Reviews by Alan

We have a special treat in addition to our Monday review today. It is our honor to have Gail Carriger, the author of the newly released SOULLESS (Amazon), answer a few questions for us to lead into our review.

We first met Gail at WorldCon 2008, where she properly chastised Nick for not wearing a suit while speaking to agents and editors about his book. She soon realized just how awesome Nick was (Right Gail?)and the two quickly became friends.

Gail’s sense of humor is a treat for all, so when SOULLESS was released we new that we HAD to have her as an interview guest for the review. We know you will love her as much as we do. So without further introduction, here is the interview.
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A CAVERN OF BLACK ICE (Amazon), by J.V. Jones, was published back in 2005, and is the first in the Sword of Shadows series. The most recent entry to the series was A SWORD FROM RED ICE (Amazon) in 2008 and we are expecting the fourth book soon. When we tell people that J.V. Jones is one of our favorite authors, the most common response is, “Who?” So, instead of reviewing the latest book, we thought we would do this first book as an introduction to a series that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. And it deserves a ton.

Before Steve explodes from holding it in (it’s not what you think…), we need to say that we absolutely hate the covers for this series. All three of the books have ridiculously terrible covers, and we attribute part of the series’ obscurity to that fact. Books are judged by their covers all the time, and these covers scream “DON’T BUY US!!! WE ARE GENERIC AND TERRIBLE!!”
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It was in 2008 that Carol Berg‘s FLESH AND SPIRIT (Amazon) was published, so it has had some shelf time, like a few other books we have reviewed. We have received quite a large number of emails requesting a review of this book — and it’s sequel BREATH AND BONE (Amazon) — and since we do aim to please, here it is.

Anyone who has read Carol Berg before, knows that she is pretty dang good at what she does, and has written some great books. So we picked up this first half of the series without much hesitation, and cracked it open.
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In our continued quest to bring you new authors and new series we have come across a number of candidates. You have a lot to look forward to. We, however, decided to start with this book, simply because it really has the coolest cover. (Hey…turns out even WE judge a book by its cover.)

THE ELECTRIC CHURCH by Jeff Somers (Amazon) is a loose SF/Cyberpunk novel set in a post-apocalyptic near-future USA (and London). In this particular world, a new religion, The Electric Church, guarantees Salvation and Eternal Life…

… with a catch.
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Every now and then, we get a little hesitant to pick up and read a novel. We know, this is a dangerous admission on our part–believe it or not we are human sometimes (the rest of the time we are Review Gods, remember?). You see, when we find a series of novels that we like, each subsequent novel in that series becomes more exciting and terrifying to pick up. Why? Because we are afraid of being let down (read: Jim Butcher).
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GHOST OCEAN by S.M Peters (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that, to put it simply, rocked our socks off. S.M. Peters is the author of the awesome WHITECHAPEL GODS (Amazon) which you may remember Nick recommended in the 102 class of the University of Fantasy here (If you paid attention and were a good student, that is). We already knew he was a very creative and imaginative author, and were not surprised in the least with the way GHOST OCEAN held our attention.

Te Evangeline, the main character of the book, is more than she seems (it’s all we can do not to make a Transformers reference here… oh wait, did that count anyway?), and so is the city she lives in. The city of St. Ives is home to a multitude of supernatural creatures and an eclectic crew of very unique individuals that keep them in check. The story is, at once, about the mysterious pasts of these team members and the present exploits of a creature that had been imprisoned and is now broken free.
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Let us just start, right from the get go, by saying that DARK TIME: Mortal Path by Dakota Banks (Amazon) is NOT written for guys like us. In fact we would go so far as to say its not written for guys at all. So we feel an obligation for some leeway in the way we review it. Don’t worry, we will still do it in style, as you have come to expect from us.

DARK TIME is an entry into the current trend of Urban Fantasy with a touch of eroticism and a strong female lead. It follows closely in the footsteps of the likes of Laurell K. Hamilton and Faith Hunter. Is this a bad thing? Well our feelings our mixed on that score. It doesn’t stray from that tried and true formula very much, if at all, which is somewhat disappointing. However, that means that what content there is works (for the most part, as we will demonstrate later).
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WINTER DUTY (Amazon) is the latest entry in E. E. Knight‘s Vampire Earth saga, and it gets the story on track. The prior entry–the seventh novel–was generally regarded (and rightfully so) as a sub-par effort in an otherwise fantastic series. Thankfully, WINTER DUTY is a welcome return to the quality of the prior novels.

For those uninitiated with the series, here is a brief lesson on this apocalyptic take on vampires (before you point fingers and go rabid, remember, we like vampires as long as they don’t sparkle at us). The world has been overrun by the Kurian Order, which are basically monsters that have a remarkable similarities to vampires, (Duh. The series is called Vampire Earth) and they actually act like it. They will kill your face until you are dead. Eureka! Queue the angelic chorus!
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The first thing that comes to mind to mention for K.J. Parker’s first entry into her Engineer Trilogy, DEVICES AND DESIRES (Amazon), is that the author knows how to do her research. There are very technical descriptions for nearly everything in the novel, and it really lends a lot of credibility to both the story and the writer. However it isn’t without drawbacks.

We will get to those later though; let’s do like we were taught and focus on the positive. The book was interesting and the plot is engaging. Most of the character’s exploits are fun to read, with a few exceptions. The plot is also laden with political intrigue and it plays out remarkably well.

OK, we did our job as reviewers and at least acknowledged the good.
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THE STEEL REMAINS (Amazon) is Richard K. Morgan’s first foray into the fantasy genre, after a strong history in Science Fiction, as well as being a winner of an Arthur C. Clarke Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and a John W. Campbell Award. Obviously, we were interested to see how he would do in his new genre experiment. There was very little that disappointed, though we did give thoughtful pause as to just how good it actually was.

Morgan doesn’t seem to be one for half measures. We are under the impression that he is either 150% or 0% in his writing. In this first entry into a planned trilogy he establishes that he does indeed have what it takes to be an epic fantasy writer. However we wonder whether we can place him on the level of Abercrombie, Martin, and Bakker, and are interested for the series to be finished so we can decide.
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