Storm Front

Author – Jim Butcher

Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Penguin Putnam (Roc)
Release Date: April, 2000
ISBN-10: 0451461975
ISBN-13: 978-0451461971

Blame my girlfriend for this review, for I didn’t make up my mind about Jim Butcher’s debut novel, Storm Front, for myself, she did. The conversation started while we were laying in bed, with me debating whether I should jump into the sequel, Fool Moon or another novel, by a different author.

I thought about it for a second and realized she was right. I had been talking about Storm Front almost non-stop since the day before, when I hadn’t even finished it yet. I didn’t really realize it, but I did love Storm Front despite the problems it had. And you know why? It’s just plain, ol’ fun.
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Nights of Villjamur

Author – Mark Charan Newton

Hardcover
Pages: 400
Publisher: Tor (UK)
Release Date: June 5, 2009
ISBN-10: 0230712584
ISBN-13: 978-0230712584

Mark Charan Newton wears his influences on his sleeve, boldly name-dropping the likes of M. John Harrison, China Miéville and Gene Wolfe as driving forces behind his first novel, Nights of Villjamur. But where does that leave me, a self-professed anti-snob – a fan of Terry Brooks and John Scalzi, shy of those more literary works of fantasy, even downright terrified (if forced to be honest)? This was a question I asked myself as I cracked open Newton’s first novel, and I’ll admit I was afraid of the answer.
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The Warded Man

Author – Peter V. Brett

Hardcover
Pages: 432
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: March 10, 2009
ISBN-10: 0345503805
ISBN-13: 978-0345503800

When Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man was first released in the UK last year (under the much superior title of The Painted Man), it started garnering a considerable amount of buzz, some even going so far as to call it the best debut novel since Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. Doubly impressive when you consider that The Warded Man is steeped in the values of light, traditional fantasy, a sub-genre much maligned by many of the Internet’s pundits.

The blurb on the back cover marks The Warded Man as pretty standard fare – demons rising from the night, world in danger, young protagonists setting out to save the world – but from the early pages it’s clear that Brett is determined do something different in the world of traditional fantasy.
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The Sirens of Titan

Author – Kurt Vonnegut

Paperback
Pages: 336
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Release Date: 1959
ISBN-10: 0385333498
ISBN-13: 978-0385333498

My brother loves Kurt Vonnegut. Like really loves him. So, doing my older brotherly duty, I more or less ignored the fellow and his works. My brother would urge me to read them, and I would nod my head obligingly, all along just knowing just how much I could grind his gears.

He’s a clever brother, though, and so this past Christmas, wrapped up nicely under the tree was a copy of The Sirens of Titan, my brother’s favourite book by Vonnegut. Now, I might be a big enough asshole to ignore his suggestions, but not so much that I would neglect a Christmas gift. My hands were tied and my brother finally won, I picked up my first Kurt Vonnegut novel without really knowing what to expect.

Oh, how a fool I feel now.
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The Graveyard Book

Author – Neil Gaiman

Hardcover
Pages: 304 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Children’s ed edition
Release Date: October 20, 2008
ISBN-10: 0747569010
ISBN-13: 978-0747569015

Over the holiday season I picked up, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, a novel that I had been saving for years. Gaiman is a special case for me, I don’t read his novels lightly, instead saving them for special occasions when I need a reminder why I first fell so in love with reading. Stardust was a mesmerizing read – full of dashing heroes, dastardly villains and a living, breathing Fey world – and perhaps is my favourite novel by my favourite author.

Despite all of this I never wrote a review of Stardust. Why? It’s hard to say. It feels a little above me, to write a casual review of a novel that affected me so much, written by an author who seems nigh untouchable. I’d only be adding to the avalanche of praise already heaped upon the classic novel. In many ways that adoration (and, by extension, all the good things said in the following review) spilled over into my experience with Gaiman’s latest novel, The Graveyard Book, another wonderful sign pointing to Gaiman’s status as a living legend of fairytale literature and Speculative Fiction.
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