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…

Color me pleasantly surprised – a book that ostensibly bore many hallmarks of your average possibly-YA-but-maybe-not fantasy novel in fact turned out to be a very refreshing and unique read. I honestly didn’t expect to like this book so much, especially since my feelings for the story fluctuated so wildly for most of the first half. However, all traces of uncertainty were washed away by the time the plot ramped up to its brutal climax and staggering conclusion. The Queen of Blood introduces us to the world of Aratay, a place where humans and nature spirits coexist in a state of precarious equilibrium. Spirits see humans as invaders in their domain, and given the opportunity they would gladly see us all dead. But while the spirits are destructive forces, they are also one with the natural world, and without them there would be no rain, no fire, no life. So humans have learned to adapt. In Aratay, a Queen holds control over all the spirits in the area and protects her people from harm. To choose a Queen, girls with an affinity to sense and manipulate the spirits are identified and invited to an academy to learn how to use…

The Facefaker’s Game is an entertaining coming of age story that features a number of familiar, but quite likable, tropes. I want to stress that it’s not a negative to contain tropes. I firmly believe these are traits that are so common because they can be quite enjoyable, which is the case within The Facefaker’s Game. The book has enough originality within it’s magic and characters to make the old familiar feel fresh and fun. It feature a 14 year old boy, with no family, trying make it on the mean streets. And trust me, Burroughside is mean. In addition to the gangs of orphans and criminals, there are also monsters that come out at night. People don’t risk breaking curfew because staying out past dark pretty much typically means your life. Another interesting/mysterious feature of this book was certain people (though they don’t call them people) who would appear in Burroughside with no memory of who they are. The word amnesia was never used, but that is the general idea. And with no memory, no place to live, their lack of defenses against the monsters of the night means they are not likely to live long. It’s a mystery of the world that leaves you guessing a bit…

Make no mistake, Lovecraft-inspired stories are a real hot thing right now and I am gobbling it all up. This year the types of Lovecraftian fiction I’ve already read have ranged from bloody gorefests to dark comedies, and there just seems to be a style for every persuasion. And if your tastes happen to run in the direction of weird fiction and pulp noir, then Reanimatrix is sure to make you very, very happy. Unfolding through a series of diary entries and letters, this story follows the strange lives of two main characters, Robert Peaslee and Megan Halsey. It is the 1920s, and Robert was an officer in the Great War returning to his home town of Arkham to work on the police force, handling the sensitive cases that the other cops don’t want to touch. One fateful day he meets Megan, a young heiress with a troubled past, and immediately feels drawn to her. Years later, however, Robert is called to work a crime scene by the docks where a body of a woman has been discovered, and he is shocked and heartbroken to later learn that it is none other than Megan Halsey. Before the investigation can move…

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…

I have to confess when I first saw this book, I did not realize it was a retelling of The Tempest by William Shakespeare. There are some authors that have impressed me enough with my previous reads I honestly don’t feel the need to read the synopsis closely before diving in when I get my hands on it. This was one of those books. I absolutely love The Heart Goes Last, and regardless of what Atwood’s next book was about, I knew I would have to read it. Enter Hag-Seed. I am not sure I was the ideal reader for this particular book. I am woefully unfamiliar with The Tempest, which means that there are likely many reference and parallels, unique twists, etc, that I am not in a position to recognize or appreciate. I will say that the way Hag-Seed is told, I did become more familiar with The Tempest as I read. At the end of the book, there is a section that summarizes The Tempest for the reader. I wish that had been in the beginning as I felt like it may have helped me understand the retelling aspect a bit more if I had read that…

In my review of Ken Liu’s debut, I said it possessed all the epic grandeur, intelligence, and dignity of a Guy Gavriel Kay novel. Now, having read the follow-up, I am starting to wonder if anybody has ever seen the two of them in the same room together. Okay, so I’m kidding – or, at least, half-kidding – but The Wall of Storms is precisely the kind of sweeping, character-driven epic of cultural mythology that so very few authors could attempt, much less manage so successfully. The first half of the novel (and we’re talking several hundred pages) is largely dedicated to developing a new character who had no role to play in The Grace of Kings. Zomi is a smart, philosophical young woman who thinks and acts in a manner that is disturbingly progressive for an already strained empire. Where her connection to the tale comes in is through Luan Zya, the man who advised the Emperor to betray his best friend for the greater good, and who then walked away from it all. Through alternating chapters we see the progress of the imperial examinations in which Zomi is to take part, and the learnings and journeys she shared with Luan to get there. It makes for an…

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…