Ill Wind is the first book in Rachel Caine’s urban fantasy series Weather Warden. The book stands well on its own and doesn’t have any of those nasty cliffhangers so often found in fantasy series, but it still keeps you interested in what happens in the next book.
Ill Wind starts in the middle of the action and I was impressed with the first chapter because Caine seamlessly juxtaposes the present with flashbacks and keeps readers on the edge of their seats.
June 11th, 2009. Charles Tan (GUEST)´s rating: 3 | Rachel Caine | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mistress of Dragons by Margaret Weis
Mistress of Dragons is an interesting story with some likable heroes and excellent villains. The heroes are the humans and their dragon allies, but the humans don’t realize that dragons are their friends because the villains are a couple of dragons gone bad. Very bad. The good dragons concoct a plot which uses humans to conquer the bad dragons. Mistress of Dragons ends with an unexpected plot twist.
This story is well-told, though it annoys me how often Margaret Weis omits conjunctions from her sentences.
June 12th, 2008. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Margaret Weis | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
If you’re a reader who can’t get enough of crumbling antebellum mansions, dark family secrets, and muggy Southern weather, you’ll enjoy Four and Twenty Blackbirds (2003). This Southern Gothic ghost story was Cherie Priest’s first novel, and while it’s imperfect, it’s quite readable and shows a lot of promise.
Set in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Four and Twenty Blackbirds possesses a strong, tangible sense of place. I once spent a brief time in Chattanooga during the summer,
June 5th, 2008. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Cherie Priest | SFF Reviews | no comments |
THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES by Holly Black
Although the book in The Spiderwick Chronicles were originally published separately (five in all), I knew it was only a matter of time before a box set was released, and so held off purchasing the separate installments so that I could invest in the complete set. I’m glad I waited, as one of the best things about this series is its beautiful presentation (the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” has little meaning here), and this nifty box set protects and displays them to best effect.
April 1st, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
The last time we saw Alianne of Pirate’s Swoop was briefly in Wild Magic, as a little girl of about five. Now she’s sixteen, and the true product of her parents: Alanna the King’s Champion and George Cooper, the King’s Spymaster. Although she’s eager to take her place amongst the adults of her world, honing her gifts as a spy, she’s also perfectly content to spend her time relaxing, flirting and mischief-making — much to the disappointment of her mother.
After a particularly uncomfortable squabble with her mother over her prospects for the future,
September 1st, 2007. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5 | Tamora Pierce | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Be a Player, Not a Pawn.
Garth Nix’s Mister Monday begins a brand new children’s fantasy epic: The Keys to the Kingdom. This Australian author is fast-becoming one of the biggest names in fantasy with his reinvention of the genre and his intricate, fascinating plots. Unlike other such authors, who place their heroes in a medieval realm of magical swords, horse-back riding and dragons, Nix follows the example of writers such as Philip Pullman,
August 14th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher and Ruth Arnell´s rating: 4, 5 | Garth Nix | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The premise of Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, that some have the ability to call out characters from books by reading aloud, is absolutely wonderful. At first, of course, one thinks how great to have such a talent — to call out Bilbo or Willy Wonka or Aladdin, but what if you couldn’t then return them to their homes — how tragic and cruel for them. Or even worse, what if you couldn’t control your talent, so reading aloud Lord of the Rings might mean you’d get to talk to a hobbit or an elf,
July 25th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Cornelia Funke | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman
Patrick Carman’s The Dark Hills Divide has a good if not all that original premise at its core — a kingdom of four cities completely walled in and a 12-yr-old heroine who longs to see what’s beyond the walls. The walls were built a generation ago by Thomas Warvold, a well-traveled adventurer who came up with the idea to overcome people’s fears of expansion into unknown and allegedly dangerous lands by building walled roads and towns using temporarily freed convicts as laborers.
July 14th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2 | Patrick Carman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
The Light Ages is far from light reading. Anyone wanting a quick read or the typical multi-book fantasy focusing on a questing band of travelers beset by evil should look elsewhere.
Instead Macleod gives us a land more evoked than described, beautiful at times poetic prose, three-dimensional characters (including the “evil” ones), questions that aren’t always neatly answered, and a pace that would be described as slow by many but which I found perfectly suited to the nature of the novel.
July 9th, 2007. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Ian R. MacLeod | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Confidence Game by Michelle M. Welch
Confidence Game describes itself as two characters who are troubled by their history and are caught up in a situation that leads them together to confront their problems. The dual main characters of Elzith and Tod are both broken to a certain degree and the story revolves around their burgeoning relationship and the impending problems that they have to overcome.
Elzith is a orphan, raised to be a super competent spy for the Justices of Dabion, a ruling council of Magistrates.
June 21st, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 2.5 | Michelle M. Welch | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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