A great quote from Lady Eowyn – who is rather a dab hand with a sword:

This week we are once again Tough Travelling with our able guide Nathan of the Fantasy Review Barn.  This week we will be taking a look at:

A LADY AND HER SWORD

Fantasyland is full of threats.  A lady and her sword can keep those threats at bay.

So, my choices this week:

Alix from the Bloodbound by Erin Lindsey – not only is she from the Noble House of Black, but she fights in the war and using her bloodforged sword manages to rescue a person of great prestige.

Ceda from the Twelve Kings by Bradley Beaulieu.  Ceda is a fantastic character and a dab hand with a blade.  She fights in gladiator style games and is a favourite of the people.  Truly – read this book, it’s very, very good.

Adele from the Vampire Empire by Clay and Susan Griffiths.  Adele is a princess with special abilities.  In her fight against vampires she will eventually be gifted in the ways of geomancy however, she is also has her own sword which is imbibed with some form of magical abilities that make it more effective on vampires.

The Duchess Tain Hu from The Traitor (Baru Cormorant) by Seth Dickinson.  Tain Hu is not the main character but she certainly deserves a mention here.  She is a fierce warrior and there is one particular scene in particular where she bests another character in a duel using blades and she is so cool in that scene!  She gets a mention just for that scene alone although she does so much more in the book.

Wydrn or the Copper Cat from Jen William’s Copper Promise.  This is a fantastic book and I love this character.  She’s a beer swigging, foul mouthed, sassy, kick ass woman who fights using two swords.

And that is all for me this week folks. (Oh, except for the Bride and her Hattori Hanzo blade):

This week over at the Fantasy Review Barn we are once again traversing the tropes of fantasy with our trusty guide Nathan

This week’s topic is MAGIC SYSTEMS.

Without further ado. And with an excuse about my brevity this week: I’m having IT problems and so this is all from my phone!  Expect errors and you will probably not be disappointed. So:

1. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. In which allomancy is used and people ingest small amounts of metal which acts like a fuel to their particular type of magic. 
2. The Tiffany Aching books by Pratchett. Good old fashioned witchcraft with broomsticks and witches living in hovels (Sometimes) 
3. Harry Potter. Ditto the above but set in a huge ass school with bucket loads of students all learning spells and enchantments/potions.  Wands and broomsticks are all the rage.  The students even have their own familiars, although I don’t fancy having a rat!
4. Feast of Souls by C S Friedman. This is a very unusual magic system in which the magic user chooses and connects to another individual. Their power therefore comes from that person’s life energy. Nasty eh!
5. Sunshine by Robin McKinley in which the main protagonist gains power from the sun. (I guess the clue is right there in the title!)
6. Strange and Norrell by S Clarke. In which there is an alliance with the fae. 
7. Similarly.  Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho involves magic which is fuelled by the fae. 
8. Flex by Ferret Steinmetz. This is an intriguing system in which the people with magical ability manifest the strangest abilities unfortunately their magic creates something called the Flux. Which is a bit like a nasty byproduct of the magic and can be very dangerous unless dealt with carefully. 
9. The Bondsmagi from Scott Lunch’s Gentlemen Bastards. I don’t know exactly how their magic works but I do know that they need their hands and their tongues in order to conjure!
10. God given?  Kushiel’s Dart/chosen by Jacqueline Carey. In which Phedre is chosen by a god.  She perhaps doesn’t seem overtly magical unless being able to manipulate people into giving you what you want is magic. 

That is all for me this week. 

“Expeliarmus”

Samwise Gamgee – from the animated film version

Sam is a perfect choice of the unsuspecting bystander reluctantly dragged into all sorts of adventure.  He starts the story as a gardener and ends up tackling a huge spider, briefly becoming the ring bearer and eventually carrying the ring bearer!

Every Thursday Nathan from the Fantasy Review Barn takes us tough travelling through the tropes of fantasy.  This week’s topic for discussion: LABORERS

Not everyone can be a Prince.  There is only room for one Queen.  A few spoiled nobles can sit around and play cards.  But fantasyland can’t build its own castles and roads, nor can it plow its own fields, nor cook its meals.  Someone has to do the hard work.  And often, as a reward of course, these laborers get pulled from their hard but simple life into a bigger plan.

Darrow from Pierce Brown’s Red Rising – Darrow starts off life as one of the Red’s, the miners who live harsh lives.  He then undergoes a transformation to become one of the elite Golds – he definitely gets pulled into a bigger plan.

Ceda from Twelve Kings by Bradley P Beaulieu – Ceda is a fantastic character.  An orphan, seeking revenge for her mother’s murder, Ceda has lived on the streets and fought in the pits – until she… (well, I can’t say because it would be a spoiler – she definitely becomes part of something else!)

Jax from The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis.  Jax is a mechanical slave who becomes involved, by chance, in smuggling secret knowledge half way across the country.  Jax is such a great character, he’s a machine but frankly that doesn’t stop you feeling for him.

Phedre from Kushiel’s Dart.  Bear with me with this one – Phedre is cursed with an ill luck name and a scarlet mote in one of her eyes which marks her out as an anguisette.  She is given into the House of Night by her parents when she’s only a young child but her fortunes change when her marque is bought by a nobleman named Delauney.  From here Phedre becomes familiar with the ways of a spy!  Taught languages and history she becomes deeply involved in a threat to overthrow the throne.

Finally:

Wart – or Arthur – a very lowly squire until he pulls that pesky sword out of the stone: