Sara Douglass has been a favorite author of mine for quite some time; I discovered her Axis trilogy in high school and fell deeply in love with her writing. It was full of allusions to Greek mythology, Christian references, and unique twists on the classic heroic quest story. (It was published in the U.S. as a six-book series called The Wayfarer Redemption, whereas elsewhere it was published as the Axis trilogy and The Wayfarer Redemption trilogy, separately.) I was grabbed by the first chapter and held in her clutches all the way to the end.

The Nameless Day, however, was hard to get into—which is exactly what makes it so amazing. Douglass went a very different route with this tale, which is set in an “alternate” 14th-century Europe, one in which things like demons and saints are very real. The story follows the course of a priest, a man named Thomas Neville, who was visited by the archangel Michael and given the task of leading a righteous army to eradicate evil in the world. Or so he thinks. It’s a strange and wild journey, one which continues in two sequels as Thomas delves deeper and deeper into the misdeeds of the church and the nature of evil, coming ever closer to the horrifying truth at the foundation of everything medieval Europe stood for.

The reason this book was so difficult to really dive into is Douglass’ commitment to both detail and authenticity. The narrative is filtered through the worldview of a medieval English priest, and the story takes for granted that women are weak, that the Church is never wrong, that the French court is evil, and so on. Having seen Douglass capable of strong female characters and—cough, cough—mythological concepts of morality in her Axis books, I was amazed by the way she maintained such a strong voice in such a different setting. I was also a little dismayed, as the beginning was nearly stifling. But I quickly learned that Thomas is all too human and all too male, and things really get twisted from there . . . Read the full story

I must begin with a confession: It was the cover that drew me to this book. Call it the hazards of being female, but I could hardly help picking up a newly released fantasy book that pictured a handsome man with a dagger, a skull, candles, and old books, not to mention the tattoo on his hand. But the cover doesn’t tell the whole story, or we’d be reading a book about a secret society of pretty men. As it was, I was very impressed by this book. Having not read any previous work by Carol Berg, I had to rely on past reviews to tell me that The Spirit Lens was not an anomaly—Berg is entirely adept at creating a detailed and nuanced fantasy world, made all the more impressive by noting that other books she has written seem to be about other worlds with other rules.

As for this new world of her creation, it contained a little bit of everything. A clash between science and magic, an English influence to court life and patterns of speech, a French societal and naming structure, and grand, passionate moments of epic fantasy. (Not to mention the fact that the story itself was a mystery investigation undertaken by a librarian.) Try to imagine, if you will, the sort of “armchair detective” stories of authors like Charles Finch, given a steampunk flavor (and now we’re getting close to Jonathan Barnes’ The Somnambulist), then twisted into a completely new and imaginary world that is all Berg’s own.

The main character—a man named Portier de Duplais—is a man to be both pitied and admired. The reader is left to discover the hardships of his past as he thinks of them (meaning we do not discover everything about him until at least halfway through the book), but his strong sense of honor and determination cause us to like him well before we uncover the reasons he has our sympathy. He’s intelligent but deemed useless, with bad connections (he’s an unmarriageable pariah, to put it plainly), and he’s entirely aware of his own self-loathing. Yet he somehow finds the strength to endure through endless humiliations with an attitude that seems well-informed by a Victorian sense of chivalry and nobility. If this description makes him seem like a fop, know that he also possesses great mental fortitude and a truly admirable resilience to pain. Read the full story

Jim Butcher is a name that needs little introduction in the fantasy world. One of his two series got so popular that it was made into a television show. Granted, The Dresden Files (done by the SciFi Channel) was terrible, and was cancelled after one season—but that was far from being Butcher’s fault. (How could they screw up Bob, or Murphy? How?)

Butcher’s other work is true high fantasy, set in an imaginary world that manages to be detailed, complex, and gorgeously real despite coming directly from Butcher’s imagination. First Lord’s Fury is the final installment in the Codex Alera series, and Butcher had his work cut out for him to create a satisfactory conclusion to this thrilling, epic journey.

The war with the vord is reaching the point of no return—they either win, or they all die. Tavi is now facing not only the struggles of a veteran army captain, but also struggles to claim his throne in the wake of the Gaius Sextus’ death and trying to maintain the precarious and temporary peace forged with the long-standing enemy Canim. The entire premise of the book is fraught with tension, and you can tell from the first few pages that these characters are exhausted and approaching the limit of their faith and hope. But the narration is sort of funny; Butcher manages to use his signature cynical humor to convey all the terror his characters face without losing any of the dramatic impact. Read the full story

NOTE: This is one of the rare and exciting instances in which I’m going to get to be unique: I’m reviewing a book that is not available to the general public yet. Truly, Madly by Heather Webber won’t be released until February 2010, but I came across an advance copy. This won’t happen often, so enjoy it when it does!

In the interests of covering the widest possible range of sub-genres of the fantasy scene, I am reviewing a book in the “supernatural mystery/romance” category. (I don’t know if supernatural romance is the real label for this category. I am referring, of course, to the likes of Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, and all their less-talented successors.) I got incredibly bored by these books, incredibly fast. They always seem to be about vampires or werewolves or both, and are all too often more of a sexual fantasy than an actual work of authorship. So when I started flipping through the first chapter of Truly, Madly on my break at work, you know I must have been bored. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I was enjoying it. Imagine my greater surprise when I found myself tucking it into my purse, taking it home, and reading the rest.

