Reviews by Steven

If you are a fan of Larry Correia‘s work, you’ve had a sweet year. MONSTER HUNTER ALPHA (EBR Review). DEAD SIX (EBR Review). HARD MAGIC (EBR Review). Yeah… that’s some good reading. You know from my reviews that I have liked all of these books. But of all of them, HARD MAGIC is the one that grabbed my attention. It marked the start of a terrific Alternate History Urban Fantasy Dieselpunk Science Fiction Fantasy novel. For the sake of having a usable category, I call it Urban Fantasy.

Anyway…
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As much as I liked zombies, I think there was a point where I reached my limit. I used to get all sorts of excited when I read the back of a novel and the golden word “zombie” jumped out at me. But then things got a little out of control. Zombies were everywhere; TV, movies, books… wherever you looked a zombie was staring back at you. So I cut back. I stuck to AMC’s The Walking Dead and the excellent comic it is based one. I limited my zombie novels to those by two authors: Mira Grant and Jonathan Maberry. A month or two ago I started feeling an itch. A desire to read about zombies. Right when I was about to give in, I got Maberry’s new, straight-up zombie novel in the mail, DEAD OF NIGHT. Not only did I get to indulge my slight itch for zombies, but I did it by reading one of my favorite authors.
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Admittedly, I am a fanboy of several things. Steven Erikson novels. Christopher Nolan movies. Jamiroquai. California Pizza Kitchen. The New Orleans Saints. I’ve recently added another author to my fanboy list. Sarah Pinborough. All of you readers will recall how I unashamedly squealed like a little girl in delight over Pinborough’s novel A MATTER OF BLOOD (EBR Review). I loved everything about it. Well I finally managed to read her sequel to that amazing novel, THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL (Amazon).

I loved it!
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One of my favorite books last year was ROT & RUIN (EBR Review) by Jonathan Maberry. It was a great take on the after-effects of the zombie apocalypse from the eyes of a teenager. It was also a great example of YA well-done–a fast paced story with fun dialogue and a setting that mixed horror and humor well.
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I’ve come to a point in my reading life where I start planning the books I’m going to read well in advance. A new Dresden Files novel in the Spring. New Erikson & Esslemont novels in the Fall/Winter. A new Joe Ledger novel around February/March. Since starting this whole review gig, I’ve added George Mann to my list. For whatever reason, he work always entertains me.
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Admit it. Once upon a time you read Tom Clancy too. There’s no shame in that admission. Clancy had some awesome stuff…you know, before he just seemed to lose his touch. CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. WITHOUT REMORSE. Yeah. Awesome. But here’s the thing, there came a point where the story took a back seat to Clancy showing off how much he knew about the technical aspects of everything military related. If you go on for a full chapter talking about how a bullet works, and then don’t do anything with that chunk of pages, you’re doing it wrong in my opinion. It’s about the story. It’s about the characters.

Tom Clancy went away well before he wrote TEETH OF THE TIGER (I still shudder), and there wasn’t really anyone who captured my imagination the same way.

This is the part where a lesser reviewer would say, “Until now!” I refuse to say that.
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DEMONSTORM (EBR Review) was the end of the Legends of the Raven series. Main characters died horrible and glorious deaths. As readers we all shed a collective tear (or twenty) at the sacrifices the characters made. But then James Barclay wrote another end to the series with RAVENSOUL. I mean, really, what’s a guy to think? There wasn’t really any room to add onto this story. It was done.

Or so I thought.
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A while back I was given my first exposure to Jasper Kent‘s TWELVE (Amazon). In short, TWELVE completely blew my mind. A mixture of Horror and Russian historical fiction, Kent’s first novel, in my opinion, was nothing short of brilliant. I’m still extremely upset that it didn’t end up on the Hugo ballot. If you haven’t read TWELVE, stop reading this review of the sequel. There are some unavoidable spoilers for book one in this review. Do yourself a favor and go buy the first book. You will love Jasper Kent for all eternity. I sure do. My wife may or may not be jealous.

Seriously, this is your last warning.
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Admittedly, there are some great perks to being a reviewer. The lavish lifestyle includes all-expense-paid trips to foreign countries, supermodels, perfectly cooked steaks…OK, none of that. I get books. Lots and lots of books. Some are awesome, and some are terrible. One of the greatest perks is reading a novel I’d never have picked up on my own and discovering how fantastic it is. That happened to me last year when I read Marie Brennan‘s A STAR SHALL FALL (EBR Review). Set in historic London, the novel unexpectedly shoved me down in my comfy reading chair and didn’t let me up until I had finished the novel. Understand, that sort of thing rarely happens to me anymore.
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If I haven’t said so before, Night Shade Books is putting out some seriously great stuff. There just comes a point where I get tired of all the same crap out there, and need something completely different. I’ve had this type of experience before with other novels from Night Shade like THE WINDS OF KHALAKOVO and NEVER KNEW ANOTHER. This time it was Kameron Hurley‘s GOD’S WAR (Amazon) that had me nodding in appreciation.
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