Up till now I’ve enjoyed Jennifer Fallon‘s Demon Child trilogy; her writing is competent (not beautiful, but competent), her characters intriguing, and the story was interesting enough. But I always had this feeling… the same feeling I get when I watch my 2 year old daughter constructing a tower of blocks by stacking the big ones on top of the smaller ones…
Sure enough, just like my daughter’s tower, in Harshini, it all comes crashing down.
December 10th, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Jennifer Fallon | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Kat chats with Dru Pagliassotti, author of Clockwork Heart, her first novel.
Clockwork Heart is your first published novel, but how long have you been writing?
Like most writers, since childhood. Up until college I worked on a baby blue Smith Corona typewriter, with which I typed reams and reams of fantasy fiction on slick, erasable typing paper. Does anyone remember how that stuff smudged, anymore? I collected some rejections and became discouraged — like most new writers, I considered my fiction an extension of myself and took the rejections personally.
December 9th, 2007. Kat Hooper | Dru Pagliassotti | Author Interviews | no comments |
Hood is the first novel in Stephen Lawhead‘s latest series, the King Raven Trilogy, which is a historical fantasy based on the Robin Hood legend. Lawhead places his story in Wales after the conquest of Britain by the Normans and during the reign of William the Red. (If that sounds a bit odd, Lawhead gives several convincing reasons for this at the end of the book — you might want to read that first.) The Normans are encroaching into Wales,
December 7th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Stephen Lawhead | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
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 |
For those who've been following the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross, what is reported to be the final book…
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contribution to giallo films! Her charisma and the unique blend of suspense and…
What an intriguing exploration of Edwige Fenech's role in giallo films! I appreciate how you highlighted her unique blend of…
Hahaha! You might like the one "Shocktober" scene near the end!
For some strange reason, I get the feeling I might like this one! 😁