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White Tiger by Kylie Chan sounded like a great departure from the usual urban fantasy fare. Set in Hong Kong, White Tiger incorporates Chinese mythology rather than the more trodden ground of European mythology. The plot sounded like fun, too. It centers on Emma Donahoe, an Australian woman who becomes a live-in nanny in the employ of John Chen, a rich Chinese widower with a little daughter. This scenario gave off a vibe of Gothic romance, a genre that is one of my guilty pleasures.
May 4th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Kylie Chan | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
And it is on this day, the 23rd of April, in the year two thousand and twelve, that I, Ruth Arnell, having been ushered into the world of fantasy readerdom by Arrows of the Queen, have given up on Valdemar.
Mercedes Lackey was my gateway to fantasy as a teenage girl. Valdemar was fascinating to me, but after 30some-odd books set in the world, the magic has faded, especially in the volumes written with her husband Larry Dixon.
This is the third book in the COLLEGIUM CHRONICLES series,
April 23rd, 2012. Ruth Arnell´s rating: 0.1 | Mercedes Lackey | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
I’ve been trying to read Chrysanthe for two weeks now, and still haven’t hit the halfway point. It’s that experience where the bookmark never seems to move; whenever I sit down to read, I can’t get far before my mind starts to wander. With roughly three hundred pages left to go, I’ve decided to cut my losses.
It starts promisingly enough. Yves Meynard introduces us to a little girl, Christine, who lives with her unpleasant uncle in a world similar to our own present day,
March 26th, 2012. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Yves Meynard | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees
One more acronym and murder will be done.
To train soldiers for different high-stress combat scenarios, the U.S. military has developed a virtual reality game called The Demi-Monde. The game world is divided into different sections with boundaries like spokes on a wheel. These adjacent sections are overpopulated and made up of different mixtures of races and cultures that should clash and create wars. In addition, scientists have used the DNA of real historical people to create “Dupes” (duplicates) of actual historical tyrants and other bad guys to populate the Demi-Monde with the kinds of people who are likely to initiate conflicts.
December 26th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 0.1 | Rod Rees | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
In his “Note to the Reader” at the start of Anathem, Neal Stephenson writes “if you are accustomed to reading works of speculative fiction and enjoy puzzling things out on your own, skip this Note.” My advice is this: Don’t skip the Note. In spite of years of speculative fiction reading, I found myself constantly referring to the novel’s chronology and glossary, not to mention online summaries and Stephenson’s acknowledgements page.
Here’s why. Our narrator, Fraa Erasmus,
December 22nd, 2011. Ryan Skardal and Stuart Starosta´s rating: 0.1, 4.5 | Neal Stephenson | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Key to Conflict by Talia Gryphon
I did not finish Key to Conflict by Talia Gryphon. I stopped at around the 100 page mark. Key to Conflict is the kind of book that makes people think “urban fantasy” is a euphemism for “badly written erotica.”
In the first sentence, we are introduced to: “Gillian Key, United States Marine Corps Captain, Special Forces Operative, former flower child, wiseass extraordinaire, also legitimately known as Dr. Gillian Key, Paramortal psychologist,” and that sets the stage for Gillian as a character.
November 13th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Talia Gryphon | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Coming of the Horseclans by Robert Adams
After two centuries, the undying High Lord Milo Morai has returned to the Horseclans to lead them to their prophesied destiny. First they must conquer their enemies and the Witchmen — pre-holocaust scientists who have continued living by transplanting their minds into stolen bodies.
I stole most of that synopsis from the back of the book, because I only made it to page sixty-nine, the end of chapter six, and I still hadn’t gotten to the meat of the story.
I’ve wanted to get my hands on a copy of The Coming of the Horseclans for a while now.
October 10th, 2011. Greg Hersom´s rating: 0.1 | Robert Adams | SFF Reviews | 15 comments |
Timothy and the Dragon’s Gate by Adrienne Kress
Timothy Freshwater, 11 years old, has been expelled from the last school in the city. He’s played too many pranks and his teachers say he’s “too smart for his own good.” Since he’s now out of school, Mr. Bore, the CEO of the company his dad works for, recruits Timothy as his intern so Timothy can teach Mr. Bore how to make people like him. In Mr. Bore’s office, Timothy also meets Mr. Shen, a small Chinese man who happens to be an enslaved dragon.
August 31st, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 0.1 | Adrienne Kress | Audio, Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox
Lizzie’s long-lost grandmother reappears in her life, turns out to be a witch, and informs Lizzie she’s destined to be a demon slayer. A demon pops out of Lizzie’s toilet. Lizzie suddenly gains the ability to understand what her dog is saying. Her grandmother introduces her to her coven of elderly biker witches. Oh, and there’s a hunky griffin shapeshifter.
If this sounds a little chaotic, that’s because it is. Angie Fox bombards the reader with one wacky event after another in The Accidental Demon Slayer,
August 27th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 0.1 | Angie Fox | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
The Wind From a Burning Woman by Greg Bear
I don’t think early Greg Bear and I are a good match. I did not finish The Wind From a Burning Woman, a collection of short stories from the late 1970s and early 1980s. That may be part of the problem. Maybe these stories are just dated.
Bear seems to be a “writer of ideas,” and several of these tales feature fascinating “what-ifs” or technological wonders, like an asteroid shaped into a deep-space vessel, a surrealistic cathedral in a world where God has definitively Died,
August 2nd, 2011. Marion Deeds´s rating: 0.1 | Greg Bear | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.