Red Rising, a debut novel by Pierce Brown, is a dystopia set on Mars and the first book in a trilogy. I’ve seen it being referenced as a young adult book a few times, but as far as I can tell, it is not being sold as a young adult novel. The publisher’s website does not list it as such so if you are looking for it in a bookstore, I don’t think it will be found in the young […]

M.L. Brennan’s debut, Generation V, is the first novel about Fortitude Scott. The second book, Iron Night, was released earlier this month, and there will be at least one more book in the series after that one. Fortitude Scott is a young, low level vampire nearly indistinguishable from humans: he has to drink blood every once in awhile, but he doesn’t yet have fangs, an aversion to daylight, the ability to heal, or great strength. That’s fine with him since […]

Since I have an overwhelming pile of books that I need to review, I’m going to write a bunch of mini-reviews to try to get back into a reviewing routine for the new year. I’ve been struggling to keep up with reviewing lately, and I think part of that struggle is that getting caught up seems like an insurmountable obstacle. I don’t want to just let the books I haven’t reviewed go by without mention so I’ve decided to write […]

Warchild by Karin Lowachee won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest in 2000 and was published a couple of years later. It was followed by two related novels set in the same universe, Burndive and Cagebird. Both Warchild and Cagebird were finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award during their publication years. Eight-year-old Jos Musey’s parents taught him to hide when he hears the alarms. Afterward, they always return and praise him for remaining in his hiding place, but this […]

Katie Waitman’s debut novel The Merro Tree was selected as the Del Rey Discovery of the Year  in 1997, and it also won the Compton Crook Award (an award for best first science fiction, fantasy, or horror novel of the year). The Divided, Waitman’s second novel, was released in 1999, but she has not published a novel since despite having finished a sequel to The Merro Tree. The Merro Tree is the story of Mikk of Vyzania, starting shortly before […]

Tankborn by Karen Sandler is the first book in a young adult science fiction trilogy by the same name. The second book, Awakening, is available now with the final book, Rebellion, to follow in spring 2014. On the planet Loka, the people who fled there from Earth are divided into groups with different amounts of land, wealth, and power depending on their social status. Whether high-status or lowborn, they all have one commonality: they are trueborn, making them much better […]