Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
I fell in love with Small Spaces (2018) from the first paragraph. Before I even realized this was the same Katherine Arden whose adult fiction I’ve been meaning to read for years, and before I got caught up in the richly drawn characters and the spooky plot, I was smitten by this:
October in East Evansburg, and the last warm sun of the year slanted red through the sugar maples. Olivia Adler sat nearest the big window in Mr.
October 7th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4, 5 | Katherine Arden | Children, Horror | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
City of Ghosts (2018) by V.E. Schwab is a Middle Grade book that, well, reads like a Middle Grade book.
In other words, it’s entertaining and engaging enough for that age group, but doesn’t have the depth or complexity in plot or characters to expand beyond that audience, which I’m clearly well, well outside of.
Ever since she almost drowned, young Cassidy Blake has been able to see ghosts, to “pull aside the veil” and step for a brief time into their world.
September 27th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Victoria (V.E.) Schwab | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Hills Have Spies by Mercedes Lackey
If, like I was, you’re utterly unfamiliar with Mercedes Lackey’s hugely popular and wide-ranging VALDEMAR series and the various interconnected novels set within that kingdom, The Hills Have Spies (2018) is a good entry point. The narrative flow is familiar in a retro, 1980s kind of way, evoking the fantasy genre I immersed myself in during my adolescence, with an appealing and likeable main character, various clever animal companions, a dastardly villain who spends most of the novel off-page,
September 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3.5 | Mercedes Lackey | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Priest of Bones by Peter McLean
Tomas Piety, a foul-mouthed army priest who recently promoted himself to captain after the death of the former captain, is on his way home with his second-in-command, Lieutenant Bloody Anne, and some of their soldiers. The war is over and Tomas is looking forward to returning to Ellinburg, his hometown, where he owns several small businesses such as taverns and brothels.
Actually, to call Tomas a businessman is slightly generous. In fact, he’s a mob boss and much of his wealth comes from selling protection to those who are weaker.
September 6th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Peter McLean | Audio | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Ink (2018), by Alice Broadway, is the first book in a YA dystopian trilogy with a unique, if gruesome, premise. Everyone in the city of Saintstone has the events of their lives tattooed on their bodies. When a person dies, their skin is removed and made into a book, which is then judged at a ceremony that recalls the Weighing of the Heart in Egyptian mythology. If the person is determined to have lived a good life, the book (and by implication, the person’s soul) is returned to their family to be remembered forever among the ancestors.
August 19th, 2019. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2 | Alice Broadway | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Awakened by James S. Murray & Darren Wearmouth
Grady McGowan has been logging lots of overtime, running a tunnel-boring machine beneath the Hudson River for the massive Z Train subway line extension that will link New York City to New Jersey with an underground express train. They’re even building a state-of-the-art underwater Visitors’ Pavilion in the middle of the Upper Bay. It’s hard work for Grady, but everything is going well … until a huge hole opens up underneath Grady and his machine.
Three years later, the mayor of NYC,
August 2nd, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | James S. Murray | Horror | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep
Lady Everleigh Saffira Winter Blair is a member of the royal family (seventeenth in line for the throne of Bellona, to be precise) and has lived in the royal palace for fifteen years, since her parents were murdered when she was twelve. But this position of access hasn’t exactly translated into a life of privilege for Everleigh, or Evie. Partly because she lacks the powerful offensive magical powers that most royals have (she does have a super-sensitive sense of smell), Evie is treated just a few steps above a servant.
July 11th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Jennifer Estep | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Fang Runin (Rin) is a war orphan living with opium-dealing foster parents who physically abuse her and treat her like a slave, which is miserable enough. But when they arrange a match for her at age fourteen with a twice-divorced merchant three times her age, Rin has finally had enough. She comes up with an escape plan, managing to hold off her foster parents’ marriage plans for her for the time being through a combination of threats and promises. Rin spends every spare waking moment during the next two years studying for the Keju,
June 19th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | R.F. Kuang | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell
Embers of War (2018), which is a finalist for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, is the first book in Gareth L. Powell’s EMBERS OF WAR series. The story is set in the far future, after humans were welcomed into the Multiplicity.
In the prologue we meet Captain Sally (“Sal”) Konstanz and the sentient spaceship she captains, Trouble Dog. They belong to the House of Reclamation, an ancient organization that serves the Multiplicity by rescuing the crews and passengers of injured or stranded spaceships.
June 13th, 2019. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Gareth L. Powell | Audio | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken
Derek Künsken’s The Quantum Magician (2018) is kind of like one of those summer movies where if where you don’t think too much about what is happening, and aren’t looking for deep, moving character studies, you’re more than perfectly happy to glide along the surface and enjoy the ride as things go boom. And though, like a number of those same movies, The Quantum Magician goes on a bit too long, for the most part I happily skated through.
June 11th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Derek Kunsken | SFF Reviews | no 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…