Stella Maris is a remote planet where hostile races live in peace under the unlikely shelter of a Weird portal. When the corrupt Expansion comes to ‘investigate’, deserter Yale and former slave Ashot fear the worst – knowing that the Expansion sanctioned mass murder on Braun’s World. Will the Weird keep them safe? Star of the Sea is the fourth book in the Weird Space universe. It continues the story begun in The Baba Yaga, and it’s probably better to read that book first (although previous Weird Space books are optional for added galaxy-building). Me, I jumped straight into the universe with Star of the Sea because it sounded intriguing. Starting here is technically feasible. The opening chapters include enough recaps to make it clear what you’ve missed, and it’s achieved without feeling like a lot of awkward exposition. As the novel is told largely from the perspective of new characters (Yale and Eileen O’Connor), there’s no sense that you should already know what they’re about. Even where characters from The Baba Yaga take centre stage (Maria, sole adult survivor of The Baba Yaga), I didn’t get the impression they had previously had starring roles. In spite of this, my core criticism of the book is that it didn’t do the work to build its characters. This might have made forgivable if they’d been introduced in a previous volume, but as…

The Lives of Tao and the subsequent books in Chu’s fantastic series were some of my favorite books from the past few years, so you can image how excited I was to find out he was starting another series set in the same world. The Rise of Io takes place some years after the Tao books (and I say “some years” because I’m not exactly sure how many) and contains many of the elements we’re familiar with, if you’ve read that series. But this time the setting is Surat, India, and the main character is a tiny but fierce and plucky girl named Ella Patel. Like Roen before her, Ella is thrust into the life of the quasing against her will when she unwittingly becomes host to a Prophus named Io. But Ella and Roen couldn’t be more different. Ella might be one of my favorite fictional characters ever, I simply loved everything about her. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. If you haven’t read the first series, here’s a little background about this world. The quasing are an ancient alien race who crash-landed on Earth millions of years ago, and since then have evolved and managed to survive…

When I was first offered a copy of Vick’s Vultures for review, the press release promised a mix of Firefly and Mad Max. That was enough to catch my interest. When I had a chance to talk with Scott Warren about the book, he also mentioned Discworld having influenced his tone. That was enough to pique my interest. When I actually sat down to read it, I discovered that its Firefly sense of roguish adventure was cut with a good deal of Star Trek vibes. That was enough to sustain my interest. I loved the concept of this right from the start. Humanity has progressed to the point where we’re a legitimate star-faring race, but in doing so we’ve discovered how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. Races like the Malagath, the Dirregaunt, and the Kossovoldt have been around for eons, progressing far beyond anything to which we could aspire. They are the forces of power in the universe, with each of them controlling thousands of worlds. In order to compete, we have legitimized a form of interstellar piracy, scavenging alien ships for whatever technology and secrets we can, making our own ships into mechanical monstrosities of mismatch technology. Culturally, those races have…

A City Dreaming is such a strange and intriguing book, I admit that my expectations picking this up bear no relation whatsoever to the read itself and yet I found that I really enjoyed this nonetheless.  When I started reading my first thoughts were ‘what am I reading’ and yet just a few pages into the book  I found myself really keen to pick it back up.  It defies description in some respects and I think this will probably turn into a bunch of random thoughts but I’ll do my best to keep it coherent. The jacket for A City Dreaming talks about two queens poised on the brink of war.  A world with divinities, wolves and phantom subway lines.  Reading the description you will probably imagine this is urban fantasy and to be honest it is although it might take a little time for you to become accustomed to that fact when you first pick it up.  It reads like a collection of short stories and yet that’s not really the case.  Basically the story  covers (roughly) a twelve month period in the life of ‘M’.  The chapters are all self contained but the characters from certain stories crop…

The striking graphic novel-like cover immediately drew me to this book, but I was also captured by the story of a slightly unlikable girl named Emmeline who is trying to overcome a mental illness and save the world at the same time. Satifka is a new author for me, and I absolutely loved her writing, and the hilarious dialog between the characters had me chuckling out loud. Em is an interesting protagonist in that she didn’t grab my sympathy until about halfway through the story. She doesn’t have much of a filter and is likely to blurt out inappropriate comments just about everywhere, but she has a good heart and is simply trying to stay afloat after her first year at college goes horribly wrong.  Stay Crazy reminded me a little of Grady Hendrix’s Horrorstör, which also involves an evil entity taking over a retail space, so if you enjoyed that book, you will have a blast with this too. Nineteen-year-old Emmeline has come home to Clear Falls, after an incident at college left her with gaps in her memory and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Now she’s seeing a therapist and living at home with her mother and sister and trying to…

