As much as I enjoyed Vic James’ 2017 debut novel, Gilded Cage, I thought there were a few missteps and odd choices, and I wasn’t sure what that meant for the second book in her DARK GIFTS trilogy, Tarnished City (2018). I am pleased to report that Tarnished City blew all of my expectations out of the water, improving on the first novel in every possible way and preparing readers for world-shaking consequences with a true nail-biter of a cliffhanger ending.
February 7th, 2018. Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Vic James | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
In the world of Gilded Cage (2017), there are those who are called Equals ― but there’s a deep divide between Equals, who have magical Skills, and the commoners, the Skilless, and they are decisively not equal. In England the Equals are both the aristocrats and the sole parliament, and they hold all the power, with the magical ability to enforce it.
One of the ways the Equals use their power is to require all commoners to spend ten years of their lives as slaves,
February 7th, 2018. Tadiana Jones, Ray McKenzie and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3, 4.5 | Vic James | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Your One & Only by Adrianne Finlay
While it’s debatable whether there are any new stories left to be told, I think that discovering fresh ideas or interesting twists within familiar stories is part of what makes reading so enjoyable. Aldous Huxley certainly didn’t create the Dystopian genre with Brave New World, nor did Lois Lowry with The Giver, and neither did Kazuo Ishiguro with Never Let Me Go,
February 6th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 2 | Adrianne Finlay | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Leiutenant by Tony Cliff
I’m often told that adventuring isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but Tony Cliff’s Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant reinforces what my younger self believed wholeheartedly: Adventuring is awesome, if a little lonely. You get to travel the world, collect treasure, and meet interesting people (who sometimes want to kill you). But even the attempted killing adds to the zest of the adventurer’s life!
Delilah Dirk is daring and brave, with the wits to get herself out of any bad situation (even if she can’t always avoid getting trapped in said bad situation to begin with) and a host of tricks and gadgets at her disposal.
February 3rd, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Bright Thrones by Kate Elliott
The Bright Thrones novella (2017) ties up some loose threads left after the conclusion of Poisoned Blade, the second book in Kate Elliott’s COURT OF FIVES trilogy. In the middle of that novel, Jessamy reunites briefly with her twin sister, Bettany, who appears to be in servitude to a famous foreign doctor, Lord Agalar. Very little about their strange situation is explained at the time, and circumstances drive the sisters apart just when it seems that a reunification (though certainly not a reconciliation) might be possible.
February 2nd, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Kate Elliott | Short Fiction, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Steal the Stars by Nat Cassidy based on a podcast by Mac Rogers
Steal the Stars is a 2017 podcast (created by Mac Rogers) and subsequent novelization (written by Nat Cassidy) which centres around forbidden love between coworkers. In a world where the United States is controlled by a vague and sinister corporation, an alien has crash landed off the Pacific coast, and scientists are running out of funding to unlock the secrets of an extraterrestrial; the central plot may be the least interesting aspect.
February 2nd, 2018. Jana Nyman and Skye Walker´s rating: 1 | Nat Cassidy | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert
The Hazel Wood (2018) is one of those novels whose reputation precedes it. Authors and critics alike are singing the book’s praises, dubbing it mesmerising, creepy, captivating. It promises to be a dark and twisting fairytale in the vein of Caraval and The Bear and the Nightingale, but can Melissa Albert‘s debut live up to its own hype?
Alice and her mother have moved from place to place for as long as she can remember.
January 30th, 2018. Ray McKenzie, Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2.5 | Melissa Albert | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Midnight Front by David Mack
The European theatre of WWII has been used as a staging device for so many forms of modern entertainment media that it’s hard to believe David Mack could find anything new or interesting to write about it in The Midnight Front (2018). And yet, he managed to come up with an angle I’ve never seen, implement it in a thoroughly researched and imaginative way, and open the door for subsequent books to examine the aftershocks of WWII throughout subsequent decades.
January 30th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | David Mack | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
A War in Crimson Embers by Alex Marshall
Fair warning: if you haven’t read the previous two novels in Alex Marshall’s CRIMSON EMPIRE trilogy, A Crown for Cold Silver and A Blade of Black Steel, you aren’t going to have any understanding for what’s happening in A War in Crimson Embers (2017). It’s vitally important that these books are read in order!
At the close of A Blade of Black Steel,
January 29th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Alex Marshall | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Markswoman, the 2018 debut from Rati Mehrotra, is mostly a YA fantasy novel with a post-apocalyptic Earth background and sci-fi elements sprinkled in for flair. It’s an ambitious undertaking, and though it doesn’t always succeed, the characters and their world are interesting and Mehrotra’s prose is compelling.
Kyra, an orphan newly initiated as a Markswoman in the Order of Kali, has spent the majority of her life training as an elite warrior and learning to wield her kalishium blade — a short sword which has telepathic abilities.
January 17th, 2018. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3 | Rati Mehrotra | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
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