Bared Blade by Kelly McCullough

Bared Blade is the second book in the FALLEN BLADE series. Kelly McCullough continues the story of Aral Kingslayer, survivor of the destruction of the Goddess Namara turned petty thief and spy.

Aral is still struggling with the revelation that other members of his cult survived the fall of his goddess. His experiences in Broken Blade have started to give him an inkling that there may be more to look forward to than alcoholic oblivion. The relationship between Aral and his familiar/partner Triss has been an interesting twist on typical sword and sorcery tropes.

When a couple of oddly matched women are suddenly attacked in front of Aral, he chooses to get involved. The women have powers and skills far beyond the ordinary, which changes everything immediately. As further evidence of Aral’s re-orientation away from self-destruction via Kyle’s whiskey, Ara... Read More

The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton

The Defiant Agents is the third book in Andre Norton’s TIME TRADERS series about a secret United States government program that uses time travel to solve geopolitical problems, especially those involving the Cold War with the Russians. In the first book, The Time Traders, we met Ross Murdock, a criminal who avoided his sentence by signing on with the Time Traders and discovering the source of the Russians’ new powers. In the second book, Galactic Derelict, we met Travis Fox, an Apache who joined the Time Traders and was sent to recover an alien spaceship.

In this third book, the United States has tossed all ethics out the window and decided that the end justifies the means. They’ve used a process called Redax on Travis Fox and some other unknowing Apache volunteers which causes them to forget their modern selves and embrace their inner Apache. The govern... Read More

Dream London by Tony Ballantyne

Antihero (n): Protagonist who lacks the attributes that make a heroic figure, such as nobility of mind or spirit.

Tony Ballantyne’s Dream London opens with a stunner of a first chapter. Captain Jim Wedderburn awakens in his room to find two fiery salamanders munching on a green beetle the size of a dinner plate. It only gets stranger from there, as he confronts a business rival (Wedderburn is a pimp); bumps into his old girlfriend who hands him a scroll with his fortune on it; and meets a stranger who offers him a job. The first line on the fortune scroll reads, “You will meet a stranger…”

Captain Jim, who also goes by “James,” lives in Dream London. Original, mundane London has changed. Different dimensions now intrude into the city’s reality. Buildings disappear, train tracks and rivers shift, entire neighborhoods change. Whatever is causing the strange... Read More

The Subterranean Stratagem by Michael Pryor

I have to confess, Michael Pryor’s second installment of THE EXTRAORDINAIRES series, The Subterranean Stratagem, did not quite charm or engage me as much as its predecessor, The Extinction Gambit, did (or Pryor’s earlier THE LAWS OF MAGIC series). As this is the first of Pryor’s books not to do so, I’m going to consider this a minor blip and assume book three will regain his usual form.

The Subterranean Stratagem picks up a few months after the end of The Extinction Gambit, with Kingsley and Evadne’s new act struggling more than a little, due mostly to Kingsley’s personal struggle in trying to keep his wild side in check, something he has been having more and more difficulty with. Their personal relationship is just as stalled as the professional one, stuck somewhat awkwardly between professional a... Read More

The God Tattoo: Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign by Tom Lloyd

Tom Lloyd shares stories from before his TWILIGHT REIGN series in this collection, The God Tattoo: Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign. I read it because I thought you didn’t have to have read any of the TWILIGHT REIGN books in order to understand what was going on. I would say that’s not strictly true. My ignorance of the series definitely hampered my enjoyment of these pieces.

These eleven stories follow various characters in the city and nation of Narkang in a land called The Land. Several seem to take place at or near the site of an epic battle in the past, which the last elf king Aryn Bwr (“Aaron Burr?”) lost badly, and which seems to be cursed now. Lloyd’s writing is reminiscent at times of a number of dark fantasy writers from the 1980s, most notably Karl Edward Wagner. Once in a while he nearly channels Read More

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart is a young adult novel, it has a post-apocalyptic setting, and it’s about superheroes (super villains, actually). It’s like Sanderson collected the last five years of blockbuster movies and novels and condensed them into one work that could be adapted into a newer, even bigger blockbuster movie. I also think there’s video game potential.

Steelheart is not adapted from a specific comic series, though Sanderson does appear to have been inspired by some of the genre’s most popular titles. Here, a bizarro man of steel named Steelheart takes over Chicago, renames it “Newcago,” and begins a cruel reign of dominance. Steelheart is an Epic — he has superpowers like super strength and the ability to generat... Read More

Extremities by David Lubar

On the back of my copy of Extremities, a new collection of horror by David Lubar, the author bluntly states, “This is not a book for children. Let me clear about that.”  Because much of his other work is so clearly aimed at children, I can see why Lubar feels the need to highlight this. Especially as there are some references to drugs and some graphic violence. But while I agree the book isn’t for “children,” I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone much older thirteen or fourteen, forming a relatively narrow audience.

The thirteen stories in Extremities, all centered on teen protagonists caught up in plots involving revenge, murder, magic, and strange creatures are uniformly dark, which one would expect from a horror collection. But they’re also surprisingly and unfortunately uniformly un-scary. I can’t say one ever truly gave me a shiver, a shock, or even a mildly cree... Read More

Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

Enna Burning is one of Shannon Hale’s BAYERN books — a set of four “companion” books set in the fictional country of Bayern. Each book can stand alone, but they have overlapping characters. I was glad I had read The Goose Girl, the first BAYERN book, before reading Enna Burning because I was already familiar with the world and its inhabitants.

