Smorgasbord Fantasia

Ship Breaker is Paolo Bacigalupi's follow up to the multi-award winning breakout novel, Windup Girl . I know I am a decade and more late to this master's genius works, but better late than never. After having finally finished that stunning, towering mind bending piece of science-fantasy, I know I would have to climb down from the highs of the visionary piece of fiction, that was Windup Girl. But even with Ship Breaker, you get the similar dystopian world, that has gone 'under' - a drowned world, where oil is scarce and values like humanity or loyalty even scarcer. You could even argue that while Windup happens in the Southeast Asia, or what's left of it. A version of Bangkok where genetics and rising waters pose the greatest threat. While Ship Breaker happens in the very different corner of the world - the west. Or more precisely, the previous parts of the Southern Coasts, near New Orleans or what's left of it.  We are introduced to the forlorn beaches of this c...

 Paulo Bacigalupi for all the awards and citations that he has won, for some reason has flow low below my author radar. I have three books of his, including the acclaimed debut Windup Girl that's been gathering dust on my shelves for a while now. No, really it is my fault and just that my TBR has always been bursting at the seams but I think, this time I deliberately took a break to just start reading this YA book, Drowned Cities - companion book to the award-winning Shipbreaker - and trust me, I just got effortlessly sucked into the grim and action-packed story set in this futuristic America, reduced to a set of drowning cities subject to global warming and an ever-present war going on.  Paulo's writing is like a sucker punch to your gut. Here, he masterfully crafts up an absolutely bleak futuristic world, a make-believe grim world, devoid of hope, ravaged by constant war, pointless deaths and mindless destruction. America has devolved into multiple strongholds and cities -...

Just when you thought, this genius couldn't surprise you anymore [ after that YA-fantasy done so right, with the Book of Ancestor that ended last month, with Holy Sister topping things off on a delirious high!] in a move that departs from his earlier works, Mark Lawrence [ Book# 10, hats off to you sir. You remain my highest read author, only after Stephen King in terms of the total number of books read!] gives us One Word Kill , an absolutely wonderful nostalgia trip to the 80's complete with D&D board games and nerd-gangs with disco nights and a sweet soaring romance that doesn't actually irk. For all the right reasons, this one has been compared to Stranger Things , the Netflix blockbuster [ that was one of my favorite watches as well] But all that notwithstanding, this is Mark Lawrence guys, I kept thinking to myself as I tore through the story. Waiting to see if he would stick the landing with this departure of sorts, from his usual "grim-dark...

So yet another trilogy by Mark Lawrence ! Done and dusted. Holy Sister marks the end of the trilogy, Book of the Ancestor tracing the emotional and physical journey of Nona Grey , from the time she entered the order of the sisters as an orphan, till she becomes a holy sister, giving herself up to faith and prayers in this whole series that has been built up on religious imagery. If Red Sister was about Nona's early transformation into a fearsome fighting machine and her physical transformation, Grey Sister saw Nona embrace the dark magics to tap into the magical reserves within her and also manipulate the threads that shaped this world. So this, was a fitting conclusion as she finally decides to embrace the black of a holy sister because, she realizes that the world can never get enough of the prayers to heal. And what a world ! Mark's packed in some dense world-building into this planet where the sun gets weaker everyday,  a planet where four different humanoid ra...

I would read anything written by Sebastian de Castell . The Greatcoats series, coming to a "shocking conclusion" with the Tyrant's Throne soon to be out, is one of my favorite running series. (Oh next on my reading list!) It's pulpy fun, old fashioned fantasy about heroic protagonists, revenge duels, political conspiracies and truckloads of bromance and a whole lotta love.  So when I came across Spellslinger , his alleged YA-Fantasy debut, I was equal parts excited - and a bit dismayed. YA? Sticking to the defined cordons of this genre, would Sebastian really be able to bring out the delights of the comic camaraderie of the knights' brotherhood, that dark brooding atmosphere of conspiracies and dangers, the intensity? Or will it be a watered-down version with possibly a candyfloss romance thrown in between teens swooning for each other? I need not have worried much. Spellslinger is a completely fresh tale, a YA-fantasy with a western frontier feel to the w...

Amanda Hocking has been a publishing sensation - with more-than-a-million-copies sold of her massive hit series, " Trylle trilogy " - and from what I could gather, I definitely think she is a prolific writing machine. Putting out one book after the other in humanly impossible time intervals. So Freeks came out on Jan 3rd, 2017 and I was lucky enough to have snagged an early copy and be a part of the . Having never read a Hocking book before, I was eager to dive in - and the dry dusty carnival setting in this cold, mysterious town called Caudry really lured me in. The story is about Mara , a teenager on the cusp of her adulthood, who has been leading the life of a nomad, along with this Travelling Circus group. She lives in a Winnebago trailer along with her mother, who poses as a diviner for the circus but actually is a necromancer who can talk to spirits. In fact, everybody in the group have some paranormal abilities - self-healing, super strength, animal contro...

When I was approached for a blog tour of Remember Yesterday , I jumped for the chance. As I had really enjoyed the opening chapter in the series, Forget Tomorrow by Pintip Dunn  and along with the rest of the world, was waiting with bated breath about the fate of Callie Stone and the world she was trying to save. A YA sci-fi with time-travel forming a critical part of the narrative, the first book was definitely a hit with the readers - mainly because of the delightful world built up and also how Pintip chose to portray her heroine, Callie Stone - a strong and level-headed girl, selfless to a fault; her ultimate sacrifice that probably prevents the world from plunging into a disaster. But after that ultimate shocker of an ending, Pintip comes back with an even stronger sequel - raising questions about time-travel with some breezy recap on this world-altering incident. Did it really save the world and her sister Jessa ? As I plunged back into this familiar, well realized wo...

