L
ocus: Butcher’s new series, The Cinder Spires, brings a wondrously strange world to life, in which humans live in giant spires, towers of stone that extend for miles, like monolithic city states, protecting humanity from the mist-covered, deadly surface world below. Travel between spires requires airships, and battles between unfriendly spires are common. Captain Grimm of the Predator is a privateer, attacking enemy ships for his home, Spire Albion. The airship battles are in fine maritime style with a few airborne twists as ships maneuver up and down, as well as side to side to bring their guns to bear. Unfortunately, their magic shields are vulnerable, and soon Captain Grimm brings his battered ship into port at Albion, hoping to be able to replace the crystals that power and provide lift for the airships. He makes a deal to get those crystals, but also gets involved with some odd characters, including a etherealist who can see the future and a very intelligent cat named Rowl (several sections are in his point-of-view) and his human. It’s an interesting world, with some terrifying monsters, all together a nicely different sort of steampunk fantasy that promises some interesting developments to come.
Jan 142016
January 14, 2016
RT Book Reviews: Top Pick! The first book in Bedford’s new historical fantasy series, Rowankind, seamlessly blends history, magical lore, high-seas adventure and romance into one fantastic story. Bedford crafts emotionally complex relationships and interesting secondary characters while carefully building an innovative yet familiar world. Skilled, brave and smart, the heroine, Ross, bust untangle a web of competing loyalties, hidden agendas and self-delusion in order to decide how to act. The ending satisfies while enticing readers to return to explore the world further.
Publishers Weekly: Henry Denton’s life is in tatters—he was abandoned by his father; his boyfriend, Jesse, hanged himself; and he is regularly abducted by aliens who have put Earth’s very fate in his hands. The 16-year-old, nicknamed “Space Boy” by his tormentors, is self-destructing until he finds a friend in new kid Diego and an ally in Jesse’s former pal Audrey. In a style reminiscent of Slaughterhouse-Five, Hutchinson (The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley) intersperses Henry’s experience aboard the “slugger” spaceship with his trials on Earth, where he’s “a punch line at school, a ghost at home.” The extraterrestrial scenes are less the makings of a SF novel than a metaphor for Henry’s isolation and alienation from his family and peers, including a gang of bullies who brutally assault him in a shower and then publicly shame him. 
Library Journal: Jacob “Trace” Tracy and Boz, his African American partner, are looking for jobs to tide them over until they get hired for their usual work of guiding wagon trains West. Wealthy Miss Fairweather of St. Louis employs them for what looks like an easy task: retrieving a box from a nearby town. Miss Fair- weather didn’t choose the duo by chance. She wants Trace for his ability to see the spirit world, a talent he has possessed (and hidden) since he was injured on the battlefield at Antietam. This first trip entangles Trace and Boz with the interests of a man of unusual talents and evil intent named Mereck, and even as Trace continues to take jobs for Miss Fairweather, Mereck’s attentions grow more dangerous. 
Locus: A fascinating and propulsive tale about what could happen when actual humans try to settle a planet and about how little protection technology can really offer in the face of our inherent weaknesses.
RT Book Reviews: Leah Beiler and her twin brother left their Amish community 10 years ago. She is now returning with her orphaned niece Mandy in tow. Many in the community, including her own family, never understood their departure. Former love Ezra Stoltzfus is cautiously optimistic about Leah’s return. However, he longs to know the truth. Will Leah’s dad accept her and Mandy back into his life? Is it too late for Leah and Ezra? And how will a little dog save the day? 
Library Journal: Building beautifully upon the richly detailed world introduced in the first book of the series, Bennett serves a stew of fantasy and adventure with a healthy dose of humor and a ladle full of violence. Switching protagonists from sneaky Shara to the blunt soldier Turyin gives the sequel a fresh feel, and readers will be eager to read more books set in this fascinating universe.
Locus: Most of the reviews of Cherie Priest’s new-ish Maplecroft and its just-released quasi-sequel Chapelwood focus on what her world borrows from H.P. Lovecraft. Those reviews are totally right. There are a lot of tentacles and creeping dread in these two titles. They are loving tributes to Cthulhu and all that dread lord has wrought.