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From the very beginning you know THE WAY OF KINGS (Amazon) is a novel by Brandon Sanderson — you would know it even if his name wasn’t imposed over a Michael Whelan cover. Sanderson has made a name for himself through his imaginative magic systems, and TWoK is no different.

He starts with the pacing set at a sprint. Following a series prelude (yeah, there is a prelude, then a prologue), we are put right into the action of things with a mysterious assassin, Szeth. Right from the onset of the novel we get hints of political intrigue, and of shadowy organizations pulling strings like puppeteers. What it seems to us is that Brandon is trying to start faster than his previous novels. His habit has been the slow burn in pacing followed by an explosion of craziness. Not so much here. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Really it will depend on your personal taste.

Ah but we get ahead of ourselves.
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Introduction: Before you read the review Dan Wells has crafted for you, there is something we at Elitist Book Reviews need to make clear: Dan Wells is a jerk-face. We mean this in the nicest way possible. He is an amazing author, a terrific friend, and a cylon (what’s not to like?). And yet, he is a jerk-face. We let him borrow the ARC to SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY (Amazon) with the intention of guest-reviewing it for us. He then promptly read, loved, and reviewed it on his website. The problem? It was supposed to be posted here first. We were given strict instructions that we could not post the review of Mary’s novel until it was released… and then Dan stole our copious amounts of thunder. Like we said: jerk-face.
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It’s really not an exaggeration when we say SWORDS & DARK MAGIC (Amazon) was easily one of our most anticipated titles of the year. In fact, that doesn’t even say enough. Edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, this collection, to us, was like the Holy Grail of short story anthologies. Why? The first three stories in the collection, in the order they appear: Steven Erikson, Glen Cook, Gene Wolf. Yeah. That’s just the first three stories.

Sheesh.
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So, I don’t particularly care for science fiction. Call me a hypocrite, yes you may, but don’t be too harsh, because there may be some hope for me yet. In fact, you might have already heard of him. His name is Alastair Reynolds.

I don’t remember how I came across my first book from Mr. Reynolds or what possessed me to pick it up. Perhaps it was the fact that I really did (somewhere deep inside) like science fiction and wanted to find something good. Or maybe it was an impressive review that I found about one of his previous books. Then again, it could have been the contract he has with Gollancz, which speaks for ten books over the next ten years for £1m. Whoa. Regardless, I picked up HOUSE OF SUNS (Amazon) by him shortly thereafter and was far from disappointed.
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NIGHTS OF VILLJAMUR (Amazon), by Mark Charan Newton, has finally been released in the US. There was a fair amount of hype about the novel coming out of the UK, and where there is hype, there is usually heaps of disappointment. Anyone remember BONESHAKER (EBR Review)?. However in this case, we are treated to a solid debut novel.
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We love Adrian Tchaikovsky. There really is no way around it. It can be an inconvenience at times, seeing as we stare at other novels and wish that they were another novel in the Shadows of the Apt series. It turns out Tchaikovsky just keeps putting out novels that continually feel fresh, and that are immensely fun to read. Now the third book of the series, BLOOD OF THE MANTIS (Amazon), could have been awful. Tchaikovsky could have tried to go even bigger than DRAGONFLY FALLING (EBR Review). That would have been a terrible mistake. There was such huge-scale warfare in book 2, that to try to one-up it would have been nearly impossible. And yet we see it all the time.
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We love when sequels improve upon their predecessors. You’ll recall we gave a favorable review to Adrian Tchaikovsky‘s EMPIRE IN BLACK AND GOLD (EBR Review). Sure, there were issues with it, but that doesn’t mean the book wasn’t good. The second book in Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series is DRAGONFLY FALLING (Amazon), and for the most part it improves upon the original in every way.

DRAGONFLY picks up right where EMPIRE ends. The Wasp Empire is is poised to invade the Lowlands, and are beginning with strategic cities used in trade and manufacturing. Our main cast of characters from EMPIRE are all here, and are in different corners of the known world trying to convince different races to band together against the Wasps. Really, this sounded like it could have become bogged down in people talking and negotiating. This kind of thing bugs us (Get it? Bugs? Never mind…) Did that happen? Uh, no.

You see, DRAGONFLY FALLING is all about war. Lots and lots and lots (that’s a lot of lots) of war.
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Being the diligent readers that we are, we often browse through the import selection of various websites (imports to the US that is). After all, it is usually only a matter of time before the book get published here. But, every now-and-again, we get a tad impatient (We want books NAO!). This was the case with Chris Wooding‘s RETRIBUTION FALLS (Amazon).

It’s hard to say what genre RETRIBUTION FALLS, uh, falls under. It is SF, with some magic, and religion, and a retro-futuristic world, airships, pirates, gun-fights, sword-fights, and dog fights. It is truly a mix of everything. Usually, this is a recipe for disaster. Wooding, on the contrary, makes it dang-near perfect.
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If there was one 2010 fantasy series that had us chomping at the bit, it was Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt. Finally, after salivating over its inevitable US release, we finally got to taste the dish that the UK has enjoyed without us; EMPIRE IN BLACK AND GOLD (Amazon).

How about we start from the outside? The cover art on EMPIRE is simply unbelievable (and yes, the covers are as awesome on the two sequels we also have in our hands; DRAGONFLY RISING and BLOOD OF THE MANTIS). You know we judge books on their covers all the time. The cover of EMPIRE lends perfectly to its content, and gives the immediate impression of war and chaos. It is in our personal opinions that our US covers for this series are far superior to their UK counterparts. About time, right?

So, after gazing lovingly at the cover for a good long while, we opened up EMPIRE hoping the unique premise we had read about was delivered. It could have gone wrong. Horribly wrong, even. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a far cry from bad, or even mediocre.
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When we first started Elitist Book Reviews, we set things rolling with a review of a (then) UK only release. It was a YA Urban Fantasy/Horror novel by Dan Wells that goes by the title; I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (EBR Review) — a story about John Wayne Cleaver, a young teenager who has all the markers of becoming a serial killer. Think of it as a young Dexter (the Jeff Lindsay character), but much better written, better paced, more character-driven, and containing borderline paranormal aspects done right. In short, it was, for us, one of the best novels released in 2009.

This is the part where we say how much we love Dan Wells, and the character he created in John Cleaver. Not only does the second book, MR. MONSTER (Amazon), live up to the expectations of the fantastic first novel, it completely blows it out of the water. MR. MONSTER is better in every way than its predecessor. If I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER was one of the best novels of 2009, MR. MONSTER is currently one of the best novels of the past FIVE years.

We. Freaking. Loved it.
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