The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Alex Shepherd
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates,…
Reviews
Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis
Mike Shackle
“Triptych (noun): a set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together.” It is telling that Ian Tregillis’ three books about superheroes created in World…
Sci-Fi Book Club – June 2013: Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks
Lisa Taylor
In June, our Science Fiction book club will be reading Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks, which won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Novel (1995). In a world…
Fantasy Book Club – June 2013: Foundling by D. M. Cornish
In June, we will be reading Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo #1) by D.M. Cornish. Foundling won the Aurealis Award for Young Adult Novel (2006). Meet Rossamünd a foundling, a boy…
Poison by Sarah Pinborough
Phil Norris
Snow White lives the idyllic life of a fairytale princess, she has the love of her father and of the people, she has the loyalty of the dwarves who toil…
The Heralds of Valdemar Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey
Juan de Dios Dougnac
One of the things I most enjoy about fantasy is how versatile it is: despite the presence of some defining tropes, most of them can be simply kicked away in…
The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher
The Empire State is dying. The Fissure connecting the pocket universe to New York has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze and the populace are demanding a return…
Berserk by Kentaro Miura
CptNemo
Berserk is fantasy at its finest. There are faeries, sages, knights, and demons – tropes, in fact, that may be terribly clichéd in a novel yet are fresh and exciting…
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
A. E. Marling
If you love the idea of dominating through geometry, then The Rithmatist is the gearpunk fantasy for you. I wish the hardcover book came with three pieces of chalk. Just…
The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig
Eric Christensen
The Blue Blazes was my first exposure to Chuck Wendig’s writing outside of his blog, TerribleMinds. I expected an urban fantasy novel full of hard, broken edges and bloody knuckles.…
Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter
Hierath
Gemsigns, Stephanie Saulter’s confident debut novel, is set in the world of the near-future. Humans have been forced to resort to universal genetic modification to overcome the effects of a…
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
“The Age of Kings is dead. And I have killed it.” Field Marshal Tamas’s coup against his king sends corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brings bread to the starving.…