This doorstopper of an anthology will surely entertain fantasy fans.
A companion volume to The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (2019), Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s latest anthology—and last together, according to the introduction—explores modern fantasy and its evolution from the end of WWII to 2010 with a shelf-bending collection featuring 91 stories from some of the genre’s biggest luminaries, including Ursula K. Le Guin, George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, and J.G. Ballard.
The VanderMeers do an adept job of giving readers a comprehensive view of the narrative scope of fantasy—which they describe as “one of the broadest genres imaginable”—over the last six-plus decades with an impressively wide variety of stories. In addition to featuring iconic adventure fantasy works (Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story “Lean Times in Lankhmar”; “The Tales of Dragons and Dreamers,” a Tales of Nevèrÿon story by Samuel R. Delany; and Michael Moorcock’s introduction to Elric of Melniboné in “The Dreaming City”) and classic “literary” short stories like Vladimir Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” and “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez, the anthology also contains a conspicuous number of dragon-powered stories. Finnish author Tove Jansson’s illustrated all-ages story “The Last Dragon in the World” includes her signature Moomins characters in a delightful tale about a tiny dragon, and Patricia McKillip’s “The Fellowship of the Dragon” follows five armed women as they embark on a perilous quest to find a missing harpist who has been allegedly imprisoned by a dragon. Many of the book’s strongest selections come from international fantasy, with translated stories from Mexican writer Alberto Chimal (“Mogo”), French author Manuela Draeger (“The Arrest of the Great Mimille”), and Belarusian writer Abraham Sutzkever (“The Gopherwood Box”).
This doorstopper of an anthology will surely entertain fantasy fans.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-56386-0
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.
After the events of Book of Night (2022), Charlie Hall is forced to hunt down the perpetrator of a terrible massacre.
Charlie Hall is the Hierophant: It’s her job to be tethered to a powerful, independent shadow—a “Blight”— and hunt down other Blights for the Cabals, the heads of their respective shadow-magic specialties. The Cabals use the difficult job of Hierophant as a punishment, but Charlie agreed to take it on so she could be the person tethered to Vince, aka Red, the Blight who posed as a human and ended up dating and falling in love with Charlie. The Cabal leaders used magic to steal the part of Red’s memory that contained his relationship with Charlie, and so Charlie is determined to steal Red’s memories back. And she needs to move fast, because if Red doesn’t remember loving her, he just might be OK with Charlie being killed if it means his own freedom. Meanwhile, Mr. Punch, a terrifying Cabal leader who specializes in using shadow magic to possess other people’s bodies, has a job for Charlie: He wants her to find the culprit behind a terrible massacre that was attributed to a cult. He suspects that the people were actually killed by a Blight, and he doesn’t want the Cabals to face the blowback if the truth becomes public. Mr. Punch could do terrible things to Charlie if she fails, but if she succeeds, he’ll help Charlie and Red be free of the Cabals for good. The sophomore novel in a series is always tough, but this sequel proves that the second book can be even better than the first. Black turns the screws on the magical world she set up in Book 1, creating complicated political motives between Charlie and the Cabal leaders and making the question of what it means for a shadow, like Red, to have their own consciousness more interesting. Veteran con artist Charlie makes some truly brilliant moves, especially toward the end, where the last few chapters have one terrific surprise after the other.
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250812223
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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