Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
The Princess Bride meets Harvard Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings.
Popular fantasy authors Dawson and Hearne gleefully take a whack at every fairy tale trope in the (standard) book. After being informed by the pixie Staph that he is the The Chosen One, Worstely, …
Jacka is a relative newcomer to the urban fantasy genre, but a most welcome one. His mage, Alex Verus, is the everyman wizard. He is an adept diviner – having the ability to see into the future and suss out the most likely outcome. But this skill conveys little respect …
Edgar Cantero
Scooby-doo meets H.P. Lovecraft. What’s not to love? Cantero’s hilarious novel blends the cheesiness of Saturday morning cartoons with creepy, supernatural beasts from the depths of the earth. Years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club solves its last case, the gang decides to reform and revisit the case. …
Tim Walker
Tim Walker is a fashion photographer in the loose sense that there are people wearing expensive clothing in many of his photos. However, the clothing themselves are probably the last thing your eye will fix on. Walker uses enormous props, decaying mansions and the bizarre, disproportionate bodies of …
M.T. Anderson
It’s amazing how divided the genre of young adult novels can be. There is the mindless shlock full of sparkling vampires, short words, poor grammar and insipid plot-lines. Then there are brilliant, complex and wildly imaginative series like Jinks’ Evil Genius, Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society and …
Simon R. Green
Green’s Nightside series is the perfect read for Neil Gaiman and Jim Butcher fans waiting for their next fix. The first title, Something from the Nightside, does tend to feel heavily derivative of of Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Butcher’s Dresden Files in places. However, there are definitely …
Brian D’amato
D’amato creates a fantastic near-future and recreates the lost Maya civilizations. As 2012 nears, the end of the Maya calendar, a large-scale disaster strikes. The disaster, followed by the end of civilization, are both predicted in a Maya codex. Jed DeLanda, a Maya descendant and expert in the …
Terry Pratchett
Yes, the new Pratchett is very different. For one thing, it is a great deal more serious* than many of his past books. It also takes place (kind of) in our world, rather than the disc world. Still, it is a very good story and told well. With …
Neil Gaiman
It’s Neil, ’nuff said. No? OK, a sweet, funny and often sad book about a baby named Nobody who grows up in a graveyard, raised by the kindly dead. Beautiful and otherworldly as only Gaiman can write.…
Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry
This Neil Gaiman approved graphic novel of Neverwhere was excellent. Slight variations in the story line and an occasional missing character don’t affect the overall story arc. The novel has gorgeous art and the depictions of Door, de Carabas and Hunter are particularly good. Any …
Catherine Jinks
Where do you go to school if you are a genius and your father is an evil genius? Why, the evil genius academy, of course. Learn the fine arts of lying, stealing, poisons, hacking, disguise and other deeply useful skills. The only drawbacks? The matriculation rate is nothing …
Trenton Lee Stewart
An ad in the paper looking for exceptional children lures orphan Reynie Muldoon into a strange shadow conspiracy. With a band of other brilliant and bizarre children, they must overthrow an evil mastermind. Inventive and fast-moving, though personally I think a few fires would have solved a …
PB Kerr
The Akhenaten Adventure, The Blue Djinn of Babylon and The Cobra King of Kathmandu.
Upon the removal of their wisdom teeth, twins John and Phillipa Gaunt discover they have strange magical powers. Sent off to their Uncle Nimrod, the Gaunt kids learn to use their djinn …
Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
I know, let’s have a comic book. And lets have lots of villains, lifted directly from Victorian literature. Right, and since we lifted lots of villains, lets also lift a bunch of other characters and make them heroes – kind of. And let’s set it …
Alice Hoffman
Hoffman is herself a queen – of magical realism. While spinning her story, she dabbles a toe her in there in pools of the fantastic. You barely notice the ripples here and there, until suddenly the most fantastic things seem totally believable. Sure, I can believe the woodman …
Neil Gaiman
I am shocked and apologetic that I forgot to review this last month. Perhaps I forgot because I read it at the very beginning of the month – or perhaps my mind was going “wub wub wub” from having seen Gaiman/McKeen’s movie MirrorMask. SEE IT IF YOU …
