I like big, chunky epic fantasies. I grew up on Shannara, and The Wheel of Time remains an all-time favorite. But the longer my TBR gets, the more I feel the opportunity costs of starting a doorstopper, and the more I gravitate towards shorter books. Which is why, despite having enjoyed her other work, and… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts
I read Ender’s Game about ten years ago and thought that it was absolutely fantastic—it nailed the academy setting, had fictional competition that actually made sense (infamously no guarantee in sci-fi/fantasy), and had a whole lot of depth to boot. But I felt it ended so well that I didn’t want to risk spoiling it… Continue reading Sci-fi Novel Review: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
S. Qiouyi Lu’s debut novella, In the Watchful City, came across my radar in late summer and immediately caught my attention with the unusual combination of (1) a few glowing reviews from other readers who significantly overlap my tastes, (2) a perfect fit for a bingo square I hadn’t hit (2021 debut), and (3) easily… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu
If you’re not on the fantasy subreddit, or if you’re not a follower of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, you may not know the story of Senlin Ascends, a book that languished in obscurity for years before a last-ditch entry in SPFBO sparked a chain of events that turned it into something of a cult classic… Continue reading Fantasy Series Review: The Books of Babel by Josiah Bancroft
My reading was seasonal, but because I have a review backlog and have been focused on SPSFC and Hugos, my review is not seasonal. And so it goes. Roger Zelazny is a name I know mostly because he blurbed my absolute favorite of all the books on my shelf (R.A. Lafferty’s short story collection, Nine… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: A Night in Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
The Seventh Perfection is a novella that I didn’t hear much about when it came out last year, but over the past few months, I started seeing reviews trickling in. Some of them were glowing. Some of them were mixed. But they were all intriguing. I wasn’t sure whether I’d love the book, but it… Continue reading Fantasy Novella Review: The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky
There may not be a book with more hype in my online circles this year than Tasha Suri’s epic series-opener The Jasmine Throne. It promised pretty much everything I like in a book, with a character-focused slow build and layers of intrigue in a non-Western setting. The only question–depending mostly on my library–was whether I’d… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
After a month hiatus stemming from SPSFC responsibilities and a truncated lunch break, November has brought me back to sci-fi/fantasy short fiction, and I’ve come across some truly exceptional work. I didn’t read a bad short story all month, with the monthly “other reads” category both shorter and higher in quality than it usually is.… Continue reading November 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus
It finally happened. After a decade of skepticism, I gave in and dipped my toe into what may be the most popular adult fantasy series of the last ten years, reading Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. The Way of Kings is very much an epic fantasy opener, introducing three major storylines bound for convergence… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
My read of Lobizona is another triumph of fantasy Bingo. Although I had a blogger friend raving about Romina Garber’s new YA series, I saw little buzz elsewhere in my fantasy spaces, and it would’ve likely passed me by entirely if I hadn’t been seeking options for the Latin American Author square. And, as the… Continue reading Fantasy Novel Review: Lobizona by Romina Garber
