The Book Plank

Selfies by Lavie Tidhar "Selfies", by Lavie Tidhar, is a creepy little horror tale about the fate of a young woman who makes the mistake of a lifetime when she buys a new phone in the local mall. It is only a few weeks back that I read a different but very interesting short story of Lavie Tidhar, Dragonkin . I found this story directly to my liking, the synopsis and build up of the story was unique and got me excited by it's less is more writing style. In the end this story for me had so much going on that I hope to see Lavie Tidhar exploring it even further. That aside, now its time for Selfies . I think I can now safely say that Lavie Tidhar is an author to watch out for, his stories will get you thinking and will scare you twice over.  I have been thinking a lot of the current situation with always being connected on social media and the likes. It's unavoidable. One thing that is connected with all of this is of course your smartphone, yes no longer a cell...

Short Fiction Friday: Dragonkin by Lavie Tidhar There are kin and there are –kin. There are not many dragons, but there are many who think they are, or want to be, or claim to remember being. I am not that familiar with the stories of Lavie Tidhar, I have only read The Violent Century so far, which is very interesting to say the least. It is unique in many ways and definitely have set him apart from many different authors, so while I was browsing new short fiction to read and I came across one of Lavie Tidhar stories I directly dived into it and just as what I read in The Violent Century , the story of Dragonkin is unique and definitely one of a kind. Lavie Tidhar really knows how to create one-of-a-kind stories with a awesome setting.  Last week I read The Angelus Guns by Max Gladstone which was a show but not tell kind of story, Lavie Tidhar kicks off his story in the same manner.  The story begins with a rhyme that doesn't make that much sense but does let you thi...

Short Fiction Friday: The Angelus Guns by Max Gladstone During a celestial civil war, an angel-like soldier searches for her missing brother.  If you now say the name Max Gladstone to people, they will immediately respond with Craft Sequence or one of the titles of his books. In the last few years max Gladstone has, for me, really put himself on the bookmap with his Craft Sequence, they are terrific reads and give a refreshing air to the current fantasy books. I was looking for short stories set in this series but couldn't find any instead I stumbled upon the single short story that I could find from him, The Angelus Guns and as you can see from the top, it has a very short introduction. It is often with only a single sentence that it proves to be less is more and by this it really piqued my interest. A celestial war and angel-like soldier. The Angelus Guns is quite something different from his Craft Sequence, written with a different style and of course theme. But as a short ...

The Price of Doing Business by D.B. Jackson, Thieftaker Chronicles #0.1? Ethan Kaille is a Thieftaker in Boston in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Having suffered losses and reversals in his life, he is neither naive nor without considerable personal resources. He isn't just a detective; he's also a conjurer, which makes him someone who lives on the margins of polite society. Some people fear his powers; others merely find him a distasteful rogue who should simply go away . . .but still, he is useful to the powers-that-be when problems arise requiring his unusual skill-set. In the novels Thieftaker and Thieves' Quarry, as well as in the story "A Spell of Vengeance," which was published on Tor.com, Kaille has had to deal with a variety of crimes and their perpetrators. The story that follows is one from Kaille's early days as a thieftaker in Boston. In it, he must face a formidable foe, one of a most unexpected sort, whose own p...

The Penitent Damned by Django Wexler, The Shadow Campaings #0.5 Alex is a master thief, with dark magic to give her an edge. When she goes up against Duke Orlanko's Concordat secret police, though, she may have taken on more than she bargained for... Last year Django Wexler published his first book in The Shadow Campaigns series, The Thousand Names , which was followed just a few weeks back by the sequel in the series, The Shadow Throne , where he really had outdone himself, tranforming his storyline into the right direction! When I was adding the book on goodreads I found that there was a short story written prior to the events of The Thousand Names called The Penitent Damned , and since this is now one of my favorite currently running series, there was no other choice than to catch up with it! Django Wexler doesn't hesitate one moment to throw you as a reader in the midst of an assassin/thieving/backstabbing kind of a story. The Penitent Damned is set before The ...

Cold War by Adam Christopher, The Spider War Sequence #?  Dropped on a frozen planet under suspicious circumstances, a group of marines struggles to discover the true objective of their mission. “Cold War” is set in the same universe as Adam Christopher’s novel The Burning Dark. It is only this year that I got read my first Adam Christopher book. Yes I know shame on me. His debut, Empire State , got a lot of rave reviews but I never had the time to get around it. My first introduction was earlier this year with Hang Wire followed up by the first book in The Spider War Sequence, The Burning Dark ( which I very much enjoyed). And by chance while I was browsing the short stories on Tor.com I came over one of Adam Christopher, Cold War and if luck would have had it, Cold War is a short story that features in the universe of The Spider War Sequence!  Since I read The Burning Dark earlier this year I already have some pre-knowledge about several aspects that Adam Christop...

SFF: Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome by John Scalzi A new near-future science fiction novella by John Scalzi, one of the most popular authors in modern SF. Unlocked traces the medical history behind a virus that will sweep the globe and affect the majority of the world’s population, setting the stage for Lock In , the next major novel by John Scalzi. Last week I kicked off a new feature for the blog the SFF (Short Fiction Friday) and I mentioned that I was looking for recommedations, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome was recommended to me by Tiemen Zwaan. As you can read from the short synopsis above, Unlocked: An Oral history of Haden's Syndrom is a prequel to John Scalzi's Lock In which will be released later in August, the 14th to be exact. With this short story John Scalzi builds up the framework for Lock In, showing just all what has transpired so far surrounding the Haden's Syndrome.  The first thing that false to note is the...

A Spell of Vengeance by D.B. Jackson, Thieftaker #0.5 Ethan Kaille is a thieftaker in Colonial Boston, scratching out a living by restoring stolen property to its rightful owners. But unlike others in his profession, Ethan relies on magical spells as well as his wits to track down thieves. Being a conjurer doesn't make him popular with the law in Boston, so Ethan is taken aback when the sheriff seeks his help in settling a dispute between a pair of wealthy merchants and a ship's captain who has threatened their lives. Ethan knows the captain can back up his threats with magic of his own. But there is more to this matter than the merchants have let on, and Ethan soon discovers that what he doesn't know might actually kill him. D. B. Jackson’s first Ethan Kaille novel, Thieftaker , will be published on July 3, 2012. What better story to pick than one of my favourite authors, D.B. Jackson. Only two weeks ago I read his third book in his Thieftaker series, A Plun...