Angela and I were talking last week about what a great year this is shaping up to be for adult books with teen appeal–we have a backlog of great books that we still want to review, and another list of books that we had to give up on getting to because too much time has [...]
In The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction (ALA, 2009), Joyce Saricks divides genre fiction into four categories: Adrenaline Genres, Emotion Genres, Intellect Genres, and Landscape Genres (h/t to Jonathan Hunt for pointing me to this wonderful resource–and click through that link to read some fascinating commentary on the categories). I find this categorization much more [...]
Trilogies. How many of us shudder at the thought? How many of us miss those great standalone novels? A whole story arc in one book – imagine! On the other hand, many readers enjoy knowing that there is more to come. In a student bookgroup meeting last week, as we discussed what to read next, [...]
Today we review three thrillingly original works of speculative fiction. Let’s start with a post-apocalyptic, dystopian debut novel. The Office of Mercy is being marketed as a Hunger Games readalike. (I’ve also seen comparisons to recent Alex Award winner, Pure). However, debut author Djanikian is more concerned with ethical questions than fast-paced action. The Alphas had good intentions [...]
Caliban’s War is the second Expanse novel, following last year’s much-lauded Leviathan Wakes. In my post on Leviathan Wakes, I mentioned that James S.A. Corey is actually two people, a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. They also share a blog called Lizard Brain, which is where I learned that there is also an Expanse [...]
Teens who enjoy humorous sci-fi are in for a treat. On release day, John Scalzi wrote the following to his fans about Redshirts, ”…let me tell you what my own plan was for this book when I start writing it: To have fun with it, and to have you have fun with it. I wanted to write [...]
Ted Kosmatka‘s first novel receives our latest starred review. The Games has nothing to do with The Hunger Games, although it is a dystopian thriller that deals with a gladiatorial fight to the death (or rather, destruction), in a great blend of horror and science fiction. Library Journal named The Games a science fiction/fantasy debut [...]
Last year’s Robopocalypse was an AB4T 2011 Best of the Year and a 2011 Alex Award winner. With Amped, Daniel H. Wilson has created another dystopian world and another thriller that will have readers racing through the pages. Part of the marketing for the novel includes a blog on Facebook — Samantha Blex is a teenager [...]
Today I am pleased to review a dystopian novel that seems to be flying under the radar in this country, even though it was longlisted for England’s 2011 Man Booker Prize (along with a couple of our favorite AB4T books from last year, Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch and Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman) and [...]
After the fall of humanity, a teenager, Pete, leads the survivors back into the past to steal healthy children in order to preserve the human race. That is only one part of Nancy Kress’s new novel, described by the publisher as an eco-thriller/adventure/time-travel mystery. As long as we’re talking science fiction, let’s celebrate Saturday’s announcement of [...]
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