A Fantastical Librarian

Bets Davies - Weaver's Web

2012-02-15T08:21:00.000+01:00

Eclectic, sarcastic Weaver, an inner city Oakland high school teacher, knows she's seen it all and just wants to go home after a bad day of student crises. On the way for her longed for chocolate ice cream, she learns two things she didn't know before. Vampires are real. That thing where you make a cross with your arms doesn't work. When the vampire, Jamie—who is nineteen or 391, depending on how you count—stops laughing, he tells her a whole lot else she doesn't know.

Weaver and her twin brother Sam don't have a weird genetic defect. They are changeling sidhe—full-sized elves with attitude—only twin sidhe are doomed to death at birth. Someone's thinking twenty-five years too late isn't too late. Weaver and Jamie must save Sam. Along the way, Weaver learns her reality was a myth, because myths are reality.

Rarely has a book left me so conflicted, not just after finishing it, but during reading it as well, as Weaver's Web. While the concept is a fun one – all mythological monsters are real and form a sort of underground society within our own; that is until a portion of them decides they want to stop conforming and dominate humanity again. Our heroine needs to stop this, while saving her own hide, and her twin brother's, at the same time – its execution left me a little underwhelmed. This is mostly due to the love story in the book.

So let’s start there, so I can explain why I kept reading later and end on a positive note. This book had a severe case of insta-love/lust going on, something which I really dislike. Weaver and Jamie meet in the first chapter of the book and within a day Weaver is undeniably drawn to Jamie and he to her. While insta-love is a trope I really dislike, most of the time I can tolerate it as long as it is not the sole focus of the protagonists. In this case, Weaver and Jamie's 'developing' relationship completely got in the way of what, in my opinion, was a pretty okay story. Every time, and those times were numerous, the story turned to Weaver obsessing about what to do about Jamie, or Jamie thinking about Weaver, or Weaver and Jamie together as a couple, I just wanted to roll my eyes and yell at them to get on with it back to the story. Because while both Weaver and Jamie are adults, they moon over each other like love-struck calves. It just didn't feel believable and to me was just incredibly annoying. So much so, that I contemplated just walking away from the book several times.

Why did I keep reading then, you might ask? I kept reading because the bare bones of the story, while perhaps familiar, were really fun and Davies takes some interesting monsters along in the mixes of her mythology. I liked the adding in of the Olmec Jaguar Spirits and the Russian folk tale figure of Baba Yaga, which meant that Davies adds some unique elements to her world, which could have stayed in the rather familiar supernatural territories of elves, vampires and werewolves. Her vampires even make fun of today's sparkly vampires, by having Jamie dress in an Edward hoodie and saying he's being ironic. In addition, Davies has a very facile and pleasant writing style, which makes reading on very easy. This easy writing style – by which I mean easy to read, I don't know about easy to write – combined with what in its basic premise is a sound plot is what rescues this book from being a disaster in my opinion.

So, in the end, I can't say I wholly enjoyed Weaver's Web. As it stands, I just had too many problems with it to whole-heartedly recommend it. As a first encounter with Davies' work, I'd far rather recommend her second novel, Rebirth, which in my opinion is far stronger. However, if you like the insta-love trope, this is definitely a book for you; alas, it's what let the book down for me.

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

B.B. Griffith - Blue Fall

2012-02-13T09:29:00.000+01:00

A routine investigation throws a hapless insurance agent down the rabbit hole, into a world where the rich and powerful place wagers on the greatest game on earth.

They call it the Tournament. It offers competition without limits. It is beholden to no man, and constrained by no law, and it is extremely dangerous.

But where does the true power lie in this World Cup of warfare? With those who placing the bets, or with the deadly players themselves? And can one man tell the world what he knows before he’s snuffed out?

Blue Fall is a fun, fast read. The idea of national warriors, who might even be used to settle political disputes between nations, is fascinating. As mentioned on the publisher's website, the idea of national champions is an ancient one. We've all heard of the King's or the Queen's Champion and trial by combat is a well-documented medieval phenomenon. It died out halfway through the Seventeenth Century; but what if it didn't? What if, instead of long, drawn-out wars, international disputes could still be settled in what is essentially a duel to the death? That is the question Griffith poses in his novel. Even if the Tournament started as a secret entertainment for the mega-rich, it's turning more and more political and it's hard to guess the consequences.

The book is an easy read and I really enjoyed it. However, I did have some quibbles with it. First of all, this is a long book. Normally I'm fine with door stoppers, but this book felt long at times. It felt as if the narrative could have been tightened. Griffith spends a lot of time introducing his characters, not just the ones that play large parts during the entire narrative, but also the minor characters, such as some of the teams. On the one hand, this makes the reader feel for those she reads about, whether sympathy or dislike as is appropriate, on the other hand, it makes the narrative drag in places and only once the Tournament truly starts does the pace go into overdrive. There are also some storylines that feel either slim or redundant. The main character we start with, that of insurance agent Frank Youngsmith, at one point disappears from the story until quite near the end of the novel, which surprised me since, from reading the blurb, I thought his was the story we'd be following. Another storyline that really seemed redundant, especially once we reach the end of the novel and the events that conclude it, is that of Sarah, daughter to one of the physicians connected to the Tournament. Perhaps her role will make more sense come the second book, but in this book it just took up extra space and just didn't make sense.

On the positive side, once the Tournament starts the book picks up pace and the scenes between the teams are super suspenseful. In addition, the conspiracy side of this thriller comes out and becomes more and more important. I liked that Griffith incorporated old grudges between the teams into the story, which not only makes for extra character motivation, but also lends an air of credibility to the escalation of violence and the disregard for civilian casualties and the possibility of exposure of the secret of the Tournament. While the introduction of all the characters made the book drag for me, Griffith has a talent for making you care about a character in a short amount of time. He doesn't just do this for the important characters, but also for the minor ones. For example, I'm still wondering how Diego's family and especially his nephew dealt with the fallout of the events at their house. Even if there are many, many characters and it's a bit unclear who exactly are the main characters – I'd even posit there aren't any main characters, apart from the Tournament itself – it's never unclear who to root for; all of the characters have dark sides, especially the team members, but it's clear which of them are the 'good guys' and which are the 'bad guys'.

Since the Tournament is a worldwide event, the book takes us across the globe into many different locations. Due to this being a contemporary novel, the actual world building is kept to a minimum, with more time spent on building up the specifics of the Tournament organisation and the technology that allows the game to be played, than the backdrop against which it is played. I had no problem with this as it was our world in our time and deep-level world building for the locale isn't necessary in that case, but the background on the Tournament organisation and mechanics was. However, if you do prefer intricate description of the places a book visits, be aware you might be disappointed.

In the end, despite all its flaws, I have to say that Blue Fall is a gripping read, especially towards the end. The idea behind the novel is a very interesting one and I'm looking forward to seeing where the author will take his ideas and the development of the Tournament. I know I'll be back for the second instalment, if only because I have to know who ends up winning this round of the Tournament! If you're into conspiracy thrillers and like both mystery and action, I recommend giving Blue Fall a try. Hang in there through the first third and you'll be racing along to ending and wanting to know what happens next.

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

Helen Grant - The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

2012-02-10T09:08:00.000+01:00

On the day Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is the last person to see her alive. Terror is spreading through the town. How could a ten-year-old-girl vanish in a place where everybody knows everybody else?

Pia is determined to find out what happened to Katharina.
But then the next girl disappears...

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is Helen Grant's debut novel, which, ironically, I read last after The Glass Demon and Wish Me Dead. So for me it was a return to Bad Münstereifel and some characters I'd met before, such as Frau Kessel and Frau Nett and familiar locations. Reading the book also once more underlined how much I enjoy Grant's writing. It only took me about twenty-one pages to fall in love with this book's protagonist, Pia.

Pia is a lovely narrator, cleverly set up to narrate the story several years after what happened in the book. This gives the author the possibility to combine the ten-year-old perspective on the happenings in the village with the added observations of the older Pia. I found this approach a refreshing one, as it shows the complete innocence and fearlessness ten-year-olds possess and at the same time give a good reason for Pia to be able to narrate her story in a grown-up manner.

I loved the combination of Pia and Stefan, or StinkStefan as Pia sometimes refers to him. While I can understand Pia's resentment of being stuck with the most unpopular boy in her class, at the same time I wanted to shake her and tell her to be grateful to have found such a steadfast friend in Stefan. He never even asks her about her Oma Kristel's accident, which is commendable. Oma Kristel's fatal accident is both tragic and hilarious and it's easy to see why it holds such fascination for both the children and the adults of the town. But Stefan never mentions it, he just accepts Pia for who she is. At the same time, I really felt for Stefan, who doesn't seem to have a very happy home life and seems to be able to do as he pleases, even once the girls start disappearing. This is contrasted by Pia's mum's reaction to the situation, which is the desire to move back home to Britain immediately. I can completely understand Pia's English mum wanting to go back to Britain to keep her daughter safe, but at the same time I understand her dad's reluctance to leave his home town.

The frantic atmosphere the girls' disappearance causes in this small town is palpable and well-drawn. While Pia is more fascinated by what happened to Katharina and the others, we feel the adults' anxiety in the way they keep the children at home, need them to check in whenever they are out and by the excessive security measures during large town events, such as St. Martin. In addition to the large scale drama of the disappearances there is the more domestic drama of Pia's parents' marriage breaking up. While this might not be totally due to the disappearances and the consequent tensions, as mum seems to not have been that happy in the small town of Bad Münstereifel, it does reinforce the impact of such events on a small community.

What was fun, was spotting little details that return in Wish Me Dead. When Frau Kessel appeared I groaned; she's a totally despicable old biddy who thrives on gossip and is super malicious in spreading rumours. One such rumour mentioned concerns Magdalena Nett, which connected directly to Wish Me Dead's narrator, Steffi Nett. She also has opinions on who exactly is the culprit in this book and isn't afraid to tell anyone who'll listen. This in turn leads to somewhat of a lynch mob mentality in the townspeople, who besiege the home of the person she accuses. This re-enforces the dangers of gossip, especially in small towns, a point that is also made in Wish me Dead.

The mystery in The Vanishing of Katharina Linden was well done – at some point I had my suspicions as to the true culprit but didn't want to believe it – but at the same time was almost secondary in the narrative to the emotional consequences of the events of the book. The book is a strong debut, but having read Grant's following novels you can see how she's grown in her confidence as writer. Still this is a wonderful story, which makes turning pages for far longer than you planned very, very easy. If you like mystery and YA, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is a lovely book to read. Meanwhile, I'm impatiently looking forward to Grant's next book, Silent Saturday, which will be released next year.

Eva Stachniak - The Winter Palace

2012-02-08T07:59:00.000+01:00

When Varvara, a young orphaned Polish girl, is brought to serve at empress Elizabeth's glittering, dangerous court in St. Petersburg, she is schooled by the Chancellor himself in skills from lock-picking to love-making, learning above all else to stay silent – and listen. Soon she is Elizabeth's 'tongue' – her secret eyes and ears.

Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for Peter, Elizabeth's nephew and heir. Set to spy on her by the Empress, Varvara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit seductions and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court. But Sophie's destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?

As mentioned in my look forward at my most anticipated reads for the first half of 2012, I love historical fiction centred on royalty and aristocracy. And while I'm fairly well grounded in the royal histories of The Netherlands and Great Britain, I'm far less familiar with that other great monarchy, the Russian Tsars. So when I read the synopsis for The Winter Palace, I knew I wanted to read this book as soon as possible. And as I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from the publisher, I didn't have to wait long for the opportunity.

Telling the story of Varvara Nikolayevna, a young Polish orphan, The Winter Palace, shows us the rise to the throne of Catherine the Great. But this book is as much Varvara's story as it is Catherine's. Trained as a spy for Empress Elizabeth, Varvara's viewpoint allows us to witness not just the story of how Princess Sophie became Empress Catherine; it also shows us much of the reign of Empress Elizabeth and the Russian court in the eighteenth century. The story is enthralling and drew me in completely. The details the author adds to her narrative are amazing and very well researched.

Stachniak doesn't spare the reader the nasty side of eighteenth century Russian life, while we are blown away by the splendours of the Russian Imperial Court; we also see the rot beneath. The bad (oral) hygiene, the deplorable medical practices – such as bleeding a patient as a cure for any and all maladies – and the way those of a lower class would be taken advantage of – Bestuzhev's casual abuse of Varvara – and the ease with which they were discarded once they were no longer considered useful. What drove home the point of distinctions in class is the way Varvara casually notes Bestuzhev's taking of her innocence and doesn't mention it as anything other than an event and it seems she doesn't regard it as rape, but as a natural part of her 'education' as a spy, even if it made her feel sick afterwards. Bestuzhev even tells her he didn't take anything from her, as he left her intact, a virgin. It's a subtle way to show the different mores and customs of the time, although it's one people of our day find appalling.

Varvara is an amazing narrator and protagonist. She's smart, educated and an integral part of the Court, but at the same time an outsider, both due to her Polish nationality and the fact that she has to keep her being a spy secret. It's the skills she's learned as the latter, that make her such a wonderful narrator. She's almost incapable of not observing all that happens around her and remembering it in detail, which lets her recount everything to us with exquisite clarity. I loved her growing closer to Catherine when she was still Sophie and their seemingly genuine friendship, even if that was all thrown in doubt by the ending. I also loved that due to her spy training Varvara is always a little paranoid and suspicious, both because she knows what's going on and because she keeps hearing Bestuzhev's voice in her head, filling it with doubts.

Sophie's transformation from a young, somewhat naive, but still ambitious princess into Catherine, Empress of all Russia and beholden to no one, was caught in a most impressive way. This book shows her fight to not only remain at court and protect herself, but to become (relatively) happy and be the one in control, instead of the one being controlled. She has a hard time under Elizabeth and is very much despised by her husband Peter III, so it's no wonder she reaches out to other men and people outside her set of peers for love and friendship. However, it does give a strange dichotomous view of Catherine's character; on the one hand she's a sweet, loving girl, wanting to please her husband and aunt-in-law, on the other, she's a cunning political player, who schemes to maintain her position and even advance it. Then again, no human is only good or bad, so why would Catherine be?

What touched me most were the scenes in which Catherine gives birth to her first two children. The way the babies are immediately taken away to Elizabeth – Catherine being all but abandoned in her childbed and not to see her children again for months at a time – pierced my heart, for its cruelty and callousness. I can't imagine going through a pregnancy, only to have my child be taken away against my wishes and not even being allowed to hold her for a minute. Especially, when getting pregnant had been such an ordeal for Catherine. At the same time, she chose not to raise any of her natural children herself, just to keep them safe from court intrigue. This must have been hard as well and it would be surprising if this pain hadn't in some way contributed to her hard-hearted ambition to keep her husband from the throne.

The Winter Palace is a mesmerising read; the fascinating story of two outsiders of the Russian court and how one of them succeeded to reach the apex of said court. Stachniak's writing is engaging and at times magical, with a wonderful attention to detail and a flair for laying bare the workings of human relationships. There is so much packed in this novel I haven't touched upon half of what it offers. I loved this book and the good news is Stachniak is writing a companion novel from Catherine's view dealing with her entire reign, which will be called The Empire of Night. I know I'll be there to read that when it comes out. Meanwhile, read The Winter Palace, it's a stunning book that blew me away and I can't recommend it highly enough!

This book was provided by review by the publisher.

Richard Ford - Kultus

2012-02-06T08:36:00.000+01:00

Thaddeus Blaklok – mercenary, demonist, bastard and thug-for-hire – is pressed into retrieving a mysterious key for his clandestine benefactors. Little does he know that other parties seek to secure this artefact for their own nefarious ends and soon he is pursued by brutal cultists, bloodthirsty gangsters, deadly mercenaries and hell spawned monsters, all bent on stopping him by any means necessary.

In a lightning paced quest that takes him across the length and breadth of the steam-fuelled city of Manufactory, Blaklok must use his wits and his own demonic powers to keep the key from those who would use it for ill, and open the gates to Hell itself.

Kultus is a prime example that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. When Kultus first came out back in November of last year, for some reason I assumed it was a zombie story from the cover and thought 'meh, I don't like zombies' and consequently didn't read the synopsis or any reviews I stumbled across. However, when the author approached me and asked whether I'd like to review the book, I actually read the synopsis and thought it sounded really interesting. So having learned my lesson about books and covers, I happily accepted his offer and I'm glad I did so.

I liked Kultus and its protagonist Thaddeus Blaklok. It's a tale that sweeps you along, with lots of action and violence. Thaddeus is a bad guy, with a bad past, though he seems to be on the path of reform. Still, when he gets drawn into a case that requires him to go back to his old ways, he does so with gusto. The violence in the book didn't bother me, it wasn't worse than you see every night on TV or in the news. What did bother me was the language used in the book. Thaddeus and his opposition are hard men and as such use foul language. Normally I have no problem with salted language, but in this case it felt extreme enough to jar me from the narrative. I don't know why the language affected me thus, whether it's related to being pregnant and hormonal or whether I would have minded it as much normally. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's the latter as there were some swear words used, such as the c-word, that I really have a hard time with at any time.

Blaklok is an interesting character; he's relentless, can take heaps of damage and do some pretty extensive damage as well. However, he seems to be more than just a hard man and a career criminal, he truly seems to not want to hurt the innocent and to protect them from the dangers of demonist cultists and the horrors they might unleash. There are also hints of a mysterious past that I hope we get to see more of in further books. The secondary characters are all bastards, plain and simple, with one exception—Amelia. There are very few likeable characters in the book; Amelia is the only one that I actually liked. She's an Indagator (Ford's equivalent of a D.I.) and while she's rather rigid, I did like her sense of honour and justice. Besides that, she kicks ass and though she disapproves of Blaklok's methods, she knows when it's best to shut up and let him get on with it. A practicality I approved of and which she displays to good effect in several other situations.

The world building was a little uneven, in my opinion; while some places are realised in exquisite detail, such as the Repository of Unnatural History and the Cistern, other parts of the Manufactory are rather nebulous. We get the names of the different quarters, and the type of people that live there, but not much else. The world building is more atmospheric than a clear description of our surroundings. Since I haven't read much steampunk – I think Philippa Ballantine's Geist comes the closest – the book had me wondering whether it was steampunk or not. There is mention of airships and automatons, but no Victorian (or similar era) setting, so it doesn't seem to be really steampunky in intent in my opinion. Still, the steampunk elements Ford utilises are not just window dressing. They're fun and have a function in the story.

Kultus is a good story, but definitely for more mature audiences and those not easily offended. If you're looking for a raging adventure, full of action and a unique setting, Kultus will definitely be a book you want to try. Despite my reservations, I enjoyed myself a lot, especially in the second half of the book, when things speed up to non-stop action. If there are any further Blaklok novels I'll be there to check them out.

This book was provided for review by the author.

Jackie Morse Kessler - Rage

2012-02-03T08:57:00.001+01:00

Missy didn't mean to cut so deep. But after the party where she was humiliated in front of practically everyone in school, who could blame her for wanting some comfort? Sure, most people don't find comfort in the touch of a razorblade, but Missy always was... different.
That's why she was chosen to become one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War. Now Missy wields a new kind of blade—a big, brutal sword that can cut down anyone and anything in her path. But it's with this weapon in hand that Missy learns something that could her triumph over her own pain: control.
A unique approach to the topic of self-mutilation, Rage is the story of a young woman who discovers her own power, and refuses to be defeated by the world.

After Hunger, Rage is the second book in the Riders of the Apocalypse series, a quartet of books in which Jackie Morse Kessler approaches difficult topics in a very direct and yet sensitive manner. In Rage she tackles self mutilation or cutting as it's more commonly known. Cutting is a frightening thing, one that is very hard to understand for those not suffering from that compulsion. It's very hard to believe someone would cause themselves pain on purpose. In addition, it looks scary; it's bloody and leaves scars. In short, this is not the most comfortable of topics. Yet Kessler handles it with aplomb, trying to explain to the reader the why of Missy's cutting, showing why it's wrong without ever condemning her main character for what she does.

Kessler shows how trapped Missy is in her behaviour very skilfully. She shows that even if Missy wants to escape her blade (hence her mantra) she feels there is no other way, because talking to anyone would only confirm she was nuts. Missy is relatable in her angst and anger, however she's got more of it than your regular teen. We don't really get an explanation on why Missy has such anxiety and anger issues, but then again, sometimes there just aren't any reasons for them other than a combination of character traits, the onset of puberty and just plain bad luck. Some people are more vulnerable to anxiety issues than others without there being a specific reason, just as some people are more prone to weight gain than others. And while it would, perhaps, have been easier if there had been a clear cut reason for Missy's problems, such as a trauma or abuse, I like that Kessler went the more nebulous angst and anger route, as it brings home the point that this could happen to anyone, even those you don't expect it to happen to.

One of the great pleasures of this book was visiting with the characters of Death and Famine again. I loved these characters in the previous book, even though Famine isn't Lisa from the first book I think, and in this book it becomes clear that the Aspects the Riders personify have their own characters and memories, as shown by some of the dialogue between Famine and Missy shows. Death still looks and sounds like Kurt Cobain and it bears repeating, that made this former grunge girl squee—even if I was more into Pearl Jam than Nirvana! Plus we got to meet Pestilence in the flesh this time. This is one cool character and I can't wait to see how Kessler will work him into his own story in the next book. One of the things Kessler did very well was to simplify the rather overwhelming concepts of the four aspects, in this case War. She manages to bring the concept of War down to a personal scale... war isn't just death and destruction, it's also the inner struggle with a difficult decision or the anger at a (perceived) slight at work or school. It makes the decisions Missy has to make less intimidating and more acceptable.

One thing that was a bit tricky was that there is a lot of sexiness in this book between Death and Missy. This was confusing, because on the one hand, eww as Death is ancient and Missy is just sixteen. On the other hand, not so eww as Missy is not just sixteen, she's also suffused by the spirit of War, and Death and War have been close companions forever. So it's up to personal taste on which side you come down. I found it less convincing, both because at times it made Missy seem a little suicidal and because, seriously, someone as screwed up as Missy shouldn't be getting into any relationship until she's figured stuff out.

I liked the ending of the book, though the story was resolved rather quickly. I was really glad the 'Missy killed her cat'-comment gets clarified in the end, as that was bothering me a lot during the narrative, because how can you like someone who deliberately kills their cat? As in Hunger, the end emphasises that there is no magic cure, Missy will struggle every day to stay off the blade and it will take a long time before she's close to cured. I said this in the review for Hunger as well, but I really think this is important to stress. Too often on TV, in films and in books, once someone decides to change their life, it seems to happen instantly and without much fuss and that just isn't true for the issues Kessler addresses in her books and I really appreciate the fact that she doesn't hide from that fact.

Rage is another impressive entry in the Riders series and I'm looking forward to the next instalment, Loss, which will be released in March. I think these books are not just entertaining, but also very educational and as such should be on reading lists of secondary schools everywhere. Even if you're no longer a teen, Rage is a book that deserves to be read, not just for the awareness it raises about self harming, but because it is an impressive, thought-provoking read, that educates without preaching to the reader. Go buy and read this book and its predecessor, Hunger. Not only will you be rewarded with a good read, you'll also be supporting a good cause, as part of the proceeds go to charity.

James Maxey - Greatshadow

2012-02-01T08:38:00.000+01:00

The warrior woman known as Infidel is legendary for her superhuman strength and skin tough as chain mail. She's made few friends during her career as a sword-for-hire, and many powerful enemies. Following the death of her closest companion, Infidel finds herself weary of life as a mercenary and sets her eyes on one final prize that will allow her to live out the rest of her days in luxury, the priceless treasure trove of Greatshadow.

Greatshadow is the primal dragon of fire. His malign intelligence spies upon mankind through every flickering candle, patiently waiting to devour victims careless with even the smallest flame. The Church of the Book has assembled a team of twelve battle-hardened adventurers to slay the dragon once and for all. But tensions run high between the leaders of the quest who view the mission as a holy duty and the super-powered mercenaries who add power to their ranks, who dream only of Greatshadow's vast wealth. If the warriors fail to slay the beast, will they doom mankind to death by fire?

Greatshadow is the first book in an exciting new adventure series from a master of dragon fantasy.

The first in a new series by James Maxey, Greatshadow managed to be both a very original book and a rather familiar one. Let's start with the original part. The book had a very original take on the narration. While the protagonist is Infidel, she is not the narrator; no, that place is beholden to Stagger, her erstwhile – and currently very dead – partner. This approach is one I hadn't seen before and one that's very effective in keeping us appraised of happenings Infidel couldn't have known about. Told in first person with Stagger referring to himself as I, Greatshadow is actually mostly a third person story as Stagger relates Infidel's story. I really enjoyed the way the book was narrated and Stagger is a very funny point of view.

Now for the rather familiar part: the characters surrounding Infidel. The cast of people along with Infidel on her quest is very cool and I really liked them, but if you squint hard enough at them you can just assign them their relevant D&D classes and you have a relatively traditional adventuring party. However, this only occurred to me after finishing the book, so it might just be nitpicking. My favourite members of Infidel's group were the Three Goons, Relic and Aurora. The Three Goons were just really funny and interesting, Relic rather creepily mysterious and Aurora is just a wonderful character, whose background as a high priestess to the primal dragon Hush was very interesting and also key to the story.

Infidel is completely kick ass. She's an intriguing juxtaposition; despite being physically mostly invulnerable, she's still very human and emotionally breakable. Her back story is awesome and very well done, we slowly learn more about where she comes from and how she acquired her magical protections. I loved how she only realised how she felt about Stagger after she lost him and hits herself over the head for it. So yes, there is a sort of romance in the book, but definitely not of the traditional kind. Infidel also showed growth during the novel, going from a rather barbaric artefact looter to wanting a more 'normal' life. I'm curious where Maxey will take this in the next book.

While the basic plot of the book is rather linear – a group of people get together and go off to slay the dragon – it's the side plots and the characters' motivation that make the story captivating. The world building, while relatively limited – we're on an island – is interesting. We get enough glimpses of the world off island to not feel too isolated, but Maxey mainly focuses on the Isle of Fire itself. We do meet some interesting races and learn some excellent dragon lore. This book mainly focused on Greatshadow, the primal dragon of fire, but in the next book we'll meet Hush, Rott and Glorious and I imagine we'll meet others in the third book, Witchbreaker. I can't wait to learn about other parts of this world and more dragon lore in the coming books.

Greatshadow was a fabulous read, which kept me turning pages and just finishing one more chapter before doing whatever I was supposed to do. Besides, any story that can legitimately clothe its main character in a chain mail bikini and make it functional can only be genius! If you like straight up adventure novels, kick ass heroines and dragons – lots of dragons – then you can't miss Greatshadow. I know I'm already impatient for the second book in the series called Hush, planned for release in July. Greatshadow is out from Solaris Books this week.

