See NPR's Choices for Top 100 SFF and Vote for Your 10! (by Liviu Suciu)

From the NPR Site:

"Last month we asked you, our audience, to nominate titles for a top-100 list of the best science fiction and fantasy ever written. The response was overwhelming — almost 5,000 of you posted to the NPR site alone, and many thousands more offered suggestions on Facebook.

We've tabulated those suggestions and, with the help of an expert panel, narrowed the list to a manageable field of a few hundred titles.

Scrolling through the list of great science fiction and fantasy reads below will feel like a journey back in time for some of us, a voyage of discovery for others. But novice or veteran, everyone loves a contest. So, let the voting begin!

Here's how: Everyone gets 10 votes. Select your top 10 favorite titles, and then scroll down to the bottom of the poll and click "Submit." Feel free to lobby for your favorites in the comments. We'll be back in about 10 days with the results."

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I will present the list below and you can also see it HERE. I estimated about 240 titles - Locus counted 237 so I was close - though considering that many are series, some like the Vorkosigan Saga or the Culture with quite a few volumes, the actual number of books is much larger.

Of everything below I am familiar with almost all and read a fair number, opened but put down another fair number and of course stayed away from another fair number of them. There may be about 3 or 4 titles I do not have an opinion about since I have only vaguely heard of them, but that's about it.

Edit later: I actually counted what books I read end-to-end from the list and I came up with 99 complete series-to-date/single titles and 17 series I read at least one volume from and later dropped, so I read 116 of the listings either fully or in those 17 cases partially.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by the breadth of the list; sure anyone can quibble about this or that - for me it's stuff like Battlefield Earth or Piers Anthony on but no KJ Parker -but I am sure that for anyone into sff there will be at least 10 choices there.

This list while not to be taken that seriously is still a great thing since it exposes a very wide swath of sff to a large audience and I am happy NPR had this initiative. Whichever books get the vote, they get the vote so to speak even if Battlefield Earth would be the top, since the fun is in discussion and your choices. Go and vote HERE:

1632, by Eric Flint
1984, by George Orwell
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

The Acts Of Caine Series, by Matthew Woodring Stover
The Algebraist, by Iain M. Banks
Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers
Armor, by John Steakley

The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson
Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard
Beggars In Spain, by Nancy Kress
The Belgariad, by David Eddings
The Black Company Series, by Glen Cook
The Black Jewels Series, by Anne Bishop
The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Bridge Of Birds, by Barry Hughart

The Callahan's Series, by Spider Robinson
A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, by Robert Heinlein
Cat's Cradle , by Kurt Vonnegut
The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
The Change Series, by S.M. Stirling
Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
Children Of God, by Mary Doria Russell
The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
The City And The City, by China Mieville
City And The Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
The Coldfire Trilogy, by C.S. Friedman
The Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton
The Company Wars, by C.J. Cherryh
The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
Contact, by Carl Sagan
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
The Day of Triffids, by John Wyndham
Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
The Deed of Paksennarion Trilogy, by Elizabeth Moon
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
The Deverry Cycle, by Katharine Kerr
Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany
The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
The Difference Engine, by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
Don't Bite The Sun, by Tanith Lee
Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre
The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

Earth, by David Brin
Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart
The Eisenhorn Omnibus, by Dan Abnett
The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Eon, by Greg Bear
The Eyes Of The Dragon, by Stephen King
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

The Faded Sun Trilogy, by C.J. Cherryh
Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser Series, by Fritz Leiber
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
The Female Man, by Joanna Russ
The Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy, by Guy Gavriel Kay
A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie
Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
The Foreigner Series, by C.J. Cherryh
The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

The Gaea Trilogy, by John Varley
The Gap Series, by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Gate To Women's Country, by Sheri S. Tepper
Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway
The Gormenghast Triology, by Mervyn Peake
Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper
Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of The World, by Haruki Murakami
The Heechee Saga, by Frederik Pohl
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The Hollows Series, by Kim Harrison
House Of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski
The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
The Incarnations Of Immortality Series, by Piers Anthony
The Inheritance Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

Kindred, by Octavia Butler
The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
Kraken, by China Mieville
The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

