Author: Stefan Raets

The Best of All Possible Worlds: Great concept, not so great execution

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

I have to confess that I spent at least the first third of Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds mostly annoyed and disappointed by the writing. I found the writing flat, the world-building slim, and the character relationships implausible, simplistic, and melodramatic. But around halfway through, the book, despite its flaws, started to grow on me somewhat and by the halfway point I was mostly in, though I still had some major issues.

The setting is a far-future in a universe populated by different types of humans,

Stormdancer: Japanese steampunk

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

The Shima Isles are on the brink of ruin. The empire practically runs on chi, a substance extracted from the bloodlotus plant which fuels its engines but also poisons its soil, kills its animals, and keeps its people addicted with its opium-like qualities. The wars of conquest against the barbarous gaijin are stalled. The citizens live in poverty and pollution while the young, murderous shogun Yoritomo and his court live in luxury.

As Stormdancer starts off, there’s been a recent sighting of an arashitora or “thunder tiger,” a near-mystical creature previously thought extinct.

September 27th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2 | Jay Kristoff | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Seven Princes: Did Not Finish

Seven Princes by John R. Fultz

Trimesqua, King of Yaskatha, is murdered by Emhathyn, an ancient wizard who raises the dead to kill everyone in the palace. The young Prince D’zan manages to escape, helped by his faithful bodyguard Olthacus the Stone, and sets out on a quest for vengeance. To retake Yaskatha, he seeks the help of other rulers, including the two princes of Uurz: the strong warrior Vireon and the scholar/writer Lyrilan.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, King Vod rules the city of New Udurum where Giants and Men live peacefully together.

June 8th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 0.1 | John R. Fultz | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Chasing the Moon: Heavy on laughs, light on depth

Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez

Diana’s had a tough time of it lately, but finally a stroke of luck comes along: after a long search, she finds the perfect apartment. It’s affordable. It’s furnished exactly the way she likes. There’s even a jukebox with all her favorite songs. Maybe she should have been more suspicious about how perfect it was, because once she’s moved in, she discovers that the apartment has an extra inhabitant: a monster who goes by the name Vom the Hungering and who tries to eat everything in his path.

Initiate’s Trial: Epic high fantasy at its finest

Initiate’s Trial by Janny Wurts

Janny Wurts’s latest novel in the WARS OF LIGHT AND SHADOW, Initiate’s Trial, is another rock-solid installment in what has become one of my favorite series. Janny’s use of the English language, her ability to sculpt characters with concepts and characteristics that make them live and her continuing commitment to solid storytelling make her work some of the best ever. Initiate’s Trial is a perfect example of why her books are always worth the wait.

March 1st, 2012. John Hulet and Stefan Raets´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Janny Wurts | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson

Robert Charles Wilson’s novel Julian Comstock is set in a vastly changed 22nd-century USA — after the end of the age of oil and atheism has resulted in disaster. Technology is mostly back to pre-20th century levels, and the population has been vastly reduced due to social upheaval and disease. Society has become fully class-based, divided into a Eupatridian aristocracy, middle-class lease-men, and indentured servants. The country — which now stretches across most of the North American continent — is involved in a lengthy and brutal war with the Dutch over control of the recently opened Northwest Passage.

January 25th, 2012. Stefan Raets and Ryan Skardal | Robert Charles Wilson | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Context: Fascinating insights from Cory Doctorow

Context by Cory Doctorow

When you consider the entirety of Cory Doctorow‘s creative output, it’s actually a bit surprising that the first title in his bio (on his own site) is “science fiction novelist.” After all, if you add up the amazing amount of blog posts, magazine articles, newspaper columns, speeches and various other non-fiction he produces, I’m pretty sure that they would add up to more words per calendar year than his fiction, and in terms of visibility it’s quite possible that more people have seen his name connected to a blog post or newspaper column than on the cover of a novel.

January 20th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Cory Doctorow | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Faith: A science fiction debut of the highest order

Faith by John Love

Three hundred years ago, a strange and seemingly invincible alien ship visited the Sakhran Empire. Exactly what happened is unclear, because the events were only recorded in the Book of Srahr, a text only Sakhrans are allowed to read. After the ship left, the Sakhran Empire went into a slow but irreversible decline.

Three centuries later, the Sakhrans have been assimilated into the larger interstellar empire known as the Commonwealth, when suddenly the strange, immensely powerful ship returns. The Commonwealth dispatches an Outsider, one of only nine in its ultimate class of warships,

January 12th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | John Love | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Debris: A strong, exciting debut

Debris by Jo Anderton

Tanyana is a talented and celebrated architect. She’s one of the elite, someone who can control “pions,” allowing her to manipulate matter with a thought. She’s high up in the air, working on a towering statue, shaping the raw matter around her into art, when suddenly she finds herself under attack by strange, uncontrollable pions. When she regains consciousness after a horrible fall, it becomes clear that she has suffered more than just physical injuries: she’s lost the ability to see pions and can now only see “debris,”

January 10th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Jo Anderton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Clockwork Rocket: Hard SF with heart

The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

The Clockwork Rocket, which is the first volume in Greg Egan‘s brand new hard science fiction trilogy ORTHOGONAL, is a book with three different but equally important focal points. On the one hand, it’s the story of a young woman who also happens to be a very alien alien. On the other, it’s a novel about a planet — a very alien planet — on the cusp of tremendous social change. And, maybe most of all,

January 9th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Egan | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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