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If you are like us, when you go to a bookstore you let your eye wander. If you already know what you want to buy, and you walk right to it and pick it up, you’ve missed a golden opportunity. When you let yourself browse the bookstore, you get the opportunity to let books choose you, in a sense. This is how we discovered THE AFFINITY BRIDGE by George Mann. The art design on the cover is incredible–some of the best we’ve see this year, in fact–and we knew right away that we wanted to read it. So, we each picked up a copy…

… and remembered that, unfortunately, we are poor. So we put the copies back, and went to the library. It was a bummer.
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We have another special treat for you all today. One of the absolute highlights of WorldCon 2008 was our encounter with (actually repeated encounters with…she may have been stalking us) Faith Hunter. She is one of the most down-to-earth, witty, and genuinely warm people we have met. So of course we wanted to keep in touch. When our website went live one of the first things we wanted to do was set up an interview. So, here it is. Enjoy.
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How about something new and different for our review here at EBR? We read and review novels pretty much constantly, but we have yet to discuss any short fiction. The thing to be wary of when reading short fiction, in our opinions, is that you can’t treat it like a novel. Where novels have several fully developed ideas that all contribute to the plot, setting, and characters, short stories and novellas typically only have one or two fully developed (sometimes) ideas. If you go into a collection of short fiction with the right mind-set, you will find that it can be a refreshing change from the novels that you have been reading.
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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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Here at Elitist Books Reviews, we are always on the lookout for that next series that will get us (and in turn, you) excited. What makes a series exciting for us? Well, if you’ve been paying attention to our reviews, you know that we feel the first book in a new series is extremely important. It starts with the cover of the book. Is it awesome? Does it make you want to pick up a copy of the novel just to read what it is about? Then, with the actual book itself, do we as readers feel interested in the new world we are presented? Do we get a sense of newness and wonder at the world, magic, characters, and story? Does the story leave a ton of room to grow and expound on the ideas introduced in book 1?

You see, we ask for a lot. (You better give it to us when we ask too. Or so help us, we might… uh… be mean.)
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Remember when we said we found a few new series? This is another one of them. And it came with our friend, Tom Lloyd’s recommendation. We know right? How could we NOT start this series up?!

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that you will mostly likely find shelved in the horror section of your local bookstore. It is about an exorcist, Felix Castor, who is looking to get out of the game, but predictably takes one last job. That job is a haunting of a museum in London. Obviously, things go to hell in a hand-basket. Quite literally actually. Demon’s and all that.
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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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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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