Next SFF Author: Anselm Audley

Previous SFF Author: Frank Aubrey

Series: Audio

Speculative fiction in audiobook format.

The Phoenix Endangered: Silly and boring

The Phoenix Endangered by Mercedes Lackey

I got through about three quarters of The Phoenix Endangered on audio. This was a sluggish and clunky second installment in The Enduring Flame trilogy. The writing was dull and not much happened to advance the plot. By the time a battle finally started, I couldn’t muster up enough interest to participate.

Even more than the last book, this one was full of two teenage boys brooding, bickering, whining, and being noble. Half of what they say is said “sulkily,”

The Magician’s Elephant: A novella to read to your children

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo’s new work, The Magician’s Elephant, takes a little bit of warming up to early on, but the simple and sometimes poetic prose combined with the fairy tale/fable-like atmosphere and style starts to win the reader over, first charming them, then moving them. By the end, which comes quickly since it’s more novella than novel, both the prose and emotional impact have deepened and intensified, making this a novella well worth reading oneself and to one’s children.

Swords and Deviltry: Adventure, male camaraderie, easy women

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

Brilliance Audio and Audible Frontiers have recently produced audio versions of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, so it seemed like a great time for me to finally read them. Within two minutes of putting Swords and Deviltry on my MP3 player and pressing play, I was completely enthralled. The first part of the novel (which is really a compilation of short stories) tells the tale of Fafhrd’s liberation from the taboos, close-mindedness, and “icy morality” of his mother and clan (and the girl he got pregnant) in the northern wastes.

The Phoenix Unchained: Standard, but entertaining, “lite” epic fantasy

The Phoenix Unchained by Mercedes Lackey

I picked up The Phoenix Unchained, the first novel in The Enduring Flame trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory because I haven’t read Lackey before (and I wanted to) and this book was available for download in audio format (and I needed something for my commute). The Phoenix Unchained is a sequel to The Obsidian Trilogy which, unfortunately, is not available (yet) on audio, and which I haven’t read.

The Price of Spring: Finale of one of the best fantasy epics in recent years

The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham

I’ve been a big fan of Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet and The Price of Spring, its concluding volume, confirms my view that it is one of the more original and best-written fantasy epics in recent years.

If you haven’t read the third volume, An Autumn War, stop reading here as you’ll run into spoilers for that book.

As has been the pattern in the series, the story picks up years after the events of An Autumn War.

The Magicians: A bandage of irony for your self-esteem

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians attempts to take the unreal world of fantasy — magic, spellcasting, other worlds, fabulous beasts — and tie it much more tightly to the real world than is usually done. And (I think) the attempt as well is to tell a “realistic” novel which takes as its premise that magic exists and is being used (not quite the same thing as the first). I’d say he only partially succeeds, though he does so often enough that the book makes a worthy,

The Hero of Ages: Put Mistborn on your TBR list

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

I’m impressed with Brandon Sanderson’s first fantasy trilogy. The entire story was carefully thought out, well-plotted, and well-paced. What impresses me most is that in this last installment, The Hero of Ages, there are plenty of wonderful surprises left. But these surprises aren’t little add-ons that Sanderson lately thought up and decided to throw in just to keep up the interest and excitement. These are major pieces of the puzzle that have purposely been left for the characters (and therefore the readers) to discover.

Crossroads of Twilight: THE PLOT DOES NOT MOVE

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

Crossroads of Twilight was maddening. I read it years ago and ended up giving up on The Wheel of Time after this book. I tried again in my preparation for reading Memory of Light, and I just couldn’t manage to do it again. So, as with Winter’s Heart, I cheated by reading many of the chapter summaries at Encyclopaedia WOT. I skimmed the chapters involving Perrin’s hunt for Faile because I remembered how slow,

Winter’s Heart: Plods along

Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan

The first six chapters of Winter’s Heart follow Perrin and Faile after Faile is abducted by the Shaido Aiel. The next several chapters follow Elayne as she returns to Caemlyn and prepares to make a bid for her mother’s crown. These two storylines are incredibly dull and I confess that I skimmed over a lot of it and read the excellent cross-referenced chapter summaries at Encyclopaedia WOT. I read Winter’s Heart years ago and I just did not feel like once again sitting in on Elayne’s steward’s descriptions of the rats in the Caemlyn sewers or Perrin’s angst about Faile (good riddance,

Magic Strikes: Ilona Andrews does it again!

Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews

I didn’t know how much I’d missed Ilona Andrews’ writing until I started reading Magic Strikes (2009). Part of it is the prose. It’s vivid, it has a great streak of humor running through it, and best of all, it’s smooth. The reader is never jolted out of the story by a grammar snafu or an awkward phrase.

Part of it is Andrews’ continued use of a wide variety of myths. Andrews is one of the few urban fantasy authors who seem to realize folklore is a huge sandbox.

Next SFF Author: Anselm Audley

Previous SFF Author: Frank Aubrey

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