Books shelved under “Fantasy”

My first fantasy novel was The Lord of the Rings, but it was an isolated incident. The book that motivated me to continue reading fantasy was The Belgariad (more of a series, really), by David Eddings. These books vary in terms of quality, but both adhere to what one might call the standard fantasy plot involving an unassuming, young protagonist prophesied to overthrow the Dark Lord. It might be what hooked me (and a…

Nalo Hopkinson is not Margaret Atwood.

This may seem like a strange and perhaps obvious epiphany to have. Indeed, some of you might be advanced enough not to need to read an entire book before arriving at it. Some of you might be even further advanced (say, doctorate in philosophy) and question the veracity of this proposition. So allow me to explain what I mean, and you philosophers can decide for yourself.

I should explain…

Every so often I read reviews that talk about a book or an author being “a breath of fresh air” to a genre or market, and I scoff and wonder what that means. Now I know, because that’s how I would describe Throne of the Crescent Moon. After so many fantasy novels based on a pseudo-medieval European setting, it’s just refreshing to see someone use a pseudo-Islamic setting. Moreover, Saladin Ahmed tells the story…

Darujhistan is the last of Free Cities remaining in the Malazan Empire’s conquest of a continent. A squad of elite Bridgeburners enters the city covertly to sabotage it and pave the way for Malazan’s army. Ignorant of all this, the mages, assassins, and councillors of Darujhistan are locked in a tense struggle over the fate of the city. And meanwhile, forces on the level of gods and demons, Ascendants and the inhuman, immortal races of…

I went to the library last week for the first time in too long. I got 14 books, most of them added to my to-read list in 2009. I love that Goodreads lets me never forget which books I want to read, but sometimes I still forget the why. Such is the case here.

Firethorn begins with 28 pages of the protagonist alone in a forest for a year. She eventually eats some berries…

Round two of Owen Pitt vs. the Old Ones/Elder Gods/Creepy Extradimensional Squid Monsters. Fight.

Monster Hunter Vendetta continues the storyline from the first book in the series. This time instead of rushing to stop the shadowy Lord Machado from opening a portal to the realm of the Elder Gods, Owen must stop a shadowy English necromancer from opening a portal to the realm of the Elder Gods. It sounds very similar, I know, but there…

I have a thing for demon-summoning.

Wait, that didn’t come out right. I don’t have a thing for demon-summoning. As in, I don’t like summoning demons. Actually, I’ve never summoned a demon, but I imagine that if I did summon a demon, I wouldn’t much enjoy it. However, I suppose that there is a small chance that if I do, one day, summon a demon, then I might discover I enjoy it and start off…

One of the more pernicious aspects of epic fantasy is medieval stasis. Even as we celebrate the freedoms made possible through democracy, we revel in escapism to an inherently oppressive setting, where hereditary titles are standard-issue and the plot often involves helping a rightful heir regain the throne. This is but one of the many tensions that arises in Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast (or Titus) books. The eponymous castle is a grand affair in…

With its hundredth anniversary just last month, Titanic was all over the media, much to my dad’s chagrin. He doesn’t understand why everyone seems so fascinated by Titanic (the ship or the James Cameron movie). I personally don’t care much for the movie, but I can see why the ship has captured so many imaginations. It was a huge testament to human ingenuity—and hubris. Its sinking was a monumental event in the early twentieth century.…

Have you ever taken a good, long look at the Napoleonic Wars and thought, “These are cool, but they could really use more dragons”? Naomi Novik did, so she wrote a book about it.

That’s really all you need to know about the Temeraire series: if it doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, then it’s not going to change your mind about dragons or about the Napoleonic Wars. But if it sounds awesome, then…

Oh, Mockingjay, I’m just not sure what to do with you.

I suppose that at this point the trilogy has taken on a certain trajectory. Katniss rebelled against the Capitol, inadvertently started an uprising, and now finds herself the face of that revolution regardless of her desires in the matter. It seems inevitable that the third and final book will feature the climax of this uprising, an assault on the Capitol, and one last…

There’s something about the King Arthur legends that fascinate me and tug at my imagination. It’s probably the tragedy of the tale mixed with that message of hope—Arthur’s body spirited away to Avalon to await his return. Merlin is literally the wizard who helps Arthur answer the Call, and I’ve always identified with that archetype on account of my intellectual and autodidactic leanings. So I’m always happy to try a book that attempts to put…

Culture is a conversation. So intertextuality is an important part of literature, because literature is one of the vehicles of that conversation. What we think of books and stories is influenced by what we’ve previously read. Similarly, authors are influenced by what they read, and the books that sell give rise to trends in the types of fiction (and even non-fiction) that make it to the shelves. Sometimes I find myself reading a book and…

One of the best parts of any fantasy series, for me, is when the author finally explicates the way in which magic works in his or her universe. Is it spell-based? Song-based? Dance-fight-based? Sometimes this happens right away, almost as soon as the main character discovers he or she is a wizard. Sometimes it unfolds gradually, as the characters become more familiar with their powers. But the diversity of magical systems is one of the…

Do you ever feel like you have let down a book, not the other way around? That if you had been smarter, funnier, prettier, then the book wouldn’t have broken up with you by text message and started dating your friend, who really isn’t all that much prettier than you and has terrible taste in clothing and music and restaurants anyway? No? Just me? OK. I kind of feel that way about Napier’s Bones.

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My dad occasionally wanders into my room with that look on his face communicating the depth to which the books he borrowed from the library have disappointed him, proceeds to the shelf where my to-read books live until I devour them, and borrows a book before I read it. That happened with The Night Circus. Afterwards he commented that it reminds him of World of Wonders. I can see why. Both books are…

Books about special children with magic powers being manipulated by binary forces are kind of boring. There seems to be a glut of them.

As the 18th century draws its final, decade-long gasps, America looks a lot different than our history remembers. Dutch colonies and Aboriginal nations have become states. Washington was executed for betraying his British superiors; Benjamin Franklin was (though he denied it), a “wizard”. Faith and superstition have formed a tense equilibrium…

Childhood is magical.

There is a myth, or at least a misconception, that this is a result of children being innocent. If you have ever been a child, then if you look deep into your heart, you will recognize this as the lie we tell ourselves to conceal the painful truth. Childhood is magical because it is inaccessible. Once gone, it can never be reclaimed, revisited, redone. It is lost to us except through the…

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It’s a video game in which you assume the persona of an assassin in Renaissance Italy. (There’s a whole frame story involving modern-day Templars and a machine that lets you relive genetic memories, but let’s not get into that right now.) Although nowhere near as captivating as my gold standard, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed is a fun franchise that I’ve followed since its…

Jay Lake has been hovering around the edge of my observable SF/fantasy universe for a while now, finally entering that universe when I read his Clockwork Earth series. Unfortunately, Mainspring disappointed me, and while the other two books in the trilogy were a big improvement on it, I was not much impressed. Sometime between acquiring Mainspring and reading it, however, I decided to buy this anthology from Subterranean Press.

I like novels more than I…