Set five years after The Darwath Trilogy, the residents of Keep Dare have settled into something resembling an amiable lifestyle and government, but new troubles have arisen. An ice age is coming even though one shouldn’t be, food is scarce, and a new fungus is choking out all the farmland. All of which, naturally, is an invitation for the nobles ( Read more... )

( spoilers )

This is the second book in Hambly’s Darwath trilogy, and unlike other second books of Hambly’s that I’ve read, it’s very much the second book in a series. Which is to say, revelations and setup for the last book.

( brief spoilers )

Gil Patterson is a candidate for a Ph.D. in Medieval History at UCLA who is very focused and driven. She also has frighteningly realistic dreams where the panicked citizens of a medieval land are preparing for the arrival of an ancient enemy. She learns these dreams are real when she meets Ingold, a wizard from Darwath, the land she’s had dreams of ( Read more... )

The complete list of books I read it 2008 is in poll form here.

( top books of the year )

Still being hunted after the end of The Witches of Wenshar, Sun Wolf and his lover, Starhawk appear to be done for when they’re rescued by members of their old mercenary troop. It seems that their current siege is stalled thanks to a hex placed on it by a wizard, and the troop’s new leader wants to hire Sun Wolf to find out who’s behind it. He ( Read more... )

Kyra is a young journeyman wizard about to take her final tests before her Council. However, something is affecting her magic in unusual ways, culminating in a vision of her younger sister, Alix, dying on her wedding night. Not about to let such a thing happen, Kyra leaves the Citadel and returns home in the midst of the wedding preparations, ( Read more... )

Set several months after The Silent Tower and The Silicon Mage, Dog Wizard features Joanna and Antryg having settled down in our world, theoretically free of Antryg’s past. That, of course, doesn’t last long, as someone crosses over and kidnaps Joanna, causing Antryg to go after her.

The books is fun, and we get a better look at the Wizard’s ( Read more... )

Set nine months after The Ladies of Mandrigyn, The Witches of Wenshar has Sun Wolf and his former second-in-command, Starhawk,  arriving in Tandieras, looking for a mage to serve as a teacher.  (Random aside:  why is his name as two words, and hers as one?)  The nearby kingdom of Wenshar, it seems, was once ruled by evil witches who summoned and ( Read more... )

Sun Wolf, the famed leader of a mercenary band, has little use for women outside of pretty young things to keep his bed warm. The only exception to this is Starhawk, his masculine second-in-command, who he regularly tells himself(and others) doesn’t really count. When Sheera, a noblewoman of Mandrigyn, tries to purchase his services to help reclaim ( Read more... )