Fantasy Book Reviews
A Taste of Blood Wine
by Freda Warrington
A Taste of Blood Wine is romantic. It’s chock full of smoldering description, intrigue and mystery, dark love, and all sorts of gossip and twists and turns.
The novel follows Charlotte, the daughter and lab partner of a scientist, as she rapidly falls for the vampire Karl. But then the plot thickens. Karl is completely under the power of his maker, Kristian, who demands total servitude and tends to lean toward the criminally insane, with his God-fearing notions and sick love of Karl. ...
The Dying of the Light: Interval
by Jason Kristopher
The world has ended and the few who remain are faced with a struggle to survive, not only with a lack of food and heat (not to mention any real form of civilisation) but also against the hordes of shambling undead who look to rip, tear, kill and eat not to mention the possibility of an even more dangerous threat on the horizon. There are worse things after the end of the world than zombies.
One of the last remnants of the once mighty United States has gone silent, a whole bunker of ...
Red Moon
by Benjamin Percy
Werewolves are often given second place to those pale undead that are now thankfully on the wane, where one wanes another waxes and perhaps 2013 will be year of the werewolf - it will if Red Moon has anything to do with it.
The novel is set in an alternate world where werewolves are not only real but are in an abundance, so much so that wars have been fought against them and everyone know about them. As you might expect they are treated as second class citizens or worse - little mor...
Hellifax
by Keith Blackmore
Another episode is the Mountain Man series always brings a degree of eagerness, not only with the entertaining dialogue but the authors wonderfully rewarding tone; Hellifax is no exception.
Gus, the reluctant hero of the previous two Mountain Man novels is having a bit of a rest (if you've read of his escapades you won't blame him either) and instead this book follows Scott, the baker turned survivalist who is on the hunt for Tanner; the sociopath responsible for the death of his fr...
Dreams and Shadows
by C Robert Cargill
Dreams and Shadows is a contemporary urban fantasy fairytale which tells the story of two young boys Ewan and Colby who both become embroiled in the secret world of the Limestone Kingdom - a parralel world where Wizards and Genie's co-inhabit with creatures much older and largely forgotten. Ewan and Colby soon discover that although you can leave that otherworldly realm, the inhabitants are not so quick to forget, or forgive.
There is a dark edge to Dreams and Shadows that in plac...
Tithe
by Holly Black
Review by Vanessa. I first read Tithe when I was young, probably the same age as the main character, Kaye—16. I was entranced. It was so dark, so beautifully written, and so enticing. I wanted more of the silver knight, more of the deliciously dark faery world. It isn’t by any means glorious—there’s teen drinking, gruesome images, and the novel teems with sexuality.
One of the misinformed reviews I read about Tithe claimed that the book should be rated R, and I just laughed. I wante...
Fortress Frontier
by Myke Cole
Last year we reviewed Control Point, a contemporary fantasy that managed to blend a strong military style with that of fantastic magical powers. The author managed to create a successful combination with tons of action and tense drama; narrated in a powerful, unique voice. Fortress Frontier is the next novel in that series.
Rather than start where the previous book ended, Frontier Fortress begins from the perspective of another protagonist - Colonel Alan Bookbinder as he too begins ...
American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman is one of those naturally gifted story-tellers who transcend genre and refuse to be restrained; instead simply writing engaging stories that have the potential to appeal to any reader. American Gods is the perfect example of this, first published back in 2001 it won the Hugo and Nebula; Awards that are primarily given to Scifi novels, the Locus in the Fantasy category and the Bram Stoker Award which is mainly given to works of Horror.
Set within the United States, the story...
The Grim Company
by Luke Scull
The Grey city of Dorminia, surrounded by granite walls thrice the height of a man and at least three feet thick at it's weakest point. These walls provide a barrier for those without as they do those within, patrolled by the harsh Crimson watch and watched from the skies by the Mindhawks - magical tools of a paranoid ruler that sniff out dissent from a persons very thoughts. Ruled with an iron-fist and savage tyranny, there are still signs of hope with small pockets of resistance hiding in th...
Among Others
by Jo Walton
Among Others is about as different from any novel I have ever read as the Moon is from a piece of pie. It's not even a book I thought I would enjoy either, if someone had approached me and asked me to read a novel about a 15 year old girls account of her life in a boarding school - delivered in the form of diary entries - I would have given them an odd look and picked up a PKD novel or perhaps a China Miéville story instead.
That's one of the advantages of being sent books to review...
Find the latest Fantasy book reviews here. Fantasy as a genre can be very difficult to define but is usually said to encompass stories set in an alternative reality based on imagined fantastical elements like magic or the supernatural. This is the defining difference between science fiction and fantasy, science fiction deals with elements that are theoretically possible while fantasy deals with the improbable or impossible.
Fantasy can be most commonly associated with sword and sorcery stories however the genre can include contemporary (Harry Potter) and humorous (Tom Holt) tales. Fantasy, science fiction and horror can occasionally overlap and generally the term used to describe these novels is speculative fiction.
Fantasy fiction can trace it's roots all the way back to ancient mythology, especially Homer's Odyssey which was written in the 9th century BC. Homer's Odyssey chronicles the fictional adventures of a hero returning to Ithaca after the capture of Troy. The earliest surviving English text of fantasy origins is the poem Beowulf which dates back to 700 AD.
The most recognisable to modern audiences is perhaps the Legends of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. These stories have been told many times from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur (around 1485 AD) to T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1958), Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon (1982) and Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle (1987).
The series that could be said to bring fantasy into the mainstream has to be Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara series, written in 1977 it was one of the first modern fantasy books to become a new york times best seller. Since then this has been repeated by David Eddings, Robert Jordan, Terry Good Kind and Terry Pratchett.
Here you can find fantasy book reviews from the big name authors to the self published and independant, it's the story that's always the star here.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
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