Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 2.5

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The Anubis Murders: A fun mystery from the creator of D&D

The Anubis Murders by Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax is best known as the co-creator of a role-playing game so famous it is woven into the fabric of popular culture: Dungeons and Dragons. He passed away in 2008. Dangerous Journeys: The Anubis Murders was meant as the first in a series of novel tie-ins to a game of the same name.

I revere Gygax for his contributions to gaming and the use of the imagination. About The Anubis Murders, I can confidently say that it’s a good book to have on hand if you think you’ll have a boring bus ride in your future or the camping trip might get rained on,

October 6th, 2011. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Gary Gygax | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Nekropolis: Mildly enjoyable

Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner

At first blush, Tim Waggoner’s Nekropolis seems derivative. A dark city where the sun never shines? Check. A central bar with an enigmatic bartender? Check. Predatory traffic and a strange sentient vehicle? Check. Vampires, ghouls, zombies and demons? Check. An outsider detective? Check again. Surely I’m reading one of Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE books — oh, no, wait. This is something else.

Waggoner may just be the victim of bad timing. In his Afterword,

September 28th, 2011. Marion Deeds´s rating: 2.5 | Tim Waggoner | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Legions of Fire: Kept me reading, though barely

The Legions of Fire by David Drake

The Legions of Fire by David Drake is a mixed bag of a novel. In one sense, it’s literally so, as Drake combines historical and fantasy genres along with Greek and Norse mythology — that’s (mostly) the good mix. The not-so-great mix was in my response to the novel and its characters, which really was all over the map in terms of engagement and enjoyment. The book kept me going, though the end was a bit of a struggle,

September 20th, 2011. Bill Capossere´s rating: 2.5 | David Drake | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Honor of the Queen: It doesn’t have to be dull

The Honor of the Queen by David Weber

Though she’s a woman and not a diplomat, Honor Harrington, the highly competent and well-respected Manticoran Navy Captain, has been assigned a diplomatic mission to a planet run by a patriarchal religious cult. Why would the Manticorans send an aggressive woman with no diplomatic skills on this type of mission? There’s only one possible reason: to try to make The Honor of the Queen more interesting…

I wasn’t thrilled with On Basilisk Station,

On Basilisk Station: Honor Harrington is the biggest Mary Sue in space

On Basilisk Station by David Weber

Honor Harrington, newly-promoted Captain in the Queen’s Royal Manticoran Navy, has taken command of her first space cruiser, Fearless. Sadly, she and her crew have been deployed to Basilisk Station, a low-status drudge assignment that mostly involves checking cargoes for contraband. Morale aboard Fearless is low, but things are about to change. Unbeknownst to Manticore, The Republic of Haven, which hopes to better its economy by conquering resource-wealthy planets, plans to invade Manticore by way of the wormhole junction terminus at Basilisk Station.

A Voice for Princess: Rather uninspiring

A Voice for Princess by John Morressy

A Voice for Princess is the first volume of John Morressy’s Kedrigern Chronicles, a series of novels and short stories about the reclusive wizard Kedrigern. In this first novel, Kedrigern retires from the wizard guild because he’s mad at his colleagues for schmoozing with alchemists (whom Kedrigern considers beneath barbarians on the human worth scale). Accompanied by his ugly but loyal house troll, Spot (whose vocabulary consists entirely of the word “Yah!”), off Kedrigern goes to build himself a solitary home on Silent Thunder Mountain.

September 2nd, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | John Morressy | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Bloodwinter: The lazy plotting is a festering wound

Bloodwinter by Tom Deitz

Tom Deitz spends rather a lot of time during the course of Bloodwinter telling the reader just how extraordinarily awful the winters of his fantasy kingdom of Eron are, how Herculean must be the efforts of those who seek to cross the frozen wasteland. Without getting cuter with this analogy, there were stretches where I felt much the same about reading the novel.

That isn’t to say that Bloodwinter is ever painful to read. Deitz has an excellent command of language and he uses it well,

September 1st, 2011. Tim Scheidler´s rating: 2.5 | Tom Deitz | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

The Pillow Friend: Too much for one book

The Pillow Friend by Lisa Tuttle

The Pillow Friend, by Lisa Tuttle, straddles two categories of fiction, psychological horror and the more conventional quasi-literary “women’s fiction.” Tuttle’s prose is exquisite. She is able to describe the thoughts and impulses of a girl growing toward womanhood in an immediate, authentic way. Her ability to set mood and place cannot be doubted. The book is dark and disturbing, but at the end, it felt less like a horror story and more like a report on a woman’s descent into insanity.

Elidor: Thin

Elidor by Alan Garner

There are those who consider Alan Garner, an intriguing figure who was so sickly as a child he was twice legally declared dead, to be Great Britain’s master fantasist. I am not among them. Elidor, his best-known book, does have quite a lot to admire, even if it does fall far short of other acknowledged young-adult “plucky kids transported to a magical land” classics — to wit, C.S. Lewis‘s Narnia series and Susan Cooper‘s magnificent The Dark Is Rising sequence (let alone Oz).

The Stone Light: All exposition

The Stone Light by Kai Meyer

Fleeing from a fictitious Renaissance Venice on the back of the flying lion Vermithrax, the orphaned Merle is persuaded by the Flowing Queen, the mysterious entity that had for so long protected Venice from the besieging Egyptian armies but now inhabits Merle’s body, to seek help from Lord Light, the ruler of Hell. Back in Venice, a small rebel army is gathering under the guidance of another mysterious power who is determined to protect the city against the Egyptian army whatever the cost. The pharaoh is also beset by treachery from within his own forces.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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