Previous SFF Author: Sharon Hinck
(1974- )
Jim C. Hines began writing in the early 90s, while working on a degree in psychology from Michigan State University. His first professional sale was the award-winning “Blade of the Bunny,” which took first place in the 1998 Writers of the Future competition and was published in Writers of the Future XV. For many years, he focused on short fiction. His work has appeared in more than forty magazines and anthologies. During this time, he also picked up a Masters degree in English from Eastern Michigan University. You can read samples and deleted scenes from his books at Jim C. Hines’ website.
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Joining the ranks of comic fantasy authors like Terry Pratchett, Robert Asprin, Esther Freisner, and Piers Anthony is relative newcomer Jim C. Hines. His dungeon delving novel, Goblin Quest, brings a jovial and ironic spirit to the ranks of fantasy fiction.
Jig, a young, scrawny, and near-sighted goblin is content to work with muck. It keeps him out of the way of the rougher, tougher goblins,
John Ottinger (guest)´s rating: 4 | Jim C. Hines | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Jig Dragonslayer has a new quest in Goblin Hero. This time, an ogre has come looking for his help. This is, of course, the last thing the diminutive Jig wants. Nonetheless, spurred on by his god, Tymalous Shadowstar, Jig finds he must accept the ogre’s request. But fighting pixies is not Jig’s idea of a good time, and in this sequel to Goblin Quest Jig must once again rely on his pusillanimous goblin brain to save everyone (including hobgoblins!) from the pixie invasion into the cavern complex the goblins,
John Ottinger (guest)´s rating: 4 | Jim C. Hines | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Goblin War is a completely different novel from the first two novels in this series. Those two books were constrained by the small world of the lair and its surrounding caves. The goblins never left the caves under their mountain, for all the adventures that they had. This meant that the second novel, while having a different set of circumstances, was much like the first in plot and style, and didn’t add too much that was new to Jig the Goblin’s story. But in Goblin War,
John Ottinger (guest)´s rating: 5 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
I’m always a bit wary of books that take fairy tales as source materials. Too often, I’ve found, they fall into a few typical traps. One is they become enslaved by the structure of one cute explanation/cute twist per each plot point of the original fairy tale, so that the twists themselves become predictable: beat one, two, twist, beat one, two, twist. Another is they become so enamored in the humor aspect of their humorous retelling that they lose sight of the telling aspect — so the plot is unoriginal and dull.
Bill Capossere´s rating: 4.5 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Mermaid’s Madness by Jim C. Hines
In The Stepsister Scheme, Jim Hines introduced us, or rather, re-introduced us, to three of the best-known fairy-tale characters: Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, known respectively in the book as Snow, Danielle, and Talia. When Talia used her deadly fighting skills to save Danielle from a murderous attack by one of Danielle’s step-sisters, then joins with Danielle (wielding a glass sword) and Snow White (wielding mirror magic learned at her evil stepmother’s hands) to rescue Danielle’s kidnapped husband, Prince Armand,
Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C. Hines
Red Hood’s Revenge is the third book in Jim Hines’ series that reimagines the characters of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty (going back to their far darker roots than the usual Disney versions) and turns them into a formidable team. As with the first two books, Hines in Red Hood’s Revenge doesn’t simply retell the well-known stories. He reshapes the original story, then jumps ahead in time and uses the familiar tale as a back-story with its many ripples emanating forward in time,
Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Snow Queen’s Shadow by Jim C. Hines
The Snow Queen’s Shadow is not simply Jim Hines’ fourth book in his fairytale princess series, following Red Hood’s Revenge, The Mermaid’s Madness, and The Stepsister Scheme. He makes clear in a direct address to the reader that he sees it as the close to the series, though like any clever writer he leaves himself some wiggle room. Should he choose to end it here,
Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
My experience with Jim Hines’s work has been limited to his PRINCESS series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That series works in the “lighter” side of fantasy, but does so with a sharp intelligence and very strong characterization. Hines is now out with a new series, MAGIC EX LIBRIS, and judging by its introductory novel Libriomancer, this is going to be another winner.
