General Winston’s Daughter (2007) Sharon Shinn Averie is headed to Chiarrin, where her father and betrothed are with the army, which is currently seeking to make the area part of its empire. On the trip over Averie makes friends with Lieutenant Du’Kai, a Xan’tai member of the Aerberelle Army. This means only that as a […]
First Drop of Crimson (2010) Jeaniene Frost I actually really like Jeaniene Frost’s writing, and loved all of the Night Huntress books I’ve read so far, even the ones I picked up in trepidation, thinking, “this can’t possibly be anywhere nears as good as I’m remembering the earlier books in the series to be.” However, […]
Sweet Silver Blues (1987) Glen Cook This was the second book I read on the Nook, but unlike the first, this is available in paper format, so if you don’t have an e-reader, you aren’t out of luck. Garrett is a private investigator and hero (read: survivor) of the Cantard wars. When a friend and […]
Under Her Skin (2009) Ilona Andrews, Jeaniene Frost, Meljean Brook So, this was the first full book I read on the Nook. I love Ilona Andrews and also really like Jeaniene Frost, so I figured I couldn’t go too wrong for three bucks. These are three short paranormal romances, focusing on shape shifters, but also […]
Silver Bourne (2010) Patricia Briggs Every time I get a new Patricia Briggs book, I hesitate before reading it, afraid that this is the time she’ll let me down. That her previous books can’t be nearly as good as I remember them, and maybe this time I’ll be disappointed. I never am, but that doesn’t […]
Madame Xanadu Vol 3: Broken House of Cards (2011) Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder, Richard Friend, Joelle Jones I am really enjoying this series. I know there is a ton I am missing because I am not familiar with classic DC comic characters, but it doesn’t matter because they appear in the story as unknowns to […]
House of Mystery Vol 5: Under New Management (2011) Matthew Sturges, Luca Rossi, Jose Marzan Jr I think what I like best about the House of Mystery are the stories between the story. Like the House at World’s End, it’s full of tales and stories told by the visitors to the house, tales from other […]
Wild Hunt (2010) Margaret Ronald The sequel to Spiral Hunt finds Evie discovering that destroying the undercurrent’s power structure, while and good thing in and of itself, had unforseen repercussions. For one, some people now expect her to fill the void. For the other, if she doesn’t do it, someone else will. I quite liked […]
Mercy Blade (2011) Faith Hunter This is the third Jane Yellowrock novel, and I’m still thoroughly enjoying the story line. Jane has taken on the job of rogue hunter for the New Orleans’ vampire clans, and is in the process of emptying her apartment in Appalachia to move south when a news broadcast announces the […]
Cast in Chaos (2010) Michelle Sagara I have a complicated relationship with this series. I cannot decide how I feel about the series, but I also can’t seem to stop reading it. This is the sixth book in Michelle Sagara West’s Cast series. Kaylin is still working with the Hawks and still in a complex […]
Tempest’s Legacy (2011) Nicole Peeler First and foremost, this is a boinking book. There is less boinking than in the last book, and the boinking actually wasn’t superfluous but was instead important to the course of the story, but still. Boinking. So be aware. Jane True is back in Rockabill, trying to recover from the […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny (2010) Simon R. Green John bloody Taylor is still in Nightside, just as appalling as ever. The Authorities are gone, replaced by the new Authorities; not necessarily kinder and gentler, but almost certainly less evil than the group they replaced. And Walker is dying. The man who was […]
The Babylonian Codex (2010) C.S. Graham I found this book quite frightening, not because it was particularly suspenseful, but because the political scenario described so very well could come true. Toby is asked to do a remote viewing to see if she can discover where some of the artifacts stolen during the looting at the […]
Wintersmith (2006) Terry Pratchett Oddly, I thought I’d read Wee Free Men, but apparently I hadn’t. I tend to be quite fond of young adult books, and Terry Pratchett is no exception; not that his adult books would be unacceptable for young adults, it’s simply Tiffany Aching is a Teenager. Tiffany is sent to learn […]
Girl Genius Vol 9: Agatha Heterodyne and The Heirs of the Storm (2010) Phil Foglio & Kaja Foglio Rating: 7/10 Published by Studio Foglio
Unseen Academicals (2009) Terry Pratchett Although there were parts of this story that I loved, there were other parts I was less sure about–it may just have been my interpretation, but parts of it felt a little bit too heavy on the moralizing. But I loved Glenda. Rating: 7/10 Published by Harper
Firebirds Rising (2006) edited by Sharyn November Huntress by Tamora Pierce Unwrapping by Nina Kiriki Hoffman The Real Thing by Alison Goodman Little (Grrl) Lost by Charles de Lint I’ll Give you My Word by Diana Wynn Jones In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages Wintermoon Wish by Sharon Shinn The Wizards […]
