Target: Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1) Profile: Speculative Fiction, Young Adult There is a gritty reality to Paolo Bacigalupi’s work. A grim straightforwardness that crushes the optimism older SF styles. On its own, this same honesty produces brilliantly brutal speculative fiction, like Windup Girl. But there is a necessary optimism to Young Adult literature that is at odds with Bacigalupi’s tone. Ship Breaker lives in artificial space between two styles, carving out its own literary niche, but at the same time feeling discordant and incomplete. And yet, it […]
Burn it all down!
Target: L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s Antiagon Fire (Imager Portfolio #7) Profile: Fantasy, Political Fiction, Military Two things struck me as I was preparing for this review: First, I somehow managed to skip Imager’s Battalion during my utter failure of a Cannonball Read 5. I read the book, but I never got a review up. Second, I think I ran out of useful things to say about the series back at book five. The things that I liked are still good, and the elements that are weaker don’t seem to […]
Another Historical Romance, But with a Bit of a Tirade on My Part
It’s 1858, Mercy Dawson and her bastard son have been brought to the family home of Stephen Lyons. Appalled by her conduct, her father abandons her there. Thinking Stephen dead, Mercy is hoping that in bringing his son to his aristocratic family, they will let her stay on as nanny. She just wants to be with her child, but quickly learns that Stephen is very much alive and in rough shape. Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman follows the development of their relationship and the marriage […]
From Never Sky to Ever Night
If you read my review of Under the Never Sky, you know that I said it took me a little while to get into the story. Well, that was not the case with this installment of the series. I finished Through the Ever Night in two days, and am extremely sad that my Nook and Kindle are not working, my local library doesn’t have the third book, and the closest book store is an hour away (and I don’t have two hours free this week […]