3 | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews

The Akhenaten Adventure: Solid if sometimes careless

The Akhenaten Adventure by P.B. Kerr

The adventure in The Akhenaten Adventures involves a pair of twins, 12-yr-old John and Philippa Gaunt, who discover after a series of odd events that they are not simple upper-class adolescents as they’ve always though but a pair of djinns (“genie” is considered vulgar) about to come into their own powers. Soon they’re off to London and the tutelage of their Uncle Nimrod. It turns out, however, that they need to learn their powers quickly, for Nimrod is involved in a dangerous quest to prevent the head of an evil djinn tribe from finding a source of great power,

Time Cat: Lloyd Alexander’s first book

Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander

Published way back in 1963, Time Cat was the first book ever written by Lloyd Alexander, and as such, exists as an interesting comparison to many of his later books, with echoes of plots and characters that will later be used in his more famous and sophisticated works. It is quite a simplistic book, with a straightforward story told in clear but sparse prose, but there are certainly traces of the excellence that is to come in Alexander’s later books,

The Book of Joby: Well-written debut

The Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari

Ostensibly inspired by the book of Job found in the Bible, The Book of Joby is actually a somewhat odd meld of Arthurian legend and fantasy set in modern times. Who knew that such a thing could exist! There are several characters who have been drawn from the Bible, namely God, Michael and Gabriel — both archangels — and, of course, the devil himself. Any biblical resemblance to characters and plot ideas in The Book Of Joby ends there.

Grimpow: The Invisible Road

Grimpow: The Invisible Road by Rafael Abalos

Grimpow: The Invisible Road was written for young adults by Spanish lawyer Rafael Abalos and translated to English after its success in Europe. The story is a medieval mystery/historical fantasy set in early 14th century Europe. Grimpow is an illiterate orphan who stumbles upon the dead body of one of the last of the Knights Templar who was on a quest to secure the philosopher’s stone from the grasp of King Philip IV and Pope Clement V. The king and pope, in order to get control of the stone and its promise of wealth and wisdom,

Daja’s Book: Prepare for a lot of warm-fuzzies

Daja’s Book by Tamora Pierce

Daja’s Book is the third book in Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic series, which has also been published as The Fire In The Forging. The quartet of books centers around the trials and tribulations of four teenage mages, separated for a variety of reasons from their families and brought to live together at Winding Circle in order to control their magic and hone their crafts. With each one roughly collaborating with an element (obviously fire,

The Wounded Hawk: Better than first book

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 |

Care and Feeding of Sprites: Another beautiful book

Care and Feeding of Sprites by Holly Black

Since the publication of the five-part Spiderwick Chronicles there have been three “spin-off” publications: Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You (a copy of the book that featured so heavily in the Chronicles themselves), A Notebook for Fantastical Observations, designed for readers themselves to fill out, and this, Care and Feeding of Sprites. If you can only choose one of them, then the pick of the litter is undoubtedly the Field Guide,

Dark Lord: Fluff

Dark Lord by Ed Greenwood

Ed Greenwood tries something a little different with Dark Lord. The main character is an author of both fantasy and other fiction who is magically tied to his created world of Falconfar and who has the power to shape this magical land with his ideas and words. It’s not a bad premise, but it would take some really great writing to avoid being too much of a personal fantasy.

Dark Lord is not a long book and it’s packed with lots of action. I felt like I was reading some of the Forgotten Realms books…

November 25th, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 3 | Ed Greenwood | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Court of the Air: A lot to like

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Stephen Hunt‘s The Court of the Air is a fantasy novel in the steampunk subgenre. The story is set in a gritty world where steam- and clockwork-powered devices are the height of technology and where an aerial navy of military balloons keeps the nation of Jackals safe from the dirty communist Quatréshiftians. Actually, the “Shifties” are not quite communist, per se; they seem based on the French revolutionaries, complete with a penchant for decapitating the ruling classes.

November 11th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 3 | Stephen Hunt | SFF Reviews | no comments |

The Nameless Day: Major flaws but somehow kept us going

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 |

Rating: 3

The Akhenaten Adventure: Solid if sometimes careless

Time Cat: Lloyd Alexander’s first book

The Book of Joby: Well-written debut

Grimpow: The Invisible Road

Daja’s Book: Prepare for a lot of warm-fuzzies

The Wounded Hawk: Better than first book

Care and Feeding of Sprites: Another beautiful book

Dark Lord: Fluff

The Court of the Air: A lot to like

The Nameless Day: Major flaws but somehow kept us going

Subscribe to all posts:

You can subscribe to our new posts via email, email digest, browser notifications, RSS, etc. You can filter by tag, keyword, post author, etc. We won't share your email address with anyone and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.

Support FanLit

SFF Deals

Recent Discussion:

Subscribe to all comments: