Posts from 2010 :: Page 4

PROCESSION OF THE DEAD (Amazon), the premiere book in a new series, The City, is Darren Shan‘s first foray into adult novels. We knew his Cirque du Freak novels were dark and creepy (if for a younger audience) and therefore were pretty excited to see what the guy could do with more adult content, and we weren’t disappointed at all.
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If you are an aspiring author, we can guarantee you have heard this advice: write what you know. Now granted, for the most part you can come to know most anything via study and research. When it comes to disabilities, however, you simply can’t know unless you’ve experienced it. We use this as a preface to Blake Charlton‘s SPELLWRIGHT (Amazon), because Charlton took that bit of advice and ran with it.
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With luck, intellect, and an innate skill with strategy on his side, Basso is a powerhouse of ambition. His goal: to take everything he can and control the rest. Just because he can.

Well, at least that’s what he’ll tell you. But, as Basso would say, there’s always another reason.

Set in the ancient Rome-like city of the Vesani Republic, THE FOLDING KNIFE (Amazon) follows the life of Bassianus Severus, First Citizen, from the odd circumstances surrounding his birth, to his meteoric rise in the banking industry, to becoming the elected leader of the most civilized city of the known world. It’s a story of politics and business, of love and hate–and how little it takes for one to become the other. But mostly it’s about Basso, and no matter how great a man becomes, and how pure his intentions are, when everything finally crashes the sound can be deafening.
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I was first introduced to Connie Willis about five years ago when, during the summer, I read both of her Hugo winning novels THE DOOMSDAY BOOK (Amazon) and TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG (Amazon). Since then I have been an avid fan of her work. When I heard about her latest work, BLACKOUT (Amazon), I knew it was a must read.

In BLACKOUT, Willis returns to the world of both THE DOOMSDAY BOOK and TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG. In this world Willis focuses on a group of historians who, through the use of time travel, are able to go back in time to witness and experience first-hand certain events in history and get accurate data on them.
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We love Adrian Tchaikovsky. There really is no way around it. It can be an inconvenience at times, seeing as we stare at other novels and wish that they were another novel in the Shadows of the Apt series. It turns out Tchaikovsky just keeps putting out novels that continually feel fresh, and that are immensely fun to read. Now the third book of the series, BLOOD OF THE MANTIS (Amazon), could have been awful. Tchaikovsky could have tried to go even bigger than DRAGONFLY FALLING (EBR Review). That would have been a terrible mistake. There was such huge-scale warfare in book 2, that to try to one-up it would have been nearly impossible. And yet we see it all the time.
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We had the very distinct pleasure of meeting Jon Sprunk and his wife this past World Fantasy (coincidentally both Jon’s wife and son have the same names as Steve’s wife and son). We had already heard a lot about him, and had emailed back and forth a few times. It was obvious we would like him, and we did. So when his book came out we were nervous about reviewing it. Jon is a friend, and this is his first book. Luckily we don’t have to hate on his book! It was a very fun book to read.
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I came across THE RED WOLF CONSPIRACY (Amazon) for the first time a few months ago at the library. It caught my eye because the cover was striking, the title intriguing, and it had some good quotes from people I actually recognized. At the time, I was in the middle of another novel and ended up forgetting about the encounter. Interestingly enough, I was given the chance by our illustrious Overlords to once again get this book in my hands, and this time to say something about it.

CONSPIRACY is the first in a planned trilogy (of course, it IS fantasy after all…) of books by Robert V. S. Redick and is his debut novel as a published author. As such, I expected going in that there would be some decent world-building, a fairly direct plot, possibly some good characters, and more than likely some horrible “new author” errors that would make the experience a less-than-shining example of perfection.

Of course, that’s exactly what I found.
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So. Another Hugo nominated novel. Considering the luck we have had so far with the nominated novels, we weren’t holding our breath for anything awesome with Robert Charles Wilson‘s JULIAN COMSTOCK (Amazon). Thankfully, JULIAN COMSTOCK was an excellent and different read.

Wilson’s latest novel is a a tale set in 22nd Century America, in and around 2172. That makes it SF right? This novel is written by Wilson, so is HAS to be SF. Right? Well… kinda… but not really. Get all your preconceived notions out of the way. COMSTOCK is not really SF, and perhaps this is why some people have been put off by it. This is not like Wilson’s prior novels. Rather, COMSTOCK reads like a Civil War novel while simultaneously being a biopic of a famous “historical” figure: Julian Comstock.
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China Miéville is like Dan Simmons in a way. No matter how odd or bizarre the idea or synopsis, the novel turns out well. Imagine Miéville’s editor when China said, “So I’m gonna write this novel. It’s a comedy. Kinda. In London. Kinda. Where a giant squid is stolen. And there are people running around with a giant hand in place of their head–Knuckle-heads, get it? And there is a Star Trek phaser that works. And there are cults of every kind whose gods are all legit. And they all have real and scheduled Apocalypses.” With his track-record, what can Miéville’s editor say but, “Awesome! I’ll sell it tomorrow for a ton of money. Yay us!” (Note: This is similar to a post our friend, Larry Correia, did on the previously mentioned Dan Simmons. It was awesome, and it reminded us completely of how we feel about Miéville).
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SASHA by Joel Shepherd (Amazon), was kind of a surprise for us. We knew Joel’s work from his Cassandra Kresnov series, but we didn’t quite know what to expect from the first novel in his A Trial of Blood and Steel. While there were a few issues we took with the novel, we actually enjoyed what was offered and look forward to the sequels. Read on, slaves and loyal followers, to find out why.
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