King’s Property by Morgan Howell
King’s Property is the first book in the Queen of the Orcs series, and Morgan Howell’s first novel. For a story in which the author does such a good job of depicting the harsh realities of the setting, he sure lets the main character, Dar, skate out of bad situation after bad situation to a point where it’s just a bit too much. The explanations for each magic escape work, but it needs to change to a point where Dar takes fewer risks,
September 26th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | Morgan Howell | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Natural Ordermage by L.E. Modesitt Jr
L.E. Modesitt’s Recluce fantasy series is something that has become so predictable that you read it as much because you know what to expect as for any actual update in the story. If you like it, that’s not a bad thing as long as you understand what you are getting into.
Natural Ordermage represents yet another branch in the story that tells other sides of things that have happened in the past. In this case we get a glimpse into the Empire of Hamor and,
September 18th, 2007. John Hulet and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | L.E. Modesitt_Jr | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn
Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY NORVILLE series is yet another example of what’s happened to the typical urban fantasy series. For the most part, you could take stories we’ve seen before, cut and paste pieces of them together, and getKitty and the Silver Bullet.
Kitty, an infected werewolf, is still an outcast from her pack. She is still doing her radio show about the paranormal community and she gets involved in a direct challenge for dominance of a city between two powerful vampires. The local werewolf pack gets caught up in it,
September 12th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 2 | Carrie Vaughn | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman
There is only one way to do magic, and that is to expend life force to power it. Witches spend their own life force, and die young. Magisters have discovered how to spend the life force of another, and are nearly immortal, burning through consort after consort, while keeping the source of their magic a tightly guarded secret. No woman has ever become a Magister because they are unwilling to sacrifice others. No woman until Kamala, steeled by a life of child prostitution, secretly becomes a Magister.
August 24th, 2007. Ruth Arnell and John Hulet´s rating: 3.5, 4 | C.S. Friedman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton
Cerulean Sins is book 11 in Anita Blake’s story and Anita is disgusting at this point. Whatever the excuse, she is a total tramp and has finally embraced it. That is so ridiculous for a character who kept Richard and Jean-Claude waiting for months without giving in to them. Maybe Laurell K. Hamilton’s editor told her that the books need more sex to be interesting because there is no good explanation otherwise.
The storyline is still interesting if you just want to know how things will turn out,
August 11th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 2 | Laurell K. Hamilton | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Anselm Audley begins a somewhat non-traditional fantasy series set in what was one of the most creative environments I have read recently. The main character of Heresy, Cathan, is very typical for most fantasy in that he has powers he doesn’t know about, is the son of a nobleman, and gets caught up in a major struggle that will affect the world. Cliché…
The bad guys are a group of fanatical priests who are trying to control the whole world and make the worship of their God the only acceptable form of religion.
August 9th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Anselm Audley | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Summoner by Gail Z. Martin
The Summoner is the first book that I have read by Gail Martin, but I was happily impressed with this first installment of The Chronicles of the Necromancer. I didn’t love it, and there seemed to be some rough patches throughout the book, but on the whole it was interesting.
Central to this story is a lust for power and what happens as a result. The main character, Martris “Tris” Drayke, is not very unique,
July 21st, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Gail Z. Martin | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The King’s Own by Lorna Freeman
In the first book of Borderlands (Covenant), Lorna Freeman made some serious mistakes with the main character, Rabbit, by trying to describe him as one thing and have him behave in a manner that didn’t make sense.
In the second book, The King’s Own, there is much better consistency with Rabbit — he acts like he should. I especially loved the way the Freeman played off of his youth and apparent inexperience when it came to dealing with the opposite sex.
July 20th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 5 | Lorna Freeman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
Will, the hero of The Ruins of Gorlan, could probably have been taken in entirety from any number of authors who have written this sort of children’s/YA stuff, but for me it was like I was 13 years old and reading Magician’s Apprentice by Raymond Feist. That is high praise because I read that book over and over until the cover literally fell off and the binding no longer held the pages together.
July 18th, 2007. John Hulet and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | John Flanagan | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Fortress of Ice by C.J. Cherryh
I have really enjoyed C.J. Cherryh’s Fortress Series, and I enjoyed Fortress of Ice.
That being said, this book was the worst one in the series. The plot was kind of boring and the transition to the new characters didn’t draw me in with the same connection that I had in earlier books. My biggest gripe is that the main character of the first four books is left as a supporting character, which makes sense for the book,
July 14th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | C.J. Cherryh | SFF Reviews | no comments |
There were at least 2 pear soup recipes that caught my eye!
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Oh thank you for the recipes! Such a variety - this is going to be fun.
COMMENT Hey, they seem to have added one while I wasn't looking! https://www.valancourtbooks.com/john-blackburn.html
Always my pleasure, Becky! And as I said, there are 19 Blackburn titles currently available on the Valancourt site....