Fantasy Books

Bonded in Death Series: In Death #60
on July 30, 2025

His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes…

Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset―fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who’d rescued her husband from the Dublin streets―may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.

When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear―because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must―not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain―and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished…

Goodreads
Pages: 400

Genres: Fiction / Crime, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Police Procedural, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths
Format: Audiobook
Source: NetGalley
ISBN: 9780349443362



Also in this series: Obsession in Death, Devoted in Death (In Death, #41), Down the Rabbit Hole (includes In Death, #41.5), Brotherhood in Death (In Death, #42), Purity in Death (In Death, #15), Apprentice in Death (In Death, #43), Secrets in Death (In Death, #45)


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Another great novel from J. D. Robb.  These books are one of a few series that I can enjoy hearing and not reading myself.  You will miss much of the story if you haven’t read the previous books.   The author usually writes books that may have a little back story but this one has a lot of links to previous books and you would need the previous book to solve the murder mystery.

Paperback editions of the first six Elric books (DAW Books, 1972 – 1977). Covers by Michael Whelan

It may not seem like it, but this winter has given fans of fantasy plenty to celebrate. Less than a month ago, Michael Moorcock turned 84, his most recent Elric novel turned three, and the latest reprint of his vaunted Eternal Champion series hit store shelves in the US. Thanks to a boatload of new collections, there is no better time to be a fan of the pale emperor. Or, for that matter, to look into his legacy.

Suffice to say that Moorcock’s legendary career has been full of incredible characters. His influence can be seen among the finest rogues of the Sword Coast and in tales spun in the far-flung wine sinks of Essos. Nowhere is that more noticeable than with his most famous creation, Elric of Melnibone. When his early stories made their way into the hands readers in the 60s and 70s, the impact would prove seismic. Today those same readers are academics, authors, and gamers happy to see Elric influence another generation.

[Click the images for Champion versions.]

“It stuck out from any other fantasy book I’d read,” Derik Petrey shared the moment Elric of Melnibone was brought up.

The Chair of Humanities at Sinclair Community College recalls that first encounter with the emperor of dragon isle vividly. Like so many other readers in the 80s, Moorcock’s style and characters proved as addictive Imrryr’s dream couches.

The Elric Saga, Volume 2: Stormbringer , an omnibus containing the novels
Stormbringer (1965), The Vanishing Tower (1977), The Bane of the Black Sword (1977),
and The Revenge of the Rose (1991). Saga Press, April 12, 2022. Cover by Michael Whelan

“He was really the first antihero that I’d read and could wrap my head around. There was this sense that ‘oh this person has all sorts of flaws.’ He’s addicted to drugs, longs to marry his cousin, and keep her from her brother,” Petrey remembered.

The years 1983-1984 would see him read Elric of Melnibone and The Sailor on the Seas of Fate. In an age where the works of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were the example other authors followed, Moorcock became a patron saint of literary rebels.

“He (Elric) did not have the values of a Tolkien-esque character. You have his dependency on a sword, a living weapon, and also this love-hate relationship with Arioch that was really uncommon.”

Sci-fi fans of Petrey’s vintage look around and see a landscape transformed by the pale swordsman. Other Eternal Champions were great characters, but to Petrey, neither Corum, Dorion Hawkmoon, or any of the others held a candle to Elric.

“It was very much conveyed to me that this was a non-human civilization. It’s this idea of how you communicate how different a society would be,” Petrey said. “There were very few science fiction writers that treated aliens as truly alien. You had Jack Vance, Larry Niven, and Moorcock.”

Elric’s modern-day revival speaks to the enduring power of Moorcock’s writing. Recent years have seen entirely new generations of readers take to the original White Wolf of Fantasy.

Von Bek: The Eternal Champion omnibus, containing The Warhound and the World’s Pain
and The City in the Autumn Stars (Saga Press, December 3, 2024). Cover by Tom Canty

Reprints Galore

It wasn’t so long ago that simply finding certain editions of the Elric saga were a challenge. The number of anthologies, collections, and iterations of his stories can be staggering. Untangling the publication history of Elric for this article left me bewildered at times. Without the recent wave of reprints, reading those stories would be just as much of a challenge.

That would change in 2022. Starting in Feb. of that year, Saga Press announced they would be releasing new collections of Moorcock’s work starting with the Kinslayer himself. Last December, fellow Eternal Champion Von Bek received the same loving treatment when The Warhound and The World’s Pain returned to bookshelves. The well-made collections have made the jobs of Booktubers peddling the proverbial Book of Elric that much easier.

“I think Elric’s sustained popularity over more than 60 years owes much to Moorcock’s transgressive bent. He upended, or amplified beyond convention, traditional tropes of speculative fiction, including the monomyth (the hero’s journey),” Bridger, from the Library Ladder YouTube channel, shared by email.

The Elric Saga: Citadel of Forgotten Myths (Saga Press, December 6, 2022). Cover by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme

He is one of many helping introduce Elric and his fellow champions to readers online. His four Moorcock-specific videos alone have garnered over 160,000 views.

At just 12, he would begin his journey alongside Imrryr’s most famous citizen with the DAW paperback editions, with their beautiful Michael Whelan covers. Completing the first Thomas Covenant Trilogy —  Lord Foul’s Bane, The Illearth War, and The Power That Preserves — would serve as good preparation for Elric.

“Elric and Covenant seemed almost like two sides of the same coin. Both were moody, morally ambiguous, endowed with awesome powers they feared, and prone to occasional outbursts of primal, uncontrolled violence. But I found Elric less abrasive, easier to identify with, and more willing to take decisive action when situations called for it. They were significant departures from any heroic characters I’d encountered up to then,” Bridger explained.

The Eternal Champion Sequence: The Eternal Champion, Phoenix in Obsidian, and
The Dragon in the Sword (Titan Books, November 2014). Covers uncredited

Like many readers, Bridger would return to the classic character time and again. Moorcock’s remarkable ability to churn out one story after another helped keep Elric current and fresh.

“In Elric, Moorcock took many of those qualities to extremes relative to typical fantasy heroes. His moods are darker. His weaknesses more debilitating. His impulses more consequential. His betrayals and revenges more bloody. And the stakes are higher, as he strives to save not just one world, but an entire multiverse of them,” Bridger shared.

He sees Elric’s legacy across the genre and beyond. And it is a legacy not just limited to books. His influence can be seen in video games, on tabletops, big and small screens.

Elric and House of the Dragon‘s Daemon Targaryen. Art by Jan Duursema, from The Michael Moorcock Library Vol. 5: Elric The Vanishing Tower (Titan Comics, August 8, 2017). Daemon Targaryen photo by Ollie Upton.

“There are some obvious parallels between Elric and later albino characters in fantasy fiction such as R.A. Salvatore’s drow elf Drizzt, Andrei Sapkowski’s Geralt the Witcher, and several members of George R.R. Martin’s Targaryen family tree, with their special abilities and complicated personalities,” Bridger detailed, explaining that the albino trope was itself borrowed from Sexton Blake’s Monsieur Zenith.

