Historical fiction is a fairly new genre for me. In an attempt to relieve reading fatigue and expand my horizons I have been looking to new types of books to slide into the fantasy and sci-fi mix. Historical fiction was an easy step, with its blending of the real and imaginary. However, one of the…
Continue reading ➞ The Last Days of Magic – Blurring The Line Between Fact And Fiction
Back in 2013 I was walking through a bookstore and the cover of Brilliance, by Marcus Sakey, caught my eye. I was lured in by its stand out art and the blurb on the back of the book promising a different take on mutants. The book focused around mutations that improved a person’s abilities like…
Continue reading ➞ Written In Fire – Going Out In A Blaze Of Glory
Perdido Street Station is the first of the New Crobuzon series by China Miéville. The series is made up of semi-stand alone stories (they are independent but have a few recurring characters) about inhabitants of a giant metropolis in a fantasy world. This particular story follows two individuals: Issac, a human mad scientist who works…
Continue reading ➞ Perdido Street Station – Foul And Fanciful
Radiance, by Catherynne Valente, is one of the strangest books I have ever read in the best way possible. For starters, I quit this book three times before I finished it. Despite that, I am extremely happy that I ended up sticking it out until the end. The book is one-of-a-kind, and very hard to…
Terrible books are easy to review. They do a lot wrong, so there is a lot to point out and talk about. On the other hand, the best books are incredibly hard to review. You have to keep a tight grip on your writing so that it doesn’t simply spew into “go read this now”…
Before I start this, let me say that I do not often read anthologies so I may not be the best judge. With that out of the way, let's talk about Rogues, the anthology being advertised under George R. R. Martin’s banner. The title of the post should give you a fairly succinct summary of…
I have read a lot of historical fiction this year, and I’m pretty tired of England. When writing a historical fiction, writers tend to go for a well known and popular time in history to make the book more appealing. There is nothing wrong with this, these times (like WWII) are popular because they are…
When it comes to publishers telling me their books are good, I tend to not trust them. I firmly believe that a company would never tell me their product was bad, so why should I trust them when they say its good? With this in mind, I was very skeptical of Sleeping Giants by Sylvain…
Continue reading ➞ Sleeping Giants – 2016’s Gigantic Dark Horse (See What I Did There?)
To change things up a bit, this week I will be reviewing an entire trilogy at once (because I could not stop reading it). The series is called The Rogues of the Republic, by Patrick Weekes, and it consists of The Palace Job, The Prophecy Con, and The Paladin Caper. I will be reviewing each…
Continue reading ➞ The Rogues Of The Republic – Ocean’s 9 (And A Few Friends)
I have had some formal training in being a writer, reader, and critic, so I have an appreciation for the skill and creativity that it takes to write a book. However, when I read books, particularly science fiction and fantasy books, I am almost always reading for the pleasure of reading not to just appreciate…
Continue reading ➞ The Three-Body Problem – Someone’s Favorite Book
