Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore
Sometimes, a fantasy story comes along that simply isn’t meant to be taken seriously. This is one of them.
Not to say that that’s a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s wonderful. Resenting the Hero happily mocks a number of fantasy standards, yet manages to avoid completely sacrificing its own story to do so. The plot is not mindblowing or anything, far from it, but it is well suited to the humorous type of story that Resenting the Hero is.
February 8th, 2008. Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 5 | Moira J. Moore | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
Based loosely on the fairytales of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and “The Frog Prince” (but adding plenty of her own ideas), Juliet Marillier crafts an entertaining story of magic and faerie, set in the wild-lands of Transylvania. Jena is one of five sisters (Tatiana, Iulia, Paula and Stela) who have long-since kept a secret in their bedroom: a magical portal into the Other Kingdom, through which they can pass through every full moon to cavort with faerie-creatures in the Dancing Glade of the Faerie Queen.
January 29th, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3 | Juliet Marillier | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold
After reading Lois McMaster Bujold‘s first Chalion book, I was an instant fan (see review above). So, I was really excited to get my hands on the audio versions of the first two novels in her second fantasy series: The Sharing Knife.
Alas, it really pains me to have to write a lackluster review for anything Bujold does, but here we go.
First, let me say that Beguilement is a romance novel,
January 15th, 2008. Kat Hooper and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Lois McMaster Bujold | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
In a genre that has become over-saturated in recent years with second and third-rate carbon copies looking to feed off the successes of more popular series such as Laurell K. Hamilton’s ANITA BLAKE novels, The Devil You Know is quite a breath of fresh air. At a glance there may seem to be a lot of similarities: the contemporary setting where the paranormal has become a part of everyday life, the down-on-your-luck main character who narrates in a first-person perspective,
January 14th, 2008. Robert Thompson´s rating: 3.5 | Mike (M.R.) Carey | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Girl’s Guide to Witchcraft by Mindy Klasky
Jane Madison has always thought of herself as “plain Jane” and — let’s face it — her life does leave something to be desired. A low-paid, overworked librarian of an obscure resource library in Washington DC, Jane fills her days mooning after her “imaginary boyfriend” Jason Templeton, a professor at one of the local universities who does his independent research in her section of the library every week.
One day however, her boss calls her into her office to give her some bad news: the library’s funding is so bad that she is going to have to cut Jane’s pay…by 25%.
December 19th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 4 | Mindy Klasky | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hood is the first novel in Stephen Lawhead‘s latest series, the King Raven Trilogy, which is a historical fantasy based on the Robin Hood legend. Lawhead places his story in Wales after the conquest of Britain by the Normans and during the reign of William the Red. (If that sounds a bit odd, Lawhead gives several convincing reasons for this at the end of the book — you might want to read that first.) The Normans are encroaching into Wales,
December 7th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Stephen Lawhead | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
THE ORPHAN’S TALES by Catherynne M. Valente
I haven’t read any fantasy quite like Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales duology. This is the story of a young orphan girl who is shunned because of the dark smudges that appeared on her eyelids when she was a baby. She lives alone in a sultan’s garden because people think she’s a demon and nobody will claim her. However, one of the young sons of the sultan, a curious fellow, finds her in the garden and asks her about her dark eyes. She explains that there are wonderful stories written on her eyelids and that a spirit has told her she must read and tell the stories;
November 12th, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Mythopoeic Award | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
“I do not believe they ever meant unkindness.”
So Octavian says of those to whom he was an experiment, to those who claimed he was chattel, to those who weighed his excrement daily and compared it to his intake.
It is perhaps this book’s most frightening truth that he is correct.
Octavian and his mother were sold into slavery in the 1760s, in Boston, to The Novanglian College of Lucidity. These men were rationalists, and sought to discover — once all of the niceties are removed — whether the Negro was inferior to the European.
November 3rd, 2007. Guest´s rating: 5 | M.T. Anderson | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
VEIL by Christopher Golden
The Veil series, by Christopher Golden, is something of a mixed bag. The first two books, The Mythhunters and The Borderkind, are fairly good. I enjoyed the world created in The Mythhunters. The books are a new take on some of our well-known characters from various fairy tales, legends, and pantheons. The legends of The Veil, however, are to children’s bedtime story characters what Stephen King‘s Pennywise is to circus clowns.
October 25th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 2.5 | Christopher Golden | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Let me start by saying that I like Yasmine Galenorn‘s writing quite a lot. I love her pagan/metaphysical books — she’s one of the few authors out there who seems to have a genuine passion for the subject matter—and I’ve also enjoyed the one installment of Chintz ‘n’ China that I’ve read.
That said, I didn’t really enjoy Witchling, the first novel of her Sisters of the Moon series, though I feel kind of bad saying so about something she’s obviously worked hard on and feels strongly about.
October 25th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter and John Hulet´s rating: 2 | Yasmine Galenorn | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…