Smorgasbord Fantasia

 This week we are featuring the upcoming new epic fantasy series opener from Stephen Deas , The Moonsteel Crown - from Angry Robot books. For now, while the description seems a bit sparse I will trust that Stephen Deas is a prolific writer and definitely one of the masters of the genre (Memory of Flames series) - and quite blindly take the plunge into this exciting new world he is building out.  The Emperor of Aria is dead, and three junior members of a street gang are unwittingly caught up in the ensuing struggle for the throne, in the first epic adventure in a new fantasy world from a master of the genre. The Emperor of Aria has been murdered, the Empire is in crisis, and Dead Men walk the streets... But Myla, Fings, and Seth couldn't care less. They're too busy just trying to survive in the Sulk-struck city of Varr, committing petty violence and pettier crimes to earn their keep in the Unrulys, a motley gang led by Blackhand.  When the Unrulys are commissioned to ste...

Order of the Scales is the third book in the planned trilogy: Memory of Flames set in the Dragon Realms and follows the individual storylines of the different Kings and Queens of the Dragon Realms to a satisfactory closure.  Stephen Deas continues to do what he does best: skyrocket the tale forward in a brutal breathlessly frenetic manner and kill off people you care about, leaving the world a burnt-out smoky ruin with stragglers and fire-breathing dragons for survivors. If anything, the pacing is even better in the third book as we finally get to the big showdown that the Dragon Realms have been waiting for, for the past two books. All that scheming, skullduggery, backstabbing and bloody politicking finally comes to a grand finale – fiery, brutal and shocking one at that – as the battles for supremacy between Kings and Queens and the awakened dragons and the Adamantine Men comes to a head. It is guaranteed fireworks and wholesome entertainment – bloody pitched battle...

Second book in the Memory and Flames series. Stephen Deas still plays to his strengths, that is a jet setting story burning on rocket fuel with multiple POVs, bloody battles fought in the air, some bits of magic thrown in for good measure, not a lot of world building but enough hints to visualize a fantastic one, and giant fire breathing mad dragons hurtling through the air and slamming into each other, searing up everything around them. A good book that is again a breathless frenetic read. Deas has obviously sacrificed some quality for the sake of scorching pace that he sets up again. Book Two is even faster than Book One. Frankly in terms of plot, not too much really happens. Book One had all the set pieces being arrayed in place and now all of it comes to play. An all-out dragon-war in the realms of the dragon lords. What made Stephen Deas call this book, the King of the Crags, is still a mystery to me. Book One builds an aura around this strange king who has never st...

Book Review: The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas I have not read Stephen Deas before. I should have. He’s already a phenomenon in the fantasy scene. Having completed an astounding epic fantasy series called the Memory of Flames, he’s sitting pretty on top of the pile. Adamantine Palace is his debut novel and introduces us to the world of Dragon Realms where Kings and Queens rule with an iron fist the lands divided between and pay their homage to the Speaker of the Realms, a powerful figure who arbitrates between the dragon lords and rules from the Adamantine Palace and of course, where the skies are ruled by the magnificent creatures of fire, dragons.  The first book traces the Machiavellian plots and the titanic struggles between the scheming kings and queens as they vie for the position of the Speaker. It also draws up a parallel plot of the dragons within this realm who are domesticated with the help of potions brewed by the alchemists and thus serve their riders ...