Reviews :: Book Genre :: Fantasy :: Page 20

Imogen is a writer who dreams of some day becoming a famous author. To that end she has applied to the exclusive Melete, a New Hampshire artist retreat where she–and other aspiring artists of various talents–would have access to famous artists as mentors. Also accepted is Imogen’s younger sister Marin, whose talent in ballet has people predicting a successful professional career.

The sisters had a difficult upbringing. With a father out of the picture early on, their mother raised them with a tyrannical fist. For her own sanity, Imogen signed up for boarding school and left home–including her sister to deal with their crazy mother alone. When they arrive at Melete together, the sister’s relationship seems normal on the outside, but like Melete, not everything is as it appears.

For the first couple of chapters I didn’t like ROSES AND ROT, Kat Howard’s debut novel. The setting is trendy and pretentious (‘it’s all about the art!’). The sisters’ baggage felt overwrought. The foreshadowing seemed cliché. I was sure I knew where the story was heading.

But I forged onward and was rewarded with a story I didn’t expect.
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I was in the mood for a straightforward, uncomplicated fantasy story and voila! There on my to-read shelf was THE THORN OF DENTONHILL. I was prepared for tropes and predictability and was even determined to be O.K. with magic system/plot inconsistencies because, really, I rarely notice those details if the characters are engaging and the pacing and story is good… but there is simply no margin for error when the writing is poor. Too bad, because this was potentially as good as early Harry Potter and might have satisfied Rowlings fans in search of something similar and good. Except it’s not.
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FEARLESS by Elliott James has been out for nearly a year, which means it’s been sitting on my “to read” shelf for that long, and I’ve been avoiding it because the cover is dumb. Go ahead, take a look at the cover again, and maybe at CHARMING and DARING, too (the first two books), and see if you don’t assume it’s another lameo Urban Fantasy series to take up shelf space.

I was so wrong. I love it when a book surprises me, and FEARLESS is the kind of book where I will eagerly go buy the first two so I can get more of this series. Should you have read the first books before reading this one? Probably, but I doubt that lack made me enjoy this book any less.

John Charming comes from a long line of monster hunters. Of course, not all monsters are bad, but when you have abilities that make you able to squash mortals without any effort, you tend to not care for the weaker of the species. That’s where the Knights Templar comes in, and the Pax Arcana, which gives hunters the authority to fight the bad guys. But John is different than any other knight: he’s also a werewolf.
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It’s not very often that I get to write one of these kind of reviews. I had couple of them a few years ago when (oddly enough) Orbit picked up another favorite author of mine and did a new printing in omnibus fashion of an earlier series of his. In these instances, it never even crosses my mind to skip over reviewing such a book. It gives me a chance not only to go back and remember my reading experience with them (actually, I remember saying something recently about wanting to do that for this series…), but mostly to introduce new readers to an awesome author. And also doing our best to help the current publisher of our favorite authors might be wrapped up in there somewhere too as well. So, lots of reasons to write such a review. Pick any of them. Pick all of them. Just know that I’m happy to be able to do my part.
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Ben Gold is in serious trouble. After the events in FALLING SKY, he now finds himself imprisoned on a ship captained by a man named Malik who would like to see Ben dead. Fortunately, Ben has the brilliant Miranda, who negotiates for Ben’s life by offering her medical skills in a post-apocalyptic world where such a resource is in short supply. The question is: standoffs don’t last forever, so how will they escape?

Ben has spent his life as a scavenger in a world where only the clever and strong survive, which means Ben has talents of his own. So he negotiates for his life in exchange for scrounging up ship parts Malik needs to keep his boat afloat. But Malik has Miranda, which doesn’t give Ben much leverage.
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Have you ever read a book that is just magical? I don’t mean a book with magic in it. There’s a million of those out there (and I like quite a few of them), but a book that is magical. There’s a difference to it, isn’t there? Books that are magical have a different feel to them. It’s beyond a compelling story (although again, I love that).  It’s just a feeling you get when you read it. I think it’s kind of like wrapping up in a warm blanket, or sitting by a fire and letting the warmth diffuse through you. That is what UPROOTED by Naomi Novik was like for me. I would sit and read and a warmth would just spread through me. This book is magical.

I’ve read some of Naomi Novik’s work before and I’ve enjoyed her Temaraire books. I saw UPROOTED when it came out and it looked kind of fun, but I had a lot on my plate and I never got around to it. Then it was nominated for a Hugo award. Then it won the Nebula award.  By this point I’m thinking, “Ok, let’s give it a shot.” I’m so glad I did.
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HOLLOW CITY starts right where MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN leaves off, our hero children on the run from the horrible hollowgasts and wights. Their main concern is for Miss Peregrine, herself, who needs help returning to her human form, but they need to find another of her kind to perform the magic. So off they travel in search of help, all the while being pursued. The exciting beginning events teach us the reality of their situation and what they must do to find help, and…

…yawn.
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Patricia A. McKillip’s writing is often described as ‘ethereal.’ If you’ve read really anything by her you would be nodding your head. In her most recent anthology, DREAMS OF DISTANT SHORES, we are treated to her lovely prose, with a collection of stories that are surprisingly different. They are alternately strange and silly, but all are thought-provoking.
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Isaac Vainio, once-librarian and now major player on the world stage, helped reveal magic to the world along with certain Porters and allies. The Porters are an organization of magic-users founded by none other than Johannes Gutenburg himself. Libriomancy, discovered by Gutenburg, is magic using books and “libriomancers” are able to pull things out of books, things that real authors have imagined and in which a certain amount of belief exists from readers, which fuels the magic. These items–weapons and magic cloaks and healing elixirs–and even characters, have a profound effect on the real world, with mixed results and sometimes dire consequences. Jim C. Hines has taken this idea and developed it in a most satisfying way. He often references favorite sci-fi and fantasy classics, even some obscure geek favorites, and also simply makes books up when he needs them. These are some of the best, especially when they parody bad speculative fiction.
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I don’t typically re-read books. Aside from the fact that I just don’t have the time for it–too much new stuff to read all the time–I rarely come across a novel that calls me back loudly enough to hear it over the call of all that new stuff. While reading this novel though, I found that the voice wanting me to re-read the earlier books in this series was rising, because of just how much the story is now beginning to open up, and I’m wanting to go back and see what I’ve missed by not understanding just how large the story and the world that Sykes is building here actually is. As such, this is absolutely not a fantasy novel to miss.
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