Posts from 2011 :: Page 8

No, this isn’t LEVIATHAN WEPT, the short story collection from Daniel Abraham. This is LEVIATHAN WAKES, the collective effort of Mr. Abraham and his buddy, Ty Franck. Why such similar titles from the same author? Who knows. They aren’t related though. This one is new. It’s special. It has a fancy cover. Whoa, cool. But is it good? Of course it’s good. You gotta know I’m gonna love it. This guy just plain delivers.

LEVIATHAN WAKES (Amazon) is the first in a planned series of five books titled The Expanse, and was a book that I expected some good Ju-ju from. If you’ll remember, I’m not such a big fan of Science Fiction in general. I do have my favorites though, and James S. A. Correy (Abraham and Franck’s pseudonym) is now one of them. Add him to your list, people. Yeah.
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The 2011 Hugo Nominated Short Stories

Short stories are interesting beasts. They are extremely subjective—even more so than novels. For the sake of reviewing the Hugo Nominated Short stories, Steve & Shawn gave them a read. Enjoy!
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You ever had a bad Snickers bar? I’m not talking about one that’s obviously bad–with flaky, grey chocolate crumbling from the edges because of how old it is. I’m talking about a Snickers bar that looks just like every other one, but when you bite into it you nearly get sick right there because of how bad the peanuts are. Bitter, and pasty, and just…yeah. Those peanuts not only ruin the rest of the sugary goodness of the bar, but they stick in your craw and affect everything you eat for a long time afterward. This book was kinda like one of those.
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When it comes down to it, I picked up this book based on the cover. I do that more frequently than one would think, and of course the results vary. Bradley P. Beaulieu’s debut novel, THE WINDS OF KHALAKOVO (Amazon), has a lot going for it. But it also has some factors that, for me, hurt the overall experience.

What is KHALAKOVO about? The story mostly revolves around Prince Nikandr Khalakovo as he prepares for an arranged marriage, attempts to overcome a terminal wasting disease, and also endeavors to solve a series of mysteries that are causing ever increasing hostilities with other factions. And then readers are introduced to an autistic child, Nasim, who could potentially solve everything, or destroy everything instead.
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Garet James is different, but she doesn’t know it. She leads a pretty normal life for a mid-twenties New Yorker: runs her elderly father’s gallery, has made a decent business for herself from making jewelry, hangs out with her friends.

Until she finds out that the debts on her father’s gallery are suddenly due and she doesn’t know how they’ll ever repay them in the current economic crisis. On the way home from the lawyer’s, she wanders into an antiques shop to ask for directions, and the mysterious owner asks her to help him open a sealed silver box using her talents. How could she refuse his generous monetary compensation?
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FUZZY NATION (Amazon) is a book unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s the reboot of a classic Science Fiction franchise—a retelling of the original, LITTLE FUZZY (EBR Classic). It follows the story of the original in a loose sense, yet tells that same story in a completely new way. It’s fan fiction… in a good way.

I’m not sure exactly what the aim of this book was. Whether it was simply a writing exercise that John Scalzi undertook to clear his head and have a bit of fun. Whether it was meant to draw attention to a series that Scalzi loved, or whether it was meant to be simply a darn entertaining story. Whatever his motives, Scalzi has succeeded.
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Adrian Tchaikovsky is gold! Gold, we say! We have stated over and over in our reviews that one of the main things we look for in a series is growth. Growth in the story, growth in the characters, and especially growth in the author. The instant we began reading Tchaikovsky’s work we were hooked. Sure, EMPIRE IN BLACK AND GOLD had some problems–what authors don’t have problems in their first novel? But even with those problems, EMPIRE was awesome. With each novel he got better. The problems slowly vanished. The characters in the series matured. The setting, somehow, got infinitely better. It got to the point where we were mentioning Tchaikovsky in the same breath as our favorite authors.
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It isn’t often that we’re completely taken by surprise by how deep the scope of a series is. After finally getting around to reading Alan Campbell’s SCAR NIGHT (EBR Review), we were left feeling complete and satisfied. The novel was fantastic, and it had a strong and definitive-feeling ending. In short, we had no idea where Campbell was going next with the story.

Just a few pages of IRON ANGEL (Amazon) will have you–as with us–saying, “Holy crap… so THAT’S where this is going.” The scope will throw you for a minute, and then you will begin devouring the pages of the novel that has raised the stakes and the bar significantly higher.
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FOR THE WIN (Amazon) is Cory Doctorow‘s novel from last summer. If you have read and liked Doctorow’s work in the past, then this book will be just right for you. If not, then I don’t think this book will push any buttons that Doctorow’s stuff missed in the past. Basically this is the typical Cory Doctorow novel.

The novel is about a bunch of online gamers forming a union.
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Matthew Swift is the epitome of the urban sorcerer. Proof: he takes the bus. But there are ways he’s not your usual sorcerer, the least of which being that he serves as the Midnight Mayor of London. He also shares a body with the blue electric angels. And he’s got a conscience.

But being the Midnight Mayor is not all roses and bon-bons. Sure he’s got a fleet of aldermen to do his bidding… assuming they’d listen to him (it’s hard to take a guy seriously when he wears grubby t-shirts). And sure he’s powerful enough to have defeated the destroyer of cities in THE MIDNIGHT MAYOR (EBR Review). But now in THE NEON COURT (Amazon), the underground Tribe and the fae Neon Court have declared war over a murder—with London as the battleground—unless Swift delivers the chosen one.
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