Waiting On Wednesday 9/4/13
Posted on September 4, 2013 Leave a Comment
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.
Nobody fights the Epics… nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.
And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.
He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.
“
Book Review: The Rose and the Thorn by Michael J. Sullivan
Posted on September 3, 2013 2 Comments
The Rose and the Thorn by Michael J. Sullivan
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 2 of The Riyria Chronicles
Publisher: Orbit
Expected Date of Publication: September 17, 2013
Author Information: Website | Twitter
The Riyria Revelations series may have wrapped up, but when it comes to this fantasy world and its characters, clearly there are still many stories to be told. Michael J. Sullivan fills in the details of the past first with The Crown Tower, and now with The Rose and the Thorn. Thanks to Orbit Books and NetGalley, I was able to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
While the first book told the origin story of the partnership between Royce and Hadrian, I thought this second one focused more on the birth of Riyria and the concept itself. Returning to Medford after a year of being on the road, the two thieves find that trouble has come upon Gwen Delancy, the woman who saved their lives after the harrowing events at the Crown Tower. The whole city is looking for one of Gwen’s girls, a young prostitute who may have unwittingly stumbled upon a conspiracy to kill the king of Melengar and his family.
To be honest, I think the fact I was going to enjoy this book was already a foregone conclusion; to me, the romance between Royce and Gwen is one of those fantasy fiction love stories for the ages, and I was giddy with the fact that we got a glimpse into how their relationship first sparked and blossomed. This book also served to provide back-stories for some of the supporting characters in The Riyria Revelations, and we got to see appearances from familiar faces such as Reuben Hilfred and Viscount Albert Winslow.
That said, while I thought the The Crown Tower could be read as a standalone without having much knowledge of the six books of The Riyria Revelations, The Rose and the Thorn on the other hand might not be so easy to get into for newcomers to the world of Riyria, mostly due to the large number of characters and lore it introduces in the opening chapters. Still, it’s not such a big avalanche of information that it would be overwhelming; I still have no doubt that the book would be enjoyable to people who haven’t read the original series, but it’ll just be more to take in.
In general, though, readers who already know the names and the political climate in this period of the books involving the Church of Nyphron will probably have more reasons to find this book exciting. I for one loved it. From the description I thought I would be getting a lot more about Royce and Gwen, but even then I was not disappointed when I discovered their story was just a part of an overall bigger picture. So many past events that I’d been aware of from The Riyria Revelations have now been given a new life and significance.
In sum, this book basically gave me more than I bargained for, and in a good way. I generally love to read these kinds of “world-building” novels that add to an existing story or series, so really, both these The Riyria Chronicles books were right up my alley. I hope Michael J. Sullivan will be open to writing more in the future, even if they aren’t necessarily about Hadrian and Royce. As he’s shown with this book, even the supporting characters from his world of Riyria have interesting stories to tell.
Book Review: The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough
Posted on September 2, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Book 2 of Dire Earth Cycle
Publisher: Del Rey
Date of Publication: August 27, 2013
Author Information: Website | Twitter
After hearing the praises my co-blogger Wendy had to sing about this book, I decided not to wait any longer and just had to see its awesomeness for myself. I’m so glad I did. At the same time, though, I’m also now hot and bothered over that crazy cliffhanger of an ending. Oh no, you did NOT just end there. I’m not kidding, I actually shouted that at the book, earning me a strange and slightly concerned look from my husband.
The story continues with mystery, action and good sci-fi thrills in this sequel to The Darwin Elevator, Jason M. Hough’s hit debut that came out earlier this summer. With the appearance of a second space elevator in Brazil, our protagonist Skyler and the brilliant Dr. Tania Sharma have set up a new colony at its base, using the movable alien towers around it to ward off the deadly subhuman plague. A sudden attack from a band of immune militants, however, halts progress and endangers the colonists. Cut off from contact, Skyler is left on his own to fight off the savage SUBs and to figure out a way take back the colony.