Last Call, by Tim Powers
The Last Coin, by James P. Blaylock
The Last Herald Mage Trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey
The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
The Lathe Of Heaven, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
The Lensman Series, by E.E. Smith
The Liaden Universe Series, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
The Lies Of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
Lilith's Brood, by Octavia Butler
Little, Big, by John Crowley
The Liveship Traders Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
Lord Of Light, by Roger Zelazny
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord Valentine's Castle, by Robert Silverberg
Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
The Man In The High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
The Manifold Trilogy, by Stephen Baxter
The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
Memory And Dream, by Charles de Lint
Memory, Sorrow, And Thorn Trilogy, by Tad Williams
Mindkiller, by Spider Robinson
The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Mordant's Need, by Stephen Donaldson
More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon
The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

The Naked Sun, by Isaac Asimov
The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy, by Robert J. Sawyer
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
The Newsflesh Triology, by Mira Grant
The Night's Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F. Hamilton
Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith
Novels Of The Company, by Kage Baker
The Number Of The Beast, by Robert Heinlein

Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
On Basilisk Station, by David Weber
The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
Oryx And Crake, by Margaret Atwood
The Otherland Tetralogy, by Tad Williams
The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

Parable Of The Sower, by Octavia Butler
The Passage, by Justin Cronin
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
The Prestige, by Christopher Priest
The Pride Of Chanur, by C.J. Cherryh
The Prince Of Nothing Trilogy, by R. Scott Bakker
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge
Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
Replay, by Ken Grimwood
Revelation Space, by Alistair Reynolds
Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban
The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
Ringworld, by Larry Niven
The Riverworld Series, by Philip Jose Farmer
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

The Saga Of Pliocene Exile, by Julian May
The Saga Of Recluce, by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
The Sarantine Mosaic Series, by Guy Gavriel Kay
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
The Scar, by China Mieville
The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
The Shattered Chain Trilogy, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Sirens Of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
Song for the Basilisk, by Patricia McKillip
A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
The Stainless Steel Rat Books, by Harry Harrison
Stand On Zanzibar, by John Brunner
The Stand, by Stephen King
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Stations Of The Tide, by Michael Swanwick
Steel Beach, by John Varley
Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
The Swordspoint Trilogy, by Ellen Kushner

The Tales of Alvin Maker, by Orson Scott Card
The Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik
The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
Tigana , by Guy Gavriel Kay
Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein
The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
To Say Nothing Of The Dog, by Connie Willis
The Troy Trilogy, by David Gemmell

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick
The Uplift Saga, by David Brin

The Valdemar Series, by Mercedes Lackey
VALIS, by Philip K. Dick
Venus On The Half-Shell, by Kilgore Trout/Philip Jose Farmer
The Vlad Taltos Series, by Steven Brust
The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vurt Trilogy, by Jeff Noon

The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
The Watchmen, by Alan Moore
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
World War Z, by Max Brooks
The Worm Ouroboros, by E.R. Edison

The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony

The Yiddish Policeman's Union, by Michael Chabon

Even with my usual "an author only once" rule for lists which took Baroque and Perdido Street Station out since I prefer The Scar and Anathem and it was a struggle to trim to 10 - I regretfully had to leave First Law, Acts of Caine and 1632 out.

These choices reflect my preferences today and what I would recommend if someone not familiar with the genre but wanting books that are current and of quality would ask; there are many older books on the list that were landmarks in their time, but I hold pretty strongly the belief that sff dates quickly so it's better to start with the contemporary authors.

So my 10 votes were:

Culture/Banks
Legacy of Kushiel/Carey
ASOIAF/GRRM
On Basilisk Station/Weber
The Scar/Mieville
Revelation Space/Reynolds
Anathem/Stephenson
20000 Leagues Under the Sea/Verne
The Night's Dawn trilogy/Hamilton
The Vorkosigan Saga/Bujold

“The Third Section” by Jasper Kent (Reviewed by Robert Thompson)

Official Jasper Kent Website
Order “The Third Section” HERE (US) + HERE (UK)
Read An Excerpt HERE
Read FBC’s Review of “Twelve”

Read FBC’s Review of “Thirteen Years Later”

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Jasper Kent attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge where he earned a degree in Natural Sciences with a specialty in Physics. For over twenty years he has worked as a software consultant & trainer, while writing both fiction and music. His bibliography includes the first three volumes of The Danilov Quintet, two unpublished novels (Yours Etc., Mr Sunday; Sifr), various short stories, a play, and several co-written musicals (Writer's Cramp, Malvolio's Revenge, The Promised Land and Remember! Remember!).