Roland Deschain of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire are two other characters that remind Bridger of the Eternal Champion. For Petrey, its Death from The Sandman that reminds him most of Elric. Both see the industry as being much richer due to the author’s influence.

“There’s an authenticity in Moorcock’s work. He himself is an iconoclast, he loves taking conventions and smashing them and I think that’s refreshing every once in awhile,” the professor stated.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric Volume 5: The Necromancer, written by by Julien Blondel and illustrated by Valentin Sécher (Titan Comics, December 31, 2024).

A six-decade run doesn’t happen by accident. If Elric proves anything, it’s that with the pale prince of ruins Moorcock was able to capture the magic that continues to enchant lovers of the genre.

“These are characters that have their own lives. I don’t want to be like Elric but his stories help me imagine what living that life, at that time, and in those societies would be like,” Petrey said.

As all readers know, sometimes a book just doesn’t click. Maybe it’s just not what you expected—or worse, maybe it’s just not working for you at all. Granted, it doesn’t happen to me too often, but when it does, that’s when DNF reviews come in. I’ve found that it greatly helps me process my reading experience to articulate why a book didn’t work for me, not to mention they also serve as a way to share my honest opinions with other readers who might feel the same—or who might actually enjoy the book for the very reasons I didn’t.

Here are the latest books that didn’t quite hit the mark for me and that I ultimately decided to put aside (a couple of these were actually from the tail end of last year).

I received review copies from the publisher(s). This does not affect the contents of my reviews and all opinions are my own.

All the Hearts You Eat by Hailey Piper

Mogsy’s Rating: DNF

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Titan Books (October 15, 2024)

Length: 447 pages

From the start, this one felt off to me. The prose was overly flowery and purple, making the writing feel bloated with unnecessary words. It’s tough to explain, but the intro felt simultaneously drawn out and all over the place. It was also hard to care about the characters, and by the time I set the book down about a quarter of the way into the book, they still didn’t feel fully realized. Any message on solidarity and friendship was completely overshadowed by the book’s aimless structure. Simply put: too many POVs, too much chaos, and too much pointless rage made this one impossible to continue.

American Rapture by C.J. Leede

Mogsy’s Rating: DNF

Genre: Horror

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Nightfire (October 15, 2024)

Length: 384 pages

American Rapture had such an intriguing premise: as a new virus spreading across the country making the infected feral with lust, our protagonist braves the unknown to reunite with her family. Problem is, the author is not known for sublety. Really, she is not. Being over the top and shocking is part and parcel of the style and experience. But when you are dealing with such weighty topics like spiritual wounds, conflicted identities, and societal collapse, this treatment just feels so gratuitous and flippantly distasteful. This book didn’t feel like a story; the character felt more like Leede’s mouthpiece to deliver a one-sided and heavy-handed screed, and I abandoned ship early when I realized where things were headed.

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Mogsy’s Rating: DNF

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Del Rey (January 14, 2025)

Length: 384 pages

I really really wanted to like this book. That I didn’t DNF it until well after the 50% mark should tell you just how badly I tried, but ultimately it wasn’t to be. With all the comparisons to Studio Ghibli, I was originally all on board, but as any fan knows, their films are diverses in tone and not all of them resonate with everyone. Sadly, while Water Moon had the whimsy and mythological charm down pat, it fell short in the areas that matter most to me: character development and cohesive storytelling. Troubles began with the clunky and overwrought writing style, and further issues came to light when the plot made it more important to focus on the romance. It’s a shame because I wanted to be swept away by the magic but instead I was left disappointed, though Water Moon will undoubtedly be a favorite for many.

Dark Age (Embassy Home Entertainment, July 10, 1987)

My next watch-a-thon is a favorite genre: crocs and gators. Unfortunately, this means the pickings are a bit slim, as I’ve already seen most of them, but I’ve managed to dig up 15 so far (supplemented with a Gila Monster and a couple of Komodos), and I’m sure the intended list of 20 will materialize as streaming services start suggesting titles.

Dark Age (1987) YouTube

Croc or gator? A 25ft saltwater crocodile.

Real or faker? A lovely, animatronic behemoth.

Any good? A thoroughly decent offering from the Ozploitation market, Dark Age is far from a mindless bloodbath sprinkled with spring breakers, and instead does what most Australian horror does: provide thrills alongside a biting social commentary. The croc in question is Numunwari, considered a God by the local Aboriginal population, but the extremely unpleasant white folks just see it as a trophy for their walls. Doubly so after it kills several people (including a rather unsettling attack on a young child).

The only decent non-Aboriginal character is Steve Harris, a conservationist, played by John Jarrett (who would go on to sever spinal cords 18 years later in Wolf Creek). He strives to find a way to stop the croc without killing it, and so begin the saltwater shenanigans. It’s well made, speckled with nods to Jaws throughout, and apparently a favorite of Tarantino’s. Loved it –- off to a great start!

8/10

The Great Alligator (Medusa Distribuzione, November 1979) The Great Alligator (1979) YouTube

Croc or gator? Actually a crocodile.

Real or faker? A big ol’ chonky puppet.

Any good? Warning: being a late 70s Italian ‘shocker’, this film kicks off with a bit of animal cruelty (not on the level of of a Deodato film though) and plenty of bare norks.

That said, it’s an enjoyable romp, backed up with a funky bongo soundtrack, and starring Mel Ferrer and Barbara Bach (dubbed throughout, even though the film is in English). The film concerns another croc God, this time an African one (the film was actually shot in Sri Lanka and features wildlife stock footage from Borneo).

Like Dark Age, the film concerns itself with more than just an angry reptile; environmentalism, colonialism and capitalism are all thoroughly speared (literally). There’s a great deal of ‘white savior vs. the savages’ going on, but it’s not too ugly, and all the racists get a decent comeuppance. The giant croc itself is astonishingly tame, more of a pool floaty than a killing machine, but it does chew the shit out of a VW camper van, so I applaud its efforts. I had fun.

7/10

 

Killer Crocodile (Fulvia Film, July 30, 1989) and Saltwater: The Battle for Ramree Island (Creativ Studios, June 1, 2021)

Killer Crocodile (1989) Tubi

Croc or gator? Crocodile.

Real or faker? A hilarious puppet.

Any good? Another Italian production to join the plethora of Jaws rip-offs, and another similar plot. This time a group of peace-loving tree-huggers are in an unspecified locale (actually the Dominican Republic) to investigate a polluted river. The toxic waste is not only bad for fish but bad for humans, as it has mutated a croc into a canvas coated styrofoam puppet that eats everything it sees with its googly eyes.

Cue some more white saviors saving the dark-skinned locals, a corrupt baddie getting his comeuppance and Lee Van Cleef-Lite jumping on the back of the titular beast and surfing it under the waves. A bit of good gore, a lot of bad acting and a soundtrack that sounds like the producer’s uncle farting into a tuba. Solid euro-trash. I liked it.

6/10

Saltwater: The Battle for Ramree Island (2021) Prime

Croc or gator? Crocodile(s).

Real or faker? Stock footage and a hand puppet…

Any good? Burma, 1945. Stories are told of a Japanese base on the island of Ramree that was overrun by saltwater crocodiles, leaving only 20 men alive out of a total of 1000. It’s based on fact, but the numbers have been wildly exaggerated.

