Posts tagged with fantasy

May 22 2017

Octavia E. Butler's Kindred, adapted by John Jennings and Damian Duffy

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Octavia E. Butler's Kindred is a classic for a reason: it's memorable and dramatic and utterly terrifying. And in Damian Duffy and John Jennings's excellent graphic novel adaptation of Kindred, you don't need to imagine the horrors in Butler's novel, you can experience them via full-color illustrations! (The better to keep you up at night.)

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May 22 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: Octavia E. Butler's Kindred, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings

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This week's Book Giveaway is Damian Duffy and John Jennings's graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's 1979 book Kindred. A full review will follow shortly, but take warning: this book literally gave me nightmares.

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May 3 2017

Just one!

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The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. The trailer looks cool (well... Idris Elba looks cool, anyway), but would it kill them to put a couple of girl characters in it? There are a few women hanging around in the background in poses that suggest...

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May 1 2017

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

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I am not a fan of re-editing published books. (This is mostly due to being traumatized by T.H. White's The Sword and the Stone, which has gone through several remodels. My childhood edition of White's book featured a bizarre scene involving singing minstrels in an evil ice cream parlor, but I've never found that sequence in any edition since. I'm 99% certain I didn't make this scene up, but... what if I did?) However...

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May 1 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

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This week's Book Giveaway is this amazing new edition of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which looks like the kind of gloriously trashy 70s paperback you find on the spinner racks in libraries, reeking of ancient cigarettes. A full review will follow shortly, but just look at it: no matter what I say, that's a book you're going to want to read...

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Apr 24 2017

Alice and Red Queen, by Christina Henry

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I've read more than a dozen retellings of Alice in Wonderland, and they all too frequently rely on the same ideas: Alice as an amnesiac; Alice as a traumatized young adult; Alice in a madhouse; Alice and the Mad Hatter in a romantic relationship. Christina Henry's duology—Alice and Red Queen—checks off every cliché on this list, but Henry at least delivers her recycled material with style and energy...

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Apr 24 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: Alice and Red Queen, by Christina Henry

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This week's Book Giveaway is actually a two-for-one deal: we're giving away Christina Henry's Alice and Red Queen. I have been burned by many an Alice in Wonderland-themed re-write, but I just keep reading 'em. Clearly, hope springs eternal: maybe this one will be the update of my dreams...

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Apr 17 2017

Silence Fallen, by Patricia Briggs

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Silence Fallen is the tenth novel in Patricia Briggs's best-selling Mercy Thompson series. In this fast-paced, action-heavy installment, shape-shifting VW mechanic Mercy is abducted from her home territory in the Pacific Northwest and spirited away to Italy, where she finds herself a pawn in a chess game being played by an ancient and powerful vampire...

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Apr 17 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: Silence Fallen, by Patricia Briggs

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This week's Book Giveaway title is Silence Fallen, the 10th book in Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series. We rarely review such advanced series installments, but I have a soft spot for these books: they are set in my beloved Washington, they feature a Native heroine, and—judging on a scale of long-running urban fantasy series—Briggs's stories are approximately one bajillion times better than this...

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Apr 10 2017

The Dark Days Pact, by Alison Goodman

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When I read the first book in Alison Goodman's Lady Helen series, I found it solidly written but over-engineered. The second installment, The Dark Days Pact, has similar strengths and weaknesses, but the deepening emotional stakes make the overall story far more satisfying...

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Apr 10 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: The Dark Days Pact, by Alison Goodman

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Today's Book Giveaway is Alison Goodman's The Dark Days Pact, the sequel to last year's The Dark Days Club. I'll be posting my review shortly, but first I need to re-read the first book—Goodman's writing is best appreciated when one pays attention to the details...

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Mar 22 2017

Magic for Nothing, by Seanan McGuire

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Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing is my favorite installment in the InCryptid series to date... and that's saying something, because I've liked all of these books. But this book gives me something I didn't realize I was missing: a plausibly screwed-up heroine, despite her distinctly implausible circumstances...

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Mar 22 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: Magic For Nothing, by Seanan McGuire

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This week's Book Giveaway is Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing, the first novel in McGuire's InCryptid series to feature Antimony Price, the prickly younger sister of previous protagonists Alex and Verity. A full review will follow shortly...

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Jan 30 2017

The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman

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I recently reviewed the first two books in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series, and was delighted when the third installment, The Burning Page, showed up on my doorstep. It's a fun read, but I don't see any evidence of a fourth book, and I much prefer The Burning Page as a series installment than a series conclusion...

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Jan 30 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman

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This week's Book Giveaway is The Burning Page, the third (but hopefully not final) book in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series. We've enjoyed this series thus far, and our review of The Burning Page will be posted shortly...

