The Lost Symbol

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...

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Posted in Books We Hate , Dan Brown , Mystery/Thriller

The Gathering Storm

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...

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Posted in Books We Like , Brandon Sanderson , Epic Fantasy , Robert Jordan

The Affinity Bridge

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...

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Posted in Books We Like , George Mann , Steampunk

Diving into the Wreck

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,...

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Posted in Books We Love , Kristine Kathryn Rusch , science fiction

Skinwalker Review and Faith Hunter Interview

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...

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Posted in Faith Hunter , Interviews , Urban Fantasy

Noonshade

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....

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Posted in Books We Love , Heroic Fantasy , James Barclay

Tom Lloyd Interview

After spending the weekend hanging out with agents, editors, and authors, as well as fans, we think this is a pretty good time to post an interview with one of our favorite authors. As you probably already know, we have a lot of respect for Tom Lloyd and his writing. We are pleased to give you this little interview with one of the new, great minds of current fantasy.Hey Tom.Hello!It is becoming a trend here on our website to start an interview off by allowing the author to throw humility (should there be any) to the side. So we extend that invitation to you, of course, and want you to tell us why you're so great.Because you guys say I am? No?...

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Posted in Interviews , Tom Lloyd