That said, it would make a really interesting film as told from the Japanese point of view. Instead, we get a low-budget snooze-fest that could only afford two Japanese actors after shelling out for its four principal cast members. An inept squad of British soldiers (including one from the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade) are on a secret mission. So secret that three of them don’t know why they are there.

This squad makes Dad’s Army look like the S.A.S. — terribly written, 2-dimensional cliches (the befuddled old sergeant, a racist private, the quiet one (actually called Private Pike) and a very nice Indian) — and they soon find themselves up to their chewed knees in crocs. Way too much talking, not enough chomping.

Don’t believe that tagline. Dull.

5/10

Supercroc (The Asylum, April 3, 2007) Supercroc (2007) Tubi

Croc or gator? Crocodile.

Real or faker? Terrible CG.

Any good? I’m dragged kicking and screaming back to the reality of low budget crap by this one from 2007. Horribly shot (all extreme close ups or unfocused wobbly-cam), Supercroc is about a less-than-super crocodile that has decided to lay some eggs and go on the rampage. The US military machine (a bunch of soldiers in a park) try to stop it and mostly get eaten.

It’s dull, full of mismatched military stock footage, and the CG is abysmal — case in point, the 50ft reptile slides into the water with nary a ripple. Not good.

3/10

Crazy Tsunami (Splendid Film, 2021) and Supergator (Rodeo Productions, 2007)

Crazy Tsunami (2021) YouTube

Croc or gator? Crocodile.

Real or faker? Combo CGI and floaty puppet.

Any good? A Chinese production, keeping their recent fondness for glossy monster movies on the boil, this one is obviously inspired by the brilliant Crawl and the equally fun Aussie shark flick, Bait. In it, a freak tsunami in Indonesia floods Chinatown, and leaves a group of survivors fending off an African crocodile, which was being transported to a private collection.

Throw in some unscrupulous building developers, and you have a recipe for extremely moist mayhem. It’s derivative and hokey, and yet I really enjoyed it. Might be my favorite so far.

7/10

Supergator (2007) YouTube

Croc or gator? Alligator. Sort of.

Real or faker? Rubbish CGI.

Any good? Nope. Hot on the heels of Dinocroc, Roger Corman wanted to make a sequel, but SyFy said no. So he made it anyway, tweaked the monster design, had a nice few weeks in Hawaii, and produced this bit of tripe.

Kelly McGillis is the big name in this one, and she suffers through a tired script, hokey acting and lousy effects. It’s hard to judge a film like this, I’m not watching it for plot or character development and I guess if I was a 15-yr-old horndog I could grade the knocker quota, but in the end all I can ask is: was I entertained?

No, I wasn’t.

4/10

Previous Murkey Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

Neil Baker’s last article for us was Prehistrionics, Part III. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, outdoor educator and owner of April Moon Books (AprilMoonBooks.com).

Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy First published in 1874, Hardy’s Far From…

The post The Push and Pull of Desire in “Far From the Madding Crowd” Plus “The Past is Red” appeared first on LitStack.

One of the most frequently used characterisations in fantasy is that of the outcast or outsider. In fact, I would say that for many fantasy readers this idea of not belonging is one of the genre’s key attractions. How many readers do you know that have been seen as outsiders for just wanting to read,…

 

The Teller of Small Fortunesby Julie Leong
What is it about:Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences…
Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.
Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.
What did I think of it:This is such a good read!
I will confess I fell in love with the cover, and that's why I bought tis book. It turned out to be a Cozy Fantasy: as if your read is giving you a hug by being mostly nice, comforting, and happy.
I loved Tao and the people she meets and befriends. Especially Mash, the ex-mercenary is so awesome (and bearded mostly, although he should stop shaving entirely Voodoo Bride wants me to add).
There are of course some stakes to keep everyone moving, but I never worried, trusting that this book wouldn't disappoint me by suddenly being mean to me. 
All in all a wonderful read, and I immediately bought an extra copy to gift a good friend for her birthday (because nobody gets to borrow mine!).
Why should you read it:Cozy Fantasy! So nice and huggable!

Wolf Man (Universal Pictures, January 17, 2025)

Why oh why can’t Hollywood produce a decent werewolf movie?

I’ve had my heart broken twice in the past few months, first by The Beast Within (2024) and most recently by Wolf Man (2025).

I first told you about The Beast Within starring Kit Harington, back in August. In summary, it was lousy. Though the trailer implied a suspenseful, cohesive tale, Beast was a rambling affair that didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be. As for an actual werewolf transformation, it was implied but never really materialized. Instead, director Alexander J. Farrell tried to distract us from this fact with a knee-jerking series of events that barely held together as a story. Even putting Harington half-naked in a dog collar wasn’t enough to make me forgive this mess.

So, if you tell me I should have known better when, with renewed hope, I ran off to the theater last weekend to see Wolf Man, I wouldn’t argue.

Wolf Man

Making another attempt at revitalizing the classic monsters franchise ahead of opening its “Dark Universe” park in May, Universal Studios got behind this werewolf movie produced by Blumhouse, which made me think there was a chance it would be good. Afterall, it was Jason Blum who inspired Universal to give their Dark Universe movie franchise another go after Tom Cruise’s The Mummy was an unmitigated atrocity.

Universal had scrapped all the big-budget monster remakes they had teed up, which was more than fine with most fans, including me. Then here comes indie production company Blumhouse, hitting a home run with The Invisible Man (2020). Making nearly $145M on a $7M budget that’s a 20x return, meaning Hollywood couldn’t throw new projects at Jason Blum fast enough. When I heard Blumhouse had been handed the remake of Wolf Man (1941) I dared to be cautiously optimistic.

What a mistake.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve sat in a theater looking at my watch. I nearly always find something to love about most movies, but Wolf Man was so awful I would have got up and left had it not been for the tiny flame of hope I had that maybe the ending would redeem my two-hour investment.

It didn’t.

Here’s how Universal described Wolf Man:

Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger.

But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Sounds promising right? And for the first 20 minutes or so it kind of was. The dialog was lame, but the premise was interesting. En route to the childhood home in the middle of nowhere, the family gets into an accident and as they extricate themselves from the wreckage, the dad is bitten by an animal that runs off before they get a good look. Que the slow transformation of the dad into a werewolf which could have been awesome but instead was so drawn out and mind-numbingly boring it made me angry.

And come on – we had two fabulous werewolf movies back in the 80s in the form of The Howling (1981) and American Werewolf in London (1981), so someone in Hollywood must have kept the instructions on how to create a credible werewolf transformation with practical effects.

Wolf Man

But no. Wolf Man not only failed in its plot and dialog, but it utterly and completely defecated the mattress in creating an even remotely interesting werewolf.
So why does Hollywood keep getting werewolves wrong? The answer might lie in their complexity. Werewolves require nuance, and filmmakers seem allergic to it. Moreover, there are considerable technical challenges of depicting a werewolf convincingly. While CGI can be incredible, the extreme overuse of computer effects has resulted in a bit of audience backlash, causing filmmakers to go back to practical effects which clearly can’t keep pace with a modern audience’s expectations.
Finally, there’s a lack of fresh ideas. Perhaps it’s time for filmmakers to take inspiration from outside the box—or at least hire a scriptwriter who doesn’t think “lycanthropy” is just a fancy word for mood swings.

