A recent post over at Tor.com:
This week I want to talk about books by three different authors—all very different to each other, but all very good.
P.C. Hodgell
Spencer Ellsworth’s STARFIRE: A RED PEACE and a new Sleeps With Monsters over at Tor.com
So, over at Tor.com, there’s a review of Spencer Ellsworth’s Starfire: A Red Peace and a new Sleeps With Monsters column.
I’m a little bit overwhelmed with worry about the stack of work I need to do, so I’m just going to leave it at that for this week.
Books in brief: Moyer, Larke, Hodgell, Bourne, Duran
Jaime Lee Moyer, A Barricade in Hell. Tor, 2014. ARC courtesy of publisher.
Read for review for Tor.com. An improvement on the previous novel. Interesting-if-flawed ghost story/murder mystery set in San Francisco during WWI.
Glenda Larke, The Lascar’s Dagger. Orbit, 2014. Copy courtesy of publisher.
Read for inclusion in SWM column. Interesting fantasy clearly influenced by the mercantile 16th and 17th centuries. Pacing sags in the middle, much like Larke’s other books. Will discuss elsewhere.
P.C. Hodgell, The Sea of Time. Baen, 2014. Ebook. ARC courtesy of publisher.
Read for review. The latest P.C. Hodgell novel, which I’ve been gasping for. It is, alas, something of a middle book. But still full of Jame apologetically breaking things.
Joanna Bourne, The Spymaster’s Lady, My Lord and Spymaster, The Forbidden Rose and The Black Hawk. Ebooks, 2008-2013.
Romance novels set during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Heard of via Marie Brennan. I have a serious weakness for spies. There is not enough entertainment with spies in.
Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You, Your Wicked Heart, That Scandalous Summer, Bound By Your Touch, Fool Me Twice, Written On Your Skin. Ebooks, 2009-2014.
Historical romance novels. I probably shouldn’t have bought them all, but I was at the point in the scrabbling anxiety cycle where I needed to read something – compulsively – and romance novels were safe. Duran is good at her chosen genre.
Failed to get very far into A.M. Dellamonica’s Child of a Hidden Sea (Tor, 2014, ARC courtesy of the publisher). There’s nothing wrong with this book, but it’s a sort of portal fantasy and the tone and approach hasn’t grabbed me.
(Some) books received for review since last I took a picture
I’m a bit like a bus-stop in winter when it comes to posts this evening, I’m afraid. None all last week, while I was attempting to finish up some work, and now several posts (buses, in this metaphor) come along on each others’ heels.
Not shown: two novels by Deborah J. Ross, which I have already read and shelved, and MIRROR SIGHT by Kristen Britain, which has been misplaced during shelving triage and may be under my bed.
In no particular order, Sophia McDougall’s MARS EVACUEES, Karen Healey’s WHILE WE RUN, Julie E. Czerneda’s A TURN OF LIGHT, Mur Lafferty’s THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY and GHOST TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS, debut author Susan Klaus’s FLIGHT OF THE GOLDEN HARPY, E.C. Blake’s MASKS, and Irene Radford’s THE SILENT DRAGON.
There are also a couple more electronic ARCs in my inbox. I’m most excited about P.C. Hodgell’s THE SEA OF TIME.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 