Posts from 2009 :: Page 3

The next time you run across Lou Anders from Pyr SF&F, buy him a drink. In fact, buy him two, he won’t mind. Then, ask him where you can find James Barclay so you can buy that gentleman a drink as well. In Lou’s on-going crusade to bring the US great fantasy titles from the Brits, he brings us James Barclay’s DAWNTHIEF (Amazon), and in doing so takes us on and honest-to-goodness adventure.

Do you remember a few reviews back where we reviewed WINTERBIRTH? (Amazon) Do you remember how upset we were with the comparisons people had been drawing between it and David Gemmell’s work? (Amazon) Well, we are pleased to tell you that Barclay’s DAWNTHIEF is truly worthy of the comparison to the works of the late Gemmell. In fact, we are quite sure Gemmell would be more than proud of Barclay’s work, and the reception it is bound to receive here in the US.
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First, we want to thank Kaylynn ZoBell for letting us borrow her copy of this novel. She is full of awesome, and hopefully, will be published soon so we can do advance reviews of her work (no pressure there, Kaylynn).

Secondly, it’s been a long time since we have been this conflicted over a novel.

UN LUN DUN by the excellent China Miéville (Amazon) is a Alice in Wonderland-style tale about two girls living in London who are mysteriously transported to Un Lun Dun (UnLondon… get it?). One of the girls, Zanna, is the Prophesied One who is supposed to save Un Lun Dun from a disaster. The other girl, Deeba, is the Prophesied Sidekick (seriously, it’s mentioned in the glossary of a talking book they encounter).
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There is a topic in novels that has become sacred to us here at Elitist Book Reviews. If you screw it up, we will hate you forever. If you do it well, we may send you cookies… or at the very least worship you. The topic?

Zombies, baby. Zombies.

The easiest way for us to describe PATIENT ZERO by Jonathan Maberry (Amazon) is to say that it is Rainbow Six: Zombies. Cut out the technical mumbo-jumbo that Tom Clancy felt he needed to put in RAINBOW SIX (Amazon), add more zombie action, and you get PATIENT ZERO. Zombie novels don’t get much better than this. Take a half-hour break right now, and go to your bookstore and pick up this novel. And get a bag or two of popcorn while you are at it.
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K.J. Parker’s THE COMPANY (Amazon) has a paperback release here shortly. We figured after reading the Engineer Trilogy that we should give her (K.J. Parker) another chance. Bottom line here: we really wanted to like this novel, but at the end of the day, we were left unsatisfied.

Let’s be clear here, we didn’t hate THE COMPANY, but we sure didn’t love it either. This novel follows the story of A Company, a small group of soldiers who were considered the most fearsome during a past war. THE COMPANY is partially about their attempts to reintegrate into society after the war, and partially about their attempts to colonize an island they… procured.
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Let us just start, right from the get go, by saying that DARK TIME: Mortal Path by Dakota Banks (Amazon) is NOT written for guys like us. In fact we would go so far as to say its not written for guys at all. So we feel an obligation for some leeway in the way we review it. Don’t worry, we will still do it in style, as you have come to expect from us.

DARK TIME is an entry into the current trend of Urban Fantasy with a touch of eroticism and a strong female lead. It follows closely in the footsteps of the likes of Laurell K. Hamilton and Faith Hunter. Is this a bad thing? Well our feelings our mixed on that score. It doesn’t stray from that tried and true formula very much, if at all, which is somewhat disappointing. However, that means that what content there is works (for the most part, as we will demonstrate later).
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GHOST OCEAN by S.M Peters (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that, to put it simply, rocked our socks off. S.M. Peters is the author of the awesome WHITECHAPEL GODS (Amazon) which you may remember Nick recommended in the 102 class of the University of Fantasy here (If you paid attention and were a good student, that is). We already knew he was a very creative and imaginative author, and were not surprised in the least with the way GHOST OCEAN held our attention.

Te Evangeline, the main character of the book, is more than she seems (it’s all we can do not to make a Transformers reference here… oh wait, did that count anyway?), and so is the city she lives in. The city of St. Ives is home to a multitude of supernatural creatures and an eclectic crew of very unique individuals that keep them in check. The story is, at once, about the mysterious pasts of these team members and the present exploits of a creature that had been imprisoned and is now broken free.
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Every now and then, we get a little hesitant to pick up and read a novel. We know, this is a dangerous admission on our part–believe it or not we are human sometimes (the rest of the time we are Review Gods, remember?). You see, when we find a series of novels that we like, each subsequent novel in that series becomes more exciting and terrifying to pick up. Why? Because we are afraid of being let down (read: Jim Butcher).
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In our continued quest to bring you new authors and new series we have come across a number of candidates. You have a lot to look forward to. We, however, decided to start with this book, simply because it really has the coolest cover. (Hey…turns out even WE judge a book by its cover.)

THE ELECTRIC CHURCH by Jeff Somers (Amazon) is a loose SF/Cyberpunk novel set in a post-apocalyptic near-future USA (and London). In this particular world, a new religion, The Electric Church, guarantees Salvation and Eternal Life…

… with a catch.
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It was in 2008 that Carol Berg‘s FLESH AND SPIRIT (Amazon) was published, so it has had some shelf time, like a few other books we have reviewed. We have received quite a large number of emails requesting a review of this book — and it’s sequel BREATH AND BONE (Amazon) — and since we do aim to please, here it is.

Anyone who has read Carol Berg before, knows that she is pretty dang good at what she does, and has written some great books. So we picked up this first half of the series without much hesitation, and cracked it open.
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Remember when we said we found a few new series? This is another one of them. And it came with our friend, Tom Lloyd’s recommendation. We know right? How could we NOT start this series up?!

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that you will mostly likely find shelved in the horror section of your local bookstore. It is about an exorcist, Felix Castor, who is looking to get out of the game, but predictably takes one last job. That job is a haunting of a museum in London. Obviously, things go to hell in a hand-basket. Quite literally actually. Demon’s and all that.
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