Synopsis:
When a teenage boy gets a copy of a contraband video game, he soon learns that Erebos and the real world are bleeding together with deadly results.
Review:
Erebos was a fun, fast read with good plotting and a well-realized game world. It was pretty straightforward in its execution and I’m not sure I’m totally satisfied by the ending but it was a fun read nonetheless.
Synopsis:
When he’s kidnapped by a feisty female assassin, a young blacksmith discovers himself at the heart of a battle between dead gods who want to live again.
Review:
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the prose in Bound by Fire, because, you know, with emerging fantasy authors you have to be prepared for the worst. I really felt like I was drawn into a world I was interested in, and the characters had enough depth to keep me reading. However, about 3/4 of the way through the plot completely slipped into predictable melodrama and I lost interest. Ronald Craft has loads of potential and just needs to take more time to really work out his stories before publishing.
Many thanks to Ronald J. Craft for the review copy.
Synopsis:
An archeologist finds himself dragged on a zany, madcap adventure through time, his tour guide an indomitable Amazon woman from the future.
Review:
Memoirs of a Time Traveler is a totally original story that blew my mind and made me laugh. Tonally, it reminded me of Joe vs. the Volcano, a misunderstood and underrated Tom Hanks movie that I just adore. I really appreciated Doug Molitor‘s expert comic timing and inventive imagination. And just what I needed after deciding that Kate Morton’s highly anticipated new book is just too boring to keep reading.
Synopsis:
Ralph is a mouse who lives in a hotel but thirsts for adventure, and his life is forever changed when he meets Keith, a boy with a motorcycle that’s just the right size for Ralph.
Review:
It makes me very happy that my 1,000th review on this blog (which launched almost exactly 6 years ago) is a book that I read aloud to my almost 5-year-old daughter. The Mouse and the Motorcycle was a perfect choice for our very first chapter book, and we both loved it. I had never read this particular Beverly Cleary, though she was one of my favorite authors growing up. Getting the chance to read it aloud gave me a great respect for her craftsmanship as well as her imagination. The plot is inventive and the structure airtight. And Ralph is such a marvelous protagonist, so single-minded in his yearning for the motorcycle, a little bit selfish but brave and honest. Superfast Kid is already itching to read the next one and so am I!
Synopsis:
A boy enters an elite prep school to hide from the mysterious black capped men who are stalking him and who have taken over his family, only to discover a conspiracy coming from another dimension.
Review:
The Paladin Prophecy is extremely well-written, and despite the presence of many expected genre elements, it showed a lot of imagination. Not surprising, considering that Mark Frost was the co-creator of Twin Peaks, one of the best TV shows of all time.
I found so much I liked in this book that I kept reading, even though I didn’t think that the story itself was the most original. But it’s hard to think of a new way to spin the “first year at magic school” story, so I cut it some slack. I’d like to see where it goes from here. The threads planted for book 2 definitely have me wanting more!
Many thanks to Random House Books for Young Readers for the review copy.
Synopsis:
All humans are “Sounds” with “Echoes” in the echo world, and when a Sound dies, the Echo must be killed, so when a boy discovers that his Echo is a prince, he quickly realizes that there is a target on his back.
Review:
The Sound and the Echoes is a middle-grade fantasy with an intriguing concept. For me, I felt like there were too many rules, but I think that’s because I’m a grown up not a kid. I’m curious to see what Amanda at Reads4Tweens thinks, since she has a son who is the right age for this book.
Synopsis:
After signing up for a psychology experiment, a young woman finds herself in a dangerous “arena” where she may lose her life trying to find her way out.
Review:
Arena is an allegory for the Christian walk of faith, something I knew when I bought the book but then forgot until about halfway through. I think that’s a pretty good sign that the book mostly escapes being on-the-nose and heavy handed in its plot execution and character development.
