Tag Archives: epic fantasy
The Orphans of Raspay by Lois McMaster Bujold
Recommended for fantasy completionists Read January 2026 ★ ★ ★ Oh, alright, I’ll elaborate. This Penric novella is a little different. Penric and Desmonda are under sail, traveling to someplace or another. Demons don’t do well with water, however, … Continue reading
Penric’s Fox by Lois McMaster Bujold
Recommended for fantasy fans Read January 2026 ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Further story-telling strides have been made since the first two installments of Pendric and his demon, Desmonda. This is a straight-up mystery that brings the gang of the second … Continue reading
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews
Unfinished October 2025 Recommended for fans of portal fantasies not rated I grew up on portal fantasies. It was a tremendously popular trope for 1970s and 1980s fantasies, from the junior reader The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Phantom Tollbooth, … Continue reading
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
Read July 2025 Recommended for fantasy fans ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Would I have enjoyed this when I was fifteen? I don’t know, but I really, really wouldn’t have gotten a lot of the recurring motif of aging. Perfect … Continue reading
The Stone in the Skull by Elizabeth Bear
Abandoned February 2023 Recommended for fans of purple prose I like Elizabeth Bear, but I’m discovering that I like her in the same way I like lilies: in small doses and from a distance. She does elaborate things with language … Continue reading
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, take two
Read December, 2021 Recommended for aging Pratchett fans ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 In one timeline, I read this in 2015 and it was a total miss even though I had an affection for the character … Continue reading
Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold
Recommended for fans of light fantasy Read October 2021 ★ ★ ★ An improvement on the first book, Penric and the Demon, the shaman’s story picks up four years later. Penric has finished school and is working for the … Continue reading
Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
Recommended for fans of gentle YA fantasy Read October 2021 ★ ★ 1/2 I grew up reading Brooks’ Shannara series, soon followed by Eddings’ Belgarion. The format is always the same, likely all based on Tolkien or Jung or someone; … Continue reading
Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Recommended for fans of D&D, questioning Read October 2021 ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 This was bananas. To be clear, I don’t mean ‘bananas’ in the wierd-fiction, ‘Authority’ kind of way, but in the ‘end up in a completely different … Continue reading
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
Read 2020 Recommended for fans of fantasy ★ ★ ★ ★ Before there was TV Tropes, there was The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. In 1996, Wynne Jones created the ultimate epic fantasy trope list. Done in a … Continue reading
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