Dark Magic – Witches, Hackers, & Robots – A Short Story Anthology edited by Emma Nelson and Hannah Smith, 2016 This anthology truly gives you your money’s worth. At over 26 stories, it provides exactly what it promises – stories about Witches, Hackers, and Robots. The strange juxtaposition of these categories is intriguing and delightful to read. I won’t review every story but I will say a few words about most of them. When I originally wrote the individual summaries and reviews, I found myself […]
Attractively Repulsive
An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews (1997) When I read the blurb on the back about a surgeon who’s in training to be a High Inquisitor, someone who tortures people, I didn’t think I’d read much of the book before putting it down. Torturers? Inquisitors? A space-faring government called the Judiciary who looks for rebels and criminals under every rock and extracts “legal” confessions from them? Andrej, forced to become a fleet inquisitor to inherit his father’s title, is young, full of himself, and […]
You Can’t Get Better Than This!
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1999, 320 pages) – Okay, this may be cheating, but it’s my 52nd Cannonball review this year so I think I should go out with a bang by rereading something I know is incredible. I fell in love with Ms. Bujold’s hunchback hero, Miles Vorkosigan, in Borders of Infinity (the short story and book of the same name), and have relished every day of his incredible life. Falling Free, however, takes place two hundred years before Miles and, while […]
I Hope the Future Is This Exciting
3 Futures by Peter T. McQueeny (2014, 199 pages) – This is a collection of three novellas of the future. It starts off with a bang when we’re introduced to Father Frankenstein (come on, the name alone gets your attention) in “Hidden Deeds” as the space-traveling priest assigned to disprove a young woman’s been possessed. In his job, he mostly finds what psychological ailment they have that looks like possession. To add a bit of stickiness to the situation, the young woman is married to […]
On a Higher Note
Deadly Spells by Jaye Wells (2015, 350 pages) – I don’t think of myself as a big urban fantasy fan, but I attended Jaye Wells’ writing workshop recently and decided to try one of her books. The series (each book stands alone in Prospero’s War) is a clever concept – magic is real and dangerous. A special police force keeps criminals from using (and selling) “dirty” magic that’s addictive and deadly. Our heroine, Kate Propero, is a young police woman trying to overcome her past. […]
With a Whimper
Nightseer by Laurell K. Hamilton (1992, 303 pages) – I really wanted to end my Cannonball Run on a high note, but I wouldn’t recommend this novel for several reasons. The entire fantasy is one long fight scene. The heroine – a half-elf magic-user with a mean sword arm – seems like a compilation of every Dungeons and Dragons’ character ever played. Her companions are a dark elf prince, a dragon, and a spell-casing knight. The school for magic-users (yes, no troupe is left unturned) […]
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