The whole novella is centred around the relationship of Scholar Dieu and a tiger (who can turn into a human, it works okay) named Ho Thi Tao. Continue reading
Category Archives: Fantasy
Book review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
So what’s it about. At its heart is a Faustian bargain: Addie gives her soul to an old god in exchange for time and freedom. She’s in 18th century France and about to be shipped off to marry the town widower and it’s not what she wants for her life Continue reading
Book review: Silk and Steel
This was a kickstartered anthology (which I contributed to), which takes the speculative tropes of a man rescuing a woman (and them falling for each other), but in this case they are both women. Continue reading
Book review: The City We Became
The plot is basically cities are ‘born’, in that the accrue enough history, myths and legends that they pierce through different realities to become a living breathing thing, with a human avatar that becomes its champion. Continue reading
Book review: The route of ice and salt
A translation of a Mexican gothic Dracula retelling, focussing on the Captain of the Demeter. Continue reading
Book review: Ring Shout
Ring Shout takes place after World War 1, where in the southern United States, the Ku Klux Klan are on the rise. Except in this stories, instead of being just monstrous humans, they are monsters. Continue reading
Book review: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians
The novel has a pretty fun concept, basically the French Revolution but with magic. And that rights include the rights of commoners to wield their magic (parallel with voting rights see?) And we see the action from three points: Robespierre in France, Pitt and Wilberforce in London, and Toussaint (again through the eyes of Fina, who is a slave who escapes Jamaica). Continue reading
Book review: Dangerous Remedy
The first thing I appreciated was that even though it takes place in The Terror of Revolutionary France, the details that build the universe are all very personal to the characters. Continue reading
Book review: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
We follow a group of bandits, who inadvertently get hijacked by a nun, Guet Imm. It is a fairly straight forward plot – going to delivery some good – with somethings going awry in the process. Continue reading
Book review: The Empress of Salt and Fortune
The story itself was just very well woven, told through different artefacts (which again helped with the world building) that had belonged to the empress during her time in exile. Rabbit and Chih had very different personalities, alongside the Empress who we se through the eyes of Rabbit. Continue reading