Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper
CLASSIFICATION: Songs of the Earth is a PG-13 traditional epic fantasy novel that reminded me at times of Terry Brooks, David Eddings’ The Belgariad, and Gail Z. Martin.
FORMAT/INFO: Songs of the Earth is 480 pages long divided over 37 numbered/titled chapters and an Epilogue. Narration is in the third person, mainly via the protagonist Gair, but there are also several minor POVs.
June 15th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 3 | Elspeth Cooper | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]
FORMAT/INFO: The Watchers is 560 pages long divided over a prologue called ‘Quietus’, four titled books, forty numbered chapters, and an Epilogue. Narration is in the third person via Marc Rochat, Katherine Taylor and Jay Harper. The Watchers is mostly self-contained,
June 10th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4.5 | Jon Steele | Edge | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Blood of the Wicked by Karina Cooper
I can be a sap sometimes, and I confess that a good love story can move me to tears. Blood of the Wicked, however, made me cry for all the wrong reasons.
Blood of the Wicked is the first in the Dark Mission paranormal romance series by debut author Karina Cooper. It appears that each installment will be self-contained and focus on a different couple. The setting is an alternate future: witches existed and were known to exist in the story’s past,
June 8th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2.5 | Karina Cooper | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The young-Irish-lad façade does not stand me in good stead when I’m trying to appear scholarly at my place of business — I run an occult bookshop with an apothecary’s counter squeezed in the corner — but it has one outstanding advantage. When I go to the grocery store, for example, and people see my curly red hair, fair skin, and long goatee, they suspect that I play soccer and drink lots of Guinness. If I’m going sleeveless and they see the tattoos all up and down my right arm,
June 7th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter, Kat Hooper, Tim Scheidler and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Kevin Hearne | Audio | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
When I first saw The Pack, I thought it looked completely cliché. Silly me… Jason Starr takes one of the more oft-used themes in urban fantasy, the werewolf community in modern society, and takes it in an original direction. The Pack has flaws, but it’s so real and the main character is so believable that I finished it in less than 24 hours. Starr deserves a lot of credit for crossing over from the crime fiction genre to urban fantasy and doing it well.
May 31st, 2011. John Hulet´s rating: 4.5 | Jason Starr | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Dead on the Delta by Stacey Jay
Stacey Jay’s fairies are tiny, beautiful… and bloodthirsty. Chemical disasters caused them to mutate, and now they swarm the bayous of the Delta region in search of human blood. Most humans die from the bite. Some expire immediately in intense agony, while others go insane first and live a few more years in containment facilities before dying.
A few humans, though, are immune. Annabelle Lee is one of them. Being immune qualifies Annabelle for all sorts of unpleasant jobs, like collecting fairy poop samples for Fairy Containment and Control.
May 25th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Stacey Jay | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
September’s father has gone off to war and her mother works all day building airplane engines while September stays home and washes the china teacups. Life in Omaha is disappointingly dull for such an imaginative and adventurous (and heartless!) 12-year old girl… until the day September looks out the kitchen window to see the Green Wind perched on his flying leopard and beckoning her to Fairyland.
There are many wonders to see in Fairyland: witches,
May 22nd, 2011. Kat Hooper, Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4, 5 | Catherynne M. Valente | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
For much of her life, Pierce has been haunted by a mysterious young man. She first met him when she was a little girl, but was told he was a figment of her imagination. When she was fifteen, she had a near-death experience and met him again in a strange landscape. Several times since, when she was threatened, the man appeared and put the threatening party in a world of hurt. Now, Pierce and her mother have moved to Isla Huesos, Florida — Mom’s hometown — for a fresh start.
May 20th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2 | Meg Cabot | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Department Nineteen, by Will Hill, is the beginning to a new young adult series involving a top-secret organization dedicated to destroying the vampires that have infiltrated society, along with the rare but occasional monster. It’s a kind of James Bond/Alex Rider meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fast-paced, action-filled coming of age story with some flaws — a few implausible moments, some predictability — but a strong backstory, a likable main character, and its fast pace will more than make up for those flaws with its young adult audience.
May 15th, 2011. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Will Hill | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Dark Descendant by Jenna Black
Nikki Glass is a private investigator, and her latest job has her scoping out what her client tells her is a cult compound. When the job goes horribly wrong, however, she learns two things. One, the “cultists” are actually Liberi, the children of the ancient gods of mythology. And two, Nikki is herself descended (more distantly) from Artemis and has just accidentally stolen the immortality of one of the Liberi. Artemis, as you’ll recall from mythology, was far from promiscuous, so her descendants are rare and their talents much sought after.
May 9th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Jenna Black | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
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…