fantasy

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Thumbs up for Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K. J. Parker. Fantasy.

There are two things you need to know about this book. First of all, it is a black comedy about siege logistics and engineering in a zero-magic pseudo-Roman empire. Yes, 10000% my thing. That said, even if that is also your thing, the way race relations are handled by the author are…I’ll say hmm and you can make up your own mind: the “milkface” unreliable narrator was previously enslaved by the “blueskin” Robur, whom he now works for (loyally…maybe); it does bear saying that absolutely no one comes out looking good.… >> Read more

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Thumbs down for A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows. Fantasy romance.

I enjoy high-fantasy romance and, particularly, political fantasy, and I was pleased to see that Tor was coming out with one. So I had such high hopes! And I did immediately enjoy the prose; the author has a way with words. However. It didn’t take long before I started wondering if I should quit (despite how easily the pages flowed by), because I noticed that one of the main characters was just Decent Guy and the other one was just Traumatized Guy, and neither of those things is an actual personality.… >> Read more

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Two thumbs up for The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, The Queen of Nothing, and How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black. Young adult fantasy.

Whether you like these books are not will be wholly dependent on your feelings about Holly Black’s writing style (vivid and kind of slithery-feeling) and whether you enjoy violent, ambitious female leads who take absolutely no shit, even when rationality suggests they should chill.… >> Read more

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Two thumbs up for The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox. Historical fantasy.

I think this was marketed as literary fiction, but it has a literal angel in it—so. This exquisitely-written novel spans the adult life of a French vintner, Sobran, starting in 1808, when he accidentally meets an angel, Xas. They strike up a friendship—Xas visits Sobran one night a year.… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. Historical fantasy.

This is a tough review to write because the criticisms I have of this book will make it sound like I didn’t enjoy it. And that isn’t the case. The pages flew by and I finished it in just a few sittings. Yet, in the startlingly specific category of “brutal, queer, low/no-magic fantasy in which a woman starts with nothing and takes over a pre-industrial empire through sheer determination,” I found it impossible not to compare this book with The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which I feel is a much better book in almost exactly the same number of pages.… >> Read more

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Two thumbs up for The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison. Fantasy.

Thara Celehar—a side character I didn’t remember from The Goblin Emperor—can ask questions of the very recently deceased (most often “who killed you?” but also “where is the secret scone recipe?”). His job is not, per se, detective, but a lot of what he does do would fit fine into a police procedural: he trudges around Amalo asking questions to get justice for the dead, with more than a few stops at the local morgues and cemeteries.… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Fantasy.

Many years past I trudged my way through the first 50 pages of The Night Circus before DNF’ing it because I Just Did Not Care About These Characters. The Starless Sea is much better—in fact, I’d say it’s edging on great. You know that genre of just slightly experimental nonlinear novels, which tell several intertwining, overlapping stories, all of which you have to hold in your head at the same time?… >> Read more

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Thumbs up for Stolen Threadwitch Bride by Clare Sager. Fantasy romance.

Magical seamstress with anxiety is kidnapped by sexy cinnamon-roll Fae prince who wants her to make him a suit of invisibility. Much steam, though it’s closed-door. This is part of a series called “Stolen Brides of the Fae,” and my reading of it owes to my attempt to understand contemporary fantasy romance.… >> Read more