Black Sun Rising- C.S. Friedman

Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At first I was not sure whether this was a Science-Fiction or Fantasy book. The setup is a planet colonized by humans about a thousand years ago, and this planet has a very intriguing properties, something like a fifth element named "fae" that interact with living things, especially their minds, even giving birth to nightmarish creatures created by the minds that it affects. To give an example, let's say you walk alone in the woods by night and you are scared, on Earth that is not much of a problem but on that planet, these fears will get physical manifestations in front of you. Additionally, creatures on this planet are affected by the way humans think of them, hence evolution is not a biological driven process but more like a spiritual one.

On the other hand, a small group of adventurers of various origins and loyalties goes onto a quest in a dangerous land, armed with swords and "magic", riding horse-like creatures to fight a villain that is the cause of all problems. Sounds familiar? Yeah, fantasy. Magic in this case in the manipulation of that 5th element to various purposes.

This is not to say this is not a good book. Although most characters are bordering on the boring, I must admit that the Hunter character is one of the most fascinating character I ever read. He is the star of this story, no doubt about that, and I will certainly read the follow-up book just to know more about him. And the setup and magic system is original enough to keep the story interesting, although of unequal interest.

All in all a good start of a trilogy.


View all my reviews

Retribution Falls-Chris Wooding

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fun!
Entertaining!

That is basically what this book is and it feels like watching an adventure movie. And for fans of the TV show "Firefly", a must read. A weird mix of crew members joined together under the same roof of the freebooter ship Ketty Jay, all of them irrevocably flawed but learning to work together while running for their lives after being setup as mass murderers. The back stories of all of them is a very nice touch to get to know these characters better, and it works very well.

View all my reviews

Deathless-Catherynne M. Valente

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I wanted so much to like this book, but unfortunately, I didn't. I guess that my biggest problem with the story is that I don't know anything about Russian folklore, and not much of its history either so in the end I got a story that seems pointless most of the time to me. It is a shame because I ususaly like this kind of urban fantasy stories, and Valente can certainly weave very well some magics in her books. But it did not work for me in this one.

I think that part of the problem is also that I enjoyed the chapters in the fantasy world, but all the parts in the Russia world, mainly towards the end just killed the book for me. More specifically, I just found those parts with Ivan very boring.


View all my reviews