Category: Book Reviews

Imagine if you will that, when you were younger, you had an older relative — a grandfather or great-aunt — who was something of an armchair historian regarding mythology. Every now and then, when you …

Tim Powers’s novels are so unlike anything else that I think John Shirley said it best over at Emerald City “Tim Powers is his own genre”. Or maybe he is the most unpredictable predictable writer …

The award winning Patricia A. McKillip is one of the prominent authors within fantasy fiction, but whereas notable masters of the genre like J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin work on an epic scale, McKillip’s …

Escapement is the sequel to Jay Lake’s critically acclaimed novel Mainspring, wherein he maps out an alternate Earth anno 1900. Lake has quite cleverly constructed a world that for the most part resembles ours yet …

Kushiel’s Dart is Jacqueline Carey’s highly successful debut and the first instalment of a trilogy that chronicles the exploits of Phèdre nó Delaunay – exquisite courtesan, talented spy and god-touched masochist. The book received the …

Imagine Borges and Dali hanging out at Pee Wee Herman’s playhouse, and you have a brief inkling of what Rosenbaum’s fiction is like. The Ant King and Other Stories is Rosenbaum’s debut collection of short fiction, which …

Eight noir novels to help fill your endless summer with a sense of overwhelming dread and paranoia. Okay, so I’m the professor who wakes up three weeks before the end of the semester and hits …

Donald Westlake, ever the prolific author, has had two novels released since his death on New Year’s Eve of 2009, both brought to us by the stellar Hard Case Crime imprint.  The first, in 2010, …

It becomes immediately apparent from the opening pages of Darkness, Take My Hand that Dennis Lehane has upped the ante since A Drink Before the War. Darkness, Take My Hand stands in stark contrast to A …

Let me be honest:  Nocturne by Syrie James is not the sort of novel that I naturally gravitate to.  I read it because it was offered to me and sounded interesting enough to try–the sort …

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited book of the Horus Heresy series, Prospero Burns is the fifteenth book in this New York Times best-selling collection. Though initially slated for simultaneous release with Graham McNeill’s A Thousand …

This review is based upon the assumption that you’ve read Nights of Villjamur, the first book in this series. If you haven’t  I think you’re missing out on some of the most groundbreaking urban fantasy currently …

I’m not sure there are words to describe how much this book delighted me.  I’ll try very hard, however. The Spirit Thief is the first in a planned series about the adventures of ne’er-do-well Eli …

As my gaming interests have turned more towards Warhammer Fantasy than Warhammer 40k, my reading has followed suit. Worry not, dear reader, I haven’t lost my love of the 40k universe, it’s just that I …

I haven’t been as excited about a book as I was when I got to the end of Juliet in a long time.  A year, maybe.  Anne Fortier has managed what might well be the …

I must begin this review with a teensy confession. I bought this book by mistake. I was actually after Iron Company by Chris Wraight, and what with the very similar covers and the fact that …

For reasons I cannot adequately explain, even to myself, I prefer to read fantasy over science fiction, but I prefer SF movies over fantasy.  So I don’t actually read a lot of true science fiction …

I’m assuming if you’re reading this you like Twilight and have already read the other books, yes?  And you want one of two things from me here–a recommendation about whether this new novella is worth …

Let me start by saying that this isn’t a book I would normally pick up. It tells a dark tale from the perspective of what I’ll call the “bad guys.” I could not conceive of …

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first book in a new series (The Inheritance Trilogy, which lends itself to some potentially hilarious confusion with The Inheritance Cycle) by a new author, and I think that …

One of the most keenly anticipated books of the bestselling Horus Heresy series, A Thousand Sons tells one half of the epic story of the destruction of Prospero, the Thousand Sons’ homeworld, from the perspective …

It was only after watching a great deal of House M.D. that I discovered that Hugh Laurie had penned a novel (published about a decade ago, now). I was intrigued. Clearly the man is an …

Mike Lee’s Fallen Angels is the eleventh book in the hugely popular Horus Heresy series and continues the story begun in Mitchel Scanlon’s excellent Descent of Angels. Did I just say excellent? Yes. I know …

Empire in Black and Gold is the debut of British author Adrian Tchaikovsky and the first installment in a trilogy titled Shadows of the Apt. In his debut Tchaikovsky gives us a heroic narrative where …

This being my first review for BSC, I wanted to say one thing straight away: objectivity is a myth. I have none. My reviews will be guided almost exclusively by my enjoyment, or not, of …

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 …

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 …

This will be brief. As I’ve said before our strength lies in our diversity. If you want a unified chorus of voices singing hosannas to the pre-approved “best” books of the year then stop reading …