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Featured Fantasy : Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg

June 28, 2021 by Carolynn

Featured Fantasy : Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg

$1.99 as of June 28, 2021
Click for current price: Amazon US

Nook, Kobo

A thrilling retelling of the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh from the Hugo and Nebula Award–Winning author of Lord Valentine’s Castle.

Gilgamesh’s appetite for wine, women, and warfare is insatiable. As the King of Uruk, he oppresses his people and burdens his city. To temper his excesses, the gods create Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s equal, who becomes his greatest friend. Together they wander the kingdom as brothers, conquering demons until a cruel twist changes Gilgamesh’s path forever. Two parts god and one part man, Gilgamesh is mortal—a fate he now resolves to overcome, no matter what the price. And so he embarks on another journey, in pursuit of vengeance and the ultimate prize for a mortal king: eternal life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Robert Silverberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

See all the Box Set List Featured Fantasy | See All Featured Sci-Fi

Filed Under: Box Set Featured Fantasy, Fantasy Tagged With: Gilgamesh the King, Robert Silverberg

UPDATE: Please don’t buy this box set! (But I’d love some reviews)

July 10, 2020 by Carolynn

Worlds of Wonder a Sci-fi Fantasy Collection by C. Gockel

Available at:
Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CA, Amazon DE, and Amazon AU

Nook, Kobo, Google Play, iBooks

Hey Everyone,

I’ve put together a box set with selections from I Bring the Fire and Archangel Project with the express intention of making it free. 

I also included Let There Be Light because I think John must find Hana, and I will probably tie that into the Archangel Universe at a later date. 

Please don’t buy it–I mean, you can if you want, and I would gladly take it as a tip–but I will be setting it to free hopefully by August. 

More than anything though, I’d really like reviews on this one. If it goes free with some nice reviews it will get more downloads. More downloads hopefully will mean I’m reached by new readers. New readers will hopefully buy more books.

If you do want to purchase or, (please with sugar on top) leave a review, just click the button below for links to all vendors:

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CA, Amazon DE, and Amazon AU

Nook, Kobo, Google Play, iBooks

Filed Under: Archangel Project, Box Sets, Fantasy, I Bring the Fire (A Loki Series), Sci-Fi Tagged With: Worlds of Wonder

Book Review: His Majesty’s Dragon

May 12, 2020 by Carolynn

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, GooglePlay

Well, this was delightful. Recently I read a Regency Romance that I thoroughly enjoyed. The culture of Regency era Europe is so foreign, that it might as well be fantasy. There are gazillions of Regency Romances out there and I thought I might find another I liked as much quite easily. Ha, ha, ha…No.

And then I discovered His Majesty’s Dragon, by Naomi Novik. I am a huge fan of her reimagined fairy tales Uprooted and Spinning Silver, and decided to give this a shot. His Majesty’s Dragon is NOT a Romance; it is better. It has the cultural voyeurism that I so enjoy with DRAGONS! Talking dragons that take the place of airplanes and join the Napoleonic Wars. The lead human character is a good guy, but a bit on the stiff side. The author writes this stiffness in a way that makes it endearing, and shows the positive attributes of that sort of character. Too often the upright individual winds up the minor antagonist in fiction. The hero always has to be the maverick.

It is a super fun book. It is the perfect thing to take your mind off things that we shall not mention it by name here, but it rhymes with “Come on Eileen.”

UPDATE: I finished the whole series, adored it, and went into a state of withdrawal afterwards. It is traditionally published and very popular…and therefore available at libraries, though the first two ebooks are reasonably priced.

Available at Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, GooglePlay

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fantasy Tagged With: His Majestys Dragon, Naomi Novik

Uprooted Book Review

March 19, 2020 by Carolynn

Uprooted is Naomi Novik’s take on Beauty and the Beast. If you like heat, it has more heat than Spinning Silver (though it is nothing particularly explicit—you can’t study for anatomy exams with this book.) I thought it showed the differences in the characters relative life experience, so wasn’t about being steamy per se.

Except that the heroine goes somewhat unwillingly to a castle to live with the Beast for a time it doesn’t bear much relation to that story. It is much more exciting than that story. like Spinning Silver there are a lot of great relationships—friendship, love, and family. 

The world is exquisitely crafted. The language is just as lush, and I recommend it highly. It kept me up late reading even if Spinning Silver was my favorite. 

Available at Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and GooglePlay.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fantasy Tagged With: Naomi Novik, Uprooted

Spinning Silver Book Review

March 19, 2020 by Carolynn

Spinning Silver

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is the second in a wonderful series, though I read it first and had no trouble jumping right in. This book is lush in its descriptions and emotions. There is plenty of love—of the friendship variety, of child to parent and parent to child, and even romance. 

This is a story is a take on Rumplestilskin, but in it the heroine Miryem owes nothing to a dwarf. She is the daughter of a money lender who is too kind for his own good. She goes about collecting on her father’s debtors to keep her family from starving. Lenders of money are seldom the heroes, but there is ethically lending  and unethical lending. (There is ethical denying of money—it is wrong to lend money to someone you know will never be able to pay it back.) Her family does spread their wealth around, and is good to those who work for them, treating them as family.

I loved the heroine. She is shrewd and hard when she needs to be, but her coldness is directed at those who deserve it. She is also brave…but not unflawed. In a moment of pride in an enchanted forest she boasts about being able to turn silver to gold, catching the interest of the forest’s powerful fae.

