Tag: fantasy

Review: Blacktail

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Title: Blacktail: A Novel
Author: Scott Hawkins
Pages: 288
Release: September 1, 2026

Lynx that speak in platitudes, wolves that write poetry in urine, and house cats that worship the Forest God. In Blacktail, Scott Hawkins’s (very) dark fantasy, we see our world through the eyes of a wolf-dog whose personal quest for revenge becomes much stranger and more mythic as it moves toward its conclusion. 

There’s an intentional discordance between the brutality and disturbing imagery of the main quest and the absurdity interwoven throughout the narrative. House cats with names like “Miss Prissy Pants” show up. Dogs worship their piles of “food-rocks” (kibble). Car demons controlled by “two-legs” (humans) stalk the “black path” (road). This discordance is amusing but often jarring, as these sillier elements undercut the dark edge of the story.

It’s a quest novel, but the pacing is somewhat stilted, with Blacktail jumping from one interaction to another as new creatures are placed in his path. This keeps the quest from gaining enough narrative momentum to earn its final denouement. Ultimately, I was consistently engaged and quite gripped by the tale, but it never quite fulfilled its promise for me.

★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: West of the World

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Title: West of the World
Author: Mike Shel
Pages: 450
Series: The Chronicles of Jerebad Madder #1
Release: August 25, 2026

Set two hundred years after the conclusion of his phenomenal Iconoclasts Trilogy, West of the World seamlessly expands the boundaries of Shel’s dark and dangerous fantasy world. Jerebad Madder, a gunslinging dirt-witch of no particular renown, tracks a demon across the western expanse of Nethe Mundis, the New World, in a story that evokes Stephen King’s The Gunslinger while forging its own strange and sorcerous path.

This fantastical frontier tale features a snake-oil salesman with a complicated past, a sweeping romance born from a calamitous meet-cute, and a troubled hero battling demons both internal and external alongside a succession of unlikely allies. Shel delivers elegant prose, fascinating lore, and intricate worldbuilding in a story that is dark and gritty but still full of heart.

West of the World serves as both an accessible entry point for newcomers and a rewarding expansion for longtime fans. It cements Shel’s place as one of the best fantasy writers working today and will hopefully bring many more readers to his work.

★★★★½

My thanks to the author for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: A Trade of Blood

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Title: A Trade of Blood
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Pages: 400
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #3
Release: August 4, 2026

Each book in this series has been a winner, and A Trade of Blood is no exception. RJB continues to perfectly blend his sharp prose, exquisite fungal worldbuilding, cracking whodunnits, and socially conscious commentary into one of the genre’s best current series.

Even as Bennett expands Din’s backstory in this novel about rival clans and fungal mind control, I’m still left wanting more of our dynamic duo of leads, especially Ana, who takes a slight backseat in this story. As always, I’m seeking major plot progression in the greater story of the world. Three books in, I’m still not entirely sure whether Bennett is building toward a larger endgame or simply telling exceptional standalone mysteries within this setting. Either way, the series remains in a really solid place as the most consistently compelling ongoing SFF series today.

★★★★

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Written on the Dark

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Title: Written on the Dark
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Pages: 400
Release: May 27, 2025

It’s such a treat to get lost in Kay’s worlds, experiencing his unique spin on history with a splash of the fantastical. While this tale doesn’t break new ground or reinvent the genre, it’s an engaging and satisfying story that longtime fans of GGK and newcomers alike will certainly enjoy. The narrative isn’t as complex as some of his other works, featuring more accessible prose and POVs that stay close to the main action.

Though somewhat muted in its telling, there’s a glimmer of Kay’s storytelling spark shining through the fog – guiding us toward the light. His main character, Thierry Villar, who self-identifies as “inconsequential” to the world at large, is given his moment to shine as Kay builds his legend before our eyes. 

I’ve always loved how Kay grants even the most minor characters narrative arcs – sometimes in just a sentence or a paragraph, or, in this case, an entire book. Here, a tavern poet of medium renown makes his own indelible mark on the world. Someone who might have been a footnote in another story instead steals the spotlight.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: A Drop of Corruption

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Title: A Drop of Corruption
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Pages: 432
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #2
Release: April 1, 2025

Unshackled by the need for extensive world-building, Robert Jackson Bennett has room in this sequel to craft a more complex and satisfying mystery, centered around his winning duo of lead characters. It succeeds as both a mystery and a fantasy novel, blending the two genres beautifully.

