After years of anticipation and speculation, Lynch returns to the universe of his “Gentlemen Bastards” with the long-awaited third installment, The Republic of Thieves.
Was it worth the wait?
Absolutely.
fantasy
Review: “Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest” by A. Lee Martinez
Helen and Troy are just your ordinary, average young Americans who work together at minimum wage jobs in a fast food restaurant.
Well, except for the small detail that Helen is a minotaur and the two have been given an epic quest by a hamburger god.
Review: “River of Stars” by Guy Gavriel Kay
Guy Gavriel Kay is famous for his historical fantasy novels, one of the rare group of fantasy authors whose books regularly cross over to mainstream reading lists and awards. River Of Stars is his second book using Chinese history; this time the Song Dynasty as a jumping off point for another wonderful novel.
Reading Diary #16: WebGenii’s Reads
This is WebGenii, with an installment from my Reading Diary. So, what have I been reading lately?
Review: “Roil” by Trent Jamieson
Trent Jamieson’s Roil, the first book in The Nightbound Land duology, promises… and delivers.
Review: “Heart’s Blood” by Juliet Marillier
In Heart’s Blood Ms. Marillier has created believable characters, both living and dead who grow and change through the book. Far from being a knock-off, the story and style stand out nicely on their own. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to discover her work.
Review: “Happily Ever After” edited by John Klima
Happily Ever After is an anthology edited by John Klima, in which each story was in some way inspired by a fairy tale. I am an absolute sucker for any kind of fairy tale retelling, but good ones are few and can be difficult to find. So this particular anthology was right up my alley. Plus any editor who was inspired to make an anthology by Neil Gaiman’s “The Troll Bridge” is guaranteed to have fantastic taste in stories.
Cover to Cover #455: M D Lachlan
Interview Transcript: This week, Mike and Mike chat with MD Lachlan about the first book in his new series from Pyr Books, Wolfsangel. What happens when you take a werewolf story and combine it with Norse mythology and legends? This series is one look at how that could have happened.
Cover to Cover #454: Bradley Beaulieu
Interview Transcript: This week, Mike and Mike chat with Brad Beaulieu about his new novel, The Winds of Khalakovo, an epic fantasy series from Night Shade Books in the same vein as George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”.
Review: “Thirteenth Child” by Patricia C. Wrede
Thirteenth Child is a YA novel and in this novel Patricia C Wrede crafts a story that may remind you of Orson Scott Card’s “Seventh Son” series. In this case, the hero is a young girl named “Eff” coming to grips with her magical heritage.
Cover to Cover #452: Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
Interview Transcript: This week, Mike and Mike chat with Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine about their new collaborative novel, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, sort of a steampunk flavored adventure in the fashion of “The Avengers” or “The X-Files”.
Cover to Cover #449: Alex Bledsoe
Interview: This week, Mike and Mike chat with Alex Bledsoe about the new book in his Eddie LaCrosse series, Dark Jenny from Tor Books. While it’s the third book set in this universe featuring many of the same characters, it’s not a “trilogy” by the standard sense of the word.
Review: “Finding the Way and Other Tales of Valdemar”
Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books are the reader’s equivalent of coming home after a long day; putting on your pj’s and eating cereal for dinner. It’s simple and sometimes intensely comforting. As a reader, the structure of a Valdemar book is highly predictable and that is part of their appeal.
So, this book of short stories is a great way to shake things up.
Cover to Cover #432A: John Joseph Adams
Interview: Mike and Mike talk with John Joseph Adams about his newest collections: The Way of the Wizard from Prime Books, and The Living Dead 2 from Night Shade Books.
John talks about why working on anthologies appeal to him, his love of working on magazines, searching for the stories that fit the theme while still trying to achieve a diverse enough selection for the volume, and more.
Cover to Cover #428A: Naomi Novik
Interview: Mike and Mike talk with Naomi Novik about the Temeraire series, the latest volume of which is Tongues of Serpents. She talks about her research into the Napoleonic Wars and her travel to Australia, some of her work process, those 3am story ideas that get her out of bed to write, and more.
