It may say something about how much I’ve traveled this year that I have not purchased a single bottle of conditioner, instead relying on the cute little bottles they give you in hotel bathrooms. I’d have the same record for soap but this weekend at Colonial Williamsburg their scented and fun-shaped “soap balls” were too…
Tag: fantasy
Review: The White-Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker
The White-Luck Warrior by R. Scott BakkerFifty pages in, I realized I had come to approach this as a horror story rather than epic fantasy, as if I was reading Stephen King or the Lovecraft Unbound anthology. I read horror in a much more defensive mode, trying not to get invested in any character’s survival,…
Book Review: Liane Merciel’s The River King’s Road
This is exactly the kind of fantasy I love: a potentially epic setting but with “low fantasy” focus on the actual people within it. Peasants have the chance to determine fate for a change. Like Saladin Ahmed, I also want “fewer kings and starship captains, more coach drivers and space waitresses” in my spec fic….
Book Review: “Blood of Kings” by Billy Wong
I received a free ebook copy through a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for an honest review. I signed up for the giveaway because I’ve followed Wong’s short fiction casually for years (not least because we’ve frequently wound up in the same places, such as Firefly in Amber etc etc). While his style is fine for…
Book Review: Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker (Aspect-Emperor trilogy)
I mentioned this one in my review of The Skybound Sea–where I hoped for the sake of Aeon’s Gate fans Skyes goes on to write a sequel trilogy like this. I cannot remember enjoying a sequel so much in years! Although the worldbuilding behind what Bakker is now calling The Second Apocalypse is beyond complex, and…
WisCon Rapidfire Book Reviews #4: Aeon’s Gate: The Skybound Sea by Sam Sykes
I have a confession to make: I already took one review copy (Edge of Oblivion), but I couldn’t resist snagging this one, too. I picked it up and meant to page through it to pass the time before the auction, but then I could not put it down. The opening lines beat out a hypnotic rhythm….
WisCon Rapidfire Book Review #2: A Stranger on Olondria by Sofia Samatar
Another one of the books I discovered through WisCon–in fact, I discovered Stranger in Olondria through the little sampler pamphlets Small Beer Press handed out out at WisCon 2012. This was daring promotional tactic–because the first 50 pages of this story don’t have much of the plot, though they gave a flavor for style. The style intrigued me enough that…
September Publications: Scigentasy and Voluted Tales
Happy Labor Day to those of you celebrating it! I’m at this moment not quite employed enough to, but I do have some exciting writing announcements. First, Silver Chests and Plain Sight has been reprinted at Voluted Tales. Half-detective story, it may have been influenced by Peter Tremayne’s delightful medieval monastic mysteries–although my cleric happens…
WisCon Rapidfire Book Review #1: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Life is busy, what with the move, the job search, and the Starter Guide, but it’s unfair of me to hold off on these reviews any longer. So: a RAPID FIRE ROUND shall commence, where I give you my thoughts on the books I discovered at WisCon this May in a few hundred words each….
“The Void Test” at the Cast of Wonders Podcast!
This weekend, I had one of my first stories in audio publication! You can now listen to “The Void Test,” read by Chloë Yates in the YA Podcast Cast of Wonders. It’s a story of confronting fears, most importantly the sort of fears even ultimate power can’t defeat. The text is included on the website, slightly revised from its originally appearance in MindFlights…