After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is a short book about the apocalypse by science fiction and fantasy writer Nancy Kress. Nancy Kress has won awards and accolades for many of her short stories and is also well known for her science fiction novels, particularly her Beggars/Sleepless trilogy beginning with Beggars In Spain. (On a personal note, Beggars In Spain is both an excellent book and the first science fiction book I read since it is one […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included. This week was another good week […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included. This week was another giant week […]

Scourge of the Betrayer is Jeff Salyard’s debut novel and the first book in a new fantasy series, Bloodsounder’s Arc. (Though additional books in the series are forthcoming, I haven’t been able to find much information about them.) When I received it I was interested because it was said to be a “gritty” fantasy novel, and I hadn’t read one of those in awhile. While I thought there was some decent parts about Scourge of the Betrayer, I ended up […]

Today I’m one of the participants in SF Signal’s Mind Meld, which is about monarchies in fantasy. The question we’re responding to is: Q: Why are kingdoms with monarchs the default political setup in many secondary fantasy world novels? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such political structures? What are some exceptions to this? It’s a pretty interesting question to consider, especially since I decided my initial response to it was only a piece of the puzzle. There are […]

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included. This week I bought two books […]