Author: Stefan Raets

The Silent Land: Not as great as I’ve come to expect from Joyce

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

Jake and Zoe are enjoying a ski trip in the French Pyrenées when, during an early morning ski run, they are trapped and buried alive by an avalanche. Miraculously, they manage to dig out of the snow and survive the ordeal, but when they finally make it back to their hotel, they discover that the place has been abandoned. What’s more, the entire village seems devoid of life. Has the area been evacuated, or is there something more mysterious going on? With no telephone or internet access,

Tiassa: Some of the smartest and most entertaining fantasy around

Tiassa by Steven Brust

Tiassa is the thirteenth Vlad Taltos novel by Steven Brust, and counting Brokedown Palace and The Khaavren Romances, the nineteenth book to date set in Dragaera. Over on tor.com (where this review was also published), Jo Walton has written an excellent series of blog posts about the series so far so I won’t waste your time trying to summarize this amazing series and instead direct you to Jo’s spoiler-free introduction just in case you’re new to Dragaera.

April 1st, 2011. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Steven Brust | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |

Moon over Soho: Witty, gripping, creepy, tense

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 |

Mr. Shivers: Bennett is masterful at creating atmosphere

Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett

Depression-era America in the Dust Bowl must have seemed like living through the apocalypse. The very earth was drying up and blowing away. Nothing would grow and the rain never came. There was no food, families were disintegrating, and death stalked the land. This is the setting for Mr. Shivers, a first novel by Robert Jackson Bennett.

Upon reading the first several chapters of Mr. Shivers, one forms a mental image of the author: old and craggy,

The Wise Man’s Fear: We are divided

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

If, like me, you were so impressed with The Name of the Wind that you neglected all but the most pressing business until you turned the final page, you may have decided to give it a quick re-read in anticipation of the sequel. If you did, you probably spotted this quote in Chapter 43:

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

After a long but worthwhile wait,

The World House: Takes too long to get to the point

The World House by Guy Adams

A struggling British antiquarian with gambling debts… an American socialite during the Prohibition… a young boy from Spain during Franco’s reign… a barfly and a stripper in the late seventies… an autistic teenager… In different places and during different eras, seemingly unconnected strangers all come into contact with a mysterious box, and all of them at some point suddenly find themselves transported to a different place: a huge house that seems to have endless corridors and stairs, not to mention a room filled with a huge jungle,

February 18th, 2011. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2.5 | Guy Adams | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Home Fires: Even a minor Gene Wolfe is still a major event

Home Fires by Gene Wolfe

Before Chelle left Earth to fight in the war against the alien Os, she contracted (entered into a civil marriage) with Skip. If she returned, more than twenty years would have passed for Skip but only a few years for her: Skip would be a successful, rich lawyer, and she’d be his beautiful, young contracta. Fast forward to the start of Home Fires, the latest novel by all-round genius Gene Wolfe: Skip is indeed a rich, successful partner in his law firm,

Among Others: A novel for bibliotropes

Among Others by Jo Walton

Kids nowadays have it easy. If you’re into fantasy, there’s a good chance that the books you like have a devoted following and a few dedicated web sites. There may be movie franchises and/or an HBO series about them. You can buy Team Jacob/Team Edward shirts, Harry Potter glasses and A Game of Thrones calendars. There may be book release parties, even people sleeping in front of the bookstore when the next book is due out. There’s GoodReads,

Farlander: Promising but uneven series opener

Farlander by Col Buchanan

The Holy Empire of Mann, ruled by the Holy Matriarch Sasheen, is slowly but surely conquering all the lands bordering the Mideres Sea. One of the last areas desperately holding out against the Empire’s onslaught is the island of Khos, and it’s on this island that Nico, a teenager living with his mother and a succession of her boyfriends, decides to run away from home and create a better life for himself. But living on the streets turns out to be harder than he expected, especially when his first attempted robbery goes horribly wrong.

February 4th, 2011. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3 | Col Buchanan | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories edited by John Joseph Adams

Even people who don’t usually read science fiction will often be familiar with a few classic titles in the “dystopian SF” sub-genre. After all, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and of course the famous Aldous Huxley novel Brave New World are some of the few SF titles that have entered the mainstream literary canon to such an extent that they’ve become assigned school reading for many students.

February 2nd, 2011. Stefan Raets and Ruth Arnell´s rating: 5 | Caitlín R. Kiernan, Carrie Vaughn, Charles Coleman (C.C.) Finlay, Cory Doctorow, Genevieve Valentine, Harlan Ellison, Kate Wilhelm, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Paolo Bacigalupi, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Tobias Buckell, Ursula K. Le-Guin | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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