RJ Barker’s Wounded Kingdoms Trilogy in its first two volumes, Age of Assassins and Blood of Assassins, combines a straightforward western fantasy world with deeper and more intriguing worldbuilding with a flawed and unusual protagonist to good effect. The two novels, together with the forthcoming third, tell a story of an apprentice assassin who slowly emerges into a figure that helps shape the destiny of an entire kingdom.
Tomi Adeyemi brings to life a world where Afrofuturism meets Avatar: The Last Airbender in her stunning debut novel Children of Blood and Bone. This epic fantasy is told in first person from the perspective of three main characters: Zelie, a young Diviner with magic dormant in her blood; Amari, a timid princess who escapes the palace with a priceless treasure; and Inan, Amari’s brother, sent by the tyrannical king to hunt down the girls. Gradually, the three of them learn the truth of the world and must decide whether to work together to shape the future of Orisha.
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 Tracy Townsend to talk about her writing superpower of relentless larceny.
With the publication of an omnibus edition, the Bookburners, one of the serial stories from Serial Box, comes to officially cap its third season and prepare the ground for the fourth. Bookburners is hardly the only serial from Serial Box, as the release of this third omnibus joyfully coincides with the release of omnibus editions of Tremontaine Season 3, and ReMade Season 2.
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. This month, I’m shining a spotlight on a new series that debuted in January, 2018, and that, as I predicted in the Skiffy & Fanty Looking Back, Moving Forward: The 2018 Edition podcast, checks absolutely all my boxes: Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä’s Abbott. (This review contains spoilers!)
Dakota Chase continues her young adult series, Repeating History, with Hammer of the Witch, returning to a contemporary world featuring magical, time-traveling shenanigans surrounding two teenagers. To recap: In the first novel, The Eye of Ra, we met up with Aston and Grant at an unfortunate time in their lives. After a visit to juvenile court both boys are sentenced to a year at the Stanton Boys School, where their shenanigans intertwine after an incident in their history teacher’s office (which they manage to set fire to, destroying several priceless artifacts housed within). And it just so happens that their history teacher is the esteemed wizard Merlin. He-who-ran-with-King-Arthur, Merlin. Why the man would want to teach high schoolers is beyond me, but maybe he enjoys it. Aston and Grant have never been in this much trouble before, but an unlikely solution is found when they are tasked with going back in time and retrieving some of these artifacts for Merlin. In the first book Aston and Grant traveled back to Ancient Egypt in the times of King Tut, but the second book sends them back to medieval Europe, in the midst of the witch hunts.
