Browsed by
Author: Bill Ward

Beth Dawkins Reviews Honeyed Words

Beth Dawkins Reviews Honeyed Words

Comments 0 Comment

honeyed-wordsHoneyed Words
J.A.Pitts
TOR (416pp, $14.99, Paperback, July2011)
Reviewed by Beth Dawkins

Honeyed Words is the second book in the Sarah Beauhall series. Sarah decides to take her girlfriend Katie to a concert in Vancouver for her birthday. When it is over Sarah snags passes for the after-party. There Sarah tries to stop the singer, Ari, from being abducted by what they believe to be dwarves. Afterwards Sarah and Katie run into two trouble-making elves, Gletts and Skella, who only make the couple’s stay in Vancouver even more confusing. There are also some issues back home when Sarah is asked to help Anezka the blacksmith out. The moment Sarah steps onto Anezka’s property she knows something is wrong. Soon Anezka starts acting crazy, and Sarah must ask for help from an unlikely source. While these events don’t seem connected, they come together to unleash a hell storm Sarah and Katie must clean up.

Sarah, the heroine for Honeyed Words, is a strong female lead. She has grown as a character since the first installment, Black Blade Blues, and it shows. She is working past her issues with her sexuality, and shows much more attention to her girlfriend, Katie. There is even a steamy shower scene between the couple. While she has worked things out with Katie, she isn’t carrying around the magic sword she reforged, Gram. She mentions a great deal of how the sword calls to her, how it is dreaming of blood, but we don’t see the sword blazing a path of destruction until the very end.

The story is told mostly in first person — Sarah’s POV, but some chapters switch to third person, and followed the perspective of a scheming character. These chapters were by far not as interesting. They felt jarring in the over-all flow, and the characters themselves were less fun to read.

…

Read More Read More

John Ottinger Reviews Bury Elminster Deep

John Ottinger Reviews Bury Elminster Deep

Comments 2 comments

bury-elminster-deep-by-ed-greenwoodBury Elminster Deep
Ed Greenwood
Wizards of the Coast (340pp, $25.95, 1st edition August 2011)
Reviewed by John Ottinger III

Sometimes an author can write a little too much about a character. Like a child who loves a stuffed animal, the repeated play can wear the fabric and loosen the stuffing so much that the very toy that was once so loved is rendered unrecognizable. Sentimentality keeps the stuffed animal by the child’s side, but to outside observers, the toy has lost all value.

So it is, I think, with Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood’s latest story of Elminster of Shadowdale. In Bury Elminster Deep the story opens where Elminster Must Die ended. The spellplague that has ravaged the realms has killed Mystra and killed, scattered, or rendered powerless her Chosen, including Elminster. Storm, one of the seven Chosen sisters and Elminster’s constant companion, has lost all magical power other than a head of living hair. Elminster, the most ancient and powerful of Mystra’s Chosen, who has lived through not one, but two incarnations of the goddess, is bodiless, riding the mind of his granddaughter, the dancer Rune, and is unable to perform magic without also enduring bouts of madness.

But then Mystra reappears and asks her favored Chosen to re-enter the kingdom of Cormyr to save it from yet another takeover by Lord Manshoon, the vampire archmage nemesis of Elminster. Manshoon thinks Elminster’s seeming disappearance is an opportunity to seize power in one of the Realms’ oldest human kingdoms. Though severely hobbled by his lack of magic, Storm’s normality and the jealousy of Rune’s boyfriend, Lord Arclath Delcastle, Elminster and company must stop Manshoon before his coup succeeds.

…

Read More Read More

Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

Comments 0 Comment

the-infernalsThe Infernals
John Connolly
Atria Books (309 pp, $22.00, 1st Hardcover Edition, October 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

Almost-Armageddon books are a marvelous niche in the fantasy market, ranging from serious examinations and thrillers to horror and gore. One of this reviewer’s favorites is the lighter side of Armageddon, as seen in Neil Gamain and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens or Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series.

John Connolly’s approach fits right into this niche, with a marvelous blend of suburban London quirk and the Large Hadron Supercollider in Cerne, Switzerland.

Sound a bit on the these-two-things-don’t-go-together side? Relax, set aside your concerns, and go for ride with Samuel Johnson and his faithful dog Boswell through the looking glass and straight to Hell.

…

Read More Read More

Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

Comments 1 comment

the-last-four-thingsThe Last Four Things
Paul Hoffman
Dutton Books (384 pp, $26.96, hardcover August 2011)
Reviewed by Chris Braak

The Last Four Things is the sequel to Paul Hoffman’s runaway hit The Left Hand of God – a droll, sword-and-more-swords epic set in a kind of topsy-turvy analog for Europe during the Hundred Years War. Like all second books in a trilogy, the proof of this one will lie in how the third book ties these loosened strings altogether.

