Reviews by Writer Dan

Some of the main drives, I believe, of the Science Fiction genre are to instill in the reader a sense of awe and wonder and introduce the idea of the ubiquitous question: What if? Sadly, I have to admit that I’ve never really had that experience in my reading of Science Fiction. There are times, however, when I take the opportunity to stop and just stare up into the starry night sky. It is during those times that I have absolutely felt that sense of awe and wonder and have begun to speculate just what might be up there amidst the stars and planets and vast, sprawling majesty of the universe around us. I’ve always wanted that same experience when reading a good Science Fiction book. I just haven’t ever gotten it. Until Alastair Reynolds wrote this book and gave me one.
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This book immediately caught my attention when I first saw it. The bright colors and dark, almost rorschach-testness of the images were immediately arresting, and the summary on the inside cover did even more to get me excited about reading this one. The impression as a whole was one of weird stuff in the modern world, which falls into the category of Urban Fantasy, although I don’t know if it really fits into that subgenre wholesale. Regardless, this book like any other had a job to do when it landed in front of me:

1. Catch my eye
2. Get me to open the cover and read
3. Catch my interest with its premise
4. Start me reading Chapter 1

And it absolutely succeeded on all those levels. If I had been a regular schmoe, bumming around the book store, looking for the next good read, this book would have had some serious mojo for me to try and ignore for it to not end up in my hand when I got back into my car. But past that point, what is it’s job? And how did this one stack up where it really matters: inside the content of the book. Check it out.
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At the time I had no idea how it might be possible, but when I got the email saying that this book was headed my way I was totally taken by surprise. As soon as I got it, I barreled through its pages, loving every minute and was completely impressed when I got to the end. Then, as I sat down to write this review, I casually glanced at the publication date of the first book in this series, THE MECHANICAL, and realized why the follow-up hadn’t even been on my radar: the first book was published in March of this year. Whoa. Then I got to be super impressed because not only had this book really entertained me, but it had been released a paltry nine months after its predecessor.
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It’s been a while since I read a Stephenson book, and I was in need of his kind of storytelling. Smart, funny, character-centric, inventive, informative — his books, for me, stand tall and somewhat apart from so much of the other writing out there. This one pushed a lot of my buttons, but strained my patience quite a bit, too. It’s a novel for our times. A story of very-near Science Fiction that is about an apocalypse that we haven’t read before (e.g., planetary self-destruction, religious fruition). This one could happen tomorrow, and I think, for the most part, it could all feasibly happen. Made it personal for me and fun to boot.
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Today is the day, and so I thought I’d drop this little review for the newest Expanse novella now. But today is the day that the first episode of SyFy’s series The Expanse airs on internet media. It still won’t officially premiere on the SyFy channel until the two-night release on December 14th/15th, but as of today you can watch the first episode on a pretty fair-sized group of online locations. So, if you’re as ridiculously excited to watch this thing as I am, you can now get a little taste of what is to come. But stick around and check out my review of this first, if you will. Cause if you’re a fan, you’re not going to want to miss this story either.
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After getting a taste of all of the excitement surrounding the SyFy production of The Expanse, it came as no real surprise to me that other TV networks might want to try and jump on the proverbial band wagon. CBS recently announced that they are going to be producing a new TV series based on this novel, and thus I was more than a little intrigued to read this one and see just what kind of “competition” CBS would be trying to bring to the table.
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Yet another story that comes at a time just rife with new offerings from the fantasy author after a short hiatus. SAVAGES (EBR Review) and the serial novel THE TWO OF SWORDS (Amazon), are two full novels that were released just a few months apart from one another. This one is something more along the lines of a novella, but it’s also one that I didn’t expect given the recent outpouring of new material. Can’t say that I’m disappointed though. In fact, I was far from it.
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It was with a high level of excitement and healthy dose of trepidation that I dove into this book. Another Burton and Swinburne novel for me! But alas, it was the last of its kind. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first read that this would be the end of this amazing series. I’ve had so much fun reading this one, with each story building upon the previous one, and taking me further into the brilliantly detailed chaos of Hodder’s genius. The back of the book promised an explosive conclusion to the Spring-Heeled Jack series, and although I only wanted more! more! more! I still found myself curious how the tale I began a scant five years ago would resolve itself in the end.
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For those of you who have been following the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Mark Lawrence has been running for the last six months, you’ll know that we’re into the final round where, theoretically, the ten best novels of the approximately 275 that were submitted are now in our hands. For those of you who weren’t aware of this… you now are. The reading process has moved along smashingly well for me. In fact, significantly better than it should be. As of this moment, I’ve placed my completion mark on all of the stories I’ve been given thus far and only completely finished reading two of them: the one that we submitted to the pool from the first round, THE THIEF WHO PULLED ON TROUBLE’S BRAIDS (EBR Review), and this one. Unlike any of the other stories in the finalists’ pool, this one immediately grabbed me, immediately impressed me, and immediately impressed upon me that it was going to be a brilliant read.
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When I first heard that Joe Abercrombie was going to write a YA series, I was a little skeptical. My impression of his books at that time hadn’t exactly meshed with the ideals that YA raised in my mind. On the flip side, I was also kind of excited because sometimes the sheer mountain of content that came buried within each Abercrombie novel was frequently a major aspect of its own. Keeping within the relative boundaries of the YA genre, however, could give him a chance to really focus on the two aspects of writing that he really does best: character and story. The story thus far has been one that I’ve enjoyed. Based on what I’d seen in the first two, some aspects I thought were good but others not so much, I was cautiously optimistic when beginning this final novel that it’d all turn out amazing. I wish I could say that it had.
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