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]: 2019.01

A Sword Named Truth: A feast for Sartorias-deles fans

A Sword Named Truth by Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith has been writing fantasy novels and stories in her Sartorias-deles universe for over fifty years, since she was a child. The result is a literary edifice of incredible detail, scope and imagination, which has a large wiki (including several lengthy timelines) devoted to it. Sartorias-deles is a magical world in a different solar system, but there are gates between Sartorias-deles and our world that allow people (with the help of magic) to cross between the worlds.

July 24th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Sherwood Smith | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

One Word Kill: A tale of teens, time travel, D&D, and cancer

One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence

One Word Kill (2019) is a tale of 1980s British teenagers, time travel (bonus: with branching universes), Dungeons & Dragons, and cancer. As the first book in Mark Lawrence’s IMPOSSIBLE TIMES trilogy, it sets things up nicely, and we’re all three looking forward to the next two novellas.

We know that the first-person narrator of the story has cancer ― leukaemia, to be precise ― from the very first paragraph of the story.

Aurora Rising: A snarky space thriller

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

A lot of YA fantasy and science fiction works follow teenager characters as they attend magic or spaceflight school (I would take either!), but not nearly as many follow the characters’ lives after graduation. Aurora Rising (2019), a new YA space adventure from Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, the authors of the well-regarded ILLUMINAE FILES trilogy, take the latter approach, following a diverse cast of older teens as they graduate from Aurora Academy in the year 2380,

Upon a Burning Throne: “When elephants do battle, insects are crushed underfoot.”

Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

Ashok K. Banker crafts an intricate and wide-ranging world in Upon a Burning Throne (2019) the first volume in the BURNT EMPIRE SAGA. This novel alone covers the span of decades, touching on the lives of dozens of characters, implementing mythology and magic and carefully-plotted battles in equal measure. Gods, warriors, mystics, kings, and even the humblest of charioteers all have their parts to play in this nearly-700-page epic loosely based upon The Mahabharata,

April 30th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Ashok K. Banker | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Finder: Adventures of a space-age repo man

Finder by Suzanne Palmer

Fergus Ferguson, a large, redheaded man from Scotland by way of Mars, has made a “career out of chasing things and running away.” He’s running away from his past, for reasons that gradually become clear. But right now he’s focused on chasing something: an expensive, sentient spaceship, Venetia’s Sword, that was stolen from its makers by Arum Gilger, a criminal mob boss. This repo mission has led Fergus to Cerneken or “Cernee,” a haphazard space colony consisting of a ring station surrounded by a of hundreds of marginally-habitable rocks,

April 26th, 2019. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Suzanne Palmer | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Sky Without Stars: Do you hear the people sing?

Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody & Joanne Rendell

Street-smart Chatine Renard spends her days scrounging for trinkets, or sometimes liberating them from their owners directly, and committing other crimes while dressed as a boy so that she can’t be forced to sell her blood, a nominally-legal vocation which might bring good money in the short-term but is sure to kill her within a few years. Alouette Taureau is a sweet, dangerously naïve girl brought up in near-seclusion under the watchful eyes of her kind father and the Sisters who hide belowground,

PERfunctory AfFECTION: Far from perfect

PERfunctory AfFECTION by Kim Harrison

Three years ago Meg, a talented artist who also works as a university art instructor, was in a bad car accident. She was driving and her boyfriend, the passenger, was badly injured. Since then she’s dealt with PTSD, high levels of anxiety, and overwhelming guilt. She has also had trouble recovering after her mother’s death and this has led to depression. Meg is pretty messed up and has trouble teaching her classes, making friends, and coping with life in general.

As the novella opens, Meg’s psychiatrist has put her in an experimental drug study.

Slayer: It slays, more or less (I’m sorry)

Slayer by Kiersten White

According to whom you ask, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is either a campy, inexplicably popular teen drama from the 90s, or it’s some of the best television ever made. Not to say that the show can’t be both, because in fact it is. The karate kicks and monster makeup one step up from Halloween masks were corny even for the time, and I for one would never have expected a show with such a — let’s face it — silly premise to acquire a fan following so strong that it has persisted for over twenty years.

Smoke & Summons: The city outshines the characters

Smoke & Summons by Charlie N. Holmberg

Charlie N. Holmberg’s latest novel is Smoke & Summons (2019) volume one of the NUMINA TRILOGY, in which a mysterious girl flees from magical slavery, girl meets boy, boy turns out to be a skilled thief with a troubled past and a heart of gold, boy helps girl avoid capture, feelings grow between them, and so on.

The girl in question is Sandis, and the boy (well, mid-twenties adult man) is Rone.

A Memory Called Empire: A richly layered debut

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire (2019) is one of the more ambitious books (and certainly debuts) I’ve read in some time, an ambition well within the author’s reach, it turns out. Richly layered, backgrounded with vividly intriguing world-building, nicely paced in the way it moves and unfolds, and filled with complex, engaging characters, it’s pretty much everything one can ask for in a book.

Most of the setting takes place on the capital world of the Teixcalaanli Empire,

March 29th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Arkady Martine | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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