PLOT SUMMARY: Russia, 1855.  After forty years of peace in Europe, war rages. In the Crimea, the city of Sevastopol is besieged. In the north, Saint Petersburg is blockaded. But in Moscow there is one who needs only to sit and wait—wait for the death of an aging tsar, and for the curse upon his blood to be passed to a new generation.

As their country grows weaker, a man and a woman—unaware of the hidden ties that bind them—must come to terms with their shared legacy. In Moscow, Tamara Valentinovna Komarova uncovers a brutal murder. It seems this is not the first killing of its kind, but the most recent in a sequence of similar murders that have been committed since 1812.

And in Sevastopol, Dmitry Alekseevich Danilov faces not only the guns of the combined armies of Britain and France, but must also make a stand against creatures that his father had thought buried beneath the earth, thirty years before...

CLASSIFICATION: Like its predecessors, The Third Section blends historical fiction with vampire horror. Think Bernard Cornwell meets Bram Stoker and Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles meets Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.

FORMAT/INFO: The Third Section is 476 pages long divided over a Prologue, twenty-seven Roman-numbered chapters, and an Epilogue. Also includes an Author’s Notes, a Selected Romanov Family Tree, information on the Crimean War and His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery, a cartoon from Punch magazine published in 1854, a Map of Sevastopol in 1855, and a list of characters. Narration is in the third-person via three main POVs: Dmitry Alekseevich Danilov, Tamara Valentinovna Komarova, and Vasiliy Innokyentievich Yudin. Like its predecessors, The Third Section is largely self-contained, but is the third volume in The Danilov Quintet after Twelve and Thirteen Years Later. The People’s Will is the working title for the fourth volume in the series.

August 18, 2011 marks the UK Trade Paperback Publication of The Third Section via Bantam Press UK. The US edition will be published by Pyr in October 2011, and will feature the same artwork by Paul Young.

ANALYSIS: Jasper Kent’s Twelve was a remarkable debut, one that I still remember quite vividly. The sequel, Thirteen Years Later, was arguably even better. Following in the footsteps of these two exceptional novels, The Third Section had very large shoes to fill. A feat the book is unable to fully pull off because of two specific problems.

The first of these problems is with the protagonists. In Thirteen Years Later, the author made the switch from Aleksei Danilov’s first-person narrative to multiple third-person POVs. A move I didn’t mind too much since Aleksei remained a main character. Unfortunately, Aleksei Danilov has been demoted to a very minor supporting role in The Third Section. Taking his place as the main protagonists are Aleksei’s son Dmitry Alekseevich Danilov and Tamara Valentinovna Komarova, both of whom had POVs in Thirteen Years Later. Dmitry and Tamara are well-developed characters with interesting backgrounds and fleshed out hopes, desires and regrets. Yet, I never became attached to them the same way I became attached to Aleksei. Third-person narration is partly to blame, lacking the intimacy found in Twelve’s first-person POV that allowed readers to forge a strong emotional connection with Aleksei Danilov. The bigger issue though, lies with the story, which is the novel’s second problem.

Slow pacing, fewer surprises, a noticeable lack of thrills and tension, subplots that fail to deliver, recycled material . . .  The Third Section’s story suffers from all of these issues. The slow pacing can be attributed to a story that spans years—1854-1856—and lacks the immediacy of the first two Danilov novels. The fewer surprises are a result of knowing too much information: Tamara’s real parents, Raisa’s deception, Yudin’s plotting, etc. (I believe parts of The Third Section are much more effective if you haven’t already read Twelve and Thirteen Years Later.) The plot’s pacing issues and lack of a major conflict contribute to The Third Section’s shortage of thrills and tension. (Yudin represents the main villain in The Third Section, but I found him more compelling than either Dmitry or Tamara, while Zmyeevich and the Romanov Curse are hardly a factor because of what happened in the last book.) Unrewarding subplots were a combination of knowing too much, recycled material and questionable decisions with the vampires of Chufut Kalye, Raisa, and Tamara’s parentage specific letdowns. Most disappointing of all was Yudin’s “endgame”, a revenge over forty years in the making that ended with a whimper. Lastly, while it’s interesting to see the numerous ways in which The Third Section and its predecessors are connected despite a thirty and forty-three year gap, I wish the book had not retread over so much familiar territory.

