Someone’s Read it Already

Tamora Pierce . . . I suspect that nearly everyone reading this blog (with the exception of my father — hi, Dad!) will have at least a passing familiarity with the name. I, of course, have read pretty much everything she’s published (at least all the novels). Why? Because when I started reading children’s fantasy, she was one of the few authors who was writing it. In any case, she lives in upstate New York, having relocated there from New York City, with an assortment of cats and her husband/spouse-creature, Tim Liebe. Together they have authored a series of comic books, and he also works on the Full Circle full-cast audio books. Melting Stones was originally an audio book, released last year, and was published in dead-tree format a couple months ago.

Evvy, Briar’s student from his Circle Opens book (Street Magic), is fourteen now; her temper isn’t that much improved, and after she picks a fight with some Temple students, Rosethorn (Briar’s teacher) drags her along with Myrrhtide to an island south of Emelan. They’ve been called there because things are inexplicably dying on the island: trees, plants, and all the fish in several ponds and small lakes. Evvy hates water travel, but once she gets to the island, she’s awfully excited, because there are so many interesting kinds of rocks that she’s never seen before on the island. Unfortunately, they figure out what’s happening fairly quickly, and they have to move fast. Can they avoid the disaster that’s nearly upon them? (more…)

I don’t know much about James Hetley, but I do know that I found his online presence on Livejournal to be interesting enough to buy his books. He’s written four of them, published by Ace, in two distinct series; this is the first novel in one of those series. According to his website, he’s an architecht and retired kempo karate instructor who lives in Maine; I’d've guessed the Maine part, obviously. He served three years in the U.S. Army during Vietnam, and his list of Weird Writer Jobs is pretty good — one of them is ‘trash collector.’ (I do not envy him that position.) The Summer Country was his first novel, and he appears to be getting a good deal of positive reviews from interesting places.

Maureen Pierce lives in a hardscrabble town in Maine; a degree in forestry apparently wasn’t good enough to get her a job, and at the moment she’s an evening clerk at a convenience store. She’s also a bit crazy; how crazy, we eventually determine over the course of the book. One night, while walking home (her car died), she runs into a guy in an alleyway who apparently wants to hurt her; some other man ends up killing the first man, and he walks her home. She instinctively trusts him, and doesn’t know why; he reminds her of her sister’s ex-boyfriend, who was an awful, abusive figure. Brian (the man who saved her life) is nothing like the other man, but strange things are happening around him. What is this ’summer country’ he speaks of, and why are so many people after Mo? (more…)

[If you are a U.S. citizen and registered voter, please remember to vote today, if you haven't already! -S.]

Claudia Gray is not the author’s real name, and she makes no bones about it on her website. If one reads the copyright page of Evernight, one will discover Ms. Gray’s real name, so it isn’t exactly a secret. Apparently she took the name for no reason at all. (Well, why not?) She lives in New York City and has worked the usual raft of Weird Writer Jobs — although ‘lawyer’ isn’t generally on that list. Evernight is her first novel; Stargazer, the sequel, comes out early in 2009, and there are two more books (Hourglass and Afterlife) to finish the quartet. Ms. Gray has also written two short stories to come out in anthologies shortly, and Evernight was a featured book in the (now-defunct) First Look Teen program of HarperCollins.

Bianca Olivier is shy — painfully, cripplingly shy. So when her parents decide to take a job at a posh but creepy boarding school quite a distance away — uprooting her entire life and forcing her to enter a new school her junior year of high school — she feels betrayed and lonely. She’s also destined to be an outsider. Just before school starts, she meets Lucas — also a new kid, as apparently the Evernight school has started letting scholarship students in. They form an instant connection, which is also Bianca’s first romance. However, the rest of the students in the school are profoundly weird and horrifically snobby, and Bianca is generally miserable. On top of that, strange things keep happening. What is going on at Evernight, and will Bianca ever fit in? (more…)

Sometime a few weeks ago, I reviewed the first book in this series; the author describes her books as a combination of spec-fic and mystery/crime. I suppose that’s accurate, although I’d say moreso for this book than the previous one. Anyway, Ms. Richardson likes ferrets and Broadway show tunes (I’m guessing, by her encyclopedic knowledge displayed of them); she has a degree in journalism from Cal State Long Beach. After writing for such diverse things as computer games and gemological teaching materials, she has tried her hand at fiction and has done well enough to be published in trade paperback format and to have contracts up to book 6.