The reason I was so drawn in? The main character, Lucy Valentine. The Valentine family are the powerful moguls of the matchmaking world, incredibly successful and incredibly wealthy. Their secret? They’ve been blessed by Cupid, and can match people based on their auras! I know you’re rolling your eyes, but bear in mind that they’ve also been cursed: No one in the Valentine family can find love for themselves, only for others. (Okay, now you can roll your eyes.) Lucy is an even more special case: She had an accident as a teenager that stole her ability to read auras, and left her with nothing more than an ability to find lost objects. Lucy is practically considered disabled by her family, and she feels useless beside her father. She sees him devoting his life to making other people happy forever, while all she can do is find their car keys so they don’t get a headache. Read the full story

Note: I won’t be reviewing young adult novels often—only when they’re good enough to catch my interest.

And while you may argue that my opinion of this book was slightly colored by meeting Janni Lee Simner and discovering her to be a gracious and engaging person, you would be wrong. Simner being a wonderful person is just icing on the cake, since Bones of Faerie is a book that speaks for itself.

When you hear that a person who has previously published a bunch of short stories for children is trying her hand at a young adult novel, you get a little suspicious. You go into it expecting characters that are either too stereotypical or too over-the-top, all the while expecting the themes to be glaring and childish. You tell yourself that it’s going to be too short, and it’s not going to transition well from chapter to chapter. But Janni Lee Simner is not just any author of short stories, and Bones of Faerie does not have these problems.

The story is set in a truly fascinating world. It seems that humans and faeries finally got fed up with one another, and went to war, about twenty years prior to the story. The fae used nature as their weapons, while humans used what was available to them. It’s tentatively said that the humans won, but the world they inhabit is so wasted that it doesn’t seem worth it. They’ve lost technology almost entirely, and the details Simner weaves in about this loss of technology is what truly sucked me into the story—a working battery is a precious commodity, and they still use plastic when it can be found.

The main character of the story is Liza, a fifteen-year-old girl who is being raised in a harsh community of survivors. They can’t trust magic. Any time a child displays signs of it, they are killed immediately. Liza’s sister, born with faerie coloring, was left out on a hill the night of her birth. This is the catalyst for Liza, who rushes to save her sister and arrives only in time to see the animal-mauled body. Her mother disappears after that, leaving her alone with her cruel and violent father, and she is beginning to see signs of magic in herself. She is going to run away, and she’s going to find her mother. When she leaves, she finds she is not alone. Another teenager, Matthew (who knew far more than he was supposed to about her father’s abuse), follows her so he can protect her. Read the full story

What do you get when you get when you shake together a little Harry Potter, a little Chronicles of Narnia, and all the sex and drugs that Rowling and Lewis didn’t want to believe young adults were capable of? If you’re Lev Grossman—a senior writer and book critic for Time magazine and author of the well-received literary thriller Codex—then you get The Magicians, his latest novel. (In a fascinating twist, I am reviewing a book written by a book reviewer.) And yes, this is the same book I mentioned in the Martin review last week!

This is a book that contains many elements of both the Harry Potter series, and the Chronicles of Narnia series—which is done on purpose to make a point, and therefore it’s okay by me. Quentin Coldwater, the story’s main character, grew up reading a book series about English school children who travel to another world and have adventures in which good triumphs over evil. These books had a great deal of influence on Quentin, and he has always longed to be one of the Chatwins, and be selected to travel to the land of Fillory to partake in its wonders. Needless to say, Quentin is a little disappointed when he finds himself on the cusp of adulthood, walking to an interview for an Ivy League school instead of going on an adventure in Fillory.

Quentin is a fascinating character, in that he embodies so many things and somehow manages to be a real person on top of it. He is the consummate dissatisfied rich kid with more brains than common sense and more attitude than personality. At least at first. Quentin will get deep under your skin, and your understanding of him takes root quickly. He is everyone who has ever thought they were meant for something else in this world, or maybe meant for another world, and embodies that yearning perfectly. At least at first. (I’m going to keep saying that, in case you’re wondering.) Read the full story

WARNING: I’m going to mention Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series while reviewing this book. I don’t want to. I am doing this only because I am convinced that nearly everyone under the age of 25 knows nothing about vampires except what she told them (or maybe they picked up a few things from watching Interview With a Vampire—like that Tom Cruise looks weird with red hair). Thus, they expect me to draw the comparison when I am writing about other books containing vampires. The following is my mention of her series, and the expected comparison:

Fevre Dream is what Stephenie Meyer would have written if she was writing about a man, thought vampires should be interesting, and was actually a good author.

That said, let us move on to the review of Martin’s work.

