This is fun. An epic planetary romance with Vernor Vinge-like zones and punk barbarians and lots and lots of zepplins.

For the dark, cold, unceasingly wet and utterly miserable winter that’s in it, here’s a little something that’ll brighten up your day, albeit by reassuring you that if you think YOU’VE got it bad, better think again. Hegel and Manfried, the brothers of the title are a despicable pair of medieval European rednecks, narcissistically convinced of their own righteousness, who make their dubious living by robbing graves. After taking revenge on an old neighbour by murdering his family and burning his house, the brothers flee south, headed or the fabulous tombs and riches of Egypt with a lynch mob baying at their heels. Doggedly determined, cunningly violent and utterly ruthless, they carve their way across the heart of Europe encountering monsters, witches, priests, innocents, charlatans, plague and soul crushing poverty, all the while expounding their own idiosyncratic views on life and religion.

There is a great deal of nastiness in this book, as well as horrorness and disgustingness, but that doesn’t stop it from being wildly entertaining and blackly, bleakly hilarious. It’s also an effective portrait of life in 1346, grimy, grim and ugly, full of religious awe and superstition and likely to be cut short with little notice by violence, pestilence, starvation or pure random bad luck. Bad and all as the Brothers Grossbart are, there are things lurking in the mountains and valleys and forests that make them look cuddly by comparison. Well, not really,

This is one for those with a strong stomach and a wicked humour, but it is well written and hugely enjoyable, and boasts one of the best covers for years; a clever, insanely detailed optical illusion-woodcut by Istvan Oros, and while you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, this amazing image was what caught my eye initially. What I ended up with was a gleeful sort of mash up of Umberto Eco and Cormac McCarthy as written by Stephen King. So delve, if you dare, into the blasphemous, bloody, foul-mouthed world of the Brothers Grossbart. And their beards.

So this is a bit like a hobo Blood Meridian with supernatural elements, at least in terms of style and tone. A grim, obsessive chase across Depression-era America, as a man searching for his daughter's killer through hobo camps and freight yards and hoovervilles finds that he is not alone, and joins up with other lost souls searching for vengeance. Their quarry is the subject of folklore and myth, but only gradually do the the hunters begin to realise that Mr Shivers may well in fact be something out of myth, a terrifying killer who serves some dark and unfathomable purpose.

Written in a dark, spare, poetic style and filled with scenes of terrific dramatic power and apocalyptic undertones, this is a fast, flowing read. Before you know it fifty pages and half the morning have gone by and you still don't want to put it down. You'll probably have some notion of where it's heading, but it's a hell of a trip and well worth taking.

it really is nice to discover a new (to you, anyway) writer who has that mysterious, ineffable, unquantifiable quality of sheer readability, whose words and pages fly by smoothly and easily and almost without effort. Jemisin has that quality, for me anyway, and I suspect for others, too, as she is definitely a rising star in fantasy.

Our heroine, Yeine, is the leader of a minor country in the north, often derided as barabaric by the ruling Arameri. As it happens, Yeine's mother was an heiress of the ruling Lord of the Arameri, and upon her mysterious death, Yeine finds herself summoned to the city of Sky by her grandfather and named heir, competing for the most powerful title in the world with two cousins she has never met, but who are much more advanced in the game than she is.

What makes the Arameri so powerful are the gods they control, enslaved in human form but still immensely powerful and extremely dangerous. No-one can stand against them, and the rule of the Arameri is absolute, but the gods long for freedom, and poor doomed Yeine may offer them the means of acheiving it. Whatever happens, Yeine is not expected to survive.

Arrogant rulers, unfathomable deities in human form, ancient myths and vengeance new and old, ruthlessness and cruelty and extremely inadvisable passions: it's a fantastically well-told tale and an incredibly enjoyable read.

Half a book so this is half a revi-


-ew. Goodreads is treating them as one book. Puzzling.

Best epic fantasy novel ever bar none! So much stuff happens! Then more stuff happens! Bloody amazing!

So I ordered this from my trusty local bookseller and when I picked it up she gave the blurb at the back a read, went quiet, and then said 'Jaysus Christ.' Why, yes, this is dark. It's crime dark and it's horror dark and even a touch of dystopian sci-fi dark. The writing combines psychological tension with grimy physicality and the plot is a police-procedural serial killer story that gradually reveals itself to be murky urban fantasy. It'll darken your mood, but it's a great read.

Gonna write a review any second now. Annnny second...

I am going to start including graphic novels here because THAT'S WHY.
Well, this was good. I'm not exactly in the market for vampire fiction, certainly not vampire comics. Never heard of Scott Snyder, and Stephen King's name didn't do much to increase my interest. This hearks back to Vertigo's horror roots, of course, though they're a pretty diverse line nowadays, but you rarely get a Vertigo title without a dark and violent edge.
Two parallel stories of vampirism, one in the Wild West, the other in 1930s Hollywod. The older story is about the birth of a new breed of vampire, an outlaw desperado, and the later storyline is about another, newer version of the breed and her battle with the older class of European vamp that inadvertently created her. It's a cracking read, with great art, makes excellent use of its' setting and promises to deliver a lot more in future volumes. Excellent.

Spring, 1543. Henry VIII is looking for a sixth wife and tensions are high as the religious factions brace themselves for another shift in the balance of power at court.

Matthew Shardlake, lawyer hero of Sansom’s four previous historical whodunnits, has more than enough to keep him busy. A young boy locked up in Bedlam is in danger of being burned as a heretic and an old friend has been brutally murdered. Shardlake, with his servant Jack Barak and his physician friend Guy Malton, find themselves on the trail of a uniquely terrifying killer who stages his murders with gruesome ingenuity according to different passages in the Book of Revelation. With the streets of London bristling with a religious madness of their own, Shardlake must hold tight to his own principles and clear-eyed sanity.

Rich in period detail, Sansom’s London comes to life on the page, as do his characters as they desperately hunt a monster instantly recognisable to a twenty-first century audience. From the rooms of King’s Inns to wealthy Thameside mansions to the appalling cells of Bedlam in a search for the roots of madness, Sansom’s narrative never flags.

Gus is a boy with the features of a deer, born in the aftermath of a plague that wiped out most of humanity. Raised by his god-fearing father in an isolated nature reserve, he is a sweet, innocent boy who believes in God and says his prayers. His father succumbs to the plague, however, and hunters come to take him away. He is rescued by a man named Jeppers, who promises to take him to safety.

This is excellent. Very readable, excellent art, albeit with the usual muddy Vertigo colours. Reminiscent of Y The Last Man, but utterly different in tone and style.