Harper Blaine is a private investigator who, after dying for a brief period of time (two minutes), has acquired some interesting abilities that have expanded her PI-ing into the paranormal realm. When a professor, doing a study on group dynamics via group-created poltergeists, suspects that someone is sabotaging his project, he turns to Harper to investigate his group and his room. The professor already has someone in the group who’s supposed to be faking results, but apparently the phenomena have been far outstripping the ability of anyone, given the constrains of physics. And then, unfortunately, someone ends up dead . . . (more…)

Cayla Kluver is a teenager; she completed this novel, as well as high school, at fifteen years of age. She intends to take this year off to finish the second half of the duology and to promote both works, and then she will go to college to study creative writing. Like most writers, she’s been writing as long as she can remember. She acknowledges the great amounts of help she got with this novel not only from her mother, who shares copyright and edited the work, but her English teacher, who helped her with a draft of this book for a large part of a semester. Ms. Kluver says that she was inspired by playing an epic fantasy video game, and wishing that it went the way she wanted it to go, rather than the authors. Subsequently, Forsooth Publishing was born, to promote Cayla’s work.

Alera is the Crown Princess of Hytanica; whoever she marries will become King and ruler of Hytanica, so therefore she has little choice in her mate. Steldor, her father’s favorite, inspires great loathing in Alera, and she will do nearly anything to avoid him. The rival for her affections is, of all things, a Hytanican boy named Narian who was kidnapped by a nearby country called Cokyria very soon after his birth; he returned to them at sixteen years of age and is an enigma to all involved. Why did Cokyria kidnap forty-nine baby boys that year, and only keep one of them (alive)? What are Cokyria’s plans for Hytanica, and why was he allowed to return? Most of all, is there any way that Alera can avoid marrying the arrogant Steldor? (more…)

Today’s novel inspired a publisher. Tracy Falbe found it difficult to sell her already-completed epic fantasy quartet, so she founded Falbe Publishing and, subsequently, the Brave Luck Books imprint to promote her own works. She is also reissuing classic novels in updated packages as various formats of ebooks; she states specifically that all of the ebooks she releases are ones that she has personally read and enjoyed herself, and I do, overall, agree with her tastes. She and her publishing company are based in northern California. She apparently spent some time in Las Vegas; enough that she could publish a book on how to play craps. Her website also hosts numerous subsites on different subjects, called FalbeNet, displaying a broad range of interests.

Dreiband Veta was a soldier in the Atrophane Horde; he deserted to explore the Wilderness, a land with no known human inhabitants. Before he gets there, he meets a woman named Miranda and her children; recently a slave, Miranda escaped poor treatment. While crossing the Wilderness together, Miranda’s daughter, Elendra, is kidnapped by a bizarre beast. The travelers follow it and end up in the land of the rys, blue-skinned, long-lived people with magical powers. The Queen of the rys, Onja, is worshipped as a goddess, but her powers are failing and there is a conflict between her and the next-most-powerful rys, Shan. Can Miranda get her child back without getting involved in too much politicking? (more…)

A few weeks months ago, for Free (Legal) Books on the Internet Week, I reviewed Darkside by S. K. S. Perry. At the time, I didn’t even know if he was male or female (turns out he’s a guy), but I did know that I liked James Decker, the wise-cracking narrator, and his crazy world and friends. Mr. Perry sent me the sequel, which he might do for anyone who asks him nicely enough (also, there’s a donation button on the page), and I promised him I’d review it, too — eventuallly. At first, I’d gotten taken over by Wedding Brain; then I was holding off until I could find enough books for Self-Published Week. Finally, Mr. Perry, I’ve read it, and here’s your review.

