Tag: fantasy

The Virtu (2006): Sarah Monette

2 Comments

★★★½

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book II

If you’re going to entrust your life and well-being to the care of another human being, would Felix Harrowgate really be your first choice?

Well, there’s no accounting for taste. Picking up from the end of Mélusine, we rejoin Mildmay and Felix in the Gardens of Nephele. Felix has been healed of his madness and Mildmay has been freed of his own death-curse, but is stuck with the pain of his lamed and twisted leg. Although Felix seems happy enough, studying dream-magic, working his way through the library, and winning admirers left, right and centre, Mildmay feels increasingly isolated and out of place. He’s perfectly aware that these elevated philosophers only tolerate him because he happens to be the half-brother of the new toast of the town. For once, Felix rises above his own selfishness just long enough to see Mildmay’s unhappiness; and he decides it’s time for them to go home.

Continue reading →

Mélusine (2005): Sarah Monette

9 Comments

★★★ ½

Doctrine of Labyrinths: Book I

Having enjoyed The Goblin Emperor, I thought it would be fun to read some other books by the same author, and that meant going back to her popular Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Needless to say, I hadn’t read much of the first book, Mélusine, before realising that this was a very different kind of novel. So much for heart-warming cosiness! Something happens in the early chapters of Mélusine which very nearly made me decide not to carry on – those who’ve read the novel will know what I’m talking about. While I don’t mind reading about violence in battle situations, torture and sexual violation is another matter entirely. But I decided to give it a chance and ploughed on (things settle down a bit after that early, shocking scene); and, to my surprise, I was completely and utterly gripped. I still can’t decide whether or not I actually liked the book as a whole, but that’s immaterial in view of the fact that I was hooked.

Continue reading →

The Goblin Emperor (2014): Katherine Addison

7 Comments

★★★★

Some weeks ago, Heloise told me about The Goblin Emperor, which she’d just finished reading (she posted a review earlier today). She knows that I’ve just finished a very intense period at work, and urged me to track down this book for some light relief. This friendly urging was repeated several times with increased insistence, to which I finally gave in; and I’m delighted I did. At the weekend, free at last, I curled up to read and was very quickly charmed. This is a delightfully heart-warming book: a feast of intrigue with a well-meaning, appealing and thoughtful protagonist at its core.

Continue reading →

Pilgrim (1999): Timothy Findley

Leave a comment

★★★★

This was a re-read: a cautious venture back to a book which I was given for Christmas when I was sixteen and devoured on that same day, and about which I am completely unable to be objective. For that reason this post is going to be even more subjective than usual. Pilgrim was an inspired gift on the part of my parents, who had managed to find the one novel which encompassed all my interests at that time. The protagonist is an art historian, educated at Magdalen, who happens to be the world authority on Leonardo da Vinci. It so happened that, at the age of sixteen, these were my three greatest desires in the world (I achieved the first two, and learned better than to wish for the third).

Continue reading →

Blood of Dragons (2013): Robin Hobb

4 Comments
Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★ ½

The Rain Wild Chronicles: Book IV

In the fourth and final volume of the Rain Wild Chronicles, we rejoin our young keepers and their dragons in the ruined Elderling city of Kelsingra. With most of the company still stranded on the far side of the river and game growing scarce, it becomes increasingly important for the dragons to learn to fly before they become too large and heavy for their untried wings. Heeby and Sintara, who have made it into Kelsingra, have discovered marvellous baths and warm rooms which have improved their strength and growth: finally, it seems that their ancestral dreams of glory might be within reach after all.

Continue reading →

City of Dragons (2011): Robin Hobb

2 Comments
Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★ ½

The Rain Wild Chronicles: Book III

And so, at long last, Kelsingra has been found. In this third book of the series, the dragons and their keepers have finally made their way back to the fabled, half-remembered city which features in so many of the dragons’ ancestral memories and which promises, in some as-yet undefined way, to heal and transform them. Faced with rolling hills and woods and solid ground, the like of which they have never seen before, the human members of the expedition rapidly come to understand that this is a place that could make a good home. But there is much to do.

Continue reading →

Dragon Haven (2010): Robin Hobb

2 Comments
Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★

The Rain Wild Chronicles: Book II

Following on in quick succession from The Dragon Keeper, we rejoin the dragons and keepers making the long, hard journey up the river in search of the elusive Elderling city of Kelsingra. As they get further from Casserick, leaving ‘civilisation’ behind them, it becomes increasingly clear that they have the freedom to break free of old social norms and create their own. But what shape that society should take, and how it should be regulated, and by whom, are questions that threaten to become fatally divisive.

Continue reading →

The Dragon Keeper (2009): Robin Hobb

7 Comments
Robin Hobb © Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

★★★½

The Rain Wild Chronicles: Book I

Those of you who followed my Robin Hobb reread a few months ago will remember that I had no plans to read The Rain Wild Chronicles. My heart has always been on the Farseer side of Hobb’s fantasy world and, when I finished The Tawny Man trilogy, I believed that storyline was tied up. Although I’d enjoyed The Liveship Traders, the Rain Wilds wasn’t necessarily a place I felt the need to go back to; and, moreover, I’d read a number of lukewarm reviews of the series. However, the situation has changed since then.

Continue reading →

Empire of Ivory (2007): Naomi Novik

4 Comments

★★★★

Temeraire: Book IV

Returning to the Temeraire series after a few months’ absence, I’ve been delighted all over again by the combination of old-fashioned adventure and simply beautiful writing. I suspect that the appeal might begin to pall if you read this whole set of books in one go, but when taken at intervals between heavier or grittier books it has the effect of a reviving tonic. It’s impressive to reach the fourth book of a series and still not see any sign of the author’s spirit flagging. If anything, Novik writes with ever greater relish as she expands the boundaries of her world and, with her exquisite command of language, it’s always a pleasure to travel along with her.

Continue reading →

The Boy with the Porcelain Blade (2014): Den Patrick

Leave a comment

★★★

The Erebus Sequence: Book I

I can’t remember exactly where I first came across The Boy with the Porcelain Blade, but I was intrigued enough to buy it without knowing anything about it. Then, shortly before I was due to start it, I spotted a review at the Speculative Scotsman, which made it quite clear that the book was going to have some weaknesses. (I don’t usually read reviews of things that I’m about to read for myself, but I’d only just discovered his blog and was enjoying it too much to stop.) However I went ahead and read it anyway. The title was interesting, the cover enticing and, as we all know, I’m not the kind of girl who can easily resist a fantasy swashbuckler.

Continue reading →