The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
Review by Lory Widmer Hess The Farthest Shore, third book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea sequence, was originally published in 1972. Picking it up for a reread today, in…
Fantasy: How it Works, by Brian Attebery
Review by Helen Parry Over the last thirty years, the genre of fantasy has become more ‘respectable’. Although it has never been simply an excuse for plodding, Lord-of-the-Rings, Sword-and-Sorcery knock-offs,…
Sistersong by Lucy Holland
Reviewed by Annabel Lucy Holland’s impeccably researched novel combines the story of a 19th Century murder ballad, ‘The Two Sisters’ with Dark Ages post-Arthurian history, mixing in a good dose…
The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox
Reviewed by Max Dunbar In Lords and Ladies, his Faerie novel, Terry Pratchett quotes an old folk rhyme: My mother said I never shouldPlay with the fairies in the wood…
The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
Review by Helen Parry I first read The King of Elfland’s Daughter five years ago, but this ‘fine, strange, almost forgotten novel’, as Neil Gaiman puts it in his introduction,…
Of Cats and Elfins by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Reviewed by Harriet Just over a year ago I reviewed the newly published Handheld Press edition of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Kingdoms of Elfin, a collection of strange, glittering, fascinating stories,…
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Reviewed by David Harris This was the first time I’d read a book by Novik. Her Temeraire series and Uprooted (reviewed for Shiny by Sakura here) have received lots of praise so I was pleased…
The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery
Translated by Alison Anderson Reviewed by Annabel If like me, you read and loved Muriel Barbery’s bestselling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which blended romance, philosophy and a teenaged genius…
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
Reviewed by David Harris I’d been eagerly waiting for this book. Cornell has recently published two volumes in an urban fantasy series, The Shadow Police, set among the supernatural threats of…
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Reviewed by Sakura Gooneratne Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. He doesn’t devour them really; it only feels that…
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Reviewed by Jane Carter I have a very clear memory of visiting a bookshop, a good few years ago. I had a birthday book token, and I wasn’t too sure…
The Vagrant by Peter Newman
Reviewed by David Harris ‘The Vagrant is his name’ runs the strapline for this book. ‘He has no other.’ In fact, the titular character is never called ‘The Vagrant’ by…
Age of Iron by Angus Watson
Reviewed by Kathleen Holly Marsh Age of Iron by Angus Watson is the first book in a trilogy giving an entertaining but gripping account of what happened when Julius Caesar tried…