The Drowning City

8:30 AM Nikki

THE DROWNING CITY, by Amanda Downum, is the opening act in The Necromancer Chronicles sequence. The plot follows a number of characters, but Isyllt Iskaldur (how do YOU think this is pronounced?) is the main protagonist. She is in the island-city of Symir, in the capacity of a spy/government agent. Her mission, should she choose to accept it? Spread dissent, foment chaos, and generally wreck the status quo. Cool eh? Well, read on...Let's talk setting. We have read books that run the gamut on interesting settings, however we have very rarely seen anything that resembles the Far East. After reading this book we wondered why we haven't seen it...


Posted in , ,

Scenting the Dark & Other Stories

7:00 AM Nikki

During our adventures at World Fantasy in October, we had a chance to meet and chat with Campbell Award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal. If any of you are listeners of Writing Excuses (and if you aren't, you really should be), then you may remember Mary from her guest appearances on the podcast. They were some of the most entertaining and insightful episodes that the podcast has put together.As it turns out, Mary has a short story collection being published through Subterranean Press (we love them). Needless to say, we were excited to read a review copy of the collection.First, let's discuss short stories a bit. No, you don't have a choice but...


Posted in , , ,

Leviathan

11:59 AM Nikki

Scott Westerfeld is perhaps currently best known for his YA SF novels. He recently decided to try his hand at Steampunk in an alternate version of World War I. LEVIATHAN is a good entry into the genre, but it isn't without drawbacks (depending on your point of view, of course).LEVIATHAN follows the PoV of Alek, the son of Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand (in case you didn't know before, now you know where the band gets its name--that's your useless piece of trivia for the day). In Westerfeld's story, the assassination of the Archduke and his wife incites World War I, just like in actual history. This differences are the Steampunk and Biopunk...


Posted in , ,

Sandman Slim

7:00 AM Nikki

There are beliefs, of sorts, in the writing business. A good author can take the most cliché, horrible idea, and make it work. A bad author, however, could have the most amazing idea, and make it seem second-rate drivel. SANDMAN SLIM, by Richard Kadrey, takes a little of both of those. Poorly written, clichéd drivel. Awesome huh? (Yes, that was sarcasm.)There is a blatant attempt in this novel to have a Harry Dresden-style character be super dark and gritty. The main PoV, James Stark (a magician, of course), was sent to Hell by his "friends." He fought demons "Downtown," (as the character calls it) Gladiator style for eleven years, and then...


Posted in , ,

Dead and Gone

7:00 AM Nikki

Yes, we have read the full Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Short stories included. Call it a not-so-secret guilty pleasure. The fact of the matter is that Harris makes us laugh, and we enjoy it when an author intentionally makes us laugh through comedy rather than the alternative...DEAD AND GONE, is the latest entry into the Sookie Stackhouse series about a girl (Sookie) who can read minds, and vampires who have come out of the coffin (Harris' pun, not ours) and have announced themselves to the world. You may not have read the books, but we can almost be positive that you have at least heard of the HBO series, True Blood. It's...


Posted in , ,

The Lost Symbol

7:00 AM Nikki

Have you ever had that burning sensation in your chest? No, not heart-burn. More deadly (if possible) than that. We mean the feeling when you are reading a novel, watching a movie, or playing a video game and you get SO impatient for it to move along. You start clenching your jaw. You crack your knuckles again, even though you just cracked them two minutes earlier. And the feeling that is the perfect mix of annoyance and impatience burns in you. That's what reading THE LOST SYMBOL is like. It is excruciating. Yes. Excruciating...that is the word of choice to explain Dan Brown's latest "novel." (Dear Dan Brown: Thank you for kindly putting the...


Posted in , ,

The Gathering Storm

7:00 AM Nikki

THE GATHERING STORM. We know that you have all been waiting for us to write this review. You know what this book is, and you likely had some sort of strong feeling when you found out that Brandon Sanderson would be completing the late Robert Jordan's epic series. Some of you felt as though demon's had taken over Tor and killed Santa, and some of you felt a profound sense of relief just knowing the series would be finished.Truthfully, we weren't in either camp. Oh we were glad when we heard our buddy Brandon was finishing the series--we tend to consider him a great writer--but we wondered if anyone stood a chance at making this series enjoyable...


Posted in , , ,

The Affinity Bridge

8:00 AM Nikki

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.The...


Posted in , ,

Diving into the Wreck

8:00 AM Nikki

Every now-and-then a novel surprises us. For whatever reason, we have preconceptions about a novel before reading; it could be we've read the author's previous novels, it could be the cover-art, or really anything else for that matter. What we love is when a novel shatters all of our unfounded notions, and completely sucks us into the story (if this were a vampire novel, we would insert a mandatory pun here, but alas...).Kristine Kathryn Rusch has been writing SF for a while now (not to mention every other genre under various pen-names). You may have heard of her, and you may have even read her Retrieval Artist series. It is a decent series,...


Posted in , ,

Skinwalker Review and Faith Hunter Interview

7:35 AM Nikki

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.Faith: Oh my. Nick. Please don’t loose your will to live or your soul! Get a good book to read and relax a bit! (May I suggest one of mine???) (This in response to Nick mentioning the crushing weight of school...


Posted in , ,

Noonshade

7:35 AM Nikki

Remember that guy, James Barclay, who's book DAWNTHIEF we reviewed a few weeks ago? If you don't remember, shame on you! Go here for that review of a terrific novel. That first novel was one of the higher quality novels we had read all year, so we had some fairly high expectations for NOONSHADE. Do we ever not?The story of NOONSHADE picks up, literally, minutes after the first book, DAWNTHIEF, ends and throws us right back into the exploits of the mercenary band, The Raven. In the first few pages we are given a brief, "Hey, look! There's a big-A hole in the sky as a consequence for saving the world in a dangerous way in the last book." summary....


Posted in , ,
Pages 381234 »
Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Favorites More
RSS FeedSubscribe to our RSS feed!
Follow me on Twitter!Follow me on Twitter!