VEIL by Christopher Golden
The Veil series, by Christopher Golden, is something of a mixed bag. The first two books, The Mythhunters and The Borderkind, are fairly good. I enjoyed the world created in The Mythhunters. The books are a new take on some of our well-known characters from various fairy tales, legends, and pantheons. The legends of The Veil, however, are to children’s bedtime story characters what Stephen King‘s Pennywise is to circus clowns.
October 25th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 2.5 | Christopher Golden | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson
Donaldson raises the stakes so high in Fatal Revenant that it was difficult, at times, to see how he was going to pull it off. I’ll be honest: I doubted that he could do it, and I’m a true, dedicated (not obsessive, thank you) fan. However, after turning the final page of Fatal Revenant and sadly setting the book aside, I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit that my ability to express my emotions and thoughts had been significantly diminished.
October 16th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 5 | Stephen R. Donaldson | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Tally has changed since she was caught by Special Circumstances. She has become one of them: a Special. Her body and mind have been altered and she is now an elite fighting machine with super-fast reflexes and a hardened body that can withstand almost anything…but none of this can really make her happy. Tally is surrounded by “friends,” but none of them can take away her memories of her friends from the Smoke and the lessons they taught her. Then she and Shay get a breakthrough and once again whiz off into the wild on their hoverboards searching for the elusive “New Smoke”
August 21st, 2007. Guest´s rating: 3 | Scott Westerfeld | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
As much as I enjoyed Wit’ch Fire, the first part of James Clemens‘ The Banned and the Banished, it has to be said that this is better.
Wit’ch Storm picks up the tale of Elena Morinstal shortly after where the last book left off. Once again, the prologue intimates that the reader is party to a text that has been banned for being dangerous and is clearly not true — a hook I have found effective every time Clemens has used it.
August 14th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 4 | James Clemens | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Spellsinger & The Hour of the Gate by Alan Dean Foster
… Well, perhaps not Tolkien, but I had the urge for alliteration in the title. Spellsinger is a fantasy series quite unlike any other. While the anthropomorphisation of animals is certain not a new thing, Alan Dean Foster has done something out of the ordinary with it here. To give you some idea, if you can imagine the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters in a fantasy setting, then you’ll have some idea of what to expect.
July 21st, 2007. Guest´s rating: 3.5 | Alan Dean Foster | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Wit’ch Fire was a genuine impulse buy. I had read no reviews nor received recommendations — I was simply in the bookshop, liked the cover and plot synopsis on the reverse, and listened to my gut. Foolhardy, perhaps, but sometimes fortune favours the bold. This time, it did.
Wit’ch Fire is the first of a series of five books by James Clemens, also known to mystery and adventure fans as James Rollins and to others as the former veterinary surgeon Jim Czajkowski — his real name.
July 14th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 3.5 | James Clemens | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies is a futuristic teen adventure book that will keep even adult readers enthralled from the first page.
Tally is ready to be pretty. When you turn sixteen in this futuristic world, you are plucked from school and taken to have the “operation” that turns you from an Ugly into a Pretty. When you’re pretty you can do anything. You get to move to New Pretty Town and party all night long if you choose and Tally can’t wait to join her friends who have already “turned.”
By turn of chance Tally meets Shay.
June 21st, 2007. Guest´s rating: 5 | Scott Westerfeld | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Lara has been sold into slavery by her father. For most young women in the world of Hetar, this is a disaster that brings about nothing but fear and sorrow. For Lara however it is but the very beginning of her adventure.
Half human, half faerie, Lara is stunningly beautiful and willful as well. Her faerie protector guides her in finding her destiny which involves a series of great adventures and great lovers. Finally reaching the Outlands, Lara comes to realize her destiny is to aid the people she finds there in their war against her homeland Hatar.
June 20th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 2.5 | Bertrice Small | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Lion of Macedon by David Gemmell
The dearly-departed David Gemmell was, in his lifetime, acknowledged as a master of the heroic fantasy, and if you want any proof of that, read Lion of Macedon.
The tale begins in Sparta in the period after the end of the interminable Peloponnesian wars, when Sparta had begun to weaken, and several decades before the rise of Philip and Alexander the Greats. The eponymous hero, Parmenion, is a Spartan — a true Lakedaimonios — with a Macedonian mother.
June 15th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 5 | David Gemmell | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
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