I have to say the second book of a trilogy is often tricky; a lot of times, they end up being labeled as “bridges” since the first book typically is an explosive introduction while the last book contains the grand finale, leaving little for the middle book to do than to tie the two together and ramp up to the conclusion. I’m happy to report this is not the case with The Exodus Towers. Personally, I find it even more gripping than the first book, with non-stop action that starts on page one and won’t let up.
At the same time, it also deftly manages to accomplish a prime goal of a second book — developing and evolving the main characters, establishing the world, and furthering the intrigue of the situation. In this story of survival in a land taken over by the wilderness and hordes of mindless, violent creatures, we get to experience this at both the personal level through the eyes of Skyler, as well as at a community level following the struggles of the colony.
In addition, new threats and new players are introduced to spice things up. The story is getting a little darker and more brutal, and in a time when humans should be banding together, everyone is instead even more unsure of whom to trust. The suspense is also building steadily, as more is gleaned about the mysterious alien Builders and their daunting technology. All in all, this book succeeded in revving up the momentum and raising the stakes. Can’t wait for the conclusion!
Note: Received eARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks, NetGalley and Del Rey!
Be sure to check out our other articles about The Dire Earth Cycle here on The BiblioSanctum, including an interview with author Jason M. Hough!
Graphic Novel Review: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic vol.2 by Heather Nuhfer
Posted on September 2, 2013 Leave a Comment
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Volume 2 by Heather Nuhfer
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Publication Date: September 24, 2013
With thanks to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.
If you’re new to the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, or are disturbed by all that talk of bronies, check out my review of volume one for an explanation of why you should be watching and/or reading this.
Volume two of the comic book series does not pick up where the last volume left off. Much like the show, the volumes contain completely separate story arcs, however, like the show, they do build on the overall lore being formed within the series.
In this case, the powers of Nightmare we met in season one are back, attacking Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in their dreams by presenting them with their greatest fears. Rarity succumbs to her fear and is kidnapped to the moon.
Princess Celestia and her sister Luna, come to Ponyville to help stop the bad guys, but Luna, formerly known as Nightmare Moon who destroyed Ponyville under the influence of Nightmare, is very uncertain about her contribution to the efforts. But true to form, the ponies put their faith in her and show her that friendship truly is magic as they set out to save Rarity.
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| Pinkie Pie by OcarniaofTimeLord |
I really enjoy reading MLP to my daughters (7 and 5) because I love doing the voices and they love hearing it. They both gave this volume two thumbs and two big toes up, however, I didn’t find this one quite as memorable as the previous volume, which the girls still quote regularly. There wasn’t quite enough of the ponies doing their thing, or maybe there just wasn’t enough Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie is like cowbell. You can never have enough.
Spike did get more airtime, though, since it is his beloved Rarity that’s been kidnapped and he must use his wits to rescue her and the other ponies. Meanwhile, Luna has to learn to forgive herself and accept the friendship of the others, rather than let Nightmare intimidate and guilt trip her.
My five year old has had trouble with nightmares, lately, so this was a perfectly timed encouragement for the “nightmares aren’t real,” mantra we’ve been working on.
September Book Club Read: Choose Your Own Eisner Adventure!
Posted on September 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
With the recent announcement of the Eisner Award winning comics, now is a great time for the LeVar’s Rainbow Book Club to catch up on the good stuff of 2013. Read something new or check out the next volume of a continuing series!
Or better yet, read them all!
Book Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Posted on September 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Stand-alone
Publisher: William Morrow
Date of Publication: June 18, 2013
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Returning to Sussex to attend a funeral, an unnamed middle-aged man visits the site of his childhood home, knowing that the house he grew up in no longer exists. But the farm at the end lane still stands and he is drawn to the pond in the back, a pond which an extraordinary girl named Lettie Hempstock once called an ocean. In this place, the man recalls a series of events in his past, of a dark time which began forty years earlier with the suicide of his family’s lodger in their stolen car.
