Posts from 2016 :: Page 3

It always feels good writing a review for a Mark Lawrence novel. He is a terrific writer who is constantly improving his craft. THE LIAR’S KEY (Amazon) is no exception. It’s Lawrence’s longest novel, but it is easily his best yet.

THE LIAR’S KEY takes place shortly after PRINCE OF FOOLS (EBR Review), with Jalan Kendeth and Snorri ver Snagason in possession of Loki’s Key. This key can unlock any door, according to myth. But for Snorri, he is set on opening the door to death to find and rescue his dead family. Meanwhile Jalan is… busy being Jalan.

Jalan Kendeth. Prince. Playboy. Berserker. Coward. Seeing all these defining aspects of his character was a complete joy. I still can’t help but compare Jalan to the Jorg from the Broken Empire Trilogy. The contrast couldn’t be stronger, and it makes the Red Queen’s War Trilogy, in my opinion, so much the richer.Read the rest of this review »

From the cover: “In exchange for help escaping her long and wrongful imprisonment, embittered magical healer Blackthorn has vowed to set aside her bid for vengeance against the man who destroyed all that she once held dear. Followed by a former prison mate, a silent hulk of a man named Grim, she travels north to Dalriada. There she’ll live on the fringe of a mysterious forest, duty bound for seven years to assist anyone who asks for her help.

“Oran, crown prince of Dalriada, has waited anxiously for the arrival of his future bride, Lady Flidais. He knows her only from a portrait and sweetly poetic correspondence that have convince him Flidais is his destined true love. But Oran discovers letters can lie. For although his intended exactly resembles her portrait, her brutality upon arrival proves she is nothing like the sensitive woman of the letters.”
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Bad writing. We all know it’s out there, and unfortunately the odds are that eventually it will end up landing in our lap. When it happens in a book I’m reviewing I have one of two options: can the read, or mention the fact in my review. I really don’t feel like I can do anything else. Sometimes it baffles me how certain levels of writing can make it through the publication gamut. I mean, I expected to find some as I strolled through the SPFBO, and I did, but some of it was also quite good. But when a book has gone through a publication house, it seems to me that there should be some base-minimum level of goodness that applies because if the book doesn’t sell any copies, the publishers don’t make any money. Although, a good friend of mine had her books picked up by a small publication house and she got just about zero editing help. So. What can one really expect?
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You got to know Blackthorn and Grim in the first novel, DREAMER’S POOL (EBR review), and now their story continues in TOWER OF THORNS, starting not much later than where it left off in the first book. From the cover:

“Disillusioned healer Blackthorn and her companion, Grim, have settled in Dalriada to wait out the seven years of Blackthorn’s bond to her fey mentor, hoping to avoid any dire challenges. But trouble has a way of seeking out Blackthorn and Grim. Lady Geiléis, a noblewoman from the northern border, has asked for the prince of Dalriada’s help in expelling a howling creature from an old tower on her land—one surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of thorns. Casting a blight over the entire district, and impossible to drive out by ordinary means, it threatens both the safety and the sanity of all who live nearby. With no ready solutions to offer, the prince consults Blackthorn and Grim.”
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I feel blessed. I couldn’t have been more happy to see some potential goodness like this story show up in the mailbox to help me out of the funk that most of my last few reads have left floating around in my head. What better to help me out than a novella from one of my favorite authors? Although, I was kind of surprised to find yet another novella coming from Mr. Parker. It seems as though, despite all evidence to the contrary that such a sales model doesn’t typically work, at least one author has figured out how make a goodly number of sales with fiction that is short of novel length. Hmm. Go figure. A sign of good things to come? Hopefully, my friends. Hopefully. 🙂
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Vampires are the reason why druids are in short supply in modern days. Druids have a special ability to unbind vampires without even touching them, and as a result, 2000 years ago the vampire Theophilus convinced Rome to hunt them down and wipe them out. Atticus alone survived and has been laying low ever since. But now with Granuaile and Owen effectively tripling the number of druids in the world, they are also on the vampire’s hit list, and Atticus has decided that now is the time to finally fight back and commit a little genocide of his own.

In the meantime, Granuaile is busy finding a way to cloak herself from the prying eyes of Loki, and Owen is beginning to train a new generation of Druids. To find success in their respective quests, our heroes often get side-tracked, but always with their eyes on the prize: preventing Ragnarok.
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THE NAMELESS CITY by Faith Erin Hicks is about a city that has changed hands so many times from invading armies that it has several names–so really has no name. The city is a mix of natives, conquerors, and everything in between; currently it’s held by the Dao. Kaidu has traveled to the city from his rural home so he can train to be a solider in the Dao army, and to be closer to his father who is an advisor to the general.

Upon his arrival Kaidu discovers some important things early on: he doesn’t really like fighting, his father doesn’t have much time for him, and the city’s natives don’t much like their conquerors. On his visit outside the palace to the city he meets a girl who calls herself Rat. Kaidu doesn’t understand her hostility, so is intent on getting her to talk to him. Then she steals the knife his father gave him.
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Back when I first heard that Daniel Abraham had signed a contract to do these books, I was uber excited. I’d absolutely loved his Long Price Quartet and had been anticipating what he would do next. The Dagger and The Coin series has been one of my favorite series to read these last few years, and now that it’s all over… of course I’m looking frantically to find out what this guy is going to do next. As with most series-ending books, I had a tough time reading this one. I wanted it all now, now, now, but at the same time I found myself avoiding it. Letting it sit on the shelf, when I normally would have been busily reading away. This was the end, and I was going to miss this world, these characters, their stories. But, as with death and taxes, all of Mr. Abraham’s stories (at least thus far) have all had a definitive end. And this one was no different.
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Humans have been traveling the stars for hundreds of years, and use alien technology in order to do it. The alien ship they originally found all those years ago was empty of aliens, but the ship was able to travel faster than light, so humans reverse-engineered the technology. They call the energy the ships use to travel through space “lines,” but there’s a catch: very few humans can actually repair ship lines.

LINESMAN, by the Australian sister-duo S.K. Dunstall, is the first of a new series about main character Ean Lambert, who is trained as a linesman, but whose strange methods make him a second-class citizen among the linesmen. Traditionally trained linesmen use their minds and will to do the repair work, but Ean can hear the lines and sings to them–much to the derision of his peers.
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Rivka loves machines, but she’s a girl in a man’s world. She’s moved to the city to be with her grandmother, whose social circle involves the rich and famous. During a social event, Rivka makes a new friend, Tatiana, and as mischievous girls are wont to do, they find themselves somewhere they don’t belong–in this case it’s a basement room. It’s not any basement room, however. Owner of said basement, Mr. Cody, is financing the creation of a chimera from mechanical parts and pieces of recently living gremlins.
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