Really, Carol Berg?
I bought Dust and Light, your latest fantasy novel, because you wrote it, and because I loved the COLLEGIA MAGICA series. I had no idea you were going to do this to me.
I knew I was going to love your rich prose. In the first few pages, though, with great economy, you provided us with the big picture; a dead king, princes warring for a nation, a group of pureblood families who wield magic and go to extreme lengths to protect their bloodlines;
November 17th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Carol Berg | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Tina Connolly gives us a third book in the world of Ironskin, and continues to follow the women of the Rochart family with Dorie, Jane Rochart’s stepdaughter. In Silverblind, Dorie follows in the tradition of her stepmother Jane and her aunt Helen, fighting for the underdog, struggling to determine the right course of action when circumstance seem to pit humans against the incorporeal fey. In this book, we get a few more magical critters, too, including wyverns and a basilisk.
November 14th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Tina Connolly | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Peripheral by William Gibson
Reading William Gibson is like learning a new language. At first you struggle. It’s a bit boring, although you can tell that’s just because you don’t understand, that there are exciting things happening under the surface. Then, one day, you’ve learned enough vocabulary and grammar that it starts to click and you can converse.
His latest novel, The Peripheral, which I listened to on audio, read by Lorelei King, follows two interlocking story-lines. One is from the perspective of Flynne,
November 13th, 2014. Kate Lechler, Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | William Gibson | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
Graham “Gray” Marshall is a gifted magician, studying magic at Oxford’s Merlin College, when some of his classmates insist he come along on a midnight adventure. In no time, things go bad. Gray is blamed for the misadventure and sent away from Oxford to the Breton estate of his tutor, the small-minded, petty and envious Professor Appius Callender. Sophie Callender is the ignored middle daughter of the professor. Her father has told her, repeatedly, that she has no magical ability, but she thirsts for knowledge and reads magical texts in secret.
November 7th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Sylvia Izzo Hunter | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Taltos is the fourth novel in Steven Brust’s series about Vlad Taltos, a human crime boss in the fantasy world of Dragaera, where humans are short of stature and lifespan compared to the species that rule the world. Taltos is actually a prequel to the previous novels (Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla) in which Vlad tells us about an incident that happened years ago while he was solidifying his reputation as a new crime lord.
November 7th, 2014. Kat Hooper and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Steven Brust | Audio | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Ransom Riggs went to film school, made some award-winning short films, and did travel writing and photography before he published Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, his first novel. This young adult fantasy novel uses a number of strange old photographs Riggs either found or borrowed from several collections, and the photos are interspersed with the text. It’s an interesting presentation that adds a lot to the reading experience.
The book has already been optioned by Twentieth Century Fox,
October 31st, 2014. Marion Deeds, Tim Scheidler, Tadiana Jones and Ray McKenzie | Ransom Riggs | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Jala’s Mask by Mike & Rachel Grinti
I enjoy reading fantasy that stems from a different folkloric basis than the one I grew up in. Middle European, British, Native American and Asian fantasy tropes have been done a lot, so Jala’s Mask, by Mike & Rachel Grinti was a refreshing change.
Jala has grown up in a society similar in some ways to our Polynesian one. Her people can magically shape ships from the material that forms the reefs around their islands. They gather wealth by raiding the mainland.
October 30th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Mike & Rachel Grinti | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Locke and Key (Vol 3): Crown of Shadows by Joe Hill (writer) and Gabriel Rodriguez (artist)
Toil and trouble; the cauldron begins to bubble.
(May contain spoilers of earlier volumes.)
In Crown of Shadows, the third volume in Locke and Key, written by Joe Hill and drawn by Gabriel Rodriguez, the simmering sense of doom we encountered in Volume Two comes to a boil. More keys are found. More truths are revealed to the reader, and where truths are not uncovered,
October 25th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Joe Hill | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In 2009, Ruth Arnell created the Collaborative Cliché project, where we reached for every cliché we have seen or read, and used them to create an awful group story. We skewered epic fantasy in that column, but we can find clichés anywhere. Let’s try it again, this time with a sub-genre dear to my heart, urban fantasy.
I’ll start us off. Then you continue the story by adding your cliché-ridden passage in the Comments Section. You can come back and add as many passages as you like.
My soul-beacon tattoo woke me at two in the morning.
October 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds | Thoughtful Thursday | 77 comments |
Falling Sky, Rajan Khanna’s first published novel, is good if familiar post-apocalyptic fun, with plenty of adventure. At 250 pages it’s a good way to spend a couple of evenings or a weekend. Khanna doesn’t explore any new ground here (pun intended) but he has good action sequences and likeable characters.
It is two generations after a virus — the Bug — turned any human infected into an aggressive, bestial killing machine the survivors call the Feral. Ferals breed and care for their young,
October 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Rajan Khanna | SFF Reviews | 4 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.