The signature elements of Hoffman’s first novel are here in abundance: the dry wit, the simple but cleanly drawn characters, the tense and stirring depictions of large-scale military conflict; as well are some of the more troublesome elements, like Hoffman’s tendency to distractingly remix and incorporate recognizable bits of history and literature into the narrative.

After the events of The Left Hand of God, Thomas Cale (the eponymous Left Hand) and his friends — Kleist, Vague Henri, and IdrisPukke — find themselves separated by the machinations of the Lord Militant Redeemer Bosco. While Thomas Cale begins waging a series of campaigns on behalf of the imperialistic and puritanical Redeemers, Kleist the archer ends up making a home for himself in a tribe of cowardly, philosophical bandits called the Klephts. Cale’s hunger for escape and the Redeemers’ bloody-mindedness drive the two of them apart at first, and then slowly back together; the stage is set for a climax in the upcoming third book.

…

Read More Read More

Beth Dawkins Reviews Black Blade Blues

Beth Dawkins Reviews Black Blade Blues

Comments 2 comments

black-blade-bluesBlack Blade Blues
J.A. Pitts
TOR (384pp, $7.99, April 2011 Mass Market)
Reviewed by Beth Dawkins

Sarah, the protagonist of J.A. Pitts’ Black Blade Blues, is a twenty something blacksmith and props manager for a movie set. She works two jobs to pay her bills and student loans. On the movie set the lead man breaks her one-of-a-kind sword, and she decides to fix it. A man who claims to be a dwarf decides to help, and so the blade is reforged. The dwarf also insists that she must use it to kill a dragon, who is also an investment banker. After the blade it put back together, things start to fall apart for Sarah. Firstly, when things get serious with her girlfriend Katie, and then with her working relationships, everything dips out of control until Sarah is forced to acknowledge — and deal with — the paranormal aspects that are going on around her.

Sarah is a multi-layered character. She has anger problems, and is dealing with her sexuality. She doesn’t want to be openly gay with her girlfriend Katie, but she wants to be in a relationship with her. She doesn’t acknowledge the paranormal things that happen around her until she is forced to, and by that time her process of dealing with them is violent. After the sword is reforged, earthquakes start, and a homeless man who could be Odin starts babbling to Sarah. Instead of paying attention, her mind is more on Katie. After she has an argument with Katie, she sees a dragon for the first time and is so wrapped up in what might be going on around her (the paranormal), she doesn’t make time to talk things out. There are some scenes towards the end where friends make a few jokes, and though danger is immediate, and the reader is told that Sarah only wants to kill, she still laughs. I wanted her either friendly or brooding; instead she is a middle ground character that was hard to identify with.

…

Read More Read More

Andrea Grennan Reviews The Immortality Virus

Andrea Grennan Reviews The Immortality Virus

Comments 2 comments

immortalityvirus_medThe Immorality Virus
Christine Amsden
Twilight Times Books (266 pp, $18.95, June 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

In a world where aging has been erased, the “Change” may have ended Alzheimer’s and arthritis, but it hasn’t ended starvation, murder or suicide. The Immoratity Virus explores a dystopian view of a world where immortals aren’t a vampire few, but a human many, and looks at the problems that could ensue from such a “Change.”

Grace Harper has been born into this new world, and lived 180+ years in it, most of them uncertain and miserable. When hired by a wealthy man to find the person who created the immortality virus to see if it can be undone, she embarks on a quest which results in nearly every faction of society being arrayed against her, for a variety of reasons.

Why would anyone want to give up immortality?

…

Read More Read More

Charlene Brusso Reviews The Cloud Roads

Charlene Brusso Reviews The Cloud Roads

Comments 8 comments

the-cloud-roadsThe Cloud Roads
Martha Wells
Night Shade Books (300 pp, $14.99, February 2011)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

I always look forward to reading anything by Martha Wells, because she always gives me something marvelous and new–and The Cloud Roads doesn’t disappoint.

Moon is an outsider. He’s drifted all over, living with one tribe or clan or family after another, and never met another soul like himself. Because Moon has a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. With a little concentration he can alter his body from something that appears human and “normal” to a scaly humanoid with big dragon-like wings and sharp, retractable claws. Orphaned as a child, he’s been on his own ever since, never quite fitting in, and never staying long. It’s not safe to stay, because if anyone found out what he was, what he could become, they’d be certain to think he was one of the vile, noisome Fell, creatures from nightmares who live to hunt and consume humankind.

Moon isn’t Fell. Hes’ not sure what he is. And Moon doesn’t want to be alone. That’s just how things are.

Then he meets another shapeshifter: Stone, someone like himself. From Stone, Moon learns about the Raksura, who shift between groundling and dragonish shapes and live in courts run by Queens. There’s a long list of hierarchical rules to learn, but Moon is welcome to come back with Stone to Indigo Cloud Court and become one of its warriors. More than welcome, in fact.

