It’s that time again. Time for more books. These magic monsters appeared all at once in the office of my apartment complex, presumably having arrived a while ago only to collect in a dark closet or something. But now they’re here. So, without further delay, here they are. Leave a comment if something looks interesting to you!
In our world, the duchy of Burgundy, the Middle Kingdom, has had a fascinating, and often strange history. Wedged in the middle of Europe, from the Mediterranean and up toward the North Sea, parts of which are now France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, the Dukes of Burgundy have often been as powerful or more powerful than some of the full blown kingdoms they have dealt with. Burgundy is a hell of a lot of fun to play in the computer game Crusader Kingdoms 2. By accidents and turns of fortune, Burgundy disappeared from our history in a rather sudden fashion. That sudden disappearance of Burgundy from history is the historical seed for Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle. Gentle uses secret history, alternate history, and the moldability of history to explore a 15th century that wasn’t … but perhaps once was.
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today, we welcome Djibril al-Ayad to talk about how the power of invisibility relates to Ten Years of The Future Fire. If I were to choose my own superpower, it would probably be flight — not the most useful ability in this day and age, but I bet the most fun! Even in dreams I can only fly a few inches off the ground, and then only with increasing, agonising concentration after a few seconds. It enables me to cross a wide street while only stepping on the kerbs, but not much else. I guess we don’t get to choose our own superpower.
A new slate of podcasts has arrived. In this edition of Around the Podosphere, we’ve got a few bad movies, some intense book discussions, a lost ship, and at least one Texas conspiracy theory! There’s plenty stuff here to keep you busy for the rest of the week. What have you been listening to? Tell us in the comments! Here’s our list:
This week’s edition of In the Duke’s Sights is a small one because I didn’t wait so many darn weeks to post it. In this edition: flintlock fantasy, a steampunk collection from across the sea, a cantankerous writer’s writings, and a fantasy novel about fallen angels and alchemists waging war in Paris. If any of these strike your fancy, let us know in the comments!
After foiling one plot by a foreseeing Dragon, Julius Heartstriker, the nicest Dragon in the world, gets dropped into the maw of his family’s machinations by way of a reward in ONE GOOD DRAGON DESERVES ANOTHER, the second Heartstriker novel by Rachel Aaron. One Good Dragon is the sequel to Nice Dragons Finish Last [review here at S&F] and picks up the action a few months after the end of that novel. Julius and Marci have started their business of dealing with spirit infestations, living a financially precarious but independent life in the DFZ, the Detroit Free Zone, the independent state carved from the United States by the actions of Algonquin, the Lady of the Lakes. Julius and Marci’s defeat of Estella’s plans in the previous novel, however, means that Julius’ grasping, ambitious mother Bethseda might have a use for her most useless and undragonlike son, whether he likes it or not. And as the prologue makes clear, Estella, the dragon who Julius thwarted in Nice Dragons, is far from defeated, and like the Cylons, She Has a Plan. And poor Julius is at the center of that plan. As he is at the center of many other people’s plans as well.
