Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild. Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern’s jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men – or worse, a company of mercenaries – against the smart, deadly creatures of the Wild is even harder. It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the luck of the devil to do it. The Red Knight has all three, he has youth on his side, and he’s determined to turn a profit. So when he hires his company out to protect an Abbess and her nunnery it’s just another job. The abbey is rich, the nuns are pretty and the monster preying on them is nothing he can’t deal with. Only it’s not just a job. It’s going to be a war . . . I suspect there are going to be the almost inevitable comparisons between Miles Cameron and the likes of George R. R. Martin and Joe…

Accused of practising pagan magicks, a young boy flees for his life… In fear for her life, a woman suffering from a mysterious illness is forced to break out of the mine where she has been enslaved… An innocent warrior is exiled by the holy man of this mountain tribe and told to make his own way in the world…  In the Empire of the Saviours, The People are forced to live in fortified towns. Their walls are guarded by an army of Heroes, whose task is to keep marauding pagans out as much as it is to keep the People inside. Several times a year, living Saints visit the towns to exact the Saviours’ tithe from all those coming of age – a tithe often paid in blood. When a young boy, Jillan, unleashes pagan magicks in an accident, his whole town turns against him. He goes on the run, but what hope can there be when the Saviours and the entire Empire decide he mud be caught? Last year I read Necromancer’s Gambit by A J Dalton and, although I had some issues with the editing, overall I enjoyed the dark fantasy that the author created. You can’t ever go…

The Viking, King Authun leads his men on a raid against an Anglo-Saxon village. Men and women are killed indiscriminately but Authun demands that no child be touched. He is acting on prophecy. A prophecy that tells him that the Saxons have stolen a child from the Gods. If Authun, in turn, takes the child and raises him as an heir, the child will lead his people to glory. But Authun discovers not one child, but twin baby boys. Ensuring that his faithful warriors, witnesses to what has happened, die during the raid Authun takes the children and their mother home, back to the witches who live on the troll wall. And he places his destiny in their hands. And so begins a stunning multi-volume fantasy epic that will take a werewolf from his beginnings as the heir to a brutal Viking king, down through the ages. It is a journey that will see him hunt for his lost love through centuries and lives, and see the endless battle between the wolf, Odin and Loki – the eternal trickster – spill over into countless bloody conflicts from our history, and over into our lives.  I’ll start with a small confession….

@SamaelTB got married recently and as an extra special wedding gift I gave him a copy of The Iron Jackal to read.  Here is his review, I should warn you it would appear that all the love has gone to his head. I love Chris Wooding. Not in the romantic sense of course. We’ve never met and while I’m sure he’s lovely, I’m already married. You hear me Chris? It’ll never happen! But I digress. Mr. Wooding is a damned fine writer. My lovely wife told me to read The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray and, while I enjoyed some of it, it didn’t quite work for me. There were elements that were just a little too YA. Fast forward a couple of years and I still hadn’t read Retribution Falls because I assumed it was YA. It isn’t. So I read it. And it was/is awesome. Like really, really good. A brilliant adventure story, that while being a little too long and meandering in places, was still a hugely satisfying read. The sequel, Black Lung Captain, brought more of the same. When Mr Cheesecake offered me the opportunity to read The Iron Jackal, before it went on sale, I jumped…

Once again I’ve have managed to coax another review out of that marvellous fellow @SamaelTB,  which is not as easy as you might think. This time out he casts his beady eye over A Matter of Blood by Sarah Pinborough. As ever a big thanks goes to Sam for his efforts. The recession that grips the world has left it exhausted. Crime is rising in every major city. Financial institutions across the world have collapsed, and most governments are now in debt to The Bank, a company created by the world’s wealthiest men. But Detective Inspector Cass Jones has enough on his plate without worrying about the world at large. His marriage is crumbling, he’s haunted by the deeds of his past, and he’s got the high-profile shooting of two schoolboys to solve – not to mention tracking down a serial killer who calls himself the Man of Flies. Then Cass Jones’ personal world is thrown into disarray when his brother shoots his own wife and child before committing suicide – leaving Cass implicated in their deaths. And when he starts seeing silent visions of his dead brother, it’s time for the suspended DI to go on the hunt himself – only…

Once, Ig lived the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician, the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star. Ig had security and wealth and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more – he had the love of Merrin Williams, a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. The beautiful, vivacious Merrin was gone – raped and murdered, under inexplicable circumstances – and Ig the only suspect. He was never tried for the crime, but in the court of public opinion, he was and always would be guilty. Now Ig is possessed of horns, and a terrible new power – he can hear people’s deepest, darkest secrets – to go with his horrible new look. He means to use it to find whoever killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It’s time for a little revenge; it’s time the devil had his due. I think that Joe Hill has managed to tap into a genuine primal fear with this novel. What if you could read their minds with a single touch? Now part of you…

