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]: 2010.02

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The Candy House: A not-so-futuristic future

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan What is most frightening about the imagined conscious-sharing technology in The Candy House (2022) is that it’s not so far off from our own reality. ‘Own Your Unconscious’ is a futuristic cube that allows users to access and share every memory they’ve ever had, alongside the thoughts and feelings […]

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Hilda and the Midnight Giant: A return to Hilda’s world

Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson The second in Luke Pearson’s HILDA series of graphic novels once again returns to the Scandinavian countryside and the adventures of Hilda, a blue-haired little girl who lives with her mother in a remote cabin. She spends her days wandering about with her sketchbook, exploring the natural […]

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The Serpent Sea: An exotic and beautiful fantasy world

The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells The Serpent Sea (2012) is the second of Martha Wells’ BOOKS OF THE RAKSURA following The Cloud Roads which you’ll want to read first (this review will contain spoilers for The Cloud Roads). In the previous book we met Moon, a solitary Raksura (a humanoid species that can shape-shift […]

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Double Cross: Characters evolve and develop

Double Cross by Carolyn Crane If Mind Games is where Carolyn Crane sets up her world, Double Cross (2010) is where she hits her stride. The world has been built and Crane can really take her time to enjoy the plot and flesh out her characters. Usually the second book in a trilogy suffers a bit, but this one […]

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Deadline: Couldn’t stop reading

Deadline by Mira Grant I advise against reading this review if you haven’t yet read Mira Grant’s Feed, the first volume in her Newsflesh trilogy, but intend to. The review necessarily contains spoilers, without which discussing the second volume, Deadline, would be impossible. Deadline (2011) picks up several months after the end of Feed (2010). The first-person […]

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The Broken Kingdoms: Adventure and tragedy

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin The world has changed over the last several years and the opportunities that are now possible are too hard for Oree to resist, so she left home to seek a new life in Sky. Oree is an artist with a gift for seeing magic, but magic is the only […]

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The Twelve: Thrilling sequel expands epic story and mythology

The Twelve by Justin Cronin Justin Cronin’s 2010 apocalyptic-vampire thriller, The Passage, debuted in the midst of the mass consumer love affair with the weird and supernatural. In the evolution of the vampire in pop culture, Anne Rice turned Bram Stoker’s blood-sucking villain into a romantic lead. Stephenie Meyer morphed Lestat into a high school […]

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The Coldest War: An alternate look at the Cold War

The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis I loved Bitter Seeds, the first volume of THE MILKWEED TRIPTYCH. Ian Tregillis is executing a brilliant spin on twentieth-century world history with this series. The Coldest War begins roughly twenty years after the events of Bitter Seeds, and the name is fitting. Not only is this the Cold […]

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Dead Bolt: Inspired by a San Francisco legend

Dead Bolt by Juliet Blackwell Dead Bolt is the second book in Juliet Blackwell’s HAUNTED HOME RENOVATION MYSTERIES. I liked the first book, If Walls Could Talk, well enough, but felt like it was too similar to Blackwell’s other paranormal cozy mystery series, WITCHCRAFT MYSTERIES. The best thing about both series is that the audiobook […]

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Royal Airs: Not as good as Troubled Waters

Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn Royal Airs is the second book in Sharon Shinn’s ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS series. I loved the first book, Troubled Waters, which was a light romantic fantasy that told the story of Zoe Ardelay, a young woman who was brought to the royal court of Welce to be the fifth wife of […]

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Black Halo: Sam Sykes is a versatile author

Black Halo by Sam Sykes In his first book, Tome of the Undergates, Sam Sykes proved he was a versatile author. He wrote some intense, realistic battles and mixed them with some of the most peaceful, beautiful passages I’ve seen in such a violent book. Interspersed with all of this was some fantastic humor that […]

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Stealing Magic: Full of unmet potential

Stealing Magic by Marianne Malone Stealing Magic is the second book in Marianne Malone’s SIXTY-EIGHT ROOMS adventure series for middle grade readers. The series has a fascinating premise — two 6th grade kids find a way to explore the Thorne Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago and discover that they can use the rooms to get into […]

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The Shadow of the Soul: A complicated, suspenseful tale

The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough Warning: This review contains spoilers for the first book in the FORGOTTEN GODS trilogy, A Matter of Blood (reviewed here). As The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough opens, Cass Jones has been through six months of interviews, arrests, statements and the backlash from his discovery […]

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Words of Radiance: Worth the trip so far

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson Words of Radiance is book two in Brandon Sanderson’s huge STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE series, projected to be ten books. In fact, at 1100 pages, Words of Radiance is almost large enough to be its own series (at least once upon a time — I’m thinking say of Zelazny’s AMBER series, […]

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Web of Lies: Proceeds in rather obvious ways

Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep Web of Lies is the second book in Jennifer Estep’s ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN series about Gin Blanco, a young woman with elemental powers who was orphaned when she was a girl and was found and raised by an assassin who taught her the tricks of the trade. She’s known as […]

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Extinction: Did Not Finish

Extinction by B.V. Larson Extinction is the second novel in B.V. Larson’s STAR FORCE series about professor Kyle Riggs who was picked up by an alien spaceship and now captains a fleet of ships that are protecting earth from other aliens. I called the first book, Swarm, “a silly, but exciting, male wish-fulfillment fantasy.” I […]

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Citadel: Better than first book, but still not good

Citadel by John Ringo Citadel is the second in John Ringo’s TROY RISING series. The first book, Live Free or Die, had an interesting plot that was totally derailed by John Ringo’s intrusive and ugly political views which seem closer to neo-Nazism than anything else. So why did I read Citadel? Only because the audiobook […]

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