I am a geophysicist and have spent a career trying to use physics to make predictions. And you know what I have learned? It’s very hard to predict things—even scientific things. Good scientists are humble, but they also understand, a little, of how complex the world is. And perhaps they understand that no one knows—or even can know—everything, including them. Magic, like science, should incite our curiosity and our humility. It is even better if the magic helps deliver the meaning of a story. My novel Dynamicist explores the difficulty of changing the world—and its complex, magic system (based on thermodynamics and signal theory) supports this theme in numerous, unexpected ways.
Lyndon Hardy doesn’t make mastering even one of his magics easy, let alone all five. I was taken from the start by the puzzle nature of Hardy’s novel, where his protagonist, Alodar, must solve one mystery after another. The stakes are high and time is short. Alodar is an underdog, not a master, and he is desperately trying to get a grip on how the five magic systems of his world operate, before it is too late. Alodar’s journey naturally teaches us something about all five systems, each wonderful in their own way, and leaves us reminded that it is so very, very hard to be good at one thing, let alone everything.
Vendora, the crafty queen under siege in a castle that had never fallen.
Alodar, the mere journeyman, learning the least of the five crafts of magic.
He had no right to aspire for her hand --- but aspire he did!
Wizards, sorcerers, dragons, castles, and more!
Alodar's quest takes him from one magical craft to another—each with its own distinct powers and pitfalls. Aided by a mysterious eye from deep within the earth, at a college for magicians, he discovers the secret lying behind the hypnotic flicker of common flame.
The Wheel of Time series has my admiration for its incredible depth. Other fantasy series have set up final, epic, conflicts, but none have done so complete a job of creating a big, interconnected world as Jordan did. And his magic system—the One Power—is given incredible development. It is integral to the religion, history, and even cosmology of his world. There is a historically anchored conflict between men and women in Jordan’s series, and it is exemplified in his magic system, where the men access one side of magic, and the women, the other. This creates a misanthropic rift. How can they save the world when the women, the men, and the magic system cannot seem to work together? It is a huge series at 14 novels, and it all starts in the first book, Eye of the World.
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the Two Rivers seeking their master's enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al'Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light .
In the first chapter, Sanderson’s character Keslier decides to ‘burn tin’. Burn tin? What does that mean? I was hooked. Final Empire is the first novel in the Mistborn series, and Sanderson teaches us his magic system of ‘digesting’ certain magical metals to create fantastic powers, through the eyes of a young magic user named Vin. While I may have occasionally questioned Sanderson’s grasp of physics as Vin bounces along airborne, repelling her body off a coin, I loved his commitment to his system. This is an example of an author and a story that goes all in, and it will take you with it.
Brandon Sanderson - the international phenomenon who finished the Wheel of Time sequence - introduces a fantasy trilogy which overturns the expectations of readers and goes on to tell the epic story of evil overturned in a richly imagined world.
A thousand years ago evil came to the land and has ruled with an iron hand ever since. The sun shines fitfully under clouds of ash that float down endlessly from the constant eruption of volcanoes. A dark lord rules through the aristocratic families and ordinary folk are condemned to lives in servitude, sold as goods, labouring in the ash…
Rothfuss is a brilliant writer—perhaps the only current one whose prose is on a level with Lois McMaster Bujold. From the first page, his words slid into my mind like warm butter on lobster. I loved it. And his magic system is wonderful. Rothfuss is not a scientist, but he does a good job balancing scientific concepts of thermodynamics with purely magical notions involving will and a fabricated nature of reality and mind. His idea that knowing the ‘Name’ of a thing, understanding its true epistemic essence, will convey power over it was lovely. This is a book that is so good, your stomach may hurt as you reach the final pages, for you will want more.
The lyrical fantasy masterpiece about stories, legends and how they change the world. The Name of the Wind is an absolute must-read for any fan of fantasy fiction.
'This is a magnificent book' Anne McCaffrey
'I was reminded of Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, and J. R. R. Tolkein, but never felt that Rothfuss was imitating anyone' THE TIMES
'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University…
I love Adrian Tchaikovski’s work—it feels real. He brings a tremendous level of research to many of his novels, married with a wicked creativity, and it makes his novels unique. Elder Race is a wizard story that made me laugh out loud as I finished it. Is this book science fiction or fantasy? Both, really, and he puts both together in a very nice way. If you want to try a quick read that marries science and magic in a novel, smile-inducing way, read Elder Race.
In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the locals he has sworn to study to save a planet from an unbeatable foe.
Lynesse is the lowly Fourth Daughter of the queen, and always getting in the way.
But a demon is terrorizing the land, and now she's an adult (albeit barely) with responsibilities (she tells herself). Although she still gets in the way, she understands that the only way to save her people is to invoke the pact between her family and the Elder sorcerer who has inhabited the local tower for as…
Would it kill you to create something genuinely new? In Robert’s world, it used to. Young, optimistic, quick of mind, and quick to act, Robert thinks being invited to the New School is an invitation to change the world. Nothing is as simple as it at first seems, least of all change. Robert is surprised and frustrated by everything from his classmates Koria and Eloise stalking him, to protestors claiming that the new grain is poison and its creators should be murdered as inventors in the old days were.
Unable to understand the people around him or even himself, Robert wonders if, instead of entering a golden era of invention, he may instead be on the brink of a cold war and an endless, unchanging dark age.
My favorite fantasy novels tend to be rather complex. Winding plotlines, mysteriously interconnected characters, whimsical settings, and intricate, thoughtful worldbuilding combine to create immersive stories that stick in the mind like overworn folklore. Time travel or interworld travel lend additional layers of intrigue and mystery, forcing the inescapable contemplation of a more thrilling, alternate reality. And if it’s all packaged in artful, breathtaking prose that breeds full-color images, audible noises, indelible flavors, nose-crumpling odors, and tangible textures, I will happily lose myself in the pages, truly forgetting about the strictures of everyday life… at least until I get hungry and remember I need to consume more than books to survive.
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to Ride, but her destiny will pit her against her uncle and king, who have scorned her since before her birth.
In the Exchange, the waystation between realms, Emmelyn fights the G’Ambit, a gambling ring with members more intent on lining their pockets than protecting the realms—or their own lives.
Realm-devouring parasites threaten all existence. The Exchange is desperate to destroy them. But could their radical plans endanger the realms, too?
Soul-sucking parasites are overwhelming the realms.
Rhoswen of Stanburh is of age to train as a Realm Rider—a defender of the realms. Riders and their dragons work together to burn away infiltrating Narxon as they swarm in through tears in a realm’s fabric. But it’s not an easy battle: the mere touch of the smoky, dragon-like adversaries can reduce the lively winged beasts—and their Riders—to ash.
Becoming a Realm Rider is Rhoswen’s dream, but she carries far more responsibility…
