Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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The Door Within: Well-done Christian allegory

The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson

The Door Within grabbed my attention immediately. While I read fantasy novels continuously, I don’t always indulge in the young adult action-adventure flavor of fantasy.

Aidan Thomas faces his rite-of-passage on two fronts. His parents relocate to care for Aidan’s grandfather, depriving Aidan of his friends and familiar environs. He discovers and reads some scrolls that transport him to The Realm, where he trains rigorously to become an elite warrior of King Eliam and join the fight for the hearts and minds of the people of Mithgarde.

Friday Night Bites: Better than the first book

Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill

In Friday Night Bites (2009), the second in Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires series, Cadogan House is in trouble again. The villain of Some Girls Bite has gotten off with a slap on the wrist, and now there’s a journalist threatening to expose some of vampire-kind’s less savory secrets to the public. When the journalist turns out to be an old friend of Merit’s from her high-society upbringing, she is thrust back into the world she spent her human lifetime trying to escape.

May 16th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Chloe Neill | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Department 19: Alex Rider meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Department 19 by Will Hill

Department Nineteen, by Will Hill, is the beginning to a new young adult series involving a top-secret organization dedicated to destroying the vampires that have infiltrated society, along with the rare but occasional monster. It’s a kind of James Bond/Alex Rider meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fast-paced, action-filled coming of age story with some flaws — a few implausible moments, some predictability — but a strong backstory, a likable main character, and its fast pace will more than make up for those flaws with its young adult audience.

Embassytown: Yes, linguistics.

Embassytown by China Miéville

Embassytown, China Miéville’s latest, is a sharply honed science fiction tale of linguistics. Yes, linguistics. And skeptical as one may be, it more than works. Despite its science fiction trappings, I would place Embassytown very close to The City & The City rather than Perdido Street Station and its sequels or Kraken in terms of style. I say that because while the strange alien race,

Queen of Kings: A historical/fantasy/horror hybrid

Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley

FORMAT/INFO: Queen of Kings is 416 pages long divided over a Prologue, Epilogue and three Books with each Book divided into numbered chapters. Narration is in the third person via several different POVs including Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Octavian/Augustus, Nicolaus the Damascene, Chrysate, Usem, Auðr, Marcus Agrippa, the Senate, Cleopatra’s children, and various minor viewpoints. Queen of Kings is self-contained, but is the first volume in a trilogy. May 12, 2011 marks the North American Hardcover publication of Queen of Kings via Dutton.

May 11th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Maria Dahvana Headley | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |

Dark Descendant: Emotionally raw

Dark Descendant by Jenna Black

Nikki Glass is a private investigator, and her latest job has her scoping out what her client tells her is a cult compound. When the job goes horribly wrong, however, she learns two things. One, the “cultists” are actually Liberi, the children of the ancient gods of mythology. And two, Nikki is herself descended (more distantly) from Artemis and has just accidentally stolen the immortality of one of the Liberi. Artemis, as you’ll recall from mythology, was far from promiscuous, so her descendants are rare and their talents much sought after.

May 9th, 2011. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Jenna Black | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Times Three: Three stories about time travel

Times Three by Robert Silverberg

Time travel is one of Robert Silverberg’s favorite themes and he gives us three of his best time travel novels, and an introduction to each, in the collection Times Three from Subterranean Press.

Hawksbill Station (1968) is about a camp for 21st century American political dissidents who are permanently exiled to… the late Cambrian era. Hawksbill Station is a stark and lonely place — it’s all rocks, ocean, and trilobites. With no meat,

The Dangerous Alphabet: A ghostly piratical poem

The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman has paired up with illustrator Gris Grimly to create The Dangerous Alphabet. This is not an alphabet book for young readers, unless you like staying up with them all night as they stare at shadows in the corner. Rather, Gaiman wrote a ghostly piratical poem in 26 lines, each starting with a letter of the alphabet, and then gave it to Gris Grimly to illustrate.

Grimly’s style is dark and grim — with a name like Gris Grimly,

Agincourt: Skirts the line between historical fiction and fantasy

Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell

[In our Edge of the Universe column, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.]

Often there is a fine line between historical fiction and fantasy. In the case of Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell, the line is especially blurry. Of course, there is no magic or elves or dragons.

Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2

Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2 edited by William Schafer

EDITOR INFORMATION: William K. Schafer is the head editor at Subterranean Press, which was founded in 1995. Schafer’s bibliography includes Embrace the Mutation: Fiction Inspired by the Art of J.K. Potter and the first Tales of Dark Fantasy anthology.

ABOUT SUBTERRANEAN: TALES OF DARK FANTASY 2: Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy — published in 2008 to widespread critical and popular acclaim — provided a unique showcase for some of our finest practitioners of dark,

April 28th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Bruce Sterling, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Glen Cook, Jay Lake, Joe Hill, Joe R. Lansdale, K.J. Parker, Kelley Armstrong, Steven R. Boyett | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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