Despite these missteps, there’s still a tiny glimmer of hope for us werewolf fans. Enter Robert Eggers, the visionary director behind Nosferatu (which I’ve seen multiple times and absolutely loved – more on that next week). Eggers has announced his next project, Werwulf, will be a period horror film that promises to blend folklore, psychological terror, and meticulously crafted visuals into the ultimate werewolf tale.

Fans of Eggers know his penchant for historical authenticity and atmospheric storytelling, which could make Werwulf the fresh take that the genre desperately needs. With Eggers at the helm, there’s genuine hope that audiences will finally get a werewolf film that balances primal horror with emotional depth.

Hollywood, the ball’s in your court. But for now, maybe leave the werewolves alone for a bit. They deserve a better cinematic fate than what they’ve had recently.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels: A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars, and Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars (Science Fiction Books Club, July 1970, January 1971, and January 1973). Covers by Frank Frazetta

For sheer fun and adventure there’s nothing better in my opinion than Sword & Planet fiction (also called Interplanetary Adventure, Interplanetary Romance, or Planetary Romance). But exactly what is Sword & Planet fiction? Well, Edgar Rice Burroughs (ERB) created the prototype in 1911 with A Princess of Mars, which featured an Earthman named John Carter who is mysteriously transported to Mars, called Barsoom by its inhabitants.

The basic Sword & Planet story involves an earthman (rarely an earthwoman up to this point in time; 2025) on a strange world where he must use his wits, his muscles, and his sword against a host of human and nonhuman foes. The hero is generally chivalrous and the setting is an exotic alien world, often with multiple suns or multiple moons, populated by a variety of strange plants, animals, and intelligent beings. Magic is virtually non-existent, but there may be elements of “super-science,” such as open-decked flying ships or even ray-guns, although the latter take second billing to the blade. The emphasis is on swashbuckling sword fights, wild escapes, and desperate rescues.

[Click the images for Mars-sized versions.]

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Venus novels: Carson of Venus, Lost on Venus, Escape on Venus, Pirates of Venus, and The Wizard of Venus (Ace Books, June 1979, June 1979, January 1974, March 1973, and January 1973). Covers by Frank Frazetta, Esteban Maroto, Frazetta, Roy G. Krenkel, and Roy G. Krenkel

In addition to the Barsoom books, ERB also wrote a second Sword & Planet series, five books set on Venus (Amtor to the natives), featuring the earthman Carson Napier. Napier is intending to fly a rocket ship to Mars but ends up crashing on cloud-covered Venus.

He finds a world of giant trees and strange creatures, and, of course, a princess. Her name is Duare. Like Barsoom, Amtor mixes the primitive with super science, but the emphasis is on action, adventure, and personal combat with edged weapons.

Escape on Venus, The Moon Men, Pirates of Venus, A Fighting Man of Mars, and The Chessmen of Mars (Ace Books, 1964, October 1962, January 1963, March 1963, and December 1962). Covers by Roy G. Krenkel, Ed Emshwiller, Krenkel, Krenkel, and Krenkel

The five books in the series are:

1. Pirates of Venus
2. Lost on Venus
3. Carson of Venus
4. Escape on Venus
5. The Wizard of Venus

The Wizard of Venus is a novelette that wasn’t published until after ERB’s death. The book includes a second novelette called “Pirate Blood.”

The Moon Maid, The Moon Men, and The Moon Men (Ace Books, January 1974, March 1974, and October 1962). Covers by Frank Frazetta, Frazetta, and Ed Emshwiller

I enjoyed ERB’s Venus books a lot but they were not the equal of his Mars books — in my opinion. A lot of this has to do with Carson Napier. He’s no John Carter. He is a hero, and brave, but he makes plenty of mistakes and often needs to be rescued himself. He also uses more advanced weapons — essentially ray-guns — on many occasions. That means less “swashbuckling,” a minus for me. Certainly, though, if you’re interested in S&P fiction, the Venus books are a must.

The Venus books have been released in various editions. The pictures I have above mix older and newer editions. The older ERB books have covers and illustrations by Roy G. Krenkel, Jr, one of my favorite artists. Some of the newer ones have Frazetta images, and Frazetta was influenced by Krenkel.

The Moon Maid (Ace Books, January 1974). Cover by Frank Frazetta

A series that I would have liked to see more of from ERB was his Moon Maid series. It’s sometimes described as a trilogy, but only the first book is full length. That’s The Moon Maid (copyright 1923). The sequels are novellas called The Moon Men and The Red Hawk (copyright 1925), which I first read combined in a later Ace book called The Moon Men. The novellas are reprinted from the pages of Argosy All-Story Weekly, where the tales were first serialized in 1925.

The Moon Maid has an awesome Frank Frazetta cover that is one of my favorites among his works. I have two copies of The Moon Men, one with a Frazetta cover and the other with a cover by Ed Emsh.

The Moon Maid  (Del Rey Books, May 1992). Cover by Laurence Schwinger

The hero in The Moon Maid is Julian the 5th, an Earthman who has lived through many previous incarnations and remembers them. He is leading a rocket ship journey to Mars when the ship has to make a forced landing on the Moon.

They find an oxygen atmosphere inside the moon, and a wild land of strange creatures, including human-type and centaur-type intelligent races. Julian meets a princess of the human-type, Nah-ee-lah, and must rescue her. There’s lots of action and hand to hand combat, although not a lot of sword fighting. I would classify it as S&P.

The Moon Maid: Complete and Restored (Bison Books, April 2002). Cover art by Thomas Floyd

The Moon Men and The Red Hawk are not — properly speaking — S&P fiction, because they take place on Earth. In The Moon Men, the Kalkar inhabitants of the Moon have conquered Earth. Julian the 9th, another reincarnation, leads a revolt, but it remains to “Red Hawk,” a descendent of Julian to finally free Earth from the Lunarians’ rule.

The three parts of the Moon trilogy have been published together by Bison books along with all kinds of extras (see above). I don’t have that copy yet but will get it for my collection. The series is one of ERB’s best.

More on Burroughs, including Tarzan and The Land that Time Forgot, in my next post.

Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was The Masters of Narrative Drive.

Victorian Psycho is soon to be a feature film from A24 starring Margaret Qualley and…

The post Spotlight on “Victorian Psycho” by Virginia Feito appeared first on LitStack.

 

Did I already read this? Yes!
Am I still totally looking forward to getting this beauty in my eager trotters? YES!
Believe me: you want this book! It's utterly amazing and beautiful in and out! 
Go preorder: I totally did.

