Category :: Review :: Page 92

Ari Marmell has been writing freelance for years, including short stories, co-authored shared-world fiction, and RPG manuals for Wizards of the Coast. THE CONQUEROR’S SHADOW (Amazon) is his first solo novel, and he attempts to shake things up, with a twist on the standard sword and sorcery.

Corvis Rebaine is happily married to a loving and clever wife, Tyannon. He’s got two rascally kids. He’s living a simple life among small-town villagers. Everything’s all peachy keen.

But his sordid past catches up to him when bandits attempt to assault his daughter. However, this is no random attack, its very deliberateness to bring Corvis out of hiding, because he has something everyone would kill to get.
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Is it just me, or is Ken Scholes getting better with every book? What’s that you say? You haven’t read his latest novel, ANTIPHON (Amazon), yet? Well, then let me tell you: Ken Scholes is getting better with every book.
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Having Daniel Abraham withdrawals? Do you find yourself listless and antsy now that Abraham’s Long Price Quartet is over and we have no book from him to look forward to this year? Might I offer a suggestion? Pick up Ken Scholes‘ work. Start with LAMENTATION (Amazon). Go ahead. Do it now. I’ll wait here while you go and read it.

…

Wasn’t it great! There’s no need to worry. CANTICLE (Amazon) is just as good as LAMENTATION, possibly even better.
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WWW:WATCH (Amazon) is Robert Sawyer‘s sequel to his Hugo nominated story, WWW:WAKE (EBR Review). It is the second novel of a trilogy that will end next year with WWW:WONDER (Amazon).
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Adrian Tchaikovsky, we hate you… but in that way that results from loving you too much, and being jealous of your skills. Let’s start by saying how worried we were about Tchaikovsky’s fourth novel in the Shadows of the Apt series, SALUTE THE DARK (Amazon). With three completely excellent novels released, isn’t it about time that Tchaikovsky had a misstep?

No. No it isn’t.
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Progress is good. I always like to see progress when I read a book or follow an author. You get to watch them evolve from their rudiments to greatness not only through their characters and stories, but in their ability to deliver that story to the reader. Unfortunately, not all authors accomplish this. Some just stagnate. Some even regress. A sad but true tale, though completely opposite to the one I’ll paint for you today.
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Where to even begin? Chris Wooding‘s RETRIBUTION FALLS (EBR Review) is one of our favorite novels. The mixture of piracy, SF, and retro-future adventure won us over within the first five pages. The main character of that novel, Darian Frey (part Han Solo, part Malcolm Reynolds, all awesome) is the captain of the Ketty Jay. He is a pirate. A smuggler. A womanizer. We finished RETRIBUTION FALLS a few hours after it arrived in the mail. We needed more. Luckily, the sequel was already coming out fairly shortly. Wooding’s second Ketty Jay novel, THE BLACK LUNG CAPTAIN arrived in the mail (love you Book Depository!!!!), and everything else in life came to a screeching halt so we could read it.

It’s every bit as good as the first novel.
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From the very beginning you know THE WAY OF KINGS (Amazon) is a novel by Brandon Sanderson — you would know it even if his name wasn’t imposed over a Michael Whelan cover. Sanderson has made a name for himself through his imaginative magic systems, and TWoK is no different.

He starts with the pacing set at a sprint. Following a series prelude (yeah, there is a prelude, then a prologue), we are put right into the action of things with a mysterious assassin, Szeth. Right from the onset of the novel we get hints of political intrigue, and of shadowy organizations pulling strings like puppeteers. What it seems to us is that Brandon is trying to start faster than his previous novels. His habit has been the slow burn in pacing followed by an explosion of craziness. Not so much here. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Really it will depend on your personal taste.

Ah but we get ahead of ourselves.
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I like avocados. A good one will leave you longing for more without much effort. Soft, green flesh, that great nutty flavor, and all it needs is a bit of salt to provide, quite possibly, one of the finest snacks on the planet. Yum. I’m always on the lookout for some good Green.
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Call me spoiled if you want. After the likes of epic fantasy writers Erikson, Sanderson, and Butcher (and others), I’ve gotten used to the current trend of jumping right into the middle of the story. You could say I’m a girl who likes her some action. Ahem.

Alas, not all epic fantasy writers have gotten the hint. THE LAST STORMLORD by Glenda Larke (Amazon), reminds me of the epic fantasies of 20-odd years ago because the pacing is similar in its devotion to world-building without a visible purpose. There’s the standard young boy being trained whose abilities will change the world. A girl on the verge of womanhood, trapped in a life not of her choosing. I probably wouldn’t have minded STORMLORD if I haven’t already read it, like, one thousand times before in its various incarnations.
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