nina kiriki hoffman

[cimorene]

A book I haven't read in years by one of my favorite modern fantasy writers, Bram Stoker award-winner Nina Kiriki Hoffman, finally arrived yesterday! The latest sequel, A Stir of Bones, was published just a few years ago, yet A Red Heart of Memories has been out of print for a long time and apparently didn't get a reprint in association - presumably her publishers assume either that she will never get any new readers ever, or that nobody will be curious about the events of the previous books even though it's completely obvious from the later ones that parts are missing. Because it's somewhat rare, I had to order a copy from North America, and it took a month and a half to get here.

DEAR PUBLISHING WORLD, I would really like to be living in the future now! We have smartphones, netbooks, ebook readers, and tablet computers everywhere now, so please start releasing your back catalogs as ebooks!

Comments

[cimorene]

Hmmm... well... I can't really find a fault to pick with her writing. It does have a definite flavor that might not be to everyone's tastes, I suppose. But a few memorable key points are the multiple female characters; the unusual and cool types of magic she creates and the unusual and cool ways she integrates it into the modern world; the awesome places and imagery; the complex dark tones that underly even her totally age-appropriate YA stuff like Stir of Bones; the things she does with gender eg in Past the Size of Dreaming and morality in general; the affecting but fairly subtle way she handles the romantic relationships in books which are not romances.

[laurajv]

Thank you! That sounds up my alley, and also like a good friend of mine might like to check her out.