It’s nearly guaranteed that you’ve heard of George R.R. Martin, even if you don’t know that you’ve heard of him. He made a name for himself as an award-winning short story author, and was a writer for the popular television series “Beauty and the Beast” in the 1980’s, and is now working on the 5th installment in a grand fantasy epic series called A Song of Ice and Fire, which led to his being dubbed, “The American Tolkien” by Lev Grossman in Time Magazine. (As a point of interest, Grossman himself has recently published a fantasy novel entitled The Magicians, which looks promising.) In a list compiled by Ross Lockhart (found in By Blood We Live) Fevre Dream is one of the books essential to the genre of vampire fiction.

In another words, I had high expectations for this book. I would say that I was pleasantly surprised to have those expectations met, but I wasn’t all that surprised. I’ve read Martin before. There was so much to enjoy about this book, but what I liked most was the thing that Martin is pretty famous for—his way of taking something traditional and adding a dark and inventive twist. Because this story does indeed contain all the elements of a traditional vampire tale, but with a distinctly Martin edge. Take, for example, that vampires are not undead humans in his story, but a completely different species. Take, for example, that it’s about a guy finding out about vampires, realizing there are good ones and bad ones, and getting involved in eliminating a bad one—but it’s all carried out on steamboats in the 1850’s around St. Louis. (When I started reading this book, my first thought was very simple: Vampires + Steamboats = ZOMG! Awesome!) Read the full story

NOTE: It can be argued that this book is actually historical fiction. And for the most part, it is. But it has time traveling in it. And not the sci-fi, jump-into-a-machine kind of time traveling. This time traveling is accomplished by stepping into “hot spots” of a sort around the world, often marked by circles of stones (like Stonehenge), and is easier to do during holidays like Beltane and Samhain. So, fantasy. There you go. (For more information on celtic festivals, try the webpage of Edinburgh’s Beltane Fire Society.)

(Those who have only read the first book in the Outlander series may well argue that this series belongs in the romance genre, but if you keep reading, you’ll see that it’s really just the first book. The series as a whole most definitively does not.)

So, if you’re interested in reading Echo in the Bone, chances are good that you’ve read Diana Gabaldon’s previous work (what with this being #7 in a series). If you haven’t, stop reading my review this very minute. Seriously. Walk away. Walk to your car and get in it, or walk to the bus stop if you don’t have a car. Get thee to the bookstore/library to pick up your very own shiny copy of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (it happens to be #1 in the series). If you just hate reading long books, you can wait until next year, because they’re making it into a graphic novel. (Squee!) This woman is on my top ten list of modern authors, which is maybe not quite as high a recommendation as going to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, but I am a discerning reader. She is fantastic, and you need to get started on your long and involved journey toward the book I am now going to talk about.

Ahem. Begin review.

Gabaldon is up to her usual antics with this one, by which I mean that she is alternately going to make you laugh, cry, shout, and throw things in frustration. I’ve gotten to know her characters so well at this point that their lives touch a deep nerve in me. This is the mark of a great author, my friends. One who makes you care about the people she made up just as much as you care about the real people in your own life. And the things they are going through will torture you. No, really. I cried. I always cry at some point during her books. Read the full story

Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy was criminally unadvertised, at least in the U.S. It had everything that other fantasy authors have—like epicness and war—plus it had actual authorial talent. Then, his stand-alone work (set in the same world) Best Served Cold was published, and somehow was given actual attention at my local bookstore. Go figure.

If you’ve read the First Law trilogy, you’ll know what Abercrombie’s strengths and weaknesses are, and basically have no need for my review of Best Served Cold. To this, I would only add that he has improved: the characters are even richer and the storytelling tightened up to pack better punch. However, the probability is high that you didn’t know Abercrombie existed, so I’d better go into some detail. Just to set the scene, let me say that the likes of Patrick Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin have received Joe Abercrombie’s work very well. (If you don’t know who Rothfuss and Martin are, I’m going to go have a good cry over the faith I’ve lost, then I’m going to teach you a thing or two about the fantasy genre.)

My first inclination was to say that Abercrombie sacrifices world-building in favour of character-building, but then I stopped and thought about it. The truth is, I can picture his world in fine detail, and I know plenty about it. But unlike many fantasy novels, Abercrombie builds the world through his characters’ perspective on it. Which is pretty awesome, actually. I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets tired of reading entire chapters in fantasy novels devoted to describing the sweeping majesty of the imperial city’s architecture, or the grand and intimidating mountains with their jagged peaks. You get to see Abercrombie’s city through the eyes of his characters, who are generally concerned with whether or not the buildings are on fire or easy to infiltrate. It’s a refreshing way to do things, and one which I really appreciate.

As the title suggests, this is a book about revenge. The main character, Monzcarro Murcatto, is a highly experienced mercenary working for a duke. She and her brother Benna have been mercenaries most of their lives, and their introductory scene makes it clear that they are very close to each other and very ruthless individuals. The duke decides that Monzcarro means to become popular and powerful enough to usurp him, so he lures them into a meeting and tries to murder them. He succeeds in murdering Benna, and thinks he succeeds in murdering her, and tosses both bodies off his balcony down a mountain. Monzcarro lands on her brother’s body and so survives, albeit with injuries that take months to heal and leave her looking permanently like something the cat dragged in. Read the full story