Mithila’s world is bound by a Wall enclosing the city of Sumer—nobody goes out, nothing comes in. The days pass as they have for two thousand years: just enough to eat for just enough people, living by the rules. Within the city, everyone knows their place. But when Mithila tries to cross the Wall, every power in Sumer comes together to stop her. To break the rules is to risk all of civilization collapsing. But to follow them is to never know: who built the Wall? Why? And what would the world look like if it didn’t exist? As Mithila and her friends search for the truth, they must risk losing their families, the ones they love, and even their lives. Is a world they can’t imagine worth the only world they have? I’m a huge fan of the Terry Gilliam movie Brazil. It the simple story of a man ground down by existence, hemmed in at every turn. During his waking hours, he is crippled by insecurity and forced to conform. His life is an endless stream of banality but it is safe and secure. There is no challenge, but also no chance of failure. At night however, he…

Welcome to the Witherward, and to a London that is not quite like our own. Here, it’s summertime in February, the Underground is a cavern of wonders and magic fills the streets. But this London is a city divided, split between six rival magical factions, each with their own extraordinary talents – and the alpha of the Changelings, Gedeon Ravenswood, has gone rogue, threatening the fragile accords that have held London together for decades. Ilsa is a shapeshifting Changeling who has spent the first 17 years of her life marooned in the wrong London, where real magic is reviled as the devil’s work. Abandoned at birth, she has scratched out a living first as a pickpocket and then as a stage magician’s assistant, dazzling audiences by secretly using her Changeling talents to perform impossible illusions. When she’s dragged through a portal into the Witherward, Ilsa finally feels like she belongs. But her new home is on the brink of civil war, and Ilsa is pulled into the fray. The only way to save London is to track down Gedeon, and he just so happens to be Ilsa’s long-lost brother, one of the last surviving members of the family who stranded…

Scholars, shopkeepers, collectors, aficionados. Obtainers of rare antiquities; relic hunters who can’t resist a lead, even when it takes them into terrible danger. There’s always an opportunity to be found amid the confusion, in the wake of the terrible Kinslayer War. There’s always a deal to be done, a tomb to open, a precious thing to obtain. From encounters with the monstrous Vathesk to exploring new worlds; from wielding great power to do great good, to unearthing dark things best left lost. If you need the experts, if you can find your way to their Cherivell shop, maybe you can hire Doctors Catt and Fisher. Twenty-twenty has been one hell of a year, what with global pandemics and political nonsense all over the place. I’ve been on quite the emotional rollercoaster as it goes. Fortunately, reading has helped enormously to get me through the tougher moments. Being able to escape into a good book offers no small measure of solace. I’ve read some truly wonderful stories in the last twelve months and I’m glad to say my final book of the year rounds things off perfectly; it is an absolute gem. The Tales of Catt & Fisher – The Art…

Please note, Call of the Bones Ships is a direct sequel to The Bone Ships and if you have not read the first book in the Tide Child trilogy then it is likely what follows may contain some minor spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Dragons have returned to the Hundred Isles. But their return heralds only war and destruction. When a horde of dying slaves are discovered in the bowels of a ship, Shipwife Meas and the crew of the Tide Child find themselves drawn into a vicious plot that will leave them questioning their loyalties and fighting for their lives. Ahoy me hearties, tis time for us to set sail once again on the good ship Tide Child. R J Barker is back with Call of The Bone Ships so prepare yourself for more fantastical adventures on the high seas. Ok, I’ll admit it. I have been looking forward to this book for ages. C’mon, we’re talking sea dragons, skeletal pirate ships and more swash than you can shake a buckle at for goodness sake. How could you not be excited about that? Joron Twiner has come a long way since the end of book one. Before…

Please note, The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn is a direct sequel to The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn. If you haven’t read the first book in the Kingdom of Grit series what follows may contain some minor spoilers. Dont say I didn’t warn you. Ardor Benn saved civilisation from imminent destruction, but his efforts brought war to the kingdom. It is believed that the rightful rulers have all been assassinated. However, a young heir might have survived. An ancient organisation known as The Realm is behind the chaos, working from the shadows. Under the anonymity of masks, information is distributed sparingly. Ard’s been hired to infiltrate them, but he’s got competition from an old friend. One who’s set to prove she’s better than the self-proclaimed ‘Ruse Artist Extraordinaire.’ If Ard can’t find the heir, then his world may again approach ruin. Stopping the complete and utter collapse of civilisation is quickly becoming Ard’s speciality. The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn was one of my favourite debut novels over the last few years. It features a rascally conman with a flair for the dramatic, a dash of political and religious intrigue and an angry dragon to boot. It’s all good…

Dragons. Art. Revolution. Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint. One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers. But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes—and the awful source of the magical pigments they use—they find they can no longer stay out of politics. What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight… This week’s review is the new fantasy novel Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee. In many respects the novel’s main protagonist, Gyen Jebi, is an innocent. They are so caught up in their desire to create, they are oblivious to the political upheaval going on all around them. Circumstance leads Jebi to find a new job in a government ministry. They meet a strange woman called Dzuge Vei. The intense relationship that develops between them changes them both at a fundamental level. Politics plays an important part in the novel’s narrative. The story chronicles events unfolding in a country under occupation. The Razanei forces are keen to…

