Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker & Larkin Reed
Do you like haunted old houses with tangled histories and lots of secret passages? If so, Amber House is the mother lode. This is the kind of book where the heroine figures out there’s a hidden staircase because, while it’s nowhere to be seen in the house itself, a dollhouse based on the real house does have a staircase in that spot. If this appeals to you — and it definitely appeals to me — you need to read Amber House.
September 26th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Kelly Moore | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Forge of Darkness by Steven Erikson
My personal experience with prequels has been quite mixed. They too often have a rote, going-through-the-motions feel to them. You get the sense the author is simply, mechanically connecting the dots, reverse-engineering the prequel story from characters and events laid out in the original story: “Explained why they call that thingamabob a “graggle”? Check. Explained why everyone wears red now? Check. Why Character A is a jerk? Check.” While this may result in some readerly satisfaction — “Oh, so that’s why it’s a graggle. Cool!”— I’ve found this approach seldom ends up creating an organically compelling storyline or rich characterization.
September 18th, 2012. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Steven Erikson | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Guile of Dragons by James Enge
I just finished James Enge’s epic fantasy A Guile of Dragons, the first book in the TOURNAMENT OF SHADOWS series. This was an enjoyable read. Enge plays with traditional tropes, dragons, dwarves, wizards and heroes, but he puts a refreshing spin on the classic images. There may be dragons and unicorns (yes, there is a unicorn) but they’re not exactly what you’re used to.
In the land of Laent, Morlock syr Theorn was raised by the dwarves,
September 13th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | James Enge | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
It’s six weeks past the apocalypse, where armies of angels have wrought destruction upon the major cities of the earth. Penryn has been hiding in a condo in the suburbs of San Francisco with her paranoid schizophrenic mother and wheelchair bound little sister. When their food runs out, she knows they are going to have to try and escape to the hills where hopefully they can find more supplies. But on their way, they get stopped by a band of dueling angels, one of whom gets his wings cut off.
September 10th, 2012. Ruth Arnell, Rebecca Fisher and Tadiana Jones | Susan Ee | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland
The Dragonet Prophecy is the first in the new series WINGS OF FIRE, by Tui T. Sutherland. It’s set in a world where dragons are the dominant species; humans are present but are called “scavengers” and seen as an occasionally dangerous nuisance. The prophecy concerns five young dragons who, it is foretold, will end a long and ruinous war. The five are hidden away and raised by a small rebel underground.
Sutherland quickly takes this plot in a couple of unexpected directions that hooked me right away.
August 31st, 2012. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3.5 | Tui T. Sutherland | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Blades of Winter by G.T. Almasi
Alix Nico is a red-haired, nano-teched, jacked-up, hard-drinking, part-android, smart-ass, homicidal, loose-cannon Interceptor, an operative for a shadowy intelligence gathering agency called Extreme Operations or ExOps. She is nineteen years old, following in her alcoholic really-loose-cannon father’s footsteps, in a 1980 that’s nothing like the one where Jimmy Carter was finishing up his single term and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was playing in theaters. Blades of Winter by G.T. Almasi is the first book of the Shadowstorm series,
August 28th, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | G.T. Almasi | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent
At first it seems like The Unnaturalists, Tiffany Trent’s young adult fantasy, is a relatively light-weight paranormal romance. In the opening chapter, Vespa Nyx, the rebellious daughter of the curator of the New London Museum of Unnatural History, meets an annoying new Pedant named Hal Lumin. In fact, he rescues her when something goes wrong with a containment field holding a live Sphynx. It seems that Vespa’s biggest problems will be learning to be “ladylike” and facing an arranged marriage.
August 22nd, 2012. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Tiffany Trent | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
To be honest, it’s tough to get too excited about books involving dragons. I mean, when is the last time you read a truly novel take on the creatures? So a tip of the hat and a heartfelt thank you to Rachel Hartman, who manages just that in her YA debut fantasy Seraphina, an excellent first novel that leaves you wanting more at the end.
The book is set in the kingdom of Goredd as it prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the peace treaty between it and the neighboring dragon realm,
August 20th, 2012. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Rachel Hartman | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
My experience with Jim Hines’s work has been limited to his PRINCESS series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That series works in the “lighter” side of fantasy, but does so with a sharp intelligence and very strong characterization. Hines is now out with a new series, MAGIC EX LIBRIS, and judging by its introductory novel Libriomancer, this is going to be another winner.
If this were a Hollywood pitch, one might call Libriomancer a cross between Cornelia Funke’s INKWORLD trilogy.
August 16th, 2012. Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5, 4 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Divergent, by Veronica Roth, is the first novel in a new YA dystopia series. Roth’s is a solid entry into a genre that shows no sign of waning, though the novel doesn’t do much to separate itself from the dystopic pack and falls well short of works such as Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games (its most obvious cousin) or Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies. While it lacks those novels’ vivid characterizations and rich settings,
August 10th, 2012. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Veronica Roth | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 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…