Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore Uncle Edgar's Mystery ...

Benedict Jacka has issued three books so far in the Alex Verus series, Fated ($7.99, #1), Cursed ($7.99, #2), and
Taken ($7.99, #3), and all three received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly. Alex is sort of like a Harry
Dresden of London. He is a diviner, one who can see multiple possible futures and figure out which set of actions
will lead to the desired end (usually involving his own survival). He's not a very powerful mage, and he's caught
between the Dark mages (utterly ruthless and obsessed with personal power) and the Light mages (many of whom
are just as obsessed with personal power as the Dark mages, but sneakier in their approaches to gaining power).
When he starts receiving offers he can't refuse from both Dark and Light mages to join their plots, survival becomes
challenging. The first book was good popcorn for a tired mind, but as the main character develops and his circle of
(sometimes) trustworthy associates grow, the books get better. I thought the second book was very good popcorn,
and the third book was well above the popcorn level. I went through all three novels in five days, and have been
recommending them ever since.
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence ($7.99) is the beginning of a very interesting fantasy trilogy. The first couple of
chapters provide a light, breezy look at a batch of stone-cold killers in what seems to be a typical medieval-style
fantasy setting. Then things start to get much stranger and much more interesting. As the background of the 13-
year-old head thug is filled in, he becomes much more interesting and almost sympathetic. While there are certainly
major magical elements, we learn that the book is taking place at least 1100 years in the future, and there are still
weapons of mass destruction around, although nobody remembers how to use them. There are plenty of battles and
scheming to keep the plot flowing quickly, but there are also scattered bit of finely polished writing between the
battles. The second book of the trilogy, King of Thorns ($25.95), came out in August, and the final volume,
Emperor of Thorns, is scheduled for next August.
Dodger by Terry Pratchett ($17.99) is a delightful stand-alone novel being marketed as a young adult novel. The
main character, Dodger, is a 17-year-old street urchin who gleans a living from London's sewers early in Queen
Victoria's reign. When he intervenes to rescue a girl trying to escape her abductors, he's thrown into an international
power struggle, during which he meet the mad barber Sweeney Todd, newspaperman Charles Dickens, and
politician Benjamin Disraeli. The book is labeled as a fantasy, but the only fantasy element I noticed was rumors of a
Roman goddess of the sewers, which Dodger never sees but many of the sewer gleaners believe in. This is a
humorous historical (with the historical details re-arranged a bit to help the plot) action-adventure novel that should
appeal to all Terry Pratchett fans, and many other readers as well.
About a year ago I recommended The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin ($7.99), the award-inning
first novel of The Inheritance Trilogy. But I kept putting off reading the rest of the trilogy because the first novel was
so good that I was afraid I'd be let down, as happens so often with the middle book of a trilogy. I finally got around to
reading The Broken Kingdoms ($7.99, #2) and The Kingdom of Gods ($7.99, #3), and they are also excellent,
and I should have read them all together while the characters from the first novel were still fresh in my mind. The
books are set far enough apart in time that only the gods and godlings are continuing characters from book to book.
The second book features a blind woman who can only see when magic is present, so she moves to Shadow,
beneath the World Tree, and supports herself as an artist. She becomes caught up in the search to discover who is
murdering godlings. The third book features (among many other things) the godling of childhood being forced into
adulthood.
Crown Thief by David Tallerman ($7.99) is the sequel to Giant Thief, and is a lot of fun, but should not be read
without reading Giant Thief first. Unfortunately, we sold out of Giant Thief a few days after Crown Thief arrived,
and have been trying ever since to get more copies. But the publisher and the wholesalers have been out of it for
the last 6 weeks, with not indication or when or if the first volume will be reprinted.
Clean by Alex Hughes ($7.99) is the only sf novel I've completed in the last three month worth recommending. Set
about 250 years in the future, a telepathic recovering drug addict is working with the police in the Atlanta area,
mostly helping workaholic Detective Isabella Cherabino work on a serial killer case, but his telepathic abilities also
come in real handy when questioning suspects in all kind of other crimes. In an investigative novel like this, it's
natural for the reader and the characters to find out many things at the same time, but there's also a lot of
background information that the main characters are basing their actions on which the reader isn't aware of at first. If
the author is too slow at filling in this background information, I get irritated. On the other hand, if the author is filling
in the background information too fast, it slows down the action and make me feel as if I'm being lectured to. I felt
that the background information was filled in too slowly in this novel, but once I had enough background to
understand the motivations of the characters, I really began to enjoy the novel and I'm eagerly looking forward to the
next in the series.
Recommendations
by Elizabeth LaVelle