Rakesfall is one of the most original and interesting works of SFF I have read. It pushes the boundaries of the genre in surprising and experimental ways. Its themes are revealed as much through narrative structure as through character and plot, which made for a unique and engaging reading experience.
Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.
Annelid and Leveret met as children in the middle of the Sri Lankan civil war. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no…
The Wizard Knight is an underrated classic of fantasy. While Gene Wolfe's solar cycle books (particularly The Book of the New Sun) get lots of love and attention for their narrative complexity and depth, The Wizard Knight is off in the corner doing magic tricks and handstands hoping someone will notice. This was simultaneously an immersive and entertaining fantasy adventure and a devious puzzle-box of a book.
“Gene Wolfe is the smartest, subtlest, most dangerous writer alive today, in genre or out of it. This book [is] important and wonderful.” —Neil Gaiman on The Knight. A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of works of fantasy like The Once and Future King, or The Wizard of Earthsea, that drink directly from the wellspring of myth. Now it appears in a single-volume edition for the first time.. A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm consisting of seven levels of reality. Transformed by magic into…
The Secret Hours makes an excellent companion piece to the Slough House series with some of Herron's best characterization and plotting. I've been a massive fan of Mick Herron's slightly sideways and subversive spy novels since watching Slow Horses S1 and immediately binging the books available at the time. While not part of the main series, The Secret Hours tells its own compelling story of Cold War espionage and goes a long way towards fleshing out the backstories of some of the Slough House series' most fascinating and enigmatic characters.
All my life, I have been torn between two legacies: that of my father, whose roots trace back to the right hand of the Emperor. That of my mother's family, who reject the oppressive Empire and embrace the resistance.
I can choose between them - between protecting my family, or protecting my people - or I can search out a better path . . . a magical path, filled with secrets, unbound by Empire or resistance, which could shake my world to its very foundation.
But my search for freedom will entangle me in a war between the gods themselves . . .