Callie is an ordinary girl who wants more from life but doesn’t know how to get it. Her best friend signs them both up for a psychology experiment where they’re told they will have their decision making abilities tested. Callie is then dropped unceremoniously into a harsh, dangerous, deserted landscape with nothing but a backpack filled with strange objects and an instruction manual she can’t comprehend. Told to stay on the white path, Callie falls off and finds herself menaced by a frightening monster. She’s rescued by Pierce, a handsomely grizzled man who says he’s been in the Arena for five years and doesn’t think there’s any way out. He warns her of the many dangers in the Arena and takes her to meet his band of allies. As Callie and her new friends/enemies make their way through the Arena, they are tested, threatened, and challenged beyond all imagining.
What surprised me about Arena was that it was not afraid to get dark, much darker than Christian fiction usually does. I really appreciated that. The risks all felt real and dangerous and I did question whether the characters would make it out of the Arena. The second half got a little didactic but I still felt that the author pushed the envelope in a surprising way.
Synopsis:
Now a king in the magical land of Fillory, Quentin still fights with the demons of depression and purposelessness, so he goes on a quest and risks losing Fillory forever.
Review:
You have to understand what Fillory means to Quentin to truly understand his position at the outset of The Magician King. He has literally gotten everything he has ever wanted–he is a king in the magical country from the books he loved as a kid. It’s as if you grew up loving Narnia, found out it was real, and then got to go sit on those thrones at Cair Paravel.
But it’s not making Quentin any happier than he was at the beginning of The Magicians. He’s aching over the loss of Alice, his girlfriend who died hating him for cheating on her in a sordid threeway with Janet and Eliot, now also sitting on thrones in Fillory.
And he can’t figure out what’s wrong with Julia, a girl he loved in high school who was denied entrance into Brakebills, the magical college that Quentin attended, and was forced to learn magic on the streets. Something is really, really wrong with Julia, whose eyes have gone totally black and who seems disconnected from reality.
So Quentin decides to head out on a quest, and that turns out to be pretty boring, too–until he turns the wrong key and gets kicked out of Fillory, along with Julia. He can’t get back to the land he loves, and his only choice is to trust Julia, who takes him through the magical underground in the hopes of finding a way back.
I loved the character of Julia. She’s edgy and fierce, a total loose cannon. The magical underground was just as fascinating as Brakebills, and I’m desperately hoping that Lev Grossman intends to write another book. That ending can’t be the ending… it just can’t…
Synopsis:
As Fitz accompanies Prince Dutiful on a quest to lay the head of an ice-encased dragon on the hearthstone of the Narcheska Elliania’s mothershouse, he betrays his dearest friend and brings his own bastard daughter into grave peril.
Review:
Fool’s Fate is a thoroughly satisfying conclusion not just to the Tawny Man trilogy but to the entire tale begun in the Farseer trilogy and developed in the Liveship Traders. Hobb is after full-bodied resolution and she sure delivers. Everything is wrapped up and no thread, either physical or emotional, is left hanging. This doesn’t mean that she short-circuits a full emotional experience. She takes the characters as far as they can go, and then beyond that, showing that she has a deep understanding of the dramatic force of peripety.
I got lumps in my throat, both happy and sad ones, and I feel so satisfied, just as much as the first time I read these books. I can’t wait for my girls to be old enough to read them. I think they would be good for any middle or high schooler undaunted by length.
Synopsis:
Outcast dragon keepers escort group of stunted dragons towards what they hope is their ancestral home, while threatened by dangerous lands without and traitors within.
Review:
Dragon Haven is actually the second half of the story begun in Dragon Keeper, and really they could’ve been just one book. (Though I do not begrudge any extra revenue to the gifted author Robin Hobb.)
I really can’t say much about the plot of this book without giving away spoilers, so you’ll just have to be satisfied with knowing that I was quite pleased with how this story turned out. Hobb has indicated that her next book might be set after the events of this one, and I hope that is the case, because while she wrapped up this story well, I have big questions about what happens next!
