The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook
The Tyranny of the Night has a lot of what one would expect from Glen Cook. A gritty atmosphere, a darkly wry sense of humor, a world-weary cynicism somehow melded with optimism, complex characters, a slowly engrossing story.
What doesn’t it have? A map for one. Would it have killed the publishers to spend a few bucks having someone draw one? I’d have taken an editor’s six-year-old kid’s drawing of one if I could have.
May 14th, 2008. Bill Capossere and John Hulet´s rating: 4 | Glen Cook | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
Dragon Rider is an early Cornelia Funke novel brought to the U.S. after the success of hermore recent The Thief Lord and Inkheart. Dragon Rider begins with a young dragon named Firedrake who starts off on a quest for the Rim of Heaven, a possibly mythical land where Firedrake and his fellow dragons hope to flee to in order to escape encroaching mankind whose earth-moving machines are on their way.
April 5th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Cornelia Funke | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Born Queen is the concluding (and how often do we get to say that when reviewing a fantasy novel?) book in Greg Keyes’ four-book series, Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. And it does actually conclude the series without any sort of sly wink-wink, nod-nod to a new series rising like the undead from the killed-off plot. For that alone, he should be given lots of credit, along with actually finishing a series in a decent amount of time and space.
March 28th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Rob Rhodes´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Keyes | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Alector’s Choice by L.E. Modesitt Jr
There’s no longer any doubt — Modesitt has fallen into the “shampoo” mode of series writing: rinse-shampoo-repeat. Alector’s Choice, while not a bad book if read on its own (which it can be), is, for fans or former fans of Modesitt’s other work, merely a rehash of the same old same old. Same old plot. Same old characters. Same old conflicts. Same old resolutions. Only the names have been changed to protect the profits (and a possible plagiarism suit if one could sue oneself).
March 3rd, 2008. Bill Capossere and Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | L.E. Modesitt_Jr | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Acacia by David Anthony Durham
David Anthony Durham‘s Acacia has some of elements of epic fantasy we’ve all seen before: a large empire, a resentful race, a king’s children scattered and forced to grow into previously hidden strengths, a near-ritualized style of sword fighting, political intrigue, large battle scenes, and a few others. But anyone thinking to write off Acacia as simply another cookie-cutter fantasy would be missing a highly rewarding read — for Durham gives us these familiar set-ups only to repeatedly yank them out from under our feet.
February 20th, 2008. Bill Capossere, Kevin Wei and Stefan Raets´s rating: 2.5, 3, 4 | David Anthony Durham | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Farthest Shore by Ursula Le Guin
The Farthest Shore is the third book in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series, and the concluding one for several decades. Since it’s highly recommended to have read the first two, I’ll work on the assumption that the reader has. If book one, Wizard of Earthsea has the most action/magic and book two, Tombs of Atuan, is the slowest and most introspective of the opening trilogy, then The Farthest Shore is a nicely-balanced blending of the styles.
January 28th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4, 5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
With New Spring, Robert Jordan offers himself up to two major criticisms up front. One is for releasing a prequel when you haven’t finished the first series yet and the other is for trying to grab a quick book by just padding out an already published first story. With regard to the first, I think it’s pretty silly to complain about an author’s choice of subject — perhaps he became inspired with something in terms of the back story and is excited to write it,
January 26th, 2008. Bill Capossere and Rob Rhodes´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Wounded Hawk by Sara Douglass
Set amid the drama and cast of the 100 Years War (though more parallel than true history), this sequel to The Nameless Day continues the story of Thomas Neville, former cleric returned to his noble life, as he tries to complete the quest given him by archangel Michael — to retrieve a mysterious casket that will allow him to send back to hell the demons that now roam the world. As readers of the first book know (and only readers of the first one should read this),
December 2nd, 2007. Bill Capossere and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Sara Douglass | SFF Reviews | no comments |
At the start, I want to give Brandon Sanderson props just for doing what seems to be the unthinkable nowadays — writing a standalone fantasy, a book that actually comes to a close, a book that is just that, a book and not the “start of a bright new fresh trilogy that out-Tolkien’s Tolkien!” Luckily, Elantris holds up well and even merits beyond being a standalone.
Elantris is the name of the city that until ten years ago was inhabited by near-gods,
November 7th, 2007. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper, Terry Weyna and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Nameless Day by Sara Douglass
The Nameless Day is a difficult book to review as there was so much I didn’t like about it. To begin with, the main character is extremely unlikeable, which isn’t an automatic mark against a book, but when the character stays so consistently unlikeable for such a long time, it does get a bit wearying. We see some slight glimpses of a better man here and there more towards the end, but following Thomas Neville through several hundred pages can seem a bit of a chore.
November 2nd, 2007. Bill Capossere and Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Sara Douglass | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Mine too, but to be fair, he's the only Iraqi torturer I know, fictional or otherwise. He has a great…
COMMENT Sayid ... my favorite Iraqi torturer!
Would you believe that this was the first time that I ever read it? SO glad that I finally caught…
LOVE The Big Front Yard!
Always my pleasure, Marion! And Part 2 of this review should be appearing soon....