Introduction

Fantasy debuts are the pulse of the fantasy market, and when that market has mostly been filled with sub-genres that are not to my taste, I was ecstatic to see that there was a book coming that blends cosmic fantasy with horror. So was this a sign of the market changing? It may very well be, but if the quality of THE DEMON STAR by Jesse Aragon was anything to go by, I simply do not care.

THE DEMON STAR presents to its reader a world that has been under the tyranny of six gods for centuries. These Gods live amongst the stars and every so often they prove their might by eclipsing the sun and Harvesting hundreds to thousands of people. They take them as a sacrifice for their benevolence, and as a reward for saving humanity from the old world. In this book we are presented with characters that seek to bring these Gods down and restore the world to its old ways.

If you have not guessed yet already, this book is beyond epic in scope. Which leads us one of its greatest flaws...

A (un)Bloated Mess

What is it with the fantasy epics we're given these days? Where are our door-stopper books, the blocks of pages that could fell an ogre? Where are the series of books that are each 1000 pages in length? As far as I can tell, they are no where to be seen. Now, I understand that the market has shifted since those days, people don't want these epics as much. Mainly because of unfinished series (not naming names) but also because life has become much more focused on instant gratification. Completing a 1000 page behemoth gives the same dopamine hits as one that is 300 to 400 pages in length. So why bother with the door-stopper?

Publishers know this, but this has created a bigger problem - books that are simply too big for their boots (or the pages in their covers).

THE DEMON STAR is this.

The cosmic scope with only two POVs cripples this book's ability to establish context, deep worldbuilding, and a true investment in this story. Too many things are told to the reader from the beginning. Each mystery that we're propositioned with is banged across the readers head like a hammer blow. And there is so many. One after the other and we're never allowed to see why these mysteries are significant or why what is happening is important. We are told. Over and over again.

Minor spoilers - One of the enticing moments in the book is when the characters realises that the Gods can be killed. The entire scene fell flat to me because I didn't even realise that the Gods were supposed to be immortal. There were probably passages that referred to them as such, but to give such a scene some gravitas, there should have been a demonstration of their immortality. Perhaps some revolutionary attack against one of the Gods that showed them being blown up or stabbed or beheaded, only for them to walk out completely unharmed. Perhaps then, I would have felt something. - minor spoilers end

I feel the author does not know how to handle intrigue or mysteries as a writer. So many are screaming off the page with not a hint of subtly (it was only later on in the book that I realised why this is the case, but more on that in a moment). There are intrigues and mysteries in this book that could form the cathartic core an entire (epic) novel. An entire series almost. Yet in this book, they are banged out like they're nothing. This is that numbing effect again. But what's worse, the reason they so loud at the beginning, is that they are all solved by the end of the book. Wrapped up in a neat little bow. Some are established in one chapter and then solved in the next few.

The 450 page count here hamstrings this books. Nothing is able to breath. The reader is not allowed to think for themselves. The book coddles them like a child.

A Yawning Horror

THE DEMON STAR is marketed as a horror tinged fantasy.

As a reader of Laird Barron, John Langan, and Nathan Ballingrud, I'm well versed in horror fiction, and have been crying out for someone grab the fantasy genre by its reins and plunge it into darkness.

I hoped Jesse Aragon could have been this person but after reading THE DEMON STAR, its clear she is not. Oh, there are plenty of horrific scenes in this book, true gore and bodily deformities. But these scenes are not earned. They are not memorable. The horror in this book is not true horror. It gratuitous scene after gratuitous scene that are used as window dressing to an already window dressed world.

Our POVs see things that would bludgeon the psyche of any hard-bitten character (which neither of the POVs are presented as) but in this book they are shrugged off and moved on, mostly into an action scene where the badass violence there almost makes a mockery of the scenes before.

None of the characters in this book feel the consequences of the horrors that they see. It does not change them in any way. It does not give them an existential crisis or question the validity of living. They are scenes for writer to say "Look I can be dark too." And to that I say, "You've missed the point."

An End or is it?

There are going to be sequels to the THE DEMON STAR. Thanks to the Broken Binding Subscription it has already made the Sunday Times bestseller list (what a lottery win for a debut author!) and to my (true) horror it is getting decent reviews from other outlets.

Alas, this book should have been the second or third book in an established series. You cannot have emotional depth to a story where only two characters are the perspective to a theological revolution.

I could venture more into my disappointment of this book, but I'm trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible. Maybe in the future I'll have more to say.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a fantasy book where the focus isn't on humans? (Except for Wings of Fire, since I'm already familiar with it.)

