Posts Tagged: T.C. McCarthy

The Tainted City/Chimera by Courtney Schafer/T.C. McCarthy

Publisher: Night Shade Books/Orbit Books - Pages: 400 - Buy: Book/eBook

When I began writing reviews, I wasn’t sure if anyone would read me, or if I’d ever get review copies. I did, eventually. These two books, reviewed here together, are sequels to the first review copies I ever received: The The Tainted City by Courtney Schafer, sequel to The Whitefire Crossing, and Chimera by T.C. McCarthy, sequel to Germline and Exogene. I write about them together not because of their coincidental significance in helping to establish me as a critic, but because of the vastly different styles between the two and the fact they ultimately succeed for the same reason.

The Whitefire Crossing, Schafer’s debut novel, is an adventure novel about smuggler Dev, his human cargo Kiran, and a blood mage looking to escape his powerful mentor. A mountain climber herself, Schafer spends most of the novel in the Whitefire Mountains, her characters crossing the natural barrier between two nations with very different ideas about the proper use of magic. There’s a joy to the writing that comes from Schafer’s own love of the outdoors, but more than that there’s a general sense of wonder and excitement to the entire project. The Whitefire Crossing ends on an intriguing note, with Dev and Kiran now in the urban jungle fighting a political enemy somewhat divorced from their previous conflict. Read More »

Exogene by TC McCarthySome people treat genre fiction as if it’s a dirty diaper – to be held at arms length and stuffed in a pail as soon as possible. At least that’s the impression I got on Friday, September 23rd. It all started when I went downtown to hand out fliers for my upcoming book signing and to let local representatives have free copies of my debut novel, Germline, because it seemed to me like civic organizations might want to help a local author. My expectations were a little unrealistic (see the moral of the story at the bottom)…

First stop: the Visitor’s Center, which my tax dollars support, and which I reasoned “would surely want to help a local author, especially considering not many local authors have had a shot at this kind of gig.” Not exactly. The lady behind the counter glared at me when I interrupted her knitting, and even my explanation that she could have a free copy of Germline if I could leave a few fliers for my book-signing did nothing to change her mood. She sighed and handed the book back. “Leave the flier with me,” she said, “I have no place to put them but maybe there’s room on the table outside.” OK, I thought, fine; so I tried to hand her a stack of fliers but she shook her head and went back to knitting; “I’ll only need one of those.”
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