Book Review: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD GNOMES by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne return readers to the pleasant and exciting land of Pell, where danger once again threatens the kingdom and a motley crew embarks on an adventure to set things right. No Country for Old Gnomes is a rough-and-tumble romp across Pell and through various obstacles, including a ghost-hostel, a swamp, and a cabbage field. Dawson and Hearne are ready to once again delight readers with the second book from their The Tales of Pell series, picking up just months after the events of Don’t Kill the Farm Boy and introducing a whole new set of adventurers. Following the crowning of King Gustave at the end of Don’t Kill the Farm Boy, the lands of Pell have settled into an uneasy peace and the previous adventuring group have all settled down. But now the gnomelands are under attack by dastardly halflings and an unsavory criminal organization. After one particularly close-to-home halfling bomb (it took the kitchen first, the poor room), one gnome known as Offi Numminen finds himself in a difficult position. Forced away from the only home he’s ever known, this rather out-of-place gnome finds himself the leader of a ragtag band of adventurers as they journey to face their villain and stop a war before the gnomes are driven out altogether.
Book Review: THE CURIOSITY KILLERS by K.W. Taylor
Years have passed since the second American Civil War split the nation in two, and physicist Edward Vere now devotes his time in the New British Empire to time travel technology, all while limited to the mostly Victorian-era technology that this portion of the former United States is permitted. During an experiment, a spacetime bridge opens between Vere and historic aviator Wilbur Wright, who is working with similar experiments in his own time. Perfecting the technology, Vere enters into a business partnership with historian Benoy Johnson. Together they start a time travel service for select individuals (references required), facilitating clients to go solve mysteries of the past as observers. However, there is a catch: upon returning, a client will be debriefed and then have their memory wiped to ensure that the technology or the ‘natural’ secrets of time do not spread to the public.
Book Review: Song and Key by Alix Bekins and Connie Bailey
An adventure in the style of The Man From U.N.C.L.E, with a touch of paranormal and a healthy dose of easy sexuality, Song and Key is a fun romp through the countryside of Romania, following two secret agents on their mission to do their boss a favor. Alix Bekins and Connie Bailey partner up to write a classic secret-agents-on-a-mission book, easily read in a single afternoon.
Book Review: Hammer of the Witch by Dakota Chase
Dakota Chase continues her young adult series, Repeating History, with Hammer of the Witch, returning to a contemporary world featuring magical, time-traveling shenanigans surrounding two teenagers. To recap: In the first novel, The Eye of Ra, we met up with Aston and Grant at an unfortunate time in their lives. After a visit to juvenile court both boys are sentenced to a year at the Stanton Boys School, where their shenanigans intertwine after an incident in their history teacher’s office (which they manage to set fire to, destroying several priceless artifacts housed within). And it just so happens that their history teacher is the esteemed wizard Merlin. He-who-ran-with-King-Arthur, Merlin. Why the man would want to teach high schoolers is beyond me, but maybe he enjoys it. Aston and Grant have never been in this much trouble before, but an unlikely solution is found when they are tasked with going back in time and retrieving some of these artifacts for Merlin. In the first book Aston and Grant traveled back to Ancient Egypt in the times of King Tut, but the second book sends them back to medieval Europe, in the midst of the witch hunts.
Book review: The Levee by Damon Norko
Everybody from J.G. Ballard to Paolo Bacigalupi to George Miller has tackled the “extreme drought” future, but few have taken it quite as far as Damon Norko has done in his latest novella, The Levee. The world of The Levee is one in which not only have the rivers and lakes dried up, but so have the oceans. Barsoom-like*, humanity now dwells on the dead sea bottoms, and water, pumped from deep under those bottoms, has become so scarce and precious that it is used as currency, making for a weird and cumbersome economic system that I’ll expand upon later in this review.
Book Review: City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty is as elusive and complicated as its main character, Nahiri. When we meet Nahiri, it is 18th century Cairo under tenuous French control. She lives in a poor section of the city, not far from the Necropolis. She’s a healer, a con artist, and a thief who is willing to rob places while the owners are away. And yet she has power and ability she herself does not quite understand, a nature that is fragile as is her position. This sets up the novel starting off, anyway, as a historical fantasy, a historical urban fantasy at that. The novel switches gears, however, when Nahiri accidentally summons a djinn. Soon on the run, Nahiri and the djinn, Dara, are traveling across the Middle East to a hidden city of the djinn, Daevabad. There, they encounter Prince Ali, already chafing under the reign of his father and the future reign of his brother, and a city on the edge of change, or destruction. We get intrigue, political agitation, ancient secrets and much more within the bounds of the city.
