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Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
Hi, my name is Kelly, and I’m addicted to underworlds.
And it’s the fantastic realm of “Under” that, for me, was the best part of Falling Under. Gwen Hayes uses several tropes that have become overused in YA paranormal romance, but the book is better written than many of its peers, and Hayes’ creativity bursts out of the bounds of the formula every time she shows us a scene from Under.
At first, this feels like a lot of books we’ve read before.
March 3rd, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Gwen Hayes | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt
Polly is pretty sure she’s going crazy, or, at the least, senile. Not only has she agreed to attend a game of darts with her boss and coworkers, but also she has begun to find finished work that she could have sworn she hadn’t done. Worse, for any nine-to-fiver, weird things are happening with the coffee.
It may not sound like your run of the mill epic or urban fantasy, but Tom Holt is going to work magic into the plot of Life,
February 27th, 2011. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 3 | Tom Holt | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip Jose Farmer
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld novels, was a fast-paced, highly creative, and extremely exciting story, so I was eager to continue the tale in the second novel, The Fabulous Riverboat. This part of the story of mankind’s resurrection onto a million-miles-long stretch of river valley focuses on Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) — one of the people who’ve been contacted by a traitor who hopes to use twelve special humans to disrupt the plans of the creatures (gods?
February 20th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Philip Jose Farmer | Audio | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
There are YA books that translate well to an adult audience, and there are those that are best appreciated by their actual target audience. I suspect Firespell is one of the latter. I found it an average read, but I think I’d have really liked it at the age of thirteen or so.
Case in point: Here is how magic works in the Dark Elite series. If someone has magical talent, that talent manifests at puberty. From puberty to the age of twenty-five,
February 14th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Chloe Neill | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Empress of Earth by Melissa Scott
I wish — oh, how I wish — I could say that Melissa Scott’s Silence Leigh trilogy ends on its highest possible note. While The Empress of Earth does at long last offer the long-awaited payoff of the journey to Earth, that payoff may disappoint some readers. Some tedious and labored writing and a surprisingly conventional approach to space opera kept me from appreciating the book as well as I did its two prequels, particularly the rousing Silence in Solitude.
February 13th, 2011. Thomas M. Wagner (guest)´s rating: 3 | Melissa Scott | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Holy Empire of Mann, ruled by the Holy Matriarch Sasheen, is slowly but surely conquering all the lands bordering the Mideres Sea. One of the last areas desperately holding out against the Empire’s onslaught is the island of Khos, and it’s on this island that Nico, a teenager living with his mother and a succession of her boyfriends, decides to run away from home and create a better life for himself. But living on the streets turns out to be harder than he expected, especially when his first attempted robbery goes horribly wrong.
February 4th, 2011. Stefan Raets´s rating: 3 | Col Buchanan | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr
Nola O’Grady is a psychic who works for a government agency that officially doesn’t exist. Her agency is called in when there’s a case involving the forces of Chaos – like the one that Israeli agent Ari Nathan is currently trying to solve for Interpol. Someone is murdering werewolves, and somehow traveling between the scenes of the crimes without being seen by any witnesses. Nola and Ari are thrown together on the case and soon learn that the victims all knew each other and that Nola’s late brother Patrick was murdered by the same culprit.
February 2nd, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Katharine Kerr | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I was pretty excited to read Bloodshot. I first encountered Cherie Priest by way of her Southern Gothic novel Four and Twenty Blackbirds several years ago. Since then, her name keeps popping back up in my consciousness, both as a writer of several acclaimed steampunk novels I haven’t had the chance to read yet, and as a Person Who Says Interesting Things on the Internet. So when I heard she was dipping her authorial toes into one of my favorite subgenres,
January 24th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter and Marion Deeds´s rating: 3, 5 | Cherie Priest | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Buntline Special by Mike Resnick
Mike Resnick’s The Buntline Special is a steampunk-injected re-telling of the gunfight at the OK Corral. Many of the classic characters, including Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, are present, making for a fun adventure.
The steampunk elements of The Buntline Special are introduced at the very beginning as Doc Holiday rides an electric bulletproof stagecoach into Tombstone. Resnick doesn’t tell us much about what happened to make magic work or the how the alternative technologies came to be — they just are,
January 23rd, 2011. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | Mike Resnick | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Warlord’s Legacy by Ari Marmell
PLOT SUMMARY: Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, is no hero. In his trademark suit of black armor and skull-like helm, armed with a demon-forged axe, in command of a demonic slave, and with allies that include a bloodthirsty ogre, Rebaine has twice brought death and destruction to Imphallion in pursuit of a better, more equitable and just society. If he had to kill countless innocents in order to achieve that dream, so be it.
At least that was the old Rebaine.
January 21st, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 3 | Ari Marmell | SFF Reviews | 2 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.