Fantasy of all kinds is my jam, but I particularly like stories that weave monsters or myths into real life. When an author manages to reinvent a familiar monster trope, like Vivian Shaw with Van Helsing, and spin it into a new, stylized story, that’s the best display of cleverness. I’ve read an embarrassing amount of these kinds of books from Terry Pratchett to Frank Herbert. I think the notion of monsters/creatures/gods is our way of examining the different layers of the human psyche and a well-written monster trope story delivers that self-examination with a spoon full of fantastical sugar.
Here we follow Tori as she’s scooped up by the Villain’s Guild and given two choices: apprentice or die. And so Tori finds herself apprenticed out, forced to work in corporate America, plan heists on the side, and dodge the Heroes intent on nabbing her. Drew Hayes is a master of world-building. His dry sense of humor coupled with his expansive imagination on powers, super or magic or mutant, blows my mind. I love pretty much all the characters—how complex and authentic they read. I also love how Hayes’ writing often gets you to examine your own inherent prejudices. Who are the monsters? Where are the lines between good guys and bad guys? And the big question: what’s really important in life?
From Drew Hayes, author of Super Powereds and Fred, the Vampire Accountant, comes a series set in a new world of capes, cowls, and superheroes.
Gifted with metahuman powers in a world full of capes and villains, Tori Rivas kept away from the limelight, preferring to work as a thief in the shadows. But when she’s captured trying to rob a vault that belongs to a secret guild of villains, she’s offered a hard choice: prove she has what it takes to join them or be eliminated.
Apprenticed to one of the world’s most powerful (and supposedly dead) villains, she…
Discount Armageddon was my introduction to urban fantasy where monsters are everywhere. Seanan is also a great world-builder and the extensive variety of cryptids in her work is impressive. The tone can only be described as cheeky. We follow Verity Price, a wannabe professional dancer and secret cryptozoologist, who has a cult of talking mice living in her kitchen. I like how upfront Verity is about the difficulties in her life. She doesn’t paint a rosy picture, but she doesn’t let it hold her back either. Challenges are meant to be faced and overcome. Failures are educational. Also, the dragons in this particular story are awesome.
The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity - and humanity from them.
Meet Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan to pursue her dream career in professional ballroom dance. That is, until talking mice, telepathic mathematicians, and a tangle with the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George, get in her way...
The Valor of Valhalla series by Martin Kearns is a pulse-pounding dark urban fantasy trilogy that fuses the raw power of Norse mythology with the grit of modern warfare. Set in a world where ancient gods and mythical creatures clash with secret military organizations and rogue heroes, the series follows…
Greta Helsing’s family dropped the ‘Van’ half a century ago. And they don’t hunt vampires so much as heal them. That’s right, Greta is a supernatural doctor. Vivian Shaw has created a world where the good guys are genuinely good, unselfish people. I love me an antihero, but it’s a refreshing change of pace when the good guys really just want to help other people without ulterior motives. Despite the fact that most of the characters aren’t human, it restores my faith in humanity. I also appreciate the historical references and subtle geekery in these books. For example, Greta is a specialist in mummy reconstruction, and the detail Shaw goes into, just tickles me.
The first book in a delightfully witty fantasy series in which Dr. Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, must defend London from both supernatural ailments and a bloodthirsty cult
Greta Helsing inherited her family's highly specialized and highly peculiar medical practice. In her consulting rooms, Dr. Helsing treats the undead for a host of ills: vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. Although she barely makes ends meet, this is just the quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta's been groomed for since childhood.
Until a sect of murderous monks emerges, killing human and undead Londoners alike. As terror…
I did not expect to like The Kaiju Preservation Society and, frankly, the first couple of chapters gave me pandemic PTSD. The book is set firmly in the very beginning of the Covid lockdown and who wants to revisit that? But, the story does not linger in lockdown (thank the gods!) Nope, very quickly the story delves into the KPS, its mission, and its… well, location. And it is so damn funny. I laughed out loud through most of the book, sometimes with tears running down my face. The tone is flippant and fun, the situations absurd. The monsters are not exactly fuzzy, but wonderful. When your job involves protecting the monsters, you can’t expect things to go smoothly.
The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy.
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here…
A fast-paced literary thriller with a strong sci-fi element and loaded with existential questions. Beyond the entertainment value, this book takes a hard look at the perilous world of publishing, which is on a crash course to meet the nascent, no-holds-barred world of AI. Could these worlds co-exist, or will…
When your line of work is necromancy—monsters, zombies, and the Devil are all sort of a given. What makes Johannes Cabal so wonderful is how dismissive he is of all that. Listen, he has a mission: to beat Death. No one, not Satan or a stupid diabolical bet, are going to stand in his way. Jonathan Howard based this on the classic Something Wicked This Way Comes. Most of his books pay homage to one classic or another from Sherlock Holmes to Cthulu. It’s fun seeing how he works those details in while maintaining his own voice and style. But I really love how bad of a person Johannes is. And yet, you can’t help but root for him anyway.
The page-turning first novel in the charmingly gothic, fiendishly funny Faustian series about a brilliant scientist who makes a deal with the Devil, twice. • "The spot-on work of a talented writer." —The Denver Post
Johannes Cabal sold his soul years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. Now he wants it back. Amused and slightly bored, Satan proposes a little wager: Johannes has to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever. This time for real. Accepting the bargain, Jonathan is given one calendar year and a traveling carnival to…
Do you stop assassins from killing your evil boss or help them out?
With the holidays looming and student loans coming to call, Kate McGovern needs to find a good-paying job and fast, preferably away from the masses of caffeine junkies and coffee snobs. But finding a job sucks. Finding your first proper job after college when you have no experience and no idea what you want to do really sucks. Then Kate’s favorite customer puts her up for an executive assistant gig with one of the richest men in Boston. And suddenly, Kate’s luck has changed. The catch? Her new boss expects her to read his mind. Literally. And she’s pretty sure he’s evil. No big deal. First jobs are always tough, right?
An ambitious orphan. A ruthless warlord. An impossible destiny.
Arya Nameless is a lowly Raider posted to an isolated fort in the most dangerous place in Dunidaen. She has few prospects, and as much as she loves her fellow soldiers, she burns for more—more control, more autonomy, more power.
When…
This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto…