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

Recaps & Upfronts: January & February

2012-01-31T07:50:00.000+01:00

This January was an excellent start to my blogging year. I kept up the higher page views I'd gained over December and I also managed to keep to a regular posting schedule. In addition, on the 18th my maternity leave started, so the past two weeks have been spent reading and writing reviews in between midwife and other appointments. The only thing left to do on the baby front is pack my suitcase for the hospital, so I'm pretty much done with preparation for the baby. On the blog front I'm also getting along with writing all those backlog reviews that I mean to use as a buffer once the baby gets here. Reading wise, 2012 is off to a great start. I've read some cracking books already, one of which I reviewed yesterday. If the rest of the year continues in this vein, 2012 will be an excellent reading year for me! But let;s get to the run-down on last month's blog posts.

Recap
In January I reviewed the following books:

Julianna Baggott - Pure
David Tallerman - Giant Thief
Mercedes Lackey (ed.) - Under The Vale
Sarah Dunant - In the Company of the Courtesan
Mercedes Lackey - Foundation
Kevin Hearne - Hexed
Mercedes Lackey - Intrigues
Kevin Hearne - Hammered
Chris F. Holm - Dead Harvest

There were also non-review posts:

In The News: Simon Spurrier Makes Nice
In The News: Solaris Snags Audrey Niffenegger

And I also guest blogged over on Civilian Reader:

The Lure of the Stacks

Upfront
If January was the month of writing ahead, February will be the month of waiting. Granted, I still have to write up six of those backlog reviews, but I anticipate having those done by next week and then it really is waiting till the baby decides to make her entrance into the world. And hopefully by next month's recap and upfronts post I'll be able to show you some of her first pictures!

Do you guys have any exciting plans for this month? Anyone going to the SFX weekender this weekend?

Chris F. Holm - Dead Harvest

2012-01-30T08:57:00.000+01:00

Meet Sam Thornton. He collects souls.

Sam’s job is to collect the souls of the damned, and ensure they are dispatched to the appropriate destination. But when he’s sent to collect the soul of a young woman he believes to be innocent of the horrific crime that’s doomed her to Hell, he says something no Collector has ever said before.

“No.”

Two of my favourite TV shows of seasons long past were Dead Like Me and Reaper. Both of these shows dealt with characters who collected souls, though one was actually already dead, George from Dead Like Me, while the other, Sam from Reaper, was still alive, but due to a deal his parents made, he was a bounty hunter for the Devil, who retrieved souls escaped from Hell. So it isn't much of a surprise that when I read the above blurb for Chris F. Holm's debut novel Dead Harvest, I was immediately captivated, not to mentioned drawn in by that awesome, awesome cover! Unlike Dead Like Me and Reaper, however, Dead Harvest isn't a comedy; it's a dark, hard-boiled, thriller of a book that manages to combine urban fantasy and crime seamlessly. That being said, there are some really funny lines in the book as well.

Dead Harvest has a great concept, a collector of souls with a conscience in a world where angels are pitted against demons, but angels aren't the nice guys either. The plot was interesting; I didn't figure out whodunit until the end of the book and even then I was a bit surprised and discovered I'd missed some of the clues. Sam spends the novel both on the run and investigating who set Kate, his collectee, up and why. This causes the breathers the characters receive to never last very long and make the book very hard to put down.

Sam is a fabulous protagonist. He's a collector of souls, not because he wanted to be, but because he has to be. I loved that we got Sam's history as well and that it was relevant to the plot in the present, not just as an explanation how he came to be a collector, but in further ways that I won't go into to avoid undue spoilerage. Because Sam is technically dead, he gets around by possessing the bodies of others. This body switching is cool and I like that Sam is a good guy, in so far that he only picks dead bodies to take over, not just because the living blabber too much, but because he doesn't want to hurt them. Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and during this book he's put in the position where he has no choice than to occupy a living body and we get a closer look at why he doesn't like doing so. The scene in which we first see him selecting a new body is funny, with him buying a paper from the city he needs to go to and opening it to the obit page, bemoaning the fact that so often it only contains octogenarians who died in their sleep.

Sam is surrounded by an interesting cast of secondary characters, first and foremost of whom is Kate. She of the doomed soul Sam refuses to take, because he believes she is an innocent. Her character is as skilfully drawn as Sam's, maybe even better as Sam is a rather straight forward lead – a good guy forced into a bad job – where Kate kept me guessing throughout the book. Sam is convinced she's innocent, but some of the others, both angels and demons sow doubt in the mind of the reader and Kate doesn't help her case at times. So I was never quite sure of her and the further along we got, the less sure of her I became and the more I started to analyse everything she said and did to try and figure her out. Another important character is Anders, who becomes Sam's assistant in keeping Kate safe. I liked how his seeming schizophrenia turns out to be nothing but a sensitivity to the other plane in which demons and angels exist and he truly sees things others can't, he isn't having hallucinations. One last character I wanted to mention, just because I really liked the reference is Lilith. She's Sam's handler, giving him assignments and checking up on him, but I loved that she was the legendary Lilith, meant to be Adam's first wife, but kicked out of Paradise because she had a mind of her own. Holm is merciless on his characters, the amount of damage Sam has to take is frightening and he doesn't hesitate to kill of characters either, some of which really made me sad. But it also gave the book an intensity that said 'trust no one' and nothing is as it seems.

Dead Harvest is a phenomenal debut novel with a cracking plot and amazing characters, easily the best one I've read so far of this year's crop and it has set the bar high for those who are to follow! I can't wait for the second book, The Wrong Goodbye, which is due out in November. Do yourself a favour and go read Dead Harvest, it's worth every penny and every second, you won't want to put it down until you've finished it! Dead Harvest is due out from Angry Robot Books on February 28th in the US and Canada and on March 1st in the UK and the rest of the world.

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

Kevin Hearne - Hammered

2012-01-27T09:40:00.000+01:00

Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, is worse than a blowhard and a bully—he's ruined countless lives and killed scores of innocents. After centuries, Viking vampire Leif Helgarson is ready to get his vengeance, and he's asked his friend Atticus O'Sullivan, the last of the Druids, to help take down this Norse nightmare.
One survival strategy has worked for Atticus for more than two thousand years: stay away from the guy with the lightning bolts. But things are heating up in Atticus's home base of Tempe, Arizona. There's a vampire turf war brewing, and Russian demon hunters who call themselves the Hammers of God are running rampant. Despite multiple warnings and portents of dire consequences, Atticus and Leif journey to the Norse plane of Asgard, where they team up with a werewolf, a sorcerer, and an army of frost giants for an epic showdown against vicious Valkyries, angry gods, and the hammerwielding Thunder Thug himself.

So, Thor... other than knowing he's responsible for Thursday being named Thursday in English and donderdag in Dutch and that there was a film about his comic book character last year, I didn't know much about him. I certainly didn't know he was such an unpleasant character, to put it mildly. Needless to say, Hammered relieved me of my ignorance and put me solidly on the 'Let's kill Thor'-train that Atticus is on in the book and where he can't seem to get off, despite looking really hard for the exit.

Hammered is the third book in the Iron Druid Chronicles after Hounded and Hexed. It's far more directly connected to Hexed, than that was to Hounded and it's clear that had there not been more books contracted for, this could have been the end of the tale. Luckily, there are and it wasn't, so we can look forward to Tricked this April. It's also the first book largely set away from Atticus' home town of Tempe, Arizona. It was fun to see Atticus exploring the Asgard plane while going in to fulfil his debt to Laksha, which he incurred in Hexed. It was great to explore different planes of existence, not just Asgard, but also the fae world, where Atticus needs to travel to easily transport himself around the world.

As before, we get more and more new pantheons added to the mythology of the book. Not only do we get a deeper look at the Norse pantheon, we also get to meet Väinämöinen, a Finnish god, Zhang Guo Lao, one of China's Eight Immortals and Perun, the Russian god of Thunder. In addition, after meeting Mary in Hexed, Atticus gets searched out by Jesus in this book. I loved the scenes where Jesus and the Morrigan try to dissuade Atticus from going to Asgard. It showed that sometimes doing what is right – keeping your word of honour to a friend – isn't the same thing as doing what is wise and that what is right and what is wise will differ from person to person. Also the return of the Hammers of God and Jesus' summary dismissal of them was brilliant. In just a few scenes Hearne gives a social commentary on the dangers of religious zealotism without straying into moralising or preaching. I really enjoy how Hearne mixes up the different pantheons and mythologies and at the risk of repeating myself; this is what makes this series so special!

In the end, Atticus can't go back on his given word of honour and he, Leif and four more companions set out for Asgard. On the way there Hearne cleverly gives us the tales of why they want to kill Thor. It's done in a way reminiscent of the Canterbury Tales, with each character getting a chapter to tell their tale. I definitely got my wished for background history for Leif and as a bonus for Gunnar as well! The dynamic of this group worked really well and I really liked the time we spent with them. The battle in Asgard was awesome, very grim, but at times with some humour infused as well. They don't all make it out alive, which I found very realistic, but also kind of sad. There is a lot of loss for Atticus in this book, which while painful also stresses Atticus' humanity and shows that even if he had wanted to he can't freeze his heart from caring about others.

As with Hounded and Hexed there is a lot of humour in the books and the same sense of fun pervades Hearne's writing, despite things taking such a grim turn at the end. The one downside for me was the lack of Oberon in this book. Because Atticus is going into battle, he leaves Oberon safely in Tempe and we get far less of Oberon's funny observations than we did in previous books. I look forward to Tricked to see where Atticus, Oberon and Granuaile end up after leaving Tempe. I'm also curious to see whether Hearne's fun writing tone will darken to accompany the grim turn events have taken and the myriad of troubles that seem to lie in store for Atticus and company. Hammered is a great continuation of a very good urban fantasy series. The time to get on board with the series is now, before we dive in to the next phase of the story!

Mercedes Lackey - Intrigues

2012-01-25T18:14:00.000+01:00

You would think that everything would have settled down for Mags at the Collegium. After all, he had been there for half a year, and by now things should have sorted out into a routine.

But nothing is ever simple where the Collegia are concerned. Bear's parents want him to "stop wasting the Healers' Collegium's time" and demand he return home. Lena's father Bard Marchand, turns up, and sends her into a tailspin. The Foreseers have had a vision of the King covered in blood, and all the signs point to Mags being involved! He finally uncovers some scant information about his parents, and they are not what he thought they were. And old enemies have not given up....
(description taken from the author's website)

Intrigues is book two of the Collegium Chronicles, in which we return to Mags, Lena and Bear. Where the prior book in this sequence, Foundation, was a classic coming-of-age story, this book continues Mags' story of growing up, but mixes it up with a little mystery. This mystery, a vision – shared by priests of several different temples and some Foresighted Heralds implicating Mags in an attempt on the King's life – is at the heart of the novel; much of the action deals with what the vision means and how Mags is involved. It's also the catalyst for the increasing isolation Mags finds himself in, another large theme in the book. Lackey shows that isolation is a two-way street; it's not just outsiders, other Heralds and at one point even his friends who shun Mags, but it is also Mags retreating into a safe shell containing just him and Dallen, avoiding contact with anyone else outside of classes and other required interactions.

Intrigues also clearly shows the downside of Gifts – they're not always very clear or reliable – and, in addition, that having a Gift doesn't mean you can't be an idiot. One of the central tenets of the Heraldic Circle is that Companions are innately trustworthy and that by and large their judgement can always be trusted. This gets swept aside with talk of black Heralds and Companions and the old saw of Gala's repudiating her Herald after he does something unspeakable as proof that Heralds can go rogue. You'd think that with such Mind Gifts as Mindspeaking and Empathy and the Truth Spell, it would easier to just check Mags over and clear him of any ill intent. Unfortunately, stubbornness and the ethics of using their Gifts keeps the Heralds from doing so, landing Mags deeper and deeper in the pit of isolation he's found himself in. It leads him to take desperate steps, even going as far as to mirror Gala and giving up on his bond with Dallen, convinced that the Companion can just choose someone more worthy of the honour.

The one thing that keeps Mags from being totally isolated for a while is his Kirball team. Kirball is a new game the teachers have invented to give the Trainees more realistic battle practice and lessons in strategy, so they won't have to send them out into hazardous situations without any experience. It's a combination of polo and capture the flag and it's really cool. the Kirball team provides a safe unit for Mags when the rumours first start and it's nice to see his team mates sticking up for him and not letting him hide himself away in his room. The one problem I had with the Kirball plot line was that it reminded me fiercely of the Hurlee game from Exile's Valor, which was a sort of Companion-backed (ice) hockey. Their functions are largely similar – giving the youngsters some battle training in a less dangerous environment than the battlefield – and their plot functions are wildly different, but still it niggled me.

One of my favourite elements from Foundation, the glimpses of Trainee life at the other Collegia, are again in clear evidence in Intrigues. I really enjoyed these and maybe we'll see even more of these in the future. I also liked that both Lena's and Bear's stories feature problems with their families, as we usually haven't seen these before in these coming-of-age tales as, apart from Vanyel (Last Herald Mage Trilogy) and Lavan Firestorm (Brightly Burning), they mostly feature orphans. Or, in the case of Elspeth (The Mage Winds Trilogy) and Blade and Tad (The Silver Gryphon), they feature royal (or near enough) offspring struggling to step out of their parents' shadow and choosing their own path. So it's nice to see such an integral part of growing up – standing on your own two feet and making your own choices, despite what your family thinks – as part of the narrative. More proof that they're growing up is the fact that they start pairing off; not wanting to give anything away, I'll leave you to find out the parings yourself, but for... yay Amily!

I loved that elements of Foundation returned to feature again in Intrigues, such as the mysterious foreigners and the mystery of Mags' parentage. I also enjoyed the fact that Mags' Gift becomes more important and it's not about his ignorance as much any more. I think if it his ignorance would have been as important as it was in the first book, it would have become wearing, especially as Mags' learning ability and adaptability keep getting praise from the adults so often. In all, Intrigues was a good second outing in the Collegium Chronicles, which I very much enjoyed. This series is very suitable to new readers of Valdemar novels, as it doesn't require loads of background knowledge, but at the same time there are some easter eggs hidden in the story for hardcore fans – the physical description of the King, for example – which is fun when you discover them. I can't wait to get my hands on Changes, once the paperback version of that hits the shelves later this year!

In The News: Solaris snares Audrey Niffenegger

2012-01-24T12:57:00.000+01:00

One of the big sore points for many genre enthusiasts is the way in which our beloved SFF genre is perceived by the mainstream. Every year when the Booker nominations are made public, there's grumbling on how SFF, Crime and other genres are snubbed and even now people are celebrating the inclusion of several SFF works in the World Book Night selection. With this in mind, today's announcement by Solaris that they've signed Audrey Niffenegger to be part of Jonathan Oliver's third anthology titled Magic is a sure win for the genre. Ms Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry are very popular not just in the genre community but even more so in the mainstream media. As you'd expect, Solaris is justly proud of this coup. Her story sounds very cool and I'm looking forward to checking out the anthology!

Here's the full press release:

Audrey Niffenegger comes to Solaris for Magic anthology

International best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger is to pen her first ever story for a commercial trade anthology, after signing to Solaris’ forthcoming short story collection, Magic.

Solaris are proud to announce that Niffenegger, whose novel The Time Traveller's Wife has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide, is to produce a story for the themed anthology of the occult and arcane, due for release in November 2012 in North America and the UK, in both paperback and ebook.

The story marks Audrey’s first ever appearance in any commercial trade anthology and is the third themed collection from Solaris editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver. The previous critically-acclaimed anthologies include The End of the Line, which featured stories set on the Underground, and House of Fear, which rebooted the haunted house for the 21^st Century. The titles garnered ecstatic reviews, with The Times describing End of the Line’s stories as “exceptionally good”.

“I'm delighted to be involved in this project,” said Audrey Niffenegger. “My story is called The Wrong Fairie and is about Charles Altamont Doyle. He was a Victorian artist who was institutionalized for alcoholism. He was also the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, and he believed in fairies.”

Niffenegger became a publishing sensation thanks to The Time Traveller’s Wife, published in 2003 and made into a Hollywood movie in 2009, and her subsequent novel was the subject of intense bidding by publishing houses.

“It's really very exciting to be working with Audrey, whose novels The Time Traveller's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry show an author with a great talent for subverting genre norms and delivering the unexpected,” said Jonathan Oliver. “Audrey's story is sure to make a great addition to Magic.”

The line-up for Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane is set to include other high profile authors, including Richard and Judy Book Club-choice Alison Littlewood, NYT Bestseller Dan Abnett, and celebrated authors such as Christopher Fowler, Storm Constantine, Robert Shearman, Paul Meloy, Sophia McDougall, Will Hill, Gemma Files, along with new writers such as Sarah Lotz, Lou Morgan and Thana Niveau and more.

For all press enquires please contact Michael Molcher

Phone 01865 792 201 • Email press@rebellion.co.uk

Kevin Hearne - Hexed

2012-01-23T08:50:00.000+01:00

Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the druids, doesn't care much for witches. Still, he's about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they're badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.
With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence, and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbour's rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex.

Last year I read Kevin Hearne's debut novel Hounded and really, really liked it. I very much enjoyed this take on urban fantasy, with a male protagonist, a blending of just about every pantheon you can think of and the most brilliant wolfhound ever in Oberon. So once I finished Hounded, I was thrilled to know there were already two more books on the way and there would be three more books in the more distant future. Earlier this month I finally got to go back to Tempe, Arizona and Atticus by reading Hexed and I'm pleased to report it was as fun as its predecessor was; Hearne's writing is as good on second impression as it was the first time.

Between Hounded and Hexed there is a form of continuity, in the sense that decisions and events from the first book have their repercussions in this one, but the story arcs are separate and as such this book could be read out of sequence. However, that would cause the reader to miss a lot of the underlying nuance and some of the in-jokes – French poodles anyone? – which to me make this such a strong series. The elements that did return from the first novel, such as Atticus accepting Granuaile as his apprentice and his reaching a détente with the Tempe witches' Coven were handled really well. The scenes in which Atticus goes to sign the non-aggression treaty, accompanied by his werewolf lawyer Hal, were really cool and showed how precarious this peace and the trust between the two parties really was.

One of my hopes for the series was that we'd find out more about Atticus' past, as the glimpses we'd caught during Hounded were tantalising and I wanted more. Hexed delivered this through die Töchter des dritten Hauses; through them we learn more about Atticus' activities in WWII. These flashbacks were truly enjoyable and lend a depth to Atticus' character that was less noticeable in Hounded. Perhaps not so much providing history as enriching the universe's mythology is the number of deities and mythological creatures that stop by to recruit Atticus to their cause, due to his increase in reputation—or rather perceived level of badassery. We meet several new pantheons outside of the Celtic and Christian and it was fun to see they all have similar goals: getting Atticus to promise to kill their particular nemesis. But it's not just deities who try to recruit him, it's his friends as well.

Atticus' circle of friends is growing and while we meet new ones, our acquaintance with those of the previous book deepens. For example, we see a lot more of Atticus' vampire lawyer, Leif. We learn more about his capabilities and his weaknesses and we see him fighting and kicking ass in a fantastic battle. Another character we get to see more of is Granuaile. As Atticus' apprentice, she is also a way for Hearne (via Atticus) to give us some more background on Druidic magic and history when Atticus teaches her these things. She also shows how alone Atticus has become as the lone remaining Druid on the planet and how he keeps himself isolated because he doesn't want to endanger his friends. What I really I like as well is that she's the one piece of skirt that Atticus doesn't pursue. Where in the previous book Atticus tended to think more with his loins than his brain, here he is careful to keep it in check around Granuaile.

Hexed contains lots of humour. For example, Atticus' confusion when he gets seduced by the Morrigan – a rather painful experience, as she's the Goddess of Death – and it wasn't about the Morrigan lusting after him at all, it was about repairing some of the damage Atticus had sustained in Hounded or Atticus' repeated attempts to update Leif's rather old-fashioned manner of speech. But the most humour is displayed by Oberon. His snarky little commentaries on Atticus' house guests, his silly obsessions with the strangest things, such as Sixties hippy culture and the Man, and the way he always, always know how to earn a treat, even if he doesn't do anything, are very entertaining and I just love Oberon to bits.

Hexed is a great sequel, that doesn't disappoint at all. It's just as fun and fast-paced as the first book and just as addictive. It's urban fantasy at its best. If you enjoyed the first book, this is a must-read, because it's great to return to Atticus' world. However, Hexed is far more open-ended than Hounded, with a clear hook in place for the third book. As such, I couldn't wait to get started with Hammered, so I've already read that as well; look for a review of it later this week.

Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

2012-01-20T07:56:00.001+01:00

In this chronicle of the early history of Valdemar, a thirteen-year ¬old orphan named Magpie escapes a life of slavery in the gem mines when he is chosen by one of the magical companion horses of Valdemar to be trained as a herald. Thrust into the center of a legend in the making, Magpie discovers talents he never knew he had-and witnesses the founding of the great Heralds' Collegium.
(Description taken from the author's website http://www.mercedeslackey.com)

When Foundation was first released I was super excited. At the time it had been about five years since the last full Valdemar novel was published and I was so glad to return to one of my favourite universes, that I just tore through it. When I finally got my hands on Intrigues, the second part of the series this last December, I decided to reread Foundation, both to refresh the story in my mind and to be able to review the entire trilogy on the blog. And on second read, Foundation was just as enjoyable as it was the first time.

The story is classic Valdemaran Mercedes Lackey; we encounter a young protagonist, Mags, in dire circumstances and through being Chosen he's brought to Haven to become a Herald. Here he's seen as an outsider and strange and there are those who'd rather get rid of him, than embrace him as part of the Heraldic Circle. Yes, this is a story we've seen from Lackey before; it's very reminiscent of Arrows of the Queen and To Take a Thief, but it is a story Lackey writes well and one that is relatively timeless in its appeal, as there will always be adolescents who can relate to such a story. And even though I am far past my adolescence, it still hasn't lost its appeal on me either!

What sets Foundation apart from its predecessors is its setting and its cast of characters. Foundation is set around the time the Collegia, as we encounter them in most of the Valdemar novels, were constructed. We witness not just the reason for their founding, but also the opposition to them among the more conservative members of the Heraldic Circle. These developments are interesting to watch and deepen the lore of Valdemar we've already seen previously. In addition, the embryonic state of the Collegia also allows a natural mixing of Trainees of the different Circles and gives us a closer look at all of them though Mags' closest friends Bear, a Healer Trainee, and Lena, a Bardic Trainee. I really enjoyed the widening of the narrative's scope beyond just the Heraldic Circle and seeing more of not just Collegium life, but also of Haven life.

Mags is surrounded by a cool cast of characters. The most prominent of these are his Companion Dallen, his friends Bear and Lena and his Haven circle of friends, most importantly Lydia, the niece to a prominent Haven merchant and Amily, the daughter of the King's Own Herald. I liked that Mags relationship with Dallen was one of equals, as it would have been very easy to just have Dallen be the fount of all wisdom for the incredibly ignorant Mags, even after Mags arrives at the Collegium and starts getting an education. Instead, Dallen seems as flustered by some events as Mags is which made their bond all the more believable. Lena and Bear are great windows onto the other Circles and a great way to see Mags cut his teeth on 'normal' social interactions with his peers, something he'd never encountered before arriving at Haven. The Heralds Mags meets are of all stripes and convictions. The one thing that puzzled me is that we never learn the name of the King. As the monarch is always named in previous Valdemar novels and in the timeline included in the front of the books they are usually subdivided by reign, this surprised me. But, to be honest it's a fangirl's complaint and has no impact whatsoever on the story itself.

With Foundation, Mercedes Lackey returned to her beloved Valdemar universe. It was a great return trip and, in my opinion, a nice place for new Valdemar readers to get started, as it's representative of the author's style and of the Valdemar universe itself without needed to know all the lore packed into previous series to understand the story and its details. So whether you're already a fan of Mercedes Lackey or new to her writing, Foundation is a good place to start. And since this is an older book, the next two instalments of The Collegium Chronicles, Intrigues and Changes are already available and a fourth novel is in the works. I know I'm looking forward to reading Changes and the as yet untitled fourth novel. Look for a review of Intrigues in the next week.

In The News: Simon Spurrier makes nice

2012-01-19T14:22:00.000+01:00

Last year saw the release of Simon Spurrier's second novel A Serpent Uncoiled, which I loved, so much so that it made my top ten of books published in 2011. A Serpent Uncoiled drew a lot of great reviews and praise, but as the author explains in this rather wonderful blog post – in which Simon again demonstrates he really has a way with words – it didn't translate into mass-stockage of his book on the shelves of many brick-and-mortar bookstores. This week sees the release of the paperback edition of A Serpent Uncoiled and to draw attention to this, Simon has made a hilarious video to publicise the book. It had me cracking up after a few seconds and I really wanted to share it with my readers, not just for the laughs, but also because I believe A Serpent Uncoiled deserves all the readers it can get, it's that awesome. So, I've embedded the video below – with Mr Spurrier's permission – I hope it makes you laugh as much as it did me and if it does and you haven't read it yet, go out and buy A Serpent Uncoiled! It's a unique read you won't quickly forget. Be warned, there is creative profanity in the video, so it might not be totally safe for work. Now excuse me, I've got to go and learn some of those most eloquent phrases by heart.

Sarah Dunant - In the Company of the Courtesan

2012-01-17T19:17:00.000+01:00

With their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiametta and her companion dwarf Bucino escape the sack of Rome. It's 1527. They head for the shimmering, decadent city of Venice. Sarah Dunant's epic novel of sixteenth-century Renaissance Italy is a story about the sins of pleasure and the pleasures of sin, an intoxicating mix of fact and fiction, and a dazzling portrait of one of the world's greatest cities at its most potent moment in history.

Venice has always been a place that held a special fascination for me. I've never visited there, unfortunately, but I've always meant to go one day. Why, you might ask? Well, family legend has it that our forebears were glass blowers from Murano, who came to the Netherlands somewhere in the sixteenth century. Due to this rather tenuous connection, I always enjoy books set in (alternate history) Venice. The ones I read most recently are the first two books in the The Heirs of Alexandria series by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer and Eric Flint. Of course, there are many fantasy books set in a Venice-like city, such as Jon Courtenay Grimwood's The Fallen Blade (which is actually set in Venice) or Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, whose home town of Camorr is heavily based on Venice. So after reading something about courtesans, which featured some recommendations for further (fictional) reading, when I saw In the Company of the Courtesan on the list and that it was set in Venice, it immediately went on my wish list. And I'm glad I ran across it, because it was definitely worth the read!

In the Company of the Courtesan is the story of Fiametta and Bucino and how they rebuilt Fiametta's career after they've been forced to flee Rome. These two are the heart and soul of the novel and I loved the bond between them, the banter and the bickering. What I really liked, was the fact that there is no romance between them. Instead they are fast friends, business partners and their own kind of family. The narration is from Bucino's point of view, which is both a bold and smart choice. It's smart because Bucino's view of society is unique. As a dwarf he's both highly visible and invisible at the same time. He gets to go places most people can't, but is often overlooked or disregarded because of his size and appearance. I call it a daring choice for a narrator, because it not only demands research into Renaissance Venice and into the courtesan culture of the time and the history of the sack of Rome, but also into Dwarfism, the physical problems they might run into and how they were regarded in Renaissance society. Of course, I am no historian, but it certainly seems as if Ms Dunant did her due diligence in that regard, as at a lay man's glance, the book seems accurate in its depictions of Venice, courtesans and dwarves in the period the book is set in.