Never the Rosesby Jennifer K. Lambert
UNSTOPPABLE WAR. UNSPEAKABLE SINS. IMPOSSIBLE LOVE.
Genevieve Gornichec’s The Witch’s Heart meets Madeline Miller’s Circe in this epic and deeply emotional romantic fantasy debut by Jennifer K. Lambert. The hardcover edition features beautiful stenciled edges.
The Dread Sorceress Oneira has retired. She’s exhausted from fighting the endless wars of kings and queens, and has long accepted that her death is near. Alone at last but for a few uninvited companions―a near-mythical wolf, a goddess’s avatar, and a feline that embodies magic itself―Oneira realizes that she’s bored. On a whim, or perhaps at the behest of fate, she makes an unlikely trip to the most extensive library in existence: the home of her most powerful rival, the sorcerer Stearanos.
By recklessly stealing a book from him, Oneira inadvertently initiates a forbidden correspondence. Taunting notes and clever retorts reveal a connection neither has found―nor could ever find―in any other.
But Oneira soon learns that Stearanos, bound to a vile king, is tasked with waging war on the queen she once served. A relationship with him is far too dangerous to pursue despite their mutual desire―and yet, Oneira can’t seem to stay away.
A bond with Stearanos could alight the long-extinct flame of life within her… or it could destroy her entirely.

Expected publication July 8, 2025

Buy Grave Empire 

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Richard Swan is a critically acclaimed British genre writer. His debut fantasy novel, The Justice of Kings, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into seven languages. His other work includes the Art of War and Great Silence trilogies, as well as short fiction for Black Library and Grimdark Magazine.

Richard is a qualified lawyer, and before writing full time spent ten years litigating multimillion pound commercial disputes in London. He currently lives in Sydney with his wife and three young sons.

FORMAT/INFO: Grave Empire will release on February 4th, 2025. It will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Renata Rainer's job is a joke. As ambassador to the Stygion mermen, she largely has given up hope of ever being useful, given that the mermen want nothing to do with humans. But when two monks arrive claiming to have lost contact with the afterlife, suddenly Renata finds herself in the midst of a critical mission. The Stygion are some of the world's foremost arcana practitioners, and it's up to Renata to verify if recent portents do indeed herald an apocalyptic event known as the Great Silence. But Renata's not the only one interested in the Great Silence - and there are those who want help along the end of the world instead of stopping it.

Grave Empire is a haunting, harrowing journey that envelopes you in its atmosphere, while asking readers for patience in experiencing the actual payoff. This is a story of three individuals scattered across an empire who are realizing that a Very Bad Thing is coming. One is unraveling the secrets of a mysterious plague, another must travel through a warzone to consult with magic practitioners who can shed light on an ancient prophecy, and another is investigating strange reports on the frontier of the empire. Each story is compelling and unsettling, as our characters come to understand just how very wrong things are.

And yet when the dust settled, it felt like all that had been accomplished was learning that yes, a Bad Thing is coming and it is a VERY Bad Thing. The nature of the Great Silence is absolutely a satisfactory threat, and I look forward to seeing how our characters try to handle it, especially as some dominoes began tipping at the end of our story. But this first book is essentially all table setting. Here is the empire, here are the characters, here is the state of the mortal plane, here are some of the weird things that are happening. Will we explain how these weird things are tied together? Not really.

I do want to touch on the relationship between the Empire of the Wolf trilogy and this new The Great Silence trilogy. You do not need to have read the first trilogy to enjoy this new series; the events of Empire of the Wolf are as removed from the characters as the Napoleonic Wars are for us. Those events were definitely a big thing that happened, but they don't inform the characters' day to day lives.

The writing here is also more accessible than the previous trilogy. The first series was told first-person memoir style, while this new one is told across three third-person POVs. I think it also reflects the difference in tone between the two stories. Whereas Empire of the Wolf was a more personal journey of an individual caught up in world-shaking events, Grave Empire feels a little more big picture, a view of how several nations will grapple with a new threat.

CONCLUSION: I want to be clear, overall I really enjoyed Grave Empire, even if the ending left me a bit underwhelmed. I remain hopeful that the second book in this trilogy is going to take everything in the first book and use it for a fantastic sequel. In reading the first trilogy set in this world, I was lukewarm on book one, and then the sequel was one of my top reads the following year. Given how monumentally unsettling the nature of the Great Silence is, I think there's every chance this series will follow in its predecessor's footsteps.

  

Howard Andrew Jones at GenCon, 2023

In 2019, I had an idea: a lot of my friends loved reading sword and sorcery fiction, but they didn’t write it. They would say, “One day.” Many of my undergraduates also expressed interest in writing fantasy, but they often felt discouraged by form rejection letters (genre magazine slush piles are epic). Having studied the history of genre fiction, I knew about the old tradition of “fanzines”— not-for-profit amateur publications that provided a low-stakes outlet for new writers. Just submitting work, collaborating with an editor, and seeing it in print can transform someone’s self-image from being just a reader to being a writer.

So, after some conversations with friends and a bit of encouragement, I started thinking seriously about launching my own zine.

As an academic, I’m deliberate by nature. I like to consult and take my time. Honestly, if I could have formed a committee for this, I probably would have. Instead, I decided to email someone: Howard Andrew Jones.

[Click the images for larger versions.]

The three Dabir and Asim volumes: The Desert of Souls, The Bones of the Old Ones, and the collection The Waters of Eternity (Thomas Dunne Books, February 2011, December 2012, and November 2011). Covers by Charles Keegan, Steve Stone, uncredited

At the time, I didn’t know Howard personally, but I knew of him. He was a celebrated name in sword and sorcery. Howard had published an e-zine (Flashing Swords) in the genre, written essays and edited for Black Gate, and authored an incredible series of novels set in a sword-and-sorcery-inspired Arabia featuring Dabir and Asim (The Desert of Souls and The Bones of the Old Ones). He was also working on a new trilogy, The Ring-Sworn Trilogy, and I had already read the first book.

On top of all that, Howard had written several fun Pathfinder RPG novels, and he was editing Tales from the Magician’s Skull, the magazine for contemporary sword and sorcery fiction, published by Goodman Games. I loved that magazine. If anyone could give me advice on starting a zine, it was Howard.

I didn’t expect much when I emailed him. I wrote a long message, gushed a bit as a fanboy, and sent it off. Honestly, I wasn’t really expecting a response.

The next day, I was in my campus office grading papers when my office phone rang. My office phone never rings. In my ten years at CNU, maybe one student has ever called me. It’s practically an artifact – a dusty relic of a bygone era. My first instinct, as a millennial, was to let it go to voicemail. That’s what you do: let them leave a message and call back after some breathing exercises.

But for some reason, I picked it up.

“Hello?”
“Jason?”
“Yeah, this is Jason.”

The voice on the other end was calm, relaxed, with a kind of deliberate enunciation.

“Heeey, Jason! This is Howard.”
“Howard?” I said, not quite connecting the dots.
“Howard Andrew Jones. You emailed me about a magazine idea.”

I still get a little emotional thinking about that first call. Maybe I’m projecting, but I was immediately surprised, disarmed, and touched. Howard had gone out of his way to call me – call me! My office number isn’t even in my email signature, so he must have looked me up online to find my CNU contact info. I hadn’t even expected a reply, and here was this great author, taking the time to phone me.

