Reviews roundup

November 7th 2008 at 7:50 am

Reader Ron Avitzur emailed me this picture of himself as climbs a rock wall in Berkeley while reading Sly Mongoose…

Don D’Ammassa gives a short review of Sly Mongoose, calling it “beautifully written and thoroughly engrossing.”

Paul Abbamondi reviews Sly Mongoose on his LiveJournal:

Buckell has the pacing strength of an avalanche, jamming in action and development and smarmy humor in short chapter bursts, continuously driving forward, never stopping to look back (except after the prologue bit, which I assume was meant to hook readers more than follow a specific narrative scheme).

Metatropolis got a review from Azurescape.

Crystal Rain got blog review here, the review was not as enthused:

I dunno. It was okay reading, but I don’t feel that strongly about it or massively attached to any of the characters. (And the language is…well, for a Caribbean accent, it’s hard to get at times.) It’s more about the action than the personalities.

And Kelly Jensen read Sly Mongoose, and then the rest of my backlist for a review over at the SF Crow’s Nest:

Caribbean-born Tobias Buckell adds the distinctive accents, culture and perspective of his itinerant childhood to his speculative fiction. The addition of an Aztec culture re-created by an alien species only adds to the diversity of his universe making these books stand out. Readers will be delighted to know that they can join the fun with this book alone as Buckell does such an admirable job of bringing you up to speed on the politics of his universe, succinctly, and without boring loyal fans. I decided to go back and read ‘Crystal Rain’ (one hell of a debut) and ‘Ragamuffin’ (immense fun) and finished them in a weekend-long marathon. I just couldn’t stop. It’s been a while since I’ve read so fast and enjoyed books so much. Buckell’s writing just gets better and better and the overall plot of his universe is building.

Some interviews have gone live this week as well.

The first is an audio interview with Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing.

Jacques Barcia and I had a long and detailed interview that is up at Fantasy Book Critic.

At the same time, an interview with Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen:

In many of the reviews of Sly Mongoose that I have read, it seemed much of the focus was on the opener with Pepper. Who are some of the more “obscure” characters in Sly Mongoose that you believe readers might want to notice more?

I really loved writing Katerina. She was spunky and in control of her life, and remains pretty calm and centered throughout the book. I wanted to write her POV into the book, but it would have dragged the opening down that I wanted, so I made the heavy choice of keeping only to two POVs in this book. But she embodied the promise of techno-democracy and a sense of maturity that came with.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, closed out a lot of open tabs!

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