Welcome to The Eloquent Page’s annual awards/review of the year (2017 Edition). Ten awards created at random for your delectation and delight. The rules remain deliciously simple. I make up a series of categories and I choose a winner. Eligibility is also easy, if I’ve read it this year, it’s eligible. First some stats (I apologise, I’m a stat whore and so I’m often compelled to start throwing numbers around). I’ve read sixty-one books this year. There were an additional fifteen I started but didn’t finish. Fantasy fiction featured most heavily with twenty-two books, while Horror came a close second with seventeen. My longest review was one thousand two hundred and thirty-four words long, my shortest was four hundred and twenty-eight. The total number of review words written in 2017? A suitably satisfying fifty-two thousand and sixty-six words. “Enough of this statistical folderol”, I hear you cry. Alrighty then. Please take your seats and direct your attention towards the stage. Without further ado on with the show… The “They’re Good Dogs Brent” Award for Canines in Fiction – For some inexplicable reason, 2017 seemed to feature more dogs in fiction than in previous years. Adrian Tchaikovsky brought us Dogs of…

Humans, orcs, mages, elves, and dwarves all jostle for success and survival in the cramped quarters of Yenara, while understaffed Watch Wardens struggle to keep its citizens in line. Enter Rem: new to Yenara and hungover in the city dungeons with no money for bail. When offered a position with the Watch to compensate for his crimes, Rem jumps at the chance. His new partner is less eager. Torval, a dwarf who’s handy with a maul and known for hitting first and asking questions later, is highly unimpressed with the untrained and weaponless Rem. But when Torval’s former partner goes missing, the two must consort with the usual suspects — drug dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, and humans being typical humans — to uncover the truth and catch a murderer loose in their fair city. I do so enjoy a good buddy cop movie – Tango and Cash, The Heat, The Nice Guys, the list goes on and on. The premise of The Fifth Ward: First Watch by Dale Lucas couldn’t be simpler, take your favourite buddy cop movie and transpose it to a slightly different setting. Just exactly how would Riggs and Murtaugh fare if they had to…