RUNAWAYS: The Good Die Young by Brian K. Vaughan
Note: This review may contain spoilers of the previous volumes.
The Good Die Young, the third collection of Brian K. Vaughan’s Marvel’s RUNAWAYS, brings the original story arc to a successful, if sad, close. Our six young people, who have had to adjust to discovering they are the children of super-villains, come of age and make their own decisions, graduating to full hero status.
The book starts with Alex,
May 2nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith
[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]
Hild, Nicola Griffith’s Nebula-nominated novel, takes us to seventh-century England, to the court of Overking Edwin of Northumbria, and into the heart and mind of the young girl who will become his seer, and later be canonized by the Christian church.
May 2nd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Nicola Griffith | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Runaways: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughan
Almost every teenager has a point where he or she decides that parents are either evil, or the lackeys of evil. In the case of six young people in Marvel’s RUNAWAYS, they discover to their shock that their parents truly are, and not just garden variety evil, either; the parents are costumed super-villains. At the end of the first volume of this comic book series collection, the Runaways have gathered information and weapons, and have gone into hiding in a secret hideout.
April 25th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Brian K. Vaughan | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar
In A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar takes us on a journey that is as familiar and foreign as a land in a dream. It’s a study of two traditions, written and oral, and how they intersect. Samatar uses exquisite language and precise details to craft a believable world filled with sight, sound and scent.
The book follows Jevick, who journeys from Bain, the Harbor City of the land of Olondria to a distant valley, on a quest to settle the ghost that haunts him.
April 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Sofia Samatar | Stand-Alone, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Revolutions by Felix Gilman
At not quite the halfway point in Felix Gilman’s The Revolutions, the main character — Arthur Shaw — reacts to a particular text he is reading:
It was a hodge-podge of Masonry, Greek myth, Egyptian fantasy, debased Christianity, third-hand Hinduism, and modern and ancient astronomy, promiscuously and nonsensically mixed . . . The Book was riddled throughout with paradox and absurdity and contradiction . . . But after a week or two of study, Arthur began to enjoy it.
April 16th, 2014. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Felix Gilman | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Grandville, Bete Noire by Bryan Talbot
Grandville, Bete Noire, Bryan Talbot’s third steam-punk themed graphic novel, has the same lavish detail and striking use of color as the first two. English Badger D.I. Archie LeBrock is back, as rough-and-tumble as ever, and in this book we spend a bit more time with Quayle or “Q,” a brilliant inventor adept at stealth weapons, like a smoking pipe that is really a bomb. It’s a nice wink in the direction of Ian Fleming.
The plot is slimmer and more predictable than the first two,
April 11th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Bryan Talbot | Comics | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor
What do you get if you cross Paradise Lost with Romeo and Juliet? Laini Taylor’s DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE trilogy, a story that centres on an epic war between angels and demons with a pair of star-crossed lovers caught in the middle. Only the angels and demons aren’t exactly what you’d expect. In the world of Eretz, “angels” are winged humanoids known as seraphim and the “demons” are half-human,
April 8th, 2014. Rebecca Fisher, Marion Deeds and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Laini Taylor | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Zoe’s parents were punks in San Francisco when they met and fell in love. Zoe’s father managed punk bands, while her mother was a graphic artist, designing album covers. When they realized they were going to have a child, they went into the straight life, although Zoe’s dad never left punk music behind. Now Zoe is sixteen, her father is dead, and her mother is battling a heartless insurance company that is refusing to pay. They have moved from their pleasant house in the San Francisco East Bay area to a small apartment in the city.
April 7th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Richard Kadrey | Horror, Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Fire with Fire by Charles E. Gannon
I don’t read a lot of military science fiction, and Fire With Fire is definitely military SF. It’s also an intelligence thriller and a first-contact story, at least part of the time. Charles E. Gannon’s book was good fun, but could have been forty pages shorter (limiting the verbiage of the talking heads) without losing anything, and the main character was a problem.
Caine Riordan, the hero of Fire with Fire, is a little like Jack Ryan from the old Tom Clancy books.
April 3rd, 2014. Marion Deeds and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Charles E. Gannon | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Grandville, Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot
Grandville, Mon Amour is the second in Bryan Talbot’s steampunk graphic novel series with highly evolved animals, in a world where Napoleon conquered all of Europe and Britain has only been an independent country for twenty-three years. British badger Detective-Inspector Archie LeBrock and his partner Ratzi, a rat, are back on a case that will take them back to Paris, also called Grandville. As Ratzi puts it, “We’re like a pair of bloomin’ boomerangs.”
In the opening,
March 28th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Bryan Talbot | Comics | SFF Reviews | no 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.