Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Bill Capossere

The Dark Hills Divide: Interesting premise but little spark

The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

Patrick Carman’s The Dark Hills Divide has a good if not all that original premise at its core — a kingdom of four cities completely walled in and a 12-yr-old heroine who longs to see what’s beyond the walls. The walls were built a generation ago by Thomas Warvold, a well-traveled adventurer who came up with the idea to overcome people’s fears of expansion into unknown and allegedly dangerous lands by building walled roads and towns using temporarily freed convicts as laborers.

July 14th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Patrick Carman | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Iron Council: A step down from earlier books but still quite strong

Iron Council by China Mieville

Iron Council is Miéville’s third book set in his created world. While not really a trilogy as is normally thought of, since each book can stand independent of the others, it’s probably best to have at least read Perdido Street Station since that book gives the most full description of the world’s background — its various races, politics, technologies, magics, economics, etc. In this book, the city of Perdido Street Station is at war both with a vague outside enemy known as the Tesh and with itself,

July 11th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | China Mieville | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Light Ages: An atomospheric fantasy

The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod

The Light Ages is far from light reading. Anyone wanting a quick read or the typical multi-book fantasy focusing on a questing band of travelers beset by evil should look elsewhere.

Instead Macleod gives us a land more evoked than described, beautiful at times poetic prose, three-dimensional characters (including the “evil” ones), questions that aren’t always neatly answered, and a pace that would be described as slow by many but which I found perfectly suited to the nature of the novel.

July 9th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Ian R. MacLeod | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Runes of the Earth: A mostly welcome return

The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson

Fans of Stephen R. Donaldson’s earlier work in the Land will find much to like here. Much of what was so good in the first two trilogies is here: conflicted characters; examinations of power and guilt, sense of loss, familiar etc. That’s both a positive and a negative, however, as there is a distinct sense of been there done that. Not overpowering, as the story does expand, deepen, and in general differ in slight, subtle ways from its predecessors. But the sense remains through much of the book,

June 30th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Stephen R. Donaldson | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Eragon: Clearly written by a 17-yr-old

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

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: First book in an impressive series

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.

THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN: Read the first six books

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: Entertaining but average read

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: High quality YA fantasy

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,

The Anvil of the World: Uneven, funny, promising

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 |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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