If this were a Hollywood pitch, one might call Libriomancer a cross between Cornelia Funke’s INKWORLD trilogy.
Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3.5, 4 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Codex Born is Jim Hines’ follow-up to last year’s Libriomancer, his breezy love letter to fantasy and science fiction readers and writers. While the sequel didn’t charm me as much as its precursor, its quick pace, likable characters, and frequent allusions to some of my favorite authors, along with Hine’s trademark darkness underlying a lightly comical surface, meant that on balance I found more to enjoy than to dislike.
The series is set in a world where certain people — libriomancers — have the ability to magically pull objects,
Bill Capossere and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 3.5 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Unbound is Jim C. Hines’ third book in his MAGIC EX LIBRIS series, and I had the same response I pretty much had to book two, which was that it is a light sort of fantasy which has issues that are somewhat, but not fully, balanced by the love of the genre evident in the storyline. I noted at the end of my review of book two, Codex Born,
Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | Jim C. Hines | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines
The people remaining on a devastated Earth have been turned into zombies by a virus accidentally unleashed by one of their own scientists. Fortunately for some humans, a race of aliens known as the Krakau have figured out how to genetically engineer humans without the virus. Thus, about 10,000 humans still live, but rather than return to Earth to be cannibalized by their own species, they choose to work for the Krakau who saved them. The Krakau are benevolent overlords; they have even preserved the records of as much of Earth’s civilization as they could so that their human fosterlings can have their own culture.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Jim C. Hines | Audio | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Terminal Uprising by Jim C. Hines
Terminal Uprising (2019) is the second novel in Jim C. Hines’ JANITORS OF THE POST-APOCALYPSE series. It follows Terminal Alliance, which should be read first. There you’ll meet “Mops” Adamopoulos, the boss of a human janitorial crew that works for the Krakau aliens. These friendly aliens saved humanity by genetically engineering thousands of humans after the Earth was ravaged by a virus that turned everyone into zombies.
It’s been a few months since Mops and her crew found themselves accidentally in charge of the spaceship Pufferfish.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Jim C. Hines | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Apex Magazine is a monthly e-magazine that publishes two short stories, one reprint story, a nonfiction piece and an interview in each issue, together with the occasional poem. In the three issues I read, the reprint fiction tended to outshine the original fiction — which doesn’t mean the original fiction was bad, just that it couldn’t quite live up to the standard set by the well-chosen older stories. The interviews are thoughtful and generally go well beyond the usual topics, either to discuss the author’s work in considerable detail or to go into areas not normally explored in most interviews.
Uncanny Magazine is a new bimonthly internet publication edited by Lynn M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas. The editors have explained their mission this way:
We chose the name Uncanny because we wanted a publication that has the feel of a contemporary magazine with a history — one that evolved from a fantastic pulp. Uncanny will bring the excitement and possibilities of the past, and the sensibilities and experimentation that the best of the present offers. . . . It’s our goal that Uncanny’s pages will be filled with gorgeous prose,
Shadowed Souls edited by Jim Butcher & Kerrie L. Hughes
Shadowed Souls is an invitational anthology edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes. Butcher is the author of three fantasy series: THE DRESDEN FILES, THE CODEX ALERA, and THE CINDER SPIRES. Hughes is an established short fiction writer who has edited several anthologies including Chicks Kick Butt, Westward Weird, and Maiden Matron Crone.
The theme of Shadowed Souls is,
Where the Veil Is Thin edited by Cerece Rennie Murphy & Alana Joli Abbott
Where the Veil Is Thin (2020), an anthology of stories about fairies and spirits, began as a Kickstarter. The project was successful, and the book is now widely available. Editors Cerece Rennie Murphy and Alana Joli Abbott have brought together a diverse group of authors with a wide variety of writing styles and approaches to the fae. While the tag line on the back cover says “These are not your daughter’s faerie tales,” some of the stories do read as if they might be intended for a youthful audience,
Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | C.S.E. Cooney, Carlos Hernandez, Jim C. Hines, L. Penelope, Linda Robertson, Seanan McGuire | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Sharon Hinck
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one