The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman
The Magician’s Land, by Lev Grossman, is a superb finish to what is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. I read it elated, skin tingling and brain buzzing, savoring every word to make it last longer. When I finished, I wanted to read it again immediately. And yet, I also finished the book feeling a persistent ambivalence about the conclusion Grossman has created for his characters.
In The Magician’s Land,
August 5th, 2014. Kate Lechler, Bill Capossere, Ryan Skardal and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 5 | Lev Grossman | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Long War by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
The Long War, the second installment in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s five-book LONG EARTH series, is more tedious than the first one, probably because I have already seen the inside of their bag of tricks and I am no longer impressed.
This sequel happens about 12 years after the events of The Long Earth. Joshua, now married and with a son, has been summoned by his old friend, Lobsang (the AI reincarnation of a Tibetan motorcycle repairman) to go on another journey through the Long Earth,
June 24th, 2014. Kate Lechler and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 1 | Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is a really interesting book without being a particularly good one.
The concept for The Long Earth itself arises from a short story Pratchett wrote before he became Pratchett with a capital P. Essentially, there are other versions of Earth strung out like a strand of pearls in parallel universes — and the ability to travel to these Earths has begun to spread through the human race with the advent of new technology called the “stepper.”
June 2nd, 2014. Kate Lechler and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2.5 | Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer is the second book in Patrick Ness’ CHAOS WALKING trilogy and picks up immediately where The Knife of Never Letting Go ended, with Todd surrendering to Mayor Prentiss in order to save Viola. This is the beginning of a complex relationship between the two as well as the bifurcation of Todd and Viola’s storylines. In the first, Todd, thanks to the Mayor’s control over what happens to Viola,
July 3rd, 2012. Bill Capossere and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Patrick Ness | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book in the CHAOS WALKING trilogy by Patrick Ness. The series is set on a world colonized some time ago by settlers who met a few surprises upon their arrival. The biggest was the effect of a plague/virus, which caused all males (human and animal) to uncontrollably and constantly broadcast their thoughts so everyone hears what they were thinking. Because the thoughts couldn’t be turned off or tuned out,
June 28th, 2012. Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4, 4.5 | Patrick Ness | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Wool by Hugh Howey
Editor’s Note: When first published, Wool was an omnibus of edition including 5 “books.” Now, Wool is considered the first novel in Hugh Howey’s SILO series. The other two books are Shift (also at first considered an omnibus) and Dust which we’ve since reviewed.
Wool is the omnibus edition of Hugh Howey’s WOOL series. The first book in the series, Wool,
April 16th, 2012. Ruth Arnell, Bill Capossere, Ray McKenzie and Marion Deeds | Hugh Howey | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
A promising jazz drummer is found dead of a heart attack shortly after playing a gig in London. At first, the only odd circumstance surrounding his death is the fact that Peter Grant, apprentice wizard and police constable, faintly hears the notes of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” rising from the corpse, indicating that magic was somehow involved in the musician’s death. However, when further research reveals that several jazz musicians have died in similar circumstances over the years, it suddenly becomes much more urgent for Peter and his supervisor Thomas Nightingale to find out what’s really going on…
March 31st, 2011. Stefan Raets, Terry Weyna and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Ben Aaronovitch | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Dr. Diana Bishop, descendant of the famous Bridget Bishop of Salem, Massachusetts, turned her back on her natural powers after her parents were killed when she was a child. Instead, she relied on her brain power, went to Oxford and Yale, and became a well-known researcher in the field of history of science. Now she’s back at Oxford, spending the year studying old alchemical texts archived at the Bodleian Library. But when she calls the book known as Ashmole 782 from the stacks, she can feel its power and she can see hidden writing moving on its pages.
March 2nd, 2011. Kat Hooper and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 2 | Deborah Harkness | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
China Miéville has become known for his genre-defying work, but to some extent many of his novels embrace a specific genre. As much as Iron Council is a western and The City & The City is a police procedural, Un Lun Dun is a young adult urban fantasy. Of course, with Miéville, these sorts of distinctions are usually just amusing starting points before readers revel in genre twists and unusual monsters.
September 16th, 2010. Ryan Skardal and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3, 3.5 | China Mieville | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Let’s just admit it at the outset. As someone who tries to write, I hate David Mitchell. Hate him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand blazing suns. It’d be bad enough if he were just a great, you know, writer. Plain old everyday writer of some kind of novel: literary fiction, sci-fi, adventure, pastiche, historical. But no. He can’t just pick one. He has to be brilliant at them all. In one novel, no less (Cloud Atlas,
June 17th, 2010. Bill Capossere and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 5 | David Mitchell | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…