Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Cassa Fire, Space Opera, Dancing Lemur Press, 2012. Tpb/ebook $15.95/$4.99 An enjoyable read with well drawn leads that takes a while to suck you in but ultimately rises above its faults to provide a compelling and enjoyable read. I have not read book 1 in this series. So let me say some of my quibbles  [ Read More ]

This one’s not so easy to find online. I don’t even have a link, so I’ll reprint a jpg here so you can see it for yourselves.  

For me, Star Wars books are often like comfort food — familiar, not overly surprising, but good, an enjoyable way to pass the time. So when I scheduled Paul Kemp for my interview chat, I was surprised to learn his Star Wars books didn’t include those familiar characters I’d grown to love–the characters who made  [ Read More ]

A compelling read filled with sparkling prose about the author’s adventures outside his culture and comfort zone encountering predators around the world and even in his own yard. Rich in detail with a good sense of self-deprecation mixed with genuine cultural and animal insight, Foster herein challenges all of us to live a little more  [ Read More ]

First, a couple of disclaimers might be appropriate: I like Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s a nice person, the kind who is easy to converse with and who doesn’t take herself too seriously. Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, she penned one of my favorite short stories of the past few  [ Read More ]

Two sons, one an embarrassment, the other prophesied to rule the world. Two armies, facing each other for nine years of war. A tortured princess. A bodyguard torn between duty and love. Moses Siregar III’s “The Black God’s War” novella has all the right ingredients and his prose lives up to the challenge–an exciting new epic  [ Read More ]

A great read and one I wish I’d had time to read straight through without so many interruptions.  It captured me from the get go and kept me entertained throughout. The first in a new sword and sorcery series, “Tome Of The Undergates” is about a group of adventurers, led by a human named Lenk,  [ Read More ]

Well written and powerful, it’s easy to see why Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Windup Girl” has been so acclaimed and awarded.  The story of people in the Thai Kingdom, somewhere in the future, the story is told through multiple points of view – the American factory owner/agent who is using the factory as a cover; the  [ Read More ]

http://torforge.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/antiphon-receives-a-starred-review-in-publishers-weekly/ When I discovered Ken Scholes’ Lamentation, it was on a TOR ad inside the front cover of an issue of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy last fall. Being a man of faith, the title immediately caught my eye. But it was when I saw Orson Scott Card’s recommendation that I knew I  [ Read More ]

Okay, yes, I know what I said. I am not neglecting Antiphon. I started it today. But my review of Kirinyaga sparked another enjoyable discussion with the author who then proceeded to provide me with manuscripts of all the other Africa books and stories I had yet to review, and this one was short and  [ Read More ]

Yes, yet another Resnick review from me. Before I get to the actual review, let me answer the inevitable resounding “Whys?” echoing from my many readers (2, 3? I’ve lost count, time for another census). I started reading Resnick for two reasons: 1) because after hearing he was a huge Africa fan who used his  [ Read More ]

What I love about Mike Resnick, among other things, is his non-pretentious prose style. He doesn’t write like he has a dictionary out to look up the fanciest words for saying everything in an attempt to impress you. Instead, he just finds the right words to tell the story. So you don’t need to read  [ Read More ]

I finally finished the three book series comprised of Paradise, Purgatory and Inferno — Chronicles Of Distant Worlds. Each of the three was a great read, but they just got better as I went along. Purgatory was better than Paradise and Inferno was better than Purgatory. Inspired by the author’s travels in Africa and his  [ Read More ]

When you pick up a book written in 1958, especially by a 19-year-old writer, you expect it to be out of date and perhaps even a little weak. But I loved this book. It’s short and tight, but masterful as Robert Silverberg always is. I may be biased. Silverberg, without a doubt, is my favorite  [ Read More ]

Rabbit: Chasing Beth Rider is the story of the famous novelist Beth Rider, author of vampire books and a Christian, who finds herself being pursued by the Rakum, an ancient order of vampires. Labelled a “Rabbit,” a marked target, by an Elder, she is hunted by all Rakum to be tortured again and again because  [ Read More ]

I am behind on my blogging, so apologies to anyone who actually follows this. I just finished two great science fiction books and thought I’d review them here back to back. The first is the all-time classic “A Canticle For Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller. I’ve heard about this book for years but never read  [ Read More ]

Recently read Mike Resnick’s 1993 book Purgatory, the first in a three-book series. What a great read! I couldn’t put it down. As you may know, Resnick is one of the most prolific and successful of Science Fiction writers. His books and stories have appeared everywhere. What you may not know is that Resnick, like  [ Read More ]

Timothy Zahn is one of my favorite writers and has been very influential in my own writing. Like me, Zahn writes a lot of space opera, and he’s most famous for his Thrawn series of Star Wars novels. But he’s been writing a long time and has some great other stuff as well. His Quadrail  [ Read More ]

If you haven’t met Nicodemus Weal, you should. He’s the kind of character that will touch your heart and change your perspective. A brilliant debut by a talented writer, Spellwright‘s story is all the more intriguing because it parallels the author’s own struggles with dyslexia. The story of Nicodemus Weal, a dyslexic apprentice wizard who  [ Read More ]

One of the things I want to do from time to time is review books by other authors which I have really enjoyed. The first such entry is Lamentation, Book 1 in the Psalms of Isak, by my friend Ken Scholes. A mix of fantasy and science fiction, Lamentation tells the story of the Named  [ Read More ]