Next SFF Author: Rick Yancey

Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham

Series: Young Adult

Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).

Once Upon a Time in the North: Lee Scoresby meets Iorek Byrnison

Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman

Lee Scoresby, a young Texan aeronaut, and his dæmon, Hester the rabbit, land their balloon in Novy Odense, a frontier harbor in the North. Lee is all but broke, so he goes into town looking for business. There’s no work for an aeronaut, but there is a lot of trouble waiting for an honorable man. Naturally, Lee and Hester wind up in the middle of it.

It turns out that the Larsen Manganese, a mining company, has allied with Ivan Demitrovich Poliakov,

Dominion: An exciting, satisfying conclusion to the trilogy

Dominion by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard

The CHRONICLES OF THE INVADERS by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard comes to a satisfying conclusion with Dominion, the final book of the trilogy. We get a post-apocalyptic survival story on earth, an off-planet prison break, space battles, and political skullduggery and espionage in the halls of the Nairene Sisterhood. Each character faces multiple layers of jeopardy as the story comes to a close, and it’s not certain that everyone we like will live.

The Lost Boys Symphony: If destiny exists, can it be overturned?

The Lost Boys Symphony by Mark Andrew Ferguson

Henry, formerly a music student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has run away from home in search of his former girlfriend, Val. Henry’s always been different — listening to music no one else can hear, fixating on certain objects, and exhibiting odd behavior — but since their break-up, his mental and physical health has been on a rapid decline. One night, he sets off on foot for Manhattan, convinced that he’ll find her among the thousands of other NYU students, and that her presence will calm the turmoil in his mind.

Silver in the Blood: Gilded Age debutantes’ adventures in Transylvania

Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George

In 1897, seventeen year old, Louisa (Lou) and Dacia, cousins, close friends, and high society debutantes, are excitedly traveling from New York City to Bucharest, Romania for an extended stay with their Florescu family relatives, on their mothers’ sides. Dacia is traveling with her mother’s sister, Aunt Kate, while Lou is traveling along a separate route to Romania with both of her parents.

But their eagerly anticipated trip starts to go wrong. Dacia made the mistake of flirting too much with a young man in London,

Glass Sword: A disappointing follow-up to Red Queen

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Warning: Will contain spoilers for the previous book, Red Queen.

After escaping from Maven and Queen Elara’s clutches, Mare soon finds herself on a new mission for the rebel cause. While she quietly processes Maven’s betrayal, Mare must race against the clock to rescue other “newbloods” like herself and recruit them to the rebels’ side. All the while, Maven and his army are pursuing her, and they are willing to take down anyone who gets in their way.

Blackout: Super-powers with realistic consequences

Blackout by Robison Wells

Robison Wells’ Blackout is, at first glance, just another typical dystopian YA novel. The chapters are short, the sentences shorter, and the vocabulary wouldn’t be a stretch for most junior high students. Good teenagers are in conflict with bad teenagers and seemingly every adult in existence; adults can’t be trusted as authority figures because they aren’t special and they exploit the people who are. I would guess that a potential blurb for the book might read as, “Who can you trust when your own body might betray you?”

Calamity: A fun end to the series

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

The RECKONERS series finale is — for better or for worse — very much the typical Brandon Sanderson novel. Longtime fans will be fairly familiar at this point with the steps we take in Calamity, from meticulous build-up to carefully situated hints to action-packed confrontation to final twist. It may feel a little safe for that reason — Sanderson definitely doesn’t try to break any new ground here — but it’s meant to be a fun YA novel more than anything else,

Truthwitch: A decent series starter, but has its issues

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Truthwitch is a solidly engaging YA fantasy from Susan Dennard that, I’m guessing, will have a lot of fans (even if it isn’t quite my cup of tea) despite its sometimes nagging issues of craft. I’m assuming the first won’t matter because most of the book’s readers are probably far less weary of teen romance in their YA fantasy than I am, and the second reading obstacle — those craft issues — will most likely be outweighed by the fans’ positive response to Dennard’s depiction of the tight bond between the novel’s two strong female characters.

Cinder: A robotic twist on a classic fairy tale

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Once upon a time, a cyborg in New Beijing was trying to reattach her mechanical foot. It’s not quite the way the conventional fairytale begins, but that’s the best thing about Marissa Meyer’s Cinder: it’s a completely new take on the Cinderella theme and a breath of fresh air in the YA genre.

Cinder is a mechanic working in New Beijing, though she is not just any old mechanic. She is the best in the city. One morning she is trying to attach a new foot with the help of her android Iko,

Games Wizards Play: A lesser novel in the series but moves things along

Games Wizards Play by Diane Duane

Games Wizards Play is the tenth book in Diane Duane’s YOUNG WIZARDS series, and while a reader could struggle through it as a standalone, I’d say it’s definitely best read in the series, as there are many references to past events, a host of characters big and small and lots of terminology that will resonate more fully to fans of the series. As far as where it stands in that series (which I highly recommend,

Next SFF Author: Rick Yancey

Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham

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