…

Read More Read More

Jaym Gates Reviews Mind Storm

Jaym Gates Reviews Mind Storm

Comments 1 comment

mind-stormMind Storm
K.M. Ruiz
Thomas Dunne Books (304 pp, $24.99, Hardcover May 2011)
Reviewed by Jaym Gates

Science fiction is inundated with post-apocalyptic and dystopian settings, super-powers and corrupt governments, with varied results. Mind Storm is a nice blend of the familiar and the new, packed with action, and it introduces some pretty fun new characters. It is the first book of a series of unspecified length.

Mind Storm opens with psions Threnody and Quenton traveling to the slums of Los Angeles. It is the year 2379. Humans have stripped the Earth of nearly all resources. Crowded and afraid, nuclear war was unleashed…everywhere. By the time the war was over, most of the populated areas were dead zones, unfit for human life. The majority of the human race had been wiped out. But a small percentage of the human population finds their DNA altered, leaving them incredibly powerful and unique. They are called psions, and brainwashed and put in service to the world government as soldier-slaves.

Their power comes at a cost, burning out more of their bodies with every use. Only the fortunate make it to the age of thirty five. They are feared and hated by the humans, who regard them as dangerous vermin. Most of them are found early and pulled into the Stryker Syndicate, fitted with kill-switches controlled by the World Court. The ones who escape the Strykers are found and enslaved by the Warhounds, a rogue group of powerful psions serving a shadowy figure.

…

Read More Read More

Beth Dawkins Reviews The First Days

Beth Dawkins Reviews The First Days

Comments 1 comment

the-first-daysThe First Days
Rhiannon Frater
TOR (335pp, $14.99, Paperback July 2011)
Reviewed by Beth Dawkins

The First Days lives up to its title. Opening with Jenni getting attacked by her own children pulls the reader right into it. Housewife Jenni witnesses her abusive husband chewing on their near infant son. Jenni flees while her older son stays behind to confront her zombie husband. By the time Katie enters the picture Jenni has barricaded herself on the porch. Katie hasn’t had the best of days. She went home to find her wife turned into a zombie, and has decided the best thing to do is to get out of town. She is trying to find her way out of the city when she comes across Jenni. Katie is there in the nick of time for Jenni, who is forced to make a mad dash for Katie’s truck. The two women form a bond with one another as they go out to rescue Jenni’s stepson, and find a safe haven in a small town to start rebuilding their lives.

This is the first installment of a trilogy, and a rerelease of an originally self-published title. The heart of the novel is about what happens to people during the zombie apocalypse. They have to come to grips with their loved ones turning into monsters, and the bleak future. The story is nothing new, yet it is done in a very compelling way. After Jenni and Katie set out to find Jenni’s stepson, they find themselves forced towards a town containing other survivors. The town of Shady Springs former construction crew has put together a perimeter fence that is keeping the zombie hordes out. It is in the town where the story slowed down. A lot of time is spent on what each character feels about certain situations, and how they come to decisions. The two lead men are introduced near the middle of the book, and once they enter the story a lot of time is spent on how each character feels. The narrative can at times slow the story down, but it is a character driven story.

…

Read More Read More

Rich Horton Reviews Ashes of Candesce

Rich Horton Reviews Ashes of Candesce

Comments 2 comments

ashes-of-candesceAshes of Candesce
Karl Schroeder
Tor ($27.99, hc, 432 pages, February 2012)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

Ashes of Candesce is the concluding novel in Karl Schroeder’s Virga series, which began with an Analog serial called “Sun of Suns” (first part published in November 2005), and has continued through five novels. The first novel introduced Virga, a huge bubble in the Vega system in which a wide variety of human cultures live in low-tech freefall environments. It concerned young Hayden Griffin, a young man from the nation of Aerie, which has been conquered by another country, Slipstream. Griffin’s original mission is simply revenge against Slipstream, but by the end of that book he has learned a lot more about his world. There the series opens out – the initial setting is charming, and could have supported plenty of fine adventure stories, but Schroeder’s interests were much broader. In Sun of Suns we learn why Virga is a low tech environment, and in subsequent books we learn a fair amount about the much higher tech available outside Virga, and about that tech’s dangers.

The primary thematic thrust of the series is the nature of Artificial Intelligence, and the way humans can live with it, and the dangers of a life too separate from true nature, from true bodies. The conflict at the center is between Artificial Nature – essentially, purely virtual existence (though Schroeder’s take on this is more complex than that) and between intelligence that are fundamentally “embodied”, and thus responsive to what we might call “Natural Nature”. In each of the books we have learned more about Virga and especially about the world outside Virga – and about the importance of Virga and the paradoxically high-tech technology-suppression field that makes its low-tech existence possible.

…

Read More Read More