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 […]

Instead of writing one huge post of all the books I’m looking forward to in 2012 with info on them, I had decided to highlight some of these books in their own posts throughout the rest of 2011. I’ve decided to carry this feature forward into this year as I discover new books coming out this year that sound interesting and continue with books of 2013 as it gets closer to the end of the year. This has very quickly […]

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 brought 2 review copies […]

Today I am pleased to have a brief interview with fantasy author K. J. Parker, whose books include the Engineer trilogy, The Folding Knife, and The Hammer. Sharps, K. J. Parker’s newest book, is out this week. Since I really enjoyed The Folding Knife, I was excited to have the opportunity to read Sharps a little early and ask the author a few questions about it. I also enjoyed Sharps because of the intelligent themes and well-written conversations and dialogue […]

I’ve been debating whether or not to do one of these posts since I haven’t read as many books as this point in the year as I normally have. After thinking about it, I decided to just do a condensed version containing the two books that I think stand out from all the rest, plus one honorable mention. My #1 spot belongs to The Killing Moon, the first book in The Dreamblood duology by N. K. Jemisin. The writing, worldbuilding, […]