Princess Alethea’s Magical Elixir

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show!

Title: In Dreams Begin
Author: Skyler White
EAN: 9780425236956

Three things instantly struck me when I started Skyler White’s In Dreams Begin. The first was the gorgeous fluidity of the prose. Skyler has obviously studied poets and is also one herself; she writes in a way that makes other writers in the genre (namely, me) exceptionally jealous. I took me almost a week to get through the first hundred pages, because I knew that if I didn’t read carefully, I would be missing some special nuance lost in the language. In Dreams Begin is by no means a quick read; I re-read many of the sentences multiple times, making sure I was getting all the information I needed. And I’m still pretty sure I missed a lot… (Read more)

Title: Hunger
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
EAN: 9780547341248

I read Hunger directly on the heels of Skyler White’s In Dreams Begin, and experienced an interesting juxtaposition. Where Skyler’s prose is weighty and thick, Jackie’s is much more accessible and even young adult friendly. Where In Dreams Begin took me over a week to finish, I gobbled up Hunger in one day. But where the previous one tripped through erotic fantasy, the subject matter of this book was the more difficult to . . . well . . . consume… (Read more)

Title: Alien Invasion & Other Inconveniences
Author: Brian Yansky
Audio Read By: Alexander Cendese
EAN: 9781441889966

Yansky’s book starts sort of like a gunshot, with — you guessed it — an alien invasion. I enjoy this get-right-to-it mentality in books I listen to on audio, because (let’s be honest) I bore easily. Sometimes, having a book read to me on tape is so incredibly soothing that my mind starts to wander, or simply falls asleep altogether. So it helps when the no-nonsense author gets right down to business. It also helps to have an exceptionally engaging narrator like Alexander Cendese. Cendese’s depth and breadth of vocal range makes for a cast of characters that feels like more than one person behind that microphone… (Read more)