Driving the Deep is a successful sequel to Suzanne Palmer’s Finder, offering a similar adventure, where the protagonist meets strange people and visits memorable places, full of all kinds of danger. The standout here is the setting, an underwater facility that is both isolated and heavily guarded.
After saving a space station and surviving meeting with a race of inscrutable aliens in Finder, Fergus Ferguson finds himself with a much more difficult task to perform at the beginning of Driving the Deep: dealing with past mistakes and apologizing to his cousin. Ferguson is a fearless man when it comes to shootouts and fighting thugs in space, but when it’s time to face his family, [...]
The first installment in The Machineries of Empire trilogy, Ninefox Gambit is a curious sci-fi novel: despite its complex and almost inscrutable lore, which revolves around calendars affecting technology, and the scope of its plot, which revolves around a siege of a space fortress, Ninefox Gambit offers a tightly focused narrative about just two characters. Its main mistake, therefore, is its reluctance to evolve their relationship beyond its initial stages, content in just laying the groundwork for the books to come.
The protagonist is Kel Cheris, a disgraced captain of the Kel army, who is called upon to lead a siege at the Fortress of Scattered Needles. She must fight [...]
The Great Hunt finally allows The Wheel of Time to become its own thing, breaking free from most of Tolkien’s structure, which so hindered The Eye of the World. It’s a competent fantasy novel that focuses on fleshing out its world, introducing and developing elements that make the series stand on its own feet.
As its title implies, the plot of The Great Hunt revolves around a big chase. Darkfriends, led by Padan Fain, have stolen the mythical Horn of Valere and a sinister dagger that is magically linked to Mat Cauthon, who is bound to perish without it. With the intention to save his friend, Rand sets out with him, Perrin, and a bunch of soldiers from Faldara, pursuing Fain to [...]
The Hollow Places is a cosmic horror novel that is a bit afraid of scaring you too much. Its narrator is frequently making jokes and downplaying the grotesque events she’s witnessing, which may add to the character but also hampers the overall tension.
The narrator is Kara, a recently divorced graphic designer that decides to accept her uncle’s invitation and live with him for a while, taking care of his humble museum of wonders in a small town in North Carolina. One day, however, she finds a gap in one of the walls and a tunnel leading to some rooms that weren’t supposed to be there – physically, they couldn’t even be there. She asks her neighbor Simon to help patch the [...]
The final chapter of The Divine Cities trilogy, City of Miracles treads a familiar path, putting an old side character, Sigurd je Harkvaldsson, under the spotlight, once more having to deal with a divine threat and humans who yearn for violence. Although it never reaches the same heights as its predecessor, the novel represents a solid conclusion to the series written by Robert Jackson Bennet.
After a dear friend is assassinated, Sigurd goes on a quest for revenge. He thinks of himself as a blunt instrument and now intends to strike hard and true at the killers without caring about his wellbeing. However, he soon uncovers a plot that may threaten his friend’s daughter, [...]
The first book of The Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World, is an epic fantasy novel that wears its inspirations on its sleeve – even to a fault: its story is clearly based on Arthurian legends and The Lord of the Rings, but it’s Tolkien who most shackles Robert Jordan’s novel. Nevertheless, The Eye of the World really shines when it manages to break free from its influences and do its own thing, developing a fascinating protagonist and a couple of great themes.
It all begins on “an awkward morning, made for unpleasant thoughts.” Rand al’Thor is a farmer who is accompanying his father to the local town, in the isolated rural region of the Two Rivers. The weather – always quick [...]