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Cross Elizabeth Hand with Fire and Hemlock, and you might end up with something like Freda Warrington’s Elfland. This is the kind of big, sweeping modern faerie tale that you don’t see often on the adult shelves anymore. There’s been some beautiful work done in YA recently, but in the adult realm, the trend has been away from novels like this. And that’s a shame. Elfland is complex, rich, sensual, beautifully written, and sometimes heartbreaking.
April 7th, 2009. Kelly Lasiter and Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 4.5, 5 | Freda Warrington | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman
C.S. Friedman’s Wings of Wrath is the second book in her Magister Trilogy. It focuses on the story of a god-blessed race, the lyr, who have spent the last 1000 years preparing for the return of the Souleaters. At the end of the previous war with the Souleaters, the gods sent a magical wall, known as the Wrath, to bar them from ever being able to cross back into human lands again. Ever since, the lyr have been guarding the Wrath and watching for the Souleaters to reappear.
February 1st, 2009. Ruth Arnell´s rating: 5 | C.S. Friedman | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Heroics for Beginners by John Moore
This is one of my favourite fantasy books ever. It might not have the epic scope of The Lord Of The Rings, nor the immersive quality of Feist’s Riftwar Saga, but what it does have going for it it has in spades: it’s very clever. This is The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy of fantasy novels. Forget Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, and Robert Rankin. John Moore is far funnier.
January 31st, 2009. Guest´s rating: 5 | John Moore | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Sherwood Smith’s Inda is such a wonderful book. To begin with, Smith has created a world full of all the details and history that many of us crave and so seldom find. Smith takes the time to do more than simply tell a story. She creates a really vibrant backdrop for the characters to act against and the result is something a cut above most of the fantasy being written today.
Inda (his actual name is Indevan-Dal) is the second son of a noble family.
January 19th, 2009. John Hulet´s rating: 5 | Sherwood Smith | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Just as every Harry Potter book began with the requisite tormenting of the Dursley family, every Percy Jackson book begins with the destruction of a school, a trend that continues in the fourth book starring the young demi-god son of Poseidon. Unless you’re familiar with the three previous books, you’ll probably find yourself lost with what’s going on here. About to celebrate his fifteenth birthday party, Percy is still up to his neck in problems, ranging from his mother’s new boyfriend to the Greek monsters that keep trying to kill him.
January 8th, 2009. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Rick Riordan | Children | SFF Reviews | no comments |
I hate writing negative reviews, especially for books that are obviously both loved and respected. Beauty appeals to a lot of people, and you may well want to disregard my opinion and go with the majority. But for what it’s worth, I can’t quite bring myself to recommend Beauty for those of you out there who enjoy reading novels in the fairytale genre.
To McKinley’s credit, Beauty was written before the sudden demand in retold/fractured/fleshed-out fairytales.
October 15th, 2008. Rebecca Fisher, Kelly Lasiter and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 2, 5 | Robin McKinley | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Thicker Than Water by Mike Carey
The fourth Felix Castor novel starts out with a bang: the liberation of Rafi from the Charles Stanger Care Facility under the nose of Jenna-Jane Mulbridge, told in a clever departure from Felix’s usual first-person narrative.
From there, Thicker Than Water follows the same formula as the other Castor novels — a tangled supernatural mystery comprised of seemingly unrelated parts — but with some significant differences.
For one, the case is personal this time, revolving around an old childhood acquaintance who was brutally attacked with razors and Castor’s name written in blood.
October 14th, 2008. Robert Thompson´s rating: 5 | Mike (M.R.) Carey | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Rose and the Beast: Nine Fairy Tales by Francesca Lia Block
The Rose and the Beast: Nine Fairy Tales was my first look into the writing of Francesca Lia Block, and I was immediately captivated by both her style and tone and her unsurpassable use of imagery, and her ability to make old fairytales into new, darker and profound creations. It is gradually becoming clear in the general world of literature that fairytales in their original form were not at all intended for children,
September 10th, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Francesca Lia Block | Short Fiction, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Predator’s Gold by Philip Reeve
We Will Unleash a Storm that will Scour the Earth.
It had been a while since I’d read Philip Reeve’s first installment in the Hungry City quartet, and so my memories of the events that happened in Mortal Engines were a little hazy. However, nothing could make me forget the imaginative post-apocalyptic world that Reeve had created, in which massive Traction-Cities trundled across the wastelands according to the laws of Municipal Darwinism; eating any smaller city that crossed their paths.
September 5th, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Philip Reeve | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
As much as I love reading fairytales, there’s always the sense that I’m only getting half of the story. There’s never any character development, explanations on where those magical artifacts come from, or why the bad guys act so villainous beyond the fairly rudimentary: “they’re evil.” In fairytales, things just happen, with little or no back-story.
Which is why I’ve always appreciated authors who consider the missing pieces to any fairytale and fill them accordingly with their own ideas. Donna Jo Napoli has built her career on this technique,
September 1st, 2008. Rebecca Fisher´s rating: 5 | Helen Lowe | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…