Apart from these problems with the protagonists and story, The Third Section is actually a very good book. The historical elements are once again detailed and realistic; Jasper Kent’s prose and characterization remain top-notch; and the book offers heavy doses of Yudin, a captivating villain who also appeared in the first two books, but under different names.

CONCLUSION: Compared against Twelve and Thirteen Years Later, The Third Section is easily the weakest of Jasper Kent’s three books because of protagonists who are not nearly as compelling as Aleksei Danilov and a slow-paced story lacking in originality and reward. That all said, as the third volume in The Danilov Quintet, The Third Section works well as a bridge novel, helping readers transition between one generation of characters and the next, and I’m confident the series will return to form in the fourth book...

"The Last Four Things" by Paul Hoffman (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

Order "The Last Four Things" HERE
Read FBC Review of The Left Hand of God

INTRODUCTION: Last year's The Left Hand of God was a novel that elicited very powerful but mixed responses; there were people that loathed it or thought it's the worst hyped debut of the year and there were people, including myself, that utterly loved it and thought it was awesome. So The Last Four Things was one the five novels I marked as must read, try and get a copy as soon as possible, etc for 2011 though I was a little apprehensive if the "magic" of The Left Hand of God will still be there for me, or the series will be exposed as "emperor's new clothes" as many others have claimed.

Once I opened it and I got entranced once more in the twisted world of Thomas Cale and the Redemeers, I applied my reading method for books I do not want to end - read 100 pages, reread them, read another 100 pages and then read the full 200, etc.

Due to circumstances I was not able to write this review for the earlier UK publication, so I postponed it for today's US publication and that added the time dimension since now after several months I can look back and evaluate it better.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: I want to start by remarking that The Last Four Things is a book that most likely will have the same resonance as The Left Hand of God with the reader. You hated that, don't bother; you loved it, get this asap.

I make this claim since the things that distinguished The Left Hand of God from the run-of-the-mill dark bad boy fantasy that is in vogue today - the alternation of styles, from exuberant to really dark, the mostly superb word plays on the famous and infamous in history, the strange and occasionally merciless undertones and the twists and turns that truly made the next pages unpredictable are still there.

However there are some notable differences too. The Last Four Things has considerably more backstory and world building - and indeed things make sense and hang together eliminating one of my fears after the sketched world of the previous novel, namely that the author's world won't make sense in detail. But it does and here we see things like logistics, speed of communication, population sizes, etc, all adding depth and painting a full 3D picture.

The characters also get more texture, though the third person narrative allows Thomas Cale to still remain a mystery; now he is coming into his own, far from the scared boy genius of The Left of God, to the outwardly confident man that events if not age made him be. His master, tormentor and protector, Redemeer Bosco comes also into his own here and the novel is as much about his plans as about Thomas Cale's odyssey, so now we have two extremely powerful and larger than life characters not only one. And in a partly comic relief, partly wistful role, Kleist gets his own thread too, though I found it less interesting than the main Bosco/Cale one.

The other personages from the debut - Vague Henry, IdrisPukke, Vipond, Arbell and Conn Materazzi, etc - make also appearances and several more secondary but quite interesting characters are introduced too, while some of the scenes between them and Cale are utterly memorable and constitute a key to the ending which is another stunner. There was a point in the book where I thought I know what will happen and how The Last Four Things will end, but the author turned and surprised me once again making the trilogy ending another book to beg and cajole for as early a copy as possible.

"All but the kitchen sink" is still thrown in and The Last Four Things has some stuff that's even more outrageously funny than in The Left Hand of God, so I found myself shaking with laughter often, though the book is also pretty dark and not for the easily offended. The Pyramid of Lincoln and The Protocols of the Moderators of Antagonism - the Bosco ordered forgery to save his and Cale's bacon after the events in The Left Hand of God and Cale's defection - are among the many early "pearls" and the book abounds with these historical allusions as interpreted by the author.

In a very nice touch, the author has a great two page explanation about his sources, including famous philosophers, Catholic thinkers, poets, obscure manuals of war that are available online and one (in)famous speech of Saddam Hussein which seems to be on YouTube, speech that *** cribs in the book before ***. Since it's a Saddam speech, the last **** should be easily guessed at.

