Books tagged with: portal

Breach Zone is the third and final novel in Myke Cole's unique Shadow Ops series that manages to successfully blend a contemporary setting and fantasy elements with a strong military edge. Cole seems to improve with each book and Breach Zone is undoutably his best yet with a powerful backstory, almo...

Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling is a unique offering that manages to create a Victorian gothic-esque supernatural adventure that manages to create a tangible feeling of suspense. Set within an ancient, remote manor house, the story begins with the murder of Nanny Prum - carer for James a...

Alex is a grumpy daydreamer who spends his life working in an office, commuting via trains and spending time with his family. He has a strong sense of detachment about the world around him and tends to float through life, that is until he finds a tunnel in the basement at work which leads to a very...

Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone who had military experience wrote urban fantasy? The result is Control Point, a quite brilliant blend of other-worldly fantasy and gritty combat. The novel follows the US Army Lieutenant Oscar Britton who finds himself working alongside SOC (Supern...

Down Station is actually a real station on the London Underground. You can't however visit this place though, the Trains don't stop there and if you're lucky you can but catch a glimpse of it between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner on the Piccadilly Line. You can see the outside of this abandoned st...

Fingers and other Fantastic Stories is an anthology by the talented Romanian author Marian Coman, current editor in chief of the newspaper "Obiectiv - Vocea Br'ilei" and a very talented writer. Fingers is his first work to be translated from his own language and includes four short stories that were...

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...

Lord Fouls Bane is the first volume in the The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, written by Stephen Donaldson. Thomas Covenant was a very successful author before being diagnosed with leprosy, the wasting disease that causes fear, revulsion and even hatred in other people. Fearing...

Magic Parcel: The Awakening is a young adult fantasy novel by Frank English. Jimmy Scroggins is a lively nine year old, full off the inquisitiveness of youth, living with his mother since his father passed away he spends much of his spare time with his Uncle Ruben, to the relief of his occasionally...

Jimmy is trapped in the realm of the Omni with no one to help him unless Ursula can learn to control her raw and unrefined powers. For the natives of Omni this intrusion of otherworldlings could be seen as a potentially destructive threat to their stability and possibly even their own existence. Mag...

Moonbeams is an alternative reality fantasy novel by Lakisha Spletzer. When 3 clueless college students decide on a night out their fate is sealed, finding a strange flickering light on the way they suddenly find themselves in a very different land, populated by fantastic creatures, magical powers a...

Nekropolis is the first volume in a new series of fantasy horror, written by Tim Waggoner and is based on his novella Necropolis. Matt Richter is a former cop now a private eye with a big difference, he is a zombie (could happen to anyone really). A zombie private detective does have it's advantages...

Primeval: Extinction Event is an original story set within the Primeval universe and featuring the cast of the hit TV series, written by Dan Abnett and published by Titan Books. Strange anomalies are ripping holes in the very fabric of time, creating rifts that allow creatures from the distant past...

Darci is a fairly regular sixteen year old, living in a country town and plays basketball in her free time with her best friend. Her life is abruptly changed when she is accidentally transported to the strange land of Nahaba by a young apprentice wizard called Taslessian. Within hours of her arrival...

Restoration is the second part of the duology that began with the quite brilliant The World House , written by Guy Adams. None who enter the World House leave it unchanged. The purpose behind the reality bending dimension has finally become clear but in the same way that you can't observe an event w...

Sabriel is a young adult fantasy novel written by Garth Nix and is the first volume in the Old Kingdom series. The Old Kingdom is a land where magic is common and spirits roam freely (a fact denied by the government). Outside of the Old Kingdom lies Ancelstierre, which has a technology level and soc...

The Dragon and the George is a fantasy novel by the author Gordon R Dickson. Welcome to Gordon R. Dickson's alternate reality. Within that reality, we find ourselves in a medieval landscape balanced between the natural forces of Chance and History. A landscape filled with knights, castles, dragons,...

The Dragon in the Stone is a standalone novel by Allan Scott, published by Orbit in 1991, and one of the better and quieter pieces of mythologically grounded fantasy that came out of British genre publishing in the early nineties. Scott is the rarer of the two halves of his long collaboration with M...