This was only the second novel I’ve read by Neil Gaiman (I’m not counting his short stories or comics, etc.) but I knew enough to know about his knack for storytelling, and particularly his style of using allusion in doing so. This has made me wary about picking up his stuff, because I tend not to be drawn to stories that are more metaphysical and abstract.
Because fables and mythological motifs often feature so heavily in his work, I’ve come to view a lot of Gaiman’s stories as modern fairy tales. Ocean definitely has that vibe to it; as such, the book’s description as “terrifying” and “menacing” notwithstanding, I found it more whimsical and odd than anything else. While not a negative factor by any means, admittedly I did expect the book to be somewhat more emotionally stirring.
That said, while it’s not typically my kind of book, Ocean packs a pretty good punch, especially given its relatively short length. Gaiman has a way of making me care about his characters if not so much for his themes, and not to mention he also writes beautifully. Very few authors can do what he does to me with his prose, as in the case of this book where he uses such vivid imagery to paint fantastical landscapes and their creatures in my mind’s eye.
Mogsy’s Book Haul – YA Explosion Edition
Posted on August 31, 2013 Leave a Comment
As the title states, my library saw a ton of new YA additions in the last two weeks, thanks to a bunch of amazing sales. But that’s mostly ebooks, so first here are the physical books that have arrived since my last book haul post:
The Greyfriar – received for review. This book was delicious, a fine mix of steampunk, fantasy world-building, adventure and romance. I’ve already devoured and reviewed it, and you can see my thoughts here. And if interested, MyShelfConfessions is currently running a giveaway on the audiobook, and better hurry as it looks like it will only go for a couple more days. By the way, James Marsters is the narrator, yum yum.
Kinslayer – from publisher/giveaway. Glad I didn’t wait to read the first book because now I get to jump into this one right away!
A Study in Silks – won in a giveaway. Doesn’t its description sound fascinating? Steampunk, magic, murder and demons, that sounds good to me! Keep an eye out for my review of this in the coming month!
And now, ahem, on to the huge digital pile. Have I ever mentioned how much I love good ebook deals?
The City’s Son – Jo Fletcher Books brought this book to my attention, as the sequel just came out and I’m seeing a lot of buzz for it. The series looked cool, so I picked this up for $5.95 earlier this month. Any ebook that looks interesting and is ~$5 or less is pretty much an insta-buy, so it was just calling to me.
Blackwood – congratulations to Strange Chemistry, Angry Robot’s YA imprint, for celebrating their first birthday last week! To celebrate, they’ve dropped the prices on a handful of their first titles to $1.99 ($1.39 in some cases, like Blackwood, woot!) and this was a book I picked up…
Katya’s World – …and so was this…
The Assassin’s Curse – …and also this. Sigh!
The Bone Season – I’ve heard some amazing things about this book and its author 21-year-old Samantha Shannon, whom some have already heralded as “the next J.K. Rowling.” Curiosity got the better of me, and $4.99 seems a good price to satisfy it.
Crown of Midnight – sequel to the first book Throne of Glass, which I already have. $5.99 for a book that just came out this week is not bad at all.
The Rise of Renegade X and The Trials of Renegade X – both sent in a e-bundle this week from the author Chelsea Campbell because I pledged in her Kickstarter campaign to publish the second Renegade X book. Really looking forward to reading this YA superhero series!
Monsters – third book of the Ashes Trilogy and I’m mad to find out how it all ends. Got this one from Netgalley, because I’m an NG addict, and I need help.
Dreams and Shadows – finally for some books that aren’t YA, this one had been on my wishlist for a while and when I saw it for $1.99 last week I quickly snapped it up.
Devil Said Bang – fourth in Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series, whose books periodically go on sale and I pick them up whenever I see them. That’s why I got this when I saw it for $2.99 a couple weeks ago, even though I’ve only just finished reading the second.
