Alta by Mercedes Lackey Alta (2004), the second book in Mercedes Lackey’s DRAGON JOUSTERS quartet, starts where Joust left off. Vetch, formerly a slave and more recently a “dragon boy” in the land of his enemies, has escaped with the dragon he raised from an egg. They are now in Alta, the land of his […]
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Supreme Power (Vol. 2): Powers and Principalities by J. Michael Straczynski In this volume, the shinola hits the fanola. Turns out alien superbeings don’t like being lied to or manipulated in the way they were raised . . . Who knew?! In Powers and Principalities, the second volume of Supreme Power, Hyperion now knows that […]
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The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau Nickie is eleven years old when her aunt Crystal takes her to Yonwood, North Carolina. Their family has inherited a mansion, Greenhaven, from Nickie’s great-grandfather, and while Nickie loves the old building, Crystal is determined to sell it and get back to Philadelphia as soon as possible. We […]
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The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” Lina and Doon have led their people out from the subterranean city of Ember. Now, they encounter a world full of dazzling new things like birds, sunlight, and trees. For all its wonder, Lina and Doon have not […]
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Darknesses by L.E. Modesitt Jr First off, though this does stand as in independent story in what is called THE COREAN CHRONICLES, it will make a lot more sense to you and you’ll be a lot more invested in the characters if you read the first book ahead of time. Darknesses returns to the same […]
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Rebel Angels by Libba Bray Rebel Angels is the second volume in Libba Bray’s trilogy about Gemma Doyle, a teenage girl who attends a finishing school in Victorian England. The magic she inherited from her mother, a member of the secretive Order, allows her to enter the Realms, a beautiful fantasy world where she is […]
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Runaways: Teenage Wasteland by Brian K. Vaughan Almost every teenager has a point where he or she decides that parents are either evil, or the lackeys of evil. In the case of six young people in Marvel’s RUNAWAYS, they discover to their shock that their parents truly are, and not just garden variety evil, either; […]
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Enna Burning by Shannon Hale Enna Burning is one of Shannon Hale’s BAYERN books — a set of four “companion” books set in the fictional country of Bayern. Each book can stand alone, but they have overlapping characters. I was glad I had read The Goose Girl, the first BAYERN book, before reading Enna Burning […]
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Marque and Reprisal by Elizabeth Moon After being kicked out of the officer’s academy, getting dumped by her fiancé, and taking a position as a captain in her father’s shipping empire, Kylara Vatta is not living the life she planned. She barely escaped the events in Trading in Danger and was considering severing ties with […]
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The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint From its charming dustcover to the muted two-page illustration at the end, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest is a beautiful book that I would love to read with, or to, a child. Charles de Lint and artist Charles Vess form a perfect collaboration here, with a […]
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The Confusion by Neal Stephenson If Quicksilver, the first book in Neal Stephenson’s BAROQUE CYCLE, focused on events in England and continental Europe during the 17th century, The Confusion is Stephenson taking the time to provide a more global context. Or half of it is. The Confusion combines two novels from the cycle, The Juncto […]
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The Weeping Werewolf by Bruce Coville Moongobble has been assigned his second task to prove he should be a magician: he must get a bottle of tears from the dreaded Weeping Werewolf who lives alone in the forest. Fortunately, Edward, Urk the toad, the Rusty Knight, and Fireball the Dragon are willing to help. When […]
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The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood [In our “The Edge of the Universe” column we review authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.] It is well documented that SFF readers love trilogies, prequel trilogies, […]
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Hercules by Geraldine McCaughrean Geraldine McCaughrean has written four retellings of Greek myths, fleshing out the personalities of various heroes and the circumstances that made them legendary. In her beautiful, fluid prose, McCaughrean hits the perfect balance in presenting the darker aspects of the myths without being either too gratuitous or too prissy. In this […]
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Spook Country by William Gibson William Gibson’s Spook Country is set in the same universe as Pattern Recognition, but Hubertus Bigend aside, there is little here that recalls its predecessor. Spook Country is perhaps the weakest entry in Gibson’s Bigend trilogy. Where Pattern Recognition was told from Cayce Pollard’s point of view, Spook Country is […]
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The Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud The Golem’s Eye is a solidly enjoyable if slightly disappointing follow-up to The Amulet of Samarkand, which admittedly set itself a very high standard. The book returns to the same setting and characters first introduced in Samarkand, while expanding upon the first novel with a few new characters, one […]
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Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green Agents of Light and Darkness, the second book in Simon R. Green‘s Nightside, once again follows the almost always abstruse John Taylor, the private detective who is really good at finding things. In Something From the Nightside we learned that John is a former Nightside badass […]
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The Dragon’s Son by Margaret Weis This typical middle novel concerns the twin sons born to Melisande: Marcus, the son of the King of Idlyswylde, and Ven (short for Vengeance), the son of the dragon who (in the body of the human Grald) raped her. Most of the book focuses on the development of both […]
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Goddess of Spring by P.C. Cast I hesitated to read Goddess of Spring. I never did really get into P.C. Cast‘s first novel, Goddess by Mistake, and I love the Persephone myth and didn’t want to be disappointed. But finally I decided to read Goddess of Spring — and liked it! Lina, a baker from […]
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The House of Storms by Ian R. MacLeod The House of Storms takes place roughly a century or so and in the same world as MacLeod’s The Light Ages. Though it could therefore be called a sequel, one needn’t have read The Light Ages to jump into The House of Storms, as the characters and […]
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Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce Trickster’s Queen is the sequel to Tamora Pierce’s Trickster’s Choice and (so far) the first set of books that are not quartets, but a simple duet. It is also by far her longest book, and in her acknowledgements she credits that to J.K. Rowling due to the fact that the […]
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Inkspell by Cornelia Funke I have to admit that I’ve found Cornelia Funke’s works for the most part to be wonderful concepts whose execution never quite matched their potential. Dragonrider I thought was her most successful work so far, mostly because it didn’t reach quite so high. With Inkspell, however, Funke has finally meshed concept […]
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Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins The Prophecy of Bane continues the strengths displayed in Suzanne Collins‘ first book in the series, Gregor the Overlander. The book moves along quickly and smoothly with few if any slow spots; the major characters, if not minutely detailed, have enough personality and reality to hold […]
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Soul Stealer by Martin Booth I have tracked down Soul Stealer, but I must confess that my search for the third book in this series will be even more lethargic than the search for this one. Despite a strong beginning, and excellent use of real history and alchemical knowledge in the shaping of his story, […]
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