Books shelved under “Fantasy”

With a little over a week left before I return to England, I went to the library and borrowed a few more books. As I was browsing the stacks, I noticed all three of these books next to each other on the shelf. Longtime library conossieurs will share with me the feeling of surprise and elation that one has when discovering the complete set of a series on one’s to-read list is there, ready to…

It’s really neat that the Of Darkness, Light, and Fire omnibus contains both urban fantasy and classical fantasy. Not a lot of combined editions will do that. It showcases Tanya Huff’s wider abilities, and it also provides a nice change of tone if one is reading the two novels back to back. It can also make the task of comparing the two books somewhat more difficult. Even after a few days of thinking on it,…

Tanya Huff is another one of those Canadian authors I’ve shamefully never read until this year, but now I’m making up for that! Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light, which I read in the Of Darkness, Light, and Fire omnibus (yay, Oxford comma!), is Huff’s first published novel and the third one she wrote. In many respects this is evident from the novel’s plot and characterization. Nevertheless, it’s evidence that, even back then, Huff…

Mélusine suffers from two narrators: Felix Harrowgate and Mildmay the Fox. I say “suffers” because Monette switches between the two perspectives more frequently than Bill Nye drops mad science truth. Each chapter is about thirty or fifty pages in this paperback edition, but perspective can happen as often as once every page. Sometimes the characters barely get a few paragraphs in before Monette switches to the other narrator. Consequently, instead of feeling like I’m watching…

Congratulations, Hero. You have defeated the Big Bad and freed the empire from its thousand-year reign of terror. Everyone is now free! Well, kind of. You still have to feed and clothe them. And the nobility won’t suddenly want to mix with the peasants. Oh, and the more remote regions have started calving off into kingdoms of their own faster than you can say “melting ice caps” (and I can say it pretty fast).

What,…

This book has been on my to-read list for four years, and I’m glad I finally got to it. Tanya Huff delivers strong urban fantasy set in a Canadian city. She sets up an interesting family of magic users, where the women and the men participate in complicated rituals that allow them to work charms. Alongside, she sends us a light mixture of supernatural creatures to pad out the character sheet—a leprechaun, some dragons and…

Every so often I read a book that I wish I had written. Right there, in those pages, is a universe that I don’t just enjoy but that I’m actively envious of. Three Parts Dead is not quite one of these books, but it comes close. It’s the kind of book I could see a me from a parallel universe not too far away could have written. It satisfies my current hunger for fantasy that…

Sometimes you just know you and a book aren’t going to get along. I debated giving Of Blood and Honey a miss after a few chapters, and I’m still not sure I made the right call to soldier on. I finished the book, and I kind of understand the plot. To say that I enjoyed it or got much out of the story would be an overstatement, though, and that’s a shame. Stina Leicht is…

There's just something about faeries and Elizabethan England that mix, isn't there? It seems like I can't turn around without tripping over a book that involves the two. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; I like faeries, and I like Elizabethan England. But as with most trends, it can become hard to find writers who are using the material in inventive ways. Fortunately, that's just what Seanan McGuire does with "Rat-Catcher". There are beings…

Seanan McGuire is killing it with the Hugo nominations this year. Not only is her alter ego up for a novel nomination, but she has two nominations in the same category. While I wasn’t impressed by “Rat-Catcher”, “In Sea-Salt Tears” left me with a more favourable feeling. It’s predictable and a little trite, but at the same time it has a strong emotional core. It probes ideas about personal and cultural identity within the bounds…

Some books inspire, invigorate. Some books infuriate. The Painted Man does both. I simultaneously like and loathe this book, with its tired writing but interesting plot. Peter V. Brett manages to create a fascinating story about a world where demons manifest every night and the only protection is that of a warded circle/building. He explores how this would affect a pre-industrial society, the way it would shape travel and technology and career choices. I read…

Much like zombie fiction, I tend to habitually give werewolf fiction a miss. I think it’s the pack mentality aspect that freaks me out—that and the related posturing for alpha-male dominance. But there are always exceptions to the rule, such as the Kitty Norville series. And while Bitten might be a werewolf novel, I’m given to understand that the Women of the Otherworld series embraces supernatural creatures of all stripes. If the Kelley Armstrong’s…

Zombie fiction always sneaks up on me. I never consciously seek it out, but I end up reading it nonetheless. Nowdays is different from any other zombie fiction I’ve read so far in that it’s a graphic novel, a medium I enjoy but don’t necessarily follow as much as I could. It’s also notable in that its authors are from my hometown, and they chose to set the story in that area. Whereas most zombie…

I’m trying to think of how many other books’ sequels are more notable than the books themselves. The Dark is Rising is the second book in the sequence, yet it was the one that got adapted into an apparently awful film, and it was the one that gave its title to the entire series. I suppose I can see why. Of the first two books, it more stereotypically conforms to the monomyth and has that…

Over Sea, Under Stone reminds me of that endless string of ’80s and ’90s movies featuring plucky groups of child protagonists outwitting bumbling adult villains. You know the ones I mean—The Goonies is probably the most famous example, but there are others. Children get into real danger and use a combination of courage and clever planning to defeat the bad guys and save the day. In this case, Simon, Jane, and Barney work together…

My grandmother died in January. We were expecting it for a while. She had been in and out of the hospital for months, her diabetes causing circulation problems with her legs to the point where he body could no longer keep up. I had realized prior to that what a loss my grandmother would be, but it was still hard for me to understand how it would feel—this was the first death in my family…

I admit there was a bit of a high-pitched shriek on Twitter the day I found out Neil Gaiman had a new novel coming out. Mind you, this is about on schedule for him—he seems to have one steeped and ready every four or five years. Gaiman is a prolific author but has never confined himself to any one genre or form. Indeed, as I glanced over his bibliography page on Wikipedia, I was…

Last year I read Mistborn, my first and only experience with Brandon Sanderson, until now. I was happy to have a reason to read more of his work sooner rather than later. Sanderson is an author whose approach to fantasy is a happy blend of the traditional tropes of epic, adventure-based fantasy with the more modern need to question certain conventions. This is certainly the case in the Hugo-nominated The Emperor’s Soul. Sanderson…

I’m Canadian and a lover of fantasy but have somehow managed not to read any books by Charles de Lint, ever. I’m not sure if this represents great skill or just gobsmacking stupidity on my part. It’s probably some mixture of the two. My roommate lent me Moonheart, promising I would love it in tones that made me hope I would, lest awkward differences of critical opinion ensue. Fortunately, I do love this book.…

An evil, corrupt sorcerer has a pact with a family of demons. Every few years, the big demon on campus rolls up and impregnates all of the women in the sorcerer’s family. In return for the demonic-looking hellspawn of this union, the demon uses its influence to get lesser denizens of the supernatural world to fall into line and obey the sorcerer’s commands. But now that demon has been slain, and with the time to…