Category: Fantasy

/ˈfan(t)əsē/ noun. a composition, free in form, typically involving variation on an existing work or the imaginative representation of a situation or story; a fantasia.

Bubble by Jordan Morris, Sarah Morgan

Bubble by Jordan Morris, Sarah Morgan

Morgan, Annie, Mitch, and Van live in a bubble, a manufactured dome that protects them from the alien lifeforms outside of the city.

Occasionally, the critters outside get in and that leads to Morgan fighting back to save the people around her. She’s very good at it because she grew up outside the bubble, learning to kill aliens with a bow and arrow.

But when one of the corporations running the bubble develops an app called Huntr to hire people to kill the imps and various creatures that plague the bubble residents, Morgan discovers she hasn’t left her past behind as much as she thought.

Things accelerate from there.

I enjoyed Bubble very much for its story and characters. I realize it is a satire on various things from the gig economy to millennials to survivalists, but it also stands on its own legs as a fun fantasy.

The story leaves a small opening for a second entry in the series, but closes the first book in a satisfying way. Not all comics bother to do so, and I appreciated it.

Because of some of the content (language and drug use), I’d recommend this book to older teens or adults only.

It is clever and a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

Folklords #1-5 by Matt Kindt

Folklords #1-5 by Matt Kindt

In Ansel’s world, when you turn 18, you chose a quest and complete it in order to “find yourself”. He has decided to seek out the fabled Folklords, mysterious figures wrapped in mystery and myth.

He has chosen to find the Folklords because of curious dreams he has been having of a world with metal machines, high rises, and people dressed strangely. (This is supposed to be our world, but Ansel doesn’t know that.)

Unlike in our world, the librarians of Ansel’s world hoard knowledge and stories. He’ll have to get past them to complete his quest. Will he find the Folklords before the librarians catch him?

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This middle grade, fantasy graphic novel was fun. I liked the juxtaposition of our modern world with Ansel’s fantasy one.

I also liked the homage to the New York Public Library with a fantasy library and real lions guarding its gates.

This book is appropriate for middle grade readers. There’s a few pages that deal with torture but it isn’t graphic and is dealt with tastefully. Just a warning for parents who may be concerned about that kind of thing.

The story is predictable, but good.

As more book banning challenges arise all across the country, I can’t help but wonder if the librarians of Ansel’s world might cross over to ours, so to speak, locking away books and telling people what sort of information they should seek out.

I’m a huge fan of libraries and librarians (in fact, I borrowed this book from the library). So I hope we will continue to have champions standing up for knowledge and free access for all!

Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1) by Fonda Lee

Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1) by Fonda Lee

Two crime syndicates war over control of a city using a special type of jade that gives magical powers to some, and brings addiction and death to others.

In other reviews, this book has drawn comparisons to The Godfather and I can see the similarities. Both works deal with families and hierarchies within a criminal world. However, the fantasy element makes the story feel entirely new.

And it is well written. The pacing and characters are well done. I just didn’t connect with the characters and I felt like I should have.

This disconnect led me to not enjoying this book as much as others, which is a shame. Perhaps if I had felt more invested, I would have looked forward to the twisting and turning plot. As it was, I wasn’t interested.

That being said, this story may appeal to fantasy readers who enjoy a criminal element in their reads. Let me know what you think about it.

Greenmantle by Charles de Lint

Greenmantle by Charles de Lint

In Greenmantle, author Charles de Lint mixes fantasy and the mob and creates something new.

Invisible in the shadows of the side of his house, a small figure stirred. A smile touched her fox-thin features.” pg 67

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Ali and her mother, Frankie, recently won the lottery and used the money to move to a house out in the country. Their neighbor, Tony, has a checkered past and has moved out to the country for reasons of his own.

Together, they’ll explore a mysterious force in the woods that is connected to haunting music as well as face threats from a far more earthly menace.

I enjoyed Greenmantle quite a lot.

“Where it passed sleepers, dreams were suddenly filled with resonances never sensed before, while those who were awake, paused in their conversations for that one moment it took for the stag to go by, resuming them again then, knowing they weren’t quite the same, but not knowing why.” pg 100

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The fantasy portions of the story were my favorite. Lint writes them well- making the fantastical seem as if it is actually possible.

Easy to see why he was one of the first writers of the modern urban fantasy genre.

Highly recommended for fantasy readers. Thanks for reading!

