The universe is big. What’s more, it’s awfully crowded. It may be hard to tell, but they’re there, just a ley-leap away – countless worlds, people beyond number. Very few people know this; very few have traveled the ley lines to other dimensions. And those few people are constantly running into each other, often in…
Tag: fantasy
Emancipating Minors, YA Style
During the recent blog tour of Monster in the Hollows, Becky Miller explored what she believed to be the book’s primary weakness: the fact that Janner, the main character, was “passive or reactive” throughout most of the story. “I believe,” she wrote, “in this climate of literature the young adult in the young adult novel…
CSFF Blog Tour: By Any Other Name
One of the quirks of speculative fiction is how hard people try not to use real names. The whole book is written in English, but old words are used in entirely new ways, the commonest things go guised under the strangest terms, and people have names no living human has carried in a thousand years….
CSFF Blog Tour: Perfect in Weakness
[Spoilers] I don’t suppose there’s ever a good time to have a mental breakdown, but Artham’s time was particularly bad. He was using himself as proof that sprouting wings or fur does not make a human a monster. Then he snapped; his eloquent words melted into gibberish and he terrified everyone with his wild terror….
CSFF Blog Tour: The Monster in the Hollows
Janner has fled his hometown, braved the lawless Strand, escaped the dangers of Dugtown, slipped from the grasp of countless Fangs, and crossed the Dark Sea. Now he’s in the Green Hollows, a rich and beautiful land. Above all, it is a free land, where he can walk the streets without fear of Fangs. The…
Review: North! Or Be Eaten
So the Igiby family is on their way to Kimera, to join the colony of rebels hidden on the vast Ice Prairies. The Nameless One still grasps for them, stretching long fingers across the Dark Sea. His trolls, his armies of Fangs are on the hunt for the Jewels of Anniera. If the Igibys manage…
Review: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness
Far away, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, lies the land of Skree. It is filled with quiet, gentle folk, which made it easy pickings for Gnag the Nameless. Now the country is infested by the Fangs of Dang. They’re stupid and lazy, but make up for it with their indefatigable brutality….
CSFF Blog Tour: The Ale Boy’s Feast
(Note: In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.) The king is missing, but frankly, that’s the least of these people’s problems. The people of Abascar are exiles without a home behind them. Bel Amica is an open refuge, except for maybe the refuge part….
CSFF Blog Tour: The Warring Nations …
I liked The God-Hater. I thought I’d say that before I devoted a post to how it tripped over a peeve of mine. The book has an important subplot revolving around corporate warfare – and that’s not a figure of speech. Myers called corporations the “warring nations of today”. I’ve seen this in science fiction…
Violence in the Bible and other Christian books
A little while ago, the discussion on the CSFF blog tour turned to the violence, or lack of it, in Donita Paul’s Dragons of the Valley. Becky LuElla Miller wrote a couple posts about violence in Christian fiction, and particularly fantasy. I’ve decided to throw in a couple thoughts of my own. It can be…