Smorgasbord Fantasia

With Mirrored Heavens , Rebecca Roanhorse takes us to the nail biting climax of this series Between Earth and Sky - one of the finest examples of epic fantasies done right, where prophecies come alive, Gods pit themselves against each other through their human avatars, and the humans themselves, fall prey to their baser instincts, fighting for power in this brutal bloody game where backstabbing, deceptions and in-fighting are the rules, not exceptions.  War  finally  comes to Meridian.  The merchant lords are gunning for the city of Tova. Tova itself, has fallen under the Crow God's eclipse and now the city is smarting under the new tyrant Serrapio, the chosen Carrion King, the God's instrument of bloody reckoning. While the Sky Made clans are conspiring against him, Serrapio has to decide on what alliances to trust and what to avoid or eliminate. And then there is this new prophecy by the trickster God Coyote that has him confused and scrambling, looking for ways t...

This week on Waiting on Wednesday where we feature some of the most anticipated books in the SFF Genre to be released in the coming year/months, we have one of the most exciting sequels to a blockbuster fantasy novel from 2020 - The Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse ( This was one of the best books I read this year! a little late to the party but what a fabulous fabulous book! Here's my review of the same.) So super excited about the sequel, Fevered Star . Cover reveal happened a couple of days back on the Nerdist Here's what we know. There are no tides more treacherous than those of the heart. —Teek saying   The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent.   The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded? ...

 With her first foray into Epic Fantasy, Rebecca Roanhorse has jumped straight up to the top pantheon of my go-to writers for anything fantasy. I was already a fan of her writing, having devoured the urban fantasy books, The Trail of Lightning and The Storm of Locusts . And now, with this stunning towering feat of imagination inspired by Pre Columbian civilisations, The Black Sun, she just blew my expectations away.  The Black Sun is set in a time and place, possibly inspired by the early pre-columbian civilisations that dates back to the times before America was discovered by Columbus. Myths, magic, Gods and faiths rule the society. There are class divides, painfully evident in both the history and the present of this world on the edge of a cataclysmic event - that of the Winter Solstice and an impending solar eclipse. Now we know the Sun God has been a chief deity worshipped during such times but Rebecca's fertile imagination weaves up multiple 'clans' in this society ...

Happy New Year folks!  It's the start of a new decade and I am super excited. Looking back at how 2019 has gone down for me, I mostly take pride. My total books read has hit 54 (That's a book every week!) with a few in various final stages as they stand today, on 31st Dec. What has helped that tally this year, is the advent of audio books in a big way in my life. I have managed to finish 13 audio books this year (A book every month!), which is phenomenal for me. Combing through this list, there are quite a few shining gems for the year, that I have loved to bits and would categorise as the best reads of the year. A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie: The return of the Lord Grim Dark to his brutal lawless world of the First Law trilogy was indeed, a welcome one.  The wheels of time are turning and an age of madness descends into this world.  A Little Hatred  features the sons and daughters of our intrepid 'heroes' of the original trilogy. Complex, twisted, n...

Rebecca Roanhorse easily makes a bid for becoming my hot favourite author in the recent times, with this strong second instalment of the Sixth World Series A Storm of Locusts - an imaginative hot mash up of urban fantasy with a twist, throwing in the depth of amazing world building based on Navajo myths and immersive characterisation, making us root for this central character, a monster-slayer with an attitude named  Maggie Hoskie along with her friends. Trail of Lightning was an electrifying opener to this series, introducing us to the world of Dine'tah, indigenous people who found sanctuary behind the Great Wall, a magical structure built by the Dine'tah council to save their world when the rest of it got wiped out, in a combination of floods (Big Water) and war (Energy Wars) Some of the them, including Maggie, our central protagonist had this awakening of magical abilities, traced back to their original tribes. It also brought down the Navajo Gods of the legends d...

Trail of lightning will possibly be among my top five books of the year. Period. Navajo legends, mythical monsters, Gods and wicked men - all of this comes to life in Rebecca Roanhorse 's urban fantasy debut that will rock the socks off you, by the time you are even half-way through. For me, the experience was a double joy as this was my first audible title and the breathtaking Sixth World , ravaged by the apocalyptic floods known as the Big Water in the near future, is so wonderfully depicted by Rebecca's sprightly writing and brought to life by narrator, Tanis Paranteau's amazing rendition. Set in a completely immersive native world that begs for more exploration, headlined by a native young woman as the kickass protagonist and written by Rebecca, who herself is from the Navajo area in the US. Refreshingly original, did you say? Oh yes. Dinetah is a Navajo region surrounded by vast magical walls cut off from the rest of the world (that has seen massive economic,...