Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) is a delightful young adult story for those who like a heavy dose of satire in their fantasy. Similar to Diana Wynne Jones’ The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, it pokes fun of the genre we love by exposing and exploiting some of […]
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Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff Tanya Huff’s KEEPER’S CHRONICLES is about a family of Keepers, descendants of Lilith who have the power to close up holes in the fabric of the universe that appear when evil things happen. Keepers get supernaturally summoned toward these holes, so they’re often on the go, traveling from place […]
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The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox In many ways this is a strange book in both content and format, but once you read the first few chapters and get used to the way in which the story is told, The Vintner’s Luck (1998) is a compelling, page-turning read from an author whose style reminds me of […]
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THE CHRONICLES OF SIRKARA by Laura Resnick This series is also called THE SILERIAN TRILOGY and IN FIRE FORGED. I enjoy running across books that haven’t received much attention. I also enjoy running across books that I enjoy a lot more than I expected to. When you smash both of those things together, you come up […]
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I Am Mordred by Nancy Springer Almost all the modern stories derived from Arthurian legends focus on King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain, and Merlin. Why does Mordred, the man who eventually brings down the whole shebang, get such short shrift? There’s plenty of source material, most notably Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum […]
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The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt It actually wasn’t until I finished The Silver Wolf that I learnt that author Alice Borchardt was the sister of vampire novelist Anne Rice (that explains why her endorsement is on the title page) but I doubt that this knowledge would have affected my reading experience. In hindsight, Borchardt […]
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Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay The new emperor in Sarantium has a lot to atone for, so he’s building a grand chapel to his god and calling the most famous artisans in the surrounding regions to come work for him. Crispin, a mosaicist from a neighboring country, is one of these. Unhappy since […]
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Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories, Volume 1 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories, Volume 1 by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday is for the reader who has a nostalgia for the space explorer- and Doc Savage-style pulp fiction along with a love of futuristic […]
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The Arm of the Stone by Victoria Strauss The world has been torn asunder. Originally held together by disciplines of mind and hand, devotees of the powers of the mind have been pushed aside by the technological innovations of the devotees of hand power. As belief in the power of magic fades, the last enclaves […]
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Green Rider by Kristen Britain The trouble with Green Rider (or, well, the major trouble with Green Rider) is that it all just feels a bit silly. This may be a bit of a chuckle for some of you as, let’s face it, our entire genre could be and is regarded as rather silly what […]
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Bloodwinter by Tom Deitz Tom Deitz spends rather a lot of time during the course of Bloodwinter telling the reader just how extraordinarily awful the winters of his fantasy kingdom of Eron are, how Herculean must be the efforts of those who seek to cross the frozen wasteland. Without getting cuter with this analogy, there […]
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The Squire’s Tale by Gerald Morris The Squire’s Tale is what I love to see out of kids’ fantasy. It’s charming, it’s well-told, it’s entertaining for a number of age groups, and even as it simplifies and plays with the mythology it uses, it remains lovingly respectful of the original texts. I was actually surprised […]
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The Dark City by Catherine Fisher The Dark City is the first of a four-book series by Catherine Fisher published years ago in England and now being released (in its entirety rather than year by year) to the US. Classified as young adult, I’d say it skews toward the upper end of YA while also […]
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Skellig by David Almond Michael is living in a stage of upheaval and transition in his life: his parents have just moved to a rather derelict house, his unnamed baby sister is drastically ill, and the house is often visited by ‘Doctor Death’, the doctor sent to check up on his sister. On top of […]
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Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover Science has discovered inter-dimensional travel and the other-dimensional world of Ankhanna, which we call Overworld. And like all most discoveries, it’s not long before someone figures out how to cash in. Big corporations create the ultimate reality entertainment by sending “actors” to Overworld on adventures for the masses to […]
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Beyond the Deep Woods by Paul Stewart Beyond the Deepwoods is the start to the long-running Edge Chronicles. This first book does what one would expect, introduces the world, the major characters, and the major conflicts, but it does so in such shallow fashion that one might be hard-pressed to consider reading on. I don’t […]
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The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price In the 21st century an invention has finally been perfected: The Time Tube, which allows contemporary scientists, researches and corporate moneymakers to travel back into the 16th century and mingle with the locals there. Think of the possibilities! Plentiful supplies of oil, gold and coal, an extraordinary opportunity to […]
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Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan I’m trying to remember how long ago I first read Silk. It may have been as much as ten years ago, when the book was new. I can’t say for sure, but I can say that few books have stayed with me the way Silk has. Even when I’d forgotten […]
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THE BLACK JEWELS TRILOGY by Anne Bishop Imagine a fairy-tale heroine. You know the type: beautiful, kind, able to charm all the beasties of the forest into eating out of her hand. On the astral plane, she even has a unicorn’s horn. Now imagine that she has enough magical power to move mountains. (Literally.) You might […]
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The Sum of All Men by David Farland Gaborn Orden, the next King of Mystarria is headed to the kingdom of Heredon to ask the lovely Princess Iome for her hand in marriage. Castle Sylvarresta however is under attack by the evil Raj Ahten, the Runelord of all Runelords. With thousands of endowments taken from […]
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The Wolf Tower by Tanith Lee The Wolf Tower (also published as The Law of the Wolf Tower) is the first of a quartet of books concerning the young woman Claidi’s series of adventures in a fantasy realm, as told and recorded by her in her journal. Her story begins in the House where she […]
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The Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan Fantasy books can be like beverages: you have your exquisitely aged wines (The Lord of the Rings, Mists of Avalon); your rich ports and liquors (the works of Guy Kay and Patricia McKillip); your searingly clear vodka (A Song of Ice and Fire); your boxed wines (The Wheel of […]
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Wit’ch Fire by James Clemens Wit’ch Fire was a genuine impulse buy. I had read no reviews nor received recommendations — I was simply in the bookshop, liked the cover and plot synopsis on the reverse, and listened to my gut. Foolhardy, perhaps, but sometimes fortune favours the bold. This time, it did. Wit’ch Fire […]
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The Witches of Eileanan by Kate Forsyth I wanted to like The Witches of Eileanan. I’m always looking for something to read and this is a pretty long series. Unfortunately, although I tried valiantly, I couldn’t even finish it. Usually, for books that I can’t make it through, I give a DNF (did not finish) […]
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