Order [book in series=yearoffirstbook.book# (eg 2014.01), stand-alone or one-author collection=3333.pubyear, multi-author anthology=5555.pubyear, SFM/MM=5000, interview=1111]: 2004.01

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Banewreaker: Beautiful but remote

Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey They say there are two sides to every story. In Banewreaker, the first book in Jacqueline Carey’s THE SUNDERING duology, we hear the story of the sundering of the world from the perspective of the dark side. Satoris is one of the shapers of the world, seven sibling gods who crafted […]

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The Atrocity Archives: A sysadmin saves the world

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross The Atrocity Archives contains the first two novellas in Charles Stross’ THE LAUNDRY FILES: The Atrocity Archive and The Concrete Jungle. The series is based on the premise that, before he died, Alan Turing solved a theorem that proved that mathematics could be used to gain access to other […]

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Forty Signs of Rain: A realistic look at environmentalism and politics

Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson With the quality of special effects improved exponentially, the blockbuster disaster movie appeared in the 90s and hasn’t looked back. Tornadoes (Twister), meteors (Deep Impact and Armageddon), seismic activity (The Core), volcanoes (Dante’s Peak), massive weather events (The Perfect Storm), and, who can forget, Sharknado, have in one way or […]

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Raven’s Shadow: A fun, easy read with good worldbuilding

Raven’s Shadow by Patricia Briggs Patricia Briggs’ novel Raven’s Shadow begins with a rescue and a romance. Tier, a Rederni ex-soldier, saves young Seraph, a Traveler girl, from murder at the hands of some ruffians in a tavern and a strange, dangerous man in the forest. Intrigued by this brave, foolhardy girl, Tier takes her […]

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The Darkness That Comes Before: Intelligent fantasy

The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker I believe it warrants mentioning in the beginning of this review that I find myself in a position where my own review might not be, well, very critical. I have been holding off having to review R. Scott Bakker‘s The Darkness That Comes Before because, to […]

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Ghosts in the Snow: CSI set in the Dark Ages

Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones The police procedural isn’t just for the mystery genre any more. Frequently, fantasy writers are combining mysteries with magic in order to produce hybrids that provide all the fun of both genres in a single novel. Tamara Siler Jones accomplishes this feat in her first DUBRIC BRYERLY […]

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Revenge of the Witch: Terrifying children’s fantasy

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son. Therefore, his mother has always planned to apprentice him to the Spook — the traveling exorcist who services the surrounding villages, ridding them of ghosts, witches, ghasts, boggarts, and other troublesome creatures. The Spook performs […]

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Seraphim: Did Not Finish

Seraphim by Michele Hauf The year is 1433. Seraphim d’Ange is a young woman riding through France on a quest for revenge. The de Morte brothers attacked the d’Ange castle, killing Seraphim’s family. Seraphim was raped, wounded, and left for dead. Now she is disguised as “the Black Knight” and killing off the de Morte […]

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Shadowmarch: Good start, and it is just a start

Shadowmarch by Tad Williams Shadowmarch is the start of yet another epic fantasy trilogy by one of the genre’s better known authors. While I wouldn’t personally equate Shadowmarch with Tad Wiliams‘ earlier masterpiece (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn), it does stand above much of what is being written today. As is typical of fantasy, for that […]

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Peter and the Starcatchers: Blasphemous

Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson & Dave Barry How did Peter Pan get to Neverland? Where did Tinkerbell come from? How did Hook lose his hand? And most importantly, how did Captain Hook and Peter Pan meet? This last question is the one Paige Pearson asked her father after hearing “Peter Pan,” which in […]

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Silver’s Edge: Who to trust?

Silver’s Edge by Anne Kelleher I loved Silver’s Edge. It’s an eyes-glued-to-the-page story of politics and war between three realms in a world not unlike Dark Ages Britain or Ireland. The silver caul that once held the Sidhe, the goblins, and the humans in their own little worlds is missing; now the three races are […]

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The Sea of Trolls: Solid story lacks some spark

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer While it was a nice breath of fresh air to see a book that incorporated the Norse mythology involving Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, etc., something relatively rare in all the fantasy out there, it seemed The Sea of Trolls as a whole lacked a spirit or spark to make […]

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Troll Fell: A bit pallid but for Norse background

Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish Troll Fell is a decent young adult book whose Norse background gives a more fresh feel to an otherwise relatively mundane plot and set of characters. Younger readers will most likely enjoy it if not be inspired or captured by it; older readers won’t find much to chew on. The […]

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The Stone of the Stars: I’d have treasured it at 13

The Stone of the Stars by Alison Baird The Stone of the Stars is a fun, if imperfect, high fantasy with gently feminist overtones, a coming-of-age theme, and a slight hint of romance. The beginning is… well, inauspicious. There’s a Prologue that has the feel of warmed-over Tolkien as seen through the lens of the […]

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The Game of Sunken Places: Bit muddled

The Game of Sunken Places by M.T. Anderson The Game of Sunken Places has at its core several relatively humdrum concepts: a board game that plays for real, a hidden kingdom, two friends (one timid, one outgoing), a race to save the (or a) world. This isn’t so bad since so much fantasy works with […]

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Firethorn: Sarah Micklem’s prose is beautiful

Firethorn by Sarah Micklem Reading the publisher’s blurb quoted above, you might expect a very different book from this one. It’s not that it’s inaccurate, per se. It’s just that all of the events in the blurb happen at the very beginning of the story. By page 15, Luck has fled the estate and is […]

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