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The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham
I’ve been a big fan of Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet and The Price of Spring, its concluding volume, confirms my view that it is one of the more original and best-written fantasy epics in recent years.
If you haven’t read the third volume, An Autumn War, stop reading here as you’ll run into spoilers for that book.
As has been the pattern in the series, the story picks up years after the events of An Autumn War.
July 21st, 2009. Bill Capossere and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Daniel Abraham | Audio | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Considering how popular Stephenie Meyer has become, it’s hard to imagine that her debut novel was only just released in 2005, because it seems like I’ve been hearing about the author for decades. The Host — Ms. Meyer’s first novel for adults — marks my introduction to the author’s charms and I can now see firsthand why Ms. Meyer is so popular.
Let’s start with the setup. While reminiscent of the Body Snatchers films/book and The Puppet Masters, there are some key differences in The Host.
July 20th, 2009. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4.5 | Stephenie Meyer | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Purple and Black by K.J. Parker
You have to love a story that starts out with the line, “You are, of course, an unmitigated bastard.”
Purple and Black is a collection of the military dispatches sent back and forth between the new Roman Emperor Nicephorus and his best friend Phormio, who has reluctantly taken charge of the military at Nico’s insistence. Nico is appointing his friends to the important government positions because the empire has gone through seventy-seven emperors in the last one hundred years — all but a handful of them dying painful deaths.
July 20th, 2009. Ruth Arnell and Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | K.J. Parker | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Anyone who’s read my review of Flesh and Spirit knows that I was a little bit disappointed in some aspects of the book (I maintain that this is due to the fact that Carol Berg has left me a spoiled, fussy fantasy reader). So how did Ms. Berg do this time around?
Okay, fair enough, Breath and Bone starts a little slow. This isn’t a huge surprise, since the story is more like one book broken into two,
July 15th, 2009. Beth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 4.5 | Carol Berg | Mythopoeic Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Urban fantasy is replete with different, sometimes catchy, permutations of a standard bunch of mythological/fantastic beings who happen to turn up in our world. In The Calling, David Mack tries something pretty original by bringing us (instead of vampires and werewolves) guardian angels and their evil counterparts.
Tom Nash is your everyman who happens to have a mystical gift: he hears people’s prayers. And through the prayers of a little girl, he is Called to New York City to help the angels of Heaven fight the demons of Hell.
July 14th, 2009. John Hulet´s rating: 4.5 | David Mack | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Poison Ink by Christopher Golden
Poison Ink is the first YA novel that I’ve ever read by Christopher Golden, and from start to finish, I couldn’t be more impressed. As usual, the first thing that stands out is the author’s top-notch writing. Which in this case encompasses his ability to convincingly adopt the personality of a sixteen-year-old female high school student; faithfully capture domestic, social and high school life — including different cliques, lunch ladies, texting, flirting, and peer pressure — and a gift for witty banter:
“My Clever plan for world domination failed.”
“So what next,
July 8th, 2009. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4.5 | Christopher Golden | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In Ashes Lie continues the story of the Onyx Court, a faerie city situated just below London, and the Court’s dealings with London’s mortals. Lune, who became queen of the Onyx Court in Midnight Never Come, reigns still. Her mortal consort, Michael Deven, is long dead. Lune has chosen another man to act as her official consort and liaison with the mortal world, but the role is political only.
In Ashes Lie follows Lune and her allies through the end of Charles I’s troubled reign,
July 5th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Marie Brennan | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Wild Thyme, Green Magic by Jack Vance
I’m a big fan of Jack Vance’s wild imagination and his “high-end” writing style (his description, as I learned in this book). So, I was happy to get a copy of Wild Thyme, Green Magic, an assortment of his fantasy and science fiction tales which have previously been published in several SFF magazines and have now been compiled and edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan and published by Subterranean Press.
July 5th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Jack Vance | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Creatively Shadowbridge is a marvelous work of invention, embodied by the imaginative Shadowbridge setting — a world of linked spiraling spans of bridges on which all impossibilities can happen — the intriguing art of shadow play, and the many enchanting tales and fables that are interwoven into the main narrative. Yet because of issues that I had with not being able to emotionally connect with the characters, worldbuilding that I felt could have been more penetrating, uneven pacing and narrative structure, and an unsatisfying cliffhanger,
July 5th, 2009. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4.5 | Gregory Frost | SFF Reviews | no comments |
White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
White Is for Witching blends gothic horror, racial politics, and the older, bloodier sort of fairy tales into a deeply unsettling novel. The story opens with a passage intentionally reminiscent of “Snow White,” describing the mysterious imprisonment? disappearance? death? of the heroine, Miranda Silver. From there, we move backward in time, to the point when the events leading to Miranda’s fate began.
The story is told from several points of view, all of them seeing events from different perspectives,
June 30th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4.5 | Helen Oyeyemi | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…
It's hardly a private conversation, Becky. You're welcome to add your 2 cents anytime!