Smorgasbord Fantasia

I only picked up Signal to Noise because I had got approved for Silvia Morena Garcia 's second book, Certain Dark Things review copy - and when I did a quick search, Signal to Noise surfaced as her debut - highly acclaimed, a literary work with splashes of supernatural magic and copious references to popular music. Intrigued, I went ahead and got myself a copy - but got around to reading it at a stretch only a few days back. Suffice to say that retro Mexico, birthday mix-tapes and vinyl records drew me in, like  a magical spell, not unlike the ones that play out in the book itself; a magic that resided in the musical records that the protagonists of Signal to Noise kept obsessing over. So the story is set in parallel time-lines, 1988/89 and 2009 - ping-pongs back and forth building on the suspense and the emotional resonance - building on the life and times of Meche , Mercedes Vaga who has come back to mexico city to attend her father's funeral in 2009. And being back...

So The Vagrant by Peter Newman has been on my TBR - now, for over a year or more. It actually came out last year in May and ever since I read all the initial reviews of this one, I have been itching to get my hands on this one. So finally this year, I picked up a paperback version and set down to read it - a few months back. Unfortunately, the e-books on my kindle kept piling up and screaming for my attention; so despite being extremely interested in the initial couple of chapters, this intriguing, new-weird post-apocalyptic mishmash of a knockout story slipped away from my attention. I finally decided I will come back to the story earlier this week but trust me, despite this being a modestly sized fantasy book, the details are overwhelming and pretty dense if you glaze them over. So nope, I had to do a re-read to get my bearings right. And man, am I glad I did this. So a mute hooded knight, a delightful baby, a super-sword and a stubborn goat traveling across a desolate, war-...

Growing up, history was my favorite subject (Given that my mother was a history teacher and at least till Tenth I absolutely loved sinking back into the legends that make up our world in the annals of history! After Tenth grade though, the sciences took over!) The Grace of Kings is epic fantasy yes - but it oh so beautifully reads like my favorite historical lesson. (Impossible not to draw parallel with the Classical Age of Ancient China, the rise and fall of dynasties that make up the rich layered tapestry of this nation's history!) Ken Liu has swept through every award possible with his short fiction - and we were so glad and super excited that we were finally getting a full fledged novel from him! So with respect to the expectations, it was of course stratospheric and breaking beyond the outer edges of every space-barrier discovered or not. But with The Grace of Kings, the opening salvo in the Dandelion Dynasty, Ken proves beyond any spec of a doubt that he can walk away ...

So I know, last month the Red Queen's War  officially came to end - with the third book in the series, The   Wheel of Oshiem having got released. And this was the one series where people were raving that put Mark Lawrence on a pedestal, higher than what he achieved with his first series, the Broken Empire. And you know, how much of a scream that kid, Jorg Ancrath was. I had grown to like him. Here's where I will let you in on a secret - I love Mark Lawrence simply because he is one of the few authors who inspires me to write better. His writing chops are top notch. Be it the razor-sharp story-telling or the brilliant characterization or the lucid narrative that is so riveting and compelling that you cannot help but be amazed and carried away in the flow - and you overlook the fact that perhaps, the story is a bit too dark and grim. With his second series, Mark's definitely taken care of that aspect, the complaints around grim-dark. Prince Jalan Kendeth , the ...

Traitor's Blade was one of the best debuts of 2014 and also one of my best reads that year. I wasn't sure how Sebastien De Castell was going to top that. And yet incredibly, he does just that - and so wonderfully well! With the second book in the Greatcoats series, Knight's Shadow that follows the exploits of the lovable roguish trio of Falcio, Kest and Brasti - as they go about trying to fulfill their king's last wishes in a country that is rapidly falling in to the chaos of civil war. Knight's Shadow picks up right after the events in the Traitor's Blade - where Falcio is struggling with the poison of neatha in his blood, Kest after having defeated Caveil and thus taken on the mantle of the Saint of the Swords is also buckling under the unprecedented "fever" that Saints's experience and Brasti's jokes are getting even more unbearable and his shaky faith in their king's ideals are crumbling even faster. Trin is marching across th...

The second novella from tor.com that I'm reading and hot damn, is it good! Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a heart-wrenching densely layered beautiful novella - in the style of sword-and-sorcery fantasy novel but one that remains truly literary in its execution. Kai Ashante should be writing a full fledged novel now and I will be jumping on board for sure. At a little over two hundred pages, Kai builds a world that is deep and profoundly interesting in its construct. Is this Earth a few hundred years in the future or a world altogether new? I couldn't figure. Angels and Demi Gods have left for their heavenly abodes. Demane and Isa , the two central characters of the book are the only ones left, behind great grand-children to the older gods, trying to learn the ways of normal human civilizations, bickering and learning to negotiate the worth of yellow colored metal coins and such useless trivial pursuits. Eking out life as a mercenary band of soldiers protecting rich merc...