Readers who’ve read The Goose Girl will remember Enna, best friend of Princess Isi. In Enna Burning, Enna acquires the power of fire starting. This dark power is seductive and though Enna hopes to use it to save her country from an aggressive neighbor, she struggles to keep from being pulled to the dark side. She deals with secrets, guilt, and jealousy, learns how lies can ruin relationships, and discovers that the path to destruction is a slippery slope.

It’s hard ... Read More

The Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green

John Taylor has been hired by The Unnatural Inquirer, the gossip magazine of the Nightside, to find a stolen DVD that allegedly contains a recording of a transmission from the afterlife. His investigation will take him all over the Nightside where we’ll encounter old and new friends (and enemies).

The Unnatural Inquirer is the eighth book in Simon R. Green’s NIGHTSIDE series. If you’ve read all the previous books, you know what to expect here and, depending on your tastes, that’s either a good or a bad thing. If you just want to hang out with John Taylor and his friends in the Nightside, The Unnatural Inquirer will probably please you. It’s got everything we expect from a NIGHTSIDE book — a fast-moving romp through a decadent parallel world with some of the strangest people and creatures you’ll ever meet.

Unfortunately, as I�... Read More

The One-Eyed Man: A Fugue, With Winds and Accompaniment by L.E. Modesitt Jr

I am a big fan of Modesitt’s science fiction work, even when he gets on his political soap box for gender, socially progressive politics, and environmental issues. The One-Eyed Man is a solo novel that encompasses all of these topics, but this time there is almost a feeling of cynicism that I really enjoyed.

Paulo Verano is an idealistic Environmental Analyst who has just been taken to the cleaners. In a scene that is familiar to many, his ex-spouse has left him for another person and has financially devastated him. His daughter is estranged from him and his business, while viable, is a means for his ex to continue to reap financial support. It’s a bleak picture.

Stittara is a distant world from the major planets of the Unity of the Cyelesian Arm. It produces a naturally occurring substance that essentially doubles the human li... Read More

Dreadnaught by Jack Campbell

Warning: Contains spoilers for Jack Campbell’s original LOST FLEET series.

Dreadnaught is the first book in Jack Campbell’s LOST FLEET: BEYOND THE FRONTIER series which is a spin-off of his LOST FLEET series, but really Dreadnaught is just book seven in the LOST FLEET series. You don’t need to read the previous six books, but it would help. Dreadnaught follows the same characters and begins shortly after the events of Victorious, book six in the original series.

Admiral Black Jack Geary and Captain Tanya Desjani are now married. Thanks to their actions during the war, the Alliance and Syndic Worlds have finally come to a peace agreement, but things are still tense and Geary is seen as a threat to many of the Alliance politicians. And so they send him away again, this time to gather information about the unknown... Read More

The World of the End by Ofir Touché Gafla

The World of the End, by Ofir Touché Gafla is one of those post-death stories where much of the plot takes place in an after-life of some sort (think Hungry Bones, Defending Your Life, The Brief History of the Dead, etc.). Generally, I find these sort of explorations pretty intriguing, partially because I like seeing what sort of strange take on the afterlife authors come up and partially because I like the exploration of how people respond to a new “life” once the old one has passed. Often, the dead don’t give up their old life easily, and that’s the case here as well. In fact, the reason our main character, Ben Mendelsshon, ends up in this “Other World” is so he can regain his old life: a year after his wife Marian dies he kills himself in order to either be with her again (there is an afterlife) or not suffer her absence (the... Read More

Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep

Web of Lies is the second book in Jennifer Estep’s ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN series about Gin Blanco, a young woman with elemental powers who was orphaned when she was a girl and was found and raised by an assassin who taught her the tricks of the trade. She’s known as The Spider — the best assassin in the city — and is now wealthy enough to retire, which she is trying to do. She spends her days running a barbeque restaurant, but trouble keeps finding her and she can’t turn her back on people who need her help... or people who need to be killed.

This time trouble is in the form of a college girl named Violet Fox whose family owns some property coveted by a man who’s trying to coerce them into selling it to him. He owns coalmines and wants to add their land to his domain. Now he’s getting ruthless and he will use any amount of force needed to get that land. It’s up to Gin to stop him ... Read More

Blood’s Pride by Evie Manieri

Blood’s Pride is a debut fantasy from Eve Manieri that unfortunately reads not so much like a first novel, with all the usual attendant issues of a first novel, but more like an early draft of a first novel. There’s the very strong opening scene that one could see perhaps sparking the whole idea, a few intriguing “what if one character did this to another character” plot points to create both internal and external conflicts at the outset, and several neat background ideas concepts with regard to mythology or world-building. But the execution just isn’t fully there — sometimes failing due to a lack (say, of clear, precise settings) and sometimes failing due to an excess (too many of those complicating plot points).

The novel opens with a bang, as we watch an entire people, the Shadari, nearly destroyed by group of raiders from the sea, known to themselves as Norlanders but called... Read More

The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos

The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, is the first in a new children's science fiction series set in a far future during a half-century-old interplanetary war between humanity and a mysterious race known as the Tremist. Thirteen-year-old Mason Stark, his best friend Merrin, and his sometime rival Tom Renner, along with another dozen or so cadets, are on board the warship SS Egypt for what is supposed to be a routine mission when they are suddenly attacked by a Tremist ship. Soon, Mason and his fellow cadets are on their own, fighting to regain control of their ship, prevent the Tremist from getting hold of a supersecret weapon, and save the Earth.

The Planet Thieves starts out with a bang (almost literally, as the Egypt is buffeted by the Tremist’s surprise attack) and the pace continues at a breakneck speed with our characters being placed in one perilous situat... Read More