Browsing all articles by A. M. Justice.
Nether Light by Shaun Paul Stevens – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Take a journey through a world punished by a dark, imprisoned magic. A world where children are given poison. A world where your talent is decided by the state. A world where reality is breaking down. When refugee Guyen washes up in the land of his enemy, he knows he will fight, but soon finds […]
Last Memoria by Rachel Emma Shaw – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Sarilla has learnt one thing from stealing memories. Everybody lies. There’s nothing Sarilla hates more than stealing memories, but the king forces her to, just so he can keep his subjects in line. She wants to escape to where nobody knows what she is or what she can do, but her plans go awry when […]
Oh, That Shotgun Sky by Sarah Chorn
The other night I caught the Cohen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. When I saw it in the theater, I thought it a profound meditation on the price of freedom—that fabled freedom of the Old West, which comes at such a high cost that most of us would choose the safety and strictures of “civilization.” […]
Darkness Forged by Matt Larkin – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Vengeance is wrought. Darkness is forged. The greatest crafts on Midgard come from the dvergar realm of Nidavellir. Volund, a gifted smith and once apprentice to the dvergar, escaped their dark realm to find solace in the arms of a Valkyrie. Nine years of respite. And then she was gone. What would you do to […]
Black Stone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
A broken man, Khraen awakens alone and lost. His stone heart has been shattered, littered across the world. With each piece, he regains some small shard of the man he once was. He follows the trail, fragment by fragment, remembering his terrible past. There was a woman. There was a sword. There was an end […]
A Wind from the Wilderness by Suzannah Rowntree – SPFBO #6 Finals Review
Hunted by demons. Lost in time. Welcome to the First Crusade. Syria, 636: As heretic invaders circle Jerusalem, young Lukas Bessarion vows to defend his people. Instead, disaster strikes. His family is ripped apart. His allies are slaughtered. And Lukas is hurled across the centuries to a future where his worst nightmares have come true… […]
Twilight of the Gods by Scott Oden
The climax of Twilight of the Gods begins on a misty morning with characters as blind to their fate as the gods they fight for, and against. The mist hides surprises not only for the combatants but for all fans of Grimnir, Oden’s immortal orcish antihero, whom we first meet in A Gathering of Ravens. […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: Our Round One Winner
When we began posting our semi-finalist reviews at the beginning of this week, we didn’t know which book we would be sending on to the finals of the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. In fact, the deliberations went on until late Thursday evening for our US team members, early Friday morning for the Europeans in […]
Where Shadows Lie by Allegra Pescatore – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we review the last book of our thirty-book batch in the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off with our fourth semi-finalist Where Shadows Lie. How this book stacks up against the other members of our final four will be revealed on Friday, October 30th. The Chosen One is dead. Magic is going haywire. Time is […]
Shadow of a Dead God by Patrick Samphire – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Among the coincidences of topics and titles in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off, Fantasy-Faction had not only four books with dragon in the title and five titles containing shadow, we also had three that played with noir tropes in a fantasy setting: Blood Under Water (reviewed here), Tales of the Thief-City (another semifinalist; reviewed […]
Shields in Shadow by Andy Peloquin – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we present the second of four semi-finalists in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off. The order of reviews posted this week does not indicate any rank or likelihood of being named the finalist, which will be announced on Friday, October 30th. In a weird, one might even say, fantastical, coincidence, three of the four […]
Tales of the Thief-City by Gareth Lewis – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
We close out the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off with four semifinalists, the highest rated books in our batch. We will share the scores when we name the finalist on Friday, October 30, and the order of the reviews posted this week should not be taken to imply the rankings of our final four. Today […]
