MAGIC STUDY

by Maria V Snyder

With an execution order on her head, Yelena has no choice but to escape to Sitia, the land of her birth. With only a year to master her magic – or face death – Yelena must begin her apprenticeship and travels to the Four Towers of the Magician’s Keep.

But nothing in Sitia is familiar. Not the family to whom she is a stranger. Not the unsettling new facets of her magic. Nor the brother who resents her return. As she struggles to understand where she belongs and how to control her rare powers, a rogue magician emerges – and Yelena catches his eye.

Suddenly she is embroiled in battle against good and evil. And once again it will be her magical abilities that will either save her life…or be her downfall.

…

CAST IN COURTLIGHT

by Michelle Sagara

In Elantra, a job well done is rewarded with a more dangerous task. And so, after defeating a dark evil, Kaylin must enter a place of deceit and treachery. A world where silk and jewels hide deadly secrets….

Kaylin goes before the Barrani High Court, where a misspoken word brings sure death. And Kaylin’s never been known for her grace or manners. But the High Lord’s heir is suspiciously ill and Kaylin’s healing magic is the only shot at saving him — if she manages to dodge the traps laid for her.

Only to discover that the healing might turn out to be the simplest of the tasks before her….

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LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS

by Joe Abercrombie

Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him, but it’s going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there’s only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy. It’s past time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.

With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no-one is safe, and no-one can be trusted. As his days with a sword are far behind him, it’s a good thing blackmail, threats, and torture never go out of fashion.

Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful a process, and turned his back on soldering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too – and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.

The King of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasants revolt, and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. Yet no-one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the very heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi has a plan to save the world, but there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, after all, than the breaking of the First Law…

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BEFORE THEY ARE HANGED

by Joe Abercrombie

Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It’s enough to make a torturer want to run – if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem – he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters. If they didn’t hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven – but not before they are hanged.

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THE BLADE ITSELF

by Joe Abercrombie

Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught up in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian, leaving nothing behind but some bad songs, a few dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.

Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a jar. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendships. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government… if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

Unpredictable, compelling, wickedly funny, and packed with unforgettable characters, The Blade Itself is fantasy with a real cutting edge.

I picked up part one of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy because the style of the blurb on the back reminded me of Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur, which I really enjoyed, and what a good move that turned out to be; because this is even better. The Blade Itself masterfully weaves together the stories of a half-dozen memorably flawed protagonists. Every one of which kept me enthralled. This is a must read.

Even now I am eagerly pressing on to book two, Before They Are Hanged.

POISON STUDY

by Maria V Snyder

Yelena has a choice – be executed for murder, or become food taster to the Commander of Ixia. She leaps at the chance for survival, but her relief may be short-lived.

Life in the palace is full of hazards and secrets. Wily and smart, Yelena must learn to identify poisons before they kill her, recognise whom she can trust and how to spy on those she can’t. And who is the mysterious Southern sorceress who can reach into her head?

When Yelena realises she has extraordinary magical powers of her own, she faces a whole new problem, for using magic in Ixia is punishable by death…

This is another book that Emma gave me that I might not have picked up otherwise. A Christmas gift this time. I really enjoyed it. The protagonist Yelena is a most interesting and engaging character and her struggle to master the art of food tasting before she is poisoned makes for a fascinating story. The plot moves swiftly with plenty of intrigue and action.

It’s a really good read. I recommend it.

FROSTBITTEN

by Kelley Armstrong

The Alaskan wilderness is a harsh landscape in the best of conditions, but with a pack of rogue werewolves on the loose, it’s downright deadly.

Elena Michaels, the Pack’s chief enforcer, knows all too well the havoc “mutts” can wreak.
When the pack learns of a series of gruesome maulings and murders outside Anchorage, Elena and her partner Clay travel to Alaska in the dead of winter expecting to hunt down a pack of dangerour werewolves. But, trapped in a savage, frozen realm, it is their own untamed nature – and their werewolf heritage – they have to confront…

This isn’t a book I would have picked up normally but it was another one Emma got me for my birthday, which is cool. She knows me well and makes interesting choices, often getting me things which expand my reading into slightly new areas. Some work for me, some don’t, but trying them is always a treat.