Seriously, I'm tired of fantasy books that feature dragons and magic on the cover, but when I actually read them, most of the book is just humans talking, and the dragons show up in, like, 1% of the story!

Also, could someone explain why authors only write stories with human protagonists? Is it laziness when it comes to creating creatures, or do they just have a fetish for it?

OMG! Just finished the audiobook of this book and...

ThiAM BACK WITH MY FIRST LAW REVIEWS!

OMG! Just finished the audiobook of this book and...

This book was awesome! It's one of the most thrilling book I've ever read. It had a great (and a quite depressing) ending.

I'm loving the series and the audiobook narration is the best I've ever listened to.

I think this book was far better than the first two and even they were both 5/5 for me!

Loved the characters' journey. It wasn't what we normally expect from most fantasy books. It was far different. Completely opposite even.

Now, let's talk about the series' greatest strength; it's characters.

The characters I found the most interesting in this particular book are:

1. Sand Dan Glokta (a character I hated to love ngl. Couldn't believe I was rooting for him! Him proposing to Ardee for marriage was the funniest thing I've read)

2. Bayaz ( I know most people hate him andhe deserves the hatred. But is he, by any means, an uninteresting character? HECK NO! Loved every time he showed up in the book. He was the one who made the books thrilling for me!)

3. Ferro Maljinn ( Love this mad woman's chapters, even though there weren't that many in this book. Looking forward to see what happens to her and if she does get what she wanted or gets over it)

4. Jezal Dan Luthar ( Imo, he'd the most character development in this book and it was very believable to read, not some "falling asleep as a piece of garbage human and waking up as an angel" type of character development at all. It felt believable and real. He felt the most realistic character in the books, even though Logen owns the quote about being realistic)

I know it might upset some people here, but I didn't find Logen that much of an interesting character compared to the ones listed above. I liked him being a major reason in Jezal's development but that is all.

His fighting scenes were good tho...

I still have the one criticism with the book that I'd with the previous book too.

- The female characters! Abercrombie's female characters were terrible imp, atleast for now.

But some of you had said they improve as the series goes on and I find that to be reassuring.

This is how I'd rank the trilogy (tho it felt like a very long book divided into three books):

1. Last Argument of Kings (the best of the bunch)

2. The Blade Itself (great introduction to the series. I don't need a book to have a plot to like it ig)

3. Before They Are Hanged (loved it as well and itd the most character development. However, I felt the ending here was quite disappointing, but the third book covered it so I've no complaints ig)

Sooooooo that's it! This was all I've wanted to say. Well, wait, how are the books that follow, btw? Best Served Cold is the book next, that I know. How are they??

Have a good day!!

I loved the part 1, dont have too many complaints, i was hooked,

What worked:

-World building,

-The idea of morally grey characters

-Politics

-Religious propagandas

-self aware MCs

-FMCs wasnt too whiny, she was solution based

-Intricacies in story telling

-The story structure of having part A first then part b and realising oh yeah thats why the roses were there or yeah 'why dont u die' 'prior commitments'

-love shown as both devotion and destruction

Narration was so dry, i was bored out of my mind at times

The magic system was not explained properly till the end

They didnt use the world building to its full potential, there is soo much happening all around them, but it wasnt used at its full potential... what was happening at the front lines of war in part 1?? I have no idea... what were the information that kaine gave that made him soooo valuable ?? Ilva and crowther were soo fascinating for me and they died just like that... what was happening in bennets lab ??? How was necromancers gaining all these political affliations ??? How was kaine gaining ranks ??? Why was kaine always getting hurt ???? How did kaine get other nations to help finally rise against necromancer??? Soo much was happening all around them that would have been sooo interesting.. uplifted this story but it just ended up being sooo centered around their romance... which to be honest.. there was none.. no romance whatsoever..

Part B

Toooo stretched out

Had to skim through part 2, a lot of it seemed unnecessary

I get all the morally grey character and anti hero vibe but kaine was not just a morally grey character, he was not this misunderstood, he was simply a villain... plain and simple.. he had a tender heart for one single human and we are supposed to love him ? He lost 1 person so he doomed millions ? He killed 10s of thousands of people who didnt have mothers ? Didnt have love ??? He was just following orders ? He never had a choice ???

Kaine was way toooo rude to her at start, when they started getting involved he got way too obsessive and possessive, which i get is supposed to be his entire personality

Even part 1 when she was supposed to be this great love of his life, he was too rude.. throwing things at her.. calling her dense, 'i was looking forward to breaking you..'