Fables Vol 14: Witches (2010) Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, David Lapham, Jim Fern, Andrew Pepoy, Craig Hamilton Fabletown is a wreck, and as it is now inhabited by Mister Dark, it is completely inaccessible to the Fables, who have retreated to the Farm. The main characters of the first half of the volume […]
Ex Machina: Vol 10 Term Limits (2010) Brian K Vaughan, Tony Harris, JD Mettler Last volume in the collection. I can’t decide if I’m extremely happy or ridiculously disappointed. Regardless, it’s over. Rating: Published by Wildstorm
Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners (1987) Ellen Kushner Why yes, I did just re-read Swordspoint. And it was good. Published by Bantam Rating: 10/10
The Amazing Screw-On Head (2010) Mike Mignola I think that even for Mike Mignola this is a strange collection of stories. Amusing and interesting, yes, but also strange. The first story is about Screw-On Head, who is a head that screws into different bodies. Which is a fascinating idea. He’s sent out by President Lincoln […]
Hellboy: Masks and Monsters (2010) Mike Mignola, James Robinson, Scott Benefiel, Jasen Rodriguez These are two tales outside of the Hellboy time line (ie this is not a sequel to The Wild Hunt) but are crossover with other characters including Batman and Starman. Batman doesn’t play a particularly large role (after all, he’s a busy […]
Sins & Shadows (2009) Lyn Benedict If this hadn’t been my carry around to read during lunch book, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. But having nothing else to read, I slogged through and finished. But I didn’t like it. Where to begin with what I didn’t like? First and foremost, although there don’t seem […]
Running with the Pack (2010) edited by Ekaterina Sedia When I saw there was a new werewolf anthology edited by Ekatrerina Sedia with a story by Carrie Vaughn I automatically ordered it. Then of course, once it arrived, it sat around like anthologies tend to do, waiting for the “right” time to read it. But […]
A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia (1994) Victor Pelevin translated by Andrew Bromfield I really really really like the title story to this collection, “A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia.” A young man wanders into a small central Russian village in search of a place he saw in a photograph. He arrives and discovers the […]
The Naming of the Beasts (2009) Mike Carey The last Felix Castor book, Thicker than Water, ended with the escape of Asmodeus. Not a very good point to end a story in my opinion, however, it was a logical conclusion to the way things were going, so I didn’t particularly mind. After all, the series […]
Masques (1993/2010) Patricia Briggs This is a revised version of Patricia Brigg’s first published book, and unlike some of her more recent works, is not urban/supernatural fantasy but straight up fantasy. Luckily for me, it’s not high fantasy that takes 30k pages to resolve the story, but a fun story told in 300 pages. Aralorn […]
Sandman Slim (2009) Richard Kadrey Stark has just gotten out of Hell. His former friends sent him there, but somehow he managed to survive, and now he has escaped and is looking for revenge. That simple summation tells you about the story, but it is so much more than that simple synopsis. If you read […]
Bayou Moon (2010) Ilona Andrews Yes, yes, I know. Two floating head books in a row. But not only was I on vacation, but this is an Ilona Andrews book, and I love those. The first book in The Edge series had Rose attempting to survive on the Edge and raise her two younger brothers, […]
The Last Twilight (2008) Marjorie M. Liu Rikki Kinn is a virus hunter for the CDC, and she’s in Africa looking at what may well be a new outbreak of Ebola. Unfortunately, a contagious and deadly disease turns out to be the least of her problems, when she discovers that she is being hunted–but no […]
Ghost of a Chance (2010) Simon R. Green I can’t help myself. I know it isn’t good for me, but I have this addiction to Simon R. Green’s Nightside. I’ve read the Eddie Drood novels, and they’re OK, but they just aren’t the same. But I keep ordering them, and when I saw he had […]
An Artificial Night (2010) Seanan McGuire How many miles to Babylon? Three-score and ten. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, there and back again. If your heels are nimble and light, You will get there by candle-light. Things are not going well for Toby Daye. She sees an unpleasant harbinger, she’s getting calls from […]
Dark and Stormy Knights (2010) edited by P.N. Elrod I can’t help myself–I love anthologies. And fantasy anthologies with writers who write their fantasy with a healthy does of mystery? Sign me up! All anthologies have high and low points, but overall this was a fairly strong group of stories. The book starts off with […]
The Grimrose Path (2010) Rob Thurman I think I love Rob Thurman. Seriously. I’ve only read one book of hers I rated lower than an 8, and that one lost points for a cliff-hanger type ending. (Aside from the ending, it was an otherwise excellent book.) The Grimrose Path is the second book in her […]
