The Shadow King by Alec Hutson
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Raveling (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Pages: 506 pages
Published: 21st November 2019 by Alec Hutson (Indie)
A thoroughly wonderful classic fantasy story with a modern narrative. …
ARC provided by the publisher—Orbit—in exchange for an honest review.
The Light of All That Falls by James Islington
My rating: 6 of 5 stars
Series: The Licanius Trilogy (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic fantasy, High Fantasy
Published: 12th December 2019 by Orbit (UK) & 10th December 2019 by Orbit (US)
A breathtakingly audacious masterpiece of epic fantasy, The Light of All That Falls is an emotionally satisfying and flawless conclusion to the phenomenal Licanius Trilogy.
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ARC provided by the publisher—Tor UK—in exchange for an honest review.
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Serpent Gates (Book #1 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High fantasy, Science fiction
Published: 20th February 2020 by Tor (UK) & 11th February 2020 by Tor Books (US)
The Unspoken Name is a commendable fantasy debut with fascinating worldbuilding ideas.
With so many fantasy debuts cropping up every year, it is not an easy task to differentiate oneself from the rest. In this respect, Larkwood has created an interesting setting that blended old-world god worship that bestows magic, and science fiction or technological elements such as skyships and a dimensional plane called the Maze of Echos through which these ships travel via portal gates. Technology aside, the setting still feel very much like most classic fantasy, mainly because of the prevalence of gods and magic.
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ARC provided by the publisher—Orbit—in exchange for an honest review.
The Light of All That Falls by James Islington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Licanius Trilogy (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic fantasy
Pages: 864 pages
Published: 12th December 2019 by Orbit (UK) & 10th December 2019 by Orbit (US)
The Light of All That Falls is an absolute marvel, a prodigious finishing touch to an ingeniously plotted series.
Here’s a little statistic to give you an idea of how much I loved this book and series. If you look at my Goodreads profile, you can take a look at my list of favorite authors. Inside this list are authors who have written three or more books—that I’ve read, of course—to be included in my “favorites” shelf. Before today—out of approximately four hundred books I’ve read—there were eight authors on this list. With one trilogy, and without a shadow of a doubt, I’m going to include James Islington as the ninth author to join my list of favorite authors. Binge reading this trilogy for the first time blew me away, and I’m already looking forward to rereading it in the future. If you stumbled upon this review without having read the previous books in the trilogy, rest assured that this review will be spoiler-free; no details regarding the plot will be mentioned. There is, however, a better option for you, pick up The Shadow of What Was Lost and begin binge-reading this astounding series. Now. …
The Silver Sorceress by Alec Hutson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Series: The Raveling (Book #2 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Pages: 499 pages
Published: 2nd October 2018 by Alec Hutson (Indie)
A remarkable sequel, I really can’t get enough of reading Hutson’s writing.
“No matter where you go in the world, those with a little authority—but no real power—are all the same.”
An Echo of Things to Come by James Islington
Petrik’s rating: 5 of 5 stars
TS’s rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Licanius Trilogy (Book #2 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic fantasy
Pages: 752 pages
Published: 24th August 2017 by Orbit (UK) & 22nd August 2017 by Orbit (US) …
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Stand-alone
Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Published: September 12th, 2019 by Orbit (UK) & September 10th, 2019 by Redhook (US)
“…there are ten thousand stories about ten thousand Doors, and we know them as well as we know our names. They lead to Faerie, to Valhalla, Atlantis and Lemuria, Heaven and Hell, to all the directions a compass could never take you, to elsewhere.”
I have been watching my cats lazing about in the warm, reposeful afternoon sun. Languid stretches and lazy yawns and leisurely rolls. Complete comfort and contentment. The sheer bliss of surrendering to the moment evident in their eyes. Melting, mellow happiness. Felicity.
That is the feeling that came over me upon finishing this book, and I basked in every second of its warmth. Lyrical. Stunning. Beautiful. Spellbinding. Richly imagined. Eloquent. Wistful. A riotous swirl of adjectives, all apt and all applicable. The Ten Thousand Doors of January is an emphatically stunning debut by Alix E. Harrow, delivering a tale that speaks to one of humanity’s oldest fantasies – visiting another world.
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The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington
Petrik’s rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
TS’s rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Licanius Trilogy (Book #1 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic fantasy
Pages: 736 pages
Published: 3rd August 2014 (self-published). 8th November 2016 by Orbit (US) & 10th November 2016 by Orbit (UK). …
The Crimson Queen by Alec Hutson
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: The Raveling (Book #1 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Pages: 423 pages
Published: 28th November 2016 by Alec Hutson (Indie)
This book should’ve earned more fame and praise. A familiar and utterly well-written start to an epic fantasy series with prose redolent of Brian Staveley’s writing style; I loved it.
Back in 2017-2018, when I was still a reviewer for Booknest, I was one of the judges for SPFBO 3 held by Mark Lawrence. In that year’s SPFBO, The Crimson Queen by Alec Hutson won the joint runner-up spot together with Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe. My ex-blog chose this novel as their pick for the best book of the competition. Admittedly, I didn’t get assigned to reading The Crimson Queen, I didn’t know how good it was, but Celeste, one of my co-blogger from back then (and now) did read it, and she occasionally reminded me to give this book a go because she loved it very much. Two years since SPFBO 3 has ended, here I am finally getting around to reading this book, and I will say this: my ex-blog made the right choice. I would’ve personally chosen The Crimson Queen as the top book for SPFBO 3 myself if I had read it back then.
“The arrogance of writing comes not from the finished creation, but from the very act itself. What hubris is required for a single mind to believe that its thoughts should populate the world? What unbridled arrogance is it to disperse ideas like the petals of a dandelion in the wind, allowing them to float free, to germinate in the minds of others like an invasive weed?”
Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen (Book 5 of 10)
Genre: Epic fantasy, grimdark fantasy
First published: 2004 by Bantam (UK) and 2007 by Tor (US)
Betrayal. Lies. Greed. Power.
These are the dominant themes presiding over Midnight Tides, the excellent fifth chapter of Malazan Book of the Fallen, which opened with a Prologue dated back to the Time of the Elder Gods, providing yet another history lesson into this deeply complex world.
One would expect that progressing through the series should only get easier right? It seems though that Erikson decided to up the ante for worldbuilding by bringing the reader to a completely new far-flung continent and an entire cast of new characters. There is only ONE name that is familiar in the Dramatis Personae, one whom we met in the previous book – Trull Sengar. It turns out that Midnight Tides was dedicated to relate the story of how Trull ended up being in his dire position as we’ve seen in the Prologue of House of Chains. …