Moonheart by Charles de Lint

Moonheart by Charles de Lint

That was what Sara liked best about Tamson House: that it didn’t seem to be a part of the world outside its walls. Stepping over its threshold was like stepping into a place where everything you knew had to be forgotten to make way for new rules.” pg 25

Moonheart is a story about magic, myth, and how one special house connects it all.

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There are many characters in Moonheart, so many that I won’t list them here. But they are easy to keep up with in the story because they are so different.

For as old as this book is (published in 1984), I felt that it had a lot of modern urban fantasy elements to it. Charles de Lint could be considered as one of the creators of that genre.

His story goes from this world, to other worlds, and back again. I enjoyed it a lot.

“There is no such thing as chance in the workings of the world,” he replied, repeating something he’d told her the second time they’d met on the shore. pg 309

That being said, the plot drags in places. This is a book for readers with solid attention spans. I struggled a little to stay interested until the ending, which comes quickly. But once you’re in the ending, you race to finish the book- because it is that good.

Recommended for urban fantasy readers. Thanks for reading!

The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1) by R.F. Kuang

The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1) by R.F. Kuang

“Her destiny had not been written in the stars… She had made her choices fully and autonomously. pg 528 ebook

The Poppy War begins like other fantasy novels: an underprivileged young person fights her way into a school where she learns more than she ever imagined. But after that, things go in an entirely different direction with war and all of the darkness and misery that goes along with that.

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Despite friend’s reviews that this was a dark book, I didn’t expect it to go as far as it did. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a great story about human passions, shamanism, and war – it was just hard to read at times.

And it is a long book, which is great because it gives R.F. Kuang plenty of time to develop characters and flesh out her world. She does both very well.

My favorite parts of the book were Rin’s interactions with her fellow soldiers, the Cike, a group of shamans who all have different powers. Their comradery was refreshing in the midst of some very dark times.

This is not a young adult book, so librarians please classify it correctly. Highly recommended for readers who like their fantasy epic and dark.

Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer

Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer

“How Lou hated dealing with the living. The dead were so much easier to manage.” loc 256 ebook.

Lou Merriwether is a psychopomp, or someone who assists spirits from the world of the living to the world of the dead. She doesn’t get along all that well with the living, including her mother, whom Lou had a falling out with around the time that her father passed away.

But when her mother asks her to investigate a series of disappearances, Lou feels like she can’t refuse and begins an adventure across the country and into danger, more danger than she realizes.

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“She’d hoped a personal visit to the Oakland office would yield better results than her telegram to Cheyenne, but it seemed no one wanted to talk. loc 863, ebook

In addition to her personal drama, Lou has to deal with racism almost all the time as a half-Chinese, half-white person. She finds all of this easier to deal with by dressing as a man.

I loved the character of Lou- she was so feisty and willing to stick her neck out to help her friends and, sometimes, people she just met. She occasionally uses colorful language, so be warned if that sort of thing bothers you.

This world has so many curious fantasy elements to it. There are talking walruses who ferry people from one place to another. There are talking bear tribes alongside Native American tribes in the west.

The author Molly Tanzer has such a huge imagination. The world she has created is dangerous but also fun to explore.

Highly recommended for fantasy and steampunk fans. I really enjoyed this one.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Nora has lived through so much and is so disappointed with reality that she doesn’t want to live anymore.

“Nora shook her head. Wishing it would fall off. Her own head. Onto the floor. So she never had to have a conversation with a stranger ever again.” pg 15, ebook

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A suicide attempt takes her to a special place filled with books that tell life stories that could have been her own – if only she had made a different choice in her current life.

“Between life and death there is a library,” she said. “And within that library, the shelves go on for ever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived.” pg 29

Through living some of those lives, Nora learns about the power of choices and her own inner strength.

The Midnight Library is a beautiful book about life. I enjoyed learning and growing along with Nora.

“Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty.” pg 137 ebook

Maybe they are. And maybe we all need to remember that even the smallest choices we make matter.

Highly recommended for fantasy readers.

Old Man’s War (Old Man’s War, #1) by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War (Old Man’s War, #1) by John Scalzi

In Old Man’s War, humanity has gone to the stars, and it’s a jungle out there. For the people on Earth, life and death continues as it always has. Out in space, it’s a whole different story…

I really enjoyed this book. After recently reading and being disappointed by John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society, a friend recommended I give this series a try.

It is a fast-moving, action-packed book full of fascinating aliens and small (sometimes large) windows into the human condition.

I read it in two days – that’s how good it is.

A couple times, I felt like the narration was bogged down by scientific jargon. But for the most part, I loved it.

Highly recommended for science fiction readers.