This is the sort of review I get kind of grumpy about writing (but I do anyway). The premise is that Verity Price, ballroom dancer and cryptozoologist, investigates some disappearances of the local population of creatures of legend. While doing so, she meets Dominic, member of a pseudo-religious order called the Covenant that has been taking ( Read more... )

When I picked up this book, I was expecting a cheese-tastic steampunk romp through New York. That was exactly what I got with The Falling Machine.

It centers around Sarah, daughter of the superhero known as the Tycoon. He happens to be the leader of a steam-age Justice League. The League has a bit of a corruption and a vision problem. Unfortunately ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

When I pick up a book set in Victorian England and purporting to have fairies in it I come to it with a few expectations regarding the social class of the people involved, the nature of the fairies, and the setting of the story involved. I have to report that With Fate Conspire managed to overturn each and every one of those expectations and I ( Read more... )

Since I liked the Wee Free Men, I thought I would continue with Tiffany Achings adventures with the Nac Mac Feegle.

A Hat Full of Sky is about Tiffany as she begins her training in witchery. Unfortunate;y she's beeing hunted by something unpleasant and of course the Nac Mac Feegle have to try to rescue her. Unfortunately the Pictsie way of trying ( Read more... )

I picked this up because I thought that the pretense sounded interesting. A library full of working magical items? I am so there.

So the story is about Elizabeth, a new student page at the New York Circulating Material Repository. There are some particular esoteric collections of stuff from the descendants of the Brothers Grimm, among others (don't ( Read more... )

As is my habit, when I find someone writing stuff I find intriguing I want more of it (hence my patience in waiting for Nick Harkaway's next book). Since the alternate history presented in Cold magic was really interesting with all kinds of far reaching effects, I went and picked up Cold Fire.

(Read More)

Some might think it strange that I haven't really read “the big names” of epic fantasy. I've no real desire to read George RR Martin's doorstops or Patrick Rothfuss's material and I have stalwartly refused to read the Wheel of Time because I know my attention span (while improving) just isn't up to the task. Nonetheless, I do find things that ( Read more... )

I love small conventions because I always end up with new additions to my list of things I really want to read. This was one of the books I picked up as a direct result.

(Read More)

In the effort to break away from the overwhelming US/European cultural trend that runs rampant through so much of fantasy, I decided to start expanding my reading to a more diverse set of authors. I decided to start with Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor.

(Read More)