Sheepfarmer’s Daughter by Elizabeth Moon
Brilliance Audio has recently been putting together some fine productions of many classic fantasy novels that deserve to be heard and I, as a reader, couldn’t be happier. I don’t have much free time these days, and most of my reading is now done by audio, so I was thrilled to find that I could finally listen to The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon. The first novel, Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, has just been released,
November 30th, 2007. Kat Hooper and Ruth Arnell | Elizabeth Moon | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Treason Keep by Jennifer Fallon
Treason Keep, the sequel to Medalon, is more of the same: a fast pace and fun characters overshadow the not-so-tight plot.
Jennifer Fallon keeps things interesting by expertly developing a couple of characters who were briefly introduced in her first book: Damin Wolfblade, an intelligent barbarian warlord (always a good thing, in my opinion), and Adrina, a spoiled princess whose daddy wants to marry her off because he’s tired of paying for her escapades — she just demolished the city’s wharf while trying to dock a nobleman’s yacht while she was drunk (the yacht sank).
November 16th, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Jennifer Fallon | SFF Reviews | no comments |
THE ORPHAN’S TALES by Catherynne M. Valente
I haven’t read any fantasy quite like Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales duology. This is the story of a young orphan girl who is shunned because of the dark smudges that appeared on her eyelids when she was a baby. She lives alone in a sultan’s garden because people think she’s a demon and nobody will claim her. However, one of the young sons of the sultan, a curious fellow, finds her in the garden and asks her about her dark eyes. She explains that there are wonderful stories written on her eyelids and that a spirit has told her she must read and tell the stories;
November 12th, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Mythopoeic Award | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
At the start, I want to give Brandon Sanderson props just for doing what seems to be the unthinkable nowadays — writing a standalone fantasy, a book that actually comes to a close, a book that is just that, a book and not the “start of a bright new fresh trilogy that out-Tolkien’s Tolkien!” Luckily, Elantris holds up well and even merits beyond being a standalone.
Elantris is the name of the city that until ten years ago was inhabited by near-gods,
November 7th, 2007. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper, Terry Weyna and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
You know how sometimes a book, or a movie, or a concert gets so hyped up in the press and you have such high expectations that when you finally get around to reading/seeing it, it disappoints? That’s what I was worried might happen when I decided to read The Name of the Wind. I purposely came to it late, hoping to wait until Patrick Rothfuss was nearly finished with the trilogy before I starting it. But, the book has received so much attention that it became inexcusable for me,
November 6th, 2007. Kat Hooper, Ruth Arnell, Terry Weyna, Greg Hersom and Skye Walker´s rating: 4.5 | Patrick Rothfuss | SFF Reviews | 18 comments |
There have been several reviews of Maledicte that make comparisons to Jacqueline Carey. Some say Maledicte is a cheap imitation, and others that Maledicte is far too good to be compared with Carey’s work. I’m not enough of a literary critic to tell you who is the better writer, Jacqueline Carey or Lane Robins, but I will say that I’m not surprised the comparisons are cropping up. I’m a big fan of Carey and I’m always looking for beautiful,
November 5th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter, Kat Hooper and Robert Thompson | Lane Robins | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Jennifer Fallon’s Medalon is the first book in The Demon Child Trilogy, which makes up the larger Hythrun Chronicles. The Sisterhood of Medalon has made it illegal to practice religion (the worship of pagan gods), persecutes all believers of the gods, and has forced the Harshini, a race of long-lived beings who interact with the gods, into hiding. The sisters use a highly trained army of male Defenders to enforce their orders across the country. But,
October 20th, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Jennifer Fallon | SFF Reviews | no comments |
There are lots of reasons to like a good Le Guin novel — her spare prose, her sharpness of description, her ease of storytelling, but in simple terms, when Le Guin writes well (nearly always), it boils down to the fact that reading becomes bare unadorned pleasure. Pleasure at its purest and simplest. And that is the gift of this book.
The backstory is pretty simple — families living in the Uplands have hereditary magical abilities or “gifts” (one type to a family) that can and usually are employed to harm: gifts of “unmaking”
October 7th, 2007. Bill Capossere and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4, 5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin
The Tombs of Atuan is the second book in the Earthsea series that began with A Wizard of Earthsea. Wizard is a true classic, and it wouldn’t be much criticism to say Atuan doesn’t match it. It’s true, but The Tombs of Atuan is still well worth the read, quite strong in its own right.
The Tombs of Atuan is a near complete shift of character,
October 5th, 2007. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay
In this homage to the troubadours and the “court of love” of medieval France, Guy Gavriel Kay comes down from the dizzying heights of The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and creates a beautiful and memorable tale of mere mortals ensnared by political intrigue, enmity and love. (GGK does allude to Fionavar quite nicely, however, in a brief lullaby.)
While the plot is perhaps too complex for adequate summary here, it’s certainly not too complex for your reading pleasure.
September 27th, 2007. Rob Rhodes and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Guy Gavriel Kay | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I love your review, and I'm so glad Mark Twain finally came around to seeing it our way.
Yes, Kat, I did that a long time ago and left it that way. After the notifications stopped coming following…
Noneofyourbusiness, I think the way it works is that you need to sign up (if you haven't) at https://follow.it/fantasy-literature, then…
Thanks. I mentioned it on the last few Thoughtful Thursday giveaways, too. My family and I missed out on the…
None of your Business, if you live in the USA, you win a copy of GHOST STATION! Please contact me…