Surprisingly, for a book about a courtesan, there is surprisingly little truly adult content. Instead, Fiametta's occupation is treated like a business and her success not only important to herself, but to her steadily-growing entourage as well. Bucino, Fiametta's maid Gabriella, her personal physician La Draga and others all work really hard to make Fiametta as beautiful, strong and healthy as she can be, so she can remain one of the most sought-after courtesans of her age. At times it is a cynical look at the business of love, but one I found fascinating in its complexity. It was interesting to see that a courtesan needed to be more than a pretty face, but needed wit and conversation as well to be successful and how much work went into that success. I liked the look at the more seedy side of life in sixteenth century Venice; no Doge's court here. Fiametta is by no means a streetwalker, but she is not part of respectable society and is made to feel it when she mingles with the high and mighty. It also became clear how much people lived on the edge of subsistence in those days. These days, if you lose your job or become unfit for work due to health, there are always social benefits to help you out. In sixteenth century Venice? Not so much. There it was either work or starve and the fear of destitution in which many people lived, was palpable in both Fiametta and Bucino throughout the novel.

The character of La Draga was fascinating. She brought an element of the mystical and even supernatural to the story, attributed with witch powers and powers of healing. Apart from being a great character in her own right, I really loved the strange chemistry between her and Bucino, which led me to keep speculating whether they would or they wouldn't get past their differences to a more harmonious connection. I was kept guessing till the end and that made the story all the more compelling. However, La Draga wasn't the only mystery contained in this novel. I loved how there were questions and mysteries sprinkled throughout the narrative, which were somehow all solved at the end of the novel, such as the theft of some jewels and the little locked book of Petrarch's poems Bucino rescued from Rome.

The one complaint I might have had is that I would have liked to have seen more of Fiametta in action, as it were. There are only one or two scenes where we see her ply her trade and charm men with just her wit and her looks. Instead we mostly see the private side of Fiametta, which however interesting I found it, didn't exactly showcase just why she was such an enchanting and alluring figure for her clients.

Published in 2006, In the Company of the Courtesan isn't exactly a new book, but it is a book that deserves a wide readership. Perfect for fans of historical fiction and lovers of Venice, In the Company of the Courtesan is a gorgeous, pleasurable read and the perfect start to my book resolution to read more historical fiction in 2012.

Mercedes Lackey (ed.) - Under The Vale

2012-01-14T21:25:00.000+01:00

Valdemar's Heralds are an ancient order. Chosen from all across the land, from all walks of life, and at all ages, these unusual individuals are Gifted with abilities beyond those of normal men and women. They are Mindspeakers, FarSeers, Empaths, ForeSeers, Firestarters, FarSpeakers, and more. Trained to be emissaries, spies, judges, diplomats, scouts, counsellors, and even warriors, their unique inborn talents make them indispensable to their monarch and their realm. Sought and Chosen by mysterious horselike Companions, they are bonded for life to these telepathic, enigmatic creatures. With their Companions, the Heralds of Valdemar ride circuit throughout the kingdom protecting the peace and, when necessary, defending their land and monarch.

Another December, another Valdemar anthology. It's become a bit of a tradition at my house that one of the books I get for Christmas is the new Valdemar anthology. And every year I spend an enjoyable day or two during my Christmas holiday visiting the world that got me hooked into fantasy for good. This year was no exception to the rule and it was a good visit to Velgarth. Lackey is my literary chocolate, my comfort reading and she never fails to disappoint in that respect.

Last year I was disappointed at the lack of new names among the contributing authors. And while the majority of this year's authors are return contributors – half of which feature recurring characters – there are two new authors to this anthology series: Daniel Shull and Jennifer Brozek. While Shull was an unknown author to me – and I haven't been able to find any more info on him, not even in the author bio's in the back of the book – and Jennifer Brozek, who I had heard of before. Shull's story A Healer's Work, a look at the Healer's life and the way magic's return after The Mage Winds trilogy affects both Healers and Heralds, was very enjoyable and I hope to see more of his work in the future. Brozek's Discordance focuses on Bardic Collegium's occupants and how rejection can affect a teenager and cause him to use his talents to bad ends. I enjoyed this look at the other side of the coin. Most stories in these anthologies are about those who do get Chosen or are Gifted enough to either get into a Collegium or find another good purpose for their gift. Discordance and, to a lesser extent Lackey's own Simple Gifts and Edghill and McCune's Catch Fire, Draw Flame, deal with those who go rogue with their Gifts.

Surprisingly, this year there weren't any complete duds for me—yes, some of the stories were more enjoyable than others to me, but there weren't any stories that I actively disliked. I really enjoyed returning to some of the returning story settings. I absolutely love Kate Paulk and Sarah Hoyt's Ree and Jem stories, so I was glad to get two more of them on this outing, Heart's Peril and Heart's Place, even though the latter made me a little sad. Ree and Jem are lovely characters, so much so, that I'd love to have a whole book about them! Other perennial favourites are Herald Jors and his Companion Gervais. In Tanya Huff's Family Matters we get a lighter tale after last year's tragic adventure. I loved Jors' theatrical little cousin Annamarin and I left the story with a smile. Another fun return visit was that of the Dann family of Haven watchmen in The Watchmen's Ball. I always enjoy Fiona Patton's writing and I really like her tales about the Dann family. They're a fun bunch and again it's nice to have a tale from the perspective of regular people, not connected to any of the Collegia or the Court.

My favourite stories from a non-recurring setting were those by Elizabeth A. Vaughan, Kristin Schwengel and Ben Ohlander. Vaughan's In an Instant, in which Selenay and Daren acknowledge their Lifebond, though very short, was poignant and packed a punch. I really loved this seemingly small, intimate moment, which in actuality is something that is life-changing, not just for Selenay and Daren, but their Companions as well. Schwengel's Warp and Weft was awesome. It is a very cool look at post-Mage Storm Tayledras life and how they go about restoring the Pelagirs and how magic works after the Storms. Finally, Fog of War by Ben Ohlander really impressed me. I loved how this didn't feature a Herald with a very powerful version of a know gift, but one who's gift is rather numinous and who is very, very good at what he does. Plus it was a grittier, darker story than we usually see in the Valdemar universe, which was refreshing.

The titular story Under the Vale by Larry Dixon is less of a short story and more like a scientific essay describing the technical underpinnings of a Tayledras Vale. This was very informative to read and learn about and it makes me curious about all the notes and research Lackey and Dixon have lying around their office! I hope this will be a returning feature in the anthologies or that they would consider publishing these sorts of essays in a follow up to The Valdemar Companion.

Under The Vale is one of the better Valdemar anthologies so far. However, they are not for the casual reader; more and more they've become snacks for the dedicated Valdemar fan. As such, I really enjoyed it, but a casual reader would be better served by starting with one of the earlier trilogies, such as The Heralds of Valdemar series or the Last Herald Mage trilogy, or by starting with the first book of the current trilogy, Foundation.

David Tallerman - Giant Thief

2012-01-09T20:10:00.000+01:00

Meet Easie Damasco, rogue, thieving swine and total charmer.

Even the wicked can’t rest when a vicious warlord and the force of enslaved giants he commands invade their homeland. Damasco might get away in one piece, but he’s going to need help.

Big time.

As The Mad Hatter said, Giant Thief has one of the best opening lines ever. And as it begins, so it tries to go on in the same vein. And I'm glad to report that in this effort it largely succeeds. Giant Thief has a lot of humour in it and had me smirking at a number of scenes in the book.

Giant Thief's greatest strength could also be seen as its largest weakness: basically the book is one long chase scene. Action-packed and high-paced with relatively few breathing points, it's fun, but at times all the constant running gets wearying. There is also very little world building; while we see a lot of the real estate of this world – two cities, some small villages, Giant country and lots and lots of countryside around the Castoval – we don't learn that much about its history and society and about the lands outside the Castoval. Normally this would get on my nerves – as I'd be asking why Moaradrid was invading and from where and why is there no central government to defend the country – but in this case it isn't necessary to the story Tallerman tells, so I didn't have that much of a problem with it.

As scant as the world building was, in my opinion, the more well-rounded are the characters in this book. Easie is a fun character, though not always terribly likeable. He's wry, clever and always looking out for Number One. Still, throughout the narrative we see flashes of a more ethical and honest man, who is disturbed by his own lack of morals and loyalty. These flashes are what kept me reading and didn't make me throw my hands up in despair at Easie's smug selfishness. By the end of the novel there even seems to be a bit of hope that Easie might mend his ways, a little that is, because it doesn't seem that he could ever walk the straight and narrow! His selfishness was emphasised by his interactions with his main companions throughout the novel, the giant Saltlick and Marina Estrada, the mayor of Muena Palaiya, who seems to be the head of the resistance to Moaradrid's invading forces. Now there were two characters I really loved. Marina is courageous, has her heart in the right place and boy, she's not afraid to speak her mind! I kept expecting something to develop between Marina and Easie, but surprisingly it doesn't. Maybe that's a development we'll see in the second book.

Saltlick, the titular stolen giant, was my favourite part of the book. I love how at first he seems nothing more than a lumpy, hulking mass of flesh, more resembling a rock in both action and intellect than a living being. But slowly and surely he becomes more and more of a person, with deep feelings and Easie discovers he's far smarter than he seems. I loved his growth during the story and where he ends up at the close of this book. I would have loved to have seen more of the giants, other than the party's short visit to their home, but hopefully we'll see more of them in Crown Thief.

Giant Thief is above everything about fun. It's a rollicking tale of being chased and getting away and maybe along the way finding a conscience. It's this latter element that keeps this book from being nothing but a humorous, popcorn summer blockbuster of a story. Easie's and Saltlick's development lends depth to the narrative and I myself am curious to see where Tallerman will take our heroes next. Will Easie be able to keep listening to his conscience and will Saltlick grow into the leader Easie – and the reader – knows he can be? Hopefully all these questions and more will be answered in the sequel Crown Thief, which is expected later this year in October. For now, Giant Thief is out from Angry Robot Books on February 2nd and if you're up for a fun, fast-paced adventure featuring rogues, giants and lots of fighting, you won't want to miss it!

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

Julianna Baggott - Pure

2012-01-04T16:52:00.000+01:00

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'.

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.

I'm starting my year of well in the resolutions department, by having my first review be a YA one! And it is a great book to start off with. Pure is a fabulous story. It is a look at nuclear fall-out and what could happen to a society and its people when they get caught in it and survive. The Fusings that follow – where people caught out in the blast have whatever they had near them fused to their bodies, ranging from wires, tools and toys to entire people – and other results are scary, but also imaginable. And they raise some interesting questions. What would it be like to be forever chained to your beloved dog, meaning you’ll die when it dies? How do you deal with an arm or a leg that's been replaced with garden scissors or a bike wheel? Now these are combinations I just made up, but there are stranger ones in the book. It does show a resilience to humanity that I hope we'd truly possess if push came to shove.

Not everyone was caught out in the blast though, as preparations for just such an occurrence were being made in the form of the Dome. A haven, protected from the outside atmosphere and radiation, where a chosen few were allowed to take refuge to wait out the destruction and to be able to swoop back in and rescue the rest of mankind once the dust settled. Of course, the Dome is anything but a haven. Its society is oppressive, food is ingested in the form of nutrition pills and the population is enhanced through Coding—physical alterations which give them enhanced speed, strength and intelligence among others. I liked the way the Dome goes from a heaven-like dream to an evil reality. It makes it easier to like Partridge; the Pure – which is what Dome dwellers are called by those on the outside – who flees the Dome to find his mother and to see what life is like on the outside.

The characters in this book are very strong. Pressia is a strong voice, who does what she must to survive. She tries to evade capture by OSR – the resistance army everyone has to join once they turn sixteen – but once caught she tries to survive in their midst. But nothing is as it seems. The same goes for Partridge, he is an outsider due to his parentage and living in the Dome turns out to be far worse than Pressia imagines it. I liked Partridge's rebellion and critical thinking, though he was incredibly naive. The link between Pressia and Partridge is a little too convenient, but I didn't mind that, because they made for a great combination to discover this world. Bradwell, the true rebel of the book, isn't Pressia's insta-love but it did go rather quickly, however, I loved their story anyway, because Pressia's growing realisation of her feelings is so very well done. El Capitan is fantastic; he is the character that gives us the clearest view of what it is like to be fused. Yes, both Pressia and Bradwell have fusings too, but neither seems to have as much trouble with them as El Capitan does. I love the way he deals with his fused brother and comes to realise they are one and the same.

The secret star of the novel to me, however, was Lyda. She gets drawn in accidentally and doesn't let it break her spirit, even if it looks like her future is all but lost. She is put through the wringer, locked into a mental institution and then thrown out of the Dome as bait, all because she went to the dance with Partridge. Her treatment is grossly unfair, but she doesn't let it take away her oomph, she's feisty and never stops thinking for herself. Hopefully we'll see more of her in the next book.

One last aspect that has to be mentioned is the world building, not just the current world of the Dome and the outside, but also the glimpses we get of the Before. It is both intricate and small-scale. The Dome, Pressia's town and its surrounding land is well-built, but what happened to the rest of the world? The answer to that question remains rather nebulous and I hope we'll find out more on that in the future. The Before is fascinating. It seemed a rather bleak future – as bleak as the now of the book – with the Return to Civility and the way feminism was ground down and turned back, with girls and women only valuable (and allowed to breed) when they are soft-spoken, obedient and subservient. Can we say nightmare? But how did we get there? What happened? There are many questions as yet unanswered and I hope that we will get answers at some point.

Per the author's acknowledgement, the book owes a lot to the experiences of the people who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki, horrors which are often left underexposed when discussing World War Two. And has made me wonder about that side of the war and what happened to the people there, something I had never thought about before. So kudos to Ms Baggott for that. I hope the book will have a similar effect on teens reading it, because there might be lessons learned from such reflection.

Pure is a cracker of a read, one I really enjoyed. It united a very interesting premise with great, vivid writing. It might have prompted as many – if not more – questions as it answered, it may end on a new mystery, but it made me think. I can't wait to find out what happens next. Pure will be published by Headline on February 2. Be sure to check it out for an interesting dystopian read and a new series to get hooked on!

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

Recaps & Upfronts: December & January

2012-01-02T07:33:00.000+01:00

December was a very good month for the blog. I pulled in a lot of page views, especially with my end of year posts, thanks to many kind retweets and mentions on Twitter. It's exciting to have reached a lot of new readers and that there were some pretty nice comments on several of the posts. I also managed some reviews last month, though in the last two weeks the blog was wholly given over to the yearly wrap-up posts. I've been blathering on for two weeks now, so I'm just going to keep it short and sweet and give you the run down on last month's posts.

Recap
In December I reviewed the following books:

Mike Shepherd - Daring
Blake Charlton - Spellbound
Elspeth Cooper - Songs of the Earth
N.K. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods
Adam Christopher - Empire State

And I wrapped up 2011 with the following posts:

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Introduction
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy Jan-March
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy April-June
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Science Fiction and Fiction
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Historical Fiction
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Crime and Historical Crime Fiction
Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: YA
Most Anticipated Reads (Winter/Spring) 2012
The Bookish Baby 2011
Favourite 2011 reads
Favourite books of 2011
Recap 2011: What happened
Recap 2011: Books read in 2011, but not reviewed yet
Upfronts 2012: Bookolutions

Upfront
January will be a month of writing ahead. As stated before, I plan to write up my backlog for February and I owe Stefan from Civilian Reader a guest post. Plus I'll need to write my regular posts. Luckily, from the 18th I'm on maternity leave which means I'll have loads of time to write those backlog reviews. Other than that no real plans for January. How about you guys? Any reading challenges planned?

Upfronts 2012: Bookolutions

2012-01-01T19:05:00.001+01:00

To be honest, I suck at New Year's Resolutions and I gave up on those a long time ago. However, last year's bookolutions went pretty well, so I thought I'd set some new ones. And to make sure I get a kick in the behind if I don't keep to them, I'm also posting them on the blog. I need you guys to keep me honest! Keeping in mind that my blogging time might be somewhat constrained for the first half of the year, starting February, I'm not going to set super hard goals for myself, but rather ones I'm reasonably sure I'll be able to attain. So what are they? Take a look:

1. Get caught up on my backlog
By which I mean review the books I read in my summer holiday and during my mini-break in November. I listed them in a separate post yesterday. The plan is to write them up over the next few weeks so I can schedule them around my due date.

2. Read 100 books
Last year I set my goal at 75 and ended up reading 93 books, so I don't think it's completely unrealistic to set it at 100 books this year!

3. Dent the TBR-pile
Currently I have 121 books on my TBR-pile. I know I won't get through all of it – or even half of it – unless I don't buy any books or accept any review copies at all over the coming year, and we all know that's never going to happen! But I am hoping to have it down to maybe 80 by the end of next year, or at least in the double digits hopefully!

4. Read more historical fiction, YA and SF
Last year I sort of rediscovered my love for historical fiction, mostly because I realised how much I enjoyed reading the historical crime fiction I read. I really want to enjoy more of it, so like SF and YA last year, I'm going to make a conscious effort to read it more. I'm also keeping up the YA and SF reading because I really enjoyed discovering those and I want to discover more.

5. Comment more on the blogs I follow
One of things I'm really bad at is commenting on the blogs I follow. This isn't so much me not wanting to, but I always feel silly just saying great review, and not really adding to any discussion of the book. But I also know that I'm always really happy when someone comments on my review, whether they just say great review or something more in-depth. So I've decided to make a concious effort this year to comment more often, if only to say I enjoyed a review a lot. And to do it on the blog itself not on Twitter!

So those are my bookolutions for the year. Have you made any?

Recap 2011: Books read in 2011, but not reviewed yet

2011-12-31T16:09:00.000+01:00

As mentioned in last month's recap posts I have quite a number of books I've read in the past year I haven't reviewed yet, due to me reading faster than I was able to write up reviews during the early months of my pregnancy. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I've formed the cunning plan of writing these reviews up during the first part of my maternity leave – when I get to stay home, but the baby hasn't been born yet – and then schedule those around the time of B2's birth at the end of February and immediately after, so I don't have to think about the blog as much while we're adjusting to life with the new baby.

But why this post? Well it's both a teaser for what's to come and a way to acknowledge that I actually read these books in 2011 and not in 2012 when the reviews will go up. So which books do I still need to review? Here's the list:

Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged
Kristin Cashore - Fire
Glen Cook - Chronicles of The Black Company
James S.A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes
Steven Erikson - House of Chains
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Emily Gee - The Laurentine Spy
Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice
Mercedes Lackey - The Sleeping Beauty
Charles de Lint - The Little Country
Karen Mahoney - The Iron Witch
China Miéville - Un Lun Dun
Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings

They're put in alphabetical order here, but that's probably not the order they'll appear on the blog. Any titles you're really interested in seeing reviewed?

Recap 2011: What happened

2011-12-31T11:11:00.000+01:00

Well, this is it. The final post for 2011! And what better way to end the year than to take a look at my reading resolutions – or as I call them bookolutions – for the past year and seeing how I did? I'll also spotlight some of the highlights of my blogging year. So just as a reminder, what were my bookolutions for 2011? They were:

This year I want to read at least 75 books.
I want to complete the Speculative Fiction Challenge 2011 hosted by Amanda at Floor to Ceiling Books.
I want to keep exploring SF, YA and horror.
I'd like to have "refreshed" my TBR-pile by the end of 2011, which means that it doesn't have to be gone, but that I would like to have read all of the books still on there from 2010!
I'd like to be able to get out to the UK at some point next year, preferably for a con, but otherwise just for a holiday and book shopping (obviously).
At the end of 2011 I'd like to be able to look back on this year and say that I'd kept at it and that I'd gotten better at reviewing. But most of all, I'd like to be able to say I had fun doing it.

So taking them one at a time, how did I do?

I read 92 books this year and am working on the 93rd, so that one I definitely fulfilled.
I did complete this Challenge and then some, as I rather expected I would, as the challenge was only to read twelve books and well...
I did keep exploring SF, YA and horror. I didn't read as much SF and horror as I did YA and fantasy and (historical) crime fiction made up most of my reading this year. However, I did read books I normally wouldn't have tried just to push myself and often found myself pleasantly surprised. So I'd say I'd kept this one, though it should make a repeat appearance next year.
Okay, I failed miserably on this one. Where I had 71 books left on my TBR-pile this time last year, I now have 123! And 59 of those were on there last year as well. So not doing as well there, though I guess there's always next year to try again!
I did get out to the UK this year, more specifically London, which Wiebe and I visited for a glorious long weekend. More on that later.
I most definitely stuck at it this year, with over 150 posts 75 of which were reviews. And that's despite my going a little patchy from July onwards due to being pregnant and being sick for the first three months of that (the person who decided it's morning sickness should be disbarred, because I've had 24/7-sickness twice now!), which caused me to spend a lot less time behind the computer. Which was a shame, because I'd gotten into a nice three-posts-a-week blogging rhythm around March and I'd been doing pretty well at keeping that up, until July. Whether I've gotten better at reviewing, it's hard to say. I'd like to think so, it definitely doesn't take me as long any more to write up a review as it did when I started. However, if I've gotten better quality-wise, I can't really say. I try to be as honest and fair in my reviews as I can and I hope that comes across, but overall, it's up to you my readers to judge whether I've improved. One thing I am sure of though, is that I've had a blast in the past year! I've connected with more bloggers, writers, publishers and publicists and it's been great. Not only are they an interesting bunch to read and chat with, it's also been fun to learn more about the writing and publishing process and business.

So on to some bloggy highlights:
1. Visiting London and meeting Liz, Mark and Amanda
In June Wiebe and I went to London for a long weekend, which was amazing, as I adore London and love visiting there. However, the highlight of our London trip was meeting Liz, Mark and Amanda. I was awesome to finally see and speak to them in the flesh instead of online and they took me on a book shopping spree my TBR-pile is still recovering from!

2. Making the Tor.com Morning Round-up
Did I ever have a major numbers spike after this! I wrote an article discussing the possibilities of speculative (auto)biographies sparked by what I had been reading and boy did it draw more attention that I'd expected. I was really proud of that too, as it was an idea I had been thinking on for a bit and I worked hard on getting my thoughts down on the page coherently. So for people to actually like it and it to be linked to on Tor.com was a big thrill!

3. Receiving my first blurbage
This totally made my month in August. Granted it wasn't on a book, but a placard at Forbidden Planet is very cool, no? And the fact that I now have one hanging in my office at the library and one at home makes it only cooler!

4. The unexpected blog silence
While this wasn't so much good news to the blog, as it was just good news for me and my family, the unexpected blog silence was a highlight of my year as we'd really wanted to give Emma a sibling and now we only have to wait two more months before we can! While at the start of my pregnancy the blogging took a hit, I'm trying to plan ahead so that once B2 gets here there will still be some activity on A Fantastical Librarian!

And that is my recap for 2011. I hope your year was a great as mine has been. Check back tomorrow for my bookolutions for 2012!

Favourite Books of 2011

2011-12-30T08:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I gave you my top ten books I read in 2011, but which were published prior to that. Today I'm posting my top ten books I read and reviewed that were published in 2011. Over half these books were débuts and only two of them are by authors I had read previously. All in all, as I said yesterday, 2011 was a very good year for me discovering new (to me) authors! So without further ado, here's the top ten!

10. Simon Spurrier - A Serpent Uncoiled
A Serpent Uncoiled was a complete surprise for me. The book wasn't even on my radar before I was contacted by the publisher to ask if I'd like to review it. The blurb seemed interesting, so I said yes and proceeded to be blown away by the book. Weird, compelling and unique, Spurrier's book stayed with me for a while. I concluded my review: 'Spurrier's writing is intricate and deliberate. He scorns neither profanity nor complex words and seems to expect the reader to be smart enough to keep up with his strange vision. In this manner he weaves not just a classic noir crime novel, but a tale of a man twisting free of his past which is as memorable as it is dryly funny. A Serpent Uncoiled is a great book, not for the faint of heart, but very much recommended.' And that paragraph also resulted in A Fantastical Librarian first being spotted out in the wild. I have one of those placards hanging in my office!

9. Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns
If there was one début this year that sparked a lot of discussion in the blogosphere, it was Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns. People either loved it or hated it, often calling the book misogynistic and gratuitously violent. I found it neither. In fact, I said: '...Prince of Thorns had a bit of an uphill battle to win me over. But win me over it did. I don't know whether this will be my pick for debut of the year, but I do know it is a strong contender. What a whopping black-hearted scoundrel this prince is! I liked the book and its protagonist very much, but I can see why people who aren't that into the whole grey area/gritty take on fantasy might not care for it at all. It is unremittingly grey shading to black. All of the protagonists are scoundrels of the blackest kind and none of its characters are safe up to and including Jorg himself.' I really did enjoy this book a lot and not just because of the characters or plot, but because it's exceedingly well-written as well. Its sequel King of Thorns is out in August and I'm already looking forward to it!

8. John Ajvide Lindqvist - Harbor
Harbor was another book its publisher contacted me about reviewing and since one of my reading goals this year was to read more horror I accepted. I debated about including it on this list, as the original to this came out in 2008 in Swedish and the UK edition was published last year. However, since this is the 2011 US release and one of the best books I've read this year, I decided it should be here, so there you go. Harbor was a fantastic read, which while pretty creepy and spooky, didn't give the giant wuss that I am nightmares at all and as such was a great foray for me into horror territory. As I concluded my review: 'Harbor is a stunning story, which made for compelling reading. If you are looking for an intelligent, spooky and mostly non-gory horror tale, this third offering by Lindqvist is just the ticket. I know this first taste of his writing has left me curious for more. I have already read Niall's review of Lindqvist's latest book Little Star and that sounds as good or even better as Harbor and I look forward to checking that out in the future.' I still stand by that, I just need to get my hands on a copy of Little Star!

7. Ian Whates - Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction
Another book read because of my 2011 bookolutions, Solaris Rising convinced me that I can both like and understand SF, but that I'm just not cut out for really hardcore, sciency Hard SF. However, out of its nineteen stories I enjoyed them all but one and that's a pretty good number for an anthology! Here's how I ended my review: 'Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you're of a mind to dip your toes into Science Fiction, then this is a perfect starting point. At the same time, I think this is also a rewarding read for SF aficionados, if only to be treated to stories by some of their favourites. From Mr Whates' foreword, I gather that this is a reboot of the previous The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction series; hopefully this first volume of the new iteration will be a great success and Solaris will decide to publish more volumes in the future, as I'd certainly be back for more. Solaris Rising is one anthology anyone with an interest in SF shouldn't miss!'

6. Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London
Ben Aaronovitch's The Folly series has it all, great characters, fun plots, lots of humour and some kick-ass, gorgeous covers, at least the Gollancz editions do. I've already announced Whispers Under Ground, the third book in the series, as one of my most anticipated reads for next year, so to find the first book in the series on this list should not really be a surprise. This book made me fall in love with Aaronovitch's writing, with his main character Peter and with its setting, though I pretty much love London anyway. Reading back my review, while I did try to make some relevant points, I did kind of rave about how much I loved this book. This is how I concluded said rave: 'So is this book worth the hype? In my opinion, yes it definitely is! I loved every second I spent with this novel and I can't wait to go back. Happily, I won't have to wait long; Peter's second adventure, Moon over Soho, is due out from Gollancz in late April. I'm looking forward to going back to the Folly already.'

5. Blake Charlton - Spellbound
The first of two sequels on this list, Blake Charlton makes a repeat appearance on my Year's Best of list. Last year his début Spellwright made it on there and this year he's back with his sophomore offer, Spellbound. I loved returning to Charlton's world and that he took a risk. Not only is the book set a decade after the first one, he also chooses to go with a main protagonist that is not the same as the one in the first book. But by my reckoning the risk paid off; Francesca is a wonderful character and her story lets us see a different area of Charlton's world. As I said in my review: 'Spellbound shows Charlton's growth as a writer. It's a tight story, with great characterisation and the ending felt less rushed than Spellwright's. It was an absolutely delightful read and I was sad to close the pages on the Six Human Kingdoms once more.' I can't wait to return there when the final book in the trilogy, Spellbreaker, comes out!

4. N.K. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods
As obvious from my post yesterday, I've loved all the books in Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy, and Kingdom of Gods was no exception. Jemisin is a super talented writer and one of my favourite voices in the field today. Kingdom of Gods left me with a very primal reaction; all I could think after finishing the book was WOW! To quote my own review: 'The Kingdom of Gods is a worthy conclusion to one of the best trilogies I've had the pleasure of reading in recent years.' And I think that says it all. I hope her new duology Dreamblood is just as stunning as the trilogy she just concluded. We'll be able to find out come May and June next year.

3. Veronica Roth - Divergent & Sally Gardner - The Double Shadow
The number three spot is actually a tie. I just couldn't choose between these two. They're both amazing YA books, but both in different ways. Divergent is explosive, action-packed and has an immediacy that doesn't let you go until you've read the last of its pages. The Double Shadow on the other hand is a smaller, more subdued story, which looks at the importance of memories. Where Divergent will not let you go until you've finished it, The Double Shadow will haunt you between reading it and for a while after. However books both deal with identity and how to find, or even carve out, your own. They also share a compelling grip in their writing, which sweeps the reader along in the narrative and makes for stories that are hard to forget. Of Divergent I said in my review: 'Divergent was a smooth read, written in first person present. This lent it an immediacy and intimacy, which made it almost impossible to put down. While part of a trilogy, the book can be read as a standalone. Divergent is not just about the politics, but also a story of growing up, letting go and finding oneself. I really loved this book; it's among my favourite reads so far this year.' While for The Double Shadow I ended my review as follows: 'The Double Shadow is a haunting book, one which I had trouble putting down at night and couldn't wait to get back to. Ms Gardner's writing is strong and sure and she is ever in control of her story. One of the strongest YA novels I've read this year and one that most adults would enjoy too.'

2. Douglas Hulick - Among Thieves
Among Thieves was heading for the top spot for most of the year, only to be edged out at the last minute by my number one. I loved this book from the moment I finished the first chapter. Drothe's story sucked me in and only spat me out when the book ended. Hulick's characters and his use of thieves' cant, his respect for his readers and his easy writing style all made this book irresistible to me. From my review: 'Among Thieves is a fantastic read. Once the story started, it never stopped and its pace never flagged. The only thing that brought it to a halt was the ending, which was well done, but I was bummed nonetheless as I wanted more! I really didn't want this book to end. And that, to me, is one of the hallmarks of a good book.' And almost nine months after reading the book, I'm still bummed I have to wait till April to get back to Drothe, Degan and Ildrecca. In my book, Doug Hulick is a keeper and one of my newest must-buy authors.

1. Elspeth Cooper - Songs of the Earth
And finally my number one... Songs of the Earth snuck in at the last moment this year, even if it had been on the reading pile since my birthday, and stole my heart. What a wonderful, gripping tale! It took me back to the days I fell in love with fantasy, it had the same old-school epic vibe that first ensnared this reader's heart of mine and as such tugged at all the right heart strings. In addition it had some great characters, lovely world building and a well-rounded magic system. I really was blown away by the story and loved it so much, that I made Wiebe, my husband, read it. This always brings a little trepidation with it, as he tends to be very critical of what he reads and can dislike a book for the weirdest reasons. To top it off, he'll just put the book away if he isn't enjoying it, which when it happens with a book I love always makes me a little sad. In this case though, I emerged victorious as when he finished it, he put it down and asked: 'When's the next one out?' When that happens I know that a book really is very, very good! As I said in the final paragraph of my review: 'Songs of the Earth is a book which made me both laugh and cry. It made for compelling reading; I whipped through it in sessions of 100 pages a sitting and just couldn't put it down.' I really couldn't put it down and I expect Trinity Moon will have the same effect once it arrives in April!

So that's it. Those were my lists for 2011! What do you think? Do you agree or do you think I'm insane for including or not including a book, on the condition that I've read and reviewed it of course?

Favourite 2011 Reads

2011-12-29T08:41:00.000+01:00

Welcome to my Favourite 2011 Reads post. Since I read over 91 books this year and most of those weren't from 2011, I decided to split my lists in a Favourite 2011 Reads section, which looks at the books published before 2011 and a Favourite Books of 2011 post, which looks at the top ten books published in 2011 I read this year.

Overall 2011 was a good reading year for me, letting me discover loads of new authors to love and some awesome sequels in series I'd already been following. Funnily enough, the books on my list here are all but two by new to me authors discovered this year, which makes for a good list in my opinion. However, it does mean I have a problem, because I really want to catch up on some of their back lists and in some cases that means a lot of books! However, that's a first world problem if I ever heard one, so no matter, let's get on with the list!

10. C.J. Sansom - Dissolution
I received Dissolution as part of World Book Night this year and I fell in love with Sansom's writing, as did several of my co-workers I lent the book to after reading it. It is the first in a series of five books so far, thus far I've read this one and the latest one Heartstone and they were both excellent. As I put it in my review: ' Like the best historical novels do, it's made me want to research the period further. If only I had more hours in the day! Still, it is a sign of the quality of this book that it inspired this desire in me.' Both books did that to me, but as Dissolution was published prior to 2011, that's why it is on this list.

9. Bram Stoker - Dracula
Solving another of my #bookfails, I read Dracula as part of my Dracula week on the blog in May. And it was a surprising read for me! I enjoyed the book far more than I'd expected, as I said in my review: 'I loved this book. I hadn't expected to love it, but I did. Once Jonathan entered that coach leaving Bistritz, I got swept along right up till the end. Dracula is a classic, important both to speculative fiction and to Gothic and Victorian literature. It's a story any speculative fiction reader should at least read once and in this case watching the film doesn't count! If you won't take my word for it, take Mark Charan Newton's, as he insists on the same, albeit in a much more eloquent fashion.' And I still can't explain it better than that. Dracula is a book that established a seminal archetype for speculative fiction and along with the amount I enjoyed reading it, that is why it's on the list!

8. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Earthsea Quartet
Showing that most of my perceived #bookfails truly are #bookfails, is The Earthsea Quartet. I've had this book since 1997, when I picked it up because I knew it was a classic of the genre and I should read it. Fast forward almost fifteen years and I finally did so! And while I still see why I had such a hard time getting into it way back when, I've also come to realise that these books are truly amazing. As I concluded my review: 'The Earthsea Quartet remains a classic of the speculative genre, written by one of its Grand Masters. Any fan of the genre should have read some Le Guin and these books. I know I'll be looking to read more of Ms Le Guin's work.'

7. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
It seems that everybody and their mother has read books by Neil Gaiman, except me that is, at least me before last June. Then I finally read The Graveyard Book, my first taste of Neil Gaiman's work and I finally got what everyone was on about. I loved it – as I loved Neverwhere which I read last month – and I'm so glad the blogosphere pointed out another of my #bookfails! As it says in my review: 'In the end, The Graveyard Book is about growing up and letting go and realising that every end is in itself a beginning. I sniffled my way through the last pages, but managed to close the book with a smile.'

6. Robert Goddard - Past Caring
Past Caring was a surprise read for me this year. I read it as part of the Great Transworld Crime Caper. I chose the book on a whim and it turned out to be my favourite of the three. Here's how I ended my review: 'Past Caring is a crime novel where the crime is not at the heart of the story, in my opinion. Yes, there is a mystery, a large one, which requires solving, but to me it was a tale about love, honour and whether sometimes keeping a secret is preferable to revealing the truth. The answer may surprise you, I know it surprised me. I've been very lucky, all the books I picked for my Crime Caper challenge were excellent and I truly enjoyed them, but unexpectedly this one is my favourite. Mr Goddard knows how to write an engrossing tale and I'm glad that there are plenty more for me to catch up on.'

5. Helen Grant - The Glass Demon
One of the must-buy authors I added to my list this year is Helen Grant. Liz from My Favourite Books sent me The Glass Demon and ever since I've been hooked. I've read and reviewed her latest novel Wish Me Dead and I've got her début novel The Vanishing of Katarina Linden on my TBR pile. I love the spookiness of her books, the mystery and most of all the cracker characters. My review reads: 'The Glass Demon was a fabulous read; it was spooky, funny, sad and gripping. I kept turning pages, even when I should have put the book away and turned my light off. Even if you do not normally read YA, if you enjoy a good mystery, I highly recommend you pick up Lin's story.' Ms. Grant's next novel is due 2013 and I can't wait to get my hands on it!

4. Steven Erikson - Deadhouse Gates & Memories of Ice
Number four is actually a double bill, because these two just went together in my head. I've been participating in The Malazan Reread over on Tor.com – we're halfway through Midnight Tides at the moment – and these are two of the three books we finished this year, the last one being House of Chains. But these two were amazing, harrowing reads. While both paced differently, they are highly emotional books and I bawled my eyes out at both. This is what I said about it in my review of Memories of Ice: 'Memories of Ice is the book where the painfulness of this series became clear to me. Yes, the Chain of Dogs in Deadhouse Gates is harrowing, but the events here in Memories of Ice broke my heart in pieces several times over and I lost some of my favourites characters so far. It brought home that no one is safe. Where I found Deadhouse Gates an emotional rollercoaster, Memories of Ice – while just as emotionally draining – was far less up and down for me. The tension kept building during the story, only to break after the Siege of Capustan before building back up to crest at the end of the novel.' Steven Erikson is one of the best authors I've ever read. He's a master at combining tension and levity, creating characters you'll either love or love to hate and has some of the best fight scenes in his books. I suspect that as long as I'm doing the Malazan Reread, one of his novels will feature in my End-of-Year lists.

3. Lauren Beukes - Moxyland
Lauren Beukes was my author discovery of the year— obviously I was a little behind the curve on the rest of you. But once I read her work, she turned my into a jabbering fangirl and I just had to read all she'd published so far. On the one hand it was easy to catch up as she'd only published two fiction novels, Moxyland and Zoo City, on the other hand I was bummed it was that easy, because I just wanted more of her work. Luckily, she's just signed a new two book deal for 2013 and 2014, so while I'll have to be patient, there is more coming! Moxyland was her first novel with Angry Robot Books and I completely loved it. This excerpt of my review says it all: 'Moxyland is very much a dystopic novel, but in some ways it's scarily close to reality: the rise of smartphones, the ability to pay with your phone, the way we have come to depend on a working (mobile) internet connection and how much easier it has become for the authorities to track our every move. This is emphasized by Beukes' afterword, written for the Angry Robot editions, in which she details the real-world developments that have caught up to her narrative, since she wrote the book. The South Africa of Moxyland is a totalitarian state, very Orwellian in feel, but updated to tomorrow. It's no longer doublespeak and doublethink, but doublelive.'

2. N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms
The Broken Kingdoms was the second instalment in the Inheritance trilogy and I waited far too long in picking it up of the pile after acquiring it in January. It was a wonderful return to Jemisin's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms universe and I loved my stay there, so much so that I've already read and reviewed the last books in the series, The Kingdom of Gods, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice! Why not? Well, maybe this piece from my review explains it: 'The plot is very exciting, a combination of murder mystery and political/religious conspiracies, and I like that it shows us glimpses of Sky and beyond. The ending is superb, with love and loss all balled up into one. While I was sad at the losses, both physical and emotional, the ending left me quite hopeful for Oree's future.'

1.Lauren Beukes - Zoo City
After my number three, my number one shouldn't be a surprise to anyone really. I completely fell in love with this book and Ms Beukes' writing. I still can't explain quite why without just going into fangirl mode, but maybe the following quotes from my review will explain it some: 'Zoo City is urban fantasy in the best sense of the word, where the city is not just the backdrop for the story, but gives it form and flavour.' And my conclusion: 'Ms Beukes' lovely writing makes for an immersive, smooth reading experience and I read the book in one sitting, well lying actually as I was sick in bed, but that was not the point. The point is that Zoo City is completely stunning and highly recommended. It's a fantastic book, which I can't urge you enough to read. And if my rave, the raves of a large part of the blogosphere and the award nominations weren't enough, just look at that cover, tell me that gorgeous cover isn't enough to at least pick the book up?' Add to this that Ms Beukes picked up the Arthur C. Clarke Award for this novel and what more do you need to convince you to take a chance on this book?

The Bookish Baby 2011

2011-12-28T10:16:00.000+01:00

In the past year I've tried to document our reading journey with our eldest little girl, Emma, during most of her second year. I call the series The Bookish Baby, and so far there have been three posts, a little less than I'd hoped, but life got in the way, unfortunately. When I started the series in February, Emma was eleven months old and just starting to discover the wonder of books. Her reading consumption mostly consisted of listening to me reading from my own books, but we'd also started reading to her from her own books.

By the second post in June, when she was fifteen months, she was able to say the word book and anything remotely resembling a book wasn't safe from her. She wanted to be just like mum and dad and read her own books. She'd climb up on the couch, grab whatever book she could and sit down and mimic our turning pages. Reading to her was getting difficult as she'd grab the book and start telling her own version of the story, opening the pages at random and turning the book upside-down if she felt like it!

Now, at almost twenty-one months, she's talking up a storm and pointing out and naming whatever she comes across. Not always accurately, all birds are ducks, for example, but she's learning new words every day. She's also demanding to be read to more and she seems to be developing a preference for certain books, wanting to hear those again and again. One of them is Kaatje verhuist or Katie moves house, which tells the story of a little girl's moving day. She loves that book, pointing out Kaatje on every page and telling us what else you can see in the picture. We're planning to get her a good old Richard Scarry book, in which you can point out things and teach her the words next week, so she can practice her words even more. I've also got this game on the iPad for her, it's an alphabet game, in English, where she has to press the right letters or numbers that they ask for, which she likes to play and she does seem to recognise some of the letters, though mostly she gets them right by just pressing the squares at random!

So in a year, Emma's gone from a baby to a toddler, who loves her books and wants to look at all of them. She about melted my heart last month when she stood in front of our bookcase, looking very contemplative and when I asked what she was doing, she turned to me, pointed at the books and said 'Beautiful!' I was so proud, she already gets it!

The coming year will be interesting, not just because she'll be growing and developing further and learning more words and maybe even some letters, but also because she'll have to learn to share attention with her little sister. I plan on reading to her while I'm nursing B2, so she won't feel left out and who knows, maybe she'll even 'read' to B2! Whatever happens, I'll try to keep up these Bookish Baby posts.

Most Anticipated Reads (Winter/Spring) 2012

2011-12-27T09:56:00.000+01:00

After last week's posts on my Anticipated Books for Winter/Spring 2012, today I bring you my top 15 Most Anticipated Reads for Winter/Spring 2012. Originally it was going to be a top ten, but I suck – or the publisher's are doing too good of a job – and I couldn't get the list down past fifteen! So below in alphabetical order by author is my list, with a little explanation of why I really can't wait to read these books. Do you agree or would you have chosen differently from last week's lists?

Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Under Ground (fantasy, Gollancz)
One of the first debut novels I reviewed last year was Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London. Originally roped in by the gorgeous cover, I completely fell in love with Peter and his London, peopled with ghosts, spirits and some less easily identifiable creatures. This first crush was only solidified by Aaronovitch's sophomore outing Moon Over Soho, so there was no doubt what so ever I'd be back to catch up with Peter, Chief Inspector Nightingale, Molly and the others. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Whispers Under Ground, which by the way has another kickass cover!

Kristin Cashore - Bitterblue (fantasy, Gollancz)
In 2010, Cashore's Graceling was one of the first YA novels I read. I loved her universe and her characters Katsa and Po. Recently, I finally read her second novel Fire, set in the same world but a while before Graceling. The review for that is still forthcoming by the way, but in short, I loved it as much as I did Graceling. And in 2012 the (probably) final book in this series, Bitterblue, is coming out. Set about eight years after Graceling and featuring many characters from said book, I can't wait to see where Cashore ends up taking us in this outing.

Elspeth Cooper - Trinity Moon (Gollancz)
If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll have caught my rave review for Elspeth Cooper's début novel Songs of the Earth. The novel blew me away and I'm impatiently awaiting my chance to find out what happens with Gair, Tanith, Alderan and the Church fathers. If Trinity Moon equals or betters her first book, Ms Cooper will cement her place as a must read author for sure!

James S.A. Corey - Caliban's War (Orbit)
One of my bookolutions for 2011 was reading more SF. One purchase to that end was James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes – and yes that's another forthcoming review – which we bought during our London visit. I really enjoyed it; I found it easily accessible, even for someone who isn't well-read in the SF field and not very sciency by nature, i.e. me! It was a great story, as much or more about the characters than about the tech. As such, its sequel, Caliban's War, will be a must-buy next year, especially as Wiebe liked the first book a lot too, and he's usually quicker to find fault with books than I am.

Janet Edwards - Earth Girl (HarperVoyager)
YA début novel Earth Girl also fits in with my desire to read both more SF and YA. While I've managed to read more YA in the past year, I've run across precious little SF-oriented YA. Earth Girl seems to fit the bill with an interesting premiss to boot. It sounds like a story I would really enjoy and I hope to get my hands on it when it's out!

Lyndsay Faye - The Gods of Gotham (Headline)
Ah, a combination of historical fiction and a good crime story, who can resist that? Not me! And again this book is set in a fascinating era of which I know little, but which sounds fantastic. And that title is just full of win!

Laurie Graham - A Humble Companion (Quercus)
I'm a sucker for historical fiction and non-fiction that deals with royalty and aristocracy, especially the British Royal houses. Our Dutch royal family is not given to much ostentation and pomp and ceremony, unlike the kings and queens across the pond. Given that weakness, Ms Graham's inside glance at the Hanoverian British court is one I'd love to see, especially as the Hanoverian George's are a part of British (royal) history with which I'm least familiar.

Douglas Hulick - Sworn in Steel (Tor UK)
One of my favourite reads of the past year was Douglas Hulick's début Among Thieves. His take on the rogue archetype with his Nose Drothe is fabulous. I loved his use of thieves' cant, his characters, the humour in the book and the sheer must-read-the-next-chapter-compellingness of the writing. I was really disappointed to end the book because I wanted moarz! So Sworn in Steel is high on my wish list to read, as I want to finally find out what is next for Drothe, Degan and the rest.

N.K. Jemisin - The Killing Moon & The Shadowed Sun (Orbit)
This one is a bit of a cheat, as it's two books in a duology, but I really couldn't resist putting both of them on here. I recently read and reviewed Ms Jemisin's Kingdom of Gods and in said review I posited that the Inheritance trilogy, of which Kingdom of Gods is the concluding volume, is one of the best trilogies I've read in recent years. So I have high expectations of her new duology called Dreamblood, especially as I loved the short story set in the same universe, called The Narcomancer.

Anne Lyle - Alchemist of Souls (Angry Robot)
Anne Lyle's Alchemist of Souls is one of my most anticipated debuts of 2012. A combination of historical and fantasy is irresistible to me, especially if it combines Tudor England, Vikings and creatures from the New World. So this book would always have been of interest to me. However, having followed Ms Lyle on Twitter for a while, I've seen her post on her progress on the second volume in this series and some of the elements she's incorporating in the next book, which has whet my appetite only more. Plus, my shallow side really likes the cover too!

Scott Lynch - The Republic of Thieves (Gollancz)
More Locke and Jean, plus we finally get to meet Sabetha! I've been waiting for this book for ages, just as most of the SFF blogosphere I think, so I guess no more explanation is necessary for this one!

Ken MacLeod - Intrusion (Orbit)
Intrusion fascinates me because I wonder how the choice of the Fix pill is presented. This is one choice that is definitely influenced by my being a mum now. It makes me wonder what choice we'd make, if we were put in that position and what the ramifications for society would, should such a pill be available.

Michelle Moran - The Second Empress (Quercus)
I adored Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter, so much so, that I even read a dry academic work on Cleopatra Selene and her husband Juba, which I borrowed from work, to find out more about them. I still plan to one day catch up on all her works, but next year's release of The Second Empress is of special interest to me. When I was a just at university I read Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe by Sandra Gulland, about Empress Josephine, which I really liked. In addition, a lot of my country's history was shaped by the French Occupation under Napoleon, so Napoleonic historical fiction, especially focused on the women surrounding him is right up my alley.

Veronica Roth - Insurgent (Fantasy, Harper Teen)
I was blown away by Veronica Roth's début Divergent; I read it cover to cover in about two days during our flight back from London and the next day. And I've been chomping at the bit ever since to find out what's next. I can't wait to crack open Insurgent and find out where Tris, Four and the rest are going next!

Eva Stachniak - The Winter Palace (Transworld)
Taking into account my previously professed love of historical fiction centred on royalty, aristocracy and courts, this choice shouldn't come as a surprise. And while the Russian Romanovs and their predecessors have always fascinated me, I know woefully little about them, so it looks like The Winter Palace would completely fit the bill for me!

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: YA

2011-12-24T09:35:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the last post in the Anticipated Books 2012 series – more on the how and what of these here – which focuses on the various YA novels that caught my eye. YA is one of the nooks of the publishing world I've tried to explore some more in 2011. And I found some awesome books through my explorations. I love the way YA deals with issues teens are confronted with these days and how fresh a lot of the writing is. The one book you'll be sure to see a review of over the coming month is Julianna Baggott's Pure, as I was lucky enough to receive an ARC for that one and I've already been reading it in the past week!

I'll be taking a break over Christmas and I'll be back on Tuesday with My Most Anticipated Reads for 2012. I hope you have a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it and if you don't enjoy the Monday off!

January

Robin Wasserman - The Book of Blood and Shadow (thriller, Atom)
It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark.

But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.

Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.

Anna Kendall - Crossing Over (fantasy, Indigo)
The Land of the Dead is a dangerous place to be...and so is the Land of the Living.

Whether it's a curse or a blessing the fact remains: whenever Roger is in enough pain he can cross over to the Land of the Dead and speak to the people there. It's an unexpected gift - and one that, throughout Roger's life, his violent uncle has taken advantage of. Roger has been hauled from fairground to fairground, and beaten into unconsciousness, in order to bring word of the dead to the recently bereaved. It's a hard, painful way of life, deceiving the living for a crust of bread.
So when Roger has the chance of a new life, it seems a gift. He has a chance at safety and at living a life of his choosing, tucked away in the royal court. But life is unexpected, and when Roger falls in love with the bewitching, willful Lady Cecilia he has no idea what he is letting himself in for. With every step he takes towards her, he is drawn deeper into court intrigue, into politics, and even into war . . .
. . . and when Roger's curious abilities come to the Queen's attention, everything changes forever.

Trapped in courtly politics, bound by secrets, Roger is torn between his own safety and that of his friends. He can save them . . . but only if he can bring himself to perform a deed so unthinkable that the living and the dead shrink from it alike. . .

February

Julianna Baggot - Pure (dystopian, Headline)
'We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.'

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'.

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.

Sarah Prineas - Winterling (Fantasy, Quercus)
With her boundless curiosity and wild spirit, Fer has always felt that she doesn't belong. She hears the call of the wild wood, of the secrets it whispers. But when her grandmother reveals clues about the disappearance of her father, Owen, and his mystical bond to her mother, Fer begins to unlock secrets about the parents she never knew. Led to a reflecting pool which uncovers 'The Way', Fer finds an enchanting and dangerous land.

In this place bound by magic, where incredible beings are part animal, part human, Fer feels the call of the blood bond. But with her mother gone, everything has spun out of order and evil has imprisoned the place in ice. Now, Fer must face down the powerful Mor who has cruelly overtaken this world and its people, and answer the call of her legacy.

Anna Kendall - Dark Mist Rising (fantasy, Indigo)
Whether it's a curse or a blessing the fact remains: whenever Roger is in enough pain he can cross over to the Land of the Dead and speak to the people there. It's an unexpected gift - and one that, throughout Roger's life, has been taken advantage of; by his violent uncle, by the mysterious, malign Soulviners performing their dark magic on Soulvine Moor, and even by a Queen, fighting for her queendom with every possible weapon she can find.
But not anymore. The dangerous life of Queen's Fool is behind him, young Princess Stephanie sits on the throne, and Roger is living a life of his choosing. He, Maggie and Jee have a small, out of the way, increasingly prosperous inn, supported by their hard work. It's a simple, industrious life . . . and it's about to be destroyed.
The war is not over. The savage invaders are back. And they're looking for the boy who killed their leader.
They're looking for Roger.

Sometimes a choice between life and death is no choice at all . . .

March

Sophie Flack - Bunheads (Comtemporary, Atom)
On-stage beauty. Backstage drama. As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet Company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances and complicated backstage relationships. Up until now, Hannah has happily devoted her entire life to ballet. But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah's universe begins to change and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other 'bunheads' in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?

R.S. Russell - Dead Rules (Paranormal, Quercus)
When Jana Webster dies in a tragic accident, she finds herself transferred to 'Dead School' in the afterlife, where students fall into distinct cliques. Risers (good kids who died innocently), Sliders (bad kids, who have one foot tied to earth) and Virgins (there are fewer than Jana would expect).

Jana's boyfriend and love of her life - Michael - is still in the land of the living. Michael is Romeo to Jana's Juliet and as the story goes... even death can't keep them apart. Tired of waiting for him to kill himself over his grief of losing her, Jana decides she needs to do it for him. To kill Michael she'll need the help of a dangerous and sexy Slider - Mars Dreamcoate. But Mars has a goal of his own: he wants to save a life to atone for having taken one in a drunk-driving accident. And to complicate matters, he was trying to save Jana when she died and saw what was really going on when her 'accident' happened.

Jana decides to do whatever it takes to get Michael back, and nothing - not even Mars' warm touch or the devastating secret he holds about her death - will stop her.

