Reviews :: Book Genre :: Fantasy :: Page 48

There are very few authors whose body of work makes us cackle with boyish glee. Chris Wooding is one. Jonathan Maberry another. Recently Sarah Pinborough has joined those ranks. For those of you keeping score, when Larry Correia writes something new we drop everything. You can then find us camped out with a flashlight in the living room under a tent made of sheets and blankets. Never mind we own our own homes.

We are just going to come out and say it: Larry Correia’s HARD MAGIC (Amazon), book 1 of the Grimnoir Chronicles, is completely fun and awesome. Everyone knows how much we like his Monster Hunter series. We like this one more. Much more. Everything about HARD MAGIC is positively saturated with style…

…well, and explosions of course.
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The hardest part of being a book reviewer is putting together a negative review of a book when you don’t want to. This happens for a variety of reasons, but mainly has to do with the author himself (or herself as the case may be). If we hate the author, or absolutely hate a novel, writing a scathing review is simple and enjoyable–therapeutic even. But with a novel like THE UNREMEMBERED (Amazon), well, we almost didn’t even write this up. But then we realized the potential disservice we would be doing you, the readers, and the author, Peter Orullian, by leaving this unreviewed.
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And alas, we come to the end of the tale. We’ve run the gamut, the bell has tolled, and the last of Hawkmoon’s adventures have passed by our eyes. The pages have flown so fast.

HAWKMOON: THE RUNESTAFF (Amazon) is the fourth and final book of the Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock that Tor has been giving an upgrade and reprint to over the last year or so. These books hearken us back to the old days of classic fantasy fiction when the heroes were gallant gentlemen and their foes nefarious men of wickedness. Honor and virtue always triumphed over evil, and it was seeing how it would all play out this time around that always drew the readers in droves.
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Subterranean Press is our favorite small publisher here at EBR. They never disappoint when it comes to providing us with great books. Awesome covers, solid construction, and stories from amazing authors. It says something about both a publisher and an author when a 100-page novella can be sold for $25 and not a word of complaint be raised by its purchasers. This book is one of those.
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Zoe is a coru woman, which means she has an affinity to water and blood, and the traits associated with it. But Zoe is different: water comes when she calls.

Zoe’s father was the king’s closest adviser, but ten years ago was exiled from court, and took his young daughter with him to live in a small village. At the opening of TROUBLED WATERS (Amazon), Zoe finds herself an orphan; the day after the funeral, the king’s adviser, Darien Serlast, comes to collect her to become the king’s fifth wife.
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As you know, we try to keep our eyes on the UK Fantasy market. It’s how we discovered guys like Chris Wooding, James Barclay and George Mann. One of the novels we watched for months was Col Buchanan‘s FARLANDER (Amazon). We can’t even tell you how many times we nearly imported this one. Then Tor picked it up here in the US and saved us the import expense.
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Matthew Swift has already died once and isn’t interested in doing so again. Unfortunately he has the knack of finding himself in the right place at the wrong time, and now London’s Aldermen (the magical kind) believe Swift killed the Midnight Mayor. Kinda ironic considering he didn’t even believe the guy existed in the first place…

To avoid punishment for a crime he didn’t commit, Swift searches for the mayor’s killer, but realizes there’s more to this story than the death of one man: it involves the survival of London itself.
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For some unknown, benevolent reason, we fantasy readers have fallen into the good graces of the genre gods. Why is that? you ask. I simply don’t know. Truly. But isn’t it obvious? We’re smack in the middle of a veritable geyser that has brought, or will bring to our greedy little eyes and hands titles from those authors that we most love: WAY OF KINGS, THE HEROES, WISE MAN’S FEAR, THE WHITE-LUCK WARRIOR, BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH, THE CRIPPLED GOD. And who can forget the recent announcement for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS (maybe it will actually happen this time)? Enough big-name books to keep any good fantasy reader satisfied for most of a year, entire. And yet, despite the excitement, despite the fervor, despite the sheer giddiness of it all, there was no other book that I anticipated more than this one. It wasn’t even close (sorry KJ Parker, even this one trumped you).
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Buzz, buzz, buzz. Can you hear it? Bees? you wonder, but no. Not bees. Did someone leave the stereo speakers on? No. Not that. Huh. Then what? I’ll tell you what. It’s the buzz of advertisement. Every once in a while we see it pop up. There’s some new book or author that gets people talking and soon it’s all over the place and everyone wants to know more. There was a bundle for NAME OF THE WIND, a grip for TOME OF THE UNDERGATES, and yes there was enough for this book that I got caught up by it. Thus.
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Morwenna is an odd girl. At least that’s how she perceives herself. And it may very well be true since the other girls at the English boarding school have confirmed the points against her: she reads endless stacks of SF, she uses a cane as the result of a lame leg, she’s from Wales so doesn’t have a posh accent, and her mother is a witch.

This oddity means that the girls leave her alone, which is fine with Mor, but it also leaves her lonely. And she has many reasons to feel lonely. Her parents divorced when she was young, so she barely knows the father just recently come into her life. She ran away from home to get away from her evil mother, leaving behind a beloved grandfather. And her twin sister died mere months ago.
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