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]: 2011.01

Debris: A strong, exciting debut

Debris by Jo Anderton

Tanyana is a talented and celebrated architect. She’s one of the elite, someone who can control “pions,” allowing her to manipulate matter with a thought. She’s high up in the air, working on a towering statue, shaping the raw matter around her into art, when suddenly she finds herself under attack by strange, uncontrollable pions. When she regains consciousness after a horrible fall, it becomes clear that she has suffered more than just physical injuries: she’s lost the ability to see pions and can now only see “debris,”

January 10th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 4 | Jo Anderton | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Clockwork Rocket: Hard SF with heart

The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

The Clockwork Rocket, which is the first volume in Greg Egan‘s brand new hard science fiction trilogy ORTHOGONAL, is a book with three different but equally important focal points. On the one hand, it’s the story of a young woman who also happens to be a very alien alien. On the other, it’s a novel about a planet — a very alien planet — on the cusp of tremendous social change. And, maybe most of all,

January 9th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Egan | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Empire State: Full to the brim of neat ideas

Empire State by Adam Christopher

Angry Robot is one of those publishers you just have to keep an eye on, because they come out with some unique, surprising fiction. Their books tend to defy genre conventions and often are impossible to classify. To mess with our heads even more, they then stick weird little filing instructions on them, such as “File Under: Fantasy [ Aztec Mystery | Locked Room | Human Sacrifice | The Dead Walk! ]” for Aliette de Bodard’s Servant of the Underworld,

January 4th, 2012. Stefan Raets´s rating: 2.5 | Adam Christopher | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Demi-Monde: Winter: Did Not Finish

The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees

One more acronym and murder will be done.

To train soldiers for different high-stress combat scenarios, the U.S. military has developed a virtual reality game called The Demi-Monde. The game world is divided into different sections with boundaries like spokes on a wheel. These adjacent sections are overpopulated and made up of different mixtures of races and cultures that should clash and create wars. In addition, scientists have used the DNA of real historical people to create “Dupes” (duplicates) of actual historical tyrants and other bad guys to populate the Demi-Monde with the kinds of people who are likely to initiate conflicts.

December 26th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 0.1 | Rod Rees | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Well of Sorrows: Unfolds slowly yet engrossingly

Well of Sorrows by Benjamin Tate

One’s enjoyment of Well of Sorrows, by Benjamin Tate (pen name of Joshua Palmatier) will depend greatly on two issues: one’s patience for slowly developing stories and the amount of “fantasy” one is looking for in a fantasy novel. But by all means, give this book a try. It turned out to be one of my top ten fantasy reads of 2010. It can, however, go on my “Why do I start reading compelling series before they are completed;

December 22nd, 2011. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Benjamin Tate | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Demon Lover: Does not disappoint

The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

Juliet Dark is a pseudonym for Carol Goodman, two of whose literary suspense novels I read years ago: The Lake of Dead Languages and The Drowning Tree. I enjoyed them, and what I remember most are the mythological themes, the academic settings, and the beauty of Goodman’s prose, especially when describing water, ice, and snow. Recently Goodman has entered the fantasy field, first with the BLACK SWAN RISING novels (written with her husband Lee Slonimsky under the pen name Lee Carroll),

December 20th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Juliet Dark | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Planesrunner: Airships, quantum mechanics and a hero you care about

Planesrunner by Ian McDonald

I’m a pretty big fan of Ian McDonald, so when I learned that a brand new novel by the author was on the way, I got suitably excited. Then, when I found out that the new novel would be the start of a series, and that this series would deal with alternate dimensions and multiverse-type ideas (very different from his last few books), I got really excited. And then, when I discovered that the series would be a young adult series — well, it took me a while to come down from that one.

The Hermetica of Elysium: Enjoyable debut

The Hermetica of Elysium by Annmarie Banks

The year is 1494. Nadira is a Moorish slave whose late mother taught her to read and write in the hopes of bettering her lot. She lives in Barcelona and keeps the books for her master, Sofir, a recent convert from Judaism to Catholicism. Due to the peculiarities of Nadira’s background, she can read and write in a number of languages. Her humdrum existence comes to an abrupt end when an English gentleman, Lord Montrose, takes her away from Sofir and on a dangerous journey.

December 6th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Annmarie Banks | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Emperor’s Knife: Impressive debut

The Emperor’s Knife by Mazarkis Williams

The Emperor’s Knife first came to my attention thanks to an interview I did with Night Shade author Teresa Frohock. Because of Teresa’s glowing comments about the book and Night Shade’s recent track record with debut authors, expectations were high for The Emperor’s Knife, and for the most part, Mazarkis Williams’ debut lived up to those expectations. What impressed me the most about The Emperor’s Knife were the characters, specifically the main POVs of Prince Sarmin,

December 2nd, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Mazarkis Williams | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

Acquainted with the Night: Forgettable

Acquainted with the Night by Piper Maitland

An elderly academic is murdered. In his death throes, he leaves a cryptic message intended for a young female relative. This coded message sends the young female relative and an attractive male academic on a treasure hunt across Europe. They discover a secret that casts new light on religious history and on the female lead’s genealogy, fall in love, and are pursued by both legal authorities and criminal goons. You may be thinking you’ve read this book before. Piper Maitland adds a vampire twist to the formula,

November 25th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2.5 | Piper Maitland | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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