Posts from 2010 :: Page 4
A Star Shall Fall
By now all you readers have probably figured you have us all figured out. You know what books we will like before you even read the review. More importantly, you know what books we will hate. We aren’t going to argue much. We wear our taste in novels openly, and to be honest we have a good idea of whether a novel will be awesome/yucky before we even read it.
Read the rest of this review »
Tome of the Undergates
Holy freaking bottle rockets, people! This book ROCKS!
So let’s get this out of the way. Sam Sykes is awesome. He’s young, he’s hip, he’s soon to be part of the growing Overlord’s Elitist Movement. Let’s forget for just a moment though that he lives in one of the hottest places on earth (Phoenix, AZ), and the fact that he’s obviously named one of his big baddies after Yours Truly (more on that later), and instead do our best to just focus on the book he’s written. Whadd’ya say? You game?
Read the rest of this review »
The Conqueror’s Shadow
Ari Marmell has been writing freelance for years, including short stories, co-authored shared-world fiction, and RPG manuals for Wizards of the Coast. THE CONQUEROR’S SHADOW (Amazon) is his first solo novel, and he attempts to shake things up, with a twist on the standard sword and sorcery.
Corvis Rebaine is happily married to a loving and clever wife, Tyannon. He’s got two rascally kids. He’s living a simple life among small-town villagers. Everything’s all peachy keen.
But his sordid past catches up to him when bandits attempt to assault his daughter. However, this is no random attack, its very deliberateness to bring Corvis out of hiding, because he has something everyone would kill to get.
Read the rest of this review »
Antiphon
Is it just me, or is Ken Scholes getting better with every book? What’s that you say? You haven’t read his latest novel, ANTIPHON (Amazon), yet? Well, then let me tell you: Ken Scholes is getting better with every book.
Read the rest of this review »
Canticle
Having Daniel Abraham withdrawals? Do you find yourself listless and antsy now that Abraham’s Long Price Quartet is over and we have no book from him to look forward to this year? Might I offer a suggestion? Pick up Ken Scholes‘ work. Start with LAMENTATION (Amazon). Go ahead. Do it now. I’ll wait here while you go and read it.
…
Wasn’t it great! There’s no need to worry. CANTICLE (Amazon) is just as good as LAMENTATION, possibly even better.
Read the rest of this review »
WWW: Watch
WWW:WATCH (Amazon) is Robert Sawyer‘s sequel to his Hugo nominated story, WWW:WAKE (EBR Review). It is the second novel of a trilogy that will end next year with WWW:WONDER (Amazon).
Read the rest of this review »
Salute the Dark
Adrian Tchaikovsky, we hate you… but in that way that results from loving you too much, and being jealous of your skills. Let’s start by saying how worried we were about Tchaikovsky’s fourth novel in the Shadows of the Apt series, SALUTE THE DARK (Amazon). With three completely excellent novels released, isn’t it about time that Tchaikovsky had a misstep?
No. No it isn’t.
Read the rest of this review »
Office of Shadow
Progress is good. I always like to see progress when I read a book or follow an author. You get to watch them evolve from their rudiments to greatness not only through their characters and stories, but in their ability to deliver that story to the reader. Unfortunately, not all authors accomplish this. Some just stagnate. Some even regress. A sad but true tale, though completely opposite to the one I’ll paint for you today.
Read the rest of this review »
The Black Lung Captain
Where to even begin? Chris Wooding‘s RETRIBUTION FALLS (EBR Review) is one of our favorite novels. The mixture of piracy, SF, and retro-future adventure won us over within the first five pages. The main character of that novel, Darian Frey (part Han Solo, part Malcolm Reynolds, all awesome) is the captain of the Ketty Jay. He is a pirate. A smuggler. A womanizer. We finished RETRIBUTION FALLS a few hours after it arrived in the mail. We needed more. Luckily, the sequel was already coming out fairly shortly. Wooding’s second Ketty Jay novel, THE BLACK LUNG CAPTAIN arrived in the mail (love you Book Depository!!!!), and everything else in life came to a screeching halt so we could read it.
It’s every bit as good as the first novel.
Read the rest of this review »
The Way of Kings
From the very beginning you know THE WAY OF KINGS (Amazon) is a novel by Brandon Sanderson — you would know it even if his name wasn’t imposed over a Michael Whelan cover. Sanderson has made a name for himself through his imaginative magic systems, and TWoK is no different.
He starts with the pacing set at a sprint. Following a series prelude (yeah, there is a prelude, then a prologue), we are put right into the action of things with a mysterious assassin, Szeth. Right from the onset of the novel we get hints of political intrigue, and of shadowy organizations pulling strings like puppeteers. What it seems to us is that Brandon is trying to start faster than his previous novels. His habit has been the slow burn in pacing followed by an explosion of craziness. Not so much here. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Really it will depend on your personal taste.
Ah but we get ahead of ourselves.
Read the rest of this review »
