The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance
I’ve already said, numerous times, how much I love Jack Vance, so I’ll skip all that this time. You can read other reviews on this page if you missed that.
The Eyes of the Overworld is the second part of Tales of the Dying Earth and the main character is one of my favorite Vance characters: the self-titled Cugel the Clever. Cugel is not the kind of guy you want to have dealings with — he’s clever,
March 18th, 2010. Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 5 | Jack Vance | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Witch World (on audio) by Andre Norton
Simon Tregarth knows he’s about to die — he’s being hunted down by a professional assassin and he has a “feeling” that it’s going to happen tonight. But then the infamous Doctor Petronius interrupts Simon as he’s savoring his last meal and offers him an escape. Dr. Petronius’s services don’t come cheap, but this expense is a no-brainer (after all, you can’t take it with you). The only downside is that neither Simon nor Dr. Petronius knows where Simon is actually going, for he will sit on King Arthur’s Siege Perilous and be sent to a world where his soul is at home…
Andre Norton (her real name was Alice,
March 17th, 2010. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Andre Norton | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Dying Earth is the first of Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth and contains six somewhat overlapping stories all set in the future when the sun is red and dim, much technology has been lost, and most of humanity has died out. Our planet is so unrecognizable that it might as well be another world, and evil has been “distilled” so that it’s concentrated in Earth’s remaining inhabitants.
But it’s easy to forget that a failing planet is the setting for the Dying Earth stories,
March 11th, 2010. Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 5 | Jack Vance | Audio | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |
The Master of Whitestorm by Janny Wurts
As The Master of Whitestorm starts off, Haldeth, a blacksmith turned galley slave, gets involved in an escape attempt by his bench mate, a mysterious and silent man who quickly proves to have surprising skills and hidden depths. After the two companions escape, they strike out together, and the mysterious man, whose name turns out to be Korendir, takes on a number of mercenary missions. It quickly becomes clear that Korendir is, to put it lightly, very focused on gathering enough money to build an impregnable fortress on the cliffs of Whitestorm…
March 10th, 2010. Stefan Raets, John Hulet and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Janny Wurts | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Burn Me Deadly by Alex Bledsoe
Note: This rating reflects my happiness with the audio version of Burn Me Deadly. Four stars for the print version. Listen to a sample of this audiobook here.
Ah, the combination of Alex Bledsoe (the author), Eddie LaCrosse (the hero) and Stefan Rudnicki (the reader) — it doesn’t get much better than that!
Burn Me Deadly is the sequel to The Sword-Edged Blonde,
February 24th, 2010. Kat Hooper and Rob Rhodes´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Alex Bledsoe | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi
It’s not a utopia. It’s just maybe something that sucks a little less.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it turns out that all those eco-freaks were right all along. We humans destroyed the planet and now we’ve got to live with the mess we’ve made. Many world governments, including the U.S., have been essentially dismantled and large, mostly independent and self-governing city-states have taken their place.
Under the direction of John Scalzi,
February 23rd, 2010. Kat Hooper and Stefan Raets´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, John Scalzi, Karl Schroeder, Tobias Buckell | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
SWORD OF CHANGE by Patricia Bray
Devlin is a tortured soul. He wants to die, so he becomes his country’s Chosen One because it pays a fortune (which he can send to his brother’s widow) and it’s certainly deadly.
Sounds exciting, but don’t bother putting on your blood pressure cuff, because it wasn’t.
Devlin’s sure he’s going to die during the initiation ceremony (actually, it was me who nearly died of boredom), but, unfortunately, he doesn’t. And so we accompany him on his journeys which read more like a book report than an adventure.
February 21st, 2010. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Patricia Bray | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
When Charles Ludwig Dodgson first began to tell the story of Alice’s adventures underground to the three Liddell sisters, he had no idea whatsoever the impact that his work would one day have in the cultural history of humanity. Is there a person alive in Western civilization that doesn’t know of Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat? I seriously doubt it. Writing under the pen name of Lewis Carroll,
February 19th, 2010. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Lewis Carroll | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
While Dust is categorized as science fiction, there were actually a lot of familiar fantasy elements in the book, which I found a little bit surprising but quite enjoyable. For example, a number of medieval concepts are employed in the novel, such as a ruling family of nobles; politics regarding bloodlines, successors and inheritances; knights; castles; swords as the preferred choice of weaponry; chivalry; and so on. Then there’s the story, which features a servant girl who discovers she’s someone important, a couple of quests including one to prevent a war between the House of Rule and Engine,
January 30th, 2010. Robert Thompson and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Elizabeth Bear | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
“All magic hurts,” says October “Toby” Daye, and she’d know better than most.
Rosemary and Rue begins in 1995, when Toby, a half-faerie/half-human P.I., runs afoul of some nasty faeries while trying to solve a kidnapping. Toby is cursed, rendered out of commission for fourteen years, and in the process loses the happy human life she’d been trying to build.
It’s been six months since Toby was released from her curse. She wants nothing to do with the fae,
January 22nd, 2010. Kelly Lasiter, Kat Hooper and Terry Weyna´s rating: 3.5 | Seanan McGuire | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!
If the state of the arts puzzles you, and you wonder why so many novels are "retellings" and formulaic rework,…
I picked my copy up last week and I can't wait to finish my current book and get started! I…