Geosynchron

From the beginning, David Louis Edelman's Jump 225 Trilogy has been a pleasant surprise and change from the typical books we read. It shouldn't really be a shocker to anyone when we say we don't generally care for the SF genre. Authors in SF seem to take themselves too seriously. Or they really have no interest in telling a story, but they love to show how much smarter they are than the reader. Thankfully, Edelman isn't of that pretentious school of thought.We first heard of Edelman back in 2006 at the WorldCon in Los Angeles. His first novel, INFOQUAKE was being pushed by Pyr Editor-extraordinaire Lou Anders. Admittedly, the series didn't...

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Posted in Books We Love , David Louis Edelman , science fiction

Shadow Prowler

SHADOW PROWLER, by Alexey Pehov, was quite a surprising read for us. All we knew going in was that eight or so years ago it was released in Russia, the translation was done by Bromfield (of Nightwatch translation fame), and that the author had some recognition in his home country.Just picking up the book gave us confidence in it. The cover art depicts an obvious epic fantasy, and it looked gritty enough to hold our attention. Before we even read the excerpt on the back we were really excited. Especially Nick, since he loves Russian writing (even if it is translated).However, the excitement we both had for the book dissipated immediately...

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Posted in Alexey Pehov , Books We Like , Epic Fantasy

House of Reckoning

We are going to be honest here (stop laughing). We try to read a lot of Horror, but there is a lot of it that we miss. Mostly on purpose. We managed to mostly avoid John Saul, even though he seems to be one of the huge names in the Horror genre. Why did we avoid him? All his books, from the outside, look the same (this is foreshadowing of event to come late in this review). It’s just a picture of a house under a different color tone. John Saul’s latest novel, HOUSE OF RECKONING, follows this theme by using a house with a green tint. Creepy. Yes, that was sarcasm.HOUSE OF RECKONING begins by showing two different teens in their respective...

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Posted in Books We Hate , Horror , John Saul

The Top 10 of 2009

OK, we got called out on it, so to prove that we respond to almost ALL requests. Here is the Top 10. We didn't particularly want to do one, since we only had 4 months of publishing reviews before the year was over, and there were only 26 or 27 books in our Books We Like tag group at the time. But here we are...doing what you wanted, because we are just that great.Steve's Best 10 Novels of 2009Note: I have cheated here. Some of these are US releases where I saw fit. Some are UK releases. It's my list. I can do what I want. And no, I will not put an order to them. I refuse. They all do different things incredibly well.Patient Zero - Jonathan MaberryThe Affinity Bridge - George MannDiving into the Wreck - Kristine Kathryn RuschBest Served Cold - Joe AbercrombieToll the Hounds - Steven EriksonI...

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Posted in *Best of 2009

The Devil's Alphabet

With THE DEVIL'S ALPHABET, Daryl Gregory does something really cool. He presents a book that has all the trappings of an Urban Fantasy, which hides what it truly is. A character study. This book tickled, in particular, Nick's sociology fancy. Steve found it a little bit less exciting.THE DEVIL'S ALPHABET is about Pax, a young man from Switchcreek, Tennessee, that returns to his hometown to attend a funeral of a former best friend, who's death is shrouded in mystery. Switchcreek, before Pax had left, had been a victim of a bizarre "disease" that warped the DNA and bodies of it's inhabitants. It turned regular people into the tall, muscular, slumping...

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Posted in Books We Like , Daryl Gregory

Nightchild

NIGHTCHILD. So here we are, the third and final novel of The Chronicles of the Raven series by our friend James Barclay. So does it stay true to the prior novels? Does it elevate the series to new heights?Easily. This is by far the best of the trilogy.If you’ve been reading this series, you know what makes this series work. Fast-paced, bloody action. Battles and journeys of epic proportions. Grim tones amidst witty banter from, the stars of the series, the mercenary group The Raven. Saving the world. With NIGHTCHILD, Barclay had some heavy expectations to fill. How do you go bigger than the Dawnthief spell from the first novel, DAWNTHIEF? How...

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Posted in Books We Love , Heroic Fantasy , James Barclay

Monster Hunter International

How about a requested review from one of our readers, Dan Burton. See, we really do listen to your requests.MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL, on the surface, seems to fit the need that most of us have for mindless, gunfire-laden fiction. We all need it at times. Larry Correia, the author, gives us all the ingredients that a book of this style might typically have, yet somehow makes them more than the sum of their parts. In all honesty, we were surprised by how much we enjoyed this novel, and how much we are now looking forward to the sequel.It all starts with an accountant, Owen Pitt. Being that Steve is an accountant, he immediately connected...

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Posted in Books We Love , Larry Correia , Urban Fantasy

The Silver Skull

The following review, once you know that it is a Pyr book, will not come as a shock. We have to exercise the utmost of restraint in order to avoid reading through and reviewing all the Pyr books we can, as soon as we can.THE SILVER SKULL, by Mark Chadbourn, is one of the funnest books we have read. Period. Imagine a James Bond story, but way more awesome, set in an alternate Elizabethan England. This is what you get in this book.Will Swyfte has very carefully cultivated a veneer that almost all of England sees and adores. However the truth is that he is England's greatest spy, and is part of a spy network created to thwart the malicious attacks...

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Posted in Books We Love , Fantasy , Mark Chadbourn