Elizabeth Bear’s novella Bone and Jewel Creatures is set in the same world as her Eternal Sky trilogy (Range of Ghosts, Shattered Pillars, Steles of the Sky), though it focuses on a completely different set of characters, mainly the 96-year-old wizard Bijou. It was released before a prequel novella, Book of Iron, about the same protagonist during her adventuring days many years ago. Although it’s not absolutely necessary to do so, I am glad I read Book of Iron first since it provides more […]

Sylvia Izzo Hunter’s debut novel The Midnight Queen was published in fall 2014. Since then, a second book in the Noctis Magicae series, Lady of Magick, has been released. A third book, A Season of Spells, is scheduled for publication toward the end of this year—and I am delighted that there are more books in this series to read since I thought The Midnight Queen was quite charming. Gray Marshall, an especially powerful mage studying at Merlin College, finds himself in quite […]

Book Description from Goodreads: Set in 1800 in Britain, Mad King George is on the throne with Napoleon Bonaparte knocking on the door. Unregistered magic users are pursued to the death, while in every genteel home resides uncomplaining rowankind bondservants who have become so commonplace that no one can recall where they came from. Meanwhile, Rossalinde Tremayne is satisfied with her life as a cross-dressing privateer captain on the high seas. But a bitter deathbed visit to her estranged mother […]

Book Description from Goodreads: A high fantasy following a young woman’s defiance of her culture as she undertakes a dangerous quest to restore her world’s lost magic Her name was Kimbralin Amaristoth: sister to a cruel brother, daughter of a hateful family. But that name she has forsworn, and now she is simply Lin, a musician and lyricist of uncommon ability in a land where women are forbidden to answer such callings—a fugitive who must conceal her identity or risk […]

Book Description from Goodreads: This is the way the world ends. Again. Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst […]

Falling in Love with Hominids contains eighteen short stories by acclaimed author Nalo Hopkinson, whose accolades include a World Fantasy Award, a John W. Campbell Award for Best First Novel, a Locus Award for Best First Novel, a Philip K. Dick Award nomination, a New York Times Notable Book, two Sunburst Awards, a Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and a Prix Aurora Award. This collection also contains a foreword explaining the title’s origins and a brief introduction for each story, also written by the […]