Review of The Will of the Many by James Islington

Here we go again, into the ocean of contemporary mainstream fantasy where finding a piece of solid ground isn't easy. Most novels seem content sticking to float away. Does James Islington's The Will of the Many (2023) offer a foothold?

The Will of the Many is a few story types rolled into one. It is a revenge story; An orphaned teen attempts to punish the unjust execution of his regal parents. A deeply held secret those around him do not know about, he bides his time. It is also a mystery; Shady things are happening at the highest levels of Senate, and our orphan seems to continually find himself in the right place at the wrong time—or perhaps right time—to learn more. And he may just become part of the mystery. And perhaps most predominantly, it is a boarding school drama; The orphan attempts to navigate the waters of teen drama in a school for potential magic wielders. Cue the emo.

Review of The End & the Death: Volume 1 by Dan Abnett

We've done it. 60+ books. Dozens upon dozens of short stories and novellas. Hundreds of characters. Uncountable battles in space and on land. Three sides have defined their stake in the game—Loyalists, Traitors, and Chaos. And now we've reached the end—at least Volume 1 of the end. And the death (sorry). Everything comes together in the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra with The End & the Death (2023) by Dan Abnett. This is the review of the first of its three volumes.

The End & the Death opens on a classic Warhammer scene—perhaps the quintessential Warhammer scene: a battlefield in ruins. A breeze tugs at abandoned banners. Space marines lie in awkward repose. Debris and wreckage scatter smoking ruins. Sightless eyes... With this imagery Abnett signals that the Siege of Terra is moving to a new phase, the end phase. No longer are Traitor forces endlessly assaulting the Palace's walls. The Loyalists have locked themselves inside and now need to be pried out. The End & the Death is the can opener.

Review of Sleeper Beach by Nick Harkaway

2024's Titanium Noir was a bit of a left field move for Nick Harkaway. But only a bit. Looking at the context, he was writing another book at the same in the George Smiley series (Karla's Choice). It made sense to test out the noir mode, or at least something similar, in a trial novel—which Titanium Noir was. This year's sequel, Sleeper Beach, however, was a complete surprise. Titanium Noir by no way ended on a wait-and-see vibe. It was self-contained, a specimen unto itself. How could Sleeper Beach continue the story?

Sleeper Beach moves forward with Cal Sounder, main character of Titanium Noir. Now a first-dose, baby-faced titan, he remains a private investigator, however, and in the opening pages is called to a Florida resort town to examine a body that has washed up on the town's washed up beach scene. The family who owns the town, the Erskines, have hired him to find out who and why. Communist plots, gangsters, and fertilizer bombs coming out of the woodwork, Sounder must navigate a load of danger as well as the load of his new, massive size to get to the bottom of the murder.

Review of Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson

Thanks