Previous SFF Author: Isobel Bird
Anne Bishop won the William L. Crawford Memorial Fantasy Award for The Black Jewels Trilogy. Anne Bishop lives in upstate New York where she enjoys gardening, music, and writing dark, romantic stories. Read excerpts at Anne Bishop’s website.
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THE BLACK JEWELS TRILOGY by Anne Bishop
Imagine a fairy-tale heroine. You know the type: beautiful, kind, able to charm all the beasties of the forest into eating out of her hand. On the astral plane, she even has a unicorn’s horn. Now imagine that she has enough magical power to move mountains. (Literally.)
You might think this is a recipe for the worst Mary Sue in the history of literature, but in Black Jewels, it works. There’s a reason Jaenelle is the way she is.
Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Warning: This review will contain some spoilers.
The Black Jewels Trilogy was and is one of my very favorite guilty pleasures. Yet I’ve been avoiding Tangled Webs (what is tagged book six in what is now called The Black Jewels Series — don’t even get me started on that) for some time. To explain why, I’ll give you a quote from the publisher’s blurb:
“The invitation is signed “Jaenelle Angelline,”
Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 1 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop
My last encounter with Anne Bishop’s BLACK JEWELS SERIES did not go well. Okay, that might be a bit of an understatement. But I suppose even my inner fangirl is a bit hard-pressed to let go sometimes, so I decided to give the series one last try.
The setup is somewhat different for The Shadow Queen. After suffering centuries of abuse and degradation under corrupt Queens, the territory of Dena Nehele is left without a Queen at all.
Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 3 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Shalador’s Lady by Anne Bishop
Remember how, during my review (above) of The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop I said that if you haven’t read any of the series before now, you should just skip the review? Well, allow me to reiterate that sentiment for Shalador’s Lady. Because trust me, you will have no clue what’s going on here. THE BLACK JEWELS SERIES can usually be summed up much like anime: it’s complicated.
In The Shadow Queen we met Cassidy,
Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 0.1 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Pillars of the World by Anne Bishop
I loved Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy so much. But it took me a long time to pick up The Pillars of the World, because it just didn’t sound terribly appealing.
And it wasn’t appealing in the least. The one character I did like was portrayed as a cold, possessive jerk by the end of the book. The mysterious Lucien is shunted aside for the “sweet” Neall who has about as much depth as a puddle.
Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 1 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It always saddens me when an author I thought was good turns out to be…well, not so good. I was willing to forget about Anne Bishop’s previous trilogy (Tir Alainn) and go into Sebastian with her original Black Jewels Trilogy in mind.
This just was not a good book. It was not a fantasy novel, so much as a romance novel with some fantasy concepts. And they are interesting concepts, as Bishop’s often are (although a bit confusing until you get far enough into the book to make the right connections).
Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 2 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Meg Corbyn has escaped from the man who’s been using her prophetic abilities for his own profit. Meg has never been in the outside world — she’s been institutionalized since she was a child — and she has no idea how to take care of herself. The only place where she might successfully hide from her owner is in the Courtyard of the Others, a race of dangerous shapeshifters who are much more animal than human. Meg applies for the Others’ job opening as a liaison to the humans.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Anne Bishop | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Murder of Crows by Anne Bishop
Meg Corbyn, a blood prophet, has finally found a place to belong — among the ferocious shapeshifters called the Others. They love and protect Meg from the man who still hunts her. Meg’s prophetic abilities seem to be getting stronger and she is able to foresee violent interactions between the humans and the Others. Meanwhile Monty, a cop, is trying to defuse tensions before war breaks out.
I didn’t much like Written in Red, the first book in Anne Bishop’s THE OTHERS series.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 1.5 | Anne Bishop | Audio | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Editor’s note: We thank Sarah Chorn of Bookworm Blues for contributing this review to our site. Kat did not like the first two books, Written in Red and Murder of Crows, but the series is extremely popular, so we are pleased to have Sarah’s opinion of the third book, Vision in Silver.
Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
Each installment of Anne Bishop’s THE OTHERS series seems to only make me a bigger fan.
Sarah Chorn | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Wild Country (2019) is the seventh book in Anne Bishop’s series THE OTHERS and, also, the second book in her THE WORLD OF THE OTHERS series.
In Bishop’s fictional universe, the world is made up of humans — who, near as I can tell, are mostly descended from white Europeans — and the “terra indigene,” also called The Others, monstrous creatures with the outward appearance of human beings and who are, apparently, the indigenous peoples of the American continents,
Jana Nyman´s rating: 0.1 | Anne Bishop | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (eds.)
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tearsis the third in the series of fairy tale anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It’s a very good collection; in quality it’s probably equal to its immediate predecessor, Black Thorn, White Rose, though I didn’t personally like it as much for reasons I’ll elaborate below.
My favorite of the stories is Ellen Steiber’s stunning novella “The Fox Wife.” Set in nineteenth-century Japan, it concerns a domineering husband and his young wife who shows signs of becoming a kitsune,
Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Anne Bishop, Delia Sherman, Ellen Datlow, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Terri Windling | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Isobel Bird
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review
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Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!