Audiobook Review: METAtropolis
Posted on August 30, 2013 1 Comment
Metatropolis by various authors
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian Future
METAtropolis is a collection of short stories by several science fiction authors who decided that, rather than simply doing a collection of stories based on a specific theme, they would create a world together, and write stories within that world. I really liked this concept, as well as the fact that three of the audiobook narrators are actors from Battlestar Galactica, one of my favourite television shows.
John Scalzi is the editor of the book and introduces each story. He also wrote the only short story within the book that I truly enjoyed. His story, wonderfully narrated by Alessandro Juliani, employed Scalzi’s usual sense of humour and, as he explains, fills the gap in the METAtropolis left by the other authors because it is a story about people who actually live reasonably happily within the major cities. The story somewhat addresses something that really bothered me when I started reading this. I realized that I couldn’t recall any depiction of humanity’s future that doesn’t feature a dystopia where our flaws and hubris have destroyed everything, or a utopia that is too inhuman to be true and must be destroyed. METAtropolis made me realize just how little we think of humanity and our future.
METAtropolis is a typical world where the less fortunate and the disillusioned live outside the gated communities of the rich, thinking up ways to bring anarchy to the lives of the better off. There is no shortage of lecturing the reader in various ways over how human nature has led to this current state of affairs and, outside of Scalzi’s story, we get to be privy to the greed and desperation of not-quite starving people who seek to survive and to balance the scales through overzealous protests.
As I said, I only found Scalzi’s entry to be interesting, with memorable characters and events. As his story takes place within the same world, he didn’t neglect the anarchists in his account, but he did turn their beliefs upside down a bit by not merely making them the downtrodden who must obviously be good in comparison to the rich people who must obviously be bad because of their blissful ignorance.
Overall, a surprisingly disappointing read, with the other stories being rather uninspiring and sometimes annoying in their preachiness. The narrations were mostly good, but not good enough to elevate the stories.
Book Review: Children of Fire by Drew Karpyshyn
Posted on August 29, 2013 2 Comments
Children of Fire by Drew Karpyshyn
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Publisher: Del Rey
Date of Publication: August 27, 2013
Author Info: www.drewkarpyshyn.com
With thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Four unique children are born under a portent omen, each touched by Chaos in some way. Initially, the story moves through the lives of all four, leaping through time as they grow and deal with varied situations that shape them towards their destiny. Their paths cross in various ways until they reach adulthood and then dark forces are unleashed…
I’ve played the Bioware games Karpyshyn has been heavily involved in as a writer and I have read one of his Star Wars books, as well as his Mass Effect books. With those, I found that his writing was not as strong as the ideas and characters behind it and concluded that Karpyshyn works best when his ideas and characters can be visually brought to life. Perhaps he’d do a better job with the comic book stories.
However, Children of Fire is Karpyshyn’s first novel of his own creation, and I’m always curious to see what a creator can do when freed from the constraints of an established franchise. So far, I’m very pleased. I don’t feel this book is a strong entry into the epic fantasy genre, however, it has a lot of potential.
Actually, considering how I feel about epic fantasy classics like Eye of the World, Children of Fire is very good. The characters are strong, unique and memorable, and there’s little time wasted on too much exposition. I was worried at first, with the format of travelling through the children’s lives as they aged, but Karpyshyn did a good job of telling only what was needed at each given point in their lives.
There are some typical fantasy tropes used, such as talismans, chosen ones, dark lords, fellowships and seemingly evil ruling bodies. I liked the latter two items though, because they did not quite follow the conventional ‘rules.’ When the four children cross paths, their interaction is not predictable, and the Order, who seeks out people who wield Chaos magic, does so for a good reason.
I did enjoy the magical aspect of the story. There is a lot of lore behind it and varying opinions on those with magical abilities, but I liked that Karpyshyn doesn’t use the magic as a crutch to easily get his characters out of situations. In fact, the moments when magic is used serves to advance the plot and develop the characters themselves.
The BiblioSanctum 