The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe is one of the best fantasy novels to appear in the last decade or so. The novel is split into two separate books, The Knight and The Wizard, but like Gene Wolfe’s classic BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, it’s really one big story […]
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Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey They say there are two sides to every story. In Banewreaker, the first book in Jacqueline Carey’s THE SUNDERING duology, we hear the story of the sundering of the world from the perspective of the dark side. Satoris is one of the shapers of the world, seven sibling gods who crafted […]
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The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross The Atrocity Archives contains the first two novellas in Charles Stross’ THE LAUNDRY FILES: The Atrocity Archive and The Concrete Jungle. The series is based on the premise that, before he died, Alan Turing solved a theorem that proved that mathematics could be used to gain access to other […]
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Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson With the quality of special effects improved exponentially, the blockbuster disaster movie appeared in the 90s and hasn’t looked back. Tornadoes (Twister), meteors (Deep Impact and Armageddon), seismic activity (The Core), volcanoes (Dante’s Peak), massive weather events (The Perfect Storm), and, who can forget, Sharknado, have in one way or […]
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Raven’s Shadow by Patricia Briggs Patricia Briggs’ novel Raven’s Shadow begins with a rescue and a romance. Tier, a Rederni ex-soldier, saves young Seraph, a Traveler girl, from murder at the hands of some ruffians in a tavern and a strange, dangerous man in the forest. Intrigued by this brave, foolhardy girl, Tier takes her […]
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The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker I believe it warrants mentioning in the beginning of this review that I find myself in a position where my own review might not be, well, very critical. I have been holding off having to review R. Scott Bakker‘s The Darkness That Comes Before because, to […]
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The Safe-Keeper’s Secret by Sharon Shinn Safe-Keepers can be trusted to never reveal a secret. So it’s no surprise that when a royal bastard needs to be hidden, a Safe-Keeper would be the logical place to hide the child. When the royal messenger who left the infant in the dark of night with the Safe-Keeper […]
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Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones The police procedural isn’t just for the mystery genre any more. Frequently, fantasy writers are combining mysteries with magic in order to produce hybrids that provide all the fun of both genres in a single novel. Tamara Siler Jones accomplishes this feat in her first DUBRIC BRYERLY […]
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The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney Thomas Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son. Therefore, his mother has always planned to apprentice him to the Spook — the traveling exorcist who services the surrounding villages, ridding them of ghosts, witches, ghasts, boggarts, and other troublesome creatures. The Spook performs […]
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Seraphim by Michele Hauf The year is 1433. Seraphim d’Ange is a young woman riding through France on a quest for revenge. The de Morte brothers attacked the d’Ange castle, killing Seraphim’s family. Seraphim was raped, wounded, and left for dead. Now she is disguised as “the Black Knight” and killing off the de Morte […]
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Shadowmarch by Tad Williams Shadowmarch is the start of yet another epic fantasy trilogy by one of the genre’s better known authors. While I wouldn’t personally equate Shadowmarch with Tad Wiliams‘ earlier masterpiece (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn), it does stand above much of what is being written today. As is typical of fantasy, for that […]
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The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon I had intended to simply glance at the first page of The Angel’s Game and then set it aside to finish other books I was reading, but the first paragraph ensnared me: A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of […]
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Peter and the Starcatchers by Ridley Pearson & Dave Barry How did Peter Pan get to Neverland? Where did Tinkerbell come from? How did Hook lose his hand? And most importantly, how did Captain Hook and Peter Pan meet? This last question is the one Paige Pearson asked her father after hearing “Peter Pan,” which in […]
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Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne Day by Day Armageddon is a fictional journal of an unnamed Navy pilot depicting the daily events of the zombie apocalypse. The journal begins with a new year’s resolution, describes newscasts about a virus outbreak in china, then continues to describe each day as things around the world […]
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Silver’s Edge by Anne Kelleher I loved Silver’s Edge. It’s an eyes-glued-to-the-page story of politics and war between three realms in a world not unlike Dark Ages Britain or Ireland. The silver caul that once held the Sidhe, the goblins, and the humans in their own little worlds is missing; now the three races are […]
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The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard Dressed in black with the tall slouch-hat typical of Puritan fashion, and armed with sword, flint-locks, and, later, an ancient carved staff, Solomon Kane stalks the 16th century world from the remote reaches of Europe to the bloody decks of the high seas, and into […]
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The Cup of the World by John Dickinson John Dickinson’s The Cup of the World centers on Phaedra, daughter and only child of the Warden of Trant, an all-important land/fortress in a land with a long history of internal warfare. Her combination of looks, inheritance, and intelligence makes her the prime bridal catch, even one […]
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The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer While it was a nice breath of fresh air to see a book that incorporated the Norse mythology involving Odin, Thor, Ragnarok, etc., something relatively rare in all the fantasy out there, it seemed The Sea of Trolls as a whole lacked a spirit or spark to make […]
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Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison Robert read the omnibus version called This Witch for Hire. It contains Dead Witch Walking and The Good, The Bad, and the Undead. A guilty pleasure of mine, pardon the pun, was reading the ANITA BLAKE series by author Laurell K. Hamilton. Unfortunately, like many readers, I was turned off by the direction that […]
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Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish Troll Fell is a decent young adult book whose Norse background gives a more fresh feel to an otherwise relatively mundane plot and set of characters. Younger readers will most likely enjoy it if not be inspired or captured by it; older readers won’t find much to chew on. The […]
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The Stone of the Stars by Alison Baird The Stone of the Stars is a fun, if imperfect, high fantasy with gently feminist overtones, a coming-of-age theme, and a slight hint of romance. The beginning is… well, inauspicious. There’s a Prologue that has the feel of warmed-over Tolkien as seen through the lens of the […]
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The Game of Sunken Places by M.T. Anderson The Game of Sunken Places has at its core several relatively humdrum concepts: a board game that plays for real, a hidden kingdom, two friends (one timid, one outgoing), a race to save the (or a) world. This isn’t so bad since so much fantasy works with […]
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THE BRIDGE OF D’ARNATH by Carol Berg Carol Berg has been one of my favorite authors for years now, ever since I picked up Son of Avonar, having been intrigued by both the title and the cover. She’s an author who can handle first person point of view with skill (no, it’s not easier, trust me), […]
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Firethorn by Sarah Micklem Reading the publisher’s blurb quoted above, you might expect a very different book from this one. It’s not that it’s inaccurate, per se. It’s just that all of the events in the blurb happen at the very beginning of the story. By page 15, Luck has fled the estate and is […]
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The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston I’m always drawn to material that is described as “fresh,” “original” or “inventive.” So when I was introduced to Steph Swainston and her highly praised fantasy series, I was eager to delve into this fascinating new world starting with Ms. Swainston’s debut The Year of Our War. […]
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