Someone’s Read it Already

At the moment, the only thing I know about Randall Wright is that he has published at least one book. For all I know, he could be the pen-name of a group of bored housewives . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that. From the Macmillan website, though, he appears to be just one man who lives in Utah. Barnes & Noble has informed me that he’s written three books for young readers; the other two are called A Hundred Days from Home and The Silver Penny. He apparently does not live in a castle, and longs for a silver penny of his own. In any case, he’s one of the rare authors these days without a personal website.

Hunchback tells the tale of one Hodge, who is about thirteen years old and possessed of the spinal deformity generally referred to as a ‘hunchback.’ (As astute readers may have already guessed.) He lives in a general pseudo-English medieval world, where he is the son of the (deceased) fletcher and does general labor around the castle (of Lord Selden). One day, a letter arrives — the royal prince (heir) is coming to visit! The whole castle is abuzz, but when the prince gets there, he seems confined to his own rooms. However, Hodge goes to serve him, and the prince speaks with him. Nothing seems to be wrong; what’s happening, and why is the prince virtually a prisoner? (more…)

Finally, months later, I got around to reading the third book in this series. I reviewed the first two here and here, and apparently I can’t decide on a title for the series. (My draft of this has it called “The Adventures of Jacky Faber.”) In any case, L. A. Meyer is American, male, and possessed of a stint in the Navy, which undoubtedly provided him with at least a little of his knowledge of seafaring. He also has an M.F.A. in painting, and had lived for a while on a houseboat. Jacky Faber was inspired by a lot of what-ifs posed about the main characters of a couple of British songs from the nineteenth century.

Since the summary of this book is nearly impossible without revealing various plot elements of the previous volumes, I shall hide it behind the cut. (more…)

Review by DP

Probably best-known for his hard-scifi series starring Honor Harrington, David Weber is a classic science fiction writer of the old school. His stories investigate the ways in which humans are changed by the technology they invent and the new experiences, decisions and possibilities opened to them by the discovery of interstellar travel, artificial intelligence, time travel or non-human forms of life. Worlds of Weber is a new Subterranean Press collection of 9 previously-published short stories and novellas. The collection is a kind of appetizer sampler, representing not a particular culinary idea but the style of an entire restaurant. Weber fans may find this collection an ideal gateway drug for creating new fans, as almost every story included is only the first of a series or the germinating seed for a larger novel. It will be released in October of this year. (more…)

Ellen Klages wrote a short story called “In the House of Seven Librarians” in the Firebirds Rising anthology, edited by Sharyn November. I very much enjoyed this story, but I’m pretty bad at remembering to follow up by looking for books by authors I like in anthologies. However, the clearance rack in used bookstores is my friend. I paid fifty cents for this one, but I might even pay full price for the sequel. Anyway, Ms. Klages was born in Ohio (my turf!) but currently lives in San Francisco. She collects old toys and writes short stories; she’s also still working on the sequel, which might come out this year.

Dewey (I won’t even tell you what it’s short for) Kerrigan’s grandmother has just been put into a nursing home; her mother left a long time ago, so she is to go live with her father. She travels quite a distance on train to go live with him; he lives and works in Los Alamos, a town that doesn’t exist. It’s 1943, and Dewey’s father (along with a lot of other people) is working on the atomic bomb, although the kids don’t know that. She doesn’t make friends with the girls very quickly; they’re awfully catty, especially since Dewey has one leg that’s shorter than the other, and is interested in mechanical engineering and math. There’s another girl who’s sort of a misfit as well — Suze. When Dewey’s father has to leave for a couple weeks to go to Washington, D.C., Dewey stays with Suze’s family. Suze doesn’t like her, because she’s weird, but will they eventually get along? And, uh, what’s the ‘gadget’ they’re working on? (more…)

I will buy nearly anything for fifty cents, book-wise. Well, that’s not entirely true; I probably still won’t pick up vast swaths of the non-fiction world, or anything by Danielle Steele. However, the fact that I merely paid fifty cents for this book doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth a lot more. Melissa Wyatt is apparently from York, Pennsylvania; she has never lived more than seven miles from her birthplace. I’ve been to York, although I didn’t have any peppermint patties there. She was born one day after Jane Austen’s birthday (in 1963); her second novel, Funny How Things Change, is coming out next year from FSG.

Alex is a normal sixteen-year-old boy in an English boarding school, cutting class to go to the pub and all. Except for the fact that his father would be the heir to the Rovanian throne, if Rovania had a king anymore. Which, in a surprising 80% positive vote, happens: the Rovanians decide to reinstate the monarchy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite make Alex (Alexei) as elated as it does his parents; for one thing, they spring it on him via the Count Stefan deBatz, whom Alexei finds thoroughly unpleasant. Second, and more importantly, he feels like he doesn’t have any choice in the matter; he will spend the rest of his life as a public figure, first as crown prince and then as king. Will he be able to work through this? (more…)

I knew very little about Faith Hunter when I started this book, except the fact that her name sounded like one of her characters. (What? She writes post-Apocalyptic fantasy, and her name is Faith Hunter. Legit, I think.) However, her website has informed me that she was born in the bayou and prefers fishing to cooking. She refers to her husband as the Renaissance Man, and apparently there’s even a role-playing game based on her world. Ms. Hunter is also a good friend (writing buddy?) of Kim Harrison, of Dead Witch Walking fame. There are two sequels to this novel.

