Across The Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn The tagline stamped across the cover of Lian Hearn’s Across the Nightingale Floor is ‘One boy. One journey. One hidden destiny.’ Not only is this toe-curlingly clichéd, but it’s also pretty deceptive. It’s too reductive, too suggestive of the bog standard hero’s journey every fantasy fan has seen […]
Read MoreRay McKenzie, Bill Capossere, Tim Scheidler, Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 6 comments |
Grass for His Pillow by Lian Hearn We saw myth, legend, folklore and tradition of feudal Japan seamlessly woven in Across the Nightingale Floor, and Grass for His Pillow offers equal richness and storytelling depth. In what marks the second book in the trilogy, Lian Hearn returns to the stories of Takeo and Kaede as […]
Read MoreRay McKenzie and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3, 4 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn With a complicated web of back-story set up and a return to familiar characters that we’ve seen develop, it goes without saying that Brilliance of the Moon should be the gripping climax of a trilogy that has thus far moved from strength to strength. The third and final […]
Read MoreRay McKenzie and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 3.5 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
Heaven’s Net is Wide by Lian Hearn Beauty, Grace, Eloquence. These words define the writing of author Lian Hearn. Her Tales of the Otori series of historical fantasy novels are extremely popular worldwide. If you haven’t read the first four installments, Heaven’s Net is Wide is a great place to begin the story. Because it […]
Read MoreJohn Ottinger (guest)´s rating: 5 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
The Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Hearn Whilst it never gained the traction of the likes of Pullman and Potter, the TALES OF THE OTORI series has all the same ingredients: the epic scope, mystery and intrigue, impossible love and an entirely immersive setting. Whether it was luck or timing that never saw […]
Read MoreRay McKenzie´s rating: 3 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn Japan in 1857 is in turmoil. Internal divisions mean the country is on the brink of civil war, whilst after centuries of isolation, the country has also opened its doors to the west. In the midst of this instability, Tsuru, a doctor’s daughter, wishes to study medicine, but the […]
Read MoreRay McKenzie´s rating: 2.5 | Lian Hearn | Edge | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Emperor of the Eight Islands by Lian Hearn Emperor of the Eight Islands, by Lian Hearn, is the first book in a series of four, called THE TALE OF SHIKANOKO. The books are published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and all four will be issued in 2016 (April, June, August, September). The publisher has used […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 4 comments |
Autumn Princess, Dragon Child by Lian Hearn Lian Hearn’s Autumn Princess, Dragon Child, the second book in THE TALE OF SHIKANOKO, begins right where the first book ended. This series plays out on a broad canvas and in this volume we follow some characters we saw only briefly in Emperor of the Eight Islands. Some […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
Lord of the Darkwood by Lian Hearn This is Book Three in a quartet and this review may contain spoilers for earlier books. In the third installment of Lian Hearn’s THE TALES OF SHIKANOKO, the story moves to the next generation, with the true emperor and the son of Shika and the Autumn Princess. In […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 3.5 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
The Tengu’s Game of Go by Lian Hearn At the beginning of THE TALE OF SHIKANOKO, Shikanoko’s father played a game with a tengu. He lost, and what he lost cast an entire kingdom into disaster. Shikanoko, whose birth name was Kazumaru, was tainted by sorcery and as much a victim as a wielder of […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Lian Hearn | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
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