There’s a trend in SFF and YA publishing that has begun to grate on me, and I share it with you now so that you can share in my irritation. For lack of a better term I’m calling it the X of Y and Z, and it is everywhere. I draw attention to it not …
Girls Made of Snow and Glass (Melissa Bashardoust) – The writing is elegant, as are Bashardoust’s interpretations of the elements we all know so well, mirrors and apples and snow. Mina, the “evil queen,” has power over glass, which I found especially clever, and Lynet, the “snow white” has power over snow. The magic is …
The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang are a matched pair of stories, and I figured that whichever I read first would change the way I read whichever I read second. So I did what any good D&D player would do and rolled a die. Even red, odd …
Everfair by Nisi Shawl is an alternative history set in the Belgian Congo during King Leopold II’s reign. Instead of years of slavery, racism, and genocide a congregation of Fabian Socialist from Great Britain and African-Americans form their own nation called Everfair and resist Leopald’s subjugation and return to slavery. Though alternative history is not …
Spellbook of the Lost and Found – Moïra Fowley-Doyle’s debut, The Accident Season, was a quiet roar of a book that used suspenseful magic to get at some extremely heavy issues, and her second book is no different, except that it’s even better. It follows three groups of teenagers who collide after a party where …
How do you top Nevernight, a book that’s basically Harry Potter for assassins, complete with magical, stairway-shifting school accessible only by diving through something that really shouldn’t be dived though? Well, actually the second installment does involve a diary and a giant snake, but that’s where the similarities end. Mia Corvere murders people to further her …
Assassins are popular these days. His Fair Assassin trilogy, which I thought was going to be stupid but which was a dazzlingly well-researched historical and religious drama, and Godsgrave, which was a crazy-cool assassin rock concert at full blast. Hit is about corporate assassins, and Throne of Glass is a competition for the best assassin. …
Tad Williams begins a new journey in the world of Osten Ard with his new book The Witchwood Crown, the first book of a new trilogy The Last King of Osten Ard. Though earlier this year The Heart of What Was Lost served as the first return to Osten Art since the release of To …
There’s a quote from Angela Carter’s “The Tiger’s Bride” that I particularly like: “The tiger will never lie down with the lamb; he acknowledges no pact that is not reciprocal. The lamb must learn to run with the tigers.” This is, of course, a riff on Isaiah’s oft-misquoted poetry about—not the lion and the lamb—but …
Earlier this year, Patrick Rothfuss announced a 10th Anniversary Edition of his first novel, The Name of the Wind, while the third book, The Doors of Stone, remains in the revision stage with no announced release date. The news is there is no third book yet but the anniversary edition, according to Rothfuss, will contain …