So Long and a Big Thank You to SF Signal

Since it is public now, I can post my thoughts about John DeNardo and JP Franz closing the doors of the Hugo Award Winning SF Signal.

I’ve been engaged in the online genre community since I joined the SFFWorld forums in 2000, even more so when I began writing for SFFWorld in 2003. Around that time, SF Signal launched and grew into one of the three or four mainstays of the SFF intarwebs, attracting great contributors, fostering relationships with writers and fans, and helping to promote a true sense community within the genre and winning 3 Hugo Awards, 2 for best Fanzine (2012 & 2013) and one for best Fancast in 2014.

Writing for SF Signal helped me to engage in the community, I came to know more people and become friends with many of them, including peers from other genre websites, SF publishing professionals, as well as writers. To name a few I’ve hung out with in “real life,” John Anealio, Fred Kiesche, Shecky, and Ed Lazellari. I’ve made some really good online friendships as a result of SF Signal as well, not the least of which include Paul Weimer, Jeff Patterson, Sarah Chorn, Kristin Centorcelli (aka My Bookish Ways), Patrick Hester, David Annadale, Andrea Johnson,  Michael R. Underwood, Mike Martinez, Shana DuBois, Django Wexler, Andrew Liptak, John H. Stevens among others.

Thanks must to also go Patrick Hester for throwing out the (albeit mass) email invite to be on the SF Signal podcast and allowing me on the podcast not once (Episode 228: Upcoming 2014 Books We Need To Read And Why) but twice (Episode 273: The Best SFF Book, TV Show, Movie, Comic Book, Game or other thing you consumed in 2014). This led to appearances on other Podcasts (Functional Nerds run by John Anealio and Patrick and Rocket Talk with Justin Landon). 

John was a great editor, as was Kristin Centorcelli during her tenure as Associate Editor. allowing me to bounce ideas off of them for my contributions and providing smart suggestions when I was having a tough time with a book review or article I wanted to post to SF Signal. If, rather hopefully when, I meet them in “real life” I can buy them each an adult beverage of their choice, because they more than deserve it.

I completely understand John and JP’s reasons for closing SF Signal. To run a webzine that has new posts nearly every hour nearly every day can be (and is in the case of places like Tor.com) a full time job. Yet these two generous, passionate fans did this not only of their own free time, but their own money for server/hosting costs. Granted, they do run advertisements, but much of that income (HA! Income from websites) went back into making it possible for SF Signal to be the active, robust web site – COMMUNITY – into which it so wonderfully grew over the years.

Bottom line, everybody involved in SF Signal had enthusiasm for SFF, the community, and sharing this enthusiasm with each other. John and JP helped to make the genre and online community a great place, were big contributors to the friendly atmosphere of not only the online genre community, but the current genre community as a whole. As such, the genre community as a whole is a little lesser without SF Signal as an active part of it.

Where does this leave me? Well, like I said, I completely understand their reasons. I’ll still be contributing quite a bit over at SFFWorld and whenever Tor.com will have me, I’ll be there, too. My blog is going through some changes. As regular readers may have noticed, I didn’t post a Books in the Mail this past Sunday, I’ll no longer be posting those. Other than that, the future is still open and I may touch upon that in a later post.

But again, a big thank you to John, JP, Patrick and all the other great folks behind the scenes at SF Signal. It was a great run for them and I couldn’t be more proud and honored to be part of it for the past few years.

For a really great summation of the situation from an outsider of SF Signal, but a great fan (and Hugo winner in his own right), Aidan Moher did a nice little twitter “rant” which he Storified:

February 2016 Reading: Elliott, Schwab, Gannon, Sutter, & Akers

February was a short month, but longer than usual as it was a Leap Year (yay!) and like every month for the past forever, I read a handful of books. I'll cover the books I didn't review in more detail than those I did.  I’ve been much more inclined to pick off books from the older slopes of Mount Toberead as of late than the Newer Releases. 

That said I did post a couple of book reviews in February, the first of which was for Tim Akers’s The Pagan Night, posted to SF Signal at the beginning of February. I thought this one had some good ideas, but ultimately was weighed down by an overly bulky middle and a muddling of secondary characters. Loved the monsters Tim created for this Historical Epic Fantasy.

From there I jumped into Trial by Fire the second installment in Charles Gannon’s Terran Empire series. This is a fun space opera saga that is leaning towards Military Science Fiction as the series progresses. 

Fun stuff, great aliens and Gannon mixes traditional SF with modern sensibilities quite nicely. His characters feel real, for the most part, and behave in a plausible fashion in the galactic society he’s constructed for this series.

 My only real complaint with this one is that the protagonist, Caine Riordan, seems to not feature in the book quite as prominently as he did in Fire with Fire. This book was sitting on Mount Toberead for quite a while, I picked up at the Baen Books booth back at New York Comic Con in October 2014.

I listened to two audio books in February, one of which was James L. Sutter’s Akers’s Death’s Heritic which I thoroughly enjoyed. More about that one at the link to my review, but I’ll again stress that an excellent story and a superb narrator make for a great story experience.

That story + narrator combination was full effect in V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, the audio book which kept my ear-holes happy for the early part of February. A couple of years ago, I read Schwab’s Vicious which is one of the best superhero (supervillain) prose stories I’ve ever read. For A Darker Shade of Magic, Schwab turns her pen to a mix of magic and parallel worlds. As a long time comic book reader, I love parallel world stories and what Schwab with the concept is fantastic. Schwab’s concept of a magical multiverse is, if not exactly a new concept, but one that feels very fresh in how magic exists in each of the parallel worlds.

The characters were very well drawn, Kell as a pressured and roguish magician who can travel between worlds. Delilah (Lila) Bard is his co-protagonist, well initially she felt like a sidekick, but grew as the story grow. I also was slightly annoyed by her at first, but Schwab did a wonderful job of endearing the character to me by the end of the novel.

Steven Crossley is the narrator for this audio version and he’s got a very pleasant style. His narration, combined with Schwab’s at times poetic and lyrical storytelling, made me feel as if I was listening to a Dr. Seuss story. This is not a bad thing.

Continuing with my re-read and catch-up of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series, I stormed through Prince of Dogs. Elliott does such great things with the characters in this one, introducing a couple of new players and continuing a Robin Hobb-esque method of torturing her characters. I’m glad I still have five more books to read in this series because this is such a fun, comfortable, and enjoyable series that hits every one of my check-boxes for epic fantasy. I’m still debating if I’m going to do a full write-up of each book in the series.

Yes, that is my copy signed

  

I loved the new character of Rosvita, especially her interactions with Liath and how she comes to an understanding of the events unfolding around her. I hope Rosvita sticks around and becomes more involved because she feels like an important person. Of course, to counter her wonderful appearance is the return of a character from King’s Dragon who was thought to be gone.

Next up was an impressive debut novel, Katherine Bonesteel’s The Cold Between. I’ll be posting my review of this one on the day it publishes (March 8), but I’ll just say right now that I was impressed with the book and Bonesteel’s novel.

Friday Round-Up: Bowen, Corey & O'Keefe @SFFWorld and @SFSignal Mind Melds

Wow, I haven’t posted a round up since last year (hack joke), but seriously, it has been over a month and that’s a longer time between Round Ups than usual. Not sure what that bodes for the future, but there it is.

As my Millions….and MILLIONS readers are probably aware, I posted my annual (and tenth!) Reading Year in Review on Monday. It turned out to be a really good year, if you want to take a gander at the SFF books published in 2015 that I enjoyed the most head over there. But in this post you’ll find some of the recent things I’ve posted to SFFWorld and SF Signal.

As it turned out my Mind Meld from March SFF Series That Hooked us After the First book was the top (most viewed) Mind Meld post for 2015, and my Mind Meld on giving Authors a Second Chance (September) is also on the list.  Of course, the fact that "hooked" posted early in the year gave it more time to be viewed than all but 2 mind melds last year.

My Mind Meld for December was posted just before Christmas (and it turned out to be one of the top SF Signal posts for December!), wherein I asked A.M. Dellamonica, Bob Milne, Kristen Bell , Troy L. Wiggins, Mieneke van der Salm, Kallen Kentner, Stefan Raets, Kat Hooper, The G (from Nerds of a Feather), Martin Cahill, Ardi Alspach , and Sarah Chorn

Q: Who is Your Favorite “New to You” Author You Read in 2015?

I finished off December with two reviews at SFFWorld and began 2016 with one review. Here goes...

Just about a month ago, my review of Lila Bowen (AKA Delilah S. Dawson) Wake of Vultures, one of the most honest and raw (in an excellent way) fantasy novels I read:

At the start of the novel, Nettie is a slave in all but name to her foster parents, and she isn’t too happy with them or her situation. They treat her horribly and she has no recompense. When a strange creepy fellow arrives on their farm, and Nettie fights for her life until she manages to defeat the creature making it dissolve into black sand, Nettie has an awakening. She can see things that normal people are unable to see. She leaves her home to join the Double TK Ranch where she poses as a boy and her considerable skill at breaking horses gives her the acceptance, friendship, and value-recognition she needs and deserves. In parallel to that, a Skinwalker (shapechanger) named Coyote Dan befriends her and helps Nettie come to grips with her new supernatural life. She can see vampires, witches and all sort of supernatural and weird entities. Dan sets her up with the Texas Rangers who combat these baddies. When Nettie was first sucked into the weird world, she became entangled with Pia Mupitsi, a monstrous child thief and Coyote Dan acts as a mentor to her through much of the story as Nettie comes to grips with how she fits into this new world she sees.
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Another element I appreciated about Wake of Vultures, and this goes hand in hand with the “realness” of the protagonist, is the honest, unwavering nature of the entire narrative. Bowen doesn’t shy away from the bloody scenes, the difficult character scenes, the challenging themes and topics. In short, Wake of Vultures is a brave, bold novel of human truth set against a dark, magical backdrop. It is perfectly paced and engaging from start to finish.

My last review of 2015 turned out to be for a book that immediately leapt to the top of my favorites list, the latest Expanse installment from James S.A. Corey, Nemesis Games:

Here in Nemesis Games, James S.A. Corey changes the script again, by breaking up the crew of the Rocinate into its individual parts: Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, Amos, and James Holden. Not only that, a good portion of the narrative takes place on Earth, so in many ways, Nemesis Games is a risk. Worry not, though: the powerful storytelling and engaging characterization from previous volumes are shining through as The Expanse continues to reshuffle the deck with each installment.
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If finding a new habitable planet on the other side of giant portal (let alone 1,000 planets) wasn’t game changer enough, what Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck do to Earth is well…earth shattering. A terrorist attack, unfortunately, is something resonates all too well in this day and age (Goddamn it, as I write this there was a terrorist attack on a Mosque in California) and there is some very introspective and pointed charged discussion between Naomi and her former lover Marcus surrounding the attack (Chapter 33). It is one of those central moments in a novel where so much of the ideological confrontations throughout the series seem to be nearly exemplified in one conversation.

My first review of 2016 is also a debut, and an impressive one at that. Steal the Sky the first installment of Megan E. O’Keefe’s Scorched Continent series:

Steampunk and magic on the raw, dusty frontier provide the backdrop for Megan E. O’Keefe’s debut novel, Steal the Sky. Our protagonist, Detan Honding, is stuck in a backwater mining town with his sidekick Tibs. Their airship is in a state of disrepair, but he’s given an opportunity to steal a ship from a ruthless figure in the community. Because the job, of course, doesn’t go smoothly, Detan soon finds himself under the scrutiny of the woman who employed him – Watch Captain Ripka, a local gang boss – Commodore Thratia Ganal (with the endearing nickname of Throatslitter), and a doppel. What’s a doppel you ask? A doppel is an illusionist/shape-changer who can assume the visage of anybody, which makes it difficult for Detan to always know with whom he’s speaking. But our roguish hero didn’t get far in life by being slow-witted
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Of course the natural comparison for Detan is Malcom Reynolds, he of Serenity/Firefly. O’Keefe evokes a similar feel of the raw frontier as did Whedon’s space-western. Where O’Keefe raises the stakes is the judicious inclusion of magic and enhancing the western setting with steampunk elements.

Friday Round-Up: Fletcher & Elliott @SFFWorld, October Mind Meld @SFSignal

Been a while since I rounded up my links o’ stuff, so this is going to be a longer post than usual but it has been a bit hectic at the o’ Stuff with the new (as of August) job with the big biannual meeting for my group falling squarely in the middle of the month.

The “oldest” thing since my last round-up is my review of Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption, which might be the grimdarkiest grimdark novel to ever grimdark.

In Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption, dreams, desires, and imagination manifest as reality and the unhinged are the most powerful, affecting the world most profoundly. Others can affect it in a more personal manner. For example, the character of Wichtig deems himself the Greatest Swordsman in the World. The more he says this, the more he believes it and gets others to believe it, the more true it becomes to the point an opponent refuses to fight Wichtig because of how Wichtig’s belief in himself has affected other people. At the apex of this world is the Konig Furimmer, high priest of the Geborene Damonen, a mad ruler who argues with his Doppels (magically created doubles) about his sanity and rule. Konig has one mad plan above all, to create a new God as all other gods have fallen out of favor. The key to Konig’s plan is that this boy – Morgen – must generate enough belief in his power and die purely so he can Ascend to god-hood.
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Fletcher’s world has a very heavy Germanic influence, each of the titles and many of the proper names are evocative of the German language if not outright German worlds. There’s a thick layer of grime on Fletcher’s world that permeates everything, there is nothing nice or pretty about it. Even the young godling, initially idealistic, becomes a dark reflection of the world he inhabits. This evoked images of a world where, perhaps, Nazi Germany reigned over a continent it nearly destroyed, especially with the Konig’s far reaching plan of dominance. The plan to create a new God immediately drew comparisons toDune in my mind.

The very next day, my Mind Meld for November was posted, wherein I asked Andrew Leon Hudson, Stephenie Sheung (AKA @MMOGC), Richard Shealy (AKA @SheckyX), Michael R. Fletcher, Mark Yon, and Erin Lindsey the following question:

Q: Who is your favorite animal companion (pet, familiar, etc) in SFF?

Most recently (this week), my review of Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves, a book that was high on my list of anticipated titles and one that exceeded my expectations:

Kate Elliott’s Black Wolves launches a new series; a grand, sweeping epic featuring a fracturing dynasty beset by outside challenges and inside strife; committed honor-bound soldiers coming out of retirement; demons lurking behind the guises of humans; and maybe best of all, a force of protectors who bond with large eagles to protect the realm. At the center of this epic are Dannarah, princess and leader among those who bond to the eagles, and Kellas, a Black Wolf who has retired from his duty (mainly because the kings he protected are dead).
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Black Wolves is a novel that is both remarkably dense (700+ pages), but deceptively fast paced and addictively readable. Elliott props societal structures either to polish them anew or dismantle them for their failings. Through Dannarah’s eyes, we see how problematic an organization can become when an inept organization can become when blind pride gets in the way. She is supremely devoted to the reves and sees power being unjustly pulled from underneath her and from what the eagles and the reves exemplify. When she is present for an injustice about to be perpetrated on Lifka, Dannarah does all in her power to save the girl and (literally) bring her under her wing.
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the prevailing fantastical elements….well, the enormous eagles of course. There’s a bond between the reve (rider) and eagle that is not dissimilar to the dragon/rider relationship in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels. The eagles “jess” potential reves to choose their rider and the two form a powerful lifetime bond (also similar to Naomi Novik’s dragons and their riders in her Temeraire series). There are also demons in this fully realized world although their true nature demons is somewhat muddled as they are secretive, hide behind human guises and are initially presented as enemies of humanity, but the hints peppered throughout the novel have me very intrigued about their true nature.

Friday Round-Up: I'm All over the Place

Got a few things to catch up on in this week’s Friday Round-up. Let’s begin.

Last week, an interview I conducted with one of my favorite writers, C.S. Friedman, was posted to SFFWorld. In it, we discussed her latest YA novel Dreamseeker as well as some of her past work and the great covers her books have had:

The first novel was told in two narrative voices, reading Jesse’s voice helped to impart a great deal of empathy with me as the reader, while the more omniscient views of the story allowed for a greater scope. Will Dreamseeker bounce between those two POVs.

Yes, but with more time devoted to the third person narrative. Dreamseeker follows the story of two main characters whose fates have now become intertwined: Jesse, who is from our world, and Isaac, a young apprentice from a Guild of undead necromancers known as Shadows, who helped Jesse escape from captivity in Dreamwalker. In Dreamseeker, Isaac attempts to return home and make peace with his family, but his human soul cannot accept what undead demand of him.

Was it a challenge to tell the story from two types of narrative perspectives or did it just seem to be the only way to tell it?

My second novel, The Madness Season, alternated between first-person and third-person storytelling as well, so this is not something new for me. The combination is particularly powerful when dealing with a rite of passage story like Dreamwalker, as it allows the reader to experience an intimate connection with the main character, while leaving me free to explore facets of the narrative that she is not aware of.

The balance in Dreamseeker and the third book, Dreamweaver, will be more 50-50 than Dreamwalker was, in part because other characters are now coming to the fore.

This past Friday (11/06) two of my reviews were posted to Tor.com.

Emma Newman’s Planetfall was one of those books and damn was it an intense look at a person suffering from PTSD among other mental disorders on a newly colonized alien planet

Planetfall is at once a fascinating character study through Ren’s first person narrative and a novel that examines how secrets, no matter how buried they are, can be extremely damaging things especially in a small colony in a seeming utopia. Ren spends much of her day as the colony’s printer, responsible for overseeing an advanced 3-D printer which is used to repair damaged items or create them when necessary. Any items. Ren’s obsession with repairing things is a mask for trying to repair the damages left in the wake of Lee’s disappearance and burying her own guilt in the tragic events which transpired nearly two decades ago.
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The Unreliable Narrator is quite common in genre, but Newman has effectively dropped the mic on that narrative tool. Ren is a fractured woman who gives new depth to the meaning “unreliable,” and as the story progresses, Ren becomes less of an empathetic character from her fellow colonists’ perspective. If anything, the feeling that grows as more is revealed is pity and frustration.

The other review is from the Tor.com imprint and the first book acquired by my pal Justin Landon. The book? The supremely fun and engaging short novel The Builders by Daniel Polansky,

The story begins in a bar where the Captain (just the Captain, no other name is needed) awaits the return of his allies. As each of the players are introduced, Polansky reveals small details about each character. After the Captain, Polansky introduces perhaps the most over-the-top character: Bonsoir the stoat. Because a talking mouse with an eye-patch named simply the Captain isn’t over-the-top enough. As the narrative indicates, there are many animals like a stoat, but stoats are unique. To say the stoat has a flair for the dramatic is to say the sun gives off light; the sun is unavoidable in life and Bonsoir is unavoidable in this story. As it should be.
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There’s a philosophical question at the heart of this story too, can people change? Are we always going to revert to our baser natures? Can an individual who was once a killer ever escape that violent past and eschew any violent impulses? The Captain is hoping his former team members can’t, because that is what is required to see this revenge plan to its end. Polansky brings life to that essential question brilliantly through the characters, some give in easily to their past behaviors, others struggle against it.

I was part of the last two Mind Melds over at SF Signal (and will be posting the one I’m curating next week). Last week, my pal Paul Wiemer organized a Mind Meld around Audio books. I gushed about the audible adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabe Rodriguez’s Locke & Key, Dominion by C.S. Friedman, and Jonathan Maberry’s Patient Zero.

This week, one of the men behind the curtain of SF Signal, JP Frantz, corralled a few of us Mind Melders and asked what our favorite recent reads were. I shouted out Jim Butcher’s The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Cherie Priest’s Borden Dispatches, Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, Jason M. Hough’s Zero World, C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner, and Updraft.

A couple of days ago, something long in the simmering posted. A few months ago, Fred Kiesche, Joe Sherry, Paul Wiemer, Jonah Morse, and The G (of Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together), and I were involved in a twitter conversation about Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels, specifically the first one Deryni Rising.

We all decided that we’d do something more formal, like a round-table blog discussion. Well, the G went and posted that mega roundtable discussion over at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together.

[The G] I think it’s fair to say we all really liked Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz--I know I did. But what is it, exactly, that makes this novel hold up so well? I mean, it’s more than 40 years old, but it feels quite modern in many ways. Am I right? Why or why not?

Rob Bedford: In large part, it is Kurtz’s ability to build up the narrative tension as the novel ramped up to the confrontation with Charissa. Good, gripping storytelling survives and continues to draw people in because it keeps people from stepping away from the story. I think it is the simplicity of the story and how elegantly Kurtz constructs the story.

Last, but not least, I reviewed C.A. Higgins’ debut novel Lightless, which really impressed me:

The crew of the Ananke is quite small. Surrounding Althea are Domitian, ship’s captain and Gagnon, the senior scientist. The crew grows by one when Ida Stays, an interrogator from the System, arrives to determine Ivanov and Mattie’s links to Mallt-y-Nos, a galactic terrorist…well, just Ivanov now since Mattie escaped (or was killed according to Althea’s superiors aboard the Ananke). After that chess-board is set-up (about ¼ to 1/3 of the novel), Higgins begins to maneuver her characters in expert fashion. Her characters begin to question what they have come to know and how they view their situation – especially Althea – which makes for a great puzzle of a novel to decipher.

Higgins plays these characters off of each other extremely well with all the interactions floating on an undercurrent of distrust and anger. While Domitian plays a very authoritative figure, he becomes a shadow of a man in the presence of both Ida and Ivanov. He treats Althea as little more than an inexperienced child throughout much of the narrative, perhaps because she is the only person over whom he can hold power.

Friday Round-Up NYCC 2015, Jim Butcher & Kameron Hurley @SFFWorld, Mind Meld @SFSignal

Big Friday-Round up this week, although nothing else new from me this past week. However, but last week was quite busy indeed. Last weekend (10/9-10/11), I attended New York Comic Con with a Press Pass. I was granted this Press Pass for the third year in a row (2013, 2014) largely because of my writings for SF Signal and SFFWorld. So, it was only fitting that I posted conference reports to both of those fine sites.

My report for Friday, October 9 was posted to SF Signal on Monday (10/12)

My report for Saturday, October 10 was posted to SFFWorld on Thursday (10/15)

In between those two Con reports, on Tuesday, at SFFWorld a “conversational review” of Jim Butcher’s The Aeronaut’s Windlass was posted. The Marks Yon and Chitty and I all loved the book so this back and forth was quite fun.

Mark Y: As you’ve said already, Rob, Rowl is a wonderfully realised character, and I think my favourite – I can see a lot of fans for him. I must admit that I also noticed what Rob has said here, that the characterisation is dominated by females, not that that’s a bad thing. I liked it! But bearing in mind Jim’s previous female leads (Karrin Murphy, Molly Carpenter, for example) how do Gwendolyn, Bridget and even Folly stand up for you by comparison here?

Rob B: Have I mentioned that I like Bridget? Gwen was a great character, too. Very headstrong and I really empathized reading the scenes written with her as the POV. I don’t think she was as frustrating to the extent that her co-characters did, I got a sense that some thought she was a bit of a nuisance but again I didn’t see her that way at all. She was just a very headstrong, youthful character who acts before thinking. Folly is a lot of fun, too, even if she was more of a secondary character. I see big things down the road for her in terms of moving up to be more of a primary player. (Or maybe if the series is popular enough, a story from her POV would be fun).

Mark C: Gwen is definitely fierce and headstrong, and her view of the world is somewhat annoying at times, though her cousin Benedict certainly balances her out. Folly is also great fun, a character that could grow massively as the story progresses. I also liked Bridget (perhaps not as much as Rob… ), and her development through the novel is perhaps the best of the bunch – it’s great to see her take such a prominent role. I’d perhaps go as far to say that it is the male characters that fall behind here, or certainly don’t have the same level of development that the female characters have.

On Wednesday, my October Mind Meld posted to SF Signal wherein I asked Michael J. Martinez, one of my SFFWorld pals Victoria Rogers, Tim Pratt, Rhiannon Frater, Nick Sharps, Priscilla Spencer, Larry Ketchersid, Shana Dubois, Kristi Charish, and Helen Lowe:

Q: Who Has Your Back when Monsters Attack

We all know the monsters are coming, whether they are zombies, vampires, orcs, dragons, or aliens, they are coming – it is known. So who would you want by your side when they arrive?

We also posted an interview at SFFWorld with Kameron Hurley wherein she answered questions from Dag, Luke, and me.

Friday Round-Up: Sigler & Wendig @SFFWorld, Cherryh, @SFSignal Mind Meld

Friday Round Up time here at the blog…

Last week, my review of Scott Sigler’s YA SF Thriller Alive went live at SFFWorld. You know, where I do a linkdump of recent reviews and postings, which feature a cover shot of the book in question, a clip of the book review and the link to the book review.

The premise starts with this: a 12-year old girl wakes up in a dark place on what she thinks is her birthday. She comes to realize she is in a coffin, but she has no concrete memories of who she is but sees what she assumes is her name “M. Savage” on the coffin. Some memories of moments enter her mind, but nothing really informing her of her identity or situation. She realizes she is not the only person in a coffin as a voice comes from another locked coffin in the room. Em (as she comes to calling herself) realizes her body is no longer that of a 12-year old girl. To reveal too much more of the plot beyond that would violate the unwritten/unsigned agreement I made with Scott Sigler when I finished the book.

What I can say is that this novel was supremely gripping with enough clues along the way that sousing out what is actually happing is rewarding and fun. Em became a character I could empathize with very quickly, and reading of her plight as she experienced it added to the tension and narrative magnetism of the story. Sigler’s approach to the story put me very much in the story. Because of that, through significant portions of the narrative, I felt as if I was playing a Dungeons & Dragons game, walking down the mysterious corridors with very little knowledge of what lurked in the shadows and behind each corner.

A week ago, I posted a review of CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner, mused about my multiple attempts at reading her work, finally doing so with Foreigner, and how I’m looking forward to reading my of her backlist.

Wednesday, my September Mind Meld posted. In it, I asked Jennifer Brozek, Kate Heartfield, James Aquilone, Jo Zebedee, Sarah Olsen, Erica Whiting, and Aliette de Bodard about

Author Second Chances

Sometimes we read authors that don't initially click, or we dismiss them after dipping our proverbial toes into their books. Eventually; however, you give them a 2nd (or 3rd) chance and you connect with the author on this second attempt and maybe the author even becomes a favorite. What authors did you give another shot and what book was it that worked?

This past Tuesday, my review of Chuck Wendig’s excellent Star Wars novel Aftermath published:

The Empire starts crumbling, but is far from destroyed and silenced. Palpatine, through the Empire, built a great deal of infrastructure over many years that allowed the Empire to function, much of this infrastructure is still in place. This is what the fragmented populace of the galaxy is learning, Stormtroopers still patrol the planet Akiva and attempt to enforce the Empire’s will. Some people are unaware, or don’t believe, Emperor Palpatine is dead. In short, a great victory for the Rebels and their fledgling New Republic, but much still needs to be done as we learn from Admiral Ackbar, who is weary from the war. Wedge Antillies, probably the most popular secondary character in the franchise, is still trying to ferret out the remaining vestiges of the Empire, including his encounter with Imperial Star Destroyers. These familiar character form our bridge into the novel, which introduces many new characters including those central to Aftermath: Norra Wexley, rebel pilot and widow; her son Temmin Wexley, who managed to run an odds and ends shop with his hacked battle droid Mr. Bones; Sinjir Rath Velus, a one time Imperial who saw the writing on the wall; and the bounty hunter Jas Emari.

I appreciated that Chuck decided to go for the non-default setting (i.e. white dude) for the primary characters in the novel. Norra is a mother and arguably the main protagonist and she is terrifically real; she’s a great pilot, she’s an active protagonist, yet she’s flawed in that she’s far from an attentive, perfect mother and is dealing with PTSD. She realizes her strengths and weaknesses and continues to try to improve her situation. I want more of her and more like her. One of the main antagonists, Rae Sloane, a high-ranking Imperial Officer who sits at the helm of the Star Destroyer Ravager and helps to ignite much of the plot’s action. The bounty hunter, Jas, is also female.

Friday Round-Up: Kate Elliott @Tor.com, Chuck Wendig @SFFWorld, & @SFSignal Mind Meld

What? Two weeks in a row with a Friday Round-up? That’s what happens when a person gets a new job and also has three new pieces post in a week. I’ll start with the review that posted the afternoon after I posted last week’s Round-Up.

Kate Elliott’s Court of Fives is her first Young Adult novel, but far from her first novel. It shows, because it is a helluva novel and I want the next book now. Part of my review:

Elliott immediately thrusts the reader into Jes’ head and heart, and the result is a wonderful immersion in both familial love and the tensions at work within these relationships. Jes and her sisters adore their mother, and while they respect their father, they don’t know him nearly as well because he is often away, off leading armies. What makes this such an outstanding novel is Elliott’s experienced hand at revelation and building compelling characters. I was immediately drawn to Jes as a character, caught up in her plight and the story she had to tell. Much of the YA I’ve read is told from the first-person POV, and in adopting that narrative style, Elliott has placed a great deal of weight on Jessamy’s shoulders—we experience the entire story through her consciousness, and in this case, it works extremely well.

Court of Fives is a novel with very wide appeal, which benefits from a young, headstrong, and charismatic protagonist, a mythically-inspired setting that provides a fantastical spin on historical/classical antiquity (think ancient Egypt, Macedonia, and Rome), a strong base of well-rounded supporting characters, and the magnetic force of its dramatic tension, which kept this reader glued to the pages.

This past Tuesday, my review of Chuck Wendig’s gripping, dark near future SF Thriller Zer0es:

Chuck takes a look at a world Twenty Minutes into the Future and a group of hackers who are corralled by NSA Agent Hollis Cooper to do the NSA’s dirty work. They are Chance Dalton, picked up just as he was being beaten up by the football players he exposed as rapists; Aleena Kattan, DeAndre Mitchell, Wade Earthman, an old school hacker, and perhaps one of the most annoying characters I can recall encountering in SFF, Reagan Stolper. The hackers, who dub themselves zer0es, are brought to The Lodge to infiltrate America’s enemies, it is either that or serve time in prison so the choice is pretty easy. As the plot rolls along the zer0es form an odd bond, a second family almost. Working more closely together, something more frightening than they imagined becomes apparent.

…

The novel begins by introducing each character through their apprehension by Agent Cooper; here Chuck did a great job of making each of these characters unique and provided a solid foundation for their participation in the plot/story and later character development. Building on the solid base built for the characters, Wendig does a great job of revealing more depth to the characters, the backstory that led them to come together. He also mixes them up very nicely as they get to know each other and their pasts are revealed to each other (voluntarily or otherwise).

Lastly, my August Mind Meld posted. In it, I asked Paul Weimer, Jana Nyman, Joe Sherry, Lisa Rodgers, Jonah Sutton-Morse, Susan J. Morris, and Jason M. Hough about Author Comebacks, "Some authors publish a few titles and disappear, or move on to other things (comic book writing, tie-in writing, leaving publishing, etc) but you’d like to see more from them. So we asked this week’s panelists the following:"

Q: Who would you like to see make a comeback to writing original SFF fiction? What subgenre(s) or worlds would you hope they would write?

Friday Round-Up: Gladstone & Kurtz @SFFWorld, Anders @SFSignal

Here it is, the Friday Round-up you have all been waiting to read!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my review of a classic fantasy novel that definitely fits the bill of being “oldie but a goodie.” I refer to Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz, books which have long been back-burner books I anticipated reading, but some Twitter conversations with Fred Kiesche, Joe Sherry, Paul Wiemer, and Jonah Sutton-Morse pushed me to get the audible version:

Much of the action presented in the novel takes place in a short time and focuses on a relatively small cast. With Kelson’s coronation looming, he is aided by his father’s close advisor Alaric Morgan and Morgan’s cousin Duncan (a Monsignor). Unfortunately, because of Morgan’s Deryni blood, Brion’s widow Jehanna has no trust for the man who acts as a paternal figure to Kelson and seeks to have him tried for Brion’s murder. People of the Deryni heritage possess magical and psychic powers, causing many to fear them and, over the years, drive them out of Gwynedd. As of Deryni Rising and the years since they’ve been driven out, people of Deryni blood have come to be viewed as something akin to demons.

Despite the novel knocking on the door of the 50-year old mark, Deryni Rising manages to hold its own in terms of tone and style. In other words, for my reading tastes, it has aged quite well and perhaps that is why the novel remains in print and so well-regarded. What also came across, and perhaps this is aided by the wonderful narration performed by Jeff Woodman, is the characterization. His subtle tone and voice changes for each character went a long way in helping to make each character distinct, accentuating the strong characterization imbued by Kurtz herself.

This week, two new reviews were posted, on the same day no less, since they were both officially published on Tuesday, July 14. Let’s go alphabetically, which leads to Nightborn, the second novel in Lou Anders’ Thrones and Bones series for younger readers. I liked this one a lot and breezed through it in a couple of days:

In Nightborn, Anders wonderfully expands both the world and the cast in an organic fashion – the characters are a product of their world and the world is a character in and of itself. Because Karn and Thianna were such well-constructed people in Frostborn, Anders was able to provide a solid foundation for Desstra’s character and her ongoing internal conflict which was primarily who she was becoming versus the cultural expectations placed on her as a member of the Underhand-in-training. As wonderful as Anders infused his Karn and Thiann with life, doubt and believable, youthful humanity, I think he’s done an even more admirable job with Desstra here in Nightborn. Like Karn and his uncle in Frostborn, Desstra struggles under the shadow of a less than savory mentor figure, the selfish and self-centered elf Tanthal.

While Nightborntells a full story within its pages, it seems evident Lou is building something more. He could have easily brought these three characters together and set them on an adventure. But instead, he builds a strong basis for their burgeoning relationship; if they aren’t exactly friends by novel’s end they at least have a good understanding of each other and how their strengths build upon each other and finding out how these characters interact down their adventurous road is something I look forward to reading.

Last, and certainly not least (except that the word “Last” is in the title), is Max Gladstone’s fourth (published, but first chronological) Craft Sequence novel, Last First Snow:

Much of the novel reads like a legal thriller, except that the legality involves a revolutionary and an 8-foot tall skeleton god. That may sound outrageous, but Gladstone makes the premise supremely natural and plausible. The city-state of Dresdiel Lex has not quite recovered from its liberation from the gods, despite their wards still being present. Enter three parties with great interest: The King in Red afore mentioned 10-foot skeletal god (what a simple, effective and cool name with gravitas, and yes, I gave two measurements for him, his size fluctuates); a local figure named Tan Batac; and a holy man named Temoc. A lawyer named Elayne Kevarian tries to keep the peace between the conflicting parties and ensure a peaceful deal can be had.

…

Gladstone keeps the tension high throughout the novel in scenes between the King in Red and Elayne as they try to reach some kind of agreement about what is best for the city. There is also palpable tension in scenes featuring Temoc and his family, especially after the lengths to which he goes in the hopes of securing some kind of peace for the city while striking at the heart of his enemies. Through these characters, Gladstone shows the weight of the changing world on their shoulders, how much a war in the past affects the survivors and informs their every action. Max does a great job of setting a relatively measured pace for the middle portion of the novel – the fall out of that aforementioned event – until the novel builds to a powerful climax that was pure fantasy adrenaline.

Friday Round-Up: Jim Butcher & Mind Meld @SFSignal and @SFFWorld Interviews (Jeffrey Ford and others)!

With the Fourth of July tomorrow (Saturday), what a great time it is now for a Friday Link-Dump. Here’s some great stuff that has gone up at SFFWorld and SF Signal over the past few weeks. Not too much from me at SFFWorld lately (I read and reviewed Max Gladstone’s forthcoming novel Last First Snow, but I’m holding the review until the publication date gets closer), but that doesn’t mean things aren’t going on over there. I’ve also got two new pieces up at SF Signal this week: a book review and my July Mind Meld.

A couple of weeks ago at SFFWorld, I took part in an interview we posted with one of my favorite (and under-read) writers: Jeffrey Ford. His wonderful Well Built City Trilogy is being issued electronically (along with other titles on his backlist) by Open Road Integrated Media. Here's a sampling:

The two collections being released electronically, The Empire of Ice Cream and The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant display a wide range of imaginative stories, some from themed anthologies, other stories from the magazine/short story market. Do you find crafting a story for a specific themed anthology to prove more challenging than crafting stories that appear in “unthemed” in a place like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction or Tor.com?

Sometimes it’s easier because you at least have some parameters to begin with, so the limitation offers direction. The problem is it can become stultifying if the subject of the anthology is too played — like zombies, vampires, etc. Story possibilities have been milked for all their worth and then some. Still, if you’re able to come up with a story that escapes the pedestrian in those flayed categories that can be exciting writing. On the other hand, writing with no parameters, the sky’s the limit, that can also be daunting. Unless, of course, you have a story already in mind.

Tuesday, my review of Working for Bigfoot, a tryptich of stories featuring Harry Dresden doing jobs for a Bigfoot published by Subterranean Press went up at SF Signal:

Jim Butcher, especially because of his Dresden Files series, is known mostly for writing novel length fiction. Occasionally, when an anthology editor calls, Jim will write a shorter tale featuring a mini-adventure of everybody’s favorite Chicago Wizard (or another character from the series). The fine folks at Subterranean Press have gathered three of those shorter mini-adventures her in Working for Bigfoot. In each story, Harry Dresden takes on jobs for a Bigfoot as the Sasquatch/Yeti are, unsurprisingly, a separate supernatural race in the world of The Dresden Files.

Prior to reading Working for Bigfoot, I recently read the (at the time of this review) most recent Dresden Files novel, Skin Game, which just happens to have as a supporting character, a Bigfoot. So perhaps the timing of the release of this “Bigfoot Trilogy” of short stories is quite apropos. I found the stories just as enjoyable as the novel-length stories in this series, what I enjoy about the novels (Butcher’s humor, Harry as a character, and the Fantasy Kitchen Sink approach to the supernatural world) was on display here. This is the second limited edition publication Subterranean Press has published featuring a short story in The Dresden Files (the previous is Backup), the art here is by Vincent Chong, who did the covers and art for the limited editions of the Dresden novels Subterranean has published thus far. Even in ARC form, this is a nice edition, with not only an eye-catching cover but moody illustrations for each of the stories.

In addition to the Jeffrey Ford interview I pointed out above, we’ve also recently run interviews with:

Ramez Naam

Julian May

Carrie Patel

Nancy Springer

Harry Turtledove

Stephen Baxter

Luke Brown has been a great addition to our gaggle of reviewers and was recently the 100th blogger/genre reviewer interviewed by S.C. Flynn.

We’ve got a great Authors Roundtable going on over at SFFWorld featuring Alexes Razevich, Brian Staveley, Jay Posey, and Mark Lawrence

Also at SF Signal, my July Mind Meld went live, wherein I ask Mahvesh Murad, Mihir Wanchoo of Fantasy Book Critic, Shana Dubois, Romeo Kennedy, Melanie R. Meadors, and Alex Ristea about :

Gods and Mythology in Speculative Fiction

From Joanne Harris’s Gospel of Loki going back as far as Evangeline Walton’s “Mabinogion Tetralogy” as well as Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, myths and gods from around the world have infused speculative fiction. What is your favorite mythic and god-infused fiction?

Friday Round-Up: Novik & Martinez @SFFWorld, Moher & Mind Meld @SFSignal

Another busy couple of weeks at SFFWorld and SF Signal for me.

Last Monday, I interviewed my old blog/twitter pal Aidan Moher at SF Signal about the publication of his first book, a short-story collection Tide of Shadows:

RB: Your first sale was for the Sword and Laser anthology, receiving that acceptance must have been exciting. Was that your first submission?

AM: Lord no. I’d been submitting stories for about three years at that point and could paper my walls with the rejection letters. Having “A Night for Spirits and Snowflakes” accepted for the Sword & Laser Anthology was a huge surprise and a wonderful honour. I’m a big fan of what Veronica and Tom produce—even appearing once on the show to talk about the Hugo Awards—and to know that they hand picked my story from over 1,000 submissions was unbelievable at first, humbling second, and, finally, a big source of encouragement.

A couple of days after that, my review of Naomi Novik’s magnificient novel Uprooted posted to SFFWorld:

The main external conflict of the novel is the encroaching dread of the Wood; it has taken over villages, is filled with monstrous creatures, and has a dark magic of its own that can be poisonous to those who come into contact with it. In other words, Naomi Novik has given readers a tale of the Dark/Haunted Forest of European Lore (or The Lost Woods as TVTropes). The Dragon has taken as his primary mission the defense of the realms under his protection (primarily the village from which Agnieszka hails), against the encroaching Wood. The Wood has been growing in power and malevolence and has even taken the Queen into its heart, which is what sets Prince Marek on the path to the Dragon’s tower. Even though 20 years have passed since the Wood has taken her, he still thinks she can be saved.

…

Determination is what fuels many stories with a Fairy Tale feel to them. A tradition in such stories is that things have always happened the way they are supposed to happen: every 10 years the Dragon takes a young woman as a protégé(?), a concubine(?) and that young girl stays with him for a decade. Of course, that is until we encounter the story itself, in this case Agnieszka breaks that mold and (mild spoiler) she leaves the confines of the Dragon’s tower; an unprecedented thing in a story that fits the traditional fairy tale mold from which Uprooted initially seems to be carved. Despite this familiarity with the trappings of the story, Novik makes this story fully her own, a fresh story that can sit next to those tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, but with an entirely new story comprised of familiar parts. Not an easy thing for any writer to attempt, let alone pull off so successfully as Novik does here in Uprooted.

The day after that, my May SF Signal Mind Meld was posted, in which I asked Andrea Johnson, Erin Lindsey, Laura Anne Gilman, Mark Yon, Paul Weimer, and Violette Malan:

What is your Favorite Portal/Crossover Fantasy?

One of the more long-lived subsets of Fantasy is Portal Fantasy, which often involves a character from the “Real World” transported to a fantasy-esque land. The Wizard of Oz or The Chronicles of Narnia, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are probably the most famous examples of portal fantasy..

Last, and certainly not least, my review this week for SFFWorld was a debut novel from a fellow native/resident of the Garden State, Michael J. Martinez’s The Daedalus Incident:

Some of the most fascinating elements of the novel involved the world-building:

how the parallel world Weatherby inhabits came to be, how magic works, and where history diverges from our own. Not only are sailing vessels traversing the Solar System (the Void), but like the Science Fiction of the late 19thand early 20th Century, the planets of the Solar System where Earth resides are or were inhabited. Weatherby and his men visit Mercury, which is populated by a strange alien species. Their journey also takes Weatherby, Finch, and crew to the Jovian System, Ganymede in particular. The cosmology here suggests humanity, though advanced, is a much younger species than those who live in the “solar neighborhood.” Prefacing most of the chapters in the 1779 narrative are snippets from Weatherby’s journey. This is a clever trick and as the novel progresses at a great pace, Martinez uses the journal in a very clever fashion.

…

In many ways, this book reminded me a great deal of an overlooked series from about a decade ago – J. Gregory / Greg Keyes’ criminally under-read "Age of Unreason" four-book series, which begins withNewton’s Cannon. There’s the same mix of important historical figures as characters in the story, a supernatural injection into a relatively familiar time period, and a solid story at the core.

Friday Round Up: Ken Liu & Elizabeth Moon @SFFWorld, Aidan Moher & Mind Meld @SFSignal

Lots of stuff to link to this week, reviews, interviews, Mind Melds…you name it.

Last week, my review of Ken Liu’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings:

Through most of the narrative, what becomes clear is the price for toppling an Empire and rebuilding it; a human cost both in lives ended and relationships destroyed. In The Grace of Kings, Liu takes the labels often associated with Epic Fantasy – grand, sweeping, world changing, status quo changing and finds new ways to define those things. He tells an onion ofAi a story, many layers in a Chinese tradition, but there are also some Western sensibilities as well. Told in Liu’s graceful, intelligent, and literate prose, the novel is a sumptuous Epic feast and the most surprising thing to me by novel’s end is that The Grace of Kings is only the opening salvo of a trilogy.

The Grace of Kings is one of those books that is a major part of the ongoing “conversation” of genre, as Coode Street podcasters Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe often refer. (I –highly– recommend checking out the episode of their podcast featuring Ken Liu and Saga Press editor Joe Monti as well as Ken and Joe on Rocket Talk with Justin Landon).

This week; however, was the big one for new stuff. Tuesday, my interview with Aidan Moher was posted to SF Signal, here's a snippet:

RB. You’ve expounded on some of your reasoning for self-publishing this collection, what is the quick and dirty reason? 

AM. As you say, I've written at length about why (and how) I self-published Tide of Shadows and Other Stories, but the tl;dr is that the stories in the collection, even years after writing them, were still nagging at me, telling me they needed an audience of readers. My goals aren't necessarily financial—if I break even on the project, I'll be content—but after varying levels of success in the paying short fiction market, I determined that it made more sense to self-publish the collection myself, rather than continue to search for pro- or semi-pro-paying markets for each of the stories individually.

