The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan
In my review of Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons, I wrote that Brenan had me immediately with Lady Trent’s “wry, rebellious, sardonic voice,” but that the novel lost its edge about 100 pages in and never quite fully recovered, leaving me somewhat dissatisfied. I’m happy to say that the sequel, The Tropic of Serpents, kept that wonderfully beguiling voice, but managed to smooth out the problems with pacing,
March 27th, 2014. Bill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Marie Brennan | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton
In 2008, Jo Walton began a regular column over at Tor.com on the books she was reading. Actually, mostly re-reading. She was invited to blog on the site because, as Patrick Nielsen Hayden told her, she was “always saying smart things about books nobody else had thought about for ages.” In What Makes This Book So Great, she’s collected about a fifth of those posts and presented them in brief essays, being careful to point out she is doing so as neither a reviewer (who mostly cover new works) nor a critic.
March 26th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Jo Walton | Non-fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
I’m starting to feel like a broken record (Google it kids) here the past month or so, having had the same general reaction to a long run of books now — “good premise, flawed execution.” The latest perpetrator is Lockstep, a new YA space opera by Karl Schroeder, who has come up with a wonderfully engaging premise and setting, but has failed to create that same sense of engagement with regard to the characters and plot.
Way back in time in the Lockstep universe,
March 25th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Karl Schroeder | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson
The Mark of the Dragonfly, a Middle Grade novel by Jaleigh Johnson, starts off with a wonderfully evocative premise and setting: a world where at regular intervals over a particular region, “meteor storms” rain down artifacts from other worlds amidst a haze of poisonous green dust. After the impacts are over and the dust has settled, “scrappers” head out in a mad race to claim whatever odd (and usually broken) objects might be sold to traders.
March 25th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Jaleigh Johnson | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Plague Seed by Wade Alan Steele
I did not finish Plague Seed by Wade Alan Steele and so as is usual when that happens, this will be quite the short review, as I don’t like to belabor the point about why I found a book to be so bad that I put it down.
Plague Seed begins with a letter from the elven Seligre, “Savior of Oldenhome and the southern lands of Talandria,” to his newborn son, introducing his account of the Plague War.
March 24th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 0.1 | Wade Alan Steele | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Troy: Last War of the Heroic Age by Si Sheppard
Troy: Last War of the Heroic Age by Si Sheppard, is the fifth or sixth book in the MYTHS AND LEGENDS series by Osprey Publishing. It does the usual good job, even if it is not quite as strong as several others.
The reason for its middle place in the rankings of these books though is really not so much Sheppard’s fault as it is a built-in conflict between Osprey’s goal of a concise retelling and exploration of these myths and the huge amount of material that makes up the story of the Trojan War.
March 20th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Myths-&-Legends | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Swords of Good Men by Snorri Kristjansson
Swords of Good Men is a pretty good siege story. That’s about as much as I’d feel bound to tell someone if I was, for instance, asked about it in a bookshop. Pretty good. Not a light for the ages, not bad by any means. Not even mediocre. It’s just… pretty good. It has some notable strengths and a few troubling weaknesses. I’ll go into all of that below, but if all you were wondering about is whether Swords of Good Men is a reasonably diverting Viking fantasy novel to hang around with for a little while,
March 19th, 2014. Tim Scheidler and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Snorri Kristjansson | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Robin Hood is one of the generally excellent series of MYTHS AND LEGENDS by Osprey Publishing, this one written by Neil Smith. It follows the same general format as the others, with a brief intro, retellings of the stories, examination of historical background to the stories and the setting, a brief look at the legend in modern multi-media retellings, all while interspersing throughout some sidebars to fill in some non-essential but often quite helpful and interesting information.
March 18th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Myths-&-Legends | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
So yeah. That was strange. You should read it.
Here endeth the review.
Uh…. Seriously? Try again, please, Bill.
What? It’s Kat, our managing editor, sticking her bold red italic text into my review! Oh, alright. Start over:
Loren Eiseley, Charlotte Perking Gilman, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka have a literary baby. And it’s adoooorable!
C’mon, Bill….
A biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist walk into a bio zone.
March 14th, 2014. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Jeff VanderMeer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh
I was alone in the spare bedroom. Upstairs, where the light is good. Though not too good. No TV, no music, no family. It had me right where it wanted me. So yeah, I bit. Most guys woulda. Most girls too, no matter what you think.
Shovel Ready the flashy label said, and if you looked closer you could see a name: Adam Sternbergh. ‘Cept, this Sternbergh guy isn’t the story. First name you get never is.
March 13th, 2014. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Adam Sternbergh | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.