After some months have passed from finishing the novel, there is one weakness I missed in the emotion of the first read - The Last Four Things is ultimately a transitional middle book and while it has a clear theme and an ending to one of its main threads, we still remain a bit in the dark where all ultimately will go; as mentioned, I thought I had an idea, but the ending quickly disabused me of that.

Overall The Last Four Things (A++) takes the promise of The Left Hand of God and fulfills it in a more complex book with all the world building that was only hinted there, but keeping the narrative switches and the many twists, while the trilogy finale is something I really want asap...

“Low Town” by Daniel Polansky (Reviewed by Robert Thompson)

Official Daniel Polansky Website

Order “Low Town” HERE + HERE
Read An Interview HERE

Watch the Book Trailer HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Daniel Polansky is from Baltimore, Maryland. Low Town is his first novel.

PLOT SUMMARY: In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its cham­pion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs. Every day is a constant hustle to find new customers and protect his turf from competition like the low-life Tancred the Harelip and Ling Chi, the dangerous crime lord of the heathens.

The Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his dis­covery of a murdered child down a dead-end street . . . set­ting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House—the secret police—he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investi­gated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psy­chotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted...

FORMAT/INFO: Low Town is 352 pages long divided over forty-nine numbered chapters. Narration is in the first-person, exclusively via a thirty-five year old crime lord/drug dealer/junkie named the Warden. Low Town is self-contained, but is the first volume in a series. August 16, 2011 marks the North American Hardcover publication of Low Town via Doubleday. The UK edition (see below) will be published by Hodder & Stoughton on August 18, 2011 under the title, The Straight Razor Cure.

ANALYSIS: Daniel Polansky’s Low Town is categorized as ‘noir fantasy’. What is noir fantasy? In my mind, it’s when Raymond Chandler & Dashiell Hammett meets the fantastic—magic, the supernatural, and so forth. Combining noir with fantasy is hardly a new concept. China Miéville's The City & The City, Jeff VanderMeer's Finch, Glen Cook’s Garrett P.I. series, Hellblazer, The Vampire Files by P.N. Elrod, Simon R. Green’s Nightside, Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels, The Dresden Files, Alex Bledsoe’s Eddie LaCrosse series, Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim novels . . . these are just a few of the many examples to be found. As far as noir fantasy goes, Low Town doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, but Daniel Polansky’s debut is still one of the subgenre’s better efforts...

What impressed me the most about Low Town was the setting. Of the noir fantasy that I’ve read, the majority of them—urban fantasy novels in particular—take place in an alternate version of our world where magic and the paranormal are real. Not Low Town. Low Town is set in a fully realized secondary world complete with its own races and countries (Dren, Islanders, Kirens, Rouender, Asher, Tarasaihgn, Vaalan, Miradin, Nestria), currency (ochres, argents), gods and religion (Church of Prachetas, the Lost One, the Firstborn, Oathkeeper, the Daevas, Śakra), narcotics (pixie’s breath, dreamvine, wyrm, Daeva’s honey, ouroboros root), history, et cetera. The focus of this world is the city of Rigus with its different neighborhoods and districts including Kirentown, Kor’s Heights, and of course, Low Town itself.

Even though Daniel Polansky’s novel takes place in a fantasy world, it’s a familiar backdrop. That’s because the author draws inspiration from real people, cities and history. As a result, Rigus feels like a cross between 19th century London and some major American city (Los Angeles, New York City) from the 1930s/40s, while the Red Fever and the war with the Dren brought to mind the Great Plague and World War I. Also recognizable are the book’s depictions of social stratification, racism, crime, and police corruption & bureaucracy. In some instances, the author does little more than change a name—Kirens are Asians, Islanders are black people, dreamvine is marijuana—but even this small of an effort makes a difference. Personally, I felt the secondary world injected flavor into the novel’s noir elements, while the familiarity of the setting made it easier to become immersed in the world of Low Town.

