Reviews :: Book Rating :: Books We Love :: Page 27

By now most of you faithful readers should have picked up a copy of Jasper Kent‘s novel, TWELVE. If you are like me, TWELVE (Amazon) completely blew you away with its terrific blend of Historical Fiction and Horror. I mean, come on, that ending? That was freaking awesome. And the twist made it even more horrific and awesome. TWELVE easily became one of my favorite books last year. The sequel, THIRTEEN YEARS LATER (EBR Review), was awesome in its own way, but fell juuuuuuust short of its predecessor.

And now we get book three, THE THIRD SECTION (Amazon).
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My favorite works by Brandon Sanderson are his Mistborn novels (Amazon). From the moment I picked up THE FINAL EMPIRE all the way through the last page of THE HERO OF AGES, I was loving the series. I like all of Sanderson’s novels, but the Mistborn series, for me, is far better than all the rest.

And now we have a new Mistborn novel, THE ALLOY OF LAW (Amazon). When I received a copy of this in the mail, everything else went on hold.
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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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HOLY CRAP!

What a year for Science Fiction it’s been. I mean we’ve had LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S A Corey that was excellent. China Miéville’s EMBASSYTOWN was weird, wonderful and brilliant. Robert Charles Wilson finished up his Spin trilogy in fine form with VORTEX. And now along comes Vernor Vinge to show us all again how this is really done with CHILDREN OF THE SKY (Amazon).
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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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