In a slightly alternate London in 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father, a man she has never met. Crime boss Frank Thringley might be able to help her, but Susan doesn’t get time to ask Frank any questions before he is turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of the outrageously attractive Merlin. Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one of the fighting ones), who with the right-handed booksellers (the intellectual ones), are an extended family of magical beings who police the mythic and legendary Old World when it intrudes on the modern world, in addition to running several bookshops. Susan’s search for her father begins with her mother’s possibly misremembered or misspelt surnames, a reading room ticket, and a silver cigarette case engraved with something that might be a coat of arms. Merlin has a quest of his own, to find the Old World entity who used ordinary criminals to kill his mother. As he and his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, tread in the path of a botched or covered-up police investigation from years past, they find this quest strangely overlaps with Susan’s. Who or what was her father? Susan,…

Please note, Dead Man in a Ditch is a direct sequel to the first Fetch Phillips novel, The Last Smile in Sunder City. If you want my advice, if you haven’t already, I would start there. If you don’t what follows may contain some minor spoilers. Consider yourselves suitably warned. The name’s Fetch Phillips — what do you need? Cover a Gnome with a crossbow while he does a dodgy deal? Sure. Find out who killed Lance Niles, the big-shot businessman who just arrived in town? I’ll give it shot. Help an old-lady Elf track down her husband’s murderer? That’s right up my alley. What I don’t do, because it’s impossible, is search for a way to bring the goddamn magic back. Rumors got out about what happened with the Professor, so now people keep asking me to fix the world. But there’s no magic in this story. Just dead friends, twisted miracles, and a secret machine made to deliver a single shot of murder. Earlier this year I read Luke Arnold’s debut novel, The Last Smile in Sunder City. The novel introduced us to Fetch Phillips, a human detective trying to get by in a city full of all…

You know the drill. What follows is the review of the second book in a trilogy. If you’ve not read book one in this series, A Little Hatred, then it is likely there may be minor spoilers ahead. Do not tell me later that you haven’t been suitably warned. Conspiracy. Betrayal. Rebellion. Peace is just another kind of battlefield . . . Savine dan Glokta, once Adua’s most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way. For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her. The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply. The old ways are swept…

The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands. Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people. In an empire made up of floating islands, adrift on a vast endless sea, an old emperor spends his time honing his magical skill. He picks apart the building blocks of creation while ignoring the suffering of the people he once pledged to protect. The system the Emperor created is failing, and the need for change grows stronger every day. Lin, the Emperor’s daughter, knows that something is fundamentally wrong. She just can’t quite put her finger on exactly what the…

Everyone knows the story of Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who put Charles VII on the throne and spearheaded France’s victory over Britain before being burned by the English as a heretic and witch. But things are not always as they appear. Jeanne d’Arc was only five when three angels and saints first came to her. Shrouded by a halo of heavenly light, she believed their claim to be holy. The Archangel Michael and Saint Margaret told her she was the foretold Warrior Maid of Lorraine, fated to free France and put a king upon his throne. Saint Catherine made her promise to obey their commands and embrace her destiny; the three saints would guide her every step. Jeanne bound herself to these creatures without knowing what she’d done. As she got older, Jeanne grew to mistrust and fear the voices, and they didn’t hesitate to punish her cruelly for disobedience. She quickly learned that their cherished prophecy was more important than the girl expected to make it come true. Jeanne is only a shepherd’s daughter, not the Warrior Maid of the prophecy, but she is stubborn and rebellious, and finds ways to avoid doing – and being –…

It is the Age of Enlightenment — of new and magical political movements, from the necromancer Robespierre calling for revolution in France to the weather mage Toussaint L’Ouverture leading the slaves of Haiti in their fight for freedom, to the bold new Prime Minister William Pitt weighing the legalization of magic amongst commoners in Britain and abolition throughout its colonies overseas. But amidst all of the upheaval of the early modern world, there is an unknown force inciting all of human civilization into violent conflict. And it will require the combined efforts of revolutionaries, magicians, and abolitionists to unmask this hidden enemy before the whole world falls to darkness and chaos. This week I’m taking a look at the latest novel from H G Parry. A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians is a reimagining of a key moment in European history, with the addition of some distinctly more fantastical elements. Taken from Africa as a small child Fina, is a slave on a British plantation in Jamaica. Magic is used to control the workforce as they are forced to toil in back breaking conditions. Fina has learned to internalise everything as the magic that binds her ensures complete, unyielding…

Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five. But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all. I’ve just finished reading The City We Became by N K Jemisin, and it has melted my brain in a whole host of marvellous ways. With that in mind, please be advised that what follows may be a little disjointed, but it covers a whole host of topics. Putting it simply, I have many, many things I need to discuss. I’ve long been of the opinion that cities are a microcosm of the larger world. Places like London or Tokyo are a melting pot of cultures. All human life is condensed together to form a weird cross-pollinated mishmash of society. I’m also a big fan of the idea that every city has its own character. Jemisin takes that idea and runs with it. The main quintet of characters, the five boroughs are wonderfully realised creations. Manhattan, The…