Frostbitten wasn’t a bad read, not as successful as some that Emma’s got me but it was a nice change and brought back memories of a couple of Werewolf the Apocalypse campaigns I played in some years back. In fact it kind of made me want to play some Werewolf again.

Like all the books I post about, it kept me reading until the end, and that’s a good indicator as I don’t tend to finish if the story/writing isn’t doing it for me.

I gather Frostbitten is the tenth book in a series but it’s the only one I’ve read and it stands perfectly well on it’s own. It’s certainly worth a try if you like that kind of thing.

NIGHTS OF VILLJAMUR

by Mark Charan Newton

Political intrigue and dark violence converge in a superb new action series of enthralling fantasy.

An ice age strikes a chain of islands, and thousands come to seek sanctuary at the gates of Villjamur: a city of ancient spires and bridges, a place where banshees wail the deceased, cultists use forgotten technology for their own gain and where, further out, the dead have been seen walking across the tundra.

When the Emperor commits suicide, his elder daughter, Rika, is brought home to lead the Jamur Empire, but the sinister Chancellor plans to get rid of her and claim the throne for himself.

Meanwhile a senior investigator in the city inquisition must solve the high-profile and savage murder of a city politician, whilst battling evils within his own life, and a handsome and serial womanizer manipulates his way into the imperial residence with a hidden agenda.

When reports are received that tens of thousands of citizens are dying in a bizarre genocide on the northern islands of the Empire, members of the elite Night Guard are sent to investigate. It seems that, in this land under a red sun, the long winter is bringing more than just snow…

Emma, my other half, bought me this for my birthday and it proved to be an excellent present.

Initially I was a little unsure about it, as I found the first few pages slightly difficult to read. Garudas and rumels are introduced without any real explanation, and are difficult to visualise. On more than one occasion I was forced to retroactively adjust what I’d imagined to accommodate later details. However there was enough in the surrounding story to intrigue me and I persevered.

Rapidly my impressions of the book improved. As the various threads were woven together, the story began to flow. With each chapter the characters, and my investment in what was happening to them, grew. Soon I was captivated. And it kept getting better right up to the end.

This is easily the best fiction I’ve read for a while now. I am eagerly awaiting City of Ruin, the second book of the Legends of the Red Sun.

Highly recommended.

CROSSOVER

by Joel Shepherd

Meet Cassandra Kresnov. Soldier. Lover. Fighter. Deeply passionate. Completely artificial.

Cassandra is a synthetic person, created by the League to fight in an interstellar war against the more powerful, conservative Federation.

An experimental design, Cassandra is more intelligent, more creative, and far more dangerous than any that have preceded her. But with her intellect comes questions, and a moral awakening. She deserts the League and heads incognito into the space of her former enemy, the Federation, in search of a new life.

She settles on Callay, amidst its enormous, decadent capital metropolis of Tanusha, where the concerns of the war are literally and figuratively so many light-years away. But Cassandra soon discovers that even in Tanusha, the powerful entities of this bloody conflict have wound their tentacles. Many in the League and the Federation have cause to want her dead, and Cassandra’s history, inevitably, catches up with her.

Cassandra finds herself at the mercy of a society whose values preclude her own right even to exist. But her presence in Tanusha reveals other fault lines, and when Federal agents attempt to assassinate the Callayan president, she finds herself thrust into the service of her former enemies, using her lethal skills to attempt to protect Callay from forces beyond their ability to control. As she struggles for survival in a new world, Cassandra must forge friendships with old enemies, while attempting to confront the most disturbing and deadly realities of her own existence.

I really enjoyed this. Highly recommended.

THE STRAIN

by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months–the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city–a city that includes his wife and son–before it is too late.

This was a pretty good read. Not really scary but nicely paced. It has an interesting premise, though overall I feel the novel promised slightly more than it delivered. In particular the characters might have benefited from a little more exploration. It’s a nice set up for book two of the trilogy though and I expect I’ll stick with it to see what happens next.