This is the second novel in Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy and is just as fascinating as the first. Fitz returns to the Six Duchies still weak and shaken from his trials in the mountains. While the first novel had a great deal of information about the things Fitz learned and …

This is apparently the first novel by Richard K. Morgan, which is astonishing given how good it is. There are very few novels that I think compare to Neuromancer for near future and cyberpunk type settings, and this one is fabulous. Technology concepts are introduced in a sensible and not …

This is the first book in the Farseer trilogy, and the story of a boy who is handed over to the royal family of Farseers when he is six years old. The bastard son of the King in Waiting, Prince Chivalry, he has no name and is known simply as …

This is the first novel of the Tir Alainn trilogy, and it is amazingly rich and vibrant. It has Witches, Inquisitors, Smallfolk and Fae all twined together in a new way. The inquisitors are quite unusual. They are led by Adolfo, the Witch Hammer, who behaves exactly as one would …

The first few chapters of this story begin with rather unusual and confronting events. Fawn Bluefield is traveling to the town of Glassforge, hoping to find work and start a new life away from her overbearing family. She tries to avoid trouble by hiding from a patrol of Lakewalkers, only …

In all the previous Retrieval Artist novels Miles Flint has been haunted by the death of Emmeline, his baby daughter. Now while he is examining the files left by his mentor Paloma, he finds references to her and his ex-wife Rhonda Shindo. He researches to find out why a Retrieval …

The City is isolated. There is some land around the city, but beyond that there is nothing. Every twenty years the city performs the ceremony of the iron fish and things are changed. Years ago, whole sections of the city moved and were rearranged, new animals, new places arrived through …

This is Michelle Marquardt’s first novel, and I was fairly impressed with it. It flows well, has interesting characters and doesn’t info-dump, which would have been an easy trap to fall into in this style of novel. The setting is a space station which is in the middle of negotiations …

This was a book that didn’t feel to me as though it fit into the mold of the first three Black Jewels novels. Of course the first three had their own story arc, which is now complete, but it was different in other ways too. Set after the events of …

This is a warm and very human novel that explores ideas which are enticing, raw and sometimes uncomfortable. Ofelia is an old woman, at 70 years of age, she has spent the last forty years living in the first colony of a new planet. Working, looking after people, doing what …