Hi, first I need to say that there are going be spoilers in my review. I can’t help it, there just no way to talk about it and not spoil the first book for you. So if you have not read it yet, I’m just letting you know.
Book Reviews
Review: “Love in the Time of Fridges” by Tim Scott
When I reviewed Outrageous Fortune earlier in the year, I referred to it as absurd . . . in a good way. Absurdist science fiction. Because it wasn’t laugh out loud comedy, it wasn’t The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it sure wasn’t taking itself too seriously either.
Review: “Ysabel” by Guy Gavriel Kay
Ysabel is my first Guy Gavriel Kay book. He’s one of those authors that I’ve always heard about. Maybe it’s the memorable name, I don’t know. But he was always just kind of out there as one of those authors that I knew I was supposed to read and simply hadn’t.
In case I was wondering, I guess, if he was worth the hype, Kay opens Ysabel with a 3-page prologue that was, simply, stunning.
Review: “Empress” by Karen Miller
Hekat, in Empress, is a difficult woman. And while I know that a part of me should cheer for this woman who raises herself up from a nameless no one to a ruler of her country, the other part of me can’t stand how difficult she is. Hekat is touched by the god. She is not inventing this. She really does have her deity on her side, protecting her as she slaughters the people who get in her way. Everything she does is fated. But I cannot get beyond how completely cold and ruthless she is to everyone around her.
Review: “Small Favor” by Jim Butcher
Small Favor is a great read and I think that the Dresden Files books are a great introduction to fantasy/sci-fi for someone who doesn’t normally read such genres. It’s a P.I. mystery with magic with strong characters, an over arching plots as well as smaller story arcs that finish up in single book… mostly.
Review: “Fire Study” by Maria V. Snyder
Oh, Yelena. You crazy, headstrong, impulsive, bleeding heart, acrobatic trickster, I have missed you. I hope Ms. Synder takes it as a compliment that I have read each of her books in no more than two days. For all the work that goes into them, part of me feels that I should somehow be savoring them more. But if I did, then I wouldn’t find out what happens next as quickly as I need to.
Review: “Gone” by Michael Grant
Grant has successfully written himself a real suspense-filled saga about a group of small city kids placed in extraordinary circumstances and dealing with problems that would cause any well-seasoned and trained adult to go crazy.
Review: “Whitechapel Gods” by S. M. Peters
Up until now, steampunk has been, for me, an aesthetic. It makes the great heroes of my childhood even cooler. And it makes for computers that are beyond sexy. Something in the synthesis of technology and analog mechanisms strikes just the right chord with me. It’s like the most elegant Rube Goldberg imaginable, with style. And yet, I had never read anything from the genre that inspires these creative works of fabrication fancy.
Until now.
Review: “City of Ember” by Jeanne DuPrau
Have you ever read a book that is SO good, that you can’t wait to read the next one? That’s this book. It’s the best book I have read so far! The City of Ember is far underground. Which I thought, wow this be really cool to read about.
Review: “Bone Song” by John Meaney
If I had to name the style of Bone Song, I would call it Cyber-Zombie Noir. But lest I give the impression that it’s a book about Zombies let me say that Meaney has created a world with a death based Economy.
Review: “Black Magic Woman” by Justin Gustainis
Black Magic Woman is the first in a new series by author Justin Gustainis, “The Quincey Morris Supernatural Investigations”. It’s a wonderful read, and wonderful introduction to a world that’s all too familiar to long-time readers of fantasy and dark fantasy like myself.
Review: “The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1: The Field Guide”
My best friend Ashley got this book out of our school library and said I soooooooo had to read it. I took it and looked at it and it was like the littlest book I ever seen! But we like same books so I took it home and wow, she was right!!
Review: “A Companion to Wolves” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Now this was a surprise. Here is one of those rare books not produced as a precursor to a series.
This is not to say that the land Monette and Bear have created couldn’t support multiple visits. It is merely to say that they have constructed a tale that is complete and unconcerned with possibilities and marketing strategies beyond its own ken.
Review: “In the Courts of the Crimson Kings” by S.M. Stirling
S.M. Stirling writes a whiz bang up alternative universe story. I really enjoyed how this book was so very different from the first but yet was JUST as compelling. The characters are interesting and he has no qualm about killing off someone you thought was a main character. The technology being living creatures, grown for very specific purposes was a nice, creepy touch.
Review: “The Awakened Mage” by Karen Miller
Okay, okay, so Asher really is the Innocent Mage. No devastating, unexpected twists, despite the possibility. But just because Asher is the mage of prophecy, the Olken who can wield his own magic as well as Doranen magic, does not mean he has to like it. And it does not mean that he has to answer the call that prophecy has made.
