Fantasy
Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender
In this collection we're shown the reaction of ten men with terminal illness prognoses, a large man purchasing a very unusual pet and the case of a hard-done-by boyfriend. There are also delights like the shop that sells words crafted into what they read, a boy with keys instead of fingers and the beautifully touching tale of the pumpkin-headed mother who gives birth to an iron-headed baby. No, this isn't your average collection of predictable short stories; these are Aimee Bender short stories. Full review...
The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone by Will Storr
Killian Lone grows up in a home lacking in love and security. For these he relies on his elderly aunt Dorothy, an accomplished cook. Indeed his visits to Dorothy revolve around food as he absorbs all she can teach him, slowly inheriting her passion and skill along with her knowledge. This attachment to food then becomes his career choice, leading to the unfortunate discovery of a family secret that has remained hidden for a very long time. Why 'unfortunate'? There's a reason for its concealment… a very, very good reason. Full review...
The Grim Company by Luke Scull
The gods are dead. The Magelords murdered them and hurled their bodies from heaven and are also slowly dominating the world below. Dorminia is already in their iron grasp, policed by the feared Crimson Watch and the terrorising Augmentors. It's not even safe to think as Mind Hawks monitor and punish with pain and suffering. However there is a resistance, albeit fragmented and comparatively impotent but the situation is worsening so they must make a stand or lose everything (and everyone) they love. Is the evil magic stronger than the heroes' own resources? They're dying to find out. Full review...
Lord Kelvin's Machine by James P Blaylock
On a dark and rainy night, a weary but determined Langdon St. Ives rides out in hot pursuit of the villain who is holding his wife, Alice, captive. Catching up with his nemesis on the road, the resulting standoff between the two ends with St. Ives witnessing the cold-blooded murder of his beloved, shot in the head at point blank range whilst pinned under the wheels of a carriage. It is a scene that will play out again and again in his mind, driving him to the brink of madness and desperation. There appears, however, to be a glimmer of hope in the form of a mysterious machine in the possession of the Royal Academy of Science; a machine that may hold the secret to time itself. Is it possible for our hero to harness the power of Lord Kelvin’s Machine and rewrite history? Full review...
Homunculus by James P Blaylock
What could possibly be the connection between a mechanical toy crocodile that eats birds, a giant emerald, an oxygenator device for a spaceship and a tiny alien man with the power of life and death? The answer, of course, is that each item on this unusual list has been placed inside one of four identical boxes. The boxes are hidden in various locations in order to prevent the contents from falling into the wrong hands, but evil has a habit of seeking things out.... Full review...
The Twyning by Terence Blacker
Efren is a nobody in the kingdom of rats till he witnesses the kidnapping of the king. His future changes in a moment as he's sent up to the human world to rescue him. Talking of humans, 11 year old Peter is abandoned by his parents and left to scrape a living from London's streets. His affinity with animals gives him the name 'Dogboy' and employment with rat catcher Bob and scientist Dr Ross-Gibbon. The Doctor's ambition is to encourage humanity to annihilate the rats by dragging them into a war. Efren and Dogboy, both insignificant in their own worlds, must make both man and rodent see sense; easier said than done. Full review...
The Rook (The Checquy Files) by Daniel O'Malley
A woman wakes up with amnesia surrounded by dead people wearing gloves. In her pocket she discovers a letter from Myfanwy Thomas, the previous inhabiter of her body. Myfanwy tells a strange story of working for 'the Checquy', a paranormal version of MI5 which has been permeated by a web of betrayal and danger. The problem is that Myfanwy never discovered the source before her body changed hands (so to speak). The amnesiac has a clear choice: to continue Myfanwy's investigation or to do a runner. It's her decision but Myfanwy's warning is less than encouraging:
- Remember they want you dead.
Something for her to bear in mind along with the fatal, unintended consequences of permitting cheap cheese into the UK. Full review...
