Revamped is, like its predecessor Staked, a fantasy thriller very much in the mode of Hamilton’s Anita Blake series: jockeying for dominance between various supernatural entities is the prime mover of the plot, which features a lot of sex and violence, the latter even more copious and explicit than the former.
Lewis continues to exploit the [...]
Entries Tagged as 'fantasy'
J.F. Lewis: Revamped
01 Mar 2010 · No Comments
Tags: fantasy · l-author · r-title · thriller
Laurie Viera Rigler: Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict
18 Feb 2010 · No Comments
Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is the flip side of Rigler’s Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict: the earlier novel cast 21st-century Courtney Stone’s mind into the body of a young woman in early 19th-century England. This (much better) novel brings the unfortunately (if significantly) named Jane Mansfield’s persona forward to modern Los [...]
Tags: fantasy · r-author · r-title
Cassandra Clare: City of Ashes
16 Feb 2010 · No Comments
Mostly I thought City of Ashes was a vast improvement on City of Bones. It had a few nifty surprises. The plot continues to echo elements from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Harry Potter series, and Star Wars, among other sources, but generally doesn’t draw enough from any one of those wells to feel overly [...]
Tags: c-author · c-title · fantasy · young adult
Daniel Waters: Generation Dead
07 Feb 2010 · No Comments
I think the combination of the current young adult publishing climate and the packaging of Generation Dead do Daniel Waters’ novel a disservice.
For better or worse, in the wake of Twilight’s success (not to mention Harry Potter’s, Buffy’s and the more explicit books of Hamilton’s, Harris’s, et al) there’s a lot of supernaturally-themed young adult [...]
Tags: fantasy · g-title · w-author · young adult
Diana Peterfreund: Rampant
30 Jan 2010 · No Comments
Rampant is a unicorn novel for people who hate unicorns — or at least the fluffy depiction of unicorns in current popular culture. Peterfreund sets out to reclaim the dignity of the unicorn by returning to the legendary roots of one-horned critters, and weaves multi-cultural variants on the theme into a unicorn hierarchy.
Since Peterfreund’s unicorns [...]
Tags: fantasy · p-author · r-title · young adult
Lisa McMann: Wake
24 Jan 2010 · No Comments
The good: As supernaturally-themed young adult novels go, the premise of this one is strikingly original: no vampires, werewolves, nor zombies (at least in this first volume of the series…). Instead, Janie finds herself involuntarily drawn into the dreams of anyone dreaming near her. A few SF authors have worked with similar concepts — [...]
Tags: fantasy · m-author · w-title · young adult
L. Jagi Lamplighter: Prospero Lost
13 Jan 2010 · No Comments
Prospero Lost is one of the most original contemporary fantasies I’ve read in years from outside the slipstream camp. Its central conceit is that Shakespeare’s The Tempest was loosely based on fact. Prospero, Miranda (and later additions to the clan) are near-immortal beings secretly responsible for imposing order on elemental magical forces, thus making modern [...]
Tags: fantasy · l-author · p-title
Catherine Jinks: The Reformed Vampire Support Group
08 Jan 2010 · No Comments
The Reformed Vampire Support Group is maybe the most original vampire novel I’ve ever read that actually uses the word “vampire.” With a few deft twists to the rules of the legend, Jinks inverts the dynamic of the modern sexy, super-strong bloodsucker. Her vamps don’t have super strength or magically accelerated healing. They can’t fly, [...]
Tags: fantasy · j-author · r-title · young adult
Stacey Jay: You Are So Undead to Me
06 Jan 2010 · No Comments
If the title didn’t already clue you in, the final sentence of the back cover blurb perfectly telegraphs You Are So Undead to Me’s tone: “Her life — and more importantly, the homecoming dance — depends on it.”
In the first volume of Jay’s post-Buffy zombie franchise, reluctant zombie “Settler” Megan Berry is at least as [...]
Tags: fantasy · j-author · young adult
Charles Stross: Wireless
20 Dec 2009 · No Comments
I finally figured out that I like Charles Stross better when he’s being funny than when he’s being preachy. His short fiction collection Wireless offers both. My favorite entries were “Rogue Farm” and “Trunk and Disorderly.” The former is a sly future backwoods noir that almost lives up to its killer opening:
It was a bright, [...]
Tags: fantasy · s-author · science fiction · w-title