It was the last thing he wanted, but Joe Ledger is back… Saturday 09:11 Hours: a blast rocks a London Hospital. Thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on the scene to investigate. I knew going into this review that I was in for a compelling read. The last Joe Ledger novel, The Dragon Factory, ended with an event that was guaranteed to have repercussions in the series going forward and I was curious where the story would go. The members of the Department of Military Sciences (DMS) have suffered a loss and as this third novel begins Joe is on leave in the UK and facing an uncertain future.  When an explosion destroys a London hospital Joe is drawn back into the murky world of counter terrorism and global conspiracies. A new group, called The Seven Kings, are on the rise and it is up to the DMS to try and stop them. Using the ten plagues of Egypt as their template The Kings are trying to generate as much chaos throughout the world as is possible. They are wealthy and powerful group, having near limitless resources. The DMS are finally up against a foe that can match…

Three Men. One Battle. No Heroes. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie is a standalone novel set in the same world he created for the First Law trilogy. It follows the course of a single battle, over the period of three days, between the forces of the Union and the Northmen. The opposing armies have been dancing around one another for many months but in the valley of Osrung, they finally come together in a definitive clash. There are three main characters in the novel. Firstly there is Bremer dan Gorst, a disgraced master swordsman fighting in the Union army. He is attempting to reclaim his place in his King’s court and will stop at nothing in order to do so. Next is Curden Craw, a lifelong soldier in the army of the Northmen. He has reached the age where the appeal of battle is swiftly receding. His nerves and knees are shot and he wants nothing more than peace. Finally there is Prince Calder, considered a coward by many, he is only interested in power and how best to avoid getting involved in all the fighting. His father was once king of the Northmen and Calder continues to crave the…

Today’s review comes from guest reviewer MadNad, my better half. Thanks for your sterling work dearest. Being a big fan of the Raven series , I was very keen to read this. I find that there is nothing better to help me unwind from the stresses of modern life than a bit of high fantasy. Set in the same world as the Raven books, but at a point 3000 years earlier, the long-lived elves are on the brink of an all-out civil war. After a great inter-dimensional battle against the demon Garonin, the elves suffer massive losses and stranded from their home world, the surviving refugees make their home in Calius. Blamed for the large death toll, their disgraced leader, Takaar, disappears.  After an ill-fated coup, the fragile order of Elven society falls into chaos as the different castes(or ‘threads’) of elves, despite their dwindling numbers, fight amongst themselves in order to seize power.  Former lovers of Takaar, Katyett – arch of the elite warriors the TaiGethen, and Pelyn – arch of Al-Arynaar, both endeavour to prevent the troubles escalating. 10 years after his disappearance, a low-ranking TaiGethen called Auum (who readers of the Raven series will find a familiar…

Time to sneak in just one more review before Zombie Appreciation Month begins. After reading Patient Zero I was very keen to read more of Jonathan Maberry’s work. I really liked his idea of terrorists creating a pathogen that reanimates the dead and using them as a bio-weapon. Patient Zero whips along at a breakneck pace and I found the writing superb. In its sequel, The Dragon Factory, Joe Ledger and Echo team are back. However, no zombies this time out. Instead, the team are in a race against time to stop a maniacal billionaire geneticist who has plans to reinvent the human race. He has put together a globe spanning scheme called the Extinction Wave that targets only certain genetic groups. When the story begins, none of Department of Military Science are aware of what’s going on. For a sizeable chunk of the novel they are largely ignorant of the scale of the threat they are facing. The characters were left fumbling around in the dark, and playing catch up all the way through, which adds some additional tension for the reader. The billionaire, Cyrus Jakoby, makes a compelling villain. He is entirely single minded and the absolute embodiment…

“When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there’s either something wrong with your skills or something wrong with your world. And there’s nothing wrong with my skills.” I have a confession to make. I’m thoroughly unsettled by zombies. It doesn’t matter if they are the old style slowly shuffling undead or fast moving rage fuelled beasts made popular over the last couple of years. The whole concept leaves an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach. I think that it’s something to do with the thought that they were once alive. They were just like you or I. Now they are nothing –  just an empty husk with the singular purpose of destruction. In an effort to face my fears I have started reading quite a lot of zombie fiction. Ironically, this constant observation of all things zombie has made me become slightly obsessive about them. Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry has an interesting take on the zombie mythos. There are no supernatural elements at work here. These zombies are the product of scientific research. The main crux of the novel is that terrorists have developed a virus that kills swiftly and then…