What you almost always hear first about Eragon is “wow, it was written by a 17-yr-old.” And Christopher Paolini is fully deserving of the respect and admiration he gets — it is indeed an impressive book for a 17-year-old to have written. What he probably should not have gotten was a publishing contract, since while it is impressive for a 17-yr-old, it is less than impressive for a published work of fiction.
If an adult had written and published this,
June 24th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Christopher Paolini | SFF Reviews | no comments |
So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane
So You Want to be a Wizardcame along well before the current trend of young fantasy so one shouldn’t dismiss it as “yet another Harry Potter follower.” Wizard centers on 13-yr-old Nita, a picked-upon young teen, and 12-yr-old Kit, another lonely young teen. Nita, taking refuge from bullies in the local library, stumbles across the reference book providing the title of the novel and into the world of wizardry. Shortly afterward, she meets up with Kit, who himself has just become a wizard.
June 19th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Diane Duane | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey
It’s been my longstanding theory on multi-book series (by multi-book I mean ones that go well beyond the standard trilogy) that the books tend to fall into four categories: great ones (usually early on), good ones that don’t match the passion or excitement of the top ones but still sweep you along, adequate ones that serviceably move the grand story along but aren’t particularly original or well-written, and the bad ones that were just spit out because the series’ fans would buy them even if the covers were made of poison ivy leaves.
June 15th, 2007. Bill Capossere and Skye Walker´s rating: 3.5 | Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hidden Family by Charles Stross
The Hidden Family picks up at the end of The Family Trade and continues that story’s basic premise, in both good and bad fashion. In the good, the story remains fast-paced, a quick and entertaining if not too deep read.
Stross introduces us to another world here, one that lies somewhere between our own and the Clan’s both technically and socially, opening new and more interesting settings. Miriam remains an active, strong character, joined by others equally strong.
June 15th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Charles Stross | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
In the sea of young adult fiction out there, Gregor the Overlander makes for one of the more pleasant anchorages. The book starts off quickly with Gregor and his two-year-old sister “Boots” falling through a gateway into the Underworld, a sprawling underground land populated by giant talking cockroaches, rats, bats, and spiders, along with several thousand pale humans descended from a 17th century “overlander” who led his small group into the Underworld then sealed the entrances. This descendant left a string of prophecies,
June 14th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Suzanne Collins | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
The first thing that should be noted about Kage Baker’s The Anvil of the World is that though it focuses on a very small group of characters and one main character throughout and follows them chronologically, this isn’t really a novel. Unless it’s one with some major transition problems. Rather, it’s three novellas with some large gaps of time between the three different adventures. Like any collection of stories, then, The Anvil of the World tends to be a bit uneven.
June 13th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Kage Baker | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Stormchaser is the second book of the Edge series and it is a vast improvement over book one — Beyond the Deepwoods. The book picks up a few years after Twig’s adventures in Beyond the Deepwoods. He is now sailing aboard the skyship of his recently-discovered sky-pirate father and has exchanged the monster-horrors of the Deepwoods with the more human horrors of city-life, pollution, and corruption (though monsters still make the occasional appearance).
June 12th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Paul Stewart | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo
Any book nowadays that has its main character be a young boy who suddenly discovers he has magical talent is, fair or not, going to be compared to the Harry Potter series. Add in a school for geniuses and those “endowed” with magical talents, a small cadre of mixed (talented and not-talented) friends to aid the main character, suspicious professors, and a missing presumed dead father and you’re almost asking for it. It might not be right, but at least so many people have read Harry Potter that it gives us all a solid baseline standard.
June 8th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Jenny Nimmo | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
I was a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s first novel, Elantris, though the novel had some pretty clear flaws. I’m an even bigger fan of his follow-up, Mistborn, a book that has all the plusses of Elantris without the problems.
Mistborn takes places in an ashen, devastated world where the “Skaa” are a brutally downtrodden majority who do all the work for the aristocratic minority of the Great Houses,
June 7th, 2007. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5, 4, 5 | Brandon Sanderson | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Cauldron is the second in Lloyd Alexander’s five-part Chronicles of Prydain, and possibly the most well known. When discussing these books with other people, you’ll usually get a blank look if you say “the Prydain books” or The Book of Three, but if you mention The Black Cauldron, you’ll probably get a vague sense of recognition. It is a Newbery Honor book and was made into a Disney film,
June 1st, 2007. Rebecca Fisher and Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Lloyd Alexander | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Yup, Marion, your memory serves you well! Oh...as regards these three recent Bond reviews of mine, as the old saying…
I remember this book for introducing me to poison gardens... and Kobe beef.
Ana and Din are such marvelous characters. Beyond all the other strengths of the novels, it is their relationship that…
Well, now I want to read The Stardust Thief and then this one! Two more on the TBR Tower---*thanks*, Bill!
I think it comes from reading a lot of mysteries and heist novels! It didn't detract from my reading pleasure…