The Dragon Knight is the sequel to the Dragon and the George, by Gordon R Dickson. Fans of the Dragon and the George will enjoy this novel that continues the adventures of Jim and friends in an alternate 14-century reality. The novel begins 5 months after the battle at Loathly Tower. Jim and Angie a...

Do not read this review if you have not read the The Gunslinger - it contains spoilers for it. The Drawing of the Three (or DT2) takes off where The Gunslinger ended, with Roland lying on the beach of the western sea. The book tells the tale of Roland as he journeys along this beach and draws "the t...

Sometimes when I've read a really bad book it's hard for me to write a review about it - I just want to leave it at "this book is bad - stay away from it" and then forget about the book as fast as possible. With Stephen King's The Gunslinger it's the other way around. A short "Go buy this book at on...

Every now and then I am sent something that stretches the boundaries of my reading interest. The Janus Cycle is one such book. Whilst this book is billed as a novel, it is really a collection of linked short stories. The linked theme follows a disparate group of individuals seemingly connected by th...

The Last Guardian is the second volume in David Gemmell's Jon Shannow trilogy, picking up the story of the Jerusalem Man, and it is a worthy and ambitious successor to the magnificent Wolf in Shadow . If you have not read the first book, begin there; while Gemmell takes care to make this accessible,...

The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. Though it begins a little bit slow, as more and more threads are strung together for the reader, everything picks up. I love the storyline, I love the characters, and I love the settings. In modern San Francisco, Annab...

The Silver Cage is an alternate reality fantasy novel by Mik Wilkens. I must admit that it took me quite a while to get into this book, the writing is of a very good standard but the pace a little pedestrian for my taste, there is nothing wrong with having a gentle pace to a novel and the prose is g...

The Skin Map is the first volume in a new fantasy series called Bright Empires, written by Stephen R Lawhead. Kit Livingstone is one of people that have never seemed to get used to living in society, passing through various dead-end jobs with no real plans or ambitions and far too apathetic when it...

The World House is the first novel of a two part modern fantasy, written by Guy Adams. An unassuming wooden box, small enough to hold in one hand and carved with Japanese writing, except it doesn't open as you would expect a box to, it opens the door to the most unusual house you could ever dream (o...

Who is Charlie Keeper, a young adult fantasy novel written and self published by Marcus Alexander with original Artwork by Lobak Oren. This novel has created such a stir that Graffiti artists, including the Corrupt Government Crew have previously tagged Charlie Keeper inspired characters around Lond...

Witchfinder - Dawn of the Demontide is a young adult fantasy horror novel written by William Hussey. Jake is a fairly typical teenager, although admittedly a bit of a loner and spends much of his time reading horror comics, he is quite bright and bored at the school he attends. He has a massive know...

First Magyc , by Nicole Dragonbeck, the first book in the Guardians of the Path series is essentially a Young Adult portal fantasy where a girl, Ria, gets drawn into a magical land and it turns out she might be the subject of an ancient prophecy where only she can save the magic.  While the premise...

For many people clowns are the stuff of nightmares and there they should remain.  In the modern age you can pretty much live a life free of these demon entertainers; just avoid going to the circus, CBEEBIES and any films about IT.  But what about if the clowns of your dreams decided to leave and com...

I have read more than my fair share of fantasy novels and I love them. As a rule, they fall into a couple of camps on how they are narrated – from a single point of view, or through the eyes of several people, normally 3-7. Leaping from one character and back again works in the genre as it gives you...

Keeping it in the family sounds like a wonderful idea. Surround yourself with people you can trust, blood is thicker than water, but do family businesses work? Why do so many fail by the third generation? The first generation build the company from nothing, the second grow it further, the third – sq...

Not all authors write short fiction and those that do, do not always have enough to fill a complete collection, never mind several. Christi Nogle is a talented short story writer as their previous collections have already shown. One Eye Opened in That Other Place is one of the trickier collections t...

Who does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with the O...