Tales of the Magician’s Skull, edited by Howard Andrew Jones. Issues 1, 7, and 12
(Goodman Games, 2017, 2022, and 2024). Cover art by Jim Pavelec and Sanjulian

I was a bit starstruck when we first talked. I’m already an awkward person, but the awkwardness was dialed up as I tried to gather my bearings. Howard, however, was so kind, calm, and genuinely enthusiastic about fiction, writing, and fantasy literature that I found myself speaking to him like an old friend. I’m pretty sure we talked for over an hour during that first conversation. I remember he was multitasking while on the phone – taking out the trash or doing yard work.

In the years that followed, whenever I spoke to Howard, he always seemed to be en route somewhere – driving to town, running errands, sometimes saying, “Hold on, I’ve got to grab this thing.” He felt real and grounded in a way that made people feel at ease. He gave off this sense of being completely unaware of how cool he was or how others saw him – or, if he did know, he just didn’t put much stock in it.

Over the next five years, Howard and I stayed in almost constant contact. We texted regularly. Often, he’d reply to a message with something like, “You free? Driving to town.” When I started my magazine and created an associated Discord server, he joined and became as active there as anyone, if not more so.

His comments were always supportive, kind, and encouraging. He shared favorite authors, thoughts on prose style, and a steady drip of wisdom for aspiring writers. Whenever anyone mentioned his work, he would chime in, “Thanks for reading it,” “Glad it worked for you,” “Really appreciate the kind words.”

Outside of Discord, we talked on the phone often. One thing I noticed was that Howard frequently mentioned his friends – not in a name-dropping way, like he wanted you to know he knew big authors, but in a way that made you feel like you were part of this collaborative effort, this network of fellow creatives. To him, it seemed, writing wasn’t a solitary pursuit but a shared craft. It was like Howard was always attending a seminar on fiction, and his calls were a way of touching base to see how your progress was going.

The books of Howard Andrew Jones

For instance, he’d say something like, “Hocking and I were talking about dialogue – how it needs to reveal character but economically, like in hardboiled detective fiction” (I’m paraphrasing). From the way he spoke, I got the sense that Howard had a lot of writer friends, and they talked about the craft of writing the way master carpenters might talk about solving technical problems with wood.

Fandom can get a little gossipy, but Howard never said a negative thing about anyone. He was almost stubbornly kind and assumed the best intentions from people. Being in touch with him felt like being welcomed into a very supportive club. Over time – without me even realizing it – Howard became something of a mentor or even a sensei in sword and sorcery writing.

At first, we just talked about sword and sorcery (a genre he was deeply opinionated about – he really didn’t like Tros of Samothrace (“Bounced right off it)), but our discussions evolved into broader topics: writing, work, heroism, and how storytelling affects people’s lives. I can honestly say I learned a lot about writing from him, at least an MFA’s worth, or more.

I met Howard in person three times over the six years I knew him. I saw him at GenCon, the big gaming convention that also includes a section for genre writers. We sat on several panels together discussing sword and sorcery fiction. He attended Howard Days, a celebration of Robert E. Howard, the pulp author who created sword and sorcery (yes, it gets confusing). And then I saw him again at GenCon this past August of 2024.

In August, aside from a persistent leg injury, Howard seemed… OK. I need to be honest and say he struck me as a little blue at GenCon, and he suspected it was due to the injury or the associated medication treating it. He had every reason to be happy. He had just published the first two books of his Hanuvar series. If I remember correctly, book three, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain, had just come out or was coming out. At the convention, he gave me an ARC and signed it with the words, “Find a way or make one.” I took this as a nod to the writer’s life, a reminder to persevere and create despite the challenges.

The Ring-Sworn Trilogy by Howard Andrew Jones (St. Martin’s Press, 2018-2021). Covers by Lauren Saint-Onge

On the last day of GenCon, literally just before leaving, Howard, my wife Nicole, and I had lunch together. It was the first time Howard had met Nicole. She joked and referred to Howard as “my friend in my pocket” because I was always texting with him. I laughed and told her, “You don’t understand – this guy is so cool. He’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

That might sound like grief-motivated hyperbole now, but, in hindsight, it wasn’t. That’s exactly how I spoke about Howard before I knew anything was wrong.

Nicole and I had lunch with him, and of course, they hit it off. I can’t recall the details but Howard was fascinated with Nicole’s life growing up on a farm (did Howard come from a rural background?). After the meal, Howard said he was glad to have met her.

We left the restaurant. There were hundreds of people in the corridors at GenCon, a veritable sea of humanity, and Nicole and I were ready to leave, luggage in hand. So, we said our goodbyes. I had no idea it was the final goodbye. Howard gave me a hug and said, “Well, safe travels to you and your beautiful wife. And, keep writing.” Then he disappeared into the crowd.

A few weeks later, I learned he had gone to the hospital with acute symptoms.

I’m still in the anger phase of all this. Howard was such a good guy. It felt like, as a writer, he was hitting his peak. In my view, he had so much more to give the world – not just through his novels but through who he was as a person. I know my story is just one of many similar ones. That’s the kind of person Howard was: everyone who met him seemed to come away with a story about his kindness. This tragedy couldn’t have happened to a more undeserving person.

Howard, you’ll be missed, man. Thanks for being you.

Jason Ray Carney is a Lecturer in Popular Literature at Christopher Newport University. He is the author of the academic book, Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland), and the fantasy anthology, Rakefire and Other Stories (Pulp Hero Press). He edited Savage Scrolls: Thrilling Tales of Sword and Sorcery for Pulp Hero Press and is an editor at The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Sword and Sorcery. His last article for Black Gate was a review of Lord of a Shattered Land.

Book Description:

They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.

And I’ve always believed them.

Until now.

Now everything has changed.

Now, I’d rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.

Rating: 4 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

But it does not tell you this: that love will turn the whole world into something greater than itself.

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.

This is a dystopian book that’s a little different from The Hunger Games & Divergent and the like.  The world isn’t ending, necessarily but the government has mandated that everyone over the age of 18 has a procedure that basically renders you incapable of love and most of the other strong emotions.  They literally cut a piece out of the brain to achieve this!  I cannot imagine a time when the majority of people would be pushing for this to happen, but here it does.  I guess I can see some appeal to not suffering through a broken heart but to cut out a piece of my brain to achieve this?  Uhhhh, no thank you!

The story follow Lena Haloway as she is preparing for her procedure.  She got about 3 months until it is scheduled and there are interviews that have to be done so that the government can pick a husband suitable for her (because if you don’t care, how could you choose for yourself?) and what she will do for a living (will she go to college or just get a job until she is married?).  They regulate the music that your allowed to listen to and the books that you can read.  Something that Oliver did that is really different from most dystopian stories is the fact that everything we once had still exists.  There are cell phones and cars and the internet.  They are all strictly monitored and not everyone has them but they are still in use.  So many times you read these types of books and its like living in the dark ages and I thought this was a nice touch.

One of my gripes about this book is that if you take away the portion of the brain that controls emotion, how does anything get done?  If you don’t care, how do you take care of your children or get up everyday and go to work and cook and clean?  Love guides almost all the things we do.  We work because we love our families and want to take care of them.   We love our children and so we play with them and discipline them and laugh with them.  If you remove all those things are you really still alive?  Aren’t other things in our lives determined by a type of love?  If you were a police man breaking up an illegal party with a bunch of teenagers involved, would you care enough to just send them home or would you release the dogs against them and beat them with clubs and would it matter either way?  Very confusing to me.  I guess if love was that simple and it could be removed without interfering with everything else, then maybe, but it simply affects too many things.

