The fourth book in The Dresden Files does not quite reach the heights that the third and fifth books do, but it is still a worthy book. Harry is not in a good place as the book begins, still reeling from the events of Grave Peril (and this almost a year later), and things get steadily worse for our hero as the book commences. From … Continue reading Summer Knight (Jim Butcher) book review
And this is where it gets good. Grave Peril, the third book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, starts about a year after the events of Fool Moon. It’s rather worth emphasising that point: this book takes place a year after the last one. Many series like packing as much events into a short space of time as possible. This is not the case in … Continue reading Grave Peril (Jim Butcher) book review
The second book in The Dresden Files, Fool Moon, sees Harry Dresden come up against werewolves, about six months after the events in the first book. And, in the sense of not letting anyone get left out, Jim Butcher includes four different types of werewolves, thus covering all the bases. It’s an impressive bit of world-building, but the writing isn’t quite good enough to sustain … Continue reading Fool Moon (Jim Butcher) book review
With the fifteenth volume of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files series about to be released (just over a fortnight away as I write these words), I thought it was an appropriate time to reread the series. And to write a few words about it. I haven’t followed the series since its inception; I was finally persuaded to read the series a few years ago, and … Continue reading Storm Front (Jim Butcher) review
We’re back into overcast days here in Ballarat. Thankfully, the latest of these days is matched with rain as the first three months of 2014 were exceptionally dry. I wander into a very mild form of light-influenced depression when it gets so dark. I’ll be back to normal shortly, especially if I find a project that really captures my interest. Reviewing UK3 The Gauntlet is … Continue reading Grey Days and Urban Fantasies
The new year has begun with a burst of reading, much like 2013 did. And so the first and second of January were spent mostly reading the eight novels written by Julie Kagawa, which fit vaguely into the category of paranormal fantasy or urban fantasy. As more and more people write in the field, it really begins to stretch; it’s pretty easy to tell where … Continue reading Days of Reading – Julie Kagawa
“The Companions” is the first volume of “The Sundering” series from Wizards of the Coast, a major cross-media event that transfers the Forgotten Realms from its 4e incarnation to the next edition. Written by R.A. Salvatore, "The Companions" revisits the characters of his original book – “The Crystal Shard” – and of its many sequels: Bruenor, Regis and Catti-Brie. Readers more up-to-date with Salvatore’s novels … Continue reading Review of “The Companions” by R.A. Salvatore
"Oracle of Philadelphia" is the first book by Elizabeth Corrigan, and starts the "Earthbound Angels" series of – I guess – Urban Fantasy novels. It is a fairly short book which starts indifferently but finds its feet about a third of the way through and shrugs off the early structural difficulties to give an entertaining tale. The book is told in the first person from … Continue reading “Oracle of Philadelphia” by Elizabeth Corrigan – Novel Review
I've been reading so much Urban Fantasy of late (about 80 books in the past two months), that Charles Ryan's The Mason of New Orleans was a delightful departure: a fantasy spun around the concept of a modern-day engineer finding himself back in France in the 12th century A.D. Told in the first person, it tells of his adventures as the engineer finds sanctuary with … Continue reading The Mason of New Orleans – Novel Review
He was a thin man, who walked along the street as if all others using it were beneath him. He didn’t notice me as I followed him. His arrogance didn’t make him superior, after all. He just believed he was. He wasn’t without his good points, though. He was well-prepared and rich. How rich? Enough to have minions do his dirty work for him. At … Continue reading Fragment of Fiction