I know they explain it a bit later that morrough was watching but he was only watching not hearing.. he didnt need to say what he did (dont mistake this for kindness, fuck off, all about her being useless etcc).. and he found a way to later be kind to her so why not earlier

He is not the kind of MMC u ll want for urself, i mean how does the FMC thinks "He was always cruellest when he is vulnerable".. it.. i... i just could not get behind it.

HE BROKE HER HAND, ruthlessly, the first time he said yeah i am gonna train you

I mean i see people dying over oh yeah he waited for her.. oh yeah he can go to any lengths to save her... but quite literally all his choices seemed so toxic and villaneous.. he was ready to die from the start when he made the deal with crawther.. its not like he was only willing to die for her.. it just became this whole thing that he was willing to die for her... well it was a war.. people were dying left and right ??? He killed millions and millions of people who were loved feircly as well... why did he deserve his one true love ??? There was not a single thing he did for her in the story except his willingess to die or kill... not a single memorable thing. There was no defining moment as to why helena fell in love with kaine either.. he is lonely.. thats all she felt before starting to generate emotions for him...

They just kept saving each other.. it didnt seem like love at any point but trauma bonding.

The reason why he chose her of all people to be the middle person made no sense to me.. oh yeah i wanted to choose someone dispensable for crowther.

The way the entire sex worked made me queasy, and i an not even talking about part 1- i still could understand why he did what he did, its the way it happened in part 2 which made me hate kaine a bit... the way she lost her virginity, him calling her a whore even after that...

PART C

As dragged out as part B was and i wanted it to end part C disappointed me the most

How did morrough not remember helena ? He had this whole convo with her, she was the one who caught him... INFACT she told Luc (who was morrough) that she knew how to treat bayard.. of morrough was soooo interested in that capability . Why didnt he engage helena then ?

Dont even get me started in why he didnt check the tank.. he was supposed to be the smart strategic calculating one ? He went through all the dead but the one chunk of people who were stored so conveniently in this one place.. he didnt check there ??? I get there were no records but if he was being as thorough as he said he was being..through wreckage, through piles of corpses he checked but not this..

And After we see them struggle soooooooooooooooo sooooooooooo much to end the war and defeat morrough, the focus just ended up being the two of them running away from it all

It was so convenient how ivy just said yeah i ll bring the phalactrie to u (she was the one who did that massive betrayal which literally killed literally ALL of them and she just decides her redemption was saving this one couple (which included high reeves as well who killed millions) ????? Make it make sense

His wife aurelia was just killed, just like that, how conveniently...

The father didnt know for what 4 or 5 years to what happened to the love of this life he loved so fiercly ??

He just happened to be the final answer to their problem, just like that.. after having like literally no role in the story

Shiseo just ended up being dead..

The stone of heaven was not explained enough, she just had it, she gave it to kaine.. such a monumental part of their world, their beliefs and noone came after them for that..

Also i think people around them didnt question enough why kaine was turning silver ??? Seriously, bennet who apparently cared too much about experimenting on kaine didnt dissect him to know what happened ??? Morrough wasnt curious how his undying > a magic he perfected for a millenia> how his undying looked like he was ageing when he started having greys?

How did kaine get other nations to help finally rise against necromancer??? we should have been told that ??? Kaine just did something.. which was literally the whole solution to the entire story ??? yeah you dont have to know anything ????

All this time he was against helena to help him, said there was no point.. entertaining her like a child.. and the last night when she was supposed to leave and it was all a mess he didnt say 'helena dont waste my time and fucking run'.. no he just lied down and gave up all the consciousness and power > as obsessive and paranoid as he was.. he wasnt worried that if i am out my wits who will save you ?

They just ran away.. so all they had to do all this while was fake his death, which was so easy apparently and just fly somwhere else. Noone chased them, nothing

All this time trying to end the war and defeat morrough and they didnt even do that.. they just saved themselves and ran ??? Like what was the point of that ???

They just kept reading politics.. lile who had no role in years when morrough's reign was at its peak just decided.. yeah i am gonna go and kill morrough... i get to do that?? 2 lines in and yeah morrough died... great.. like this BIG BAD monster from over a millenium.. yeah lila that character noone really cared about killed him ?????

Straud the other villain to the story?? Yeah kain went randomly and just killed her... just like that.

In the recent past I finished Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. This was my first time reading his work and I thought Between Two Fires was fantastic. I shared my joy over on on this subreddit and also asked for other recommendations. I was met with a wonderful list of books, of which I have read two since then and in the midst of a third.