April

Anna Kendall - A Bright and Terrible Sword (fantasy, Indigo)
It's a question of life, death . . . or something even worse

Roger has faced down Queens, barbarians, dangerous ghostly dogs and even armies. There is one challenge left: to stand against the mysterious Soulviners and their dangerous plans to dominate the Land of the Dead. His friends held captive, his true powers still undiscovered, it's possible only the legendary bright and terrible sword can save them now . . .

A fast-paced, character- and story-driven tale, this tale is packed with action, emotion and danger.

May

Kristin Cashore - Bitterblue (fantasy, Gollancz)
Eight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue, and her country, were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck's death, believe in a forward-thinking plan: to pardon all of those who committed terrible acts during Leck's reign; and to forget every dark event that ever happened. Monsea's past has become shrouded in mystery, and it's only when Bitterblue begins sneaking out of her castle - curious, disguised and alone - to walk the streets of her own city, that she begins to realise the truth. Her kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year long spell of a madman, and now their only chance to move forward is to revisit the past. Whatever that past holds. Two thieves, who have sworn only to steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, who possesses an unidentified Grace, may also hold a key to her heart . . .

Michele Jaffe - Ghost Flower (thriller, Atom)
Eve, a runaway, finds a new job at a coffee shop on the outskirts of Tuscon. When she's approached by two wealthy teens who claim she bears an uncanny resemblance to their missing cousin Aurora, her life takes a turn for the dark and mysterious. Drawn into a scheme to win Aurora's inheritance, Eve finds herself impersonating the girl, who disappeared three years ago on the night her best friend Elizabeth died. But when Liza's ghost begins to haunt Eve, doing harm to the people close to her under the guise of "protecting" her, Eve finds herself in a nightmare maze of lies and deception that leads her to question even her own identity. She realizes her only chance is to uncover the truth about what happened the night Liza died, and to find Liza's killer - before she's next.

Sarra Manning - Adorkable (contemporary, Atom)
Jeane Smith is seventeen and has turned her self-styled dorkiness into an art form, a lifestyle choice and a profitable website and consultancy business. She writes a style column for a Japanese teen magazine and came number seven in The Guardian's 30 People Under 30 Who Are Changing The World. And yet, in spite of the accolades, hundreds of Internet friendships and a cool boyfriend, she feels inexplicably lonely, a situation made infinitely worse when Michael Lee, the most mass-market, popular and predictably all-rounded boy at school tells Jeane of his suspicion that Jeane's boyfriend is secretly seeing his girlfriend. Michael and Jeane have NOTHING in common - she is cool and individual; he is the golden boy in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. So why can't she stop talking to him?

China Miéville - Railsea (Tor UK, Del Rey)

From China Miéville, New York Times bestselling author of Un Lun Dun, a thrilling new young adult novel that reimagines Moby-Dick in an unforgettable and fascinatingly imagined setting.

Sham Yes ap Soorap, young doctor’s assistant, is in search of life’s purpose aboard a diesel locomotive on the hunt for the great elusive moldywarpe, Mocker-Jack. But on an old train wreck at the outskirts of the world, Sham discovers an astonishing secret that changes everything: evidence of an impossible journey. A journey left unfinished…which Sham takes it on himself to complete. It’s a decision that might cost him his life.

Veronica Roth - Insurgent (Fantasy, Harper Teen)
One choice can transform you — or it can destroy you. Tris Prior’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration, victory, and the thrills of being ranked first among the initiate class of her chosen faction, Dauntless. Instead, the day ends with the unspeakable horrors of Erudite simulation attacks, and while Tris survives thanks to her Divergent nature, many she loves do not.

War now seems inevitable. Though the Dauntless have been freed from Erudite mind control, conflict between the factions and their ideologies is only beginning. And in war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable — and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief, radical new discoveries, and a fast-deepening romance, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Michelle Sagara - Silence (fantasy, DAW)
It began in the graveyard. Ever since her boyfriend Nathan died in a tragic accident Emma had been coming to the graveyard at night. During the day she went through the motions at her prep school, in class, with her friends, but that’s all it was. But tonight was different. Tonight Emma and her dog were not alone in the cemetery. There were two others there—Eric, who had just started at her school, and an ancient woman who looked as though she were made of rags. And when they saw Emma there, the old woman reached out to her with a grip as chilling as death....

June
Janet Edwards - Earth Girl (SF, HarperVoyager)
2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. While everyone else portals between worlds, 18-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ‘ape’, a ‘throwback’, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.

Jarra invents a fake background for herself – as a normal child of Military parents – and joins a class of norms that is on Earth to excavate the ruins of the old cities. When an ancient skyscraper collapses, burying another research team, Jarra’s role in their rescue puts her in the spotlight. No hiding at back of class now. To make life more complicated, she finds herself falling in love with one of her classmates – a norm from another planet. Somehow, she has to keep the deception going.

A freak solar storm strikes the atmosphere, and the class is ordered to portal off-world for safety – no problem for a real child of military parents, but fatal for Jarra. The storm is so bad that the crews of the orbiting solar arrays have to escape to planet below: the first landing from space in 600 years. And one is on collision course with their shelter.

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Crime and Historical Crime Fiction

2011-12-23T08:17:00.002+01:00

Here's the fifth post in the Anticipated Books 2012 series – more on the how and what of these here – and this one is all about Crime and Historical Crime Fiction. I decided to keep Historical Crime Fiction a separate category as it is a distinct blend of both Crime and Historical Fiction and is different from either of those categories on their own. In the past year I've re-discovered my love of Crime fiction. I've always read a lot of crime, due to it being what was in my parents' bookcases and I love crime shows on TV. And as I love Historical Fiction as well, Historical Crime Fiction is almost the perfect genre baby for me! So here are the books that jumped out at me.

Crime
January

Elly Griffiths - A Room Full of Bones (Quercus)
It is Halloween night, and the local museum in King's Lynn is preparing for an unusual event - the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But when Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise, she finds the museum's curator lying dead beside the coffin. It is only a matter of time before she and DI Nelson cross paths once more, as he is called in to investigate.

Soon the museum's wealthy owner lies dead in his stables too. These two deaths could be from natural causes but Nelson isn't convinced.

When threatening letters come to light, events take an even more sinister turn. But as Ruth's friends become involved, where will her loyalties lie? As her convictions are tested, she and Nelson must discover how Aboriginal skulls, drug smuggling and the mystery of The Dreaming may hold the answer to these deaths, and their own survival.

Karen Rose - No One Left to Tell (Headline)

A woman is dead and her fiancé is serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. Now PI Paige Holden holds the only piece of evidence that could see him freed, and she cannot take it to the police.But Paige has only scratched the surface of a cover-up far deadlier than she could ever imagine. A string of mysterious deaths of women with a shared past sets Paige on the trail of a ruthless killer. The problem is, the killer's on her trail too . . .

March

Anna Smith - To Tell the Truth (Quercus)
A three-year-old British girl is taken from a Spanish beach while on holiday with her parents. Nobody heard a sound. Nobody saw a thing. Or so they claim. Meanwhile, on the nearby Costa del Sol, Rosie Gilmour is enjoying a well-deserved vacation: one that is cut short when the abduction story breaks and she's sent to cover it.

Rosie's instincts tell her something's wrong. Such a crime, committed in broad daylight, must surely have its witnesses. Moreover, the girl's mother's story just doesn't add up. When Rosie is approached by an illegal sex worker with information about the abduction, she knows these instincts are correct.

Key information about the crime is being withheld from the authorities. The reason: corrupt politicians and vicious human trafficking gangs - enemies one would think twice about making. But thinking twice is not in Rosie Gilmour's DNA, especially when a young child's life is at stake. And, as Rosie closes in on the truth, she realises the penalty for missing this particular deadline is just that, death.

David Mark - The Dark Winter (Quercus)
Hull, northern England. Two weeks before Christmas. Three bodies in the morgue.

The victims - each a sole survivor of a past tragedy - killed in the manner they once cheated death.

Somebody is playing God. And it falls to DS Aector McAvoy to stop their deadly game.

April

Laura Wilson - A Willing Victim (Quercus)
London, November, 1956.

DI Ted Stratton is tasked with investigating the murder of Jeremy Lloyd, a strange young man with a taste for esoteric religion. Stratton's enquiries lead him to Suffolk, where the mysterious Mr Roth has founded a Foundation for Spiritual Understanding.

Apparently Lloyd had believed himself marked out for great things. But at the Foundation, Stratton meets twelve-year-old Michael who is proclaimed as the next incarnation in a long line of spiritual leaders that stretches back to Christ and Buddha. He is rumoured amongst Roth's disciples to have been immaculately conceived, but the woman who is said to be his mother, and whose photograph was cherished by Lloyd, has disappeared.

When a woman's body is found in woods nearby, Stratton initially assumes he has found 'the mother', but the reality turns out to be far stranger and far more terrifying...

May
James Henry - Fatal Frost (Transworld)
May, 1982. Britain celebrates the sinking of the Belgrano, Jimmy Savile has the run of the airwaves and Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman, DC Waters - recently relocated from Bethnal Green.

While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries, the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Evans is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. Then a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead on Denton’s golf course, his organs removed.

Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate - a welcome distraction from troubles at home. And when the murdered boy’s sister goes missing, Frost and Waters must work together to find her . . . before it’s too late.

Historical Crime Fiction
February

Patrick Easter - The river of Fire (Quercus)
Wapping, London: March 1799.

A sunken lugger in the Pool of London at last reveals its shocking secret. River Surveyor Tom Pascoe of the Marine Police finds the bodies of two men entombed in the crew's cabin. Suspicion falls on a third member of the crew seen fleeing the scene. He had a known motive for murder.

Against the background of a nation at war with Napoleon, Tom Pascoe finds his own life under threat as he digs deeper into the case. He uncovers the existence of French agents whose task is to undermine England's ability to continue the war.

In a race against time, Tom's job is further complicated by the presence of a new member of the police crew with a secret of his own...

March

Lyndsay Faye - The Gods of Gotham (Headline)

August 1845 in New York; enter the dark, unforgiving city underworld of the legendary Five Points...

After a fire decimates a swathe of lower Manhattan, and following years of passionate political dispute, New York City at long last forms an official Police Department. That same summer, the great potato famine hits Ireland. These events will change the city of New York for ever.

Timothy Wilde hadn't wanted to be a copper star. On the night of August 21st, on his way home from the Tombs defeated and disgusted, he is plotting his resignation, when a young girl who has escaped from a nearby brothel, crashes into him; she wears only a nightdress and is covered from head to toe in blood. Searching out the truth in the child's wild stories, Timothy soon finds himself on the trail of a brutal killer, seemingly hell bent on fanning the flames of anti-Irish immigrant sentiment and threatening chaos in a city already in the midst of social upheaval. But his fight for justice could cost him the woman he loves, his brother and ultimately his life...

Lloyd Shepherd - The English Monster (Simon & Schuster)
London, 1811. The twisting streets of riverside Wapping hold many an untold sin. Bounded by the Ratcliffe Highway to the north and the modern wonders of the Dock to the south, shameful secrets are largely hidden by the noise and glory of Trade. But two families have fallen victim to foul murder, and a terrified populace calls for justice. John Harriott, magistrate of the new Thames River Police Office, must deliver revenge up to them and his only hope of doing so is Charles Horton, Harriot’s senior officer. Harriott only recently came up with a word to describe what it is that Horton does. It is detection.

Plymouth, 1564. Young Billy Ablass arrives from Oxford armed only with a Letter of Introduction to Captain John Hawkyns, and the burning desire of all young men; the getting and keeping of money. For Hawkyns is about to set sail in a ship owned by Queen Elizabeth herself, and Billy sees the promise of a better life with a crew intent on gain and glory. The kidnap and sale of hundreds of human beings is not the only cursed event to occur on England’s first officially-sanctioned slaving voyage. On a sun-blasted islet in the Florida Cays, Billy too is to be enslaved for the rest of his accursed days.

Based on the real-life story of the gruesome Ratcliffe Highway murders, The English Monster takes us on a voyage across centuries, through the Age of Discovery, and throws us up, part of the human jetsam, onto the streets of Regency Wapping, policed only by Officer Horton.

April

Imogen Robertson - A Circle of Shadows (Headline)
A locked room. A dark threat. A place of poisonous lies.

Germany, 1784. Daniel Clode cannot say whether or not he killed the woman. They were found together in a locked room, dressed for the Carnival. But what of the strange madness he feels, and how did she drown on dry land?

Harriet Westerman knows Daniel is not a murderer; her sister would not have married such a man. She and the reclusive anatomist Gabriel Crowther must travel to the Duke of Maulberg's Court to save him from the silken, venal plotting of the castle, and from the axeman's steel. But their journey across Europe brings them to an alien and capricious land, full of lies and shadows, where no one can be trusted.

May

Matt Rees - A Name in Blood (Corvus)
Italy, 1605: For the ruling Borgia family, Rome is a place of grand palazzos and frescoed cathe- drals. For the lowly artist Caravaggio, it is a place of rough bars, knife fights, and grubby whores. Until he is commissioned to paint the Pope...

Soon, Caravaggio has gained entry into the inner circle of Rome’s power-brokers, and becomes the most celebrated artist in Italy. But when he falls for Lena, a low-born fruit seller, and paints her as the Madonna, Italian society is outraged. Discredited as an artist, but desperate to defend the honour of the woman he loves, Caravaggio is forced into a duel - and murders a nobleman.

Even his powerful patrons cannot protect him from a death sentence. So Caravaggio flees to Malta, where in order to be pardoned, he must undergo the rigorous training of the Knights of Malta. His paintings continue to speak of his love for Lena. But before he can return to her, as a Knight and a noble, Caravaggio, the most famous artist in Italy, simply disappears...

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Historical Fiction

2011-12-22T08:28:00.001+01:00

Welcome to my historical fiction picks for my Anticipated Reads Winter/Spring 2012 – more on the how and what of these here. I adore historical fiction and I read far too little of it. But every time I look at what publishers are putting out, I see loads of historical novels that look so interesting to me. So I'm glad to have the chance here to point you at some titles that really drew my attention when I saw them. I hope you see something that catches your eye.

January

Christian Cameron - God of War (Orion)
The ultimate historical adventure novel: the life of Alexander the Great in a single, epic volume.

The story of how Alexander the Great conquered the world - first crushing Greek resistance to Macedonian rule, then destroying the Persian Empire in three monumental battles, before marching into the unknown and final victory in India - is a truly epic tale that has mesmerised countless generations of listeners. He crammed more adventure into his thirty-three years than any other human being before or since, and now for the first time a novelist will tell the tale in a single suitably epic volume. The combination of Alexander's life story and Christian Cameron's unrivalled skills as an historian and storyteller will ensure that this will not only be the definitive version for many years to come, but also one of the most exciting historical epics ever written.

Eva Stachniak - The Winter Palace (Transworld)
The epic, sensuous story of Catherine the Great’s ruthless rise to power, through the eyes of a young girl groomed as the Empress’s spy in 18th Century Russia.
When Vavara, a young orphaned Polish girl, is brought to serve at Empress Elizabeth’s glittering, dangerous court in St Petersburg, she is schooled by the Chancellor himself in skills from lock-picking to love- making, learning above all else to stay silent - and listen. Soon, she is Elizabeth’s ‘tongue’ - her secret eyes and ears.

Then Sophie, a vulnerable young princess, arrives from Prussia as a prospective bride for Elizabeth’s heir. Set to spy on her by the Empress, Vavara soon becomes her friend and confidante, and helps her navigate the illicit seductions and the treacherous shifting allegiances of the court.But Sophie’s destiny is to become the notorious Catherine the Great. Are her ambitions more lofty and far-reaching than anyone suspected, and will she stop at nothing to achieve absolute power?

February

Nancy Bilyeau - The Crown (Orion)
For secrets this deadly, blood will dye the throne of a nation...

London, May 1537: When Joanna Stafford, a young novice, learns her cousin is about to be burned at the stake for rebelling against Henry VIII, she makes a decision that will change not only her life but quite possibly, the fate of a nation. Joanna breaks the sacred rule of enclosure and runs away from Dartford Priory.

But when Joanna and her father are arrested and sent to the Tower of London, she finds herself a pawn in a deadly power struggle. Those closest to the throne are locked in a fierce fight against those desperate to save England's monasteries from destruction
Charged with a mission to find a hidden relic believed to possess a mystical power that has slain three Englishmen of royal blood in the last 300 years, Joanna and a troubled young friar, Brother Edmund, must seek answers across England.
Once she learns the true secret of her quest, one that traces all the way back to Golgotha and the Relics of the Passion, Joanna must finally determine who to trust and how far she is willing to go to protect her life, her family and everything she holds dear.

March

Victoria Lamb - The Queen's Secret (Transworld)
July 1575

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, arrives at Kenilworth Castle amid pomp, fanfare and a wealth of lavish festivities, laid on by the Earl of Leicester. The hopeful Earl knows this is his very last chance to persuade the Queen to marry him.

But despite his attachment to the Queen and his driving ambition to be her King, Leicester is unable to resist the seductive wiles of Lettice, wife of the Earl of Essex. And soon whispers of their relationship start spreading through the court.

Enraged by the adulterous lovers growing intimacy, Elizabeth employs Lucy Morgan, a young black singer and court entertainer, to spy on the couple. But Lucy, who was raised by a spy in London, uncovers far more than she bargains for.

For someone at Kenilworth that summer is plotting to kill the queen. No longer able to tell friend from foe, it is soon not only the queen who is in mortal danger - but Lucy herself.

Michelle Moran - The Second Empress (Quercus)
Empress Josephine's family has been called to Napoleon's court for the terrible news that he intends to divorce his barren wife of thirteen years and take a younger bride, the Austrian Princess Marie-Louise.

For Josephine's daughter, Hortense, this means she is free to leave her husband, Napoleon's brother, having given the Bonapartes three heirs. As she looks for love, she must support her mother through the terrible grief of Napoleon's betrayal.

For his new wife, it is a terrible duty she must take on in her father's name. She has nothing in common with the strange, older man she has married and can find little in her life to enjoy. But an unlikely friendship with Hortense will bring her much comfort, especially as she must fight for her own happiness.

For Napoleon's sister, Pauline Bonaparte, it is yet another woman stealing her brother's attention and affection. Having spent years attempting to control his power and his influence, she must fight harder and dirtier if she is to win...

April

Giles Kristian - The Bleeding Land (Transworld)
England. 1642. War is coming. The rift between King and Parliament has widened and armies muster, ready to fight for their religious and political ideals. Nothing is so destructive as civil war, and for the Rivers family, the raising of the King’s standard heralds a conflict that threatens to tear them apart.

As a knight and friend of King Charles, Sir Francis Rivers’ loyalty is beyond question, and so should be that of his family. However another Royalist, Lord Henry Denton, imprisons a suspected Catholic priest and in so doing makes an enemy of Sir Francis’s youngest son, Tom. For Tom is betrothed to Martha Green, the imprisoned man’s daughter. In desperation, Martha pleads with Denton to free her father. He agrees, but on one condition: she must give herself to him. In the event, Denton reneges and Martha watches her father hang. Heartbroken, unable to live with her shame, Martha takes her own life and Tom, burning with hatred for Denton - and his father for not interceding - turns his back on his home and family. In London he falls in with a crowd of men eager to fight for Parliament for, in the prospect of war, Tom sees his chance for vengeance.

But Sir Francis Rivers’ eldest son, Mun, is for the king, and joins a troop of horse commanded by the dashing Prince Rupert. Sir Francis rides in the King’s Lifeguards as the first battle of the war looms. But whilst men fight and die at Edgehill, the Rivers women, Lady Mary and her daughter, Bess, must also fight to survive as the family home, Shear House, is besieged.

Kate Lord Brown - The Perfume Garden (Corvus)
In the hills of Valencia, a forgotten house guards its secrets. Untouched since Franco’s forces tore through Spain in 1936, the whitewashed walls have crumbled, the garden grown wild.

Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Guided by a series of letters and a key bequeathed in her mother’s will, she has left her job as London’s leading perfumier to restore this dilapidated villa to its former glory. It is the perfect retreat: a wilderness redolent with strange and exotic scents, heavy with the colours and sounds of a foreign time. But for her grandmother, Freya, a British nurse who stayed here during Spain’s devastating civil war, Emma’s new home evokes terrible memories.

As the house begins to give up its secrets, Emma is drawn deeper into Freya’s story: a story of crushed idealism, of lost love, and of families ripped apart by war. She soon realises it is one thing letting go of the past, but another when it won’t let go of you.

Jude Morgan - The Secret Life of William Shakespeare (Headline)
The greatest writer of them all, brought to glorious life.

How well do you know the man you love? How much do you think you know about Shakespeare? What if they were one and the same? He is an ordinary man: unwilling craftsman, ambitious actor, resentful son, almost good-enough husband. And he is also a genius. The story of how a glove-maker from Warwickshire became the greatest writer of them all is vaguely known to most of us, but it would take an exceptional modern novelist to bring him to life. And now at last Jude Morgan, acclaimed author of Passion and The Taste of Sorrow, has taken Shakespeare's life, and created a masterpiece.

May

Simon Scarrow - The Sword and the Scimitar (Headline)
1565; In its hour of greatest need, Malta must rely upon the ancient Knights of the Order of St John for survival. Bound by the strongest ties: of valour, of courage and of passion, the Knights must defend their island against ferocious and deadly Ottoman attack.

For Sir Thomas Barrett, summoned by the Order and compelled by loyalty - to the Knights, to his honour and to his Queen - returning to the besieged island means revisiting a past he had long since lain to rest. As the beleaguered Knights grapple to retain control, decade-old feuds will be reawakened, intense passions rekindled and deadly secrets revealed.

June

Laurie Graham - A Humble Companion (Quercus)
Meet Nellie Welche - companion to royalty and keeper of secrets ...

Nellie Welche is the daughter of a high-ranking steward in the household of Prinnie, Prince of Wales. In 1788, at the age of twelve, she's proposed as a suitably humble companion to Princess Sophia, one of George III's enormous brood of children. Nellie and Sofy become friends for life.

From the first rumblings of revolution in France to the exciting, modern times of gas light and steam trains, from poor mad George to safe and steady Victoria, Nellie is the sharp-penned narrator of a changing world and the unchanging, cloistered lives of Princess Sofy and her sisters. Nellie proves to be more a hawk-eyed witness than a Humble Companion, as her memoir lifts the lid on the House of Hanover's secrets and lies.

Adam Christopher - Empire State

2011-12-21T16:35:00.001+01:00

It was the last great science hero fight, but the energy blast ripped a hole in reality, and birthed the Empire State – a young, twisted parallel prohibition-era New York.

When the rift starts to close, both worlds are threatened, and both must fight for the right to exist.

One of the most buzzed about debuts for 2012, ever since it was announced, Adam Christopher's Empire State is a much anticipated release around the blogosphere. Normally not given to reading superhero novels or comic books, I do enjoy a good noir detective, so I was curious to read the book and see why everyone was so excited about this book. While I really enjoyed the story, I did have some issues with it, but I do understand the buzz for Empire State.

What stands out most in this book are the atmosphere Christopher creates and the world building, which was very well done. You can feel the fog and the rain; see the gritty, yellowish light of the Empire State. The Prohibition vibe was laced through everything. I also really liked the idea of an alternate dimension NYC. The idea of doubles being created in this alternate dimension was pretty cool and I liked the way the author played with this conceit. What also spoke from the atmosphere and world building was Christopher's love for New York City, he lovingly paints its picture and that of the Empire State. In fact, the writing was such that I think the book would make for an excellent film, with leeched colours and lots of rain!

The character of Rad was well drawn; I really liked his everyman, good guy outlook, even though he is a bit of a PI gone to seed. He gives the reader a hook to understand what's going on, because he's discovering these facts for himself, thus for the most part staying away from the dreaded info dump. The secondary characters were good too, especially Captain Carson. I really liked this old gentleman and his companion Byron. I thought he was interesting and his back story would make for interesting reading as well, though by the end of the book, for reasons I'll explain later, he became a little exasperating to me. Much has been made of the superhero angle of the book, but to me they were the characters that came to the fore and to life the least. For most of the book they just seemed the means to an end – to give us a reason for the Empire State – only at the end of the book does their role really interact with the narrative.

My main issues with the book were that for me it was a bit of a slow starter – it took me a while to get into the story – and the last few chapters. During the last part of the book, there are lots of crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses and at one point I just lost track and felt a little worn out by it all. Even though by the wrap up of the novel, it all made sense, during those last chapters I just felt needlessly confused and started rolling my eyes whenever people switched sides. I could have done with a few less switches and a more straight-forward denouement of the novel. Then again, your mileage may vary on this point, as I'm convinced there will be lots of people who will love the complexity of those final chapters, but for me, it didn't work very well.

In the end though, despite my reservations stipulated above, I had a really good time with Empire State. I really liked Rad and wanted to know how his story ended and when an author succeeds in investing me in a character that much, he's done his job well. I personally hope the book will be optioned for a film, because I think that would make for a fantastic flick! If you like a good noir tale, Empire State is a book you won't want to miss. For a full on superhero book, you might want to wait for Christopher's next novel, Seven Wonders, due out from Angry Robot Books in September 2012. Empire State will be released next Tuesday, December 27th, though it has already been spotted out in the wild!

This book was provided for review by the publisher.

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Science Fiction and Fiction

2011-12-21T08:40:00.000+01:00

Today I'm posting my Anticipated Books for Science Fiction and just regular Fiction – more on the how and what of these here. They're so few in number, that they easily fit in one post and since it's still a really low number, this afternoon you can look forward to a review of Adam Christopher's Empire State, which will be released next Tuesday. So let's have a look at my choices.

Science Fiction
March

Ken MacLeod - Intrusion (Orbit)
Imagine a near-future city, say London, where medical science has advanced beyond our own and a single-dose pill has been developed that, taken when pregnant, eradicates many common genetic defects from an unborn child.

Hope Morrison, mother of a hyperactive four-year-old, is expecting her second child. She refuses to take The Fix, as the pill is known. This divides her family and friends and puts her and her husband in danger of imprisonment or worse. Is her decision a private matter of individual choice, or is it tantamount to willful neglect of her unborn child?

A plausible and original novel with sinister echoes of 1984 and Brave New World.

June

James S.A. Corey- Caliban's War (Orbit)
We are not alone.

The alien protomolecule is clear evidence of an intelligence beyond human reckoning. No one knows what exactly is being built on Venus, but whatever it is, it is vast, powerful, and terrifying.

When a creature of unknown origin and seemingly impossible physiology attacks soldiers on Ganymede, the fragile balance of power in the Solar System shatters. Now, the race is on to discover if the protomolecule has escaped Venus, or if someone is building an army of super-soldiers.

Jim Holden is the center of it all. In spite of everything, he’s still the best man for the job to find out what happened on Ganymede. Either way, the protomolecule is loose and Holden must find a way to stop it before war engulfs the entire system.

CALIBAN’S WAR is an action-packed space adventure following in the footsteps of the critically acclaimed Leviathan Wakes.

