The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

This book has been recommended to me, and on my radar for a long, long time.  I am extremely glad I finally got around to reading it!

The Blade Itself is in some ways a typical fantasy novel with magic, warriors, and romance.  It takes the normal fantasy archetypes and builds on them in really interesting ways!  I highly recommend this book, and will avoid spoilers in the following review.

Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel

In which a young woman discovers hidden magic and another world.

This book is a really interesting, unusual, and compelling fantasy story.  I would recommend it to fans of fantasy, although discovering it has sequels diminished it for me a little.  More on that after the cut.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Series) by Rick Riordan

I am again reviewing this entire series in one go, because there isn't so much to say individually about the books.

These are really solid young adult fantasy books.  I would recommend them to most fans of young adult books generally!  They are better than the movies, so far, although I have enjoyed the movies.

Wild Cards (Series) by George R.R. Martin

It's been a while, but I have lot's of books to review!

I am going to address the Wild Cards series in one chunk, because there isn't a lot to say about individual books.  I got up through Volume 9 (Jokertown Shuffle) before stopping because the books became difficult to find and for other reasons discussed below. 

This review will contain spoilers.

The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley

The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley.  Little, Brown and Company, 2012.  978-0-316-19327-6.

... in which Myfanwy Thomas awakes with no memory of who she is, and must somehow return to her life as a high-ranking official in a secret government agency that protects the world from supernatural enemies.

Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced miff-uh-ney) wakes up one night and finds herself surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves, with no memory of who she is.  In her pocket, she finds a letter from her pre-amnesiac self, explaining that her name is Myfanwy Thomas and that she is being hunted by people who want to destroy her.  Following the clues from her pre-amnesiac self, Myfanwy Thomas gradually learns that she is a Rook for the Checquy, a top-secret British government agency with hundreds of agents, directed towards protecting the world from various supernatural threats.  Myfanwy's title of Rook places her in the very highest echelon of the Checquy, essentially making her a general in charge of all domestic supernatural problems.  Myfanwy has to continue to follow the clues to discover who she is and who is trying to kill her, while also preventing her dangerous colleagues at the Checquy from discovering her total amnesia, and while preventing a full-scale invasion of horrifying monsters attempting to take over Great Britain.

After the Golden Age, by Carrie Vaughn

After the Golden Age, by Carrie Vaughn.  Tor Books, 2011.  342 pp.  978-0-7653-6460-9.

... in which Celia, the totally normal daughter of the two greatest superheroes on Earth, fights evil and finds her own way in the world.

Celia West is the daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the two greatest superheroes in the world.  Unfortunately for Celia, she was born completely normal, and her most exciting accomplishment is her silver medal from a high school swim meet.  Estranged from her parents, who were disappointed at her lack of superpowers, Celia now works as an accountant.  When her accounting firm is called in to work on the financials of the Destructor, her parents' biggest nemesis who is about to stand trial, Celia gets drawn back into the world of superheroes and supervillains.  As one of her biggest secrets is revealed to the world, Celia has to learn to contend with bad guys, her parents, and her own place in the world.

The Annotated Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien

The Annotated Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien and annotated by Douglas A. Anderson.  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988.  335 pp.  0-395-47690-9.

... in which Bilbo and company's adventures are annotated with notes about Tolkien's inspirations and the various changes between different editions of The Hobbit.

The Annotated Hobbit is a unique copy of The Hobbit because in its margins, writer Douglas Anderson has added in a plethora of notes and images to supplement the main text.  Most of the notes are about Tolkien's various inspirations, both in terms of plot and linguistics.  There are also various footnotes noting the different changes between various editions over the years, and illustrations are included throughout the book showing different artists' interpretations of the events from different international editions.  I'm not going to bother to summarize the plot, because if you don't know the plot of The Hobbit by now, then you probably don't care.

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

In which a young girl must survive and perform a difficult task to save her brothers' lives.

 

 I feel like this is a perfectly good book that just didn't appeal to me very much for a number of reasons.  So this review will probably be inordinately harsh, and will contain spoilers because it wasn't good enough for me to recommend!  If you think you'd like this book, I recommend you read some other fantasy book instead.  

Touch of Power, by Maria V. Snyder

Touch of Power, by Maria V. Snyder.  Mira, 2011.  400 pp.  978-0778313076

... in which Avry, a young healer, runs from bounty hunters, gets herself captured, falls in love, and faces an impossible choice.

 

This review is of a digital copy provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley.

 

Touch of Power follows the adventures of Avry, a 20-year-old woman with special healing abilities.  Unfortunately for her, healers in her world have been hunted down and executed, since everyone else blames them for the plague that killed the majority of the population a few years earlier.  One night, as Avry sits in a cell awaiting execution, a man named Kerrick breaks her out.  The catch?  Avry must travel with Kerrick to heal a prince, who is possibly the world's only chance for lasting peace.  However, healers can't heal the plague like they can with ordinary diseases and injuries; the healer who takes the plague from another will sicken and die, and the man that Kerrick wants Avry to heal was partially responsible for the slaughter of all the healers Avry knew.  As Avry travels with Kerrick, she must decide if she wants to save the prince, while also avoiding capture from bounty hunters.

The Wheel of Time is done!

...mostly. Brandon Sanderson tweeted some time last night that he had finished writing A Memory of Light, the last book in the Wheel of Time series. Now it needs edited and will be published some time next year. Yay!!

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

Book four in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle.  (The first book in the series is Eragon

As I mentioned in my review of Brisingr, book three of the series, I was crazy about Eragon when I originally read it a decade ago.  I was less thrilled with books two and three, but this book captured some of the magic of the original for me!  I actually really enjoyed this book.