Thorn St. Croix is a lapidary and jeweler in a post-Apocalyptic world. There are roughly four classes of beings: seraphs (or seraphim, depending on how formal you’re being), who came to the earth a hundred and some-odd years ago and started the Apocalypse; humans, who were pretty much wiped out by the plagues and whatnot; demons/spawn, who feed on human blood and live underground; and mages or neomages, who are (with the exception of Thorn) all licensed, registered, and hidden away in Enclaves where they are called upon occasionally. Thorn herself is a neomage, but she is a refugee from the Enclaves. She’ll die if she stays there. Anyway, Thorn’s very recently ex-husband is kidnapped, and of course she’s a suspect. Can she keep her secret hidden and still help them figure out what’s going on? (more…)

A month or so ago, I reviewed the first half of this duology, and was awfully mad for not having the second half right away. Well, yesterday it was released (today, as I’m writing this), and of course I purchased it (here) and read it right away. I got it in HTML format, which is generally my preferred e-book format; for those who dislike e-books, it should be out in paperback form in a year or so. (You can see why I got the e-book.) I probably don’t need to introduce Sherwood Smith, based on the number of her books that I’ve previously reviewed, but in any case, she’s a SoCal fantasy author whose works range from middle-grade readers (the Wren books) to adult (the Inda books).

This volume follows immediately on the heels of the previous one, and the same storylines dominate. Sasha’s mother was born on Earth, in the 20th century, but she went through the World Gate to live on Sartorias-deles (a pre-industrial world with magic) and marry a prince; they had Sasha, and then civil unrest started. Sasha’s father disappeared, and Sasha and her mother went to hide on Earth. At the beginning of the previous volume, they go back to Sartorias-deles (specifically a country called Khanerenth) unwillingly; from there they are thrown back into the mess of politics and have to try to unravel what’s going on. (more…)

[Sherwood Smith's Twice a Prince is released today. Hopefully review tomorrow!]

Apparently Tobias Druitt is the pseudonym of Diane Purkiss and Michael Dowling; they’re mother and son. She’s an Oxford tutor (professor-type); he’s thirteen (probably fifteen by now) and supposedly a Child Genius. They have published a trilogy (of the which this is the first book) and are working on a next book that involves Tarot cards. This volume was released in 2005; the following volumes came out in 2006 and 2007. Diane Purkiss apparently enjoys baking bread, and Michael Dowling’s favorite colors are dark red and black, because they’re macabre.

Corydon is, so he thinks, a normal shepherd boy, but he has one goat leg, and his city threw him out as a scapegoat because of this. He gets captured by pirates shortly after that — pirates who are putting together a freak show full of monsters. There end up being about ten monsters on the island, including Medusa, the sphinx, and Lady Nagaina (who has five heads). Eventually Corydon helps them escape, but the leader of the pirates finds Perseus and convinces him that there’s a good reason to go kill all the monsters. Thus begins a war. At the same time, Corydon is trying to figure out who he is, since he’d never really considered it very much before then. Why does he have a goat-leg, and why do so many people feel that he’s the prophesied one? (more…)

Charles de Lint is one of my favorite authors; I own at least one copy of nearly everything he’s written. (Between Ben and me we have three copies of Moonheart, but that’s a different story.) He’s written at least a little bit in nearly every speculative-fiction genre, but his vast favorite is urban or mythic fantasy. (See my reviews of his works here. Yes, there are a couple extraneous reviews in there, but scroll down a bit.) Most of his recent urban fantasies are set in Newford, his fictional North American city, but several of his early volumes were set in Ottawa and Toronto: real Canadian cities. The following volume was one of his early mythic/urban fantasties, and it’s set in Ottawa.

Cat Midhir is a best-selling fantasy writer; she lives an extreme of the writer’s life, though. She has very few friends and rarely leaves her apartments. However, her fantasy works are incredible and have gotten her a very large fan base. Her great secret, though, is that her inspiration comes from dreams: very vivid dreams that she feels as if she experiences firsthand. However, recently these dreams have stopped, and she finds herself with a case of writer’s block; she simply cannot write without the dreams. Why has she stopped having these dreams? And why is she getting dark dreams, dreams that contain a shadowy dark stalker? (more…)

I had never read anything by Philip K. Dick prior to this work, and it isn’t even actually a novel. In any case, Mr. Dick was a major force in the science fiction field prior to his death in 1982; several of his novels have been made into major motion pictures. These include Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and Total Recall, as well as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which most of us know as Blade Runner. Apparently a lot of his stuff is strange, and one reason for that was his experiences with drugs and his fascination with metaphysics and the paranormal. Above all, though, he was a storyteller; he won several awards for his writing, including the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. This screenplay was first published twenty years ago; Subterranean Press will be releasing a new edition in August of this year.

This screenplay was based on his 1969 novel of the same title. It concerns a man named Joe Chip, who is employed by a man named Glen Runciter. Runciter’s corporation uses people with peculiar psionic talents that mostly block the invasive talents as a security system for big companies. For example, the people from Runciter’s company can block telepaths from stealing company secrets. Joe works the machines to make sure that the employees of the company are actually accomplishing something. However, something awful happens, and there’s an explosion. Glen Runciter dies, and then Joe’s world starts falling apart — literally. The cigarettes are all stale; the cream is rancid and moldy; parts are falling off of things. Then the objects start regressing — cars turn into older versions; televisions turn into radios. What on earth is going on? And what is this Ubik product? (more…)