Tough Travelling – boldly going…..
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go….
This week over at the Fantasy Review Barn Nathan is taking us travelling through the tropes of fantasy. This week’s topic for discussion is MAJOR DISCOVERIES
While often the people of Fantasyland seem stuck in a time warp occasionally a major discovery can shock the land into changes. Be they new lands, new peoples or new technologies fantasyland thrives on having something to jump start the next age.
One book sprung immediately to mind when I read the topic:
The Magician by Raymond Feist – the Riftwar Series is a perfect example of new discoveries – in which a whole other world is stumbled upon with different religion, people, animals, – well, everything.
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan in which Lady Trent travels the world in search of information about dragons. She’s a quick witted, intelligent, forward thinking woman. A naturalist who is ahead of her time.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – I like this as an example – the book starts with a series of strange hand marks appearing on doors all over the world. These doors usually lead to ‘other’ places. The major discovery for me with this book involves the teeth that Karou collects and what they are used for.
Bone Season by Samantha Shannon – in which people with the ability of clairvoyance are collected and removed from society. What we uncover here is a different race of people – hopefully that’s not a spoiler.
SPFBO – Finalist
19 August 2015
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Mark Lawrence, Self Published Fantasy Blog Off, SPFBO
For the past few months I’ve been taking part in the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off. This idea was hit upon by Mark Lawrence and brings together 10 bloggers, each undertaking to read 25-27 books submitted by self published authors with a view to putting forward one book from their pile. The 10 books that are then put forward will then be read by each blogger and scored and eventually an overall winner will be hit upon. The full details are here.
In today’s post I’m announcing my overall winner. I’m probably doing things a little back to front here because I haven’t reviewed the book yet (or a number of the other books that I actually completed). This is simply because I focused on completing the task in front of me and in particular on finding my ‘one’ book.
I can say that this has been a very difficult challenge for me for a number of reasons. I hate being critical – I really do! And yet I have a list of books and only one to take forward. This certainly acted as a motivation in making me focus. Also, I think writing a book and putting your labour of love forward for an event such as this must be really tough and I appreciate that and don’t want to discourage anybody.
What I can say about the books submitted on my list – I had some enjoyable reads here – in fact probably more than I expected (which was something of an eye opener and a revelation) Maybe I wasn’t as open minded about self published books as I thought and in that respect I think this challenge has been a learning curve.
In terms of the reading I didn’t complete all the books and this wasn’t necessarily because I didn’t enjoy them but more because I already knew that they would not be the book I put forward for one reason or another. In total I completed 10 books – I’ve already written a short review for a couple of those plus a full review for one of the others. The others I intend to write reviews for over the next few days starting with my finalist. I think I gave all the books submitted a very fair chance but at the end of the day the book I chose just stood out for me as up until that point I was undecided about which book I had enjoyed the most.
I would like to thank all the authors who submitted books for this challenge and hope that none of you are discouraged at all, at the end of the day I had to be fairly hard in terms of elimination. Put simply, some of the books were not my style, or maybe felt aimed at a younger target audience and some I had issues with the writing style that didn’t particularly work for me.
My finalist for this round:
The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden – review to follow.
The other books that I read fully but have not yet reviewed:
- Iduna by Maya Michaels
- The Duchess of the Shallows by Neil McGarry & Daniel Ravipinto
- Forging Divinity by Andrew Rowe
- In the Dark by Melody Taylor
- Thief of Hope by Cindy Young-Turner
- Blade of the Broken by Jake Scholl
The following three books I’ve already either reviewed or given a short write up of.
- Naming the Bane by Kal S Davian
- Klondaeg the Monster Hunter by Steve Thomas
- His Own Good Sword by Amanda McCrina review here
It goes without saying…
18 August 2015
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Auto buy authors, The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday
This week over at the Broke and Bookish the topic for Top Ten Tuesday is:
‘Top Ten Of Your Auto-buy Authors’
This is going to be a fairly short and sweet post for me basically because it’s easy – certain authors I always look out for and will always be interested in what they’re up to next:
- Mark Lawrence – I love his writing.
- Neil Gaiman – magical, whimsical
- Sarah Pinborough – great sense of humour, lovely writing, naughty
- Kate Atkinson – consistently great books
- Wesley Chu – very original, I loved his Tao books and his Time Salvager was also excellent
- Patrick Rothfuss – doesn’t really need a comment!
- Alice Hoffman – she’s one of my earlier fantasy novelists, great storyteller
- Maggie O’Farrell – lots of goodies so far
- Scott Lynch – Jean Tannen – enough.
- Joanne Harris – I really like her books – especially Chocolat (who wouldn’t), Blackberry Wine, Coastliners and Holy Fools
Easy! I have lots of authors who I enjoy reading – a lot – but the authors above I always keep an eye out for what they’re up to next. What about you – who are your auto buys???
Kushiel’s Chosen by Jacqueline Carey, readalong week No.3
16 August 2015
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen, Readalong Week No.3
Today is week No.3 of our readalong for Kushiel’s Chosen. This week our host is Allie at Tethyan Books. As you would expect – spoilers lurk below – so beware. All welcome, if you want to join the readalong or jump in with comments then please do so (here is the SCHEDULE). Questions and answers below.
1. Do you think Joscelin might have really considered using the “terminus” in the fight between the Unforgiven and the Yeshuites? How deep do you think his loyalty to the Yeshuite people goes, and why do you think he feels so driven to arm, train and protect them?
I don’t think he was considering the terminus to be honest. I thought his explanation to Phedre sounded reasonable.
I admit this whole issue with the Yeshuites puzzles me very much – other than that he seems to have found a new cause which also seems to be something that he needs himself – I’m not sure where it all came from but clearly it’s something he’s totally thrown himself into.
2. What do think of the differences between the culture of La Serenissima and the City of Elua, and the differences in how they conduct their political intrigue? Who would you favor for the next Doge?
I suppose La Serenissima is based on Venice so the differences don’t surprise me really. The fighting for example put me in mind of performances of Romeo and Juliet where the Montagus and Capulets fight in the street – did anybody else have that imagery running through their heads. In that respect I’m therefore guessing that the people of Serenissima are very passionate, they probably talk and argue quite loudly, they like to parade of an evening, they’re probably very ostentatious in their enjoyment – be so whatever that may be, they’re basically passionate about everything. I love it. They’re very different from the people of Elua who to a certain extent in this world seem very relaxed by comparison. I literally don’t have the first notion who would be the next Doge.
3. What do you think of Phedre’s plan to play along with Severio’s romancing? Do you think he is approaching the matter with more sincerity than his parents?
I find it really quite sweet to be honest – he seems to be totally sincere and it’s very touching. It’s also interesting to see how Phedre responds – thinking about it, she’s never been courted before so it’s really something of a novelty for her. I bet she’s never even considered being courted by a potential suitor. It’s quite a fascinating aspect of the story and makes you stop in your tracks and realise just how very different Phedre’s life has been so far.
4. There is a lot of fortune-telling in this section, from the Oracle in the temple to the astrologer. What do you make of the Oracle’s answer to Phedre? Why do you think the astrologer killed himself, and do you think he would he have been able to lead them to Melisande?
The Oracle’s answer was one of those answers that I kind of expected. In other words I have no idea what it means and it’s vague enough to make it appear to be real when anything happens in the future. I loved the observation that of course you find something in the last place you look! It made me have a proper giggle (also because I was reading it in a different way – I was taking it more that Phedre will not think of the place to look until a last resort – even so, it’s still true, once you find something you do stop looking! Still funny even now. I can’t believe that the astrologer killed himself – it’s like a self fulfilling prophecy – he predicted his own death if he crossed Melisande and so decided to kill himself so that couldn’t happen. Quite bizarre really.
5. Joscelin and Phedre meet a couple who have made compromises in order to build a happy life together. What do you think of their family, and does their example give any hope for Phedre and Joscelin’s future?
There’s is a puzzling relationship and it will be interesting to see how it moves forward. I admit that I really like the character Joscelin and I would be very sad to see him leave these stories so I seriously hope that they can find a way. But, all that being said, could I be any more chilled out about what he’s going through – probably not. It’s a big ask really to love somebody but to watch them go and have these assignations with others. I guess it boils down to the difference between making love and having sex and whether Joscelin can see it in that way.
The other participants are below – check out their answers too:
Allie at Tethyan Books
Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow
Grace at Books Without Any Pictures
Nancy at FaeStruck’s Reviews & More
James at James T. Witherspoon
Emily at Emma Wolf
Susan at Dab of Darkness
“My only love sprung from my only hate.” …
12 August 2015
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Fantasy Review Barn, Forbidden Love, Tough Travelling
This week over at the Fantasy Review Barn Nathan is once again taking us tough travelling through the tropes of fantasy. This week’s topic is:
FORBIDDEN LOVE
Even in Fantasyland parents are not always happy with their children’s choice of partners.
Most of the romances here are not intended to be the main story – they’re all pretty much asides. Also, there could be spoilers with some of these examples so beware.
- Hexed (The Sisters of Witchdown) by Michael Alan Nelson – I loved this it was a really good read. I will say this is not a romance novel! Not at all. But, as an aside there is a budding relationship that develops between the main character Lucifer who develops feelings for a young man accompanying her on a rescue mission. Why is this forbidden – well the rescue mission is to recover the young man’s lady love – awkward.
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown – in which Darrow and Mustang become involved in a relationship. Again, this is far from the central theme of the story. The reason it’s forbidden – Darrow and Mustang are from different ‘class’ structures all together. Darrow is a Red, born into the mines and Mustang is a Gold, born into one of the most elite and powerful houses. On top of this – well (spoiler alert) Darrow is all made up as a Gold – the treachery! Doubly forbidden.
- The Greyfriar by Clay and Susan Griffith – love in the most expected place – a vampire and a human. Absolutely forbidden – a vampire falling in love with it’s food, tsk.
- Angellfall by Susan Ee – Penryn and Raffe – what can I say, angels and humans – it won’t be the first time that the attraction has happened between humans and angels but, forbidden or denied or not, there is a lot of chemistry that is very readable taking place in these pages.
- The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon – a strange world full of clairvoyants. Paige is kidnapped and taken to ‘Oxford’ where she will become a slave to a warden, one of the Rephaim. Mm, guess what happens next. Well, obviously they develop feelings for each other. Yep, didn’t see that coming! Again though, the romance isn’t the central theme of the book and in fact book 2 actually sees the two spending very little page time together. Of course, for the treachery and betraying their own kind both of them could be put to death.
- Stolen Songbird by Danielle Jensen – in which Cecile only goes and falls in love with the Prince. Wait, hold on a moment. That sounds too good to be true. Ahh, well, he’s a troll (not a cave troll thankfully). And the trolls may have abducted her because they needed a human to break the curse they’ve been living under. Yeah, not so dreamy any longer.
Finally, can we just take a minute to consider this:
No, not Fassbender, well, ,no… – Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre, okay, not a fantasy novel – but how forbidden was his love for Jane – very much so. It’s usually frowned upon to marry, when your first wife is alive and well and living in your attic! She was a tiny bit crazy though, so..
