Tag Archives: Debut 2011

God’s War by Kameron Hurley, a rewrite

Posted on October 24 2012 by Justin | 1 Comment

Gods_War_Cover_USAs I’m hope most everyone is aware, A Dribble of Ink syndicates two of my reviews a month, usually with a new release on the first Tuesday and then an older title from my so-called back list. With Kameron Hurley final novel in her Bel Dame Apocrypha being released, I thought it would be appropriate to rerun my God’s War and Infidel reviews at A Dribble of Ink, before publishing a review of Hurley’s concluding volume, Rapture.

I had a problem though, I didn’t really think my review of God’s War was any good. It was one of my earlier reviews as a blogger, and I thought it deserved better. So I rewrote it — never an easy thing to do. I think it came out pretty well.

Beginning with Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl three years ago, Night Shade Books has made a concerted effort to produce meaningful debut novels.

… Read the rest

The Desert of Souls – Howard Andrew Jones

Posted on May 8 2012 by Justin | 10 Comments

One Thousand and One Nights, or as it’s better known in the English speaking world, Arabian Nights, is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. The basic premise is that a Persian king discovers his wife’s infidelity and has her executed. Deciding all women are the same, the king marries a series of virgins only to execute each one the next morning, before she has a chance to cuckold him. Eventually the vizier cannot find any more virgins until his daughter, Scheherazade, volunteers herself as the next bride. On the night of their marriage, she begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it, forcing the king to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins a new one, and the king, eager to hear the conclusion, postpones her execution once again.… Read the rest

The Quantum Thief – Hannu Rajaniemi

Posted on April 23 2011 by Justin | Leave a comment

If The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes had a baby with The Lies of Locke Lamora and then gave it up for adoption to Neuromancer you would have a pretty good simulacrum for The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. The book is at its heart a whodunit, or more specifically which whodunit. After finishing the book I’m not sure who did it. But I think that’s the point.

The novel begins when a winged woman who talks to god rescues an amnesiac thief named Jean Le Flambeur at the request of her deity and brings him to Mars to remember. Juxtaposing this perspective is the antagonist, Isidore Beautrelet, a detective akin to Sherlock himself who in solving the murder of a chocolatier finds himself set against le Flambeur himself. Told at a breakneck pace the story follows our thief and his winged caretaker as he infiltrates Martian society to rediscover who he was and who he wants to be.… Read the rest