Not eaten, after all?

SF&F Literati Discuss Uprooted
Date: Monday, June 27, 2016
Title: Uprooted 
Author: Naomi Novik
Available from: Fine Booksellers, including Barnes &Noble

Meeting Location: Barnes & Noble #2352, 2^nd Floor

     11323 W. 95^th Street, Overland Park, KS 66214

NOTE: Uprooted is a Hugo finalist THIS YEAR! It also has been honored as “one of the best books of the year” by NPR and others.

Plot Overview from Barnes & Noble

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid.

She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

IMAGE: Many thanks to Tor for the cover art image.

Plan NOW for the July 25 meeting! The selection is Planetfall, by Emma Newman. 

Plan now for the next SF&F Literati meeting, with UPROOTED!

Do you have your copy of Uprooted yet? Plan now for the next SF&F Literati meeting, on June 27, 2016!

The selection is Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. NOTE: Uprooted is a Hugo finalist this year!

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: 
NPR - BuzzFeed - Tor.com - BookPage - Library Journal - Publishers Weekly 

Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

“Uprooted is confidently wrought and sympathetically cast. I might even call it bewitching.”—Gregory Maguire, bestselling author of Wicked and Egg & Spoon

IMAGE: Many thanks to Tor for the cover art.

Jan Gephardt Reviews "Victory of Eagles" by Naomi Novik

Taking the 50-Word Review Challenge!

The book: Victory of Eagles
Author: Naomi Novik
The reviewer: Jan S. Gephardt
Available from: Barnes & Noble

The page-turning 5th book in the “Temeraire” series, Victory of Eagles deals with love, duty and treason, and features a Napoleonic invasion of England—yet for me it never quite came to full crescendo or totally satisfying finish.  The series features an alternate history where the Napoleonic wars are fought—but both sides have dragons.  In book 4, Temeraire, the willful Chinese Celestial (dragon) and his captain, Will Laurence, shared a dragon plague’s cure with France; Will is now a convicted traitor, and Temeraire’s exiled to the breeding grounds. Both get temporary release to meet the invasion. Worth reading, but not the series’ strongest book.

Readers, Please Comment: Did you enjoy this review? Dislike it? Agree? Disagree? Please share what you think!
More reviews coming soon!
COVER IMAGE: Courtesy of Barnes & Noble.