A Wild Light (2010) Marjorie M. Liu Maxine’s birthday starts out well–killing a demon, birthday party with her loved ones, unfortunately it doesn’t stay that way, and she wakes up to blood, death, and no memory of what happened. Hmm… now that I look back over my past reviews, I find myself less surprised at […]
Blameless (2010) Gail Carriger I loved Soulless, the first book in this series. I thought Changeless was good with the exclusion of the ending, which I despised, so I had mixed feelings about starting Blameless. Alexia is pregnant, and Lord Maccon–who is a werewolf and an immortal–has thrown her out, believing that the child cannot […]
Eye of Heaven (2006) Marjorie M. Liu After picking up a random Dirk & Steele book when I had accidentally left the house without one, I’ve been picking up the available books in the series as I come across them. For the most part this is not a fantasy series per se, in that you […]
Thicker than Water (2009) Mike Carey Felix gets a call to come out to a crime scene–something that had not happened since he was accused of murder and became persona non grata with the police. Unsurprisingly, nothing good comes of the call, and Felix is embroiled in a mystery involving involving individuals from his past–way […]
Face Off (2010) Mark Del Franco Laura Blackstone is still living her multiple lives, and after the events in the last book, Skin Deep, relations between humans and fae, as well as between different fae groups, are making her job even harder, as she is forced to take on the persona of any already existing […]
Vanished (2009) Kat Richardson I finished Vanished last night with a sense of dissatisfaction, but it wasn’t until this morning that I was able to put my finger on what bothered me most. When I started reading the Greywalker series, I loved the fact they were mysteries with a paranormal element. Harper is a private […]
Dead Men’s Boots (2007) Mike Carey I’ve actually been waiting for this book for awhile. The American publishing and access to this series is… quirky. I was able to get the British copies of the two books that follow this, but I had to wait about a year for this to be put out by […]
Chimera (2010) Rob Thurman I love Rob Thurman. I really do. Which is why I pre-ordered this book without even having an idea what it was about. Imagine my disappointment when I read the back cover, “From Rob Thurman, national bestselling author of the Cal Leandros novels, comes a sci-fi thriller that questions what makes […]
Fables: Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love (2010) Chris Roberson, Shawn McManus Well. That was disappointing. Anyone who has read Fables knows that Cinderella has been acting as spy and assassin for Fabletown for years. Not that anyone in Fabletown aside from the sheriffs know this fact, but that’s good, because otherwise she’d be a lousy […]
Tracking the Tempest (2010) Nicole Peeler First off, there is a lot of boinking in this book. I’d forgotten about that in the time that had passed between this book and the first. Once I remembered that and was able to move myself into that frame of mind, I thoroughly enjoyed Tracking the Tempest. In […]
Kitty Goes to War (2010) Carrie Vaughn The title actually made me somewhat reluctant to read this book, despite the fact I have really enjoyed the other books in this series. Because despite being a werewolf, Kitty is still a radio host. Luckily, Kitty does not, in fact, actually go to war herself. She does, […]
Hellboy Vol 10: The Crooked Man and Others (2010) Mike Mignola, Richard Corben Frustratingly, Helloboy Vol 10 does not continue the story arc of Vol 9, but instead is another collection of stories, all set in Hellboy’s past. Mind you, I tend to prefer the “short story” Hellboy collections, but the story line was really […]
Hellboy Vol 9: The Wild Hunt (2010) Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo All those Hellboy stories–the ones in the story collections where there wasn’t necessarily a theme for the entire volume? Suddenly, everything is starting to come together. Hellboy has spent quite awhile hiding from his supposed destiny. He doesn’t want to rule the world. He […]
Ex Machina: Ring Out the Old (2010) Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, Jim Clark, John Paul Leon, JD Mettler Uhhh… What the hell was that? There were so many different things I didn’t like about this volume. First and foremost was the meta “artists in the story” bit. Sorry BKV, but that was just a […]
House of Mystery: The Beauty of Decay (2010) Matthew Sturges, Luca Rossi, Werther Dell’Edera, Jose Marzain Jr Fig and friends are now stuck in The City in the Space Between, and no one can come up with a way out. Stories are still told–stories told and histories remembered where we learn a little more about […]
The Book of Murder (2007) Guillermo Martinez translated by Sonia Soto As much as I enjoyed The Oxford Murders, I found The Book of Murder to be thoroughly disappointing. Rating: 5/10 Published by Penguin