Anyway, the story drags on a bit for me once the world is set up and you get a grasp on what’s happening.  Lena and Hana (her best friend) start to break the rules and go to unauthorized parties after curfew.  Up until this point, they’ve had almost no contact with the opposite sex besides adult males (parents and teachers who have all had the procedure) and these parties are full of uncured boy their own age.  So in typical teenager fashion they are rebelling before they can’t anymore.  Then Lena meets a boy, Alex, who shows her that there is so much to be missed by having the procedure done and how much the cureds have been lying to everyone (particularly Lena).  As they get to know each other and fall in love Lena realizes that there’s no way she could ever willing have the procedure and she tries to come up with a way for them to escape.

Will they find a way or will Lena have to lose part of herself?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

First of all, I cannot believe that there wasn’t a love triangle in this book!  It was kind of nice  to not have to be vacillating between two love interests!

I was wondering throughout the whole beginning of the book if it wouldn’t turn out that Lena’s Mom was still alive.  Considering how long ago she supposedly killed herself she was still very present in Lena’s mind and that usually means something is coming up.  It’s too bad that she didn’t  get to see her before she escaped though.

I cannot BELIEVE that Alex doesn’t make it with Lena to the Wilds!  He sacrifices himself up to the regulators so that Lena can get away.  He got shot and captured but I’m not sure if he’s alive or not!  What will she do now in the Wilds all alone?  Being with Alex was the main reason she decided to run away in the first place!  Sheesh, I wonder what Oliver has planned for book 2?

Book Description:

tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
it’s almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She’s finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam’s life.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

My troubles have arrived fashionably late to this conversation, inconsiderate beasts that they are.

It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.

He’s standing right in front of me and I miss him like I haven’t seen him in years.

“I think there’s something about the impermanence of life these days that makes it necessary to etch ink into our skin,” he says.  “It reminds us that we’ve been marked by the world, that we’re still alive.  That we’ll never forget.”

Another heart wrenching book by Mafi.  She really is a wonderful writer.  I couldn’t put the book down.  I devoured it in a day and now I’m dying to know what happens next.  I’m not sure but I think this is a three book series so the next one should be the end.  I love the way your heart is practically in your throat the whole book.  There is so much emotion happening and Mafi writes in a way that you can’t help but experience everything along with the characters.

Book two picks up shortly after where book one ended.  Juliette, Adam and James have been at Omega Point for about a week and things are starting settle down.  Once the immediate danger is over Juliette has retreated back inside herself because she is now surrounded by people who know what she can do and some of them include children.  She doesn’t want to scare anyone and so she decides to just keep to herself and only really talk to and associate with Adam.  What a hard thing to have to experience at the age of 17, to try to make friends when you’ve never done something like that before.  She’s always been immediately ostracized when she was around other people and so she doesn’t know how to start getting to know people.  I thought this was a good road for Mafi to take with this story, it makes it more believable.  Because of this, she comes off even scarier than she would have if she even made some small attempt to interact with people.  The story about how she killed that little kid years ago gets out and now everyone is looking at her just like people always have.  So much for being with people who would understand her because she wasn’t the only one with some bizarre powers.  Castle thinks that there might be more to Adam being able to touch her than it just being some fluke and now he’s undergoing some test to see if there’s another reason he can touch her.  The results are devastating and now Juliette has to decide how she’s going to back away from him to keep him safe.  She learning more about her own abilities and now she’s not just worried about her touch being dangerous.  Her whole body is a weapon and she has no control over it.  On top of that monumental obstacle, she is still keeping secrets from Adam.  She hasn’t told him that Warner can touch her too and that she kissed him right before she shot him.  I don’t know why she doesn’t say anything.  She should have told him as soon as he was healed.  There was no real reason for her not to except for the part where she actually enjoyed it.  She could leave that part out of it as far as I’m concerned but the rest of it she should have told him.  You can’t keep secrets like that.  The fact is that if they really loved each other there would be no reason to keep these kinds of secrets.  Adam might be a little pissed but the fact is she did what she needed to do so that she could save him and I don’t think that he would be angry for long.

Kenji plays a much bigger role in this book and I’m so glad because I love him!  He’s like the only bright spot in the book; his personality is so bright and carefree that you can’t help but smile when he’s around.  This is not to say that he doesn’t have some serious moments and he does put Juliette in her place a few times but she really needed someone to kick her in the ass so she would quit moping around.  The reality is that she is the primary reason that The Reestablishment is hunting so fiercely for Omega Point.  Not that this wouldn’t have come to a head at some point in the future but the timetable’s been moved up and that is because of Juliette.  Warner can’t let her go and now that his father is involved he hasn’t got a choice but to find her.  After learning more about him in Destroy Me I was pretty sure he would be a big part of this book as well.  We learned even more about him and his past as him and Juliette spend some time together.

Kenji has been working with Juliette to help her figure out and hone her skills and she starts to get a little more control of it.  I was hoping this would naturally lend itself to help with her self-esteem but that doesn’t really happen.  If she should would just accept who and what she is life would start to become more manageable for her but she can’t stop seeing herself as a monster.  She’s come out of her shell a little bit and it starting to make some friends but everyone at Omega Point is preparing to battle Warner’s father and his men and they need Juliette to help them.  With the strength of her power she could be the edge that they need to win.

Will she be able to put her personal feelings aside and focus on the more important objective?  Will she be able to use her abilities against the “bad guys” to save the innocent citizens of sector 54?  How will she reconcile her feelings for Adam and Warner?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

Oh man this book was torture for me!  I’m still so unsure who I want Juliette to end up with!  Her and Adam have such an intense relationship and it’s been growing since they were kids.  Now that they have finally found each other and Adam can actually touch her things were looking up.  This was not to last, of course, and now Adam has discovered that he has an ability as well.  He’s a disruptor and that’s why he can touch her because he can cancel out her power. The problem with this is that he has to be constantly on guard in order for it to work and that can’t happen when they are getting physical with each other.  She nearly kills him at one point!  So she’s decided to stay away from him and it’s destroying both of them.  Then there’s Warner.  This is the first time that Juliette really gets to know him for who he is instead of the leader of sector 54.  When she was listening to his father tear him down and then again later when he was being held captive at Omega Point and she had to interrogate him.  He was so sweet to her and let her see a part of himself that I don’t think he’s ever shown anyone else.  The scars on his back, the way he really sees himself, the way he sees her and how she makes him feel.  It was breathtaking to witness.  Now she’s so confused about what to do and she hasn’t told Adam about any of this and she hasn’t told Warner that Adam is his brother (which shocked the hell out of me, by the way) and she’s somehow in the middle and unable to decides what to do.  She’s also hiding a lot of information about Warner.  She doesn’t tell anyone that she knows why he can touch her and what his ability is and I’m not sure why.  What could it harm?  It just makes her look worse for keeping it to herself.  I think she loves them both but who is the better choice?  Adam is so loving and caring and wants to take care of her and he loves her with a desperation that is a little frightening.  Warner can be gentle and caring and he doesn’t pull any punches.  He is who he is and he accept Juliette for who she is and what she is capable of.  He also loves her in an overwhelmingly obsessive way.  I wonder if this is something about Juliette or if it’s something in their DNA that she attracts?  Either way it’s a tough decision.

