Tag: fantasy

Across the Nightingale Floor (2002): Lian Hearn

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★★★★

Tales of the Otori: Book I

I’ve wanted to read this for years. Although I only visited Tokyo last year, I’ve long been interested in certain aspects of Japanese history: the samurai, especially, and the codes of honour and nobility that governed their society. I was intrigued by Hearn’s world, which is inspired by medieval Japan and promised to be refreshingly different from the pseudo-European fantasy norm. And yet, when I began reading yesterday morning, it was with some trepidation. After all, when you’ve looked forward to reading something for so long, there’s always a fear that it might not be as good as you expected. Fortunately that fear was unwarranted. The book lived up to its reputation and dragged me, wide-eyed and wondering, into a thrilling tale of revenge, intrigue and forbidden love.

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Fool’s Quest (2015): Robin Hobb

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Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★½

Fitz and the Fool: Book II

Some of you may remember that I had difficulty with the first book in Robin Hobb’s new series. Having been a devoted fan of her Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, I felt that some of the tight-knit drama of those books had faded, and that Fitz’s story in the new trilogy had come to be governed by the meandering pace of her more recent Rain Wild novels. But I seem to be the only one who wasn’t convinced. There are many glowing reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and in the press. More than any of those, I give weight to Heloise’s opinion and I know that she enjoyed both the first book and this sequel. So I wanted, very much, for this second instalment in the series to show me how wrong I was. Did it? Well, not quite. But something picked up in the final pages and I’m now cautiously looking forward to the third and final (?) novel, which promises to fire on all four cylinders again.

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Children of Earth and Sky (2016): Guy Gavriel Kay

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★★★★

It’s been three long years since River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay’s last novel, so the publication of Children of Earth and Sky is quite an event and a cause for some celebration. From a personal point of view, the new book is made even more exciting by its setting. While Under Heaven and River of Stars took me out of my historical comfort zone – unfolding in the alternate-universe empire of Kitai, which drew on the dynastic splendour of medieval China – Children plunged me into the knotty political world of my very favourite period: the Renaissance.

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Pantomime (2013): Laura Lam

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★★★ ½

Micah Grey: Book I

I can’t quite remember how this book ended up on my Kindle, but I suspect it was another Goodreads recommendation. I’ve always enjoyed novels about theatre and performance, and this one promised something along the lines of The Night Circus: blending the sleight-of-hand of the circus with a more mysterious, elemental kind of magic. I freely confess that the ‘young adult’ designation put me off reading it for some time: nothing but a silly prejudice of mine; and one that I regretted as I was drawn into the story.

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Ariosto (1988): Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

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★★

Ariosto Furioso: A Romance for an Alternative Renaissance

This was a strange one. My policy of buying books by their covers usually works, but not this time. I haven’t read any of Yarbro’s books before, although her Count of Saint-Germain series has loitered tantalisingly at the edge of my mind for some time. When Goodreads recommended me her Renaissance fantasy about the poet Ludovico Ariosto, I was intrigued: the cover art caught my eye, and I eventually tracked down a copy of this edition in the US.

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Black Opera (2012): Mary Gentle

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★★★

Conrad Scalese is in trouble. It’s around the year 1830 and we meet him in Naples on the morning after he’s watched his new opera Il terrore di Parigi enjoy a stellar success at the Teatro Nuovo. Until just a few hours ago, security, fame and fortune as a librettist beckoned. But since he’s woken up everything has gone wrong. He has a crippling migraine. It turns out that the Teatro Nuovo has been struck by a freak blast of lightning and burned to the ground. People are blaming him for calling down the wrath of God. And the Inquisition are at the door. But all this is just the beginning.

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The Innamorati (1998): Midori Snyder

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★★★

Books often take on something of the spirit of the places where we read them and, in retrospect, it can be hard to separate impressions of the story itself from its context. I read most of this quirky novel curled up on the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence (some weeks ago now) and so my memories are rather confused and dreamlike, but in a way that entirely suits the book. I’d chosen it deliberately for my trip, because The Innamorati is set in a fantastical version of mid 16th-century Italy, in a world infused with the spirit of the commedia dell’ arte.

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Fool’s Assassin (2014): Robin Hobb

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Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★ ½

Fitz and the Fool: Book I

And so the first book in Robin Hobb’s new trilogy is published, reacquainting us with characters whom we last met ten years ago in the heart-rending Fool’s Fate (or during last year’s reread, in my case). I was thrilled to be granted a review copy of Fool’s Assassin, which I’ve mulled over for some months, and now, as publication date draws nigh, it’s time to share my thoughts. As you know, Hobb’s books have played a crucial role in my formation as a reader, and ever since I heard that a new trilogy was in the pipeline, I haven’t been able to help feeling rather anxious. Let me explain.

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The Mirador (2007): Sarah Monette

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★★★

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book III

We’re back in the Mirador, two years after the events of The Virtu, and things have settled into a routine for our characters, though to call it a ‘comfortable’ routine might be pushing things. Felix is thoroughly enjoying being back in the limelight, casually tormenting his old enemies and wallowing in the adoration of the more impressionable members of the court. Behind closed doors, however, he’s having a considerably less enjoyable time: his lover Gideon is unable to accept Felix’s constitutional inability to be faithful, and Felix himself continues to be haunted by thoughts of his thwarted former master Malkar, as well as tormented by needs that he can’t admit to anyone within the Mirador and which keep clawing him back to the Lower City.

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