Author: Rebecca Fisher

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen: If I ever have kids…

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen by Lloyd Alexander

If I ever have kids, I’m going to make sure that their bookshelves are stocked full of Lloyd Alexander’s books. Most famous for his award-winning The Prydain Chronicles, Alexander has carved out a little niche for himself in children’s literature by taking his often-used (but never stale) technique of adapting a particular culture’s mythology and shaping it to include his own brand of wisdom, poignancy and humour. For The Prydain Chronicles Alexander borrowed heavily from Welsh mythology as found in the The Mabinogian,

The Book of Three: Our very highest recommendation

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander’s fantastic five-part Chronicles of Prydain begins with The Book of Three, which is required reading for anyone who considers themselves a fantasy fan and/or a lover of children’s literature — or in fact anyone who loves a darn good book. And you can’t stop there — make sure you have on hand the following volumes: The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King.

A Touch of Chill: Characters teeter on the edge of reality

A Touch of Chill by Joan Aiken

Joan Aiken is one of my favourite authors, best known among children as the writer of the alternative-history series The Wolves Chronicles. She is also a writer for adults, and the same sense of imagination, wit and mystery found in her earlier books are found in this collected anthology of creepy and twisted short stories. Although the title claims that these are stories of “horror, suspense and fantasy,” this is a little misleading. It’s not that these stories aren’t any of these things,

The Cuckoo Tree: A deeper, more scary adventure than usual

The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken

After her light-hearted adventures on the island of Nantucket in the previous installment in Joan Aiken’s Wolves Saga, Dido Twite comes up against darker enemies once she reaches English soil once more. At the end of the last book, Dido left Nantucket with Captain Hughes, who since then has become rather ill. When the carriage they’re riding in overtips thanks to a dodgy cabby-driver, Dido goes for help and soon finds herself in the company of more weird and wonderful acquaintances — so many in fact,

Leviathan: A wonderful mix of the utterly original and the familiar

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan is the beginning of a new steampunk YA series by Scott Westerfeld, author of other well-known (and highly recommended) YA series such as Uglies and Midnighters, along with one of my favorite non-YA science fiction works of recent memory, The Risen Empire (even more highly recommended). As is usual with good YA, don’t let the label turn you away; Westerfeld knows how to write for a younger audience without dumbing things down and without excluding older readers.

Palimpsest: Gorgeous

Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente

The first thing that strikes you about Palimpsest is the gorgeous prose. Every sentence is crafted with the utmost care, resulting in a novel that almost reads like poetry. It simply begs to be read out loud. I’ve read many books that attempt this kind of lush prose, but Palimpsest is one of the most successful and most beautiful.

Palimpsest is a sexually transmitted city. People who have been there have a small tattoo — a piece of the city’s map — somewhere on their body.

Skellig: Sad and joyful, poignant and funny

Skellig by David Almond

Michael is living in a stage of upheaval and transition in his life: his parents have just moved to a rather derelict house, his unnamed baby sister is drastically ill, and the house is often visited by ‘Doctor Death’, the doctor sent to check up on his sister. On top of this, he now has to bus for school; the previous occupant of the house was dead for a week before anyone found him, and the outside garden is a wilderness. The garage in particular is a nightmare — slumping over,

Titus Alone: For completists and fans

Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake’s magnum opus began in Titus Groan, and continued in Gormenghast, two brilliant (though door-stopping) books that explored the lives of those that exist in a self-contained, self-sufficient edifice known as Gormenghast: a labyrinthine world of towers, mansions, slums, and the corridors that connect them all. It is ruled by ancient and meaningless ritual, something that the titular character of Titus, Seventy-Seventh Earl of Gormenghast, has rejected. In the final passages of Gormenghast,”

December 18th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Mervyn Peake | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: An amusing gimmick

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

This is a book that straightforwardly declares its content from the presentation of both cover and title. With the bloodied portrait and the “and zombies” appendage, what you get here is precisely what appearances promise: no more and no less. This is Jane Austen’s manuscript, almost in its entirety, with sporadic scenes of zombies inserted.

The result is an amusing gimmick, but nothing that is astoundingly witty or which sheds new light on familiar characters or situations as most parodies are wont to do.

December 17th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Seth Grahame-Smith | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Wyrm King: A treat, as always

The Wyrm King by Holly Black

The third and final part of Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi’s collaborative effort is called The Wyrm King, following on from The Nixie’s Song and A Giant Problem, part of the Beyond the Spiderwick trilogy which in turn is a sequel to the original The Spiderwick Chronicles series (why are fantasy titles so convoluted?) and which wraps up the trilogy in a satisfying, action-picked finale.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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