Chasing Embers certainly gets off to a very promising start, in fact you barely crack the book open before there’s an explosion of action that leaves you anxious to read quickly on. I’m not sure how many books are planned but I can see that this has the makings of a very entertaining urban fantasy series where a world of mythology lives alongside our modern world and a whole host of fantasy creatures hide in plain sight. Basically, and without giving away too much of the plot, long, long ago an ancient pact was formed between the fantastical beasts that roamed the earth and the humans. This pact was formed to prevent large scale war and bloodshed and the stipulations of the pact must be closely observed in order for it to remain intact. I’m being a little bit mysterious here because you need to discover the history as you read. Anyhow, at the start of the story, our central character, Ben, finds himself in a couple of close encounters that leave him seriously questioning whether or not the agreement still stands and with his life under threat he finds himself in a desperate chase, following in the wake (or…

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest is a wonderfully atmospheric and chillingly gothic ghost story populated with well rounded characters, a particularly malevolent ghost and a house with a character all of its own. I loved this. It seriously gave me the goosebumps and, frankly (although I could be something of a wuss) scared me into not reading alone late at night, I admit that this book just really worked for me. I probably can’t put my finger on exactly why but I just liked it as soon as I started to read. We start the story with a deal being struck between a salvage operator and a property owner in the process of having her mansion demolished. Augusta Withrow inherited the family mansion. Not wishing to live there she is selling anything and everything that can be removed in order to benefit from the process. Chuck Dutton is the owner of a salvage company that has hit a crisis. The books are in the red and the promise of all the bounty sitting in the Withrow home is too good an offer to miss, even if it means going further into debt, this could be the golden egg that…

I have to admit, I’m of two minds regarding Twilight of the Dragons. Yes, it’s a fun, foul-mouthed, frantic sequel to both The Dragon Engine and The White Towers, but its narrative quality is all over the place. Much of it reads like a first draft manuscript, awkward and juvenile in places, that somehow sneaked past the editor. Structurally, it feels like it’s one step removed from being polished as well, jumping between storylines, with random flashback chapters interspersed, and some definite pacing issues. It made for a frustrating read, which (unfortunately) took something away from the enjoyment. Having said all that, this is a bold, brash, bloody story in which Andy Remic returns to the world of grimdark fantasy. One story thread catches up with the survivors of the The Dragon Engine, following their war-weary, emotionally exhausted descent into the bowels of Wyrmblood. These are adventurers who suffered greatly in the last book – beatings, torture, and even rape – and it weighs heavily upon them. As depressing as it made those scenes, I admired Remic for not just shrugging off the pain and going all gung-ho with the heroics. The other story thread catches up with the survivors…

Taking place almost immediately on the heels of Dragon Hunters, this is a story that reaches back to connect with some of the characters and stories of When the Heavens Fall. It’s the book in the series where everything begins to come together, and where we begin to see hints of the bigger picture into which all the pieces will eventually fit. My first impression of Red Tide was that it’s a more human tale, less about gods and monsters than first two books, which fits with the conflict at the heart of the story. I went into it being most excited by Romany’s return, but I ended up looking forward to the stories of Amerel Duquy and Galantas Galair the most. For me, they were the heart of the book. As for Karmel and Caval, if you thought they had personal issues between them in the last book, those conflicts really come to a head here, both in terms of faith and family. Initially, I didn’t like them as much here, finding their scenes a bit dry and impersonal, but looking back I can see how that was just me getting caught up in their tensions. Commander Eremo, leader…

Ah, the final chapter in a trilogy. It is always bittersweet when pick up that last book in series, excited to find out what comes next, yet wondering how the final chapters will go for characters you have grown to love during the series, sad to think that your journey with them is almost at a close. I have really enjoyed the books in the Bloodbound series, so I definitely felt this going in. There’s almost a sense of nervousness if I will be satisfied the end of series. No one wants to depart on a bad note, and it is hard know that even if you love it, there’s no guarantee you will get to read more about the characters. But, excitement to read overshadows all of that, and so I dove into The Bloodsworn without hesitation. The Bloodsworn takes off immediately, with our beloved characters facing situations more dire than ever before as they face the prospect of the complete loss of their land and people. The threat is very real and quite dire. With King Erik, well, let’s just call him “indisposed“, due to the bloodbinder from the last book,  Alix and Liam face new challenges of running the land, while trying to not…