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Jan 9 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: The Darkest Torment, by Gena Showalter

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It's been quite some time since we last reviewed a straight-up romance novel, so this week's Book Giveaway is Gena Showalter's The Darkest Torment. Apparently, and all appearances to the contrary, that dude on the cover isn't a professional surfer/part-time model, he's a demon! (Or something. The back cover is not 100% clear on this point.) A full review will follow shortly...

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Jan 3 2017

Weekly Book Giveaway: The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee

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This week's Book Giveaway is The Dead Seekers, the first book in a new series by Barb and J.C. Hendee. The Dead Seekers is set in the same world as the authors' bestselling Noble Dead saga, but should (hopefully) work as a standalone. A full review will follow shortly...

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Dec 5 2016

Stars of Fortune, by Nora Roberts

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I really only had one problem with Nora Roberts's Stars of Fortune, but it's a big one: Roberts simply isn't very good at writing fantasy. She keeps trying, but the genre does not play to her strengths...

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Dec 5 2016

Weekly Book Giveaway: Stars of Fortune, by Nora Roberts

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This week's Book Giveaway title is Nora Roberts's Stars of Fortune, the first book in her Guardians trilogy. If past experience is anything to go by, I'll probably have a LOT of complaints, but who knows? Sometimes Roberts decides to knock it out of the park. Plus, the final book in the series comes out tomorrow, so at least I won't need to wait if I decide to finish it...

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Nov 14 2016

Shadowed Souls, edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes

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Shadowed Souls is a bit of a bait-and-switch. Based on the style of the cover, I had assumed that this was a Dresden Files-themed anthology written by a bunch of big-name urban fantasy writers. Instead, it's an uneven collection of “dark and gritty” short stories tied together by...

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Oct 24 2016

The Invisible Library and The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman

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The Invisible Library and The Masked City, the first two books in an ongoing series by Genevieve Cogman, read like a blend of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series and Daniel O'Malley's Rook Files. Happily, Cogman takes these familiar ingredients—literary references, bureaucratic rivalries, pragmatic heroines—and...

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Oct 24 2016

Weekly Book Giveaway: The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman

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This week we're giving away The Invisible Library, the first book in Genevieve Cogman's fantasy/historical fiction series of the same name. Our review of The Invisible Library and its sequel, The Masked City, will be posted shortly...

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Oct 12 2016

Ever? No.

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The Daily Dot recently compiled a list of the 9 Best Fantasy Book Series. The title of this list is misleading—it's more a list of recommended series for fans of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones, and as such, the choices are fine...

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Sep 19 2016

Betrayals, by Kelley Armstrong

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Betrayals is the fourth book in Kelley Armstrong's Cainsville series. It is also her publishers' third attempt at finding the right cover art style for these books. (The first two installments were American Gothic; the third was modern and geometric.) I really like both the look and the contents of Betrayals, so I'm hoping the ever-changing cover design...

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Sep 12 2016

The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud

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In The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in Jonathan Stroud's spine-tingling Lockwood and Co. series, the heroine has left her friends at the Lockwood and Co. ghost-hunting agency. Lucy is now a freelance Listener, hiring herself out to the big London agencies. But when her former teammates request her help with the ghost...

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Sep 6 2016

Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire

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After a two-book-long detour, the fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series brings the action back where it belongs: on ballroom-dancing, ass-kicking cryptozoologist Verity Price. In Chaos Choreography, Verity has set aside her dancing career in favor of full-time cryptozoology... but when she gets a call from the producers of the reality TV series Dance or Die, she decides...

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Sep 6 2016

Weekly Book Giveaway: Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire

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This week's Book Giveaway is Seanan McGuire's Chaos Choreography, the fifth book in her InCryptid series. I am resigned to the hideous covers at this point, but I'm really hoping this book fixes McGuire's unfortunate habit of ending the books in this series on a damsel-in-distress note. A full review will follow shortly...

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Aug 15 2016

Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black

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J. Patrick Black's novel Ninth City Burning features half a dozen point-of-view characters, ambitious world-building, and a sprawling intergalactic-warfare-meets-dystopian-future plot premise. I applaud the author's sheer guts, but the end result is more than a little overwhelming...

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Aug 15 2016

Weekly Book Giveaway: Ninth City Burning, by J. Patrick Black

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This week's Book Giveaway is J. Patrick Black's Ninth City Burning, which I know absolutely nothing about, apart from the fact that I approve of the person they chose to write a promotional blurb (Patricia Briggs) and I really like the cover art. Our review will follow shortly...

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Aug 8 2016

The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard

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Aliette de Bodard's novel The House of Shattered Wings looks like a standard fantasy novel, but has more in common with The Godfather than your typical sword-and-sorcery adventure. In an alternative universe/post-apocalyptic version of 20th century Paris, fallen angels periodically drop from the sky, stricken with amnesia but chock-full of magic. Those who survive Paris's magic-hunting street gangs usually join one of the Great Houses, mafia-like organizations...

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