Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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]: 2014.01

The Iron Trial: A mixed bag, but entertaining enough

The Iron Trial by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare

I listened to The Iron Trial, by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare on audiobook, narrated by Paul Boehmer. It tells the story of Callum Hunt, or Cal, a boy who enrolls in a magical boarding school, makes friends, irritates teachers, and finds out he’s been marked from birth by the greatest enemy the magical world knows. Sounds familiar, right?

I read a lot of complaining reviews about this Middle Grade book, all accusing The Iron Trial of being a Harry Potter rip-off.

Child of a Hidden Sea: Satisfying

Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica

Child of a Hidden Sea is the kind of fantasy book that usually leaves me very aggravated, not because it’s bad, but because parallel world/portal fantasy (whatever you want to call it) usually doesn’t work for me. There are too many leaps of logic that I never really buy into. Things feel clunky, and a good plot seems to be messed up by the complexity that a secondary world alongside our world creates. Therefore I approached Child of a Hidden Sea with a huge amount of skepticism,

The Three-Body Problem: Imaginative SF with a mind melting problem

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

When Cixin Liu opens his novel The Three-Body Problem during the abject years of China’s Cultural Revolution, you realize just how much of Chinese history and myth is already deep into speculative territory for most of us.

The teaching of quantum mechanics is forbidden, the Copenhagen interpretation that posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function is considered “the most brazen expression [of reactionary idealism].” When physicist Ye Zhetai continues to espouse such reactionary ideas,

November 11th, 2014. João Eira, Bill Capossere and Stuart Starosta | Cixin Liu | SFF Reviews | 13 comments |

The Midnight Queen: Like a Georgette Heyer Regency novel with magic

The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

Graham “Gray” Marshall is a gifted magician, studying magic at Oxford’s Merlin College, when some of his classmates insist he come along on a midnight adventure. In no time, things go bad. Gray is blamed for the misadventure and sent away from Oxford to the Breton estate of his tutor, the small-minded, petty and envious Professor Appius Callender. Sophie Callender is the ignored middle daughter of the professor. Her father has told her, repeatedly, that she has no magical ability, but she thirsts for knowledge and reads magical texts in secret.

November 7th, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Sylvia Izzo Hunter | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

California Bones: A fun fantasy caper with inventive magic

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout

Daniel Blackland has been raised to be a magician from at least the time he was six years old and found a kraken spine on Santa Monica Beach. He inherited his propensity to osteomancy — bone magic — from his father, a powerful magician who has made his share of enemies. More than that, he was trained, shaped and molded by his father, who wants to make him strong enough to withstand the schemes of his enemies, regardless of how that hill hurt him, physically and emotionally.

November 5th, 2014. Terry Weyna and Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Van_Eekhout | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Willful Child: Erikson’s Star Trek parody

Willful Child by Steven Erikson

Let’s start with what needs to be said when reviewing a book like Steven Erikson’s Willful Child, a full-bore parody/homage to Star Trek: The Original Series. One, humor is wholly subjective. I, for instance, have never understood the allure of Adam Sandler. My wife, meanwhile, has never understood why I find Airplane funny (I could go on and on with that list, but one will suffice). So one person’s rib-splitting, laugh-out-loud bit will be another person’s “meh.” Second,

Dreamer’s Pool: The perilous business of being female in fantasy

Dreamer’s Pool by Juliet Marillier

Those who have read Juliet Marillier before know the drill: She produces exceptionally readable and endearing fantasy set in the medieval and ancient British Isles, revolving around women, myths, and magic. I adored Daughter of the Forest for its loving recreation of my absolute favorite fairy tale as a kid (the Six Swans).[1] The other SEVENWATERS books went by in a blur of kings and curses because I was on vacation and had to get through the entire series before my Mom left with her duffle bag of paperbacks.

October 28th, 2014. Alix E. Harrow´s rating: 3.5 | Juliet Marillier | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Falling Sky: Good familiar fun

Falling Sky by Rajan Khanna

Falling Sky, Rajan Khanna’s first published novel, is good if familiar post-apocalyptic fun, with plenty of adventure. At 250 pages it’s a good way to spend a couple of evenings or a weekend. Khanna doesn’t explore any new ground here (pun intended) but he has good action sequences and likeable characters.

It is two generations after a virus — the Bug — turned any human infected into an aggressive, bestial killing machine the survivors call the Feral. Ferals breed and care for their young,

October 23rd, 2014. Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Rajan Khanna | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

The Godless: Starts a promising new fantasy epic

The Godless by Ben Peek

The Godless is not Ben Peek’s first published work but, as his fantasy debut, it is a new step in the Australian author’s career. The Godless is set in a fantasy world where a calamitous war between the gods has left them for dead, or dying. In the aftermath of that world-changing event, the gods’ bodies have begun leaking remnants of their powers into the world, creating new Immortals — humans with powers, feared by many.

It is on the literal back of one of these gods that the city of Mireaa,

October 22nd, 2014. João Eira´s rating: 4 | Ben Peek | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The Hawley Book of the Dead: Frustrating

The Hawley Book of the Dead by Chrysler Szarlan

The Hawley Book of the Dead is a debut novel by Chrysler Szarlan, a bookseller from Massachusetts. It follows the story of Revelation Dyer, a Las Vegas stage magician with a real magical talent: the ability to disappear. At the beginning of the story, she accidentally kills her husband, shooting him on stage in a Bullet Catch illusion that goes wrong. Once Reve realizes that the murder was no accident but planned by a mysterious person targeting her and her family, she moves with her three daughters to Massachusetts,

October 15th, 2014. Kate Lechler´s rating: 2.5 | Chrysler Szarlan | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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