The Queen of the Tearling & Age of Iron

The Queen of Tearling by Erika Johansen Age of Iron by Angus Watson

Summer is a good time for reading fantasy. Fantasy books, at least of the epic variety, tends to be novels of the thick and lengthy kind, which makes them perfectly suited for marathon reading sessions during hot and lazy days. The Queen of Tearling by Erika Johansen and Age of Iron are indeed both of them classic epic fantasy novels, for better or worse.

Wolfhound Century

Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins"I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread,” a famous fantasy character once said, and that quote neatly sums up the feeling I get from Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins as I read.

“She was the light of the world”: Hild, Nicola Griffith

HildNicola Griffith is likely to most people, or at least to readers of this blog, known as the author of the sf-novels Ammonite and Slow River, but her latest novel is a historical one. It takes place in seventh century Britain, centring on the historical figure of Hilda of Whitby, a Christian saint. In Hild, Griffith envisions what Hilda's childhood might have been – the book begins when Hild is three years old and is the first instalment in her journey towards sainthood of a planned trilogy.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen LordAfter the genocide that destroyed their homeworld and wiped out most of their race, the remaining Sadiri, few and scattered, settle on the planet Cygnus Beta in an attempt to not only survive but to rebuild their society anew.

Ancillary Justice

Ancillary Justice by Ann LeckieOnce, Breq was the Justice of Toren – a gargantuan Radchaai warship equipped with an AI mind and in control of thousands of empty human bodies called ancillaries, deployed by the Lord of Radch to colonize the galaxy in the name of civilisation.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly BlackHolly Black's novel Tithe was my first brush with the genre of urban fantasy (not that I actually knew what it was called at the time), and for a young girl whose reading diet was mostly made up of high fantasy, Black's story about faeries living and hiding in plain sight in modern-day New

The Shining Girls: “A constellation of murder”

Shining Girls by Lauren BeukesJinsuk. Zora. Willie. Kirby. Margo. Julia. Catherine. Alice. Misha. Nine female names written on the bedroom wall in a house outside of time. Nine shining girls Harper Curtis is compelled to kill. One young woman, scarred from wounds she should not have been able to survive, hunting a murderer who cannot be real.