As you'll find out later, publishing this collection is also a trial run for a few other projects I have in mind.

I posted a review of Elizabeth Moon’s Deeds of Honor, a collection of stories set in the popular milieu of her Paksenarrion world:

Elizabeth Moon has been a published writer for more than 25 years, her first novel which introduced Paksenarrion – Sheepfarmer’s Daughter – published in 1989 and she’s never looked back. Over those years she’s published a significant amount of short fiction, enough to fill multiple volumes including this collection Deeds of Honor: Paksenarrion World Chronicles. This collection includes stories set exclusively in that popular milieu. 

“Those Who Walk in Darkness” is another heartwarming tale set in the original Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy featuring a very minor character. Selis, a tortured boy forced to watch Paks’s abuse at the hands of the men of Liart (as depicted in Oath of Gold the final novel of The Deed of Paksenarrion) escapes and finds himself with the men of Gird. Fear is a strong theme of the story, but by the end, our protagonist sees the light and is off to a better life. Another strong tale in the collection.

Lastly, my Mind Meld for May was posted to SF Signal this week. In it, I ask Violette Malan, Paul Weimer, Erin Lindsey, @Hobbit_SFFWorld, Andrea Johnson, and Laura Anne Gilman the following question:

Q: What is your Favorite Portal/Crossover Fantasy?

One of the more long-lived subsets of Fantasy is Portal Fantasy, which involves a character from the “Real World” transported to a fantasy-esque land.

Friday Round-Up: Reviews at SFFWorld, Mind Meld & Completist at SF Signal

Here's where I round up some of the SFF-related posts I've published over the past couple of weeks; most often reviews at SFFWorld and/or the various columns I write for SF Signal.  Going back the furthest is my review of The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu and translated by Ken Liu. The Three-Body Problem is the first major English publication of a Chinese SF novel and Liu is sort of like the equivalent to Arthur C. Clarke.

The Three-Body Problem is a novel spanning decades, galaxies, and civilizations while also showcasing intimate portraits of people caught up in the first communication between humanity and an alien species. The novel begins during China’s Cultural Revolution; a time of chaos and internal strife wherein Communism takes a stronger grip on China when a fairly prominent scientist is killed for protesting his thoughts. His daughter, Ye Wenjie, is of course affected by his death but moves into a life of science eventually working at Red Coast, a radar station for monitoring extra-terrestrial life in the late 1960s. Red Coast is also the source of many strange occurrences: people have suffered sickness and dizziness in its presence while animals show great anxiety and snow melts to rain when its antenna is extended. To say watching her father murdered before her eyes set her mind down a specific path is an understatement.
...
Liu’s narrative is not exactly linear as it is told from multiple points of view focusing on various points in time, but the whole of it builds a mesmerizing picture. As a Westerner, the world of China presented in the novel was alien in some ways, particularly the conversational patterns and the societal mores that come across from the dialogue as well as the culture on the whole. In effect, this gave a sense of not just one alien culture conversing with Earth across vast distances for the first time, but rather of two alien cultures meeting. What makes this all the more fascinating is that the physical description of the Trisolarians (what the Chinese/humans dub the aliens) is minimal and the fact that humans and Trisolarians don’t actually meet.

Also last week, my April Mind Meld was posted to SF Signal, wherein I asked Beth Cato, Cora Buhlert, Fran Wilde, Howard Andrew Jones, Joe Sherry, Kelly McCullough, Lisa McCurrach, and Rachel Aukes their thoughts about the following:

Cities in SFF and the Epic Road Trip

Q: What is your favorite story/novel/movie focusing on a City or the City as the Epic Road Trip destination?

A couple of weeks ago I read and enjoyed The Thorn of Dentonhill, the swashbuckling superhero sword & sorcery fantasy from Marshal Ryan Maresca. Following my staggered review schedule, I posted the review this week:

Veranix Calbert is a student at the University of Maradaine learning the history and uses of magic. He mostly keeps to himself, aside from a few close companions: Kaiana, a young woman and his closest friend who works in the custodial department of the University; his roommate Delmin; and his cousin Colin, a high-ranking member of the Rose Street Princes [a street gang]. Veranix mostly keeps to himself because when he isn’t in his dorm or classroom he roams the streets of Dentonhill trying to bring down the drug kingpin William Fenmere, the man responsible for both the death of Veranix’s father and the mindless state of Veranix’s mother. Veranix also has something of a Harry Potter/Dumbledore relationship with Alimen, the chief instructor of Veranix’s studies at the University. Alimen helped usher both Veranix and Kaiana into the University’s society and there’s a sense that he knows far more than he lets on about Veranix’s double life. Kai is aware of Veranix’s double life, and as the novel begins, she’s the only character who does. Alimen pushes Veranix to be a better student because he both worries for the young man’s safety and sees great potential in him.

The relationship between Kaiana and Veranix is filled with tension, Kai continually warns Veranix that he could get hurt or that his identity might be discovered. Veranix pushes the boundaries of what she’ll do to protect him and his identity. There’s a bit of romantic tension between the two, but at this point their relationship seems open to go in any direction. That is, Maresca hasn’t pigeon holed them as a romantic, but he hasn’t closed off that possibility either. I found it a bit refreshing that they didn’t end up paired up in this fashion, despite the rumors about the two of them that were floating around the University’s campus. However, when Delmin is finally introduced to Kai, Delmin finds himself drawn to her and not just because of their shared concern for and relationship with Veranix.

Lastly, just yesterday my April Completist column posted to SF Signal. In it, I discuss an author who has garnered his fair share of controversy. However, I highlight one of his lesser known, but perhaps most accessible series: Stephen R. Donaldson's Mordant's Need:

Mordant’s Need is a portal fantasy; that is, a person from “our world” travels through a portal or some other means to a different world, most often a world where magic and strange creatures live. In this case, the protagonist Terisa Morgan is a character who feels as if she has no purpose, a shrinking violet if you will. She lives in an apartment filled with mirrors so she can constantly see herself, not out of vanity, but rather to confirm her existence. A magician from the land of Mordant appears through a mirror seeking her aid. The magician, Geraden speaks of monsters “translated” to Mordant from other worlds. As serendipity/coincidence would have it, magic in the land of Mordant is connected to mirrors so Terisa’s mirror-laden apartment leads Geraden to believe he has found the right champion to fulfill Mordant’s need.

...

The pace also picks up in A Man Rides Through. He only touches upon some of the lands, enough that it makes you want to read more about those lands. Towards the final half of A Man Rides Through, Donaldson pulls together all the plot threads into one gestalt of a story which shows just how well constructed his plot and story was from the very start.