The usual Sequel Rules apply: select [NO PLOT] from REVIEW when book number>2 . . . (more…)

C. L. Talmadge has been a professional, published writer since 1976; she’s a columnist for the North Star Writers’ Group, and has been syndicated in many different major newspapers. She always knew she wanted to write a novel, and finally managed, producing three. She formed her own publishing company (or imprint), Healing Stone Press, to publish and market her books. As an added bonus, her website contains full versions of all the novels, available for browsing. They’re in Flash format, so one probably wouldn’t read the entire thing, but it’s a good way to get a taste of any of the currently-available volumes.

Lt. Helen Andros is a half-breed; her mother, who has since disappeared, was Turanian, which is the conquered class, and her father was Toltec, the ruling class. She doesn’t know who her father is, though; she’s been serving in the military as a doctor/medic as an anonymous sort for nearly half her life. One day, she is asked to help a prince who is a political prisoner, and due to those selfsame politics, is arrested and put to trial for sullying a pure Toltec city herself. Only one thing can save her — the identity of her father — and knowing that might get her into much more political danger than she ever dreamed . . . (more…)

L. Lee Lowe is self-published because she simply wanted to opt out of the publishing industry, full stop. She wants to be a writer — a person who writes and has people read what she writes — rather than a businessperson, and has arranged her writing career thusly. Her novel, Mortal Ghost, is available in a few different formats; one can read it for free on her website here, as blog entries. One can also go here for the book in podcast form, read by a young Welshman who is an acting student; here (direct link) for the whole thing in PDF format; here for various other formats, including HTML and various ereaders, and here for a POD via Lulu (not free).

Jesse Wright is homeless; however, one day, during a ridiculously hot summer in an unidentified part of England, he meets Sarah, who definitely isn’t homeless, and decides to take him on as a reclamation project of sorts. Jesse has issues of all kinds — intimacy, trust, whatnot — and while Sarah’s parents definitely help, it’s not easy. His nightmares — of a burning house and dying people — have always been there, but they’re becoming different. Perhaps it is one of his gifts — an amazing memory, an amazing ability to learn things very quickly, and something that may or may not have to do with fire — that is the key to the mystery that is Jesse? (more…)

Prior to Googling him, I didn’t know anything about Eric Flint, but forced to guess, I would have said that he has a working-class background/family but perhaps a degree in history at some point. I was right; apparently he has a master’s degree in West African History, worked as a machinist among other things, and has been involved in union and other left-wing politics for a very long time. He’s written a lot of books, which Wikipedia describes as alternate history, fantasy, and humorous fantasy; he’s also a frequent collaborator, editor, and co-editor for various things for Baen; on top of that, the Baen Free Library was his idea. 1632 is one of the free books available on that site; it’s also available through Daily Lit, complete in 222 parts. Since we all know I’m a fan of Free (Legal) Books on the Internet, I approve.

1632 answers the age-old question: what if a late-20th-century West Virginia mining town got transported through time and dumped back to the seventeenth century during the Thirty Years’ War? (Hey, I was wondering. Weren’t you?) The event, referred to as the “Ring of Fire”, dumps Grantville, West Virginia, on a Sunday (right after Rita Stearns’ and Tom Simpson’s wedding) into the southwestern corner of Thuringia (currently a province of Germany); apparently the nearest standard town is Jena. Mike Stearns, Rita’s brother and the highest-ranked union worker in the mine (as well as a generally popular guy), somehow gets elected head of the whole mess, and then they have to determine what to do — isolation? How long will their electricity and other industries work? Will they have enough food to last the winter? And what about Count Tilly and the war that’s threatening to destroy most of Germany? (more…)