This review will not contain significant spoilers.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

The sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora

There will be some spoilers under the cut, but not the type that should diminish your enjoyment of the series.  If you haven't read The Lies of Locke Lamora yet, go read that before you read this review!

The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson

The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson.  Tor, 2011.  332 pp.  978-0-7653-3042-0.

... in which Waxillium Ladrian, Allomancer, uses his Allomantic abilities and his skills as a lawman to bring down a ring of dangerous and powerful criminals.

The Alloy of Law is a sequel to Sanderson's amazingly awesome Mistborn trilogy, though this book is a stand-alone story and can be read without any familiarity with the original Mistborn books.  Set about three hundred years after the events in the original Mistborn trilogy, this story follows Waxillium Ladrian, a former lawman and current lord of the House Ladrian.  Wax spent twenty years as a lawman in the Roughs, working in tiny, backwoods towns to apprehend criminals, much like a sheriff in an old-fashioned western.  However, when his uncle dies in a tragic accident, Wax is summoned back to the capital city of Elendel to assume his duties as the head of his House.  Struggling to adjust to life among the highborn aristocracy after spending two decades in the Roughs, Wax sets aside his lawman tendencies.  However, when a series of mysterious and high-profile robberies and kidnappings continue to go unsolved, Wax begins to investigate and finds that the case is far more dangerous than he anticipated.

Nation, by Terry Pratchett

Nation, by Terry Pratchett.  Harper, 2008.  367 pp.  978-0-06-143303-0.

... in which two young teens, the only survivors of a massive tsunami, attempt to rebuild their lives.

Nation is the story of two teenagers (both about 13 or 14 years old), who live in a world similar to our world in the late 1800s.  Mau is a boy who lives on a small island (analogous to a south Pacific island in our world); when the tsunami hits, he is alone on a different island going through a ritual to take him from boyhood to manhood.  Upon traveling back to his home island, he finds that the wave has destroyed his village and that he is the only one left.  Daphne is a girl traveling from London to live with her father, who is the governor of a British colony somewhere near Mau's island.  The tsunami wrecks her ship, leaving her alone with Mau on his island.  Despite being separated by language and culture, the two begin to work together to rebuild the island nation.  Gradually they are joined by other survivors from other islands.  As Mau takes up the leadership of this small group, he and Daphne are forced to confront the hidden secrets of the island, and to question the traditions and beliefs that govern their lives.

Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

In which a boy finds himself caught up in an inter-dimensional war.

Joey is living a normal life when he is hunted down and thrust into a war between factions seeking control of multiple dimensions of earth.  Interworld follows his initial adventures in other dimensions.

This review contains some moderate, non plot-ruining spoilers!

Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson

In which a chunk of the world is mysteriously transformed in a single event, and explorer/photographer Guilford Law attempts to make sense of it.

This book had it all in terms of things that make me dislike books.  It had characters that I could not care about, it had a setting that took half the book to sort of explain, it had sloppy perspectives and it had jumps in time where decades were skipped.  Most of all it was just confusing and boring though. 

This review will subsequently contain spoilers because I won't recommend this book and can't be bothered to not spoil it!

Legacy of Kings by C.S. Friedman

The conclusion to C.S. Friedman's Magister Trilogy.  (First book: Feast of Souls; second book: Wings of Wrath)

Legacy of Kings is an extremely satisfying climax to one of the most enjoyable fantasy series I've read.  Mysteries that are hinted at in the earlier books become clear in Legacy of Kings, and certain characters reach their full and ridiculously awesome potential!

Off Topic: NPR's list of top Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books/Series

I posted earlier about a poll NPR was doing to find out what people thought were the all time best science fiction and fantasy works.

As any self respecting nerd, I have counted how many of these books I have read. My score is only 31! I need to get reading! I can personally recommend several of the books that made it on the list though, including the following:

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

It's also interesting to note how many books on the list I actively disliked! That Goodkind guy's shitty series was on there, as was some others that I thought were fairly mediocre. To each his own, I guess!

What's your score?

Eye of the Tempest, by Nicole Peeler

Eye of the Tempest, by Nicole Peeler.  Orbit Books, 2011.  338 pp.  978-0-316-12808-7.

... in which Jane True, half-selkie, saves her friends and works to stop a major magical disaster.

This book is the fourth book in the Jane True series.  If this review seems early... that's because it is.  The book isn't supposed to be released until July 26, but the Borders near me put it on the shelves a week early.  For whatever reason, I seem to have reviewed book one, but not books two and three.  Jane, the daughter of a selkie mother and a human father, has managed to survive many dangerous events in the past three books.  At the end of book three, Jane learned of a widespread threat against the future of all magical halflings and humans.  Book four starts with her returning home after some very dangerous events, only to be attacked again on her home turf.  Jane and her friends (most notably, the barghest Anyan) hear news of an ancient powerful being asleep under her hometown of Rockabill, Maine.  Whoever manages to find and awaken this creature gets its power, and therefore a huge advantage in the coming magical war.  As events unfold, it becomes clear that this sleeping creature could destroy most of North America, and as Jane's friends are incapacitated one by one, it's up to Jane to fix the problem herself.

The Wolf Age by James Enge

Hooooboy. It figures my first review would be on a book I either really loved or really...didn't. And "The Wolf Age" by James Enge is set firmly in the latter camp. Actually, the surprising thing is that, after I finished reading it, I wasn't actually sure how I felt about it. I now realize that I was suffering from some residual confusion and frustration stemming from the book's conclusion (I'll come back to this). After talking it out with a friend and describing the story, however, I have come to realize that I actually really, really dislike this book.

I've never actually felt ASSAULTED by my reading before.