Rating: 2.5

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Tender Morsels: Strange and dark retelling of “Snow White and Rose Red”

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

I have a long-time interest in adaptations of fairy tales, and so it surprised me that it took me so long to get through Tender Morsels, a strange and dark retelling of “Snow White and Rose Red.”

The beginning is promising. We meet Liga, mother of the “Snow White” and “Rose Red” characters, as a traumatized teenager. She is sexually abused by her father and later raped by town boys, and Margo Lanagan handles these sensitive topics well. The actual abuse is never described in detail,

Street Magic: Good characters wander around

Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge

Inspector Pete Caldecott is baffled. A rash of child abductions has swept London and all of her leads are turning up bad. The good news is that the lost kids are turning up alive; the bad news is they’re… changed — blinded and usually raving mad by the time the police turn them up.

Pete is almost ready to throw in the towel when a blast from the past suddenly crosses her path. Jack Winter, her sister’s boyfriend from almost a decade ago, shows up and tells her where to find one of her missing children.

June 1st, 2009. Guest´s rating: 2.5 | Caitlin Kittredge | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter: I could have enjoyed this book…if I was on acid

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick

Some people don’t like to admit that they didn’t “get” a book, but I’m secure enough with myself to say that I didn’t get this one.

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter started off well. Jane is a human changeling who works in a Faerie factory that makes flying iron dragons for weapons. Jane and the other child slave laborers (who are a mix of strange creatures) are entertaining and bring to mind Lord of the Flies and that scene in Sid’s room from Pixar’s Toy Story.

The Blue Girl: I just don’t believe any of it

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

What drew me to The Blue Girl wasn’t the bad girl trying to be a good girl premise. It wasn’t the thing about the resident student ghost or the gang of malicious fairies or being a social misfit. Been there, seen that — not just in books. It was the line about Imogene’s imaginary friend manifesting into reality that piqued my interest. Now that was something I couldn’t really recall seeing before. It tickled that whimsical part of me that my mom is so fond of talking about (and envying).

Midwinter: Strange hodgepodge

Midwinter by Matthew Sturges

I was attracted to Midwinter because of the gorgeous cover art (by Chris McGrath) and the publisher’s blurb. This sounds like my kind of story. Unfortunately, this novel didn’t deliver what I was looking for, but it had so much potential that I hold out hope for future efforts from Matthew Sturges.

Midwinter starts out well. The prose is pleasant — perfectly readable and without any pretensions. Usually this is the first place an author will lose me,

March 11th, 2009. Kat Hooper, Greg Hersom and Rob Rhodes´s rating: 2.5 | Matthew Sturges | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Lord of Chaos: More of the same

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (on audio)

I could almost copy and paste my review for Fires of Heaven right here and it would be mostly suitable because Lord of Chaos is more of the same. This is another metropolitan-city-phonebook-sized novel with a potentially interesting story that is bogged down by its excruciatingly slow pace, regular insertions of backstory, constant descriptions of the garb of every major and minor character (garb which keeps getting smoothed, straightened, or otherwise adjusted), and too many mentions of expanses of bosoms,

Master of Dragons: Half-baked

Master of Dragons by Margaret Weis

Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis’s Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale — like a cheesecake that didn’t quite set.

This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks,

The Dragon’s Son: Doesn’t accomplish much

The Dragon’s Son by Margaret Weis

This typical middle novel concerns the twin sons born to Melisande: Marcus, the son of the King of Idlyswylde, and Ven (short for Vengeance), the son of the dragon who (in the body of the human Grald) raped her.

Most of the book focuses on the development of both boys from age 6 to 16. Neither of them know about the other. Ven is half dragon (his legs are dragon’s legs) and is being raised by Bellona (Melisande died at the end of Mistress of Dragons).

The Complete Book of Swords: There’s much better stuff to read

The First Swords (The Complete Book of Swords) by Fred Saberhagen

The First Swords is an omnibus edition containing the first three volumes of Fred Saberhagen’s BOOK OF SWORDS series. This volume earns a generous 2-1/2 stars, mostly because of the very good premise with the Swords and the setup in the first few chapters of Book One (in which the writing is markedly better than in later chapters — deadline rush?). In essence, the god Vulcan forges 12 magical swords, each with distinctive powers,

November 7th, 2008. Rob Rhodes´s rating: 2.5 | Fred Saberhagen | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Twilight: 98% brain candy

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

It begins with the cover, the perfect red apple — forbidden fruit! — offered to the reader by perfect, pale hands. (Note the epigraph from Genesis: “But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it… “) It continues, and continues, with the blossoming relationship between the narrator, Bella Swan, and the physically perfect and mysterious Edward Cullen — who, as the back cover states, is a vampire.

The popularity of this book, and the upcoming movie release, have probably broadcast the basic plot: Bella,

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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