Posts from 2011 :: Page 10

Mercy’s life changed when she moved to tri-cities Washington. Since then she’s had run-ins with vampires and demons, lived next door to the a werewolf pack’s Alpha, collected a fae artifact or two along the way–and has risked her life several times to help her friends. But now, in RIVER MARKED (Amazon), we get to see something a little more personal about Mercy: her Native American heritage.

Mercy is engaged to marry Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf back. She may not be a werewolf, herself, but Mercy can hold her own. She’s a ‘walker’, a shape-shifter who can become a coyote–an ability she inherited from her Native American father, and which has served her well in the past when she’s had to fight the vampires and fae she inevitably comes in contact with.
Read the rest of this review »

Honestly I don’t know how anyone has reviewed this book. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read quite a few reviews of Patrick Rothfuss‘s THE WISE MAN’S FEAR (Amazon). They were intelligent, well written and made me want to read the book even more. I just didn’t know how I was going to be able to write one.

Why?

Because the book isn’t done. I can certainly say, “Wow, that’s a heck of a start!” THE NAME OF THE WIND, the first book in The Kingkiller Chronicles, certainly was. I can say, “Geez, the second third of that book was really interesting and had some beautiful language. I can’t wait to see what happens at the end!” And THE WISE MAN’S FEAR is easily all of that. My problem is I’m a little afraid at this point. Does Patrick Rothfuss know how to finish this extremely well-told tale? I don’t know. He hasn’t done it yet.
Read the rest of this review »

There are very few authors whose body of work makes us cackle with boyish glee. Chris Wooding is one. Jonathan Maberry another. Recently Sarah Pinborough has joined those ranks. For those of you keeping score, when Larry Correia writes something new we drop everything. You can then find us camped out with a flashlight in the living room under a tent made of sheets and blankets. Never mind we own our own homes.

We are just going to come out and say it: Larry Correia’s HARD MAGIC (Amazon), book 1 of the Grimnoir Chronicles, is completely fun and awesome. Everyone knows how much we like his Monster Hunter series. We like this one more. Much more. Everything about HARD MAGIC is positively saturated with style…

…well, and explosions of course.
Read the rest of this review »

The hardest part of being a book reviewer is putting together a negative review of a book when you don’t want to. This happens for a variety of reasons, but mainly has to do with the author himself (or herself as the case may be). If we hate the author, or absolutely hate a novel, writing a scathing review is simple and enjoyable–therapeutic even. But with a novel like THE UNREMEMBERED (Amazon), well, we almost didn’t even write this up. But then we realized the potential disservice we would be doing you, the readers, and the author, Peter Orullian, by leaving this unreviewed.
Read the rest of this review »

And alas, we come to the end of the tale. We’ve run the gamut, the bell has tolled, and the last of Hawkmoon’s adventures have passed by our eyes. The pages have flown so fast.

HAWKMOON: THE RUNESTAFF (Amazon) is the fourth and final book of the Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock that Tor has been giving an upgrade and reprint to over the last year or so. These books hearken us back to the old days of classic fantasy fiction when the heroes were gallant gentlemen and their foes nefarious men of wickedness. Honor and virtue always triumphed over evil, and it was seeing how it would all play out this time around that always drew the readers in droves.
Read the rest of this review »

Subterranean Press is our favorite small publisher here at EBR. They never disappoint when it comes to providing us with great books. Awesome covers, solid construction, and stories from amazing authors. It says something about both a publisher and an author when a 100-page novella can be sold for $25 and not a word of complaint be raised by its purchasers. This book is one of those.
Read the rest of this review »

What was the last book you read that completely blew you away? It shouldn’t be too hard to remember, especially given the astounding levels of mediocrity present in most genres. Being book reviewers–and this may shock you–we read a TON of books. Horror novels fall apart in the end. Thrillers can almost always be predicted. Dan Brown is, well, Dan Brown. Fantasy gets bogged down in the cliché. SF makes you feel like you need an advanced physics degree. Every genre has its downfalls. We read so much that for a novel to really stand out, it has to be special.

Have we piqued your curiosity yet?
Read the rest of this review »

DOWN THE ROAD (Amazon) is one more entry into Zombie-genre novels that we wound up reading, even after we swore off of them. Gallery Books has been good to us, and for the most part we like what they give us, so we couldn’t deny this little guy a read. This is Bowie Ibarra‘s debut (and only, so far) novel.

It’s pretty obvious right from the start that this book isn’t reinventing the wheel, and that Ibarra is an extreme amateur at writing. Transitions are rushed, descriptions (except for the gore…holy crap) were minimal, and character development was only nominal. All of this can be somewhat expected though when you see the page count total at just over 200, and then see that the print is very large. This book took a whole 40 minutes to read. Seriously.
Read the rest of this review »

Zoe is a coru woman, which means she has an affinity to water and blood, and the traits associated with it. But Zoe is different: water comes when she calls.

Zoe’s father was the king’s closest adviser, but ten years ago was exiled from court, and took his young daughter with him to live in a small village. At the opening of TROUBLED WATERS (Amazon), Zoe finds herself an orphan; the day after the funeral, the king’s adviser, Darien Serlast, comes to collect her to become the king’s fifth wife.
Read the rest of this review »

As you know, we try to keep our eyes on the UK Fantasy market. It’s how we discovered guys like Chris Wooding, James Barclay and George Mann. One of the novels we watched for months was Col Buchanan‘s FARLANDER (Amazon). We can’t even tell you how many times we nearly imported this one. Then Tor picked it up here in the US and saved us the import expense.
Read the rest of this review »