Donald Maass Literary Agency

New York Times: In Amanda Downum’s novel DREAMS OF SHREDS AND TATTERS, Liz Drake is a young woman living on the East Coast with her devoted boyfriend, whom she seems a bit ambivalent about ­ which probably explains her rather casual attitude toward him, a casualness that extends to other things as well.

One thing she’s not casual about, however, is her psychic connection to Blake Enderly. When Liz has an intuition, she is absolutely certain that her friend Blake, who lives across the continent and has recently gone missing, is in trouble, so she crosses the country, boyfriend in tow, to help find him. The connection between the two is never fully, or even partially, explained ­ it seems ambiguously metaphorical, a symbol of the fervent tribal bonds of postadolescent friendship, and on that level it does have some resonance. Similarly, the connections between Liz and her other friends are more asserted than earned ­ as the story shifts perspectives, many characters feel like profiles or postures more than fleshy humans, an effect that may be symptomatic or intentional on Downum’s part, or both.

There are hints at a deeper story here, one of drugs and addiction, about getting lost and the depths to which you can go to save your friends. And there are moments of promise, in which Downum successfully blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy until the narrative takes on a dreamlike fluidity, resulting in the freedom of possibility, of real surprise.

Locus: Dickinson has taken the gender concerns of Delany, and Delany’s attention to economic/vocational matters and colonialism/imperialism, all set in a pre-technological milieu, and conflated them with some of the aforementioned Cherryh-esque literary/thematic tactics to create a truly fine and distinctively individual fantasy novel that delivers action and philosophy, economics and warfare, love and hatred, in equal measures. His voice, however originally influenced, rings out strong and clear as a new addition to the chorus of fantasists.

The conclusion to the rebellion leaves her in a highly unanticipated situation, as Dickinson masterfully inverts almost all of the reader’s expectations.

Read Locus’ full review of The Traitor Baru Cormorant here.

B&N SF&F Blog: I like my fantasy quirky, irreverent, and constantly working to surprise me. Which is why I loved The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first volume in Jim Butcher’s new series, The Cinder Spires. […] The best books give us characters who live on in our minds long after the covers have closed. In Windlass, every cast member is fun, funny, and uniquely courageous. You’ll meet aeronauts, soldiers, aristocrats, the half-human “warrior-born,” wizard, and an entire civilization of talking cats, each more epic than the last. At least, according to the cats, whose entire culture appears to hinge on being as arrogant as felinely possible. By the end, an entire family of oddball roustabouts has come together under the steady eye of Captain Grimm, and I can’t wait to follow them on more adventures. This isn’t just a great fantasy novel, but a great introduction to an ongoing series.