The Invisible Library is the dazzling debut from Genevieve Cogman that came out in 2015 - with the second part of this rollicking series, Masked City having just hit the stores last Dec. As usual, I am late to this party but I am so glad I am on-board. The book has one of the most interesting premises I've ever read and is soaked in nostalgia reminiscent of a good old fantasy tale done just right. Magic, steampunk, detective-story - all rolled in one filled with danger lurking around every other page leading to non-stop adventures. this one reads like pure unadulterated fun. So as the name suggests, the book introduces readers to the Library - an institute that collects interesting fiction from different alternate versions of the world and is tasked with preserving the order in such worlds by balancing out 'chaos' ( A sort of unregulated magic that runs riot and destroys worlds). We join Irene, a junior librarian on the way back from a regular mission ( one that in...

It’s been a hectic year for me – what with my debut, Faith of the Nine hitting the markets in November – since October my reading has really hit a slump. For the first time ever, since I started setting a goal for myself, I didn’t hit my strides and missed the goal this year. Wanted to finish at least 70 books this year – I knew it was a stretch ( compared to last year’s 55 – where I actually surpassed it and hit 65!) but I was pretty confident, being ahead of my goals by the mid-year. Sadly for me, the last three months were really pretty off – derailed with all marketing and post-publication activities for my book and as of date, the tally read a total of 60 books.  Missed by 10. Still a round figure of 60 ain’t bad huh? Well, the good news is that I did read a lot of good ones from which I am going to select my best-reads. No real number, just the ones I REALLY liked in 2015. In no particular order: Gemini Cell by Myke Cole : Myke Cole continues to blaze his pa...

Dave vs the Monsters, Emergence is the first book in the Dave Hooper trilogy featuring a middle-aged oil-rig safety officer who gets dragged into a fight between humans and monsters who live in the ‘under-realm’ – the first book details the war that starts off when the monsters ‘emerge’ onto Earth, when some accidental portals are opened between the two realms. Now Dave Hooper is the ultimate cad, a worthless jerk who loves nothing more than holidaying off the rig with exotic women, bowlful of cocaine and other such stuff that lets him forget his responsibilities in the real world. Not only on the job but to his kids and wife. A frequent guilt-trip when Dave thinks about his wife, soon to be divorced but never really making any dent on the selfish pleasure-trip that he always gravitates to. It’s kind of sad that there are absolutely no redeeming qualities about this character that could make us like him – since the future of the world – facing this otherworldly horde on a m...

With this novella from Tor.com, Daniel Polansky has become my all-time favorite grim-dark author. Builders packs in quite a lot of punch in this small novella, just over hundred and ninety pages that is a unique mix of spaghetti western by way of blood-soaked revenge story featuring fantastical furry intelligent animals banding together for one final "job". This is my introduction to Polansky's works - having missed out the Low Town series of books - and what an introduction! Bullets flying fast, furry feathers exploding everywhere, sparse and stark dark humor filling up the silence left in the narrative when this anthropomorphic fantasy gets rolling. It's sheer genius to have got this right. And Daniel does a bang-up job of investing us in the bleak future of this group of animals - getting ready Kill-Bill style to avenge an old slight against a powerful enemy who had split them up once before. A band of friends, getting together for that one last job is s...

Confessions, I haven’t played the Deadlands RPG before nor did I have any clue as to what the game is about. So was a greenhorn thrust headlong into this fantastic world – a weird western landscape where the discovery of “ghost-rock” has accelerated technological innovations and at the same time, thinned the veil between worlds to allow for other-worldly ‘souls’ to invade the human realm. And man, did I love this pulpy adventure or what. This unlikely juxtaposition of two to three different genres makes for a crackling hotbed of stories and ideas ripe for more. And Jonathan Maberry , the best-selling author of the Joe Ledger series, digs right in and comes up with pure gold in this opener to this franchise-based novels. A highly entertaining story that is a mix of action, horror and comedy. This is not any high-brow literature but an all-out over-the-top mix of tropes done right, served as a heady concoction of blazing gun fights, zombies, necromancers, the untamed wei...