This isn’t just Miryem’s tale. It spins in the tale of a princess and a shepherdess. It’s really full and rich, and I highly recommend it.

Available at Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, iBooks, and GooglePlay.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fantasy Tagged With: Naomi Novik, Spinning Silver

Book Reviews: The Spark and the Storm by David Drake

May 23, 2019 by Carolynn

The Spark by David Drake

I have had a weakness for Le Morte d’Arthur fanfiction–even though I’ve never read Le Morte– ever since I read The Once and Future King* by T.H. White. Since then I’ve read more versions of the Arthurian tales than I can fully remember. Tales from Genevieve’s point of view, tales from Mordred’s perspective, tales of Arthur and Genevieve’s only son (What? You didn’t know he existed?) tales of Gawain and the other knights … and tales of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court**.

So I like Arthurian legend. But a few months ago, if you had asked me if I’d ever want to read a novel where the main hero was based on Galahad I wouldn’t have been interested. Galahad was the son of Lancelot and Lady Elaine in the legends. He was the perfect knight: brave, capable, bold, and so noble he ascended directly into heaven. He was also kind of boring, an irritatingly judgmental holier-than-thou, and a prude.

But here we are. I’ve read not one, but two books based on Galahad. Why did I subject myself to this?

Because the books were written by David Drake, the writer of Red Liners, the book that puts the marine in Space Marines. Or at least puts the space marines in an alien jungle with sentient man-eating plants. It is a laser firing, grenade exploding, gritty, emotional masterpiece. I like emotions in my fiction, because, as a robot, it’s how I study humans and blend in. (Fiction reading improves empathy. Possibly even for robots.) Red Liners looks unflinchingly at military vs. civilian mindsets, and I don’t think it favors one over the other … or rather, shows how superiority is situational. Also, it made me cry.

So, anyway, I picked up The Spark. Drake doesn’t name his characters after their Arthurian counterparts. I can’t decide if this is a strength or a weakness. Galahad is Pal, the hero who narrates the tale, and all the others have their own names. Writing this review I can’t remember their Drakian names because I keep thinking of them as Merlin, Gawain, Gareth, Lancelot, Arther, and Geneviere. So it might be a weakness, but I know why Drake renamed them–despite similarities in personalities and certain situations, he has given them different destinies, and it does keep you wondering how the story is going to unfold. Also, the story isn’t set in the traditional Arthurian landscape, England after the collapse of Rome. Instead it is set in a future where the Ancients, a mighty, intergalactic human civilization that travelled between the stars on “roads” visible only to animals, has collapsed. The Arthur figure in the story is slowly rebuilding civilization in habitable “nodes” on these worlds. More on that later.

Drake has given Galahad, ahem, Pal, all the traits that I found irritating in the original Galahad. He is judgmental and a prude. But Drake shows the positive side of these traits. Pal wants to be part of Arthur’s better future for mankind–idealism goes along with that judgmental attitude. And being a prude can keep a man out of a lot of trouble … that doesn’t really need explaining, does it? Also, Pal does grow throughout the story. At one point in the second book, Pal, in thinking about a woman who is in charge of the royal archives, ponders that she could be beautiful despite her age if she just tried. Eyerollingly annoying but in character, and by the end of the book he acknowledges to himself that she really doesn’t have the time for superficial trappings–it would keep her away from the vocation she loves and is really good at. He also realizes that his judgemental attitude leads him to give up on people too quickly, and also to be a bit of a hypocrite at times. Overall, I liked Pal, and what I didn’t like of him–and his girlfriend, May–was believable for characters with their backgrounds and in their age groups.

What really made the story for me though, was the world. It was a beautiful creation of science-fantasy. The humans in the intergalactic civilization have left behind artifacts that “Makers”–people who enter into trances to feel the purpose of the artifacts–can manipulate. They manipulate them into weapons, primarily for the knights of Arthur’s court. Humans, Makers, warriors, and common folk alike, travel to the court with the help of dogs whose minds some can enter to see the roads between worlds. The knights also use the dogs to see the movements of their opponents. Pal has the ability to be both Maker and warrior, which sets him apart from most of the knights in court. He’s also of refreshingly humble birth, and doesn’t look down on common folk. The first book is his journey from idealistic farmboy to a knight in a court that is far less ideal than he imagined back on the farm–complete with duels, a quest, and Guinevere being accused of treason for infidelity–and it doesn’t end the way it did in Le Mort. In the second book is the search for Merlin. Both have plenty of action if that is your thing. For me, there was just something magical in the way Pal’s personality–the good and the bad of that idealism–intersects with the sci-fantastic universe and the human folly of the court.

The Spark and The Storm are available at Amazon, Nook, GooglePlay, andiBooks.

* The Once and Future King is a classic that is funny, wise, and wonderful. I highly recommend it. It was very influential in my understanding of human emotions … as a robot and all. It’s available at Amazon, Nook, GooglePlay, iBooks, and Kobo.

** A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is also a classic and manages to lampoon the arrogance of those obsessed with progress and the stupidity of those dead set on hanging onto the old ways no matter what. It’s available at Amazon, Nook, GooglePlay, iBooks, and Kobo … and also ManyBooks if you don’t mind giving them your email address.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fantasy, Sci-Fi Tagged With: David Drake, The Spark

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