Fiction
January

Steven Erikson - This River Awakens (Transworld)
In the spring of 1971, Owen Brand and his family move to the riverside town of Middlecross in a renewed attempt to escape poverty. For twelve-year-old Owen, it’s the opportunity for a new life and an end to his family’s isolation and he quickly falls in with a gang of three local boys and forms a strong bond with Jennifer, the rebellious daughter of a violent, alcoholic father. As summer brings release from school, two figures preside over the boys’ activities: Walter Gribbs, a benign old watchman at the yacht club, and Hogdson Fisk, a vindictive farmer tormented by his past. Then the boys stumble on a body washed up on the riverbank - a discovery whose reverberations will result, as the year comes full circle, in a cataclysm that envelops them all...

Steven Erikson first novel, This River Awakens, is a lyrical, tender and disturbing portrayal of a rite of passage that is both harsh and revelatory.

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy April-June

2011-12-20T08:33:00.000+01:00

Here's the second of my anticipated books for the first half of 2012 posts – more on the how and what of these here – and the second part of my fantasy books list. Again, these are just the books that caught my eye when going through different publisher's catalogues and lists. So here are the rest of the fantasy titles I found.

April

Elspeth Cooper - Trinity Moon (Gollancz)
The displaced Nimrothi clans have elected a Chief of Chiefs to lead them into battle against the Empire with the Wild Hunt at their head. Only Teia, with her untrained talent of foretelling, can see the chief's plan spells disaster for her people. Desperate, she flees into the winter snows to seek the one force that has stood against the massed clan warband and prevailed: the Empire's iron men.

In the blistering southern deserts, Gair and Alderan seek clues to the location of the starseed that represents their only hope of securing the Veil - and in the wrong hands, the greatest threat to its safety. When disaster strikes, Gair returns to the north, battling not only with grief but with himself: his grasp on his powers is failing, and it is only a matter of time before they consume him completely.

The Warlord, a clansman of Arennor, insists that the Nimrothi threat is real, and in defiance of the Imperial Council and the Emperor himself, musters a scant legion of soldiers to re-garrison the three border fortresses against imminent attack. As the Nimrothi warband, forty thousand strong, marches on the rich lands of the Empire, only a thousand men - and one wounded gaeden - stand to oppose them. If they fail, the Wild Hunt will ride.

Kevin Hearne - Tricked (Del Rey)
Druid Atticus O’Sullivan hasn’t stayed alive for more than two millennia without a fair bit of Celtic cunning. So when vengeful thunder gods come Norse by Southwest looking for payback, Atticus, with a little help from the Navajo trickster god Coyote, lets them think that they’ve chopped up his body in the Arizona desert.

But the mischievous Coyote is not above a little sleight of paw, and Atticus soon finds that he’s been duped into battling bloodthirsty desert shapeshifters called skinwalkers. Just when the Druid thinks he’s got a handle on all the duplicity, betrayal comes from an unlikely source. If Atticus survives this time, he vows he won’t be fooled again. Famous last words.

Douglas Hulick - Sworn in Steel (Tor UK)
It’s been three months since Drothe killed a legend, burned down a portion of the imperial capital, and unexpectedly elevated himself into the ranks of the criminal elite. Now, as the newest Gray Prince in the underworld, he’s learning just how good he used to have it.

With barely the beginnings of an organization to his name, Drothe is already being called out by other Gray Princes. And to make matters worse, when one dies, all signs point to Drothe as wielding the knife. As members of the Kin begin choosing sides – mostly against him – for what looks to be another impending war, Drothe is approached by a man who not only has the solution to Drothe’s most pressing problem, but an offer of redemption. The only problem is the offer isn’t for him.

Now Drothe finds himself on the way to the Despotate of Djan, the empire’s long-standing enemy, with an offer to make and a price on his head. And the grains of sand in the hour glass are running out, fast...

Anne Lyle - The Alchemist of Souls (Angry Robot)
When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back a name out of half-forgotten Viking legend: skraylings. Red-sailed ships followed in the explorers’ wake, bringing Native American goods – and a skrayling ambassador – to London. But what do these seemingly magical beings really want in Elizabeth I’s capital?

Mal Catlyn, a down-at-heel swordsman, is seconded to the ambassador’s bodyguard, but assassination attempts are the least of his problems. What he learns about the skraylings and their unholy powers could cost England her new ally – and Mal Catlyn his soul.

Sam Sykes - The Skybound Sea (Gollancz)
After the misadventures of the first two books Lenk and his companions must finally turn away from fighting each other and for their own survival and look to saving the entire human race. A terrible demon has risen from beneath the sea and where it came from thousands could follow. And all the while an alien race is planning the extinction of humanity. The third volume in the Aeon's Gate trilogy widens the action out dramatically. TOME OF THE UNDERGATES was based mainly on a ship, BLACK HALO moved the action to an island of bones, THE SKYBOUND SEA takes us out into a world threatened with a uniquely imagined and terrifying apocalypse.

May

A.J. Dalton - Empire of the Saviours (Gollancz)
In the Empire of the Saviours, the People are forced to live in fortified towns. Their walls are guarded by an army of Heroes, whose task it is to keep marauding pagans out as much as it is to keep the People inside. Several times a year, living Saints visit the towns to exact the Saviours’ tithe from all those coming of age. When a young boy, Jillan, unleashes pagan magicks in an accident, his whole town turns against him. He goes on the run, but what hope can there be when the Saviours and the entire Empire decide he must be caught?

N.K. Jemisin - The Killing Moon (Orbit)
THE CITY BURNED BENEATH THE DREAMING MOON. In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt. But when a conspiracy blooms within Gujaareh's great temple, Ehiru – the most famous of the city's Gatherers – must question everything he knows. Someone, or something, is murdering innocent dreamers in the goddess' name, stalking its prey both in Gujaareh's alleys and the realm of dreams. Ehiru must now protect the woman he was sent to kill – or watch the city be devoured by war and forbidden magic.

Chuck Wendig - Blackbirds (Angry Robot)
Miriam Black knows when you will die. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

June

Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night (Headline)
Shortly after Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont timewalk to London, 1590, they discover that the past may not provide a safe haven after all. Reclaiming his former identity as poet and spy Matthew Roydon, the vampire falls back in step with a group of radicals known as the School of Night who share dangerous ideas about God, science, and man. Many of his friends are unruly daemons - the creative minds of the age who walk the fine line between genius and madness - including playwright Christopher Marlowe and mathematician Thomas Harriot. Matthew, himself, is expected to continue to spy for Queen Elizabeth, which puts him in close contact with London's cutthroat underworld.

Together, Matthew and Diana scour the bookstalls and alchemical laboratories of London where they follow the elusive trail of Ashmole 782 - and search for the witch who will teach Diana to control her powers.

N.K. Jemisin - The Shadowed Sun (Orbit)
A city veiled in shadow, plagued by nightmares Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares: a mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. Trapped between dark dreams and cruel overlords, the people yearn to rise up - but Gujaareh has known peace for too long. Someone must show them the way. Hope lies with two outcasts: the first woman ever allowed to join the dream goddess' priesthood, and an exiled prince who longs to reclaim his birthright. Together, they must resist the Kisuati occupation and uncover the source of the killing dreams . . . before Gujaareh is lost forever.

Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter - The Long Earth (Transworld)
2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Junior cop Sally Jansson is called out to the house of Willis Lynsey, a reclusive scientist, for an animal-cruelty complaint: the man was seen forcing a horse in through the door of his home. Inside there is no horse. But Sally finds a kind of home-made utility belt. She straps this on - and ‘steps’ sideways into an America covered with virgin forest. Willis came here with equipment and animals, meaning to explore and colonise. And when Sally gets back, she finds Willis has put the secret of the belt on the internet. The great migration has begun...

The Long Earth: our Earth is but one of a chain of parallel worlds, lying side by side in a higher space of possibilities, each differing from its neighbours by a little (or a lot): an infinite landscape of infinite possibilities. And the further away you travel, the stranger the worlds get. The sun and moon always shine, the basic laws of physics are the same. However, the chance events which have shaped our particular version of Earth, such as the dinosaur-killer asteroid impact, might not have happened and things may well have turned out rather differently.

But only our Earth hosts mankind...

Mercedes Lackey - Home from the Sea (DAW)
Mari Prothero has lived all her life with her father, Daffyd, in a tiny fishing village on the coast of Wales. Though Daffyd takes his boat out on the sea regardless of weather, Mari has learned not to fear for his safety, for her father is a Water mage, and always comes home safely with a large catch. Mari knows that in her family, children are expected to marry at eighteen, to an appropriate stranger.

However, Mari is a fledgling Water Master with a rebellious nature. She has no intention of agreeing to any arranged marriage. But Mari has yet to learn the truth of the magical heritage that must be protected by these very marriages. For the Protheros are descended from Selkies — magical beings who are able to change from seals to humans — and to continue her line, she must marry a full-blooded Selkie.

Tom Pollock - The City's Son (Jo Fletcher Books)
Expelled from school, betrayed by her best friend and virtually ignored by her dad, who's never recovered from the death of her mum, Beth Bradley retreats to the sanctuary of the streets, looking for a new home. What she finds is Filius Viae, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London, who opens her eyes to the place she's never truly seen. But the hidden London is on the brink of destruction. Reach, the King of the Cranes, is a malign god of demolition, and he wants Filius dead. In the absence of the Lady of the Streets, Filius' goddess mother, Beth rouses Filius to raise an alleyway army, to reclaim London's skyscraper throne for the mother he's never known. Beth has almost forgotten her old life - until her best friend and her father come searching for her, and she must choose between the streets and the life she left behind. This is the first of a series, an urban fable about friends, family and monsters, and how you can't always tell which is which.

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy Jan-March

2011-12-19T08:21:00.001+01:00

This is the first part of my anticipated books for the first half of 2012 – more on the how and what of these here – and more specifically the first part of my fantasy books post. Yes, there were so many fantasy books that caught my eye that I judged it wise to split them up into two posts. Some of these I will read for sure, either because I've already have and eARC for them (Empire State and Giant Thief) or because I've already pre-ordered it (Whispers Under Ground). The others all depend on whether I'm lucky enough to receive review copies for them or whether how much finances allow me to splurge on books. Look for a review of Empire State on Wednesday. Now let's get one with the pretties!

January

Adam Christopher - Empire State (Angry Robot)

It was the last great science hero fight, but the energy blast ripped a hole in reality, and birthed the Empire State – a young, twisted parallel prohibition-era New York.

When the rift starts to close, both worlds are threatened, and both must fight for the right to exist.

Raymond E. Feist - A Crown Imperilled (HarperVoyager)
War rages in Midkemia but behind the chaos there is disquieting evidence of dark forces at work.

Jim Dasher’s usually infallible intelligence network has been cleverly dismantled; nowhere is safe. He feels that the world is coming apart at the seams and is helpless to protect his nation.

Quiet palace coups are underway in Roldem and Rillanon; and King Gregory of the Isles has yet to produce an heir. In each kingdom a single petty noble has risen from obscurity to threaten the throne.

Lord Hal of Crydee and his great friend Ty Hawkins, champion swordsman of the Masters’ Court, are entrusted with the task of smuggling Princess Stephané and her lady-in-waiting, the lovely but mysterious Lady Gabriella, out of Roldem to a place of greater safety. But is there any safe haven to be found?

Meanwhile, Hal’s younger brothers Martin and Brendan are attempting to hold the strategic city of Ylith against an onslaught of Keshian Dog Soldiers, and a mysterious force from beneath the sea. The Kingdom might lose Crydee and recover; but if Ylith falls, all is lost.

An unknown player appears to orchestrating these conflicts. Can Pug and the Conclave of Shadows track down this source before Midkemia is destroyed?

John R. Fultz - Seven Princes (Orbit)

An ancient necromancer slaughters the king and his court in front of the unbelieving eyes of crown prince D’zan. From that moment, his life is consumed by one thought – to regain his throne. Others will join him, some will oppose him.

In a world where men and giants fight side by side against ancient monsters and new powers, only one thing is sure – war is coming. Blood will run and princes will clash.

Seven princes. Seven destinies.

All will be legend.

February

Rachel Aaron - The Legend of Eli Monpress (Orbit)

Eli Monpress is talented. He’s charming. And he’s a thief.

But not just any thief. He’s the greatest thief of the age, and he’s also a wizard. And with the help of his partners – a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls – he’s going to put his grand plan into effect.

Because Eli won’t rest until he’s amassed a fortune. Step one in his plan is to increase the bounty on his head, so he’ll need to steal some big things. He’ll start small for now though: he’ll just steal something that no one will miss – at least for a while. Like a king . . .

This omnibus edition contains: THE SPIRIT THIEF, THE SPIRIT REBELLION and THE SPIRIT EATER

Myke Cole - Control Point (Ace)

Army Officer. Fugitive. Sorcerer.

Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze.

Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the military’s Supernatural Operations Corps, his mission is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly manifests a rare and prohibited magical power, transforming him overnight from government agent to public enemy number one.

The SOC knows how to handle this kind of situation: hunt him down–and take him out. Driven into an underground shadow world, Britton is about to learn that magic has changed all the rules he’s ever known, and that his life isn’t the only thing he’s fighting for.

Torsten Krol - The Sacred Book of Secret Things (Corvus)

The coming of the Great Stone has erased almost everything that used to be. But in one isolated valley, the Church of Selene has found a way back from destruction. Sister Luka and her female converts offer sacrifice to the scarred moon that fills the sky.

Among the Little Sisters of Selene, twelve- year-old Aurora holds the post of Honoured Scribe. To keep the Moon in the heavens where She belongs, the Scribe endlessly invokes the name of Selene. But Aurora also keeps a secret book, a clandestine history of the new Earth.

But the equilibrium of the Selene is shattered when an unexpected marvel occurs in the sky, precipitating a series of incidents that unfold with fateful inevitability, beginning with insur- rection from the nearby Village of Men. It would seem that all Aurora’s work as Scribe has failed and the Moon is threatening to remake the world all over again...

David Tallerman - Giant Thief (Angry Robot)

Meet Easie Damasco, rogue, thieving swine and total charmer.

Even the wicked can’t rest when a vicious warlord and the force of enslaved giants he commands invade their homeland. Damasco might get away in one piece, but he’s going to need help.

Big time.

James Maxey - Greatshadow (Solaris)

Greatshadow is the primal dragon of fire, an elemental evil whose malign intellegence spies upon mankind through every candle flame, waiting to devour any careless victim he can claim. The Church of the Book has assembled a team of twelve battle-hardened adventurers to slay the dragon once and for all. But tensions run high between the leaders of the team who view mission as a holy duty and the super-powered mercanaries who add power to their ranks, who view the mission primarily as a chance to claim Greatshadow's vast treasure trove. If the warrior fails to slay the beast, will they doom mankind to death by fire.

Saladin Ahmed - Throne of the Crescent Moon (DAW)

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, home to djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, are at the boiling point of a power struggle between the iron- fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince. In the midst of this brewing rebellion a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. It is up to a handful of heroes to learn the truth behind these killings.

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, "the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat," just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path.

Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla's young assistant, is a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety. But even as Raseed's sword is tested by ghuls and manjackals, his soul is tested when he and Adoulla cross paths with the tribeswoman Zamia.

Zamia Badawi, Protector of the Band, has been gifted with the near- mythical power of the lion-shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man's title. She lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father's killer. Until she meets Raseed.

When they learn that the murders and the Falcon Prince's brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time-and struggle against their own misgivings-to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn Dhamsawaat, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin.

March

Ben Aaronovitch - Whispers Under Ground (Gollancz)

Doctor Who Screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch's superbly entertaining supernatural crime series has, with its witty one-liners and wonderfully erudite take on London, won a legion of fans in double quick time. Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And its just as well - he's already had run ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn't even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there's his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn't his fault, but still. Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met's Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka 'The Folly'. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britains Last Wizard.

Stephen Deas - The Black Mausoleum (Gollancz)

There’s Karatos, the alchemist sentenced to death for being what she is. There’s Siff in the next cell. His death sentence is for killing four soldiers with his bare hands even though he has no memory of how he did it. There’s Skjorl, the Adamantine Man whose job it is to watch over them.

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her, given the chance.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Graham Joyce - Some kind of fairy tale (Gollancz)

It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone call from his parents. It pulls him into a bewildering mystery. His sister, Tara, has come back home. Not so unusual you might think, this is a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back, and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family has, unspoken, feared that she was dead. But now she's back, tired, disheveled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent traveling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim. But her stories don't quite hang together and the intervening years have been very kind to Tara . . . She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago. Peter's parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter is not so sure. There is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it's as if she's off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family... Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a very English story. A story of woods and clearings, a story of folk tales and family histories.

Aidan Harte - Irenicon (Jo Fletcher Books)

The river Irenicon was blasted through the middle of Rasenna in 1347 and now it is a permanent reminder to the feuding factions that nothing can stand in the way of the Concordian Empire. The artificial river, created overnight by Concordian engineers using the Wave, runs uphill. But the Wave is both weapon and mystery; not even the Concordians know how the river became conscious - and hostile. But times are changing. Concordian engineer Captain Giovanni is ordered to bridge the Irenicon - not to reunite the sundered city, but to aid Concord's mighty armies, for the engineers have their sights set firmly on world domination and Rasenna is in their way. Sofia Scaglieri will soon be seventeen, when she will become Contessa of Rasenna, but her inheritance is tainted: she can see no way of stopping the ancient culture of vendetta which divides her city. What she can't understand is why Giovanni is trying so hard to stop the feuding, or why he is prepared to risk his life, not just with her people, but also with the lethal water spirits - the buio - that infest the Irenicon. Times are changing. And only the young Contessa and the enemy engineer Giovanni understand they have to change too, if they are to survive the coming devastation - for Concord is about to unleash the Wave again...

Ted Kosmatka - The Games (Del Rey)

Silas Williams is the brilliant geneticist in charge of preparing the U.S. entry into the Olympic Gladiator competition, an internationally sanctioned bloodsport with only one rule: no human DNA is permitted in the design of the entrants. Silas lives and breathes genetics; his designs have led the United States to the gold in every previous event. But the other countries are catching up. Now, desperate for an edge in the upcoming Games, Silas’s boss engages an experimental supercomputer to design the genetic code for a gladiator that cannot be beaten.

The result is a highly specialized killing machine, its genome never before seen on earth. Not even Silas, with all his genius and experience, can understand the horror he had a hand in making. And no one, he fears, can anticipate the consequences of entrusting the act of creation to a computer’s cold logic.

Now Silas races to understand what the computer has wrought, aided by a beautiful xenobiologist, Vidonia João. Yet as the fast-growing gladiator demonstrates preternatural strength, speed, and—most disquietingly—intelligence, Silas and Vidonia find their scientific curiosity giving way to a most unexpected emotion: sheer terror.

Scott Lynch - The Republic of Thieves (Gollancz)

After their adventures on the high seas, Locke and Jean are brought back to earth with a thump. Jean is mourning the loss of his lover and Locke must live with the fallout of crossing the all-powerful magical assassins the Bonds Magi. It is a fall-out that will pit both men against Locke's own long lost love. Sabetha is Locke's childhood sweetheart, the love of Locke's life and now it is time for them to meet again. Employed on different sides of a vicious dispute between factions of the Bonds Sabetha has just one goal - to destroy Locke for ever. The Gentleman Bastard sequence has become a literary sensation in fantasy circles and now, with the third book, Scott Lynch is set to seal that success.

Yves Menard - Chrysanthe (Tor US)

Christine, the princess and heir to the real world of Chrysanthe, is kidnapped as a small child by a powerful magician and exiled in a Made World that is a version of our present reality. In exile, supervised by her strict "uncle"(actually a wizard in disguise), she undergoes bogus memory recovery therapy, through which she is forced to remember childhood rape and abuse by her parents and others. She is terribly stunted emotionally by this terrifying plot, but at seventeen discovers it is all a lie. Christine escapes with a rescuer, Sir Quentin, a knight from Chrysanthe, in a thrilling chase across realities.

Once home, the magical standoff caused by her exile is broken, and a war begins, in spite of the best efforts of her father, the king, and his wizard, Melogian. And that war, which takes up nearly the last third of the work, is a marvel of magical invention and terror, a battle between good and evil forces that resounds with echoes of the great battles of fantasy literature.

Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Introduction

2011-12-18T11:45:00.001+01:00

Tonight is the start of 3FM Serious Request and for me that is the sign that the year is truly coming to an end. Check the bottom of this post if you would like to find out more about 3FM Serious Request and its Glass House. Anyway, as I was saying the start of the 3FM Serious Request week is what rings in the festive season for me and thus I thought it would be a good point to start my end of year posts, not just looking back at 2011, but also looking forward to 2012. In the past month I spent time going through publishers' catalogues and websites to see what they were publishing in 2012. Largely this was restricted to the first half of 2012, as that's the way these catalogues work.

Over the next few days I'll be posting list of the books that caught my eye. These lists are by no means exhaustive, as I wasn't able to find any information for some publishers and I'm sure I've forgotten to check some others. At the same time, I'm certain I won't be reading all of the books on the lists, because a) there's no way I can afford to buy them all and b) even if I could, I'd never have enough time to read them all. Still, I wanted to put these books in the spotlights and draw some attention to them. Even if I won't manage to read all of them, maybe seeing them here will alert others to them and get them interested. That's why I named the posts Anticipated Books, as I don't know which ones I'll be able to read.

I've chosen to just list the books alphabetically by author per month and divided over six genre categories. YA has its own post with all the genres mixed together, but they deserved a spot of their own. On the day after Boxing Day I'll post a round up post of my Most Anticipated Reads drawn from the previous days' posts, consisting of the fifteen books I'm most excited by and which I'll try my best to get my hands on and why.

After these forward looking posts, I'll be posting round up posts for the past year until New Year's Day when I'll post my Bookolutions for 2012. And that will be the final post in the ultimate Recaps and Upfronts series of 2011! I hope you'll join me over the coming two weeks and share your thoughts on the past year!

Here's the full programme:

December 19th -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy part 1
December 20th -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Fantasy part 2
December 21st -- Empire State Review
December 21st -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Science Fiction and Fiction
December 22nd -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Historical Fiction
December 23rd -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: Crime and Historical Crime Fiction
December 24th -- Anticipated Books (Winter/Spring) 2012: YA/Children's
December 25th -- Christmas Break
December 26th -- Christmas Break
December 27th -- Most anticipated Reads (Winter/Spring) 2012
December 28th -- The Bookish Baby 2011
December 29th -- Favourite 2011 reads
December 30th -- Favourite books of 2011
December 31st -- Recap 2011: What happened
December 31st -- Recap 2011: Books read in 2011, but not reviewed yet.
January 1st -- Upfronts 2012: Bookolutions

3FM Serious Request
3FM Serious Request and its Glass House is a yearly charity event organised by my favourite radio channel 3FM. Each year three DJ's lock themselves in a glass house somewhere in The Netherlands for a week without any food, other than three fruit or vegetable shakes a day. During the week they raise money for the Red Cross and their designated project for that year, such as malaria prevention, aids orphans and this year it's for mother's affected by war and conflict. This year the Glass House is set in Leiden, which is super cool in and of itself, but it's also almost around the corner from where I work. This year's project is especially close to my heart, being a mum myself; if you happen to be Dutch and able to participate, it's a worthy cause!

N.K. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods

2011-12-16T17:37:00.000+01:00

For two thousand years, the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri's ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and unending war.

Shahar, last scion of the Arameri family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as heir is to uphold the family's interests, even if that means destroying everyone she cares for.

As terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom – which even gods fear – is summoned forth. Can Shahar and Sieh, mortal and god, stand together against the chaos threatening the kingdom of gods?

WOW was my primary reaction to this concluding volume of the Inheritance trilogy. The Kingdom of Gods is an amazing story once again. As I said in my review of The Broken Kingdoms, Ms Jemisin has a distinct voice in oodles and spades and this is reaffirmed by The Kingdom of Gods. But what is even more striking is that while she has a distinct voice, each of the three books has a distinct voice as well. Sieh sounds as I expected Sieh would, based on the prior books. The distinction between the three books is emphasised by my reading the last two, The Broken Kingdoms and The Kingdom of Gods, so close together. The books are a cohesive whole, when taken as a trilogy, while at the same time they're all strong standalone narratives. It's a rare series that achieves that.

I loved Sieh's story. Set decades after the events in The Broken Kingdoms, society has changed even more. Life has become more secular and nations chafe under Arameri rein. The large narrative scale is world changing, with client states rebelling and religion changing and becoming less dominant, but small scale the book a story about trust. Sieh learning to trust the Arameri twins Shahar and Dekarta and the twins trusting him, Sieh needing to trust his fellow godlings and his parents, and of course Yeine and Nahadoth trusting Itempas. I love that trust is shown as sometimes implicit, sometimes needing to be earned, as something that can be broken and lost, but also regained. Sieh's journey in this regard was the most central and maybe the most far-reaching of the novel. Sieh's development throughout the novel was fantastic, but it is hard to detail why it is so without giving spoilers. Shahar goes through a similar magnitude of growth. She struggles to break the Arameri mould, to not be a tyrant, to do what is right. And she largely succeeds, barring some mistakes along the way. I loved the relationship between Sieh and Shahar; it's so deliciously complicated and conflicting and doesn't go where you'd expect it to. Dekarta actually ends up taking a smaller role over much of the novel than I expected, though his re-emergence into the narrative and his eventual role in events was brilliant. One character that really touched me, surprisingly, was Remath, who tries so hard to protect and save her children and struggles not to show her love, to be a true Arameri. To me she was a tragic figure, so proud and strong and the opposite yet so like her daughter.

The political turmoil affecting the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is handled amazingly as well, shown by the maskers' magic and the different countries we see through Sieh's eyes, especially Darre and the Teman people. There is a lot of hatred, mistrust and old grudges against the Arameri and these – emphasised by Sieh's recollections of what the Arameri made him do when they had him enslaved – make liking the Arameri difficult. At the same time it is hard not to like Shahar and Deka, as they're compelling, and more importantly very human, characters. However great the turmoil though, in the end mortalkind draws together when facing an even bigger threat of total annihilation and I really liked the eventual solution to the 'Arameri problem', which was both elegant and very well done.

Sieh is a trickster and when he opens with "There will be no tricks in this tale." the reader shouldn't believe him. Nothing is as it seems and the ending is superb. The Kingdom of Gods is a worthy conclusion to one of the best trilogies I've had the pleasure of reading in recent years. If you've not tried any of Ms Jemisin's work before, you really should. Start with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, or if you don't want to take the full-length leap and would rather dip your toe into something short form, why not check out some of her short fiction listed on her blog. Both L'Alchemista and The Narcomancer are good places to start. For myself, I can't wait until her next series, the Dreamblood duology, is released, starting with The Killing Moon in May!

Elspeth Cooper - Songs of the Earth

2011-12-12T19:34:00.000+01:00

Gair is under a death sentence.

