Aerie is the fourth and final book in Mercedes Lackey’s DRAGON JOUSTERS series. This review will spoil some of the plot for the previous three books, Joust, Alta, and Sanctuary, so it’d be best to not read further in this review if you haven’t read those books yet.
I’m convinced that Aerie exists only because Lackey left a thread dangling in the third book,
May 16th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 1.5 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
The history books say that the God of the Sky married the Goddess of Beauty and their children populated Orléans. But when Beauty started spending all her time with their children instead of her husband, Sky cursed the people of Orléans, giving them “skin the color of a sunless sky, eyes the shade of blood, hair the texture of rotten straw, and a deep sadness that quickly turned to madness.” So, Beauty created the Belles, special girls who have magic that can bring beauty and joy back to the people of Orléans.
May 15th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Dhonielle Clayton | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Inspection by Josh Malerman
Here’s how to ruin your experience with this book: Read the publisher’s blurb below, think it sounds sweet and thoughtful, and then order an audio copy that doesn’t have a book jacket containing quotes from Chuck Wendig and J.D. Barker. The publisher’s blurb goes like this:
J is a student at a school deep in a forest far away from the rest of the world. J is one of only twenty-six students, all of whom think of the school’s enigmatic founder as their father.
May 13th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Josh Malerman | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs
Storm Cursed (2019), the eleventh book in Patricia Briggs’ MERCY THOMPSON urban fantasy series, kicks the series up a notch with some clashes with black magic witches, and no one is safe. Mercy, a coyote skinwalker and the shapechanger daughter of the god Coyote, is back in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state after her hair-raising adventures in Europe in Silence Fallen.
Storm Cursed begins with a seemingly tangential event: Mercy has tagged two of her husband Adam’s werewolf pack,
May 10th, 2019. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Patricia Briggs | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Kingdom of Needle and Bone by Mira Grant
Lisa Morris, Patient Zero, is only eight years old when she contracts a mutated and vicious form of measles, infects hundreds of other people while visiting Disney World, and dies. The disease races across the planet, killing millions, because “the virus always spreads.”
Lisa’s Aunt Isabella, a pediatrician who feels guilty about Lisa’s death, goes on a crusade to protect those who haven’t yet been exposed to the virus. Her pediatric clinic is targeted by anti-vaxxers, but she continues to champion — and try to explain — herd immunity.
May 10th, 2019. Kat Hooper and Terry Weyna´s rating: 3 | Mira Grant | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien
Peasprout Chen and her little brother Cricket have been chosen by the dowager empress to represent their province at the Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword in the famously beautiful city of Pearl. In exchange, the mayor of Pearl has sent two of his children to Shin, the poor rural area where Peasprout and Cricket grew up.
The Chen siblings were chosen because Peasprout is the best wu liu competitor in her entire province. She’s a celebrity there.
May 8th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Henry Lien | Audio, Children | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Golden State by Ben H. Winters
Here’s another frightening alternate history thriller by Ben H. Winters. If you loved his 2016 Underground Airlines, like I did, you’ll want to give Golden State (2019) a try. It’s set in a near-future California (or some part of California) where lying has been criminalized due to the fall-out from the disastrous events that occurred when certain leaders of the United States kept deceiving the citizens. (I will say that one good thing about the current US administration is that it’s providing a wealth of fodder to speculative fiction authors!)
To uphold the truth,
May 3rd, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Ben H. Winters | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Sanctuary (2005) is the third book in Mercedes Lackey’s DRAGON JOUSTERS quartet. You need to read Joust and Alta first. There will be spoilers for those first two books in this review of the third.
Vetch has come a long way. When we first met him in Joust, he was the servant of a cruel master in his home country of Alta.
May 1st, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Mercedes Lackey | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Planetfall, the first science fiction offering from Emma Newman, is about a colony of humans who left Earth to follow Suh, an alleged prophet who received a supernatural message giving her the coordinates of an unknown distant planet where she was supposed to travel to receive instructions about God’s plans for humanity. Suh and her best friend Ren, a brilliant geneticist and engineer, gathered a team of like-minded believers and they landed on the planet 22 years ago.
May 1st, 2019. Kat Hooper, Jason Golomb, Marion Deeds and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3 | Emma Newman | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson
Tade Thompson’s The Rosewater Insurrection (2019) is the sequel to Rosewater (2016), a stunningly imaginative, structurally complex, and beautifully written novel that Kate and I loved. It’s about an alien presence called Wormwood that tunnels under the surface of our planet and has sprouted a dome in Nigeria. Because the dome has healing properties, a ramshackle city called Rosewater has grown up around it where people with various ailments live,
April 29th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Tade Thompson | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.