2006.01 | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

Blood and Iron: Creativity and Imagination

Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear may have given her novel a rather generic title, but within the covers of the book is a story of intrigue, politics, family relations, romance, mystery and magic, as well as one of the best depictions of Faerie I’ve read in a long time. If you love fantasy, but are sick of boring Tolkien knock-offs, then Blood and Iron should fix you up nicely. Reminiscent of several other original fantasists, (Patricia McKillip and Jan Siegel spring to mind) this is an interesting take on the world of Faerie and its relationship to our own world.

October 16th, 2007. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4 | Elizabeth Bear | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Doppelganger (Warrior): Marie Brennan’s debut shows promise

Doppelganger (Warrior) by Marie Brennan

I picked up Doppelganger (Warrior) because Marie Brennan is a graduate student at Indiana University where I also went to grad school, so I felt a connection there. (How she’s managing to write novels while in grad school, I’ll never know!) Overall, Doppelganger is a good debut.

At first the story follows the separate lives of Mirage, a kick-butt warrior who has recently graduated from warrior school and makes her living by being commissioned for various dangerous tasks,

June 21st, 2007. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Marie Brennan | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Turning: Fast-paced and sexy, but familiar

The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout

Fans of vampire novels should check out The Turning, the first novel in Jennifer Armintrout‘s Blood Ties series, an exciting and sexy addition to the genre.

Our heroine, Carrie, is a young doctor whose sire accidentally turns her into one of his kind during a fight in the hospital morgue. Carrie has little to leave behind in her mortal life. Her parents were cold in life and are now deceased, and she has no friends,

June 9th, 2007. Kelly Lasiter and John Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Jennifer Armintrout | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Mistborn: The Final Empire: So much to like!

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

I was a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s first novel, Elantris, though the novel had some pretty clear flaws. I’m an even bigger fan of his follow-up, Mistborn, a book that has all the plusses of Elantris without the problems.

Mistborn takes places in an ashen, devastated world where the “Skaa” are a brutally downtrodden majority who do all the work for the aristocratic minority of the Great Houses,

The Blade Itself: Vivid, tense, action-packed, and droll

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

By setting The Blade Itself (2006), the first book of his FIRST LAW series, in a well-built world and filling it with interesting, “gritty” characters, Joe Abercrombie creates a good balance of stage-setting and story-telling.

The story is told from the perspective of five major characters who are gradually drawn together and whose collected experiences create an engrossing tale. There is the mage, the apprentice, the barbarian, the gifted young noble, the crippled anti-hero… and so forth. Abercrombie writes engaging characters — perfect for my personal tastes.

June 1st, 2007. John Hulet, Kat Hooper, Rob Rhodes and Greg Hersom´s rating: 4 | Joe Abercrombie | SFF Reviews | no comments |

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]: 2006.01

Blood and Iron: Creativity and Imagination

Doppelganger (Warrior): Marie Brennan’s debut shows promise

The Turning: Fast-paced and sexy, but familiar

Mistborn: The Final Empire: So much to like!

The Blade Itself: Vivid, tense, action-packed, and droll

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