Book Review: Devices and Desires

When an engineer is sentenced to death for a petty transgression of guild law, he flees the city, leaving behind his wife and daughter. Forced into exile, he seeks a terrible vengeance – one that will leave a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

But he will not be able to achieve this by himself. He must draw up his plans using the blood of others …

In a compelling tale of intrigue and injustice, K. J. Parker’s embittered hero takes up arms against his enemies, using the only weapons he has left to him: his ingenuity and his passion – his devices and desires.

Summary: Devices and Desires by K.J. Parker is emblematic of both the great and the not so great of Parker’s work. Witty, ingenious, yet oh so dry and fairly dense. Very likely an acquired taste.

Book Review: Age of Assassins

TO CATCH AN ASSASSIN, USE AN ASSASSIN . . .

Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land’s best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But their latest mission tasks him and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone, or many someones, is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince’s murder.
In a kingdom on the brink of civil war and a castle thick with lies Girton finds friends he never expected, responsibilities he never wanted, and a conspiracy that could destroy an entire land.

Summary: Age of Assassins is a fantasy novel with compelling characters, a familiar yet imaginative setting and a thrilling plot that builds to a solid crescendo.

Book Review: City of Saints and Madmen

City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading–and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.…

By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzlebox where you can lose–and find–yourself again.

Summary: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer is a collection that almost defies explanation. It is a metatextual explosion of content detailing sordid events within and concerning the city of Ambergris – dark and funny, brutal to its characters, deep and complex in its history, a puzzle of narratives and in-world documents that answer questions with either horrors or more questions. It’s the most inventive thing I’ve read all year, and follows through with some gripping tales.

Book Review: The Splinter King

Potential Spoilers Ahead: The Splinter King is the sequel to The Black Coast. As such, the blurb for this book and the following review will inevitably have some level of spoilers for the previous book. I’ve tried to keep those spoilers to a minimum, but you have been warned.

THE WORLD FRACTURES AS A DEAD GOD RISES . . .

Darel, dragon knight and the new leader of Black Keep, must travel to the palace of the God-King to beg for the lives of his people. But in the capital of Narida, Marin and his warrior husband will be drawn into a palace coup, and Princess Tila will resort to murder to keep her hold on power.

In the far reaches of the kingdom an heir in exile is hunted by assassins, rumours of a rival God-King abound, and daemonic forces from across the seas draw ever nearer…

Summary: The Splinter King by Mike Brooks is a fun sequel that develops excitingly on the plot threads set up in the first book. There are more dragons, more intrigue, and more of the hopeful attitude that helped me fall in love with the series.

Book Review: She Who Became The Sun

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Summary: She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is an atmospheric and gripping tale of fate, drive and rebellion in a historical fantasy setting. Comparisons with Mulan will be likely as the protagonist tries to escape her fate by stealing the fate of her brother.

Quick Book Review: Priest of Gallows

Potential Spoilers Ahead: Priest of Gallows is the third book in the War for the Rose Throne series. As such, the blurb for this book and the following review will inevitably have some level of spoilers for the previous book/s. I’ve tried to keep those spoilers to a minimum, but you have been warned.

Gangster, soldier, priest. Queen’s Man. Governor.
Tomas Piety has everything he ever wanted. In public he’s a wealthy, highly respected businessman, happily married to a beautiful woman and Governor of his home city of Ellinburg. In private, he’s no longer a gang lord but one of the Queen’s Men, invisible and officially non-existent, working in secret to protect his country.

But when the queen’s sudden death sees him summoned him back to the capital, he discovers his boss, Dieter Vogel, Provost Marshal of the Queen’s Men, is busy tightening his stranglehold on the country.

Just as he once fought for his Pious Men, he must now bend all his wit and hard-won wisdom to protect his queen – but now he can’t always tell if he’s on the right side.

Tomas has started to ask himself, what is the price of power? And more importantly, is it one he is willing to pay?

Priest of Gallows by Peter McClean builds brilliantly on the two novels that came before. Hampered only slightly by the need to set up the final conflict, Thomas Piety in this story is more conflicted and brutal than ever.

Book Review: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

Kinch Na Shannack owes the Takers Guild a small fortune for his education as a thief, which includes (but is not limited to) lock-picking, knife-fighting, wall-scaling, fall-breaking, lie-weaving, trap-making, plus a few small magics. His debt has driven him to lie in wait by the old forest road, planning to rob the next traveler that crosses his path.

But today, Kinch Na Shannack has picked the wrong mark.

Galva is a knight, a survivor of the brutal goblin wars, and handmaiden of the goddess of death. She is searching for her queen, missing since a distant northern city fell to giants.

Unsuccessful in his robbery and lucky to escape with his life, Kinch now finds his fate entangled with Galva’s. Common enemies and uncommon dangers force thief and knight on an epic journey where goblins hunger for human flesh, krakens hunt in dark waters, and honor is a luxury few can afford.

Summary: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buelman boasts a gritty, magic filled world, characters that leap off the page, and a wickedly funny narrative voice. Slightly light on plot, but full of imaginative swearwords (fictional and real).

Book Review: The Broken God

Enter a city of dragons and darkness.

The Godswar has come to Guerdon, dividing the city between three occupying powers. While the fragile Armistice holds back the gods, other forces seek to extend their influence. The criminal dragons of the Ghierdana ally with the surviving thieves – including Spar Idgeson, once heir to the Brotherhood of Thieves, now transformed into the living stone of the New City.

Meanwhile, far across the sea, Spar’s friend Carillon Thay travels towards the legendary land of Khebesh, but she, too, becomes enmeshed in the schemes of the Ghierdana – and in her own past. Can she find what she wants when even the gods seek vengeance against her?

Summary: The Broken God by Gareth Hanrahan is a strong continuation to the Black Iron Legacy series, a world where mad gods walk the earth, monsters roam the streets, and Dragon crime families hold hostage entire cities. While perhaps a step down from the two previous entries, the book is still a great ride the whole way through.

Quick Review: The Hod King

The third novel in the highly acclaimed Books of Babel series, set in a labyrinthine world of menace and wonder.

On the orders of the mysterious Sphinx, Thomas Senlin and his crew are dragged ever further into the Tower’s conspiracies. Meanwhile, the hods climb the Black Trail in darkness and whisper of their king.

Summary: The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft is a solid penultimate entry to The Books of Babel series, bursting with character.

Book Review: We Ride The Storm

War built the Kisian Empire and war will tear it down.

Fifteen years after rebels stormed the streets, Kisia is still divided. Only the firm hand of the god-emperor holds the kingdom together. But when a shocking betrayal destroys a tense alliance with neighbouring Chiltae, all that has been won comes crashing down.

In Kisia, Princess Miko T’sai is a prisoner in her own castle. She dreams of claiming her empire, but the path to power could rip it, and her family, asunder.

In Chiltae, assassin Cassandra Marius is plagued by the voices of the dead. Desperate, she accepts a contract that promises to reward her with a cure if she helps an empire fall.

And on the border between nations, Captain Rah e’Torin and his warriors are exiles forced to fight in a foreign war or die.

Summary: We Ride The Storm by Devin Madson is a gritty epic fantasy with a lot going for it. Conflicted characters, twisty plots and brutal set pieces abound in this East Asian inspired setting.