Spontaneous ∂erivation

A mysterious girl in the royal extended family, some say a demon because of disturbing markings around her eyes, is banished from the palace. A very young prince discovers her living in the gardens on the kindness of servants.

Like all princes, even ones that don’t reach the waist of their eldest sister, he wants to save her. But the only way to remove the demon’s markings from her eyes is for her to tell, bit by bit, the stories written upon them.

Thus begins The Orphan’s Tales, a well-woven tapestry of fairytales-within-fairytales in the world of Ajanabh, both like and unlike its inspiration, The Arabian Nights.

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It’s the end of the world like you’ve never known it: snarky and sassy with strangely touching moments weaved into a quick-moving story, Greg van Eekhout’s Norse Code manages to turn a fresh edge on old myths. And it’s probably the only re-weaving of Ragnarok where the poor blind guy, the one who started the countdown to Doomsday, is actually a sympathetic and participatory character rather than a footnote in lore.

[What does Norse Code get right?]

In Tides from the New Worlds, Tobias Buckell does what the best SF/F writers do: tells stories that touch our minds with wonder and endow our hearts with perception. Reading this collection, for those of us culture-bound West or East, brings science fiction and fantasy to a fresh awakening. And for those of us who miss seeing ourselves in the fiction we so often read, it’s quite moving.

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To boldly go where none have gone before.

To explore new worlds and encounter new civilizations.

To war, love, hate, seek justice and make peace in the depths of space and on the fringes of time.

Also, there is a hamster.

These are the stories of Federations, edited by John Joseph Adams and written by 23 writers.

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On the nesting Matryoshka dolls of space-faring civilizations, philosophy a la Nietzsche, and how Banks ruined SF and epic fantasy at the same time for me.

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Ben Gould has a life-changing experience: that is to say, he dies after cracking his head on the sidewalk.

But he isn’t dead.

That’s causing all sorts of complications for the world—both for the inhabitants of the here-and-now, and for those in charge of the afterlife.

[One part love story, one part surreal fantasy...]

Review: The Eye of Night

A disillusioned priest wanders from town to town in a land cursed by destruction and sorrow. He discovers a beautiful lady with an infantile mind, her dwarf servant and caretaker, and the Eye of Night, a powerful artifact destined to save—or destroy—the world.

Pauline J. Alama’s The Eye of Night is a different kind of high fantasy tale, a panacea for every stereotype you run into repeatedly in what I term the traveling-party-on-a-mission-from-God sub-genre. A less kind person might call them Tolkien rip-offs.

[Fortunately, at its best, The Eye of Night is no Tolkien rip-off.]

And here’s all my posts on Tor.com.

Review: The Shadow Pavilion: An Inspector Chen Novel

An Indian tiger-demon porn star rampages through Singapore Three. An assassination plot unveils against Heaven’s progressive new Emperor. Supernatural beings from Hell kidnap his companions. All are part of another dimension-shattering case for Inspector Chen in The Shadow Pavilion.

Liz Williams’ Inspector Chen series takes a different approach from the usual Western concepts of magic and religion, one steeped in Eastern traditions, where the concepts of Hell, Heaven, and the supernatural have a less sectional, more holistic treatment than in the West. As in Buddhist and Taoist traditions, good and evil aren’t thought of as the exclusive dominions of Heaven or Hell, with a muddled middle of human beings; each is part of any individual’s personality, whether they be human, Hellish, or Divine.

[So how do we roll in Singapore Three?]

And here are all my posts on Tor.com.

In The Stepsister Scheme, Hines takes three fairytale princesses on a semi-traditional sword and sorcery romp: a small, plucky group of heroes picks their way through a dangerous land fraught with supernatural dangers to achieve the quest objective. The adventure is delightful in a light-hearted fashion: there are magic flying horses and wicked stepsisters, fairy king and queen politics, and reveals of the true pasts and abilities of our three princess, which allow them to play their roles in this journey of rescue.

So who are these princesses, their Disneyland versions often decorating girls’ vivid pink accessories?

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Over at Tor.com:

Review: You Suck!

When you talk about a Christopher Moore book, you’re never talking about anything run-of-the-mill. Whether it’s your non-run-of-the-mill Christmas-fantasy-with-angels (The Stupidest Angel) or your non-run-of-the-mill Godzilla-riff (The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove), Moore is always bitingly funny, deftly satirical, and rarely sentimental— in fact, he reads much like a young American Pratchett (minus the Discworld universe equivalent and the footnotes).

You Suck! is not your run-of-the-mill vampire romance.

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And, as always, this book is available for your Kindle.

Buy You Suck! in the Kindle Store