So I loved NYT Bestselling and RITA™ Award-winning book  Forget Tomorrow by Pintip Dunn that came out roughly the same time, last year - and am super excited by the next part in that series, Remember Yesterday that released on Oct 4th, excited enough to sign up and be a part of the tour! The full schedule can be found here.  Oh and don't forget to read on to the end - to take part in an exclusive give-away associated with this tour. Book Details Book Title: Remember Yesterday (Forget Tomorrow, #2) Author:  Pintip Dunn Release Date: October 4, 2016 Genre: YA Sci Fi Publisher: Entangled Teen Sixteen-year-old Jessa Stone is the most valuable citizen in Eden City. Her psychic abilities could lead to significant scientific discoveries, if only she’d let TechRA study her. But ten years ago, the scientists kidnapped and experimented on her, leading to severe ramifications for her sister, Callie. She’d much rather break into their labs and sabotage the...

I was lured into A Mortal Song purely because of the Japanese Kami folklore appeal. Period. Now maybe "lured" probably sounds like a negative word but trust me, A Mortal Song soars on the back of the kami essence that peppers this whole book. and it's blends fantastically well to create a unique urban fantasy story set in modern-day Japan. So I didn't really notice that it was firmly, a YA book aimed at younger audiences and so it did take a while for my 'adult' senses, tuned in to the grim, dark violence and all the gritty circumstances that typically 'define' my favorite books of late, to be turned off. And sadly for me, it never really turned off. And that interfered a bit with my love for this book. A Mortal Song by Megan Crew is my first book of hers - and it has got a great premise for it going. What if you aren't the chosen one and your whole life ( all sixteen of it spent honing up and prepping for responsibilities and... magic!) ...

So Forget Tomorrow has a really interesting premise: What if your future was already decided and you receive your future memory on your seventeenth birthday? Makes for a crackling mix of science fiction/time travel/dystopian themes, huh. Pintip Dunn writes engagingly well and I was swept into the story right from the beginning– chiefly through the lovely portrayal of Callie, the protagonist of the story. We enter the world – with Callie a day shy of her seventeenth birthday in Amerie, where technology has taken over lives and your future is decided and handed over to you as a memory dictating how you would live to achieve the said future. Now Callie, on expected lines, deviates from the said pattern. Her memory is pretty disturbing, where she walks into a hospital and then kills her own sister, Jessa. Crimes like these usually end up in arrests – by the Future Memory Agency. Callie trusting the authorities obviously doesn’t want this horrifying future to come true and turns he...

I normally wouldn't have picked up a book like Phoenix Island . Or the sequel, Devil's Pocket . These are usually the kind of books that skip my radar. Which is why the reader-feed from Netgalley is definitely a blessing. Devil's Pocket was released on Aug 4th and we're dragged headlong back into the brutal raw world of  Carl Freeman where violence is a way of life - first introduced with the phenomenally well written Phoenix Island. So I first got hold of Devil's Pocket and then the good folks at Simon and Schuster (Gallery Books imprint) were giving away Phoenix Island for a lark ($1.99 e-book sale) and I jumped for it. While the first book is the inspiration behind the CBS Show, Intelligence ( I admit I haven't seen that one), the sequel is prime material for a summer blockbuster. A darkly intelligent and ruthlessly violent version of Fight Club perhaps? Pitched as an action blast with YA crossover appeal featuring a 16-year old protagonist, Phoenix ...

A few weeks back, I had stumbled onto the post-apocalyptic YA series, Penry and the End of Days written by Susan Ee - a lot of hype around the "explosive" conclusion End of Days, Book-3 coming out next month. I actually LOVED book-one ( AngelFall ) and was looking forward to diving back into this fascinating struggle between Humans and Angels - and of course the hesitant but surely budding "relationship" between Raffe ( fallen angel, greek god extraordinaire) and Penryn ( the heroine ). Well, of course this was a second book in a series and so I had to keep my expectations curbed in, I knew that. Sadly - inspite of knowing this in advance, the second book failed to live up to the expectations, especially coming on the heels of such a soaring refreshingly original first volume  YA-dystopian story - Susan completely misses the mark. And it's frustrating because there are so many ways she could have expanded her world and the plot. It's this immense p...

Angelfall by Susan Ee released back in 2012 (published by Skyscape after it was an indie title before in 2011) and it recently caught my eye as the trilogy ending, End of Days is coming out this May. So a quick request to NetGalley followed and the book was in my TBR. A highly successful YA series featuring another plucky heroine? After “The Awesome” by Eva Darrows, I guess the genre had a second life as far as I was concerned. And I was beginning to like some titles!  But the first few lines really reeled me in, hook, line and sinker – a dystopian world where the 'Angels of Apocalypse' have gone on a rampage destroying the big cities of the world and humanity is scrounging in pockets to survive. Not to mention the post-apocalyptic world being a lawless harsh place where human lives value lesser than a fallen feather to the gangs roaming the streets. Author Susan Ee launches us straight into the middle of the night – where seventeen-year old Penryn along with her quasi...