So Forget Tomorrow has a really interesting premise: What if your future was already decided and you receive your future memory on your seventeenth birthday? Makes for a crackling mix of science fiction/time travel/dystopian themes, huh. Pintip Dunn writes engagingly well and I was swept into the story right from the beginning– chiefly through the lovely portrayal of Callie, the protagonist of the story. We enter the world – with Callie a day shy of her seventeenth birthday in Amerie, where technology has taken over lives and your future is decided and handed over to you as a memory dictating how you would live to achieve the said future. Now Callie, on expected lines, deviates from the said pattern. Her memory is pretty disturbing, where she walks into a hospital and then kills her own sister, Jessa. Crimes like these usually end up in arrests – by the Future Memory Agency. Callie trusting the authorities obviously doesn’t want this horrifying future to come true and turns he...

I admit I haven't read Derek Landy before this. Demon Road was my first taste - and if this one's any indication, then I'm going to be a lifelong fan - hook, line and sinker, that's how this book reeled me in right from the first sentence, " Twelve hours before Amber Lamont's parents tried to kill her.... " The book is a rollicking riotous ride through the highways of hell ( here called the demon road that passes through the heartlands of America filled with supernatural beings) featuring a sixteen year old protagonist, Amber - a girl who alternates between her shy, under-confident, plain-looking internet-geek avatar and her demonic uber-sexy, ultra-confident, red avatar with curvy black horns & long legs. This girl is the life and blood of the book - and Derek truly paints out a memorable character of Amber who pumps life into this road trip through your worst nightmares come alive. Packed with Derek's trademark razor sharp wit ( Mental...

Bradley is one of the genre's finest talents pushing the boundaries and scope of fantasy. And he proves it again in fantastic style with the Twelve Kings in Sharakhai , first book in the Song of the Shattered Sands series. His first series,  Lays of Anuskaya introduced us to a russo-mythology inspired world with a touch of the forgotten Ottoman culture in lush detail. The Twelve Kings takes a step further and takes us right into the heart of a captivating and wondrous world of a desert civilization where Gods grant power to mortals, the undead walk the sands at night and subterfuge and intrigue rule the day. So Twelve Kings is set in the bustling desert metropolis of Sharakhai , a trading city in the middle of the great sprawling desert. A city that has slums, fighting pits, sprawling mansions, sheesha-denns and tea houses, communal baths and palaces on the hills jostling for the attention of the citizens. The fighting pits sees brutal competitions between champions of ...

Serial fiction isn't new. It's been around for centuries now - but what Serial Box is bringing to this way of storytelling is a super fine collaboration that might just be the next big thing after the Particle Accelerator Explosion. Missing the grit of Daredevil or need that fix of Breaking Bad or are you biting your nails down to bits waiting for the next season of GoT? Well, here's good news for you! Serial Box is bringing to your reading device a pulsating new series that is a combination of supernatural horror and police procedural, sixteen episodes of monster hunting, magic and non stop fun. Officially launched on Sept 16th, I got a chance to read the first episode of the series, Bookburners - Badge, Book & Candle. Written by a team of authors including Margaret Dunlap (Eureka), Mur Lafferty (The Shambling Guide to New York City) and Brian Francis Slattery (Lost Everything), the group is lead by rising genre star Max Gladstone (Three Parts Dead and t...

Retellings of classics have the potential to be spectacular or disastrous. Alice in Wonderland has been tried before - though I confess I haven't read the written form of such retelling but having watched a few adaptations on TV I came away sorely disappointed. Like the big screen never could justify that mad gleam in the Hatter's eyes - as matched perhaps by the twisty imagination of one such as Lewis Caroll. And with this book, Alice - Christina Henry takes a swan dive into that deep dark rabbit-hole and definitely emerges a winner! A book that is dark as sin and racy as hell on jet-fire, Alice is a masterful and disturbing retelling of the classic laced over with many layers of darkness and intrigue. Magic is unexplained as in a fairy tale - but one for kids, this is not. It's a fairy tale gone horribly wrong - more a fantastical thriller set in a madman's darkest nightmarish setting called the Old City, a far cry from the Wonderland. The story starts in a ...

Dawnbreaker , the third book in the Legends of the Duskwalker series by Jay Posey  from Angry Robot was a much awaited book, personally at least. Marking an end to this intense and satisfying series where the world is quivering in the shadow of an unknown apocalypse, reduced to broken buildings and grey concrete ash and pockets of humanity huddled in fear of the dark. I was blown away by the imaginative and new world that Jay (Posey) had built up in Three – a desolate landscape scarred by some unseen apocalypse where people live on the edge of danger on a daily basis, huddled within modest cityscapes surrounded by concrete desert-lands and hunted at night by cyborg-zombies. Jay draws up an exceptionally well thought out digital communication systems in place and then goes on populate this barren world with some hard-hitting realistic protagonists, flawed and vulnerable to a fault and living truly on the edge. The underlying human emotions that drive the characters to...