I wish that Kenji wouldn’t have stopped Juliette from killing Anderson.  That guy is a monster and someone needs to take care of him.  I understand why he did it but at the same time you don’t go to war with someone in his position if you don’t have his replacement ready to take over.  Then in the end when he just shot her in the chest and leaves!  This was the only real issue I had with the book.  Why would he have gone through the trouble of shooting her in front of Warner only to leave before he could witness what it did to him?  And, why would he have had “the girls” kidnapped to use to heal him only to leave them behind?  If anything, he should have at least taken them with him back to the capital.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all ends.

Book Description:

Perfect for the fans of Shatter Me who are desperately awaiting the release of Unravel Me, this novella-length digital original will bridge the gap between these two novels from the perspective of the villain we all love to hate, Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me, Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .

Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45

Rating: 5 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

It’s a strange thing, to never know peace.  To know that no matter where you go, there is no sanctuary.  That the threat of pain is always a whisper away.

Love is a heartless bastard.  I’m driving myself insane.

I’m at a loss for words with this novella.  At the end of Shatter Me I had already firmly decided that I didn’t like Warner.  I didn’t necessarily think he was a bad person, per se, but that he wasn’t a good person either.  Now I find myself saddened by his story.  Raised by a man who never had a nice thing to say to him and never receiving any kind of affection.  It’s very similar to Juliette’s story, really, only that in Warners situation it wasn’t because people couldn’t touch him but because no one did.  It makes a lot more sense now why he felt to connected to Juliette and now that he has her journal from when she was institutionalized he’s even more determined to find her and bring her back to be with him.  I’m not sure if he’s going to have much success with this due to the way he tried to get her affections the last time but I at least have a better feel for who he is and why he is the way he is.  I think that anyone can change, given the proper motivation.  The question is, will Warner want to change and is love enough of a motivator for him?  I think we’ll find out in book two which is next up on the list.

Book Description:

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Rating: 4.5

Favorite Quotes:

Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps, is what I don’t tell him.  I’ll never be okay.

my cheek is pressed against his chest and he smells like strength and courage and the wold is drowning in rain.

I remember you every day forever in every single broken moment of my life.

His hands are shaking so slightly, his eyes brimming with feeling, his heart thrumming with pain and affection and I want to live here, in his arms, in his eyes for the rest of my life.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first picked it up.  It was a recommendation from a friend and I thought, what the hell, I’d give it a shot.  It was surprisingly good!  The writing style took a little getting used to as most of what Juliette thinks is in run on sentences.  This makes a little more sense once you figure out that she has been locked up all alone for almost a year and hasn’t spoken to another living soul for that whole time.  I think I’d be a little nutty too.  Mafi is a very emotionally descriptive writer and because of this it doesn’t take very long for you to be attached to certain characters and to really despise others.  I only used four of my favorite lines from this book above but I think I highlighted around 10 or so which is really high for me in any book.  I think she’s an amazing writer and once I got used to her writing style, I really liked it.

I’m not sure what year the book is set in but basically we’ve destroyed the planet and there’s not enough food or clean water and The Reestablishment has taken over power of everyone. They’ve decided that in order to correct the problems that society has caused they need to make several changes.  Only the strong get to survive, they are getting rid of all the books they can find and trying to create a whole new language.  All the unhealthy, weak and old are gotten rid of.  It doesn’t specifically say how this happens maybe they are all killed or maybe they are just segregated from the rest of society?  Juliette has some sort of weird power where it is dangerous for her to touch anyone.  She had an incident in a grocery store and after that she was locked up in what she assumes is an insane asylum.  One day she gets a cell mate, Adam Kent, and then things start to change a little for her.  Can you imagine not speaking to anyone for a year?  Just as she’s starting to get used to the idea of him she’s taken out of her cell and introduced to the sector leader for The Reestablishment, Warner, who informs her that he’d like her to join their cause.  He thinks that her “talent” could be really useful to them.  Which means, of course, that he would like her to help him kill the rebels.  Warner takes her to their base and sets her up with a nice room and nice clothes and good meals and thinks that this is the way to get her to agree to join him.  He’s got more on his mind than just how she can help their cause too.  Luckily for her, people can’t touch her (at least not most people) so she seems to be relatively safe for the time being.

Adam has been assigned to guard her and as time goes on we learn a little about their past and get to see their relationship develop into something very sweet and intense.  Juliette’s got to escape from The Reestablishment, especially from Warner as he’s got some kind of weird obsession with her, and Adam is going to help her to this.  When they finally get free, it’s a mad dash to find their allies and get somewhere safe.  Then everything gets turned on its head when they do finally find safety.  Will this new group be the good guys?  Will they want to use Juliette for her “talents” as well?  With her suddenly being in a situation of acceptance, how will she handle it and will her and Adam be able to stay together?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

I love the relationship between Adam and Juliette.  I wasn’t sure how this would work out in the beginning, since she can’t be touched and was relieved that Adam was the exception to this rule.  The fact that they knew each other when they were younger went a long way with me to support the intensity of their feelings for each other.  You can’t just meet someone and all of a sudden be in love with them.  I liked that they each had formed feelings for the other growing up even though they had never had a conversation before now.  Adam is so sweet to her and the fact that he remembered all the small things she did growing up for the same people who treated her so terribly was a nice touch.  I’m not sure how this will all play out as Juliette has no experience with relationships of any kind.  How will she handle something so intense?

I was disappointed to learn that Adam wasn’t the only one immune to Juliette’s dangerous touch when Warner touched her right before they escaped.  I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Warner.  I think that he is a product of his upbringing.  Even though he can be ruthlessly cold and calculated, I’m not sure that he is a bad person.  I think this is all he knows.  He seems to have real feelings for Juliette although they way he got to know her was a little stalkerish with reading all about her history and then watching her in the asylum for the past year.  He’s obsessive though and he’s not going to just let her go without some sort of fight.

I actually really loved the ending to this book!  I totally didn’t see it coming.  A whole group of people who all have different abilities.  How wonderful for Juliette to finally feel like she belongs somewhere.  Adam made a little headway with her self-esteem over the course of the few months they got to spend together but think about how horrible her life would have been.  Can you imagine not being touched by anyone for almost your entire life?  It’s pretty incredible that she’s still such a good person.  The kind of power that she has would have been so dangerous in the wrong hands.  The way her parents made her feel like a monster especially pissed me off.  As a parent you love your children NO MATTER WHAT and how could you let her feel so alone her whole life?  They could have ruined her forever.  I’m excited to see what book two brings.  I’d like to know what other kind of gifts the people of Omega Point have and how they deal with Warner and the threat he represents.

Next up is Destroy Me, a novella before Unravel Me.