Summary: “Fantasy as it ought to be written . . . Robin Hobb’s books are diamonds in a sea of zircons.”—George R. R. Martin Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated as an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill—and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family. As barbarous...
The Soul of Chaos by Gregory Wunderlin
Summary: The whispers followed her. Since her first rebuke they persisted in their pursuit, distant yet clear, they offered the same deal. Power. Freedom. They swelled when she acknowledged them, the fierce static eschewing reality in its sudden onset. Exiled from his home and his noble heritage in disgrace, Rurik toils in the mines of an ancient, underground ruin as foreman to a group of breakers: prisoners, cutthroats, and dregs of society forced into indentured servitude. His responsibility to his crew weighs heavily on his conscience-for even the most minor job can prove fatal, and earning his life back can...
Cover Reveal: Sing No Suns, Sing the Night by Michael Michel
Huge thank you to Michael for letting us participate in the cover reveal for his short story collection Sing No Suns, Sing the Night. I loved the author's debut novel The Price of Power, so even though this collection is unrelated to that series I can't wait to see what kind of dark tales he has in store for us. The collection will be released on Feb 20th and is currently available for pre-order, links and more details are found below so make sure to check it out! Without further ado, here is the cover for Sing No Suns, Sing...
Cloti’s Song by Dani Finn
Synopsis: There are some things that cannot be taken from you. The humans have conquered the Maer capital, and they show no signs of leaving. Cloti and her spouses cling to each other in the hollow shell of their occupied city. Each day is a bitter gift; they may not be free, but they have each other. When the city’s human Administrator offers to let Cloti restart her meditation practice in the temple, she jumps at the chance to spread a little hope in such dark days. Half the city followed her teachings before the occupation; maybe she can...
Springtide Harvest by J.D. Mitchell
Summary The old world is dead. Worse, it was a lie. Haskell wants to be a legend, a hero like his grandfather who broke the orcish hordes. Froba just wants to survive. She knows what Haskell doesn't: that the deck is stacked against them, and there are no heroes in the world. After assembling a band of misfits, Haskell must face a labyrinthine dungeon, an exploitative, monster-hunting guild, and his own failings, while Froba must decide where her loyalties lie—with her naïve mark or corrupt master. If traitors and woodland monsters don’t murder them first. Review Springtide Harvest starts out...
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Summary
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Review
N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is a triumph of the fantasy grimdark subgenre and has gained renown in the broader literary world, winning the 2016 Hugo Award and shattering readers since its publication in 2015. The novel is a deeply depressing fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic world trades between three points of view (POVs). This book put me through a collection of emotions as I placed myself in some of the uncomfortable situations each of the three main characters suffers through. Mrs. Jemisin writes reflective yet straight prose presenting themes of control, parenthood, sexuality, and prejudice throughout five hundred pages. Reading the starkness of the world Mrs. Jemisin created, the quiet moments of tenseness between each of the three main characters’ arcs never end, and somehow, I kept turning the page to see if things would get better and knowing that it most likely would not.
The three main characters are Syenite, a highly motivated and intelligent pupil of the Fulcrum, Damaya, a young child who is given the protection of a Guardian because she has extraordinary powers that she must learn to control, and Essun, a middle-aged woman looking for her husband and their last surviving child.
“You’re a gift of the earth—but Father Earth hates us, never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe.”
For me, one of the challenges of the book, besides the bleakness of the environment and the supporting cast, is that one of the three main POVs is told from a second person POV, which is jarring when jumping from character to character, mainly when the other POVs use a different writing perspective. I pushed through this as I have with other books, and it paid off as each character arc meet in the end.
The setting and ideas formulated through the three main POVs are placed in a stark and unforgiving dystopian apocalypse wrecked by earthquakes (or other disasters). A season is a disaster or significant world event and the corresponding time between when people attempt to rebuild, knowing they must prepare for the next season. A never-ending cycle of preparation and disaster, which, when looking forward, feels now only familiar. The people who walk the world and have no power are called “stills,” and the smaller portion of the population (less than one percent) are called “orogenes”. These people can cause earthquakes, kill with frost or cold, and perform other feats. They are hated and feared by most and used as tools or weapons to control specific areas through a form of lifelong military service or enslavement. The Fulcrum attempts to use “orogens” to control territories, lessen the effects of a season, and calm the rumbling ground under the different shattered fault lines of the land. The Fulcrum a government-like entity that trains orogenes harbor shadier secrets, and upon learning them, I realized how cruel the world Mrs. Jemisin has created.