Seven Kings: Books of the Shaper: Volume 2 by John R Fultz
Runaway slave Tong suicidally avenges his lost love but death seems to elude him. Meanwhile King Vireon is happily married to the beautiful shape-shifting sorceress Alua, although his sister has problems with her husband, King D'zan. A courtesan is carrying his baby; odder still when you realise he's impotent. The Twin Kings of Uruz, scholarly Lyrilan and war-hungry Tyro, can't agree on how to rule so Tyro's wife Talondra puts a real spanner in the works to force a decision. However bad their lives currently are, evil is spreading through their world like a dark shadow and, to make things worse still, Ianthe the Claw and Gammir the Reborn aren't as dead as everyone supposes them to be. (You'd think the clue would be in Gammir's name wouldn't you?) Full review...
Glass Thorns - Touchstone by Melanie Rawn
Cayden is a hybrid being part elf, fae and human but all wizard. He also has a day job as a tregetour or playwright with his own touring company, Touchstone. They're ambitious and planning to get through the trials and into the upper flight. As you would expect from a wizard, this troupe doesn't just act; they also weave magic imbued in hallucinations and encased in glass withies. The problem is they're short of a glister, a troupe's wielder of withies. Or rather they were until Mieka arrives. Actually short's a good world as he's an elf but he also happens to be the best glister anyone's ever seen, thorns permitting. With one problem solved, another remains. Namely prophetic dreams that have haunted Cade since boyhood and they aren't improving, in fact they're more like nightmares. Full review...
Blood Bonds: The Caravan by Rosanne Licata
Raj is part Arab, part Roman. She's independent and strong-willed - too independent and strong-willed to fit well into a society where women belong in the home and only men can bring change to the world. So she runs away. Disguised as a boy, she is roaming the streets of Antioch when she encounters Bjornolf, a Danish king. Drawn to him in a way she can't explain, Raj stows away on the caravan he is guarding. As the journey continues, Raj must decide whether the terrible dangers to both Bjornolf and herself are worth risking if she reveals her true nature to him... Full review...
Legacy Of Kings (Magister 3) by Celia Friedman
Three years is a long time to wait between parts of a trilogy, especially one as good as Celia Friedman's Magister Trilogy. I'm not someone blessed with great patience, which has made the wait interminable, but finally I get to find out what happened to Kamala and the other Magisters and to see how Salvator Aurelius is coping with being the first Penitent King. Full review...
Aralorn: Masques and Wolfbsane by Patricia Briggs
Here is what seems quite a rum Patricia Briggs compendium – her first attempt at a fantasy novel, published and read by roughly six men and an orc back in the early 1990s, and what would appear the fourth book in the same series, dusted off after they both got a rewrite in 2010, and together at last for the curious completist. And if the rewriting ironed out a few creases it shows just how much there was needed done – for the first book is still full of minor problems – a man immune to, or invisible to, magic unless when it's needed for the plot, a host of exposition all throughout, and much that marks it down as a debut effort. It doesn't mean it's not worth reading however. Full review...
Cold Days by Jim Butcher
Happy birthday Harry Dresden! And what a birthday as life becomes a little hectic for the Winter Court Knight. He returns to life in time to fight in the Winter Palace, have a near death experience at the hands of dark, mini-people, then is nearly killed again (by a friend this time) and his island of Demonreach is about to explode taking a chunk of the USA with it. He therefore has 24 hours to save some world. Oh, and you know those headaches he's been having? HIs head is on the verge of exploding too. Indeed, it's the sort of birthday that it's hardly worth reanimating for. Full review...
The Folly of the World by Jesse Bullington
It is the 1420s, and a lot of what we now think of as The Netherlands is underwater. Crossing the deluge is a most unlikely trio – a posh man seeking something with the help of the others, including a girl who has survived his sometimes-fatal test, and a manic fellow fresh from saving himself upon the gallows, who might or might not have been down to hell in the interim. What that quest is, and how it will lead to nightmares, deaths galore and a lot of other interesting parts of the story, is for you to discover, in this absorbing cross-genre piece. Full review...
