Just a quick little jaunt down Blogosphere Lane to point out two reviews I wrote for the revered publication Quill and Quire, now online for the amusement and edification of all. These are two esteemed Canadian novelists, and each of their efforts is well worth your time.
First, a review of Arthur Slade's The Hunchback Assignments, a young adult steampunk novel that is absolutely fantastic:Slade ensures that the fanciful elements never overwhelm the story through his careful handling of the gallant Modo and the canny Octavia, another young ward drafted into action. Modo’s unusual predicament is handled with aplomb, and children will empathize with his role as an outsider who craves acceptance, even as they revel in an outlandish plot that ends with a promise of further tales of danger.
And next, Linwood Barclay's thriller Fear the Worst, a novel with the frenetic plotting of the best Hollywood thrillers:Like the best suspense novels, Fear the Worst expertly navigates an increasingly jumbled plot with clarity and precision. It is a given that such novels include red herrings galore, but Barclay keeps the story moving at such a terrific clip that the 400+ pages fly by.
Enjoy!
Once in a great while I do a few reviews for the venerable Canadian publishing magazine Quill and Quire. They have just posted my review of Arthur Slade's terrific new steampunk novel for young people, The Hunchback Assignments.
Slade’s London is an engrossing mélange of the historically precise and the ridiculously imaginative. Working within the genre of steampunk, a mode of speculative fiction that posits a world of technological invention within the trappings of the Victorian Era, Slade crafts a world in which the sad reality of children “[sifting] through the mud at low tide for coal, bits of rope, anything to sell for a penny” exists alongside fantastic armoured men powered by gyroscopes made of “steel bones, the steam pumping out of holes in narrow iron plates.”
Read the entire review here.
First, a review of Arthur Slade's The Hunchback Assignments, a young adult steampunk novel that is absolutely fantastic:
And next, Linwood Barclay's thriller Fear the Worst, a novel with the frenetic plotting of the best Hollywood thrillers:
