Crystal Rainby Tobias Buckell384pp (Paperback)My Rating: 4/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.86/5Good Reads Rating: 3.62/5 Crystal Rain, Tobias Buckell’s debut novel, is the first book in a series of stand-alone space operas set in the same universe (if it has a series name, I can’t find it on Buckell’s site or Amazon). It is followed by Ragamuffin, which was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2007, and Sly Mongoose, which just came out a few days ago. These books seem to […]

Young Milesby Lois McMaster Bujold864pp (Paperback)My Rating: 8/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.32/5Good Reads Rating: 4.17/5 Young Miles is an omnibus containing three stories in the “Miles Vorkosigan” series by Lois McMaster Bujold — the novel The Warrior’s Apprentice, the Hugo award winning novella “The Mountains of Mourning” and the Hugo award winning novel The Vor Game. Although the books in this series are self-contained and not written in any particular order, these three are compiled in chronological order and come […]

Whiskey and Waterby Elizabeth Bear448pp (Trade Paperback)My Rating: 8/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.89/5Good Reads Rating: 3.82/5 Whiskey and Water is the second book in Elizabeth Bear’s urban fantasy series “The Promethean Age.” It takes place a few years after the end of Blood and Iron, the first book in the series, which should be read before this one. The next two books in the series, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth (to be released in just a few days […]

A Companion to Wolvesby Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette304pp (Hardcover)My Rating: 8/10Amazon Rating: 4/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.24/5Good Reads Rating: 3.51/5 A Companion to Wolves is a stand alone collaboration by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. Sarah Monette’s “The Doctrine of Labyrinth” series is currently my favorite book discovery of this year, and Elizabeth Bear’s dark mythological tale of faerie, Blood and Iron, was also excellent so I was very much looking forward to this book. Although I did not enjoy it […]

Blood Followsby Steven Erikson125pp (Paperback)My Rating: 7/10Amazon Rating: 3.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.95/5Good Reads Rating: 3.84/5 Blood Follows is the first of the novellas Steven Erikson has written taking place in the Malazan universe. While the novels in the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” series contain complex plots and a huge cast of characters, Blood Follows focuses on a small set of characters with a much simpler plot. In fact, the main character in this book, Emancipor Reese, and his employers, the […]

The Radiant Seasby Catherine Asaro512pp (Paperback)My Rating: 8.5/10Amazon Rating: 4.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.93/5Good Reads Rating: 4.07/5 The Radiant Seas is the direct sequel to Primary Inversion, an earlier novel in Catherine Asaro’s Skolian Saga. Although Asaro’s website says all the books in the series are intended to be stand alone with the exception of the Triad duology (originally written as one book until it became too long), I would recommend reading Primary Inversion first. I don’t think I would have enjoyed […]