New Books in Fantasy

Cat Rambo‘s Hearts of Tabat (WordFire Press, 2018) is rich in emotions and description, though it revolves around a murder mystery as well. We experience the imaginary port city of Tabat through the eyes of four narrators, two merchants and two siblings from a poor household.  Adelina, the secret publisher of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by bec...

“What should be wild” is really asking who should be wild? Simultaneously a plea against the domestication of women, a unique fairy tale, and impressive literary fiction, this novel explores the taming of women through the experiences of the modern Maisie and some of her female ancestors, who sought shelter... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becom...

Most of us hear the Cinderella story in childhood: a mean stepmother favors her own daughters and controls her hapless husband, turning the sweet and innocent Cinderella into a scullery maid and refusing to let her attend the royal ball, only to be thwarted by a fairy godmother and Cinderella’s... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium...

There is something almost sweetly Victorian about the new fantasy novel, The Sisters Mederos (Angry Robot, 2018), by Patrice Sarath, which concerns two young sisters enduring misfortune. The opening chapters reminded me of the childhood classic, The Little Princess, published in 1905. Yvienne and her magical sister, Tesera, daughters of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Lean, mean, and a fighting machine. That could describe lovely Jessop, psychologically and physically scarred at the hands of a former Infinity Hunter with the catchy name of Falco Bane. Jessop plots her way into joining the all-male fraternity of the Infinity Hunters, waiting to rescue them at an opportune... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becom...

Hello from Gabrielle at the NBN Fantasy and Adventure channel. This podcast will be about adventure, and what could be more adventurous than traveling to a far-away place thats hard to get to, and even more of a challenge to get around in. The Germans have another descriptive word for... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! h...

A modern morality tale lurks under this fast-paced horror novel. Jason Arnopp‘s The Last Days of Jack Sparks (Orbit, 2016) consists of the diary of a fictional character, Jack Sparks, along with a collection of interviews about him. Additional commentary by his surviving brother begins and ends the work. Jack... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by bec...

Silver Hammer, Golden Cross (Pyewacket Press, 2017) is sixth in the series of the Circle of Ceridwen series. It begins by exploring the friendship of two young heirs, Ceric, of Saxon descent and Hrald, of Danish descent. Although the history of their families is complicated, involving revenge killings mandated by... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by...

Pungently sensual, Claude Lalumiere‘s Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment (Guernica Editions, 2017), is a carnal carnival ride, circling around the central conceit. There’s a city-state by the name of Venera, a place where an opium-like drug called vermillion grows. Lalumiere’s work is reminiscent of the French poet, Rimbaud, who write... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Rie is a more than a hundred years old, and sometimes she feels like it, even if she looks like any other human girl. After uncovering a plot to create war between the nine realms, she and her friends are hunted, and her mentor, a distant faery relative who remains... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwo...

Ragnvald Eysteinsson is returning from years raiding in Ireland under the leadership of Solvi and focused on winning a contest with his fellow sailors when Solvi attacks. Ragnvald falls into the fjord and is given up for dead. But a fisherman pulls him out, and when Ragnvald recovers enough from... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premiu...

The Asylum of Dr. Caligari (Tachyon Publications, 2017) is a deft little novel, is a perfect fit for people who are not just interested in fantasy, but also history, art, geography and linguistics. If you are a man, and appreciate an elegant woman wearing lace and jewelry more than a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! ht...

In The Last Good Man (Mythic Island Press, 2017), Linda Nagata uses a brisk and bracing writing style to immerse us into the lives of private military contractors, in the near future. The team, basically moral individuals, work in conjunction with individually guided, robotic weapons and surveillance equipment. If Katheryn... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support o...

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D and D (Nation Books, 2017) by David Kushner and illustrated by Koren Shadmi is a gorgeous depiction of the late E. Gary Gygax’s life and times. Gygax’s story and the tale of D and D’s genesis is ideally... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork...

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons (Bloomsbury, 2015) by Michael Witwer is an exceptional biography of the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, E. Gary Gygax. Witwer presents an honest, meticulously researched historical account of his subject’s life, while at the same time offering a... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our...

Peppa Mueller has a lot going for her. The daughter of a deceased Harvard professor who gave her an eclectic upbringing, she is heir to his fortune, and Radcliffe has accepted her application for undergraduate study in chemistry–her gift and her passion. Too bad that her conventional Swiss relatives cannot... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becomi...

The Prey of the Gods, published by Harper Voyager on June 13th, is Nicky Drayden‘s debut novel, though she’s published many short stories. It’s a compassionate work, despite a neglected blood-thirsty goddess and an ancient spirit who assaults women in their dreams, in order to father his brood. Though set... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becomin...

David M. Ewalt‘s book Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons and Dragons and The People Who Play It (Scribner, 2013) is at once a love letter, cultural history, and succinct analysis of the roleplaying game phenomenon that started it all. Of Dice and Men was the first of... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbook...

Assaph Mehr‘s Murder in Absentia: A Story of Togas, Daggers, and Magic (Purple Toga Publications, 2015) is Egretia, a town in a fantasy world modeled on the Roman Empire, and the occasion is the crime of murder. Felix the Fox, our narrator, is a detective with some extra talents. Not... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! ht...

The House of Binding Thorns (Ace, 2017), Aliette de Bodard‘s novel set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war, is the follow up to The House of Shattered Wings, which won the 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award. The books are set in an alternate Paris, where dragons... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premi...

Katherine Addison‘s The Goblin Emperor has earned what might be termed a fantasy Grand Slam: the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and nominations for the Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy awards. To make her achievement even more noteworthy, Addison, like Maia, the royal goblin at the heart of the... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premi...

[Re-posted with permission from Wild About Math] I’ve admitted before that Physics and I have never gotten along. But, science fiction is something I enjoy. So, when Princeton University Press sent me a copy of Physics Professor Chuck Adler‘s new book Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by be...