Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Bill Capossere

Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods: Continues in the series’ strong fashion

Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins

The third book in the Gregor series picks up shortly after the last one ends and quickly tosses the reader into familiar territory. Once again, Gregor takes up a task underground in order to save a family member. In the first book it was his father, in book two his sister Boots, and now it’s his mother, who in accompanying him down to the underground contracted a seemingly fatal disease that threatens to wipe out the warmbloods.

As foretold by a prophecy (another familiar element from the other books),

The Warrior Prophet: Strong three, improves on first though a few flaws

The Warrior Prophet by R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet picks up from The Darkness That Comes Before (which must be read first) and mostly improves on that first book, which in itself was a solid read. Where Darkness suffered from lengthy exposition, now that the basic storyline and world have been set, Bakker can focus on moving things along more quickly, if that can be said about a 600 plus page book. Though the book could be cut by a hundred plus pages,

August 19th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | R. Scott Bakker | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The High King: A perfect five stars

The High King by Lloyd Alexander

The High King is the fifth and last book in the truly wonderful Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, preceded by The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, and Taran Wanderer, all of which are necessary reading if you want to fully understand and enjoy this last installment. The High King,

Melusine: The characters are the strong suits here

Melusine by Sarah Monette

Melusine has some definite issues as a first novel. It’s setting doesn’t feel quite fully fleshed out — even if one gives the author the benefit of the doubt and believes things are left unanswered for plot purposes and are “to be revealed later.” If that’s the case, the reader could have done with a bit more revelation early on, especially with regard to the politics which drive so much of the characters’ motivations. Without that background, their actions run the risk of seeming arbitrary just for the sake of plot.

August 2nd, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Sarah Monette | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Highly recommended

THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT by Stephen R. Donaldson

Stephen R. Donaldson’s Land (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever) series is one of the earliest reactions against the carbon-copy Tolkien-like works that proliferated soon after the success of The Lord of the Rings and stands in start contrast to another book published the same year — Sword of Shannara —which simply rewrites Tolkien rather than responds to it.

The first series is known as the Chronicles of Thomas the Unbeliever (more on that later),

August 1st, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Stephen R. Donaldson | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

The Looking Glass Wars: Not recommended as a book

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

The Looking Glass Wars, somewhat a reimagining of Alice In Wonderland, has its moments but is generally weak throughout. It’s a “multi-platform” concept, which means along with the requisite trilogy (Seeing Redd is out currently as book two), there are graphic novels and a planned movie and video game. What does all this mean?

Perhaps a wonderfully immersive experience in the world if one buys all the stuff.

Inkspell: Funke’s best work to date

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

I have to admit that I’ve found Cornelia Funke’s works for the most part to be wonderful concepts whose execution never quite matched their potential. Dragonrider I thought was her most successful work so far, mostly because it didn’t reach quite so high. With Inkspell, however, Funke has finally meshed concept and execution together perfectly, creating her best piece of work so far.

Inkspell picks up about a year after the events of Inkheart,

The Charnel Prince: Flawed but moves story along

The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes

The Charnel Prince succeeds in what should be the immediate and least of goals for second books in series — it moves the plot along. The book is well-paced, moving quickly through various storylines and transitioning nicely from one point-of-view to another. The shifts occur smoothly and repeatedly act to increase suspense (some may tire of the tactic; it never really bothered me). The different stories are mostly well-balanced, each carrying its own weight in terms of plot and character. Though I’d say one is noticeably weaker than the others,

July 28th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Greg Keyes | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Thunderer: A lot to like

Thunderer by Felix Gilman

It seems lately that a lot of books have come out where setting plays as large a role as character. I’m thinking of Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris, China Miéville’s New Crobuzon, Gregory Frost’s Shadowbridge, and Jay Lake’s Mainspring. Books that haven’t simply created a new world, but whose world itself is an integral part of the story, rather than just the physical part the story moves across.

Felix Gilman’s Thunderer certainly falls into that category — more successfully than some and less so than others.

July 25th, 2007. Bill Capossere and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4 | Felix Gilman | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Inkheart: Great premise weakly executed

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

The premise of Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, that some have the ability to call out characters from books by reading aloud, is absolutely wonderful. At first, of course, one thinks how great to have such a talent — to call out Bilbo or Willy Wonka or Aladdin, but what if you couldn’t then return them to their homes — how tragic and cruel for them. Or even worse, what if you couldn’t control your talent, so reading aloud Lord of the Rings might mean you’d get to talk to a hobbit or an elf,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

We have reviewed 8415 fantasy, science fiction, and horror books, audiobooks, magazines, comics, and films.

Subscribe to all posts:

Get notified about Giveaways:

Support FanLit

Want to help us defray the cost of domains, hosting, software, and postage for giveaways? Donate here:

You can support FanLit (for free) by using these links when you shop at Amazon:

US UK CANADA

Or, in the US, simply click the book covers we show. We receive referral fees for all purchases (not just books). This has no impact on the price and we can't see what you buy. This is how we pay for hosting and postage for our GIVEAWAYS. Thank you for your support!

SFF Deals

Recent Discussion:

Sandy Ferber on Undersea Quest: A very fine intro to a fun trilogyJanuary 23, 2025
Great minds think alike, Marion! The same thought occurred to me at one point while reading this book....
Marion Deeds on Undersea Quest: A very fine intro to a fun trilogyJanuary 23, 2025
Interesting! I have to say I had a "Jim and Huck underwater" moment, reading your synopsis.
Marion Deeds on The Voyage Home: Powerful, in a quieter fashionJanuary 22, 2025
No doubt about it--I have to read these.
Paul Connelly on WWWednesday: January 22, 2025January 22, 2025
Pretty much as expected going into 2024, Nicola Griffith's Menewood was my pick for best book read in that year.…
William Capossere on Ordinary Monsters: A dense, complicated, visual feast of a bookJanuary 22, 2025
Sounds intriguing!

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31