Browsing all articles by Lew Kelly.
Looking For Jake & Other Stories by China Miéville
Looking for Jake and Other Stories is China Miéville’s first collection of short stories, published in 2005. It’s an imaginative, thoughtful, political and highly original collection of work, a melding of fantasy, science-fiction and horror. Miéville nails this intricate balance, a subgenre some have termed New Weird and even professed him its ‘god-father.’ Miéville mostly […]
Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb
This is a spoiler-free review of Fool’s Quest. However there are spoilers for all prior Realm of the Elderling books. What a privilege it is to review Robin Hobb’s sixteenth offering in the Farseer/Liveships world. There’s a real sense of time passing in her novels, and we are gifted again with another rounded, descriptive and […]
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
A curiously told tale, not driven by words but by pictures; a unique selling point, and probably the reason why Ransom Rigg’s debut novel dominated the New York Times Bestseller list for a year. This is the story of a moody rich kid from contemporary Florida who is pulled into a mystery of creepy 1940s […]
Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb (spoiler free)
This is a spoiler free review of Fool’s Assassin. HOWEVER it does contain spoilers for all of Hobb’s previous books. Read with caution if you’ve yet to finish her previous series. It’s been a long journey. Fitzchivalry has survived torture, dragons, the loss of many close friends, enough psychological and physical damage to break a […]
The Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb (Spoiler Free Review)
Spoilers follow for Hobb’s first, second and third trilogies. No spoilers for the Rain Wilds Chronicles. After the impressive Tawny Man trilogy, Robin Hobb once again switches the action back to Bingtown and the Rain Wilds, the vivid, dangerous southern regions home to the nautical dramas of the Liveship Traders. A continuation of those events, […]
The Tawny Man Trilogy by Robin Hobb (Spoiler Free Review)
Spoilers follow for Hobb’s first and second trilogies. No spoilers for the The Tawny Man trilogy. The Tawny Man, Hobb’s second trilogy relating the story of Fitzchivalry and third overall, is perhaps the most often under-looked of all her works. The Farseer Trilogy was an astonishing set of books, introducing fantasy’s favourite bastard, Fitzchivalry, (not […]
The Liveship Traders Series by Robin Hobb (no spoilers)
Credit goes to Robin Hobb for doing something new and challenging. Miles (literally) away from the medieval workings of the Six Duchies, Hobb undertakes sea serpents, pirates, talking ships and a host of new mysteries in her nautical themed second trilogy. Though it doesn’t have the same accessibility or emotional impact as Fitzchivalry’s story, it […]
The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (spoiler free)
For Robin Hobb, the power to construct such masterful, compelling stories must be innate. With thirteen books set in the Farseer world already written and the next instalment due in August, it’s easy to see how she has become one of those precious, revered fantasy authors that, though we don’t talk about her all the […]
