaval or machinations, encounters with monsters,
April 29th, 2008. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Robin Hobb | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Wizard Alone is yet another Young Wizards book that maintains the high level set by the first few in the series. While not quite as dark as the previous one, where (and if you haven’t read Wizard’s Dilemma then quit reading this review if you don’t want the end spoiled) Nita’ s mother dies, A Wizard Alone maintains a level of solemnity appropriate to what has come just before.
The title could refer to any of the three major characters.
April 19th, 2008. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Diane Duane | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
Dragon Rider is an early Cornelia Funke novel brought to the U.S. after the success of hermore recent The Thief Lord and Inkheart. Dragon Rider begins with a young dragon named Firedrake who starts off on a quest for the Rim of Heaven, a possibly mythical land where Firedrake and his fellow dragons hope to flee to in order to escape encroaching mankind whose earth-moving machines are on their way.
April 5th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Cornelia Funke | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Born Queen is the concluding (and how often do we get to say that when reviewing a fantasy novel?) book in Greg Keyes’ four-book series, Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. And it does actually conclude the series without any sort of sly wink-wink, nod-nod to a new series rising like the undead from the killed-off plot. For that alone, he should be given lots of credit, along with actually finishing a series in a decent amount of time and space.
March 28th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Rob Rhodes´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Keyes | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
There are some beautiful moments in The Fortress of Solitude — moments of crystalline description, of poetic evocation of time and place, moments of heartbreaking human interaction. But for me, these moments just didn’t hold together long enough or happen often enough.
The Fortress of Solitude follows Dylan Ebdus, known as “whiteboy” to those around him on Dean Street due to the rarity of his skin color, as he grows up and out of the Brooklyn neighborhood.
March 13th, 2008. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Jonathan Lethem | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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