Magic meanwhile, exists in the form of the Art, sorcerers (Crane the First Sorcerer of the Realm; Celia, Sorcerer First Rank; Brightfellow), scryers, the Crown’s Eye, wards to protect the city from the plague, and a gargoyle that guards the entrance to the Aerie. To be honest, between Crane, the Bureau of Magical Affairs and the Academy for the Furtherance of the Magical Arts, magic in Low Town reminded me a little bit of Harry Potter, which seemed at odds with the rest of the novel. To make matters worse, there’s not even that much magic in the book to begin with, and of the little magic that does show up, it’s either not explained or developed very well by the author, or it’s told about (the wards, using the Crown’s Eye) rather than shown.

Besides the setting, I also loved the tone of the book. A lot of authors have tried to emulate Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but not everyone can pull it off. Daniel Polansky does so with ease, with the characters, story and milieu of Low Town all delightfully drenched in hard-boiled noir. In other words, Low Town is dark, gritty and morally ambivalent. Of course, the highlight is easily Warden with his grim history—survivor of the Fever, the streets and war; gave up a successful career in law enforcement to live a life of crime—and a riveting first-person narrative that reflects the protagonist’s sarcastic sense of humor, moral ambivalence, and cynical attitudes:

“Everything’s always clearer in hindsight. If I had the day to do over again, I would try to avoid getting my ass kicked.”

“People are fools. You don’t need a prophet to tell the future. Look at yesterday, then look at today. Tomorrow is likely to be the same, and the day after.”

“We went to war because going to war is fun, because there’s something in the human breast that trills at the thought, although perhaps not the reality, of murdering its fellows in vast numbers. Fighting a war ain’t fun—fighting a war is pretty miserable. But starting a war? Hell, starting a war is better than a night floating on Daeva’s honey.”

“I learned something back then, something about the nature of crime, and of the things people do that are meant to remain hidden. Solving a mystery isn’t about finding clues or getting lucky with a suspect—it’s about deciding what to look for, framing the narrative in your mind. If you can puzzle out the questions, the answers will come.”

The supporting cast includes some interesting morally gray characters including the bartender Adolphus, Wren the street urchin, Crane the First Sorcerer of the Realm, Celia, Warden’s ex-partner Crispin, the Smiling Blade, Crowley, the Old Man, Yancey the Rhymer, the Kiren crime lord Ling Chi, Mairi the Dark-Eyed, the scryer Marieke and Dr. Kendrick. Sadly, none of these characters are very well developed. Since Low Town is written in the first-person, this is not exactly a major surprise. Nevertheless, I wish the author had done more to flesh out Warden’s relationship & history with Crane, Celia and Crispin, especially considering their importance to the novel.

Plot-wise, Low Town features a murder mystery that forces Warden’s current life as a crime lord, drug dealer and junkie to collide with his former life as an agent and Special Ops of the Crown. Surprisingly, the murder mystery is not the novel’s main attraction. Instead, Warden’s history is the more compelling story line, which is revealed through various flashbacks—life on the streets after his parents died of the plague and his sister was killed; enlisting in the war at nineteen years old; participating in the secret mission that ended the war with the Dren Commonwealth—although the author leaves a few matters unanswered like why Warden left the Crown’s service in the first place or how he took over Low Town. The problem with Low Town’s central mystery—Who is kidnapping and murdering Low Town children, and why?—are obvious red herrings, spoiler-ish foreshadowing, and a surprise twist that is very easy to figure out. The ending is also somewhat disappointing due to its truncated resolution and unsettled issues.

CONCLUSION: Daniel Polansky’s Low Town is far from perfect. As noir fantasy, the book is fairly conventional, formulaic even. As a debut, Low Town is rough around the edges—supporting characters lack depth, magic is unoriginal and underdeveloped, and the story’s ending and central mystery fail to deliver. Yet, despite all of that, I loved Low Town. I loved the setting. I loved the characters. I loved the noir. And when the sequel is ready, I will love coming back to Low Town and continuing Warden’s tale...

"Heart of Iron" by Ekaterina Sedia (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu)

Official Ekaterina Sedia Website
Read FBC Review of The Alchemy of Stone
Order Heart of Iron HERE or HERE (epub)

INTRODUCTION: Since I've read and enjoyed a lot The Alchemy of Stone, I always kept an eye on what Ekaterina Sedia publishes. I have a copy of last year's The House of Discarded Dreams which I plan to read at some point, but when Heart of Iron was announced the blurb immediately jumped at me. I checked out the Amazon Kindle sample and I liked what I read there so I immediately got a copy and read it soon after.

