Tag: Fantasy

Saga Volumes 1-5

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Read 28/06/2017

Rating: 3 stars

There’s a war raging across the universe, started by hostility between the winged inhabitants of the planet Landfall and the horned residents of its satellite Wreath. To prevent the destruction of their planets, both sides have outsourced the war, so now it is fought everywhere else but Landfall and Wreath.

I borrowed the first five trades of the comic book series Saga from a friend a while ago. Every time I’ve published a review in the interim, he’s been disappointed that it hasn’t been about Saga. We met up recently and I felt bad about not having read it yet, so I brought it up the list. My husband was out on a work do, and the football had replaced Coronation Street, so I binge read all five in one evening. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 3

Titus Awakes

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Read 13/12/2016-17/12/2016

Rating: 2.5 stars

Read for The Reader’s Room Winter Challenge

This is the fourth Gormenghast book. Peake died after completing only three of his series, which has for a long time been thought of as a trilogy. It turns out his intention was to write more, to follow Titus further into his life. A fragment of the fourth book exists, a fragment which Peake’s widow Maeve Gilmore took and expanded into a novel. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 0

Leaving the Sea: Stories

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Read 07/11/2016-13/11/2016

Rating: 4 stars

So many books these days have endless quotes from reviews that prepare you for what you’re about to read. Especially books that are classed as different, difficult, uncomfortable, and extraordinary. Such is the case with Ben Marcus’s collection of stories, Leaving the Sea.

I own this book because Jen at The Reader’s Room reviewed it earlier in the year. She disliked it so passionately that I was intrigued. I’d read The Age of Wire and String, which is a very odd book but one that I loved wholeheartedly. I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. I can only tell you that it made me feel light headed, light hearted, confused and delighted.

Jen very generously sent me the book. I’ve been waiting for a moment when it felt right to read it. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 5

Who Fears Death

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Read 19/08/2016-21/08/2016

Rating: 4 stars

I read about this book on The Reader’s Room and instantly wanted to read it. I had to reserve it through the union catalogue for libraries in the Greater Manchester area. I learned from this experience that Trafford Libraries are better at managing their stock than Manchester City Libraries when I had an email to say the book was ready for me to pick up only for the library to have lost it. (This has happened a second time, so not an isolated incident. Get your act together Manchester.)

After a second attempt to reserve it, the book eventually came in a few weeks ago. I devoured it over a couple of days. It was every bit as good as I was expecting it to be. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 3

The Sixth Gun Volume 5

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Read 13/07/2016 to 14/07/2016

Rating: 5 stars

Volume 5, Winter Wolves, is my favourite in the Sixth Gun series so far. The pursuit of Becky Montcrief and Drake Sinclair by various groups of people, all bent (some of them hell bent) on claiming the guns from them, continues. In this trade, they become trapped in a parallel dimension, captured by the spirit creature the Wendigo.

Elsewhere, Gord Cantrell has teamed up with Asher Cobb, the undead mummified man who is beautifully and mesmerisingly drawn throughout the book, and the mercenary Kirby Hale to try to track Becky and Drake down. Gord is determined to destroy the guns and will go to any length required to stop anyone else getting their hands on them. It’s touch and go at times, but having a mummified man with pyromancy skills on his team pays off.

Becky is revealed to be developing supernatural powers, perhaps through prolonged exposure to her gun. I’ve got a feeling things might not go as well for her as they could in future volumes, in relation to her being able to maintain her integrity.

I can’t wait to get volume 6 now!

Posted on by Jan Hicks 1

The City of Woven Streets

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Read 29/06/2016-01/07/2016

Rating: 2.5 stars

I feel sorry for this book. It has some interesting ideas, and a lot of the writing is very good. I was talking about it with my husband as we walked over to friends’ last night to play dice based board games. I was frustrated with the author, or maybe her editor, for not paring some of the detail back. It felt at times as though she had left all her back story notes in the book, all the things she needed to write about the society she was creating in order to know how her characters would move around it in relation to each other but that I as a reader didn’t need to get bogged down in. It could have been punchier.

I found it hard to get into. Partly because I was still thinking about the characters in The Natural Way of Things, partly because The City of Woven Streets is a fantasy dystopia and my brain was fixed in the hard reality of Charlotte Wood’s dystopia. It was such a transition that I had to start the book again to give myself chance to get into its rhythm. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 2

Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

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Read 03/01/2016-05/01/2016

Rating: 4 stars

Read for the Reader’s Room Winter Scavenger Hunt Challenge

Robin Sloan has written a wonderful, funny, heartwarming book. I’ve loved books since I can remember (I think I’ve said before that my Mum worked in a library and I genuinely can’t recall not being able to read). I’ve been fascinated and terrified by second hand book shops since I was about 10 and realised just how many books there are in the world and how very old some of them are. I’ve loved typography since my brother started his apprenticeship as a printer and came home full of knowledge about typefaces. This book hit lots of happy buttons for me. It’s a great story, with lots of flights of fancy but enough realism to make them believable. Continue reading →

Posted on by Jan Hicks 2