Magic Lost, Trouble Found (Raine Benares, Book 1) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Raine Benares, an elf and a Seeker, has enough trouble in her life without someone bringing more to her door, but when her friend and employee, Quentin, is hired to steal something from a powerful necromancer's house, she just can't let him handle the trouble alone.
The something that Quentin has been hired to steal is soon found to be more valuable and more important than either of them could ever have imagined. Before Quentin even escapes the necromancer's house, he finds himself with some unsavory company, who also just happen to want to lay hands on the very same amulet that Quentin has just pilfered.
With a little help from Raine and her family, Quentin narrowly escapes with his life. Raine insists that he hand over the amulet for safekeeping, and that's when things start to get a little wild!
MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND is an enchantingly engaging read. Devoid of the heavy depressing themes that seem to permeate popular fantasy novels lately, MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND will delight readers who like a good dose of humor mixed with their magical adventure. Author Lisa Shearin has done a superb job of crafting a fantasy world alive with elves, goblins and otherworldly creatures. With a fast paced plot, well-crafted characters and just a hint of romance, MAGIC LOST, TROUBLE FOUND is a book that fantasy lovers won't want to miss.


Click Here to see more reviews about: Magic Lost, Trouble Found (Raine Benares, Book 1)

Raine Benares is a Sorceress Seeker of average ability until she comes into possession of an amulet that amplifies her powers-and her enemies.

Click here for more information about Magic Lost, Trouble Found (Raine Benares, Book 1)

Read More...

Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)While Keeping It Real by Justina Robson is her fifth published novel, she shows off the full strength of her imagination here and announces to those who may not have heard already that she is a major talent and that she will write a blend of science fiction and fantasy that demands to be read.
How is that as a selling point?
Keeping It Real opens with a not quite a chapter, not quite a prologue telling us what we need to know. In 2015 there was some sort of Quantum Bomb which detonated in Texas and which opened our world to five alternate / parallel worlds where there are elves, fairies, demons, the dead, and elementals. The other races insist they have known about us all the while.
The novel takes place in 2021 and we need to know that this is the state of being because this is not what the novel is about nor is it the story Robson is telling. But it is the setting.
Lila Black is possibly less than half human. The other half is machine. At the start of the novel we do not know why or how, only that she is assigned security for a rock band called the No Shows which consists of fairies singing backup and an elf as the lead singer. The No Shows are immensely popular and someone is trying to kill the elf, Zal. Lila, as it turns out, does not entirely trust elves and is barely comfortable in her own skin, such as it is. She is in control of her body and machine, but not entirely. There are glitches.
This is the starting point of Keeping It Real. The rest needs to be discovered to be believed. Robson keeps the novel moving at a reasonably fast clip with action, excitement, elf sex, imperfect cyborg machinery, inept fake [...] attempts, and a heroine who is broken more on the inside than on the outside...and this is the woman who must protect Zal, and elf who barely wishes to be protected.
Keeping It Real is perhaps the most original science fiction or fantasy novel I have read in some time and it is because Robson is able to blend the two genres so seamlessly that it is simply just good storytelling. Robson plays with familiar concepts (elves, cyborgs, different worlds, magic), but in doing so she puts them together in ways we haven't seen before. The elves here are aware of the stereotypes brought on by countless fantasy novels and Lord of the Rings (the elves crack on lembas bread so that the humans can't). Remember, this is our world, just altered in our future.
Keeping It Real is the first volume in a proposed trilogy and I cannot wait to see what Robson brings us next.
-Joe Sherry

Click Here to see more reviews about: Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1)

Click here for more information about Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1)

Read More...