Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch
Snow Like Ashes is Sara Raasch’s debut fantasy novel and for that I commend its fast pace and the strong, if simple, premise. A lack of depth ultimately lets it down but Raasch may well be one to watch.
Our heroine, Meira, lives in a country divided into seasonal kingdoms (in Summer kingdom it is always summer; in Spring kingdom it is always spring — you get the idea). When Meira was a baby, her kingdom (Winter) was taken over by the dominant Spring.
September 7th, 2015. Katie Burton´s rating: 3 | Sara Raasch | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Map to Everywhere by Carrie Ryan & John Parke Davis
The Map to Everywhere is the first installment in a new four-book children’s fantasy series by Carrie Ryan and her husband John Parke Davis. I listened to it with my daughter Tali, who just turned 13. The story made us smile and chuckle occasionally and generally kept us entertained for several hours. We thought it compared favorably with other new fantasy series for kids, but we weren’t blown away.
The story is about two children in tough situations.
August 11th, 2015. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Carrie Ryan | Audio, Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Servant of the Crown by Melissa McShane
Servant of the Crown is a steampunk-flavored young adult romantic fantasy by Melissa McShane, published in July 2015. It is set in a well-imagined Victorian-era type of world where magic plays a lesser and socially suspect role. Alison, the young Countess of Waxwold, is summoned from her city to be a lady-in-waiting to the Dowager Consort of the kingdom for six months. This seems like a prison sentence to Alison, who enjoys her work in the budding printing industry and as a theater patroness,
August 11th, 2015. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Melissa McShane | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The husband-wife author team of Ilona Andrews began their new HIDDEN LEGACY urban fantasy series in 2014 with Burn for Me.
In an alternative reality to our world, a serum discovered in 1863 unleashed people’s magical talents. As the powerful and rich sought the serum as a new way for their families to gain more power and wealth, others realized the potential it raised for chaos and destruction, and locked it away — too late.
August 5th, 2015. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Ilona Andrews | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
I’m a sucker for stories that take place underground, so when I saw the cover and title of Catherine Asaro’s new book, Undercity, I knew I had to break my commitment to not start a new series until I’d finished all the other ones first. (For the last seven months I’ve read only books that continue or finish a series I’ve previously started.)
When she was an orphaned child, Major Bhaajan used to live in the dark dirty tunnels under the city of Cries.
May 22nd, 2015. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Catherine Asaro | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Aidan Harte’s debut novel Irenicon is a mostly impressive beginning to his WAVE trilogy; its richly detailed world, tense plot, and subtle mix of science and magic offset some issues of pace, structure, and character sufficiently enough that I plan on continuing right on with its sequel The Warring States, which just arrived last week.
Irenicon is set in a somewhat off-kilter Renaissance Italy, where centuries earlier Herod’s slaughter of children actually worked,
May 11th, 2015. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Aidan Harte | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick
My low rating of this book reflects my disappointment in the gap between this concept and the execution, especially in the world-building. I also must say that many people on Goodreads loved The Shadow Master by Craig Cormick. Perhaps I’m just not the right reader for this book.
At first glance the book appears to be set in an alternate 15th century Italy with two warring families. There are the star-crossed lovers, Lucia and Lorenzo; each one an orphan,
April 30th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Craig Cormick | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire
One of the things that sets Sparrow Hill Road apart from typical ghost stories is the fact that this is told from the ghost’s (Rose) point of view. You’d think that after her tragic death, and after years of being stuck as a teenager wandering the ghost roads, she’d be bitter and angry, but she’s not. Instead, she’s used her (after) life as a sort of second chance. She goes where the wind takes her, eats the food given to her, and borrows the coats people loan her.
March 1st, 2015. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 4.5 | Seanan McGuire | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Fortress in Orion by Mike Resnick
The Fortress in Orion is the first book in Mike Resnick’s DEAD ENDERS series. Colonel Nathan Pretorius is a decorated hero in the Democracy’s twenty-three year war with the Traanskei Coalition. Just as he is recuperating from his last mission, Pretorius is given a new assignment, one that seems impossible. It means infiltrating the heart of one of the Coalition’s best-defended fortresses and substituting an imposter for an important Coalition member. Early in the book, the odds of success are given as three percent.
February 20th, 2015. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Mike Resnick | SFF Reviews | no comments |
There’s a group of Young Adult authors — I’m thinking of Robin McKinley, Juliet Marillier, Justine Larbalestier, and a few others — who write the kind of books that snooty adults who look down on YA in Internet articles have clearly never read. These are books that don’t get made into popular movies, because most of what happens is internal to the characters.
This kind of YA has depth and resonance and significance. It shines a light on the path for young people (young women,
February 16th, 2015. Mike Reeves-McMillan´s rating: 5 | Alma Alexander | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Yep, which is why I'm willing to give a sequel a shot
Thanks for the reviews you two. I put the book on my TBR as soon as I saw ads for…
We seem to be on the same page. Yeah, the depiction of some (at least two) of the women characters…
The correct and more accurate term for the book thing is "challenged," I think. Frankly, the intentional removal of books…
Not sure I can be persuaded on two of these articles. When I was young book-banning meant you couldn't sell…