Posted by Rebecca Fisher | Mar 24, 2020 | SFF Reviews | 2
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman Like most people, I became aware of Alice Hoffman‘s 1995 novel Practical Magic through the nineties film adaptation starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. It’s not a great movie, but it has a charm of its own, and it led me to the original story upon which it’s based. It’s […]
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Posted by Jesse Hudson | Jan 8, 2016 | SFF Reviews | 3
The Star Fraction by Ken Macleod The back cover copy claims Ken Macleod’s debut The Star Fraction (1995) is like “modern-day George Orwell”, and there is some truth in it. But rather than an examination of totalitarianism, the novel is a thought experiment on technology in an environment as rife with subtly variegated politics as […]
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Posted by Kat Hooper | Jun 18, 2015 | SFF Reviews | 3
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro Dr. Catherine Asaro’s award-winning SKOLIAN EMPIRE series has long been on my TBR list because of its unusual blend of space opera, romance, quantum physics, relativity, genetic engineering, biomechanics, and computer science — all written by a Harvard-educated female physicist. That sounds like something I’d devour. The saga is about […]
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Posted by Rebecca Fisher | Nov 20, 2014 | SFF Reviews | 4
Wicked by Gregory Maguire After finally seeing the Broadway musical I felt it was well past time to track down Gregory Maguire‘s Wicked (the inspiration for the musical, which by this stage has probably eclipsed the book in popularity) and read for myself the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West. Anyone who […]
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Posted by Kat Hooper | Aug 21, 2014 | SFF Reviews | 2
Evolution’s Shore by Ian McDonald In several equatorial regions of the earth, an alien plant has been growing. The “Chaga,” as it is called, came from outer space and destroys anything manmade that comes near it. Scientists are worried about what it might do to humans. They have not been able to kill it and […]
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Posted by Brad Hawley | Jul 19, 2013 | SFF Reviews | 2
Witchblade: Witch Hunt (issues 80-85) by Ron Marz (writer) and Mike Choi (artist) This admission is really hard for me to make publicly, so I’m gonna just trust that you won’t laugh, that you’ll be nice to me (at least to my face), and that you’ll reserve judgment for a few minutes while you read […]
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Posted by Guest | Sep 24, 2010 | SFF Reviews | 0
Hawkwood and the Kings by Paul Kearney Hawkwood and the Kings is an omnibus of Hawkwood’s Voyage and The Heretic Kings, first released in the mid-nineties to critical acclaim but limited commercial success. Paul Kearney is, to the detriment of readers of fine fantasy, one of those authors who ran into publisher difficulties. Had the […]
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Posted by Kat Hooper | Sep 1, 2010 | SFF Reviews | 5
Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb I read The Farseer Saga years ago and have since considered it one of my favorite fantasy epics. It’s one (along with The Lord of the Rings and Memory, Sorrow and Thorn) that I often suggest to new fantasy readers. But after more than a decade of reading deeper and […]
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Posted by Kelly Lasiter | Jun 9, 2010 | SFF Reviews | 0
Merlin’s Harp by Anne Eliot Crompton Reading Merlin’s Harp, I realized something about novels that portray the interaction between the human world and Faerie. They usually don’t tell the stories of fae folk in their own homeland. There are exceptions, of course, but authors tend to focus on faeries stuck in the human world, or […]
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Posted by Amanda Rutter (guest) | Feb 2, 2010 | SFF Reviews | 4
The Wayfarer Redemption (BattleAxe in the UK) by Sara Douglass Note: Amanda, who reviews this novel, lives in the UK where this book is titled BattleAxe. In the US, the title is The Wayfarer Redemption. A thousand years ago the people of Achar drove the Forbidden from their land in the War of the Axe. They […]
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Posted by Kelly Lasiter | Apr 8, 2009 | SFF Reviews | 0
Stalking Tender Prey by Storm Constantine Stalking Tender Prey draws on the legend of the Grigori, or Watchers. The Grigori are said to be angels whose over-entanglement with mortals led to their Fall. The central character in Stalking Tender Prey, Peverel Othman, is a Grigori who takes up residence in the small English hamlet of […]
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Posted by Guest | Feb 10, 2008 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Book of Earth by Marjorie B. Kellogg Erde, the daughter of a German noble, is suddenly and terribly thrust into a world of magic and fear when she is accused of a crime she did not commit. After fleeing her father’s wrath and the insane ravings of a power-hungry priest, Erde heads into the […]
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Posted by Greg Hersom | Jul 2, 2007 | SFF Reviews | 0
THE BOOK OF WORDS by J.V. Jones The Baker’s Boy kicks off the exciting Book of Words trilogy. These are J.V. Jones‘ first published books and already she had pinned down all that we as fantasy lovers enjoy most about our genre: picturesque settings, dangerous cities, noble and mysterious heroes, three-dimensional villains, plotting royalty, charismatic rogues. […]
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Posted by John Hulet | Jun 14, 2007 | SFF Reviews | 0
Fortress in the Eye of Time by C.J. Cherryh I loved Fortress in the Eye of Time. To be honest, the first half of the book doesn’t move very fast, but you come to appreciate how C.J. Cherryh controls the flow of the story based on the progress of the main character. It’s a very […]
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Posted by Rebecca Fisher | Jun 5, 2007 | SFF Reviews | 0
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman The Golden Compass (or, if you follow the British print-run, Northern Lights) is the first book of Philip Pullman‘s extraordinary, controversial, thought-provoking, fascinating, infuriating, allegorical trilogy His Dark Materials. Followed by The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, the books have a huge range of ideas and meanings; from […]
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Posted by Rebecca Fisher | Jun 4, 2007 | SFF Reviews | 1
Sabriel by Garth Nix Sabriel is one of the best fantasy books out there, full stop. Although not up to the deep literary analysis of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Pullman’s His Dark Materials, it is a realistic, fantastical, intriguing and thought-provoking novel that’s right up there with the best of them. Garth Nix […]
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Posted by Kat Hooper | Jun 3, 2007 | SFF Reviews | 13
THE SWORD OF TRUTH (books 1-10) by Terry Goodkind Terry Goodkind’s first book, Wizard’s First Rule, was entertaining many years ago when I was a relatively new adult epic fantasy reader. Except for the actual First Rule (“People are Stupid”), which was… stupid. The story had some fascinating characters (mostly the secondary ones — I […]
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