Sam Vimes is back in Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld novel—Snuff—and he hasn’t changed a bit. When Sybil talks him into taking a vacation in the countryside, Sam of course brings his work along. Between bouts of complaining about the aristocracy and the lack of loud city noises, Commander/Duke Vimes soon finds skulduggery afoot and simply […]
Author Neil Gaiman recently interviewed Sir Terry Pratchett, following the release of Snuff, and the resulting dialogue has been published on BoingBoing.net. It’s worth a look if you’re a fan of Discworld. NG: The Watch fascinate me. You get to do hardboiled police procedurals while still writing funny smart books set in a fantastic world. […]
The Towers of the Sunset is the second book, by order of publication, in L. E. Modesitt’s Saga of Recluce. (First book: The Magic of Recluce) It’s a prequel, covering the story behind the founding of Recluce, the island haven of Order mages. It takes awhile to get into Towers, not only because you’re unceremoniously […]
If you’ve already read Changes (the twelfth book of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files), you know how shocking a few of its plot developments were. If you haven’t, stop reading before you run into some major spoilers. Yes, Harry Dresden—Chicago’s undead-fighting wizard detective—is now a ghost. After the deal he made with Queen Mab and […]
First Lord’s Fury brings Jim Butcher’s Roman-inspired fantasy epic The Codex Alera to a spectacular conclusion. Gaius Octavian returns to Alera, from the Canim lands across the sea, and is ready to do battle with the Vord. It’s fitting that the final battle takes place in the Calderon Valley, where it all began. The book […]
The Vord have returned to Alera. The invading insectoids are more powerful than ever—now with Furycraft—and they’re quickly sweeping across Alera. The First Lord must stave-off the attack, despite his rapidly failing health. Convincing the High Lords to cooperate is quite an undertaking. Meanwhile, Tavi and company are in Canea, the land of the wolf-like […]
In Cursor’s Fury, the fourth novel in Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series, Tavi’s identity is finally reviewed. Who he is, and why he didn’t develop furycrafting abilities until so late in life. Astute readers may have already figured out his parentage and the political ramifications, but the big secret comes out in the open during […]
The third in the series, Cursor’s Fury takes place two years after the events of the previous Codex Alera book. Tavi is now a full Cursor, going undercover as a military officer in a new Legion that is soon sent to a distant corner of Alera to fight a much larger invasion force of Canim […]
The Magic of Recluce is the sort of book that takes a little while to get into, but it’s hard to put down after. L. E. Modesitt tells the story from the first-person perspective of Lerris, a “bored” youth born on the island of Recluce. The Order-obsessed nation pushes him to leave on the dangergeld—a […]
Set two years after The Furies of Calderon, Jim Butcher’s Academ’s Fury continues the story of Alera. Tavi is now a student at the Alera Imperial Academy, secretly studying to become a Cursor—one of the First Lord’s intelligence agents. The other characters from the first book are similarly occupied with new responsibility and battles of […]
