Keri Arthur’s books aren’t normally my style, but the description of City of Light (2016) interested me, so I jumped on it. A futuristic world that has been ravaged by war? Reality has been fundamentally altered? Yes, please.
The worldbuilding impressed me from the start. This world felt strange enough to not be our world, but similar enough for me to try to pick out where all this was taking place from various points of reference Arthur gave her readers.
June 26th, 2017. Sarah Chorn´s rating: 4 | Keri Arthur | SFF Reviews | no comments |
This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
This Savage Song (2016) is the first book in the MONSTERS OF VERITY duology by Victoria Schwab and it’s a strong entry point — fast moving, smoothly told, with a compellingly dark premise and engaging, interesting characters. Even better, there’s no drop off in book two (Our Dark Duet), so I can unabashedly recommend the entire story to readers.
The setting is an alternate world where the US broke up after the Vietnam War into nearly a dozen territories.
June 14th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Victoria (V.E.) Schwab | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Eighteen year old Gideon Blake has waited his whole life to become a US Army ranger, but when his whole life comes to an abrupt end, those dreams can no longer become a reality. Instead, he finds himself wearing a mysterious metal bracelet he can’t remove and most certainly not as dead as he should be. Gideon discovers that he is, in fact, living out (ahem) his true destiny: he has been reincarnated as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, War.
Gideon should have died.
May 23rd, 2017. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3 | Veronica Rossi | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Moon Knight (vol. 1): Lunatic by Jeff Lemire (writer) and Greg Smallwood (artist)
Moon Knight: Lunatic is the first volume in a new series that, as I write, is up to the thirteenth issue, and since this volume includes issues one through five, we can anticipate at least two more collected volumes of five issues each. The Marvel character Moon Knight has been around since the mid ‘70s, and though he has similarities with other characters from DC and Marvel, what makes him truly unique is that he has a serious mental diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder,
May 13th, 2017. Brad Hawley´s rating: 5 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In an advanced, multi-planetary empire replete with advanced technology and magical mysticism, Captain Kel Cheris finds herself resorting to heretical tactics to save her troops when she puts down a sacrilegious rebellion. Unfortunately, her superiors in Ninefox Gambit (2016) aren’t quite sympathetic to her play, choosing to use her as a tool to revive and serve as a bodily host to the immortal spirit form of General Shuos Jedao to save the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a religious stronghold that’s critical to the civilization’s magics.
February 24th, 2017. Kevin Wei and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5 | Yoon Ha Lee | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Tiger and the Wolf (2016), just issued in trade paperback format, immerses you a Bronze Age/early Iron Age world, where every human is a shapeshifter. People divide into clans according to the animal they change into, which happens instantly and, for the most part, at will. Their shapeshifting animal informs their clan’s physical appearance as well as the nature of their society. It’s a brutal life, with the stronger tribes like Tigers and Wolves fighting for supremacy. Groups like these dominate the weaker clans like the Deer and Boars,
February 21st, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Adrian Tchaikovsky | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Diabolic (2016) is set in some distant future, when humans have settled the galaxy using spaceships that travel through hyperspace. Humanity has also been experimenting with genetic engineering, and for a period of time it becomes fashionable to purchase so-called Diabolics as bodyguards. Diabolics are cloned humans, engineered to have superior strength and resistance to sickness and poisons, and trained from early childhood to be skilled and ruthless fighters and killers, with no regard for anyone but the person they are chemically induced to love and protect.
February 15th, 2017. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | S.J. Kincaid | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza
Empress of a Thousand Skies by Rhoda Belleza is a YA space opera that feels a bit like old-time science fiction with a modern sensibility, in that characterization takes a back seat to a plot that can’t really be examined too closely, but those relatively flat characters are a nicely diverse mix in terms of gender and color. Sometimes such a propulsive plot can compensate for, or at least ameliorate somewhat, flat characters, but the plot also had its issues,
February 7th, 2017. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Rhoda Belleza | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Nine of Stars (2016), Laura Bickle‘s dark and fantastical tale of an alchemist’s daughter in Wyoming, is attempting to cast a wide net as far as its readership goes. It is billed as both the third instalment of the DARK ALCHEMY trilogy, as well as the first book in the WILDLANDS series, which readers can jump straight into. What’s more, it’s a fantasy-cum-crime-cum-romance, so it should in theory be ticking a lot of boxes for a lot of readers.
January 24th, 2017. Jana Nyman and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 3 | Laura Bickle | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
In the Nigerian town of Rosewater, Kaaro, the main character of Tade Thompson’s Rosewater (2016), works for Section 45, a sinister government agency. Rosewater is built next to an alien dome, Utopicity, and the arrival of the aliens ten years earlier seems to have unleashed a host of unusual occurrences and abilities within the human population of Rosewater.
Kaaro is one of these people — for his job at Section 45, he prevents crime, can read the minds of prisoners,
January 4th, 2017. Kate Lechler and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Tade Thompson | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.