Magic is most interesting when it works like a physical weapon: the character is given it (or learns she has it), and has to learn how to use it. It behaves according to rules, and she has to learn those rules in order to use it effectively. In a historical novel, you never see a [...]
Nieve, by Terry Griggs
March 30th, 2010 · No Comments
Finnikin of the Rock, Melina Marchetta
March 22nd, 2010 · 3 Comments
Another very complicated story by the author of one of my recent favorites, Jellicoe Road. She’s trying out fantasy this time: when Finnikin, son of the captain of the guard of Lumatere, is a child, the ruling family is murdered and the city occupied. It’s also sealed off, Sleeping Beauty-style, by the dying curse of [...]
Tags: Reviews
Cybils reviews
February 18th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Now that the Cybils winners are all official ‘n stuff, I can review the finalists from the Middle Grade Fantasy & Science Fiction category. Here they are, in one speedy blowout:
The Prince of Fenway Park, Julianna Baggott
Check this premise, people: the famous Curse on [...]
Tags: Reviews
Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
October 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment
I’m not even going to try to summarize this one, except to say: interweaving of Snow White & Rose Red, Rumpelstiltskin, and probably some other tales into a lyrical novel with the most sexual creepiness I have had the misfortune to encounter in awhile. This is an excellent example of a book marketed to [...]
Tags: Reviews
Savvy, by Ingrid Law
May 8th, 2009 · 5 Comments
I wrote a whole long thoughtful review of Savvy a couple of days ago and thought it had posted happily — only to notice today that it actually crashed my whole blog and then got eaten by WordPress. Rar!
I’m too cranky to re-write the whole thing or to be “fair and balanced,” so [...]
Tags: Reviews
Beauty, Robin McKinley
May 6th, 2009 · No Comments
How did I escape my nerdy fantasy-loving adolescence without ever reading this book? I’m not sure, but I intend to correct the oversight in my Twilight-loving students. Beauty has all the creature-of-the-night broody romance of Edward and Bella, with a little more self-actualization.
You know the story: Beauty’s dad gets lost in the woods [...]
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The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Golem’s Eye (bk. 2), by Jonathan Stroud
March 6th, 2009 · No Comments
My main gripe with the first Bartimaeus was how much Nathaniel’s chapters dragged as compared with Bartimaeus’s. The Golem’s Eye ameliorates this problem by giving us plenty of the ever-delightful Bartimaeus, and adding a third point of view: Kitty, the young Resistance leader. Nathaniel is also older now, and more of a love-to-hate [...]
Tags: Reviews
The Book of Dead Days, by Marcus Sedgwick
January 27th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Boy, servant to the volatile, isolated stage magician Valerian, is used to being dragged off on obscure missions by his master. But in the last days of the year, Valerian becomes even more unstable than usual, and Boy is caught up in his life-or-death search for a mysterious Book.
This atmospheric tale is set in [...]
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The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand (bk. 1), by Jonathan Stroud
January 13th, 2009 · 8 Comments
Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice in modern London. In his England, magicians control everything: the Prime Minister is the most powerful, and the rest of the government is made up of other magicians, all constantly jockeying for power and full of contempt for “commoners” (ie., everyone else). What the commoners don’t know is [...]
Tags: Reviews