"In a Russia where the Decembrists' rebellion was successful and the Trans-Siberian railroad was completed before 1854, Sasha Trubetskaya wants nothing more than to have a decent debut ball in St. Petersburg. But her aunt's feud with the emperor lands Sasha at university, where she becomes one of its first female students - an experiment, she suspects, designed more to prove female unsuitability for such pursuits than offer them education. The pressure intensifies when Sasha's only friends—Chinese students—start disappearing, and she begins to realize that her new British companion, Jack, has bigger secrets than she can imagine! Sasha and Jack find themselves trying to stop a war brewing between the three empires."

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Heart of Iron has a very ambitious premise, trying to mix steampunk action with "realism" about race, gender, etc in the 19th century. Unfortunately it fails in its execution, the novel soon becoming in fact a YA adventure with an enchanting heroine and great atmosphere, but action without tension or danger in pulp mode, while said "realism" about women in the 19th century society and to a lesser extent about races is very simplistic and soon it is essentially forgotten in the quest of our heroine to make everyone happy, the world a better place and the baddies repent.

Alexandra aka Sasha's father has been a hero of the Decembrist revolution in 1825, but on his death he has left the family somewhat impoverished; fortunately Sasha is also the heir of her maternal aunt Countess Eugenia Menshova who has inherited the maternal line wealth and is a very well known - some would say notorious - personality in the capital, friend of Emperor Constantine and militating for women's rights in a society that has been modernizing at a furious pace since the revolution.

Growing up at the family estate at Trubetskoye, Sasha's introduction to the St.Petersburg court does not go quite as planned and she returns home somewhat disappointed by the capital. Soon after pushed by Eugenia, the Emperor agrees to try an "experiment" in allowing young women to take classes at the university of St. Petersburg and Sasha -now 18 - is a natural choice for one the few allotted spots. So she finds herself going back to the capital, but this time taking the train that connects St. Petersburg to her far away town.

Apprehensive about how she will be received in the formerly all-male university, Sasha makes friends with another "outsider", a Chinese student Chiang Tse hailing from a Hong Kong recently ceded by the Celestial Empire to the British after the disastrous Opium war. With Britain and Russia preparing to make an alliance and St. Petersburg full of British representatives and agents, while China is in turmoil and revolution, the Chinese students are regarded as enemy spies by many and the secret police led by Constatine's brother Nicholas keeps a close on eye on them with sporadic disappearances.

Soon Sasha finds out that dealing with the male chauvinism of many of her her colleagues and professors is nothing compared to becoming a target of the secret police when even her rank may not protect her, but she also meets a mysterious Englishman Jack Bartram who seems to like her and wants to help her and her friends.

This first half of the novel is excellent on most counts: enchanting heroine with a great narrative voice, excellent world building with a true sense of Russia and a promise of mystery and adventure to come, while the social commentary is not that subtle but works and is drawn from the mores of the times:

"I sighed and remembered the tittering that ran in waves across the auditorium every time Professor Ipatiev spoke about anatomical differences such as that—about how Africans were incapable of any learning, and the Asians could only memorize but not really comprehend complex concepts; about how women’s minds were subordinate to their wombs, how their brains lacked the requisite number of folds. One could not help but feel somewhat insulted."

Sadly all this starts dissipating when the action commences and we see Sasha and Jack starting on the quest mentioned in the blurb. From then on all realism - as it was anyway - disappears, the story becomes very fairytale and the last half is pretty boring since despite the accelerating pace, there is no tension, no sense of danger, you know all will be cheery/peachy and even the bad guys may be redeemed so to speak, while the characters outside Sasha remain one dimensional throughout.

The one thing that kept me reading was Sasha's voice who remained engaging to the end and it was truly a pleasure making the book worthwhile despite the very YA second half. I strongly feel that Heart of Iron (B) could have been so much better were it to either embrace steampunk in its essence - pure wish fulfillment adventure - or if it would have been darker and indeed realistic, with actions having consequences, rather than a continual sequence of almost cartoonish escapes in the nick of time, disguises that nobody penetrates, etc. The elements were there: great narrator, superb style, pitch perfect atmosphere, but the storyline just does not deliver.