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

The Fever King: A queer future world

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

It’s the 22nd century, and North America is divided into several different countries in the aftermath of a worldwide disaster. A plague that first hit back in the early part of the 21st century killed ― and continues to kill ― almost every person who get infected with the virus. Those few who survive become “witchings,” developing a variety of magical powers as a result of the virus’s presence in their body.

Noam Álvaro is a bisexual teenage refugee from Atlantia, now living in the West Durham slums of the more well-developed country of Carolinia.

Crown of Feathers: Too familiar for me

Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto

If you like Anne McCaffrey’s DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN series and are looking for more of the same — elite society of beast-riders with a telepathic/empathic link between human and animal — then Nicki Pau Preto’s YA debut novel Crown of Feathers (2019), the first in a series of the same name, might be worth your time. If you’ve read enough of this type of book to pick out key plot points and character developments from seven leagues away,

Polaris Rising: A sexy, take-no-prisoners romp through space

Polaris Rising by Jessie Mihalik

Jessie Mihalik’s debut novel, Polaris Rising (2019), is a bit like if Leia Organa and Han Solo didn’t have that wet blanket Luke Skywalker moping about, bringing everyone down with his whinging about moisture farming and power converters. It’s a story about a runaway princess and an outlaw soldier causing all kind of space-shenanigans, evading capture by the princess’ intended fiancé and her overbearing father, and the best part is that the princess is the one driving all the action and risking everything to protect her life and the lives of her companions.

March 12th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Jessie Mihalik | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Gates of Stone: Worldbuilding and characters make up for the well-trod plot

Gates of Stone by Angus Macallan

Angus Macallan turns in a solid if somewhat overly familiar fantasy story in Gates of Stone (2019), the first in a series entitled LORD OF THE ISLANDS. What saves the book from sinking in that familiarity, though, are some interesting characters and a less-familiar setting/mythos.

The novel follows four characters in mostly separated story lines, though they do cross paths now and then before the stories converge. In one, sixteen-year-old Princess Katerina, robbed of what she thinks was her rightful place as heir to the Empire of the Ice-Bear (think ancient Russia) and married off to a Southron prince,

February 19th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3.5 | Angus Macallan | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Chronin Vol. 1: The Knife at Your Back

Chronin Vol. 1: The Knife at Your Back by Alison Wilgus

The time: July 1864. The place: a tea shop in Edo; what modern folks would call Tokyo, Japan. After some reluctance on his part, a tea mistress named Hatsu hires a reticent samurai, Yoshida Minoru, to act as her bodyguard while she travels outside the city on a private errand. What Hatsu quickly discovers, and what the reader already knows, is that Yoshida Minoru is no samurai at all — but is actually Mirai Yoshida, a university student from New York City in the year 2042.

February 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 4 | Comics | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Watch Hollow: A nice blend of creepiness and charm

Watch Hollow by Gregory Funaro

Gregory Funaro’s just-published Watch Hollow (2019) is a charmingly spooky (or perhaps spookily charming) contemporary fantasy featuring an 11-year-old girl, Lucy Tinker, her 13-year-old brother Oliver, and their clockmaker father … and also a fearsome giant, a boy who mysteriously appears and disappears, and a full dozen magical talking animals sure to warm the hearts of middle grade readers.

After a brief prologue with a heart-stopping chase involving the giant, a traitorous crow, and a rat named Fennish Seven,

Black Leopard, Red Wolf: A frenetic journey through mythical Africa

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

“The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.”

Thus opens Marlon James’ highly anticipated Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019) in a frenetic, dizzying tale of Tracker, the hunter tasked with finding a child at the centre of this fantasy steeped in African mythology.

The story opens with Tracker being interrogated by the Inquisitor in a grimy prison cell. “Truth eats lies just as the crocodile eats the moon,” he says, and it soon becomes apparent that this will not be the kind of fantasy epic fans of the genre are used to.

February 5th, 2019. Ray McKenzie´s rating: 4 | Marlon James | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Ruin of Kings: A solid series starter with some structural issues

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons

Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings (2019) is the first of a five-book series, A CHORUS OF DRAGONS, that didn’t fully win me over but did do just enough to keep me reading through its 500-plus pages and end up sufficiently intrigued to move on to the sequel when it eventually arrives. I just wish I could have written “excited to move on to” rather than “sufficiently intrigued.”

The novel’s structure is a bit complicated.

February 5th, 2019. Bill Capossere´s rating: 3 | Jenn Lyons | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Gutter Prayer: Alchemical fire, living saints, and knucklebones

The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan

The first instalment in Gareth Hanrahan’s THE BLACK IRON LEGACY is a bit like an avalanche: The Gutter Prayer (2019) starts out slowly and a tad scattershot, taking about 150 – 200 pages to build momentum, but when everything falls into place, it becomes an onslaught, picking up speed over the next 300 or so pages before crashing to a breathless finish.

Within the ancient coastal city of Guerdon, citizens maintain an air of normalcy,

January 30th, 2019. Jana Nyman´s rating: 3.5 | Gareth Hanrahan | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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