While I’m more invested in the evolving interpersonal dynamics between Ana and Din than the “Mystery of the Week” plot in each installment, this sequel lays the groundwork for even richer character development to come in future books.

A Drop of Corruption is a more assured, exciting sequel than its predecessor, and I look forward to seeing where the overarching story goes from here. 

★★★★

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Gardens of the Moon

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Title: Gardens of the Moon
Author: Steven Erikson
Pages: 666
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #1
Release: April 1, 1999

And so begins my journey into Malazan. Is it for me? We shall see… this first book was a mixed bag. I appreciated its scope and complexity, but sometimes felt lost with how many similar male characters there were to keep track of. The podcasts and reading guides were a tremendous help, but felt like homework at times.

I’ve read a lot of epic fantasy and this feels a cut above the rest. The fact that I’ve just scratched the surface of the Malazan world is very exciting. And if this is the low water mark for the series, I’m excited to see what’s to come.

★★★½

Review: The Tainted Cup

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Title: The Tainted Cup
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett
Pages: 413
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #1
Release: February 6, 2024

From the physical structure of the world to the unique botanical magic employed within its (very big) walls, Robert Jackson Bennett has built an undeniably cool sandbox to play around in. This first book of the trilogy is a dynamic fantasy murder mystery that should please longtime RJB fans and newcomers alike.

I’ve always enjoyed Bennett’s sharp dialogue and great character work. Here, I loved the master and apprentice dynamic between Ana and Din. Ana, especially, was a superbly written character. It’s never enough to be told a character is a genius, we have to see it in action and Ana’s genius is all show and no tell.

While I wasn’t always captivated by the mystery at the heart of the book, Bennett builds out the layers of the conspiracy nicely and doles out the twists and reveals in a satisfying manner. I am truly excited to see what the next book has in store, as it seems like Bennett has just scratched the surface of what stories are possible within the Empire of Khanum.

★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Toward Eternity

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“Music is as eternal as the universe, it is part of its very fabric, and a musician is only picking at a small corner of the universe, a tiny dot in it, when they turn air and time into sound. A musician’s task is not to create sound from nothingness; a true musician understands that music is the primordial state of the universe, the very first world, and silence is a cloak upon this state, and a musician’s job is to create a tear in that cloak to let out the music underneath. We do not create music, we draw it out from underneath the silence. I draw it out from my cello, my tear in the cloak.”

Title: Toward Eternity 
Author: Anton Hur 
Pages: 256 
Release: July 9, 2024 

Already renowned for his works of translation, Anton Hur demonstrates his prowess as a novelist in Toward Eternity, an engrossing exploration of the essence of humanity.

While the narrative initially embraces a slow pace and interiority for our protagonists, it begins to accelerate through time, challenging readers to keep pace with the plot’s ever-expanding Russian Doll-like recursions. I preferred the start of the story for its more accessible nature, but I understood the choice to jump through time to see how the past had reverberated into the future.

The novel truly shines when contemplating memory, artistry, and what it means to be human in the face of technological progress. Much like the Ship of Theseus paradox, if nanotechnology replaced our cells one by one, at what point do we stop being ourselves? And, from the perspective of artistic expression, if you are an instrumentalist playing notes written by someone else, are you any less an artist? Does your music not draw from your soul? I found these questions to be particularly interesting, especially considering Hur’s prolific work translating the words of other novelists and how that might inform his viewpoint on this.

Ultimately, there’s quite a bit to take away from Toward Eternity – you can latch on to the big ideas and philosophical questions it raises or you can just focus on the fun, sci-fi thriller aspects that make this so readable. Either way, Hur has written something really wonderful and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

★★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Lost Ark Dreaming

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Title: Lost Ark Dreaming
Author: Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Pages: 192
Release: May 21, 2024

Within the confines of its short page count, Suyi Davies Okunbowa deploys truly impressive economical worldbuilding to situate us right into this literal fish(creature)-out-of-water tale.

The narrative unfolds within a massive skyscraper that towers above the flooded African coast, where societal classes are physically stratified – akin to turning the train from Snowpiercer vertically – the higher class residing above and the lower class below the ever-rising sea level, a literal manifestation of social hierarchy.

What sets this novella apart are the deeply felt interludes scattered throughout. These reflections delve into the complexities of humanity, trauma, displacement, class, intergenerational oral tradition, immigration, and more. It’s a tapestry of themes carefully woven throughout the narrative.

Lost Ark Dreaming is not only profound, but also approachable and exciting. It left me wanting more, and I look forward to seeing whatever Okungbowa writes next.

★★★★

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.