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Black Heart, Ivory Bones edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Black Heart, Ivory Bones is the sixth and final entry in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s series of fairy tale anthologies. Of the six, I’ve read four, and each has its own particular flavor, its own unique mood. While all of the books contain a mix of light and darkness, in this volume there seems to be more of a balance: “all that’s best of dark and bright,” if you will. The mood that Black Heart,
July 10th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Charles De_Lint, Delia Sherman, Ellen Datlow, Esther Friesner, Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Tanith Lee, Terri Windling | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Very Best of Charles de Lint by Charles de Lint
With a title like The Very Best of Charles de Lint, I had high hopes, and I have to say that they were met. Yes, this is the best of Charles de Lint’s fantasy. Chosen in consultation with his readers on Facebook and on his website, de Lint has culled down decades of writing to create a special volume with beautiful cover art by Charles Vess that highlights the reason why de Lint is considered one of the founding fathers of urban fantasy.
July 7th, 2010. Ruth Arnell´s rating: 5 | Charles De_Lint | Short Fiction, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
To be something abnormal meant that you were to serve the normal. And if you refused, they hated you… and often the normal hated you even when you did serve them.
In Nnedi Okorafor’s post-apocalyptic Sudan, there are two predominant ethnic factions: the light-skinned Nuru and the dark-skinned Okeke. Who Fears Death takes place amid a genocide that the Nuru commit against the Okeke, a campaign that (like genocides in our own time) includes both murder and rape.
July 2nd, 2010. Kelly Lasiter and Marion Deeds´s rating: 5 | Nnedi Okorafor | Audio, Stand-Alone, World Fantasy Award | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss
The Princess and her teddy bear, Mr.Whiffle, live in a marzipan castle and spend their days in various childhood adventures such as fighting pirates, squashing stuffed toy rebellions, and hiding from monsters under the bed. Patrick Rothfuss’s simple and cheery writing style and Nate Taylor’s beautifully comic artwork, full of clean lines and plenty of little details to look for, add to the childish atmosphere.
But The Adventures of the Princess and Mr.
June 28th, 2010. Justin Blazier´s rating: 5 | Patrick Rothfuss | Comics, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Coraline’s family has just moved into a new flat. Her parents are always busy with their own work and Coraline (please don’t call her Caroline) has no friends or siblings to play with. She spends her time exploring her new apartment complex and the surrounding grounds. She’s got some eccentric neighbors: two little old ladies who love to reminisce about their time on the stage and an old man who trains mice to sing and dance.
But what’s really strange is the extra door in Coraline’s flat.
June 23rd, 2010. Kat Hooper, Rebecca Fisher and Ryan Skardal´s rating: 5 | Neil Gaiman | BSFA Award, Children, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 8 comments |
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Eugenides is now the respected, if not loved, King of Attolia. When his childhood friend improbably becomes King of Sounis, Attolia’s neighboring country and historical adversary, Eugenides has to choose between loyalty to his new country, his queen, his homeland and his friend. Is there any way to balance the competing claims on his heart and his conscience?
This fourth book in THE THIEF series by Megan Whalen Turner brings it back to his former brilliance. The character of Gen and his friend Sophos,
June 22nd, 2010. Ruth Arnell´s rating: 5 | Megan Whalen Turner | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
We don’t have princes here. We don’t even have Kennedys.
Both riotously funny and sweetly touching, Nancy Springer‘s Fair Peril is a fun and wonderful fantasy novel. It’s set in modern times, in a sort of “Anytown, USA” — where the shopping mall is a portal into Fairyland, and anything can happen.
It all begins when Buffy Murphy discovers a talking frog who claims to be a prince. Buffy is a divorced and overweight woman, down on her luck,
June 19th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Nancy Springer | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
THE MAGICIAN TRILOGY by Jenny Nimmo
The Magician Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo are some of the best children’s fantasy novels out there — and so inevitably they are virtually unknown. Set in the mountains of Wales, the books chronicle the experiences of Gwyn Griffith, a young boy magician dealing with the gift and burden of inheriting magical powers from his legendary ancestors. Before immediate comparisons are made with that other boy-wizard, rest assured that The Snow Spider was published several years before Harry Potter hit the scene.
June 18th, 2010. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Jenny Nimmo | Children | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Let’s just admit it at the outset. As someone who tries to write, I hate David Mitchell. Hate him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand blazing suns. It’d be bad enough if he were just a great, you know, writer. Plain old everyday writer of some kind of novel: literary fiction, sci-fi, adventure, pastiche, historical. But no. He can’t just pick one. He has to be brilliant at them all. In one novel, no less (Cloud Atlas,
June 17th, 2010. Bill Capossere and Ray McKenzie´s rating: 5 | David Mitchell | Edge, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Snow Queen by Eileen Kernaghan
The Snow Queen arrived on my doorstep on an unseasonably cold March day. I grabbed a blanket, curled up in my favorite chair, and read the book in a matter of a few hours. The Snow Queen is a short novel, a single-sitting book if you’re a fast reader like me, yet more enchanting than many longer works. Nothing is superfluous here; Eileen Kernaghan tells the story she has come to tell — a mythic reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name — and that’s it.
June 14th, 2010. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Eileen Kernaghan | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review
What a fascinating exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! I love how the post highlights her unique…
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!