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Book Review: The Realms of God by Michael Livingston

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Drawing together strands, plots, and conflicts from the first two novels, The Realms of God winningly completes Michael Livingston’s Shards of Heaven trilogy. In the Shards of Heaven series, Michael Livingston has been weaving the real-life history of the early Roman Empire with magic and myth in a potent combination. Starting with The Shards of Heaven and through The Gates of Hell, the author has been telling the story of the Shards, pieces of Divine power on Earth, and those trying to win control of them, mastery of them, and mastery of the world as a result. The series features both historical characters as well as (especially in The Gates of Hell)  supernatural ones, telling stories that sit within the known history but do not contradict it or change it. They are good examples of Secret historical fantasy, eschewing any changes from our own world, but also grounding the novels in real events and real history.

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Book Review: Ida by Alison Evans

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Next weekend I’ll be attending Continuum, a speculative fiction convention held in Melbourne. Whenever I’m attending a convention, I always like to try to review something by one of the Guests of Honour. This year, Continuum is playing host to Alison Evans, one of Australia’s up-and-coming talents in YA SFF. Their debut novel Ida won the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award and was shortlisted for this year’s Aurealis Awards. The story is about Ida, a young woman with the ability to go back in time and revisit any decision she’s ever made. The decision can be as trivial as which type of shampoo she buys to something as important as choosing to drive another route in order to avoid a fatal car crash. However, one day Ida finds herself saddled with the consequences of a decision she’d previously tried to avoid. Then she starts traveling back in time against her will.

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Book Review: To Guard Against the Dark by Julie Czerneda

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To Guard Against the Dark, the final novel set in the Trade Pact ’verse by Julie Czerneda, winningly ties together characters, plot-lines and threads into a grand, unifying finale. Pulling off a capstone to a set of nine novels is no easy task. After the original Trade Pact Trilogy (A Thousand Words for Stranger, Ties of Power, To Trade the Stars ) and then the Stratification Trilogy (Reap the Wild Wind, Riders of the Storm, Rift in the Sky ), author Julie E. Czerneda has put together the two strands of her universe together in a capstone trilogy appropriately called Reunification.

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Comics Review: My ship is full of Questionable Content

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Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers. Today, I want to take a closer look at a comparatively well-known but, these days, infrequently discussed long-running webcomic — because it just delivered a huge plot and character payoff and thus is also the comic that made me the most squeeful this month— Questionable Content. (This review contains spoilers!)

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Guest Post: Welcome to my Worlds: Cover Reveal and Q&A: Tales from Plexis Edited by Julie E. Czerneda

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Today on Skiffy and Fanty, we have a guest post  from Julie Czerneda about the forthcoming Tales From Plexis, an anthology set in her Clan Chronicles ’verse, including a cover reveal, art and photography done by her husband, Roger Czerneda. Welcome to my Worlds. And to the cover reveal for a special project, years in the making. The Clan Chronicles: Tales from Plexis. Yes, it’s my newest anthology, but this one? This one is yours too.

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Book Review: The Architect and the Castle of Glass by Jade Mere

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Jade Mere’s debut work with Dreamspinner Press, The Architect and the Castle of Glass, takes readers on an adventure to a strange castle in a distant land, where the main character, Tahki, is faced with the greatest architectural challenge of his life, that may or may not lead him to love.  A high fantasy novel with touches of steampunk that mix with fascinating class systems, The Architect and the Castle of Glass is a coming-of-age tale that follows a troubled path.  And while it may not be a complete stunner, it’s a comfortable novel that has some great themes and a solid ending.

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