It is no secret that I love my fantasy. I cut my reading teeth on fantasy – thank you Tolkien and Eddings and so many others! I love the way that the freedom of a fantasy world can throw a light into the contemporary. I love the sheer fun and spectacle that can come with…
Category: Fantasy
Lost Acre, Andrew Caldecott
This is a deliciously quirky trilogy of novels! Many many things in the books, Rotherweird and Wyntertyde should not work, and yet they somehow do. Gosh! Wyntertyde had left us on a cliffhanger: a second mixing point was discovered; Bolitho was revealed as Fortemain and then dispatched; the vile Calx Bole had succeeded in resurrecting…
A Map of Days, Ransom Riggs
Some series just don’t know when to die. But I guess, if you get acclaim – and money – for it, why stop? Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine‘s series was enjoyable enough as a piece of popcorn reading. And the books were better than the awful film – but that’s not saying much. In the first…
Edgedancer, Brandon Sanderson
Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive and the wider Cosmere is a fabulous creation interweaving various worlds into a universe with a coherent and cohesive magic system… if magic be the right word for the investiture process which borders on the scientific. It is certainly more precise in application than most magical powers in fantasy. As a rule,…
Rotherweird and Wyntertyde, Andrew Caldecott
Of coracles and crosswords… You know what they say about judging books by their covers? Well, I did with these because they are lovely lovely covers! I was also aware of Caldecott, a respected QC in media law with a string of high profile cases to his name – and what appeared to be a…
30 Day Book Challenge: Day 18!
Returning to this Book Challenge – I fear optimistically as the prospect of returning to work looms! – we meet Day 18 and A book you like by an author no longer living. Now, as I’ve said before, I’ve had to read widely and enjoyed a huge variety of books written by people who have…
30 Day Book Challenge: Day 17!
I find this a very broad category today; A book with a person’s name in the title (real or fictional). I mean in every genre, there are a wealth of books containing (or perhaps consisting of solely) the name of the characters: every one of the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl series in Young…
Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch
I have thoroughly enjoyed the Rivers of London series as a fresh urban fantasy – and all the freedoms and inventiveness which comes with that – merged with the familiar structures and language of a police procedural. In the previous book, The Hanging Tree, Aaronovitch finally reveals the identity of The Faceless Man, the antagonist…
30 Day Book Challenge: Day Six!
Today’s challenge is to identify A book that broke your heart. There is only one contender in this category and it is Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls. I have read this novel a dozen times: initially as simply a book for myself; later as a class read for work. I have read it in my head…
Blood Rites and Dead Beat, Jim Butcher
I’m going to review these two together quickly: everything you’d expect from Jim Butcher and Harry Dresden is here and in abundance. Sixth and seventh entries into the Dresden Files, following the exploits of Chicago’s only professional wizard, if you’ve been reading up to this point, you know what you’re getting into! Blood Rites for me…
