Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Rebecca Fisher

Thornspell: The “true” Sleeping Beauty

Thornspell by Helen Lowe

As much as I love reading fairytales, there’s always the sense that I’m only getting half of the story. There’s never any character development, explanations on where those magical artifacts come from, or why the bad guys act so villainous beyond the fairly rudimentary: “they’re evil.” In fairytales, things just happen, with little or no back-story.

Which is why I’ve always appreciated authors who consider the missing pieces to any fairytale and fill them accordingly with their own ideas. Donna Jo Napoli has built her career on this technique,

Street Magic: Pierce’s imagination is on full blast

Street Magic by Tamora Pierce

It’s ironic that feminist writer Tamora Pierce’s only male character, the self-named Briar Moss, is one of her best characters. Amongst the rest of the mainly female cast, his charisma, street smarts and ongoing inner conflict between his younger, wilder instincts, and his older, more civilized self, makes him one of the most lovable and well-rounded characters in the Circle of Magic series.

The first four books gathered together four magical protégées: aristocratic Sandry, moody bookworm Tris, stoic Daja, and street-rat Briar,

Harrowing the Dragon: A story collection by Patricia McKillip

Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip

Patricia A. McKillip is the author of several wonderful books (my favourites being Alphabet of Thorn and Winter Rose) and is one of the few fantasists in the publishing world that is original. Although her stories may contain typical fantasy elements (dragons, heroes, kingdoms, quests, good versus evil, etc) they are written in such beautiful poetic-prose that the stories transcend the clichés they stem from; reading more as luminous fairytales than hum-drum fantasy. Although the prose is beautiful,

Mortal Engines: A new brand of fantasy for the 21st century

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

In the years beyond the 30th century, after life as we know it is destroyed in the Sixty Minutes War, the world is divided into three: the Static communities, who live in farms and buildings firmly stationed on the earth, the aviators, who travel the Bird Roads in the sky, and the Traction Cities, the giant cities on engineered wheels who live by the Municipal Darwinism — the big cities devour the little cities for their resources. And the biggest Traction City of them all is London,

A Sterkarm Kiss: Doesn’t hold up well

A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price

The novel that preceded this, The Sterkarm Handshake was an explosive, riveting and nail-biting story based around the concept of the cultural clash that would follow 21st century time travelers attempting to exploit the riches and opportunities that the past had to offer. The corporation FUP had completed a Time Tube that would transport employees into the past of a different dimension, in order to explore the possibilities that the unspoilt land offered. Only one thing stood in their way; the fierce and treacherous Sterkarms who were not prepared to stop their feuding and troublemaking just because a bunch of “Elves”

Taltos: 467 page coda

Taltos by Anne Rice

The problem with this final installment in The Lives of the Mayfair Witches, is that the main plot (and most of its subplots) were begun in The Witching Hour and wrapped up neatly in its sequel Lasher. In these two previous books, Doctor Rowan Mayfair has returned to her family, discovered her witch heritage, married Michael Curry, come into contact with an organisation called the Talamasca (best described as a supernatural detective agency) unleashed the spirit Lasher on the world and — together with her husband — stopped him from achieving his goal of populating the world with his own species: the Taltos.

July 5th, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 2 | Anne Rice | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Prestige: Haunting and thought-provoking

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

I was drawn to Christopher Priest’s novel after having watched and enjoyed the Nolan brothers’ film adaptation of The Prestige. Going into the reading, I knew that several plot twists would be spotted a mile away, but the film is sufficiently different from its source material that Priest’s work contains several surprises.

Journalist Andrew Westley is brought under false pretences to a Derbyshire estate to meet with a young woman who is quite desperate to get in contact with him.

The Door in the Tree: Nothing overly special

The Door in the Tree by William Corlett

This is the second book in The Magician’s House Quartet and sees the three children of the previous novel (The Steps Up The Chimney) return to their uncle Jack’s Golden House, where the year before they had meet a time-traveling wizard called Stephen Tyler, befriended a number of wild animals and mastered the magical art of sharing their bodies, and helped deliver their uncle’s girlfriend’s baby when the wizard’s assistant Morden had attempted to sabotage the birth.

The Crystal Mountain: Just lovely!

The Crystal Mountain by Ruth Sanderson

If it were up to me, I’d make sure every single children’s bookshelf had at least one of Ruth Sanderson’s wonderful books. Her stories are simple, sweet, and yet thought-provoking, and her illustrations are clear, uncluttered and utterly beautiful. The Crystal Mountain is no exception, and is definitely up there as one of her best works.

As she did with The Golden Mare, the Firebird and the Magic Ring, Sanderson ingeniously combines more than one fairy or folk tale to create a story that is both new and familiar.

The Steps up the Chimney: A mixed bag of magic and flatness

The Steps up the Chimney by William Corlett

The Steps up the Chimney is the first in four books that accumulate into The Magician’s House Quartet, revolving around three children who come to stay at their uncle’s strange house, and Stephen Tyler, a time-traveling wizard who befriends the children on their stay at Golden Valley.

In The Steps Up The Chimney, the children arrive at the house after already experiencing some strange events — Will has meet a stranger at Druce Coven station who mysteriously disappeared and a fox seems to popping up everywhere they look.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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