Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews

Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

Posted on May 20 2013 by Justin | 2 Comments

love minus eighty will mcintoshWill McIntosh wrote a book about love and I’m wondering whether I’ll ever read another that does it better. Love Minus Eighty isn’t a romance. In fact, it’s often antithetical to that idea. Instead it’s a charming, frightening, and all together confusing (as only love can be) treatise on the nature of relationships, their unpredictability and capability for crippling despair.

Based on McIntosh’s Hugo Award winning short story, Bridesicles, Love Minus Eighty is set years in the future where cryogenics and life extension technology have reached the point that the only thing standing in the way of death is money. For the particularly beautiful and female, dying young means ending up in cryogenic dating farms where the creepiest rich men briefly resurrect them to determine how depraved they’ll be in exchange for another chance at life. It’s a horrific idea driven home by the character of Mira, who throughout the novel is killed and awakened untold times by curious ‘Johns’ (for lack of a better words).… Read the rest

The Flames of Shadam Khoreh and the Lays of Auskaya by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Posted on May 9 2013 by Justin | 4 Comments

flames of shadam khoreh bradley p beaulieuThe Winds of Khalakovo, the first installment in Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Lay of Anuskaya series, was raved about on this blog in 2011. I acquired the follow-up, The Straits of Galahesh, several months before it was released in 2012. Unfortunately, the first fifty pages felt impenetrable even after reading them a dozen different times. When Beaulieu announced the upcoming release of the final volume, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, I committed myself to finishing the second novel in order to read the conclusion. Despite a long, arduous struggle through Straits of Galahesh that never really abated, I’m so pleased to call Flames of Shadam Khoreh a rousing success that exceeds all of the expectations placed on it by Beaulieu’s exceptional debut.

Beaulieu’s third book begins nearly two years after the events of Straits of Galahesh. War has moved from the islands to the mainland, and the Grand Duchy knows its time may be limited.… Read the rest

A Shambling Guide to Tao: How Plot Structure and Character Arc are Overrated

Posted on May 3 2013 by Justin | 3 Comments

the lives of tao wesley chuSince the moment I finished Wesley Chu’s debut novel, The Lives of Tao, I called reading it ‘the most fun I’ve had this year.’ I wouldn’t call it the best novel, and maybe not even the best debut, but it’s one of those reads that puts a smile on my face that won’t go away. In reading Mur Lafferty’s ‘debut’ (I put that in quotes since it’s only a debut in that it’s her first novel published by a SFWA approved house) A Shambling Guide to New York City, I found myself less joyful despite nearly identical character arcs and plot structures. My responses to myself ranged from ‘well everyone’s mileage varies’ to ‘oh my God these two books are incredibly similar why do I love one and not the other?’ Considering that question is what this review is about.

Lives of Tao tells the story of out-of-shape IT technician Roen who hears a voice in his head that turns out to be an ancient alien life-form named Tao who’s hitching a ride.… Read the rest

A Tor Heavy Group of Short Review

Posted on April 29 2013 by Justin | 4 Comments

Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear

shattered-pillars-by-elizabeth-bear-498x750Remember when I made a bit of a stink that Range of Ghosts wasn’t nominated for a Hugo? I am even more vindicated by the exceptional quality of the sequel, Shattered Pillars. The new novel picks up right where Range of Ghosts left off with a disgraced horse lord and his wizard lover fighting against a fundamental religious megalomaniac.

There are times when Bear is a little unclear with her intent, or the inherent fuzziness of the magic raises an eyebrow, but couched in Bear’s gorgeous prose and confident voice everything comes off pitch perfect. I really can’t emphasize the point enough. Even when Shattered Pillars stumbles a bit with its pace or flow, there’s nothing that can derail my enjoyment because it’s just so well written. I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth Bear’s, and I’ll be reading the next book in the series the second I get it.… Read the rest

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan

Posted on April 23 2013 by Justin | 5 Comments

Promise_of_Blood_Brian_McClellanSharing an editor at Orbit Books, Brian McClellan got a nice boost when bestselling author Brent Weeks called Promise of Blood, “a hugely promising debut. . .[and] the finest flintlock fantasy I’ve read. . .” For the first part, I really couldn’t agree more. McClellan’s debut novel reads much like something I’ve come to expect from Weeks or Brandon Sanderson, lacking perhaps only the confidence that comes with seeing your name in the New York Times. To the second, well, I’ll find it difficult to oust Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Winds of Khalakovo from that perch, but I won’t object to having Promise of Blood in the conversation.