Stealing Into Winter: being the first adventure from the chronicles of Jeniche of Antar by Graeme K Talboys
Streetwise young thief Jeniche wakes up to find her prison cell's walls collapsing around her. This is no natural disaster but an invasion by the Occassans, mercilessly brandishing 'moskets', weapons that fire death rendering the native Makamban cudgels futile. Whilst scouring the streets and avoiding the marauding army, Jeniche visits old haunts, checking on her friends and wondering what to do next. This last part is solved for her: a band of Tunduri monks and nuns, including their young God-King himself, want a guide to take them home to Tundur, the land of winter beyond the desert. The journey may be hazardous but nothing's safe anymore, and so, accompanied by the muscular, slow-witted stable owner, Trag and mysterious swordsman Alltud, their journey begins. Full review...
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding
For once I don't feel like devoting my first paragraph to a teasing plot summary. And while I'm here to judge the book and not the cover, even the British paperback blurb agrees, and gives nothing away in its woolliness. I am duty bound to say this is the third book to feature Darian Frey and the rest of the crew of his flying craft the Ketty Jay. If pressed I will say it starts with him indulging in a further instance of thievery, making a mistake, and then finding just how much is in the science fantasy universe that can possibly get between him and what might repair the damage. Full review...
Stray Souls by Kate Griffin
Sharon Li has a normal job in a London coffee shop but doesn't feel normal. She's beginning to realise she's a shaman, especially when she is so at one with the city, she vanishes. In order to meet others who'll understand, she starts Magicals Anonymous, a self-help group for the mystically confused coming to terms with their gifts. The meetings come with various beverages, biscuits, a Facebook page and a very good turnout. However all is not herbal tea and crunchy-creams as someone or something seems to be stealing the spirits that make London's soul and another something walks the streets tearing people limb from limb. The city is dying and gradually Sharon realises that Magicals Anonymous are more than just a social group. As odd as it sounds to look at them, the Midnight Mayor wants them to save the capital. Full review...
Red Glove (Curse Workers 2) by Holly Black
Cassel lives in a world where magic is frowned upon. Practice is banned and everyone wears gloves to prevent being worked. Cassel himself is a transformation worker - the rarest type. And he is the most powerful transformation worker in living memory. This makes him extremely valuable to the crime families who use curses to support and maintain their empires. It also makes him extremely dangerous as far as the authorities are concerned. And that's why Cassel tries to keep his status to himself, since he discovered it in the first book in this Curse Workers sequence. Full review...
The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer 2) by Brent Weeks
Gavin Guile thought he had five years left to complete his seven great purposes. But now it seems he has less than one. He might be the Prism - the most powerful light drafter in the Seven Satrapies, capable of drafting huge amounts of light without risk of losing his mind to the colours - but he's lost blue. He can't see it or draft it. Full review...
The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann
Don't get yourself noticed and you won't get yourself hanged.
Such is life for peculiars like Bartholomew Kettle and his sister Hettie. Their mother is human but their - absent - father is a Sidhe, a high fairy. Fairies are contemptuous of the half-breed peculiars and humans distrust and suspect them. Hapless peculiar children are often hanged by humans. And, even more worryingly, bodies of peculiars have been turning up recently, quite dead, covered in ancient faerie script and as empty of bone and organ as they are of life. Full review...
Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
Warrior Masaru has raised his daughter, Yukiko, alone since his wife left. Yukiko is now 16; a feat more due latterly to her own strength and resourcefulness than his care. For since his wife's departure, Masaru has gone to pieces, addicted to gambling and the narcotic effects of lotus smoke. The days when he was the legendary Black Fox are behind him which is a shame as the Shogun (not a man known for calm reasoning or lack of ferocity) has a mission for them. Masaru, Yukiko and an entourage must hunt and capture the legendary stormtiger. But they're extinct aren't they? Well, no, they aren't as Yukiko discovers when the hunt goes terribly wrong and she's left alone with just a storm tiger for company. She fights to find a way home, learning as she goes the full extent to which the Shogun has worked against the good of the nation in general and her family in particular. And the stormtiger? Let's just say he's had his wings clipped and he's not happy about it. Full review...
Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson
Alif lives under an alias and he has a good reason for that: he's a hakinista in an Arabian oil producing country that, to put it mildly, doesn't encourage free speech. He sells IT know-how and wizardy to any covert organisation that works against the government, their agenda unimportant as long as the aim is the downfall of their oppression. But all that's about to change as Alif falls in love and, as it's the wrong girl at the wrong time, is spurned. His response to this romantic let down is to create a computer programme that will identify her internet activity by her individual typing pattern. Unfortunately what works for him also works against him. It's captured by the notoriously dangerous government censor 'The Hand' who also wants Alif and his hidden network of colleagues. Now Alif runs to preserve his life and those who have trusted him, his only possession an ancient manuscript from his former love. Just a book, albeit one that's accompanied by myths and old wives' tales rendering it irrelevant a logical world. However, sometimes the most desperate of times requires more than logic and, sometimes, a mere book of stories may be more than it seems. Full review...
Taken: An Alex Verus Novel by Benedict Jacka
Alex Verus, future-diviner and erstwhile Camden magic shop owner has dusted himself off after the rigours of Cursed and is good to go once more. He continues training Luna as his apprentice but all is not completely well. Alex has been asked to investigate the disappearance of apprentices by Council representative, Talisid. Now, Alex's involvement with the Council (and indeed Talisid) hasn't always been good for Alex's health in the past, but his commissioning may be a sign of his enhanced reputation and this time there's a note of self-interest: Luna may be the next to vanish. Alex receives a tip-off that Fountain's Reach (a stately home with a mysterious past) has something to do with it and, as luck would have it, it's also the venue for the next apprentice tournament which Luna has entered. The investigation begins and hopefully they'll survive to see it through to the end. Full review...
The Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher
Jake's father disappeared while working on a secret project with his best friend, the celebrated explorer and recluse Oberon Venn. Jake is sure that Venn is a murderer and sets out to prove it, dragging his teacher, Mr Wharton, into the investigation. But the truth is perhaps even more frightening: David Wilde isn't dead, he's lost in time. Venn and his sidekick Piers are intent on re-entering the past to find him, using a device called the Chronoptika. But it's dangerous and they aren't the only ones hell bent on using the time machine. There's Sarah, who can turn herself invisible, and who's being pursued by a murderous Replicant and his wolf. And there's the scarred man with his acolyte and his strange weapon. And there are the Shee, who keep their own counsel, but have their own ambitions, and who enchant the forest on Venn's estate... Full review...
Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich
Following on from Wicked Appetite, pastry chef Lizzy and paranormal bounty hunter Diesel continue to seek the seven powerful stones linked to the seven deadly sins. They're looking for the stone associated with lust and it becomes a bit of a treasure hunt as, accompanied by Gloria (the slightly wizardy un-witch) and Carl (the ill-mannered monkey) they have to work their way through a string of clues. However, they aren't the only ones looking; for wherever goodies seek power, the baddies lurk also. The baddies in question are again the deliciously dark (on many levels) Gerwulf (Wulf) Grimoir and his medieval minion Hatchet. Wulf may be Diesel's cousin but there's not a lot of family love in any room they both occupy so let the race to the stone commence. Full review...
Wolfsbane (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip
After the terrible events at the end of the second book in Gillian Philip's Rebel Angels sequence, we move on a decade or so. Finn is back in the mortal world. But Rory and Jed have stayed with Seth, now the captain of the MacGregor clann's dun. Faerie queen Kate NicNiven continues to plot against Seth and to wrest Rory, the Bloodstone and prophesied saviour, from him. She is as determined as ever to destroy the veil separating the mortal and faerie worlds. Full review...
The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell
A young woman, newly married. Discovering her husband is not all he seems. That he has secrets. That she has needs, wants, desires. That she will need to take things into her own hands if she is ever to be satisfied in her new role as wife. Full review...