He can hear music – music with power – and in the Holy City that means only one thing: he's a witch, and he's going to be burnt at the stake. Even if he could escape, the Church Knights and their witchfinder would be hot on his heels while his burgeoning power threatens to tear him apart from within.

There is no hope...

... none, but a secretive order, themselves persecuted almost to destruction. If Gair can escape, if he can master his own growing, dangerous abilities, if he can find the Guardians of the Veil, then maybe he will be safe.

Or maybe he'll discover that his fight has only just begun.

Songs of the Earth is another great 2011 debut. Harkening back to a more traditional fantasy feel, it made me feel warm and comfy in its pages. It felt both familiar and new, as there is a sort of 'Chosen One' feel about its protagonist Gair, but nobody comes out and says it. There is no prophecy he has to follow, no magical McGuffin to help him complete a quest. It really isn't a prophecy-driven book; instead it's just good old-school epic fantasy, in my opinion.

The world building in Songs of the Earth is fantastic. What really stood out for me were the pieces of scripture Ms Cooper created for the Eadorian Church. They give an authentic and well-rounded feel to at least the Church-side of this culture and through some of the chapters featuring Ansel and some of Gair's discussions with Darin on Church history we get an even more well-rounded view. The same can be said of Ms Cooper's magic system. This too is well-rounded, though still mysterious, with little of the actual 'mechanics' of the magic revealed. All we really know it's song-based – everything has its own musical signature – and not everyone gifted with the ability to hear the Song, has the same aptitudes or strength in the powers at play. I'd love to see some more details on the mechanics, but that's just because I love that sort of thing. Another strong point is the different nationalities and races found in the book. While the world of Songs of the Earth seems in a large part Western-European inspired, with its Northmen and Leahn, who feel somewhat Scandinavian in appearance and a religion which seems to have some familiarity with the Christian one, there are other cultures out there, such as the Southern desert peoples where Aysha came from, the sea elves Masen encounters and the Astolan people, with their White Court and long-lived people. And before you say, oh no elves, let me stress that what I particularly loved about the Astolan is how they are introduced into the narrative—without even any emphasis on any link to elves. Ms Cooper even has Tanith joke about it, when they discuss – inaccurate – Astolan descriptions in literature, telling Gair about Astolan ears: "Completely unpointed, as you can see". That line definitely made me chuckle out loud.

Besides great world building, Cooper also manages to people her book with interesting characters. Gair is a great protagonist, somewhat naive, but definitely not stupid or too innocent for his age. I really liked his development; he grows up over the course of the novel from a somewhat naive young man to someone who has accepted the blows life has dealt him and risen above them. By the end of the book, Gair has a purpose and goal he wants to reach with his life and, though it might not be the wisest or most rational desire, I'm sure following him as he tries to attain his goal is going to be interesting. As stated above, there is a hint of the Chosen one about Gair and Alderan is the wise one to Gair's Chosen one. He is the character who knows where Gair needs to go and what's next, but at the same time he is shown to be fallible and admits it ungrudgingly. I liked the school setting of Chapterhouse where Alderan takes Gair, though we see remarkably little of Gair's education. Instead of focusing on Gair's lessons, Ms Cooper chooses to focus on Gair's interactions and relationships with his fellow students, such as Darin, Arlin and Sorchal, and some of the Masters, such as Aysha, swords master Harlan, and Tanith, one of the healers. I loved the friendship Gair forms with Darin and the rapport he builds with Tanith. But I loved his relationship with Aysha the most. Both because I'm an incurable romantic and because, like Gair himself at first, I kept getting the feeling that it wasn't right, that it would mean trouble, but at the same time seeing how he made Aysha blossom, it was hard to resist the pairing.

A storyline completely separate from Gair's was that of Preceptor Ansel and Chaplain Dalinor. In their scenes we get to see some of the machinations within the Church and perhaps some of the motivations of its key players as well. They made me think the Church wasn't all bad; especially in the latter part of the book where Church politics came to the fore Ansel's and Dalinor's scenes were very enjoyable. These are very clever and devious men, who need to defeat even more devious opponents. I truly adored the last scenes where we see them and I hope we will see more of them in the next book along with the Lord Provost and Selsen.

If I have to have one complaint, it's a minor one: some elements were a little telegraphed. For example, the trinket used by the bad guys to get an in inside Chapterhouse. While I didn't know exactly what was wrong with it, I did know there was something wrong with it and so its ultimate role didn't come as a surprise. Similarly, I knew Aysha's and Gair's relationship wouldn't end well, even if I didn't know why wouldn't end well. In any case, the way this was resolved had me crying my eyes out, so knowing that something will probably happen, doesn't mean it won't have impact. Besides, I can't help but think that part of the telegraphing is due to that sense of familiarity I mentioned before; Songs of the Earth fits in a long-standing fantasy tradition and as such some elements and tropes are bound to be familiar. And this isn't a bad thing, as long as tropes don't become cliché, but, for me, Ms Cooper never crossed that line.

Songs of the Earth is a book which made me both laugh and cry. It made for compelling reading; I whipped through it in sessions of 100 pages a sitting and just couldn't put it down. The morning before I finished it I was bemoaning the fact I had to go to work as I wanted to finish the book. I came home sat down and didn't emerge until I'd finished. While I may have been late in reading this first instalment of The Wild Hunt, I'm sure I won't be as tardy with book two, Trinity Moon. Its release date in April is too far away! If you haven't done so yet, be sure to pick up a copy of this wonderful début – Christmas presents are just around the corner! – as it's one of the stronger ones of the year.

Blake Charlton - Spellbound

2011-12-07T21:11:00.000+01:00

Francesca De Vega is a successful healer in the city of Avel, wielding magical text to mend wounds and disspell curses, but her life is thrown into chaos when a dead patient sits up and tells her to run. Now Francesca is in the middle of a game she doesn't understand, one that ties her to the notorious rogue wizard Nicodemus Weal, and brings her face to face with demons, demigods, and a man she thought she'd never see again.

It has been ten years since Nicodemus escaped from Starhaven Academy, where he was considered disabled and useless, and where he battled the demon Typhon who stole his birthright and killed his friends. Having mastered the dark language of the kobolds, Nico now feels ready to take his revenge against Typhon. But complications arise: his mentor suffers from an incurable curse, his half-sister's agents are hunting him, and he's still not sure he can trust the mysterious healer Francesca De Vega.

And in a world where a misused pronoun can spell death, Nicodemus knows he can't afford to make a single mistake.

Blake Charlton's debut novel Spellwright (review) made my top five books read in 2010 list last year, so me buying Spellbound was a given. Unfortunately I had to wait until I got to go Sinterklaas shopping to get it, so I didn't get to read it immediately on publication, to my great chagrin. But, I made up for that by reading it in two sittings and wow, was it great to return to the world Charlton has created! Spellbound is set ten years after the events of Spellwright and as such, life in the Six Human Kingdoms has moved on. Adherents of the Prophecy and the Counter-Prophecy are moving in opposition of each other and the demon Typhon is taking a more active role in the events of the world.

The most obvious difference from Spellwright is Spellbound's protagonist. Charlton chooses to go with a whole new perspective in this book, that of physician Francesca De Vega. Nicodemus is by no means absent from this novel, he just isn't the main focus of it, as he was in Charlton's debut. Francesca is a charming protagonist, even if she is stubborn, fierce and, at times, quite grumpy. I really adored her fierceness and her independent nature. She also shows some amazing character development, from going from a very competent healer to something all together different, dealing with some very difficult experiences along the way. It hard to explain this further without moving into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say I really loved how Charlton handled Fran's story and where she ends up.

Francesca is surrounded by a cast of great characters. There are those we've met before, such as Nicodemus, Deirdre and Master Shannon and new faces, such as Cyrus, Francesca's hierophant ex-lover and Nicodemus' crew of kobold boys. Deirdre's story is heartbreaking, she's such a noble soul and the way her story ends, had me choked for up a bit. None of the familiar characters from Spellwright have come out of that book unharmed or unchanged, and it's these changes that make them so compelling. While Nico still wants to save the world from the Disjunction, his most obsessive goal is curing his Master Shannon, sometimes taking extraordinary risks and even going against Shannon's own wishes. Shannon plays an important and poignant part in Spellbound and for me he stole almost every scene he was in. What I really liked about Fran's interactions with Cyrus, is that there is still true affection there, but we soon see why they split up in the first place. Their bickering and constant needling of each other is funny and painful to watch at the same time. I think it's a very realistic portrayal of a relationship that's ended not because one party betrayed the other, but has just bled to death and grown apart and Charlton paints it with a deft hand.

He shows the same deft hand in his portrayal of the villains of the book, especially Typhon and the Savanna Walker. But are ruthlessly evil and out for their own gain, but both are also understandable in their motivations. Yes, Typhon's Disjunction will destroy the world as Nico and Fran know it, but for him it's what will save his people—and yes, give him world domination. Leaving aside the added bonus of world domination, Typhon genuinely seems to want to rescue his people. The Savanna Walker is an even more tragic case. Again, going into details would be giving spoilers, but Charlton succeeds in even giving this horrific monster a sympathetic side. And despite there being sympathetic elements to these villains, they remain the villains and it's impossible not to root for our heroes.

One of the elements that made me fall in love with Spellwright is Charlton's magic system. This prose-based system is something unique to his world and I utterly fell for it. In Spellbound we encounter and discover other aspects of this magic system. Francesca practices a different kind of magic from Shannon and Cyrus' Hierophantic magic is another beast entirely, its runes only produced by the heart muscle, being stored in cloth instead of his body or paper and is connected to air. We also meet a hydromancer, whose prose is stored in water. And of course we see the magical language Nicodemus has learned from the kobolds, which is bound to darkness. I loved all these variations and I can't wait to see what else Charlton can dream up.

Spellbound shows Charlton's growth as a writer. It's a tight story, with great characterisation and the ending felt less rushed than Spellwright's. It was an absolutely delightful read and I was sad to close the pages on the Six Human Kingdoms once more. In Spellwright Charlton explored dyslexia, where Spellbound is infused with his experiences as a medical student and the dilemmas doctors face in their daily work. It makes me wonder what he'll explore in the last book of the trilogy, Spellbreaker, whether it is again something connected to his real-life experiences or whether it'll move away from those. Clearly, I loved this book and if you haven't given this series a try yet or haven't yet picked up the second book, I highly recommend you do so, as it's not a series to be missed.

Mike Shepherd - Daring

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000+01:00

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife leads a Fleet of Discovery on a reconaissance of the vast uncharted regions of space. No one, least of all Kris, expects to find an alien starship, certainly not one that comes out firing. Faced with a fight-or-flight situation, Kris fired back, blowing the ship to bits.

Half a universe away from her superiors, facing a possible mutiny from officers insisting on retreat, Kris holds the face of humanity in her hands as she struggles to determine the extent of the alien threat—and whether to start an interstellar war...

Daring is the latest entry to the Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepherd. Kris is the one who convinced me that I could read, like and understand SF, so a new Kris Longknife book is always a cause for celebration in our household, especially as my husband is a big fan as well. So when I saw Daring was out, I decided this was what Wiebe wanted for Sinterklaas and got it for him and then didn't wait for Sinterklaas to get here before reading it (for those who're not familiar with him, Sinterklaas visits on December 5th and leaves presents for everyone). And boy, was it good to get back to Kris' United Society space! As noted in my review for the previous book, Redoubtable, I was a little disappointed with that one. I had hoped to find out more about the Iteeche, but instead we went on a side trip.

Well, in Daring I got what I asked for in my review of Redoubtable... Iteeche! And as an added bonus even more aliens. And these aliens are even bigger and badder than the Iteeche were before we met Ron. I liked that Kris and her crew were surprised at the fact that the new aliens were so like us humans in appearance and DNA. This universe doesn't actually adhere to the Star Trek school of alien life as the Iteeche and some of the other known species have shown. They're truly different and alien, surviving in different ecological habitats – and sometimes even atmospheres – from us. I wonder what it says about humanity that these ultimate baddies are so like us and where Shepherd will take this story arc.

Daring is a departure from previous Kris novels as this is where Kris comes fully into her own. Like her Grandpa's Ray and Trouble before her, she is confronted by a choice that will reshape the future of not just humanity, but also the Iteeche. She's playing in the big league now and the repercussions for a wrong choice will be far more far-reaching than in previous books. I loved that we see Kris struggling with the dilemma; who is she to make this decision? To add to Kris' difficulties, her decision will not only affect humanity and Iteeche, inaction will affect other alien races as well. But once she's made up her mind, she also needs to convince the other commanders in her fleet that she is not only in the right, but has the authority to make such a decision. This development in Kris is very interesting and the fact that along the way she gains new insights into and respect for her grandpa's was a nice touch.

Of course, having made her decision – for good or ill – everything goes to hell in a hand basket. While space battles have the somewhat dubious benefit of seeming relatively blood and gore free on the page, actual loss of life is far greater than we might realise at first. And no one is spared. I was pretty shocked at some of the losses, as I really hadn't seen some of them coming or at least I hadn't expected certain characters to die. So while we see most of Kris' crew again in Daring – and they're as fun to be around as ever – we have to say goodbye to several of them for good. While these goodbye's made me sad, it also adds a lot of tension to the narrative; if Shepherd is willing to off these characters, who will be next? On the one hand, I can't wait to find out, on the other, I'm afraid to, as I don't want to lose any more of Kris' friends.

Daring is a great addition to the Kris Longknife series. Yes, it follows roughly the same setup in its narrative as the previous books: we start in the middle of an action scene and only then move on to the real set up of the novel, Kris gets her orders – or rather, tells her superiors what she's going to do, she's a damn Longknife after all – and we're off on another adventure. This might be seen as formulaic, by-the-numbers-writing, however, within this familiar framework Shepherd succeeds in grasping his readers attention and using that familiarity to both lure them in and put them on the wrong footing. Daring also takes the series in a darker, more serious direction it seems and I can't wait to see where the events in this book lead in the next. Now is the time to get on board for the Longknife series; you'll have plenty of time to catch up on all the prior books before everything breaks loose in the next chapter of Kris' adventures. Only eleven more months before we find out what happens in Furious. I know I'll be waiting for it as soon as it hits the stores.

Recaps & Upfronts: November and December

2011-12-01T09:08:00.000+01:00

November saw me keeping to my blogging groove, though unfortunately I'll probably be slowing down again for a bit, as I need to take (even) more rest due to being so tired all the time. But for the past month I've been doing great review-wise, I managed seven reviews and even two news posts. Still not made a dent in that backlog though, as I've only added more books to the still-need-to-write-review pile; the current counter stands at fourteen. I've decided that I'm going to aim to write those up during the first part of my maternity leave (when I'm home, but the baby isn't born yet) and then try and schedule them for once the baby is born to give myself some breathing space. Whether I'm going to make my 100 books by New Year's Eve is doubtful, right now I've read 85 books and I'm about a third of the way through my current book. But hey it's ten books past my set goals. And judging from last week, when I took some time off to rest up and mostly read and consequently finished four books in four days, I think I can set my goal for next year at 100! So what books did I review last month?

Recap
In November I reviewed:

Beth Davies - Rebirth
John Ajvide Lindqvist - Harbor
Annmarie Banks - The Hermetica of Elysium
Charles Stross - The Jennifer Morgue
Juliet E. McKenna - The Thief's Gamble
Sally Gardner - The Double Shadow
Ian Whates (ed.) - Solaris Rising

There were also two news posts:

In The News: Angry Robot recruits from their Open Door Month
In The News: Angry Robot brews up a YA imprint

Upfront
Due to me having to slow down a bit, things will also quiet down a bit around here. I'm aiming to post at least once a week, and anything more will be a bonus. In the last two weeks of December in addition to reviews, I'll also be posting my anticipated reads for 2012, though they will mostly be for the first half of the year and I'll be posting my round-up post(s) for 2011. Anyone else planning to do these kinds of posts? I've already seen some around, but I always enjoy seeing what everyone is looking forward to! It might be a bit early, but in case I forget to do so later on in the month, I hope everyone has a great festive season, whatever you celebrate and besides having fun, be safe!

Ian Whates (ed.) - Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction

2011-11-23T16:35:00.000+01:00

Solaris Rising presents nineteen stories of the very highest calibre from some of the most accomplished authors in the genre, proving just how varied and dynamic science fiction can be. From strange goings on in the present to explorations of bizarre futures, from drug-induced tragedy to time-hopping serial killers, from crucial choices in deepest space to a ravaged Earth under alien thrall, from gritty other worlds to surreal other realms, Solaris Rising delivers a broad spectrum of experiences and excitements, showcasing the genre at its very best.

Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction has a very exciting line-up of contributors. It's the perfect way to get a taste of some of today's most exciting SF voices. The only ones from this collection I've read work from before are Eric Brown and Peter F. Hamilton. So for this relative SF newbie this anthology was quite a treat and a great way to expand my acquaintance with today's SF writers.

Before I get to some of the separate stories, I wanted to touch on what reading this anthology made me discover. Thus far the SF I've read has mostly been either military SF or SF with a more Urban flavour, such as Lauren Beukes' Moxyland and Marianne de Pierres' Parrish Plessis series. I've read Eric Brown's Kéthani, Peter F. Hamilton's Misspent Youth and James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes (for which I still need to write a review) and those three would all fit in the more traditional SF category, I think. But what all of the SF I've read has in common, is that it's more about the people than the technology. None of them are what I'd call Hard SF, by which I mean that even a straight up Humanities student such as myself, who doesn't have a lot of natural aptitude for the Sciences, can understand and enjoy it. In reading this anthology that was what became clear to me. I really do prefer the stories that focus more on people, whether people dealing with the future, people interacting with aliens, or people just being people. And I learned that, as the flap text says, SF is a very broad church; there are as many forms as there are stories.

Solaris Rising is a very strong collection of stories. Out of the nineteen of them in the book, there was only one real dud for me. And honestly, I'm still not sure I "get" the story and whether that might not be the reason I didn't like it. The story that has me so confused is Pat Cadigan's You Never Know. I actually still don't know what happened. I know it's about this guy who works in a thrift shop style store, who has a favourite customer visit him almost every day, who gets a camera security system installed and then you've lost me. There's something about wave functions and ... voom ... that went right over my head! Which is a shame, because stylistically, I quite enjoyed Ms Cadigan’s writing.

The remaining eighteen stories were very enjoyable, with about six really standing out for me. The first is A Smart-Mannered Uprising of the Dead by Ian McDonald, which is also the first story in the book. The reason the story fascinated me is that it resonated with an article I'd read about mapping the Republic of Letters by Stanford University – which of course now I can't find any more, but here's a link to the project – that referred to said Republic as the Facebook of the Eighteenth Century. So to start off with, there was something outside of the text to hook me into it. But then I discovered that the story was wonderful in and of itself. I loved the idea of the dearly departed still commenting on our lives from their virtual hereafter and taking action to put people in their place. I also liked the final twist, the reveal of what had really happened. This was my first time reading anything by Ian McDonald and it won't be my last!

The second of my favourite stories is Sweet Spots by Paul di Filippo. It's a story about learning that there are consequences to your actions and taking responsibility for your choices. Even if this was a short story, the main character showed real growth and I truly enjoyed this one. Next up is Rock Day by Stephen Baxter. Matt's, the main character's, story is such a sweet, touching story, a boy and his dog. I loved the way this turned out. At first I thought it was a bit like a rapture story with all the people raptured and some people left behind, but the twist it had was masterful and had me sighing in satisfaction. Ian Watson's How We Came Back From Mars was another favourite. I loved the play on the eternal conspiracy theories surrounding the moon landing and the way the crew were both spared and still lost their lives was played out very well. Another well-thought out conceit was the one central to Richard Salter's Yestermorrow, in which each person gets a number of allotted days to live but these days aren't consequential, they jump around in their lives. At first was a little confusing to wrap my head around, but once I got used to the concept, I thought the story was amazing. It was so cleverly done and I loved the interplay between the main character's job – he's a detective solving a case – and what we get to see of his private life, the problems this day-jumping causes in his marriage.

My final favourite is Eternity's Children, a collaboration between Eric Brown and Keith Brooke. I loved this bitter sweet tale of a world about to be left behind, almost a final contact story as it were. Eric Brown is one of the two authors in this anthology I've read before and I expected to enjoy this tale, but it wasn't what I'd expected from having read Kéthani. The latter surely has aliens in it, but they're distant, mysterious beings and the novel is focused on Earth. While this collaboration featured a far flung planet, colonised by humans, where they peacefully co-exist with the native species, even having to go as far as to be adapted to the inimical plant life to survive. It was a beautiful and sad story and I loved the ending.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. If you're of a mind to dip your toes into Science Fiction, then this is a perfect starting point. At the same time, I think this is also a rewarding read for SF aficionados, if only to be treated to stories by some of their favourites. From Mr Whates' foreword, I gather that this is a reboot of the previous The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction series; hopefully this first volume of the new iteration will be a great success and Solaris will decide to publish more volumes in the future, as I'd certainly be back for more. Solaris Rising is one anthology anyone with an interest in SF shouldn't miss!

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

Sally Gardner - The Double Shadow

2011-11-18T17:13:00.000+01:00

'Once there was a girl who asked of her reflection, 'If all I have is fragments of memories and none of them fit together, tell me then, do I exist?'

In a bluebell wood stands a picture palace. Arnold Ruben built it to house an invention of his that could change the war torn world forever. It is to be given to his daughter, Amaryllis, on her seventeenth birthday.

But it is a present she doesn't want, and in it is a past she has to come to terms with and a boy whose name she can't remember.

Who knows what her past has been, or what the future might hold for Amaryllis, lost as she is in this place with no time?

What intrigued me about this book was it's connections to Eliot's The Wasteland, which I read at university. I found it fascinating and I wondered about its echoes in The Double Shadow. While there are some literal references – Amaryllis calls the place outside in the picture palace the wasteland – other references are less literal but still recognisable, such as death by drowning, rape, the transience of memories, life and love and the repercussions of trauma. And those are just the things I picked up on after a surface reread of Eliot's The Waste Land after finishing The Double Shadow. Still, however much influenced by venerable literary forebears, I fell in love with Ms Gardner's creation for its narrative and its characters.

The story shows the importance of memory and how destructive it can be to both be trapped in your memories, like Ezra's father Noel, or to not have them at all, like Amaryllis. Memories are part of one's identity, if you lose your memories, you lose part of your identity. And indeed, much of Amaryllis' behaviour during the first part of the novel can be ascribed to her being a young girl feeling lost and unrooted in her life.

I liked the opposition of Ezra's warm, loving family and Amaryllis' lonely childhood, and that she only feels what it could be like when Mrs. Pascoe, the family cook and Ezra's mum, makes her feel the consequences of her actions—in this case, stealing a cake. This sequence is just a small illustrationof the importance of memories and how they are formed through relationships. Our first memories are built through our relationship with our parents. In The Double Shadow we see a range of parent/child relationships, from the loving relationship between Ezra and his parents, the distant one between Amaryllis and her dad to the abusive situation Arnold grows up in. These relationships, together with the friendships between Ezra and Amaryllis, Arnold and Silas and the dysfunctional marriage of Amaryllis' parents, are pivotal to the story. The memories they engender are the catalyst for all that happens in the novel. From Arnold's decision to built the memory machine, to his decision to put Amaryllis at its heart and Ezra's decision to rescue her.

A double shadow is what separates real people from those created out of the loop memories in the picture palace, but it also seems to be a metaphor for the two wars that shadow this narrative. The novel is bookended by the threat of war. Even though the one is already past and the other still coming, their threat is felt from both sides, due to the repercussions of the Great War and the fear that it'll happen again in the Second World War. The First World War is important because of how it effects Ezra's dad and Silas and Arnold. The Second World War is important for the way it figures in the second part of the novel; it's the reason why it's so important for Sir Basil and Ezra to take the picture palace out.

Apart from two great main characters in Amaryllis and Ezra, Ms Gardner also created a wonderful secondary cast. I particularly loved Ezra's parents, both his loving, no-nonsense mother and his emotionally-damaged, but equally loving father, and Tommy Treacle. Tommy is such a touching character, he is an innocent, who in his unfettered innocence seems to possess a wisdom that many of the adults around him lack. Apart from lovely characters, there are also some wicked baddies, some actually really awful such as Everett Roach, others more of an everyday awfulness, such as Ezra's nosy, gossip-y neighbour Mrs Calthorpe. Since so much of the book revolves around relationships, memories and their consequences, a cast of strong characters is indispensable. Luckily Ms Gadner has created a very strong cast of characters across the board and none of them drop the ball in this intricate dance of memory and reality.

The Double Shadow is a haunting book, one which I had trouble putting down at night and couldn't wait to get back to. Ms Gardner's writing is strong and sure and she is ever in control of her story. One of the strongest YA novels I've read this year and one that most adults would enjoy too. Another new author discovered this year and another three books of backlist I need to get my hands on!

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

In The News: Angry Robot brews up a YA imprint

2011-11-17T11:17:00.000+01:00

Today brought the news that Angry Robot is launching a sister imprint, called Strange Chemistry, which will focus on YA genre fiction. To me this is super exciting news, because AR publishes some of the best genre fiction around and I'm thrilled to see what they come up with in the YA field. But what's even more exciting is that one of my best blogging buddies is heading up the imprint. Yes, that's right, Amanda from Floor to Ceiling Books will be leading Strange Chemistry. I'm so pleased and excited for Amanda! I know she'll do a great job and bring us some stunning titles. So congrats Amanda and good luck on the move to Angry Robot HQ. Just make sure to look out for those creeping cables along the ground. I understand they're meant to help with the 'assimilation'! You can find the full press release below.

Angry Robot announces new YA imprint, Strange Chemistry

Angry Robot, the award-winning publisher of SF, F and WTF are pleased to announce their newest venture – a sister imprint, Strange Chemistry, which will publish Young Adult genre fiction.

The imprint will launch in September 2012, with five titles appearing before the end of that year, before settling down to one book each month. Strange Chemistry will follow AR’s strategy of co-publishing its books simultaneously in the US and UK, in both eBook and paperback formats. Subject matter will include fantasy, science fiction, supernatural and horror, and as with Angry Robot the lines between those genres are likely to be very blurry at times.

Running the imprint will be Amanda Rutter, until recently best known as the tireless blogger behind genre review site, Floor-to-Ceiling Books. She takes up her position in Angry Robot’s headquarters in Nottingham on December 12th.

Angry Robot’s managing director Marc Gascoigne said: “The key to any truly successful genre imprint is the personality of its editors. In Amanda we’ve found the perfect mix of editing skills and wild, wild enthusiasm for the subject. Her first signings are already making us jump up and down in excitement. We’re beyond delighted to welcome her to the team.”

Amanda Rutter commented, “Angry Robot have quickly become one of the most exciting and challenging genre publishers around, and I have so much admiration for the types of novels that the guys are bringing to the world of speculative fiction. I’m absolutely thrilled that I have the opportunity to join the team, and create a list full of Young Adult novels that share the same sharpness and passion as those in the AR list.”

