Previous SFF Author: Frank Aubrey
Speculative fiction in audiobook format.
The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan
The best thing I can say about The Path of Daggers is that it is significantly shorter than the last few novels have been — only 700 pages (mass market paperback) compared to the 900-1100 page novels that have preceded it. There is much less of the repetitive backstory. I guess Mr. Jordan finally realized that new readers aren’t jumping in at this point.
However, that’s not to say that there are 700 pages of plot here,
April 15th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Knights of Dark Renown by David Gemmell
It’s been six years since the legendary Knights of the Gabala rode through a gate to hell in order to fight the evil that threatened the realm. They haven’t been heard from since. But they are desperately needed now because the King, once a noble man, has begun rounding up the nomad population in Holocaust style. People who oppose his actions are named traitors and the King’s new henchmen are very strong and very… undead. The king’s new policies have alienated a lot of people — mostly peasants.
April 13th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | David Gemmell | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
My reviews of The Wheel of Time novels are getting just as repetitive as the actual books. There’s really not much more to say. A Crown of Swords is another long slow installment in which there are too many detailed descriptions of clothing, references to spanking, concerns about bosoms, and people blushing. There are pages and pages which chronicle secondary characters’ extensive internal thoughts. But what bugs me most, though, are the constant depictions of people and places as if they have a corporate personality:
Men strutted arrogantly along the streets with often ragged vests and no shirts,
April 1st, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan (on audio)
I could almost copy and paste my review for Fires of Heaven right here and it would be mostly suitable because Lord of Chaos is more of the same. This is another metropolitan-city-phonebook-sized novel with a potentially interesting story that is bogged down by its excruciatingly slow pace, regular insertions of backstory, constant descriptions of the garb of every major and minor character (garb which keeps getting smoothed, straightened, or otherwise adjusted), and too many mentions of expanses of bosoms,
March 1st, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
For being such a long book (nearly 1000 pages in my trade paperback copy), amazingly little happens in The Fires of Heaven, and this is why so many readers have abandoned this otherwise interesting story. Approximately the first third of the novel contains so much recap and repetition that, if I’d had “my hair in a proper braid,” I would have been yanking it as often as Nynaeve does.
The formula for the first 100 pages or so goes something like this: One or two lines of dialogue,
February 1st, 2009. Kat Hooper and Greg Hersom´s rating: 3 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Master of Dragons by Margaret Weis
Master of Dragons, the final book in Margaret Weis’s Dragonvarld trilogy was a tasty but sloppy finale — like a cheesecake that didn’t quite set.
This last book wraps things up, as we knew it would, and everything is finally well in the world, as we knew it would be. There are some fine moments (Draconas showing tenderness to a female dragon, Ven finds a family, Marcus falls in love) and even some hilarious ones (Draconas darning socks,
January 12th, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2.5 | Margaret Weis | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
In The Shadow Rising, things start to slow down. In fact, it often feel like the reading of the story must take longer than it took for the events to actually occur.
Part of the problem is that Mr Jordan tells us nearly everything except when the characters make a bowel movement. Also, he regularly launches into pre-set spiels in which he re-describes something or someone who we’ve encountered numerous times before or re-explains something we’ve been told dozens of times (e.g.,
January 1st, 2009. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3.5 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In this story of the Western Shore, we meet Memer, a 17 year old girl — a “siege-brat” — who lives in the occupied land of Ansul, a city of people who used to be peaceful, prosperous, and educated but who were overtaken 17 years ago by the illiterate Alds who consider all writing to be demonic. All of the Ansul literature, history, and other books were drowned… except for a small collection of books that has been saved and hidden in a secret room in the house of Galvamand and can only be accessed by the last two people in the Galva household — Sulter Galva (the Waylord) and Memer,
December 28th, 2008. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Audio, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan (on audio)
In The Dragon Reborn, Rand finally starts to discover his new talents. Unfortunately, we don’t get to watch that happen. We only see a few glimpses of him learning to use his power. It makes me wonder if it was just easier for Jordan to show us the newly developed Rand rather than to explain how he got that way.
A couple of times here (and in later books) we’re told that Rand doesn’t really know how he wields the power — he just does.
December 21st, 2008. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan | Audio | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham
The Cities of the Khaiem shine like jewels in the East, and the brightest is the port of Saraykeht. The realm’s profitable cotton trade flows through the city, quickened by the artistry of the poet Heshai. For in the East, a poet’s art can become incarnate as a powerful spirit-slave (andat), and it is on the shoulders of Heshai, master of the andat Seedless, that the weight of Saraykeht’s continuing prosperity balances… a weight outsiders would gladly topple.
In these delicate times, first-time novelist Daniel Abraham chronicles the poignant choices of a handful of characters seldom seen in the “fantasy”
December 2nd, 2008. Rob Rhodes, Kat Hooper and Bill Capossere´s rating: 4 | Daniel Abraham | Audio | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Frank Aubrey
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one
These weird westerns are always interesting and have been popping up more in recent times (it seemed like there was…
Looking forward to reading the review.