Re: A Siege of Cranes

“A Siege of Cranes,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum opens with Marish of Ilmak Dale trailing after the horrendous evil that destroyed his village and killed his wife Temur and his daughter Asza. He meets a jackal-headed warrior. “May you die with great suffering,” the creature said in what seemed to be a calm, friendly tone.

Re: Pahwakhe

In an atmospheric reading that casts a spell on you, “Pahwakhe” by Gord Sellar brings you into the borderlands between magical thinking and ghost stories. The narrator is the chief of a tribe that lives on a shore rich in salmon and blackberries. He is a wealthy man, and his greatest possession, the one thing […]

Re: Vellum

I finished Vellum, by Hal Duncan, but I can’t say I read it. I was drawn in by the discovery of the Book of All Hours where all the worlds and everything that happens in them is written on its pages. I loved the introduction of Innana’s reincarnation and the telling of her descent into […]

Re: Gentleman of the Road

So I’m at the library and I see a beautiful little book in the New Books. The cover has a circle of elephants, the endpapers have a map of Khazaria, the page numbers are in red ink, the chapters have witty titles, and even the font itself is a delight to the eye. Turns out […]

Re: Giant

One thing about stories based on folk tales is you can generally count on the reader to know the original and fill in the gaps. For example, when I heard “Giant,” by Stephanie Burgis on PodCastle, I recognized the narrator as a cousin of the giant from Jack and Beanstalk or one of many wizards […]

Re: Directions

For those of you who are interested in second person fiction, there’s a curious little story available on PodCastle called “Directions,” by Caleb Wilson. It’s a flash piece that lives and dies by the ingenuity of its creation and beauty of description, as it tells you how to embark on a journey into a strange […]

Fat Fantasy

I formulated the 150 page rule as self-defense against fat fantasy novels. You know who I mean. I was pretty sure I was going to hate them, but lots of people love them. How bad could they be? So I tried to give them a chance, I really did. And my reactions were nearly as […]

In Search of Lost Sleep

The flip side of the 150 page rule is the quest for the holy grail of books, the book that’s so compelling, you stay up all night to finish it. When that happens to me, it short-circuits all my judgment, which makes it really hard to describe these books. But I can tell you how […]

2008 Hugo Recap

Here are the Hugo stories ordered very roughly by how much I enjoyed them. Reading them makes me want to read more of Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham, and “Luminous,” by Greg Egan. Now I just need to buy my membership.

Re: The Cambist and Lord Iron

Olaf Neddelson is a humble cambist, a money changer, whose life is changed when the notorious Lord Iron comes to his exchange window. Lord Iron demands that he exchange convertible guilders from the Independent Protectorate of Analdi-Wat for pounds sterling. If Olaf fails to do so within 24 hours, his license could be reviewed under […]