Others: Negative When the world is taken over by a brutal ruling body that controls the planet's resources, Eden resolves to survive by finding her way to a neutral island where her efforts to track down a friend are challenged by enemies and traps.
Genres: fantasy, science fiction
Lists: …
V. E. Schwab
2016 · 521 pages · 12 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveFour months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell's possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland's dying body through the rift, and into Black London. In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games-an extravagant international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries-a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port. But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again-and so to keep magic's balance, another London must fall...in V.E. Schwab's A Gathering of Shadows.
What made the match, strongest first
Thomas Burnett Swann
1971 · 194 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Mixed"The Goat Without Horn"s was Thomas Burnett Swann's first book-length work -- a strange tale of a remote island, an island which should be a paradise, but quickly becomes a nightmare in which all known rules of behaviour seem reversed. There, a young man brought up amidst the proprieties of Victorian England finds that his only friend is one small, lonely dolphin...and his enemies include several well-ordered hammerhead sharks...
What made the match, strongest first
Robin Sloan
2017 · 272 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Leaning positiveLois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her; feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it. Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she's providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer's market, and a whole new world opens up.
What made the match, strongest first
Leigh Brackett
1953 · 131 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveGreed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight.
What made the match, strongest first
C.J. Cherryh
1981 · 436 pages · 7 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveFrom back cover Daw paperback February 1981: Pell's Star occupied the central spot in the coming conflict between Earth's tired stellar empire and the tough onslaught of its rebellious colonies. Whoever controlled Pell's Downbelow station held the key to Earth's defensive perimeter -- or the jumping off point for a Terrestrial offensive to regain the lost empire. But Pell had always been neutral and was determined to remain so. This is a powerful, complex, and enthralling novel of interstellar conflict and ambitions. In its pages you will meet and strive with many vivid persons, human and non-human, who futures would hang on the outcome of that titanic struggle.
What made the match, strongest first
Lauren Beukes
2010 · 384 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveZinzi has a talent for finding lost things. To save herself, she’s got to find the hardest thing of all: the truth. An astonishing second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland.
What made the match, strongest first
Not a fanthe first half of it I loved it I was like this is a great dystopian book I dystopia book I've been waiting for a while because dystopian is kind of falling out of the way genre and I've always loved to stove in and then when it got past the second half it just went it just fell apart
