In the collection White Time, Margo Lanagan writes with a clear, distinctive style that doesn’t spoon-feed, but rather challenges the reader in a good way. Her text is multi-layered and works on multiple levels to create interesting speculative fiction stories, some using the tropes of science fiction and some those of fantasy.
White Time features ten stories, and each is unique and different. The eponymous story, “White Time,” is the opener for this publication.
October 30th, 2010. Charles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 3.5 | Margo Lanagan | Short Fiction, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Drinking Midnight Wine by Simon R. Green
Simon R. Green lives in Bradford-on-Avon in real life, and I’ll wager a guess as to how Drinking Midnight Wine came to be written. I think Green has met some eccentric folks and seen some weird places in the time he has lived in that town, and so it occurred to him to make up magical explanations for them, and build a fantasy novel around them.
Green does a great job of creating engaging characters and vivid scenery.
May 27th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Simon R. Green | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
For anyone who’s ever read Francesca Lia Block before, you’ll know what to expect here. Riddled with teenage angst, fairytale settings and dense, poetic language, Echo provides another glimpse into the mind of tortured, restless adolescence. As always, Block’s novel stands outside any particular genre; is it fantasy or drama? Poetry or prose? Magic realism or something else entirely? As always, her trademark style is the use of her intoxicating language, which again defies description, but is best compared to fantasist Patricia McKillip.
April 15th, 2010. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Francesca Lia Block | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding
If you enjoy the atmosphere and imagination of Philip Pullman, Garth Nix, or Philip Reeve, then you’re sure to like Chris Wooding, a YA fantasy author who does not feel the need to fill his fantasy world with elves, dwarfs, wizards, dragons and every other fantasy cliché that’s been done to death since Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings.
Some authors are willing to explore new territory,
January 9th, 2010. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Chris Wooding | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Firebird is a story made up of a range of Russian folklore, from the gnome-like ‘leshis’ to the greedy tsar to the Firebird itself. It reads like a fleshed-out fairytale, and contains much of the imagery and themes associated with such stories — everything from the persecuted younger brother to the quest narrative to the malevolent ruler of the land to the magical helpers and objects. For this reason, the story may sound rather predictable (and often it is), but as Russian folktales are not often delved into by Western writers,
April 29th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Sophie Masson | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Hob’s Bargain by Patricia Briggs
I think that the ability to create a world that is filled with magic and unknown places is perhaps too great a task to do in one book. There is a degree of detail that we, as readers, have come to expect due to the growing trend of long multi-volume series.
In The Hob’s Bargain, Patricia Briggs does a good job of telling a story within the constraints of a single volume. The heroine is interesting and relatively likeable,
October 19th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | Patricia Briggs | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
...as well as the 1932 sequel, "Topper Takes a Trip"!
It's such a rich and ancient ambience - in many ways the plot itself doesn't matter, I just like strolling…
I didn't know he wrote Topper!
Best new book: Play of Shadows by Sebastien Sebastien de Castell Honorary mention for The Naming Song by Jebediah Berry…
Best read for August was Karel Capek's War With the Newts, another one of his acerbic fables about the human…