“You think you matter?” All at once, he smiles. It’s ugly, cold as the vapor curling off the ice. “You think any of us matter beyond what we can do for them? Whether we obey or not.”
Mental and physical pain is felt through the three main characters in various circumstances. Mrs. Jemisin’s storytelling had me hating Schaffa through most of the book, yet for a few moments, it somehow changed my thoughts on Schaffa, a Guardian who broke a young girl’s hand at the start of the book at the end. I still hated him, but somehow, I nodded, if not in agreement but in understanding at the end. The last few pages linger like a ink stains on my fingers.
The Fifth Season provides complicated characters making choices in extreme circumstances at the end of the world, and the last portion of the book is the eye-opening, “holy shit” writing that secures this book’s acclaim and awards. This review is spoiler-free, but let me say yes, it deserves the treatment it gets from the professional press and others who pick it up and make it through the entire book.
“Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the fifth and master of all.”
Mrs. Jemisin doesn’t play with words; each sentence and word are set down deliberately, providing further growth for the characters and overarching story. She laces the three POVs charters separated at the start of the book, slowly twisting them until their fateful and dramatic ending and maybe everything that comes after. The narrative that drives the books is shown through the pacing. Long silences where life occurs, people prepare, and bursts of violence and destruction. Where I thought the writing shined was the agony of life between the disasters, learning how everyone barely coped with surviving and existing, which was felt on each page.
I read a paperback version of The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin Book 1 of the Broken Earth Trilogy printed in 2020. The book is around 130,000 words with a cover created by Lauren Panepinto, which shows a decaying wall with a faded sculpted metal and stone flourish. Its morose simplicity represents the tone found inside the pages. This book is not easy to recommend to everyone, but it was worth my time, and if you’re courageous enough, I hope it’s worth yours.
The Last Wish by Andrezj Sapowski
Summary: Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Last Wish introduced the world to the iconic monster hunter Geralt of Rivia; his beloved ward and the prophesied savior of the world, Ciri; and his ally and true love, the powerful sorceress Yennefer—and they took the world by storm. Now, experience the world of the Witcher like never before with this stunning deluxe hardcover edition of the story collection that started it all, featuring a beautiful new cover and eight gorgeous interior illustrations by a range of award-winning artists. Geralt is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious...
The Hand of God by Yuval Kordov
Summary: The world ended—twice. Only Esther, the Eternal One, saw it all happen. As head of the powerful Revenant Sisterhood, she shepherds humanity from Cathedral, the Last City. Except Cathedral isn't the last city, and her sisterhood's power is far from holy. It’s the year 2500, give or take. The passage of time has become as blurry as the gray wastes that cover most of North America. No moon or stars light the night, and demonic hordes smash against the last outposts of civilization. Two reborn nations vie for humanity’s future. In the west, Cathedral unleashes its God-engines—ancient walking war...
The Blood Stones by Tori Tecken
Summary His name is not worthy. A traitor is executed, his name ripped away from history. Now the kingdom stands on the brink of a succession war that could bring the country to its knees. Forces stalk the darkness, moving pawns into place in a deadly game. Gehrin and his brothers were not meant to witness the execution, but now they find themselves trapped in the center of a political quagmire. When Gehrin faces the loss of everything he knows, will he also lose himself? To the south, tribal warlords clash in an endless cycle of violence. Syndri, the daughter...
Pathlighter by Rob Leigh
Summary James is convinced that the gods have cursed him, left to fend for himself in a squalid city-state in the clutches of a corrupt theocracy. As a lamplighter, James serves the palace by illuminating the streets each night with a flame from the gods' temple. Despite his disdain for the gods, he feels a connection with the flame, and a surprising yet small amount of control over its brightness. For him, a quiet life weathering the desert was all he had to look forward to. That is, until others appear. From distant corners of the world, each has connective...