McClellan opens in the aftermath of a military coup, told from the perspective of Adamat, a private investigator and struggling small businessman. Ordered by the coup-master himself, Field Marshall Tamas, Adamat must discover why with their dying breath the Royal Cabal whispered: “You can’t break Kresimir’s Promise.” Throughout Promise of Blood the phrase becomes something of a “Who is John Galt?”, urging the narrative forward with a need to know the answers.… Read the rest

The Riftwar Saga: Fifteen Years Later

Posted on April 8 2013 by Justin | 13 Comments

http://www.staffersbookreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Feist-Magician-Apprentice.jpgI’ve read approximately thirteen novels by one Mr. Raymond E. Feist, making him, along with Piers Anthony, the most read author of my life. This is somewhat of a disturbing realization on my part. I would note here that while I’ve read thirteen novels set in Midkemia and Xanth respectively, I’ve read even more set in Krynn. . . well over thirty. For the uninformed, Krynn is Dragonlance, the role playing game novelizations that I (and Jared Shurin) would argue as the face that launched a thousand ships in the hearts and minds of budding fantasists. I’m not really selling myself as a connoisseur of literature am I?

While my memories of the Xanth and Dragonlance novels feel accurate, namely that they are by and large unreadable to an older audience, I have continued to feel adequately warm and fuzzy about Raymond Feist’s work. So much so that I’ve actively waited for the day that his older novels would cross the electronic divide so that I might re-avail myself of them.… Read the rest

In which I quickly review Andre Norton, Tom Holt, and Howard Andrew Jones

Posted on March 26 2013 by Justin | 2 Comments

With Andre Norton’s aged novel Star Guard, Tom Holt’s new novel Doughnut, and Howard Andrew Jones’ Pathfinder tie-in novel Plague of Shadows, I’ve found three authors and books to review that have almost nothing in common. We all have our crosses to bear, do we not?

star guard andre nortonAndre Norton, a great forerunner (get it? Because she wrote Forerunner.) of science fiction, and considered by many to be the Grande Dame of SF, wrote a novel in 1953 titled Star Guard. It was actually the second novel in a world later dubbed Central Control, in which Terrans, considered to be the ideal mercenaries of the galaxy, are forced to pay for access to the stars with blood. Of course, the two novels in the ‘series’ have almost nothing to do with one another, making the ending of Star Guard unduly incomplete.

Told from the perspective of Kana Karr, a newly enlisted Swordsman sent to an un-extraordinary planet to quell a common rebellion, Norton spins a story that reminds me of legendary marches across hostile territory from the ancient world.… Read the rest

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett

Posted on March 18 2013 by Justin | 6 Comments

It wasn’t that Nola’s vision had changed: it was that her vision had changed without her even knowing it. There were all kinds of things happening around her that she’d never known about, that she was blind to. Though her experience of the world had seemed whole and certain to her, in truth it had been marred, filled with blind spots, and she’d had no idea.

american elsewhere robert jackson bennettI rarely begin my reviews with quotes, but this one, pulled from a relatively early section of Robert Jackson Bennett’s American Elsewhere, so perfectly represents the author’s style. His work captures the shadowed substance that always lurks in the corner of our eye, that we feel over our shoulder, and makes our skin crawl without cause. He did it in the novel I called the best of 2012 — The Troupe — and he’s done it again with American Elsewhere.

Mona Bright is just short of middle aged, a former cop without a lot going for her.… Read the rest

Another reading log. . .

Posted on March 12 2013 by Justin | 3 Comments

In an effort to “catch up”, I’ve compressed several books into a single post. I hope this will be the last of my omnibus reviewing.

Enjoy!

 


kassa gambit mc planckThe Kassa Gambit by M.C. Planck – Held back by an ending that doesn’t quite capitalize on the exceptional beginnings, Kassa Gambit remains a very entertaining debut effort. It works best as a narrative of distrust between the two central characters, dealing with one another disingenuously and often convincing themselves of their own paranoia. When the story moves beyond that interplay the plot doesn’t hold up that well, but it’s really not any less fun for it.

 

nexus ramez naamNexus by Ramaz Naam – It’s pretty clear that Naam is attempting to blow his readers’ minds with his idea for nano-virus telepathy. I won’t argue, it is a pretty cool idea, but beyond first blush when it gets into the actual telling of a story, Nexus ends up reading an awful lot like a half dozen other Angry Robot science fiction books I’ve read over the last couple years.… Read the rest

A recent reading log. . .

Posted on March 1 2013 by Justin | 4 Comments

I write this post with trepidation  It’s a gross departure from what Staffer’s Book Review has been about since day one. Nevertheless, the new job, the death of my father-in-law, Christmas, an increasingly needy three year old, and my general slacking of my duties as a blogger, has found me desperately far behind in my reviewing. In an effort to catch up, and get back on top of my pile, I present my “as-yet-unreviewed-reading-log-from-late-November-to-February”, or at least half of it:

 

 

RAPTURE-COVER-FINALRapture by Kameron Hurley — Of all the books on this list, Rapture is the one I’m most comfortable reviewing in a few sentences. That’s mostly because I’ve done nothing but sing Kameron Hurley’s praises with the previous two volumes God’s War and Infidel. Rapture continues the pattern and provides a tremendous ending to the series. I can’t help mentioning that there are moments in all of Hurley’s books that will scour your soul with moments of utter bleakness.… Read the rest