The Martian
When a novel is hyped beyond all reasonableness, I immediately dislike it on principle. Most of the time, this near-irrational dislike ends up justified when I finally get around to reading the story. But every now and then the hype is warranted.
Enter, THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir (Amazon).
Perhaps the most hyped novel in the last year or two—apart from READY PLAYER ONE—THE MARTIAN has a very simple premise. Mark Watney is stranded on Mars, and he needs to figure out a way to survive on that wasteland for years—that’s right, years—to even have a chance to be rescued.
Read the rest of this review »
Giveaway: Updraft
Updated 9/7/2015: Ray S. from Vancouver is our winner! Congrats, your book will be on its way soon.
Tor has provided EBR with a hardback copy of the new release UPDRAFT to give away to one of our lucky readers. To enter this giveaway:
1. Email us at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com
2. Include the following on the subject line: Updraft Giveaway
3. In the body of the email include your name and mailing address. This giveaway is available to U.S. and international addresses.
Giveaway rules can be found here. Entries will be accepted until midnight of September 6th and the winner will be posted on the 7th. Good luck!
Don’t forget to check out the EBR Review!
Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction
I had an argument with Mike Resnick once–okay, maybe it was only a complaint and response that found us on opposite sides of the coin–concerning what made a story a speculative (Fantasy or Science Fiction) story. I had just finished reading one of his short yarns and was frustrated because I didn’t think that any of the speculative elements had anything to do with the story and could have been left out completely without destroying the story at its core. In essence, the made up stuff was just window dressing. So the story didn’t feel like it was speculative to me and I was kinda miffed about it. I was reminded of that disagreement while I was reading this short story collection because it was quite impossible for me to disentangle the plot from the speculative elements in the slightest. They all relied completely and wholly upon the made up stuff. And I was really happy to find that.
Read the rest of this review »
Updraft
More than anything Kirit wants to be a trader like her mother. Instead of living her entire life on one tower, she would get to fly from tower to tower, helping the inhabitants of the city, and seeing everything the world has to offer.
But Kirit makes a terrible mistake and doesn’t return inside the tower during a dangerous migration warning, instead sitting on the terrace to watch her mother leave to take medicines to other towers. She attracts the attention of a skymouth–terrifying creatures that snatch and devour the unwary.
But Kirit survives, drawing the attention of the Singers, the city’s protectors. As a result, her plans to become a trader are threatened because the Singers have discovered Kirit’s ability to scare off skymouths–and they want her ability for their own use, even if it means threatening the people she loves.
Read the rest of this review »
EBR’s Self-Published Blog-off Finalist
The time has finally come for us to make a decision. Firstly though, I thought I’d mention how we decided what to pick:
1) We selected the two novels that we felt best represented the spirit of the contest.
2) Each member of the EBR Team read both books, then told the others which one they had picked and why.
3) The book with the most votes became our finalist.
Seems simple, right? It wasn’t. See, this task wasn’t just about grabbing two books off a bookshelf and saying which was better. The largest reason for this was that neither of these books have had professional edits, and so we ended up having to tackle the problem by saying, “Well, if it HAD been given those edits, the novel would probably have turned out like THIS.”
We talked about writing ability, originality, pacing, foreshadowing, characters… it was all very long-winded (totally my fault), but I think we covered all of the good stuff. Anywho, we’ll have a post later on that gets into the nuts and bolts of our opinions on self-pubbed stuff now that this section of the contest is over.Read the rest of this post »
Nightborn
Karn is a gamer; his favorite game is Thrones and Bones (after which the series is named). When his best friend Thianna–half giant, half human–is kidnapped, he’s tasked by the dragon Orm to find her. Easier said than done, for he must travel far from his rural home to the city of Castlebriar, deal with duplicitous elves, and solve riddles. Thianna was on a quest to find a horn, much like the one they discovered in book one, FROSTBORN (Amazon)–these horns make it so the user can speak with and coerce magical beasts. And Orm isn’t the only one who wants to find the second horn.
Desstra is a dark elf, training to be a member of the Underhanded, a group of elite fighters. When an important test goes awry, she’s sent on a mission to prove she’s worthy. Part of that mission involves tricking Karn into thinking she’s something she isn’t. Because if she can’t get the horn before Karn does, then she will be outcast from the only home she’s ever known–even if she does think dark elves aren’t very nice.
Read the rest of this review »
Grunt Traitor
Weston Ochse’s GRUNT LIFE (EBR Review) was one of my favorite novels released in 2014. It was also one of the finest Military SF novels I’d read, and I’ve been anticipating the sequel ever since. After the follow-up novel, GRUNT TRAITOR (Amazon), arrived I took it with me on a plane trip… and ended up reading the whole novel that day.
To put it mildly, GRUNT TRAITOR was a page-turner.
Read the rest of this review »
The Silver Ships
Seven hundred years ago humans took to the stars after Earth’s resources could no longer support the population. The colonist ships headed to different systems and lost communication with each other. Until one fateful day when tug captain Alex Racine discovers a derelict ship of unknown origin. He quickly learns that the ship is run by an AI, that some of the crew are in stasis… and that it came from a completely different system from his own. The superior technology fascinates him and he assumes it must be alien, until the crew are awakened by the AI computer and he discovers that they are descendants from another Earth colony ship.
And that the reason their ship was damaged and many of their crew dead is because aliens had attacked them.
Read the rest of this review »
Kitty Saves the World
There’s something so incredibly satisfying about reaching the end of a great series. Fourteen books (and a few short stories) of Kitty, Cormac, Ben, et al. We’ve come to know and love these people, their friends, and the work they do for the greater good. And now they have to try to save the world.
Read the rest of this review »
Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon
After the exciting events of GIDEON SMITH AND THE MECHANICAL GIRL (EBR Review), Gideon has been dubbed the Hero of the Empire by Queen Victoria, and sent off on quests that only heros can accomplish. Gideon isn’t quite sure what it means to be a hero, other than his stories end up in the penny dreadful World Marvels & Wonders, as recounted by Mr. Bent, the journalist who follows Gideon around.
The one assignment Gideon is waiting for is the one that means he can search for the missing brass dragon Apep and the clockwork girl he loves, Maria. He gets his chance when Apep is spotted over Texas, and Gideon heads toward America.
Read the rest of this review »
