Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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The Orphan’s Tales: Each story is brilliant and brilliantly told

THE ORPHAN’S TALES by Catherynne M. Valente

I haven’t read any fantasy quite like Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales duology. This is the story of a young orphan girl who is shunned because of the dark smudges that appeared on her eyelids when she was a baby. She lives alone in a sultan’s garden because people think she’s a demon and nobody will claim her. However, one of the young sons of the sultan, a curious fellow, finds her in the garden and asks her about her dark eyes. She explains that there are wonderful stories written on her eyelids and that a spirit has told her she must read and tell the stories;

Magic Lost, Trouble Found: Raine kicks butt

Magic Lost, Trouble Found by Lisa Shearin

Lisa Shearin is the Janet Evanovich of fantasy.

She writes with a fun, unpretentious style, and she has mastered writing with humor. In many ways, this is better than Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. Raine Benares is competent, whereas Stephanie bumbles her way through her adventures, surviving by luck and instinct rather than skill. That joke wears thin after a while. (At least on me — since there are thirteen Stephanie Plum books out, then she obviously still appeals to a lot of people.) Raine is the type of girl who rescues dudes in distress.

November 9th, 2007. Tia Nevitt (guest)´s rating: 5 | Lisa Shearin | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

The Pox Party: A Pox on Rationalists!

The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson

“I do not believe they ever meant unkindness.”

So Octavian says of those to whom he was an experiment, to those who claimed he was chattel, to those who weighed his excrement daily and compared it to his intake.

It is perhaps this book’s most frightening truth that he is correct.

Octavian and his mother were sold into slavery in the 1760s, in Boston, to The Novanglian College of Lucidity. These men were rationalists, and sought to discover — once all of the niceties are removed — whether the Negro was inferior to the European.

City of Masks: Different opinions

City of Masks by Marry Hoffman

City of Masks is an “other world” novel, one where characters from our world can travel back and forth to another, in this case an alternate history 16th century Italy known as Talia. These travelers (and it works both ways) are known as “stravaganti,” thus the series title. While this book takes places in this world’s version of Venice (Bellezza), others in the series will range elsewhere (City of Stars, for example, is set in an alternate Sienna).

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: More thoughtful

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

The third book in The Chronicles of Narnia (or the fifth if you’re reading them in chronological order), is a rather unusual book within the context of the series, considering the good-against-evil theme that permeates the other six books in the series is largely absent here. Of course there are dangers and trials, as well as personal conflict that need to be resolved, but because there is no central villain nor any fundamental evil that needs to be defeated, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is more thoughtful,

The Neverending Story: A must-read

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

The Neverending Story is probably best known to the general public through Wolfgang Peterson’s movie, whereas the original novel by Michael Ende is less well known. Despite the horrid sequels and the even worse television series that Michael Ende desperately tried to prevent in the last years of his life, Wolfgang Peterson’s first attempt at bringing the book to the big screen was successful and popular. However, fans of the book will know that it only records the first part of the story — though Peterson compensates by telling us in the final segment of the film “Bastian had many more adventures before finally returning to the ordinary world.

Fatal Revenant: This is awesome!

Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson

Donaldson raises the stakes so high in Fatal Revenant that it was difficult, at times, to see how he was going to pull it off. I’ll be honest: I doubted that he could do it, and I’m a true, dedicated (not obsessive, thank you) fan. However, after turning the final page of Fatal Revenant and sadly setting the book aside, I’m more than a little embarrassed to admit that my ability to express my emotions and thoughts had been significantly diminished.

October 16th, 2007. Guest´s rating: 5 | Stephen R. Donaldson | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Gifts: Le Guin’s usual mastery of story and style

Gifts by Ursula Le Guin

There are lots of reasons to like a good Le Guin novel — her spare prose, her sharpness of description, her ease of storytelling, but in simple terms, when Le Guin writes well (nearly always), it boils down to the fact that reading becomes bare unadorned pleasure. Pleasure at its purest and simplest. And that is the gift of this book.

The backstory is pretty simple — families living in the Uplands have hereditary magical abilities or “gifts” (one type to a family) that can and usually are employed to harm: gifts of “unmaking”

The Bonehunters: So complex

The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

The Malazan Book of the Fallen has become so complex that it’s very difficult to keep all of the storylines in order. It’s totally worth the effort, but these books are not exactly the sort that you can just pick up and read quickly. The Bonehunters is no exception and I found myself jumping back to the reference of who’s who quite a bit.

I struggle to write this review because so much that I want to say would be spoiler material for people who are beginning the series.

October 2nd, 2007. John Hulet´s rating: 5 | Steven Erikson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Kushiel’s Scion: So glad to be back in Terre d’Ange

Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey

Return to Terre d’Ange with Kushiel’s Scion, sequel to the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy. This book follows Phèdre’s adopted son, Imriel, son of the treacherous Melisande and third in line for the D’Angeline throne. Carey does an excellent job of developing Imriel into a complicated, troubled young man without in any way betraying the character he was in Kushiel’s Avatar: haunted but with the proverbial heart of gold.

Imriel is coming of age here,

October 1st, 2007. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Jacqueline Carey | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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