:::

More information can be found at strangechemistrybooks.com and angryrobotbooks.com. You can meet Amanda at floor-to-ceilingbooks.blogspot.com.

Juliet E. McKenna - The Thief's Gambit

2011-11-16T20:26:00.000+01:00

In Einarinn, the secret of magic is known only by an elite few. They live in deliberate isolation, under the watchful eye of the Archmage. But nothing lasts forever.

Livak is a part-time thief and a full-time gambler. Long accustomed to living by her wits and narrowly avoiding serious trouble. When she attempts to sell a stolen antique to a passing merchant, she finds herself pulled into a new and dangerous world of political intrigue in which the stakes are higher than anyone involved can imagine.

For the antique she has acquired dates from a particular period in the history of Einarinn about which little is known, but much has been speculated. And when the truth begins to emerge, Livak decides to take the greatest gamble of her life.

The Thief's Gamble is a great traditional fantasy, of the kind that made me fall in love with the genre when I was fourteen years old. Which shouldn't have been a big surprise as the book was actually first published in 1999, which was in the same decade as when I first discovered fantasy. It's epic and fun – none of that modern gritty stuff here – and very much a part of a series. Of course 'modern' fantasy often is part of a trilogy or series as well, but it seems as if these days more of an effort is made to make books more readable on their own, to have their story be somewhat self-contained. Not so The Thief's Gamble; this is clearly the first book of a series, introducing us to our main characters, giving us an idea of the world we're moving into and setting up the overarching story arc, i.e. who is/are the baddie(s) and what's the problem that threatens the world as we know it? And you know what? I loved it!

Our main character Livak, the titular thief, is a wonderfully self-reliant and strong female lead. We meet her as she's hanging around, waiting for her companion to arrive and she learns of a nice 'business' opportunity. As said business opportunity also provides a way to get revenge on the man who tried to rape her years ago, Livak decides to take advantage and lands herself in far more trouble than she expected. But she never expects anyone but herself to get her out of this trouble, which I really liked. Another factor I loved is that there is no sweeping romance in the book, she'll take her pleasure, but Livak doesn't need a man! Ms McKenna doesn't need her protagonist to be a-sexual or the tomboy type to be strong and independent in her own right and it was very good to discover another such character, as I think you can't have enough of those in print.

Through Livak we meet most of our main characters; those she doesn't introduce have their own viewpoint, specifically the Archmage and Casuel. I liked how Ms McKenna played with the narrative voice for the different viewpoints, keeping all but Livak's in third person and hers in first. This lends an immediacy and intimacy to the pages spent with Livak, that is less present in the other passages. Unsurprisingly, this also led to Livak being my favourite character, closely followed by Ryshad, Shiv and Planir, the Archmage. Another character whose development I'm interested in following through the other books, that is if she returns, is Allin. Her growth through this story was fun to watch, moving as she did from a shy, diffident and insecure young girl away from home for the first time to a young woman still unsure of her place in the world, but far more assertive and present in the foreground than she had been. I especially liked the scenes where she didn't let Casuel bully her any more; those had me cheering for her in my head.

The plot was quite interesting – even though at times it moved a bit slowly – with a very creepy evil overlord and interesting societies, both the Elietimm and Tormalin. The Elietimm were a mixture of berserker warrior and a strange docility. They are a mysterious people and I look forward to finding out more about them. The same is true for the Tormalin. They are equally mysterious, though somewhat less so, due to the presence of modern Tormalin descendants, such as Messire D'Olbriot and Casuel. And while they seem equally warlike to the Elietimm, there doesn't seem to be much docility in the Tormalin character. Another thing I liked, were the opposing magic systems. On the one hand there are the elemental magics, which seem completely aptitude based and on the other hand there aetheric magic, which seems accessible to all who know the spells and how to chant them. I found it interesting that the elemental magics, which would logically be harder to attain as they need an innate affinity is the form that has survived, while the aetheric magics have been mostly lost in the time the book takes place.

The Thief's Gambit is a strong start to the Tales of Einarinn. I originally picked this book up at Amanda's suggestion during our London book shopping spree and I'm glad she put it on my pile, as I really loved this book. At the same time, she's made it so I have at least twelve more books to buy and read to catch up on Ms McKenna's backlist. I don't whether to hug her or curse her for that! But it is also a clear indication of how much I enjoyed The Thief's Gambit. If you like your old-school epic fantasy, Ms McKenna's first outing is definitely worth your time. Me, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the other books of the Tales of Einarinn, as I really want to return to Livak's story and see where adventure will take her.

In the News: Angry Robot recruits from their Open Door Month

2011-11-15T15:19:00.000+01:00

So earlier this year Angry Robot Books had an Open Door Month. During the month of March everyone could submit their manuscript to AR and they'd take a look at them, whether the authors were agented or not. Amanda, she of Floor to Ceiling Books fame, was one of the slush readers and she said there were some gems in the pile! Now finally some of these gems have been revealed and here is the press release fresh from my inbox:

** ANGRY ROBOT SIGNS TWO NEW "OPEN DOOR MONTH" AUTHORS **

Like most successful publishers, Angry Robot generally only accepts submissions through literary agencies. Earlier this year, however, the company ran a pilot
programme to see how many unpublished - but talented - authors there were without
representation. During March, Angry Robot invited all un-agented authors to submit
completed manuscripts as part of an "Open Door Month". Over 990 novels were
submitted during that period.

Today, Angry Robot are delighted to announce the first acquisitions from the first
Open Door Month. Two new authors, each with a minimum two book deal, have now joined
the Angry Robot family.

Cassandra Rose Clarke was the first signing to come through this process. Her two
novels for Angry Robot show the versatility of this important new talent.

'The Mad Scientist's Daughter' is the heartbreaking story of the journey from
childhood to adulthood, with an intriguing science fictional twist. And 'The
Assassin's Curse' is a fantastical romp, starring Ananna, a no-nonsense lady pirate,
born into pirate royalty.

Clarke said: "I'm beyond excited to have Angry Robot publishing my first-ever novel,
and not only because of the delightful coincidence that my novel involves a robot
who is, on occasion, angry. Angry Robot's reputation is stellar and their author
list incredibly impressive - I'm humbled to be included amongst their ranks!"

We take a somewhat darker turn with a pair of books from Lee Collins - 'The Dead of
Winter' and 'She Returns From War'. Both novels follow Cora Oglesby, a bounty hunter
with a reputation for working supernatural cases.

Collins said: "As excited as I am at the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Angry
Robot's outstanding authors, publication was really a secondary goal of my
submitting to them. My primary reason was the hope, however slim, of cybernetic
augmentation."

Both deals were negotiated by Angry Robot's editor, Lee Harris, who stated: "There
is an enormous amount of talent out there, waiting to be discovered, and I am
thrilled we have found two great new talents as part of our search."

Both authors' debut novels will be published by Angry Robot in autumn 2012, with
their second books scheduled for spring 2013.

Following the success of the project, Angry Robot expects to run a similar Open Door
period in spring 2013, details of which are to be confirmed at a later date.

The books sound very interesting, and a book that makes Lee Harris cry rain drops? That has to be a must read!! So what do you think of these new Angry Robot Recruits?

Charles Stross - The Jennifer Morgue

2011-11-12T10:54:00.000+01:00

Bob Howard, computer übergeek and demonology hacker extraordinaire, has a problem. Software billionaire Ellis Billington has managed to get his hands on a Soviet Cold War device that permits communication with the dead. He plans to use it to raise an eldritch horror, codenamed 'Jennifer Morgue', from the Stygian depths, with an eye to ruling the world.

Bob's mission, should he choose to accept it (or not), is simple: stop the bad guy, save the world and emerge – shaken, perhaps, but not stirred. And he can be confident that his superiors at the Laundry will do everything in their power to get him out alive. After all, someone has to do the paperwork...

Like its predecessor, The Atrocity Archives, and its successor, The Fuller Memorandum, The Jennifer Morgue is hilarious. A brilliant play on the classic spy/James Bond mythos, it manages to both poke fun at this archetype and subvert it. Everyone has seen at least one Bond film and the debate over who is the true Bond is eternal—it's Sean Connery of course, no contest. But given the fact that everyone knows at least some Bond, this is a very accessible novel for readers new to speculative fiction. It also makes it easier to catch most of the pop culture references Stross scatters throughout his story.

Bob's sidekick in this novel, Ramona, was awesome. A combination of both the good and the bad Bond girl, she was the perfect partner in this adventure. Her chemistry with Bob was more than just caused by her glamour and their entanglement. I liked that the more Bob saw of the 'true' Ramona, the more he was attracted to her, instead of in lust with her. Again, this is such a cliché, both in books and films, but it works beautifully in this book to create tension between not just Bob and Ramona, but also between Bob and Mo, his partner. The latter tension is not just because of jealousy issues but also because we as the reader see how hard Mo is working to get to Bob, while Bob is slowly getting closer to Ramona, despite still wanting to be with Mo.

The bad guy was classic as well, and scarily current, what with #occupywallstreet and the growing distrust of the mega rich and large corporations. He even has a cat to stroke and a secret lair! His methods to world domination are pretty eerie and scary, but Stross' final proof that PowerPoint is an instrument of evil had me in stitches, because who hasn't fought with PowerPoint at some point when preparing a presentation? I know I have done so often enough. Oh and expensive, seemingly miraculous beauty products? Don't even try them!

The cast surrounding Bob remains brilliant. Mo, Pinky, Brains, Bob's boss Angleton, they all make repeat appearances and are as wonderful as ever. And some of the minor characters from the first book also return, in this group I especially enjoyed Captain Barnes, though he only enters the book in the last third, and Boris, who leads Bob's support team on the Antilles. I adored the scenes were Pinky, Brains and Boris briefed Bob. They sort of reminded me of The X-Files' Lone Gunmen. Pinky and Brains cracked me up almost every time they showed up on the page, but they also managed to move me with their – sometimes clumsy – attempts to be good friends to Bob.

The twist at the end was classic. I really enjoyed the denouement of the novel and was sad to see the story end. That would be my one complaint with The Laundry books, they're too short, I rip through them way too fast! But luckily, The Jennifer Morgue was followed by a short story called Pimpf, which was a nice cherry on top of the cake. It was very funny and for anyone who's ever played a multiplayer game very recognizable! I loved Bob's reaction to having an intern and the story made for a nice goodbye from the Laundry world for now.

Happily this goodbye will not last for long, as the fourth Laundry book, The Apocalypse Codex, is supposed to come out in July 2012, huzzah! So I recommend you take the next six months to catch up with all the Laundry Files and be ready to jump in with the next book come July. One thing is for sure, you’ll have a laugh doing so!

Annmarie Banks - The Hermetica of Elysium

2011-11-08T20:09:00.000+01:00

1494 Barcelona. As Torquemada lights the fires of religious fervor throughout the cities of Spain, accused heretics are not the only victims. Thousands of books and manuscripts are lost to the flames as the Black Friars attempt to purge Europe of the ancient secrets of the gods and the bold new ideas that are ushering in the Renaissance.

Nadira lives a dreary life as servant to a wealthy spice merchant until the night a dying scholar is brought to the merchant’s stable, beaten by mercenaries who are on the hunt for The Hermetica of Elysium. To Nadira, words are her life: she lives them as her master’s scrivener and dreams them in her mother’s poetry. She is pursued as passionately as the fabled manuscript for her rare skill as a reader of Ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew that makes her valuable to men who pursue the book to exploit its magic.

Kidnapped by Baron Montrose, an adventurous nobleman, she is forced to read from the Hermetica. It is soon revealed to her that ideas and words are more powerful than steel or fire for within its pages are the words that incite the Dominicans to religious fervor, give the Templars their power and reveal the lost mysteries of Elysium.

As Nadira begins her transformation from servant to sorceress, will she escape the fires of the Inquisition, the clutches of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI and the French king, Charles VIII? And will Montrose’s growing fear of her powers cause her to lose her chance for love?

The Hermetica of Elysium is a historical fantasy, a combination of two of my favourite genres, with a bit of a romantic slant to it as well. It's the first book of a series, though I couldn't find out how many books there will be, and has more historical elements than fantasy. The true fantasy only manifests in the latter half of the book. At the same time, this is not a very detailed historical novel. In the sense that its history is more of a backdrop than an active "participant" in the novel as you might find in a straight historical novel or, for example, a Sansom novel. The history is there and it all fits, but only a few historical elements are necessary to the plot, in other ways the book could have been set a few decades earlier or later. While this doesn't affect the story at all, it might be a put-off for hardcore historical fiction readers.

The main character Nadira is an inhabitant of 15th century Barcelona and of Moorish descent. This makes her an outsider, just by virtue of her background. This is only exacerbated by her uncommon education in languages; an education which wasn't just uncommon for a woman at the time, but for anyone outside of the upper classes and the clergy. I really liked Nadira. She's strong and resourceful, and she makes the best of each situation she's thrown into. My one quibble with her is that she is said to be totally innocent, but why this is so, isn't made exactly clear. It seems to be because she isn't a believer in any one faith, but I'm not completely sure that is the reason. What is refreshing though is that Nadira is literally coveted because of her mind, not her beauty. All the men who capture her – and she does get captured quite a bit in this book – want her because she can read what they can't read and not so they can ravish her.

The cast of characters is a strong one, though the villains sometimes can be a bit formulaic. I loved Montrose, William, Alisdair and Garreth. They are the most important secondary characters and I really liked how they were portrayed. Montrose is gruff, aloof and heroic. I'd like to learn more about his background as an English nobleman, as it seems an interesting one from the hints dropped so far. William is a young monk, sweet and passionate about learning. It also helped that in my mind he kept looking like a young Paul Bettany, which helped his case a lot! The romance of the book was convincing; it took its time to develop and wasn't based on just pheromones. However, it was rather predictable, including the third point of the triangle being devoted but unable to compete. Still, I enjoyed this angle and I was rooting for the eventual pairing. I was less convinced by Di Marco and Sofir, though that might be due to the amount of time spent with them, which is arguably short, but in both cases pivotal to the story. The reason that they couldn't convince me was that they both seemed to be written to be neutral to good characters, but to me they read like either weak (Sofir) or morally very ambiguous (Di Marco) men. Sofir doesn't hesitate to sell Nadira to safeguard himself, even if he pretends to be reluctant and Di Marco is willing to betray his true master for his own ends. Both of these just didn't fit in the role they were seemingly cast for.

The Hermetica of Elysium is a very entertaining book and a good debut. Happily, the book doesn't end on a cliff hanger, but at a natural break-off point: the gang's all together and now we're ready for the next step. I'll be following the series as I really enjoyed it and I am very curious to find out where Nadira and her gang travel next. If you're looking for a light and pleasant read, spiced with fantasy and a bit romance, I recommend you check out The Hermetica of Elysium.

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

John Ajvide Lindqvist - Harbor

2011-11-04T20:44:00.000+01:00

One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While they are exploring the lighthouse, Maja disappears – either into thin air or under thin ice – leaving not even a bloody footprint in the snow.

Two years later, Anders a broken man, moves back to his family's abandoned home on the island. He soon realizes that Maja's disappearance is only one if many strange occurrences, and that his fellow islanders, including his own grandmother, know a lot more than they're telling. As he digs deeper, Anders begins to unearth a dark and deadly secret at the heart of this small, seemingly placid town.

Harbor was an intriguing novel. When I started it, I was a little apprehensive, as I was afraid I would be too scared – remember, I'm a wimp when it comes to reading horror – but while thrilling and frightening, it didn't give me nightmares. Instead its horror started with a creeping feeling of unease, of something off and, slowly, the true threat only becomes fully clear towards the end. I found myself eager to return to its pages each night and read until I had to turn off the light due to my eyes falling closed.

One of my favourite elements of this novel were the narrative structure and Lindqvist's prose. The book is set up in a double narration with switching points of view between Anders and his grandfather Simon, with interspersed breaking of the fourth wall by an unknown narrator and short pieces from the point of view of other Domarö inhabitants. I love these kinds of twined narratives, as they provide not just a way for the author to give us more information about what's going – as the saying goes: two heads always know more than one – but they also provide opportunities for miscommunication or non-communication between characters, where the reader knows more than the protagonists. Coincidentally, it can also lead to a frustrated outcry of "Why don't they just talk to each other?", but Lindqvist never falls in that trap. Yes, there is non-communication, but he allows Simon to decisively put an end to that. Lindqvist's prose, through the translation of Marlaine Delargy, is clean and clear; no purple prose here, though his descriptions of the stark and isolated landscapes and the small island community are lovely, if at times chilling.

I loved the character of Anders and I found the way Lindqvist describes his dealing with the loss of his daughter fascinating. The idea of losing one of my children – I'm already counting B2 as such, even if she isn't born yet – or my husband is my biggest nightmare and I thought Lindqvist dealt with both the madness of grief and the reshaping of memories beautifully. Anyone can picture what grief can drive someone too, whether drinking, like Anders, drugs, depression or self-harm. But I found Anders' reshaping his memories of Maja far more poignant, especially his inability to realise that he's done so until he's confronted about it by his grandparents. I think it's also something a lot of people don't realise—both that this is a natural reaction and that they've probably done the same with some of their own memories. All of this combined makes it hard to figure out whether what Anders thinks he's experiencing is true or whether they are delusions he's suffering due to too much alcohol consumption or grief.

The other main narrator is Anders' sort of grandfather. He's been together with Anders' grandmother Anna-Greta for fifty years, though they never got married and is as much a grandfather as Anders has ever known. Despite having lived on Domarö for over half a century and being partnered with the unofficial leader of the island, Simon is still an outsider in many ways, as he finds out when he discovers the island's secret. But Simon is also more than just an old, retired stage magician, he has real magic, though what kind and how he came by it, is something best left for the reader to discover themselves. I really liked Simon, he is kind, strong and tenacious and I loved his relationship with Anna-Greta.

Domarö and the sea are characters in and of themselves and are maybe the most frightening things in the book. Water can be the most destructive force on earth. It is everywhere and can penetrate everywhere. Water is patient and we humans cannot live without it. The Dutch have learnt to live with the fear of the encroaching water, to literally dam it out and in some ways to harness its amazing power, but we also know that water cannot be tamed and must always be respected. The inhabitants of Domarö respect and fear the sea in the same way, but in their need to placate the sea, they takes desperate and gruesome measures.

Harbor is a stunning story, which made for compelling reading. If you are looking for an intelligent, spooky and mostly non-gory horror tale, this third offering by Lindqvist is just the ticket. I know this first taste of his writing has left me curious for more. I have already read Niall's review of Lindqvist's latest book Little Star and that sounds as good or even better as Harbor and I look forward to checking that out in the future.

This book was sent to me for review by the publisher.

Bets Davies - Rebirth

2011-11-02T17:53:00.000+01:00

Gavin Lewis can't help but try to save the world. So when visiting his sardonic best friend Topher, Gavin finds a naked girl in the bog people exhibit, he assumes she is homeless and needs help. He takes her back to Topher's to take care of.

What he doesn't know is that she is a magic imbued, reborn ancient Celt, and Annie, the anthropologist necromancer who raised her from the dead, wants her back.

The three of them, with Gavin's sister, must fight off Annie's sendings as she tracks them across country. Along the way, they each learn there is more than one way to be reborn.

Rebirth is the second novel published by A Fantastical Librarian regular reader and commenter Bets Davies. It's a very enjoyable novel, which covers a lot of topics. It has a resurrected Celt, a woman driven insane by grief and her own conviction that she's Death incarnate and two best friends coming to terms with the fact that their feelings go far beyond friendship. But at the core of the story is love in all its facets, whether romantic, between siblings, family or the love of a parent for their child, natural or adopted.

The story is very entertaining. I loved the banter between Gavin, Topher and Amber, Gavin's sister. These are three people who know each other very well and are well-matched. In fact, Gavin and Topher's love story was my favourite element in the book. It's more than Gavin and Topher discovering that they truly love each other romantically instead of as best friends, it's also about Gavin's coming to terms with the fact that indeed he is gay and that it's okay to follow his heart. The story is complicated by their back story, which consists of many near hits and misses, but I love how Gavin picks himself up and just decides he's going to go for it in the end.

The villain of the piece is also an interesting character. She's evil, killing people left, right and centre to get at their life force, to replenish her own power. But at the same time, she's pitiable and in a way, being a mum, I do understand her fervent wish to find or create a way to cure her daughter and to return her to life. My worst nightmare is something happening to Emma or B2, I think I'd go to the ends of the earth to keep them safe, healthy and sane. On the other hand, I'd hope I wouldn't lose my sanity in the process and I certainly wouldn't go to the lengths Annie goes to, but I do understand the impulse. I liked that Davies acknowledges this, by having Gavin and Jobi doubt the fact they need to flee from Annie, when they find out that she only wants to get Jobi back to heal her daughter. It's a natural reaction, and one that will most probably be echoed by most readers, but it's an emotional reaction and one that needs to be rationalised away, in this case by Topher, who points out that Annie is a stone-cold killer and that whatever her goal is her means are wrong and deadly.

So I found Rebirth an entertaining read and a sweet love story, but the book did have its flaws. What flaws? Well, first of all there were some pretty explicit scenes in there that stood out, but not in a good way. The book had read as a YA novel until the sex scenes. Now, I don't consider myself a prude, I usually don't blink at sex in my books – I love Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy books – but I just hadn't expected them and certainly not in the detailed way they were described. Secondly, I found the character of Jobi, the ancient Celt, hard to parse. She picks up the language too quickly and uses modern speech patterns that didn't fit in my head. I expected her to have far more cultural confusion than she did, not just in how she views the world, but also in how she reacts to our modern sensibilities. The only cases in which this was very clear, was her inability to understand our fear of death and her somewhat reflexive disapproval of homosexuality. The latter is resolved by the end of the book, when she's come to accept Topher and Gavin's relationship. Lastly, and this maybe a little nitpicky, but there were some copy-editing mistakes, which jumped off of the page for me. It's a bit of a bugbear for me, so perhaps not totally fair to mention it, but I think typos and transposition of letters, at least, are unnecessary.

Despite its flaws, I had a lot of fun with Rebirth. If you don't mind a few graphic sex scenes and you're looking for a fun read with some interesting themes, Rebirth could be the book for you.

The book was sent to me for review by the author.

Recaps & Upfronts: October and November

2011-10-29T20:24:00.001+02:00

October saw me succeeding in posting more often than once a week... Huzzah! Though that wasn't so much due to me making the dent in my backlog I was hoping to make, as keeping up with the books I've read in the past month. Still, I'm happy that I'm getting back into the blogging groove. Other big news this month is that I've reached my reading goal for this year! Yes, I've read 75 books so far and am currently halfway through number 76. So now I'm wondering whether I can't make it to 100 before Januari 1st. And on the baby front, we found out what we're having this month. Emma's going to have a little sister. It was very cool to see her moving about on the ultrasound. Everything looked fine and I'm feeling good, apart from the tiredness, but I think that'll be a fact of live for the next six-nine months until B2 sleeps through the night. But back to the books, what did I review in October?

Recap
In October I reviewed:

Frances Galleymore - Veritas: Finding the Goddess
C.J. Sansom - Heartstone
Charles Stross - The Atrocity Archives
Scott G. Mariani - The Cross
N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms

Upfront
November will hopefully see me staying in the blogging groove. I have some reviews already planned and there's still that backlog. Any tips on dealing with a backlog other than knuckling down and writing them or quiting reading till I've written them? Other than that I've not got anything special planned. How about you guys? Anyone planning on doing Nanowrimo this year?

N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms

2011-10-29T19:42:00.000+02:00

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a strange homeless man on an impulse. This act of kindness engulfs Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. And Oree's guest is at the heart of it...

N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was one of the first books I bought due to reading a review blog and in fact it was one of my top ten books for 2010 (even if I only gave my top five on the blog). I adored Yeine and the world Jemisin created, and I even had a slight book crush on Nahadoth. So I was excited to get my hands on The Broken Kingdoms as soon as it was published. And then... I've no clue what happened, but for some reason it stayed on the to read-pile instead of me snapping it up and reading it immediately. So when the publication date for the final book in the trilogy, Kingdom of Gods, neared I thought it would be a good idea to read The Broken Kingdoms and get some attention for it and the Inheritance trilogy, especially as the author had said that The Broken Kingdoms only had about a third of the reviews the The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms did. So here we are. Did I love The Broken Kingdoms as much as I did its predecessor? Yes, yes I did.

I love Jemisin's voice, it's very recognisable, not just in her books, but in her short stories as well. I've read or listened to a number of them and they all have that voice, even though their subjects are wildly dissimilar. It's hard to pinpoint what it is exactly, this voice, but to me it's a feeling of warmth, of being there in the now with the protagonists, even if the subject of the story is an unhappy one, such as Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters – I heard it as a Podcastle episode – which deals with a man living in New Orleans in the midst of Hurricane Katrina. Whatever it is exactly, it is uniquely Jemisin and it completely works for me.

The Broken Kingdoms has this voice in spades and it's delivered through the mouth of its protagonist and narrator Oree. She is a superb main character, giving a unique point of view, or maybe point of perception is a more apt term as Oree is blind. She doesn't let her blindness hamper her in any way though and is fiercely independent. Jemisin succeeds in giving us a rich world, coloured by smell and textures instead of colours. Oree can only 'see' colours when she perceives magic, which allows Jemisin to both show Oree (and the reader) some events and objects clearly and accentuate how much the godlings and their magic permeate Shadow, the city beneath the World Tree and the palace of Sky.

Oree is surrounded by a great cast of friends and enemies. The godling cast, Oree's former lover Madding and some of his siblings, Lil, Paitya, Kitra and Dump, was stellar. I really enjoyed their personalities and the way their given aspect influenced them. Not just influenced, but it compels them, as we see when Oree manages to summon Lil with a completely different appetite than we've seen Lil, whose aspect is Hunger, react to up till then. Oree's main companion throughout the novel, Shiny, is awesome. While his true identity is hinted at, and for those who've read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms it's not as big of a mystery, it does take a while before Oree realises who he really is. This discovery and her processing of this revelation and her consequent acceptance of Shiny's identity are very well done. I realise the previous is a bit vague, but I don't want to spoil Shiny's true identity for those who don't already know.

The strife between the Three is reflected among mortals by a split between the Order of Bright Itempas, the traditional Arameri religion and the New Lights, an off-shoot Itempan order, and the revelation about demons (half divine/half human) still in existence. These two factors are some of the main catalysts of the narrative. The plot is very exciting, a combination of murder mystery and political/religious conspiracies, and I like that it shows us glimpses of Sky and beyond. The ending is superb, with love and loss all balled up into one. While I was sad at the losses, both physical and emotional, the ending left me quite hopeful for Oree's future.

The Broken Kingdoms is a worthy successor to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and it's one of my top reads for this year. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the concluding volume in the Inheritance cycle, Kingdom of Gods, which just came out and to the Dreamblood duology which is to be published in May and June of next year. Until then, make sure to catch up by reading the entirety of the Inheritance trilogy, because Jemisin's unique voice and style deserves to be widely read and appreciated!