Richard Morgan and I don’t always get along.
And no, I don’t mean on a personal level. It’s not like I’m claiming to have met him or even chatted with him under the most informal of circumstances. I’m sure I’d think he’s a terrific guy if I ever got so lucky, but that’s kind of beside [...]
Posts tagged as fantasy
The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The speculative genre is not small any longer. It has countless of sub-genres and cult-symbols, its followers occupy at least half of the Internet and the movies with the biggest revenues aren’t exactly the kitchen-sink dramas of yore. However, if we take a quick look at the literary side of things, we discover that there [...]
Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson & Misc. Spoiler-Free Malazan Thoughts
“Ding, ding, ding,” the bell rings and the referee declares me the winner. I’ve just gone twelve rounds with “Toll the Hounds”, the latest 923-pages addition to the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” saga. At the start we both ran circles around each other; me trying to catch it, and TtH cunningly evading my every [...]
Thoughts On ‘the Amber Chronicles’ by Roger Zelazny
When you buy as many books as I do, you always end up having to put some of them aside for later. “For when I have time,” you think, or, “when I’m in the right mood”. Well, I have a lot of such books that I really should get around to, but that never seem [...]
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
The Word is ‘Epic’
I am not in the habit of admitting fault. It feels like loosing, and I hate losing, so whenever I’m wrong about something (which I never am!), I tend to make up silly excuses till the rightful party gives up and walks away. Yes, I know; that’s a terribly childish way to [...]
Inside Straight by George R. R. Martin & Various
‘It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s — A Swarm of Wasps?’
I’m wary about reading superhero comics, but for some reason that phobia doesn’t apply to prose novels about the same subject. This may very well have something to do with Austin Grossman’s fantastically entertaining superhero spoof, “Soon I Will Be Invincible”, which nearly [...]
The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick
The Next Big Thing?
Another year, another “big hit” from the Gollancz . It all seems so familiar, doesn’t it? Two years ago they brought us such débuts as “The Lies of Locke Lamora” by Scott Lynch and “The Blade Itself” by Joe Abercrombie, and a whole host of other authors to boot. Last year [...]
Dreamsongs by George R. R. Martin, Part 1/4
This book was re-released by Gollancz last year in both hardcover and tradeback editions, and I thought I should pick it up, despite the fact that it’s a monster of a short-story collection. All in all it weighs in at 1185 pages, which would explain why Martin’s American published decided to chop it up into [...]
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.
- Heinrich Heine
Thus begins the second volume of The First Law, just like the first volume began with the Homer (the Greek poet, not the Simpsons character, dimwit!) quote, “the blade itself incites to deeds of violence”. I think we can all agree that [...]
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Believe it or not, but this is my first reread for what must closing on three years now. Back then I nearly didn’t do anything but crack open books that had proved their worth, but suddenly I discovered that there actually existed other (and more interesting!) books then the ones found in my local library. [...]
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