This is a story about God and the Devil, but not how you were taught to believe. This is also a story about love and hate, and the suffering both can bring. This is about rights and wrongs, and all of the spaces in between. This is about revenge, courage, death, passion; with no villains, no heroes… only those left scorned. This is a story about Heaven, Hell, and the Jury that holds them together. This is The Antithesis. Justice Alezair Czynri is the newest recruit of the Jury, a group of Read more […]
Welcome To Low Town Here, the criminal is king. The streets are filled with the screeching of fish hags, the cries of swindled merchants, the inviting murmurs of working girls. Here, people can disappear, and the lacklustre efforts of the guard ensure they are never found. Warden is an ex-soldier who has seen the worst men have to offer; now a narcotics dealer with a rich, bloody past and a way of inviting danger. You’d struggle to someone with a soul as dark and troubled as his. Bu then Read more […]
LET BATTLE COMMENCE… Thanks to his father’s gambling debts, young Jack Keats finds himself on the streets trying to graft enough coin to keep him and his two younger brothers fed. When a daring bank robbery goes awry, Jack narrowly escapes the scaffold on to be pressed into the Royal Aerostatical Navy. Assigned to the most useless airship in the fleet, serving under a captain who’s is most probably mad, Jack seems to be bound for almost certain death in the far-away deserts of Cassarabia. Meanwhile Read more […]
Thomas Locke can find anything. You know the hurricane that hit a while back? Word is he found the butterfly that started it. So, when a desperate Veronica Drysdale hires Locke to find her missing husband, it makes perfect sense. Except the world of Thomas Locke doesn’t make sense. It puts monsters under the bed, makes stars fall from the sky and leads little children to worship the marvels of road-works. This world also hides from Veronica a past far darker and stranger than she could Read more […]
You may have heard that the world was supposed to end last weekend. Based on the fact that you are reading this post, I think we can all safely assume that it didn’t. It struck me that predictions can be, at best, awfully fickle things. If only there was a book that didn’t mess about, something that took all the guess work out of things and just made The Apocalypse simple. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter – the world’s only totally reliable guide to the future – the Read more […]
Please note this review contains minor spoilers if you haven’t read book one in the trilogy, The Sword of Albion. Also you are missing a real treat. Alone and on the run, Elizabethan England’s greatest spy must defeat a dark and bloody plot. Or die… The Scar Crow Men by Mark Chadbourn is the second novel in the Swords of Albion series. It sees the return of Will Swyfte, gentleman spy, and his ongoing battle with the dark forces that threaten Great Britain during the reign of Read more […]
They came from the North, and the land fell. Kell’s resistance is driving the fiends from the land. But now a far greater power has come into play. Please note this review contains some minor spoilers if you have not read the first two parts of The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles. I have thought about this long and hard and I have come to a shocking conclusion – I hate Andy Remic. Why? Because he is just such a supremely talented sod. He has proven that he can turn his hand Read more […]
A dead hero opens his eyes. To his horror, he finds he has been raised to serve as the undead minion of a desperate necromancer called Mordius. Our hero’s body has been stolen from a battlefield contested by two kingdoms that have been at war for generations. No one knows why warfare is now the way of life, but what is apparent is that the dark forces vie for dominion over the entire realm. When it comes to fantasy my needs are simple – heroes and villains, kingdom versus kingdom, gods and monsters. I’m Read more […]
Kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars, lords and honest men. All will play the Game of Thrones. Summers span decades. Winters can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun. It will stretch from the south, where the heat breeds plot, lusts and intrigues; to the vast frozen north where a 700-foot wall of ice protects the kingdom from the dark forces that lie beyond. The Game of Thrones. You win, or you die. I’m not adverse to a massive doorstop Read more […]
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 Read more […]
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, Read more […]
I have explained in the past that I am not a massive fan of short story collections but there is an exception to every rule. In my opinion, The Wild Cards novels are the best ongoing series of short stories available today. When I heard that Tor Books was re-releasing the first novel I felt compelled to immediately start re-reading my old copy. How best to describe the concept of Wild Cards? The quick answer would be – imagine an alternative Earth where an alien virus has been released and as Read more […]
“Life sucks, then you die. Period. Unless you’re James Stark, a hitman in Hell for eleven years before escaping back up to Hell-on-earth L.A. – looking for revenge, absolution….love, maybe. But Hell’s not through with Stark. Heaven’s not either.” Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey is an urban fantasy featuring an unstoppable anti-hero wreaking his vengeance on the people who wronged him. Condemned to Hell by his peers, James Stark fights his way back out of the Pit and he wants payback. During Read more […]