Publisher: Tor

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The Glass Magician

The Glass Magician

Normally I am not a fan of paranormal fiction, but this book hit two buttons for me.  I am a fan of turn of the century (I guess I have to specify the turn of the 20th century now) fiction, and I love stage magic.  The Glass Magician is not a bad book; it came close to being excellent.  Sadly, there are a few places the story let me down. The characters are probably the best part of the book, or at least one character is.  Thalia Cutler, the eponymous magician, is a fairly likable main character.  She is strong-willed and competent while still exhibiting flaws and worries enough to be interesting.  Stevermer hit a good balance with Cutler, making me care about what happened to her through the story, which is one of the most important parts of an engaging novel.  Thalia also has a decent character arc through… Read more »

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The Ghost Line

The Ghost Line

The Ghost Line falls in a unique subset of sci-fi that is near and dear to my heart, sci-fi suspense that border on horror. It’s a genre that I love in books, movies and TV (although it is massively underrepresented on television), so I was really looking forward to reading this book. I will start off by saying I generally liked most of what this book did.  The characters are interesting, if not exactly unique to the genre, and I liked the fact that the main character was from Iceland.  It added a bit extra to her characterization, especially when it casually dropped some lesser known Icelandic folklore into a random conversation. The authors also did a solid job of getting across the emotions of their characters, and from the outset, I felt the almost crazy sneakiness of Wei and the real affection Saga and Michel had for each other…. Read more »

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Three Princes

Three Princes

Imagine a world where the Egyptian civilization never fell; a world where the Pharos still maintained power and a legacy going back generation.  That sounds like a pretty good premise for a book, right?  I thought so too.  Unfortunately while Three Princes has that awesome setup and gets the feel of the world right the actual story just doesn’t hold up. This is a book I really wanted to like.  I love Egyptian history and the Egyptian “style” so the idea of bringing that forward into modern times really intrigued me.  And that is the big thing this book gets right. Add to that the fact that in the story the Incans also remain and are the Egyptians main adversary and I am totally on board.  Ramona Wheeler is very good at describing the world in such a way that you can almost feel it.  While the alternate history lover… Read more »

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A Darkling Sea

A Darkling Sea

A Darkling Sea is an interesting sci-fi novel about first contact, misunderstandings and events spiraling out of control.  I read a lot of sci-fi but a novel that is essentially focused on first contact and the repercussions of that contact is a premise I have not seen very many times. This book is really well paced in the front half and kicks into gear early on with the death and dissection of a major character only a handful of pages into the book.  While it isn’t the rip-roaring ride you would get from a thriller this book moves fairly quickly for a thoughtful work of sci-fi.  That pacing does have some issues in the second half however as the story bogs down and the end feels a little rushed as Cambias works to put all the pieces together and wrap everything up. The idea behind the pitfalls that could come… Read more »

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