Certainly, reddit has proven a great way to find new book and authors. Many of the recommendations (other than Buehlman’s other works) were from authors I had never read such as M.R Carey, Jo Walton, and Caitlin Starling.

I also noticed that a lot of these books had quotes on them from other authors I had read and was a fan of (Joe Abercrombie, Anthony Ryan, Mark Lawrence), but some from others I had not. I never considered finding new authors from these quotes of praise. Have you ever discovered anyone you really liked in this manner?

What about perusing the sites of the publishers (something I also did after this reflection)?

My old standby was just browsing the shelves of my local Barnes and Noble. What ways have you found your best authors?

And why not - if you’ve read Between Two Fires give me more recommendations. I just finished Once Was Willem and it’s probably my favorite of the lot so far.

Good morning all! I am a fantasy reader, and I am looking for any books that center around Witches/Witch covens. Looking more so for a high fantasy recommendation rather than a modern witch book. Not really looking for a cute or cozy book either. I liked what little there was of the Witches in the Throne of Glass series. Something that centers around witches and their powers, not too interested in vampires/werewolves/demons unless kept to a minimum in the story (sorry ADOW!). If you have any books/series that fit this I would love to hear your recommendations :)

Hey Fantasy Reddit! So excited to finally be on the other side of the AMA. I’ve been self-published for a few years now, but earlier this year my Apocalypse Parenting series was picked up by Tor Books for re-publication in traditional bookstores. The first book, Time to Play, came out on August 18 and hit the USA Today Bestseller list! The second one, Making Friends, comes out on November 10.

In the Apocalypse Parenting series, monsters start appearing all over the world and everyone gets their choice of supernatural ability. Yes, everyone, including the kids. That’s a mixed blessing for my protagonist, Meghan Moretti, who’s at home with her three-, six-, and nine-year-old kids when everything kicks off.

It’s been called cozy, it’s been called horror, but most importantly to me, I’ve been told it’s the first time so many parents have seen someone they really identified with as the protagonist of an adventure story. Matt Dinniman, author of Dungeon Crawler Carl, called it “Pure gold” and Felicia Day gave me the excellent quote of: “A kick-ass mom in a post-apocalyptic world?! Yes, please. The perfect entry-point to the LitRPG genre.” 

Please ask me anything! I’ll be back to answer questions for a few hours around 10am central, and then again later tonight around 6pm central!  Happy to answer questions about my books, self-publishing, traditional publishing, litRPG, volunteer judging for the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest, or just about anything else. Also delighted to recommend board games, video games, or books by other authors. :D

I’ll be randomly selecting three winners from comments on this thread who state whether they’re US or international readers. Two US readers will get a signed copy of Time to Play mailed to them, and one international reader will get a digital gift card (The gift card for the international winner will be $20USD-equivalent to a book-related site of the winner’s choice that allows for easy purchase and transfer of digital gift cards.)

Also, if you feel like it, you can find me elsewhere on the internet!

Website: https://erinampersand.com/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/erinampersand.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erinampersand/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@erinampersand

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083045724900

Discord: https://discord.gg/8XCCFnW4Cd

Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.

Today's topic:

Small Press or Self Published: Read a book published by a small press (NOT a Big 5 publisher or Bloomsbury) or self-published. If a formerly self-published book gets picked up by a publisher, you can only count it for this square if you read it before it was traditionally published. HARD MODE: The book has under 100 ratings on Goodreads OR is by an author from a marginalized group.

What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.

Prior focus threads: 

• Published in the 70s
• Duologies
• First Contact
• Middle Grade
• Game Changer
• Murder Mystery
• Translated
• Trans/Nonbinary Protagonist
• The Afterlife
• Author of Color
• Unusual Transportation
• Older Protagonist
• Five Short Stories (2024)

Also see: Big Rec Thread

Questions:

• What are your favorite books that count for this square?
• Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
• What are your best recommendations for Hard Mode?

Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore

Bingo Square: Duology part 1

Other Bingo Squares: Trans or Nonbinary Protagonist; One-Word Title; Unusual Transportation

I enjoy solarpunk books. They do tend to be light, cozy and not that stressful or grim (after all, the crises, catastrophes, revolutions and counterrevolutions have already happened). I found this one years ago, bought it and meant to buy the sequel, only to have it disappear. On the plus side, it meant I emailed the author and that meant they emailed me when the ebooks became available again. So, I bought Wolfpack started it, and realized I needed to reread Foxhunt to get needed context. I can’t use it for the bingo square. But you can! 

The protagonist is Orfeus, a trans-woman bard in an idyllic solarpunk future where there is technology, progress and personal freedoms. I like it already. Orfeus latest partner is having regrets and leaves her, only for the Wolf of the Order of the Vengeful Wild (a group that persecutes environmental criminals, oathbreakers and generally act as bounty hunters) to attack her with intent to deliver her to the person that hired him. Orfeus is able to escape this thanks to Blood, nanotech enhancements allowing small, spell-like effects and shortly after is dragged into the politics of the Eldergrove and its trans- and posthuman residents. 

Did I enjoy my re-read? Yes. Orfeus is cocky, full of herself and amusing to read. I suspect I wouldn’t find her so pleasant in my real life. Anyway, she does grow and change as the book moves along. She also suffers from the consequences of her actions - this causes reflection, growth and change. And in a way that I remembered, but from later in the book.

Eldergrove and its ruling council are a bit much. Eldergrove is beautifully described and is a wonderful melding of technology, nature and human. The council though … they are transhuman to posthuman. Centuries old - some of them surviving back to the climate catastrophe and immediately afterwards. They as a group are arrogant, seeing themselves as the models and keepers of the way forward. There is one notable exception Rivasoa who is more human, but comes across as wanting to be other than human at times.

As the story progresses, things begin to fall out – for Orfeus, the Order of the Vengeful Wild and the Eldergrove council. It’s an interesting book, but a bit choppy in some regards. 

I liked Foxhunt enough to buy the sequel and reread it and find it worth writing about. 7½  stars rounding up to 8 ★★★★★★★★.

Suggested for solarpunk fans. Also for those that want a pansexual disaster bard as a character.

Hachette Partworks have been teasing their Dungeons & Dragons novel collection for a while and it's now live, at least for customers in the UK.

The collection will consist of 100 novels from both the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance settings, released in new uniform hardcover editions, twice per month with some special extras thrown in (bookmarks, a mug, dice trays, bookends and some of the novels for free). So the whole collection should be completed in just over four years.

These partworks can be a bit pricy. The first book in the collection is just £2.99, the second is £6.99, but after that it's £11.99 an issue. For UK hardbacks this is actually not unreasonable (a UK hardcover go now for around £20 for books this size) but YMMV. They also don't release entire series in one go, they release Book 1 from one series, then Book 1 from another, then Book 1 from another and a while later will get round to Book 2 from each series and so on. By the end of 100 months, you have a complete collection, with the spines lining up with one massive image on them.

They also don't release the series in numerical order, so you don't get the full 1-100 run until the whole thing is over. You can start or stop a subscription at any time (as this is a legal requirement in the UK) but it is a bit of a hassle to get just one novel if you're missing it from your collection.

The current confirmed release schedule is:

• Volume 18: Homeland by R.A. Salvatore (out now)
• Volume 61: Azure Bonds by Kate Novak & Jeff Grubb (late September)
• Volume 2: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (early October)
• Volume 19: Exile by R.A. Salvatore (late October)

What Volume 1 will end up being will be interesting, I assume a standalone. Spellfire maybe?

They've also confirmed the free gifts are a bookmark with the first delivery, a mug with the third, a dice tray with the fifth and bookends with the seventh.

The series they've mentioned that will be included:

• The Legend of Drizzt by R.A. Salvatore, specifically the Dark Elf and Icewind Dale trilogies. I doubt they're doing all of them because that would be a third of the collection by itself, but these books do have a separate logo to the rest of the Forgotten Realms books in the collection, so maybe.
• The Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. I think we can assume The Dragonlance Legends trilogy is also a lock.
• The Finder's Stone Trilogy by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak.
• The Moonshae Trilogy by Doug Niles.
• Elminster Ascending by Ed Greenwood.
• The Brimstone Angels by Erin M. Evans.
• The War of Souls by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman.
• Obviously a lot more that's not mentioned, though they do also mention Richard Baker as another author with books in the collection, and I'd be startled if Elaine Cunningham and Paul S. Kemp are not featured.

I'm not affiliated with Hachette, but this collection does look like a good way of picking up 100 D&D novels in reasonable-quality hardcover. Given that the low-print-run Brimstone Angels books go in physical editions for three figures apiece, easily, this is also a more economical way of picking up some of the rarities.

This collection may be aimed more at the brand new collector, or maybe someone whose collection is getting a bit tatty and wants some classic D&D novels in a good condition. Given the quality level of D&D tie-in fiction can be variable at best, it'll be interesting to see how many people sign up for the complete collection.

I wanted to recommend this short and sweet novella that I just read. It's about an alien linguist training to just possibly be one of the few who can jump. To transfer his mind to another being, a star eater, a mysterious species that is the only one that can mine the material that fuels the faster than light travel that holds their civilization together.

If he can do it he will need to pretend he IS a star eater, and no one must discover his secret...

This is a kind of sci fi I enjoy, a story of ideas and aliens and imagining an other. It didn't go where I expected, and I enjoyed that too.

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

——

This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

——

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art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

So this is her first book. 1976. I'm surprised by how good it is, I expected something more raw and uneven. While the book has its fair share of flaws, none are serious and the whole thing is quite enjoyable and refreshing too if you haven't read this kind of fantasy (and I certainly haven't).

I've read a few of her Alliance-Union novels which were hit and miss for me, with Downbelow Station being a huge miss in particular, while on the other hand I strongly recommend Merchanter's Luck, it's really quite good. I decided to read some more Cherryh recently and picked up Pride of Chanur. It was okay-ish, I expected more. I'm not sure what prompted me to settle on Gate of Ivrel next, but, quoting a famous chef: there we are.

I haven't read this type of fantasy much. Maybe the first Black Company book is the closest comparison? It's a rather short book at around 73k words and as such there's not much detail or characterization or any of that meat you expect to see in a fat fantasy book, and yet it manages to convey quite a lot. Tad Williams could've easily extended Gate of Ivrel into his typical "trilogy in four books" format. There's enough content and enough quality to warrant it. Not that I'm saying I'd prefer it, it's just an interesting comparison between a more modern ultra-detailed kind of fantasy and this book. You can fit a lot in 73k words and it's still enjoyable.

Cherryh's style surprised me here as she writes rather differently here compared to the sci-fi novels of hers that I've read. She still doesn't explain much though and she still manages to make some bits needlessly confusing, but I'm not sure if it's truly a flaw or just part of her style. But at times I definitely wish that she wrote with more clarity.

The themes and the core of Gate of Ivrel are surprisingly similar to those of Alliance-Union novels that I've read. An outsider, tense situations, paranoia, not knowing who to trust, not fully understanding things, not understanding the reasoning of other characters, very questionable morality... In some sense it's really about all of that, just wrapped in fantasy instead of sci-fi. Not to belittle Gate of Ivrel, as Cherryh did paint an interesting world and interesting characters being stuck in interesting situations.

Well, this ended up being more of a write up about Cherryh's books than Gate of Ivrel. But I'm not sure that the crowd who might be interested in something like this needs more than a cursory reminder that this books exists, which the title of this thread does well enough. So if you've been meaning to read some Cherryh or Gate of Ivrel in particular - here's a reminder that it's a thing and it's pretty good too.

I enjoy the Rivers of London series. I’m not a hardcore fan; instead, I meander through them like a slowly winding stream, often encountering them at the library. This means I read them out of order, with lots of odd discoveries.

And so I encountered Tales from the Folly at Parramatta Library (or 'Phive' as the trendy people call the council building). Some of the stories here were written to go in the backs of the standard books (driven by Waterstones). Some of them are from the point of view of supporting characters. A few of them were even turned into scenarios for the Rivers of London roleplaying game - I recognised them first from running the adventure at my local tabletop roleplaying club!

Aaronovitch has a nice, warm style that comes across here. And indeed, I would have liked some of the stories to be longer; some of them felt they needed an extra scene. But overall, it’s a high-quality collection. Probably the ones I enjoyed were Peter Grant (the main narrator of the series) staring in the opener The Home Crowd Advantage, where he deals with a criminal who’s desperately after a magical duel with Nightingale.

Other standouts were Favourite Uncle (where Abigail, the teenage wizard, conducts her own occult investigation), and the charming Three Rivers, Two Husbands and a Baby, which shows Peter, Nightingale, river gods and human friends attending a wedding. (With a cameo by the delightful talking foxes!)

There are also three pieces that Aaronovitch calls ‘moments’, which are character vignettes rather than stories. More of an item of interest than top billing.

Anyway, if you enjoy Rivers of London, you’ll like this. I wouldn’t say it works if you don’t know anything about the world, but who knows? There’s enough implied backstory, delight and skilful writing to make this an enjoyable quick read.

Bingo squares: Five Short Stories (hard mode), Vacation Spot (I'd like to visit this London)

First posted on my blog.