Year: 2009

2009 was without question one of the best years for crime fiction in many years, and trust me when I tell you that my top ten has changed so many times in the last six …

New York City is in the grip of a heat wave, and Detective Nicki Heat is in the grip of a stubborn case.  Real estate mogul Matthew Starr was pitched from his balcony, and the …

Not too long ago I decided to make a list of my top 10 favorite books of the decade, from 2000-2009. I easily knocked out a list with a couple of dozen titles then decided …

Quatrain is a collection of, as the name suggests, four all-new novellas from Sharon Shinn.  Each is set in a distinct world established from previous books, and each story stands firmly against the others.  Shinn …

Those who believe that the short story is dead and/or irrelevant, and those who don’t see the value in publishing stories in e-zines that pay very little, if at all, to a circulation that is in …

I’m picking my way through Inherent Vice, and I’m not even quarter of the way through it yet but I wanted to post some informal thoughts. By the end of the first chapter I was …

Michael Flynn is one of the more unusual figures in modern SF and especially in technically rigorous science fiction, one who delves into areas seldom touched by other writers:  taking a “hard” science approach to social science in …

When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy …

Evermore is the first book in Alyson Noël’s new YA series, The Immortals.  Fittingly, considering the title, a lot of E words popped into my mind when I was thinking of how to describe it:  Enchanting.  …

Never Slow Dance with a Zombie is a novel for young adults.  I read a fair amount of YA books, and I’m never quite sure how to judge them.  I mean, I can tell you …

Level 26 is problematic at best. I’m going to take a more personal approach to this review then I have in the past because that just seems like the best approach. When I first started …

Darkborn is a fantasy novel that I’m not quite sure how to further classify or qualify.  It’s not quite romantic fantasy, because even though it has strong themes of love, it is not a love …

Since the books in the First Law trilogy cannot stand alone, I consider them to be one work.  One super-massive-red-giant, thousands-of-pages-long, split-into-three-volumes work.  That makes Best Served Cold Joe Abercrombie’s sophomore effort–which is not to …

Summer is here and BSC has the car packed up and we’re taking a road trip. We called some friends and the only thing left to do is load up the cooler with potluck 6-packs. …

Irish author John Connolly is perhaps best known for his crime stories that hover on the edges between traditional detective stories and supernatural horror, but with The Book of Lost Things, Connolly travels deeper into …

Letter from Jane Austen to Seth Grahame-Smith Dear Sir, I have recently become acquainted with your work as a novelist, while I believe your acquaintance with mine is of a much longer standing.  Nevertheless, I …

The Nine Kingdoms series is another offering from a writer who normally writes romance. Despite the fact that these books are placed in the romance section at bookstores (along with the rest of Kurland’s work, which …

Warbreaker is Brandon Sanderson’s second standalone fantasy novel. It is unrelated to any of his other books. The process of writing this book was somewhat unusual, earlier versions of the story were released under a …

Dragon in Chains is a stunning Oriental fantasy by Daniel Fox, which is the pen-name of the award-winning British writer Chaz Brenchley, known for the historical fantasy series The Books of Outremer. Dragon in Chains …

Last year Jo Graham made her debut as a novelist with Black Ship, a poignant and intimate re-working of the story of Vergil’s Aeneid, set in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, a world poised on the …

This book reminded me why expectations are so important to the reading experience.  I expected it to be “fun beach reading,” and that’s exactly what it is.  Had I expected something else, I might have …

The Dosadi Experiment is set in the same universe as Whipping Star, which has recently been reissued by Tor. After reading that book I just had to reread The Dosadi Experiment as well. First published …

Rifling Paradise is the second novel of the critically acclaimed novelist and poet Jem Poster. The praise is indeed well-deserved – Rifling Paradise is a very well-crafted piece of literary fiction; it is intense, vivid …

Saturday’s Child by Ray Banks Saturday’s Child is the first Cal Innes book. It’s a couple of years old at this point and all I can say is that it kicks 10 kinds of ass. …

Those words are the summary the publishers chose to put on the back of Living with Ghosts, and I think they are as compelling and accurate a summation of this story and this world as …

After flipping past the title page, publishing information, dedication, and thank you’s, the reader encounters the above noted passage. Right away, it would seem much has happened since the present day and the time this …

Sean Williams is an experienced author in the field of space opera, having written the Evergence, Orphans, and Geodesica series’ with collaborator Shane Dix.  Saturn Returns is the first book of Williams’ solo Astropolis trilogy.

The Shadow Queen is the latest installment of the Black Jewels series, either Book 6 or Book 7 depending on whether you count only the novels or include the novella/short story collection.  It is a …

The Republic of Vengeance marks the entry of a new and interesting author into the newly revitalized field of historical fiction. Paul Waters is trained as a classicist and his first novel is a testament …

Whiskey and Water is the second novel published in Elizabeth Bear’s series of the Promethean Age and should be considered as an independent sequel to Blood and Iron. The story of Whiskey and Water takes …

I grew up reading fantasy.  More than that, even, I had fantasy read to me before I could read for myself (clearly, I never had a chance).  There was a point, though, in adolescence, where …