Fantasy
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The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman is the first of a trilogy following the life of Thomas Cale, a strange boy with a dent in his head and the uncanny ability to anticipate an opponent’s moves. We meet Cale in the Sanctuary, a sort of monastery/training school for boys who are to become…
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The second book of the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer is New Moon. In this part Edward leaves Bella, for her own good natch, and she goes into a big funk for months. Then she discovers that if she engages in activities that could kill her, her subconscious provides an hallucination of Edward being all…
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I picked up Irons in the Fire by Juliet E. McKenna at Alt.com a couple of years ago. Juliet McKenna does quite a few writing conferences and I’d heard a lot of what she has to say about writing and the writing life. I thought I ought to read one of her books. McKenna is…
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All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear is a bit genre-busting. It is heavily grounded in Norse mythology with liberal sprinklings of sci-fi, steampunk and high fantasy. After Ragnarok, of which there are and will be many, one Valkyrie survives because she ran away. Her name is Muire. When she comes back after the battle,…
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I’ve been on blog hiatus for a little while as I was on holiday in Vienna. Which was lovely. You may also have noticed from the sidebar that I’m running a little behind on the 100 Books in 2011 challenge. This is because I have been re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire before A…
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Inspired by Leigh Butler’s fabulous A Read of Ice and Fire blog on Tor.com, I am going to do a chapter by chapter commentary of A Dance with Dragons. When not gushing about the general awesomeness of GRRM, I will be focussing on the writing. And as I have temporarily suspended the 100 Books in…
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The first third of Mistral’s Kiss by Laurell K. Hamilton is basically one long sex scene with the protagonist, Merry Gentry having sex with some of her guard. After a while it becomes apparent that the reason for this is that she needs to get pregnant in order to become the heir to her Aunt’s faerie kingdom.…
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I was excited to read The Painted Man by Peter V. Brett. There’s been a lot of buzz around it and I like the cover a lot. There are three point-of-view characters; Arlen, Leesha and Rojer. We meet them when they are children and follow their stories through to their mid to late twenties. In…
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I’m now behind target with my 100 books challenge and this is the reason why. Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson is book 7 in the Malazan Book of the Fallen and it’s a massive 900 pages. Not only is it long, it’s dense. There’s a lot going on and it took me two weeks to…
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So, I just watched Becoming Human, the spin-off from the BBC’s excellent Being Human. Which takes a minor character (vampire) and adds a werewolf and ghost. New characters, but the same basic concept as Being Human. I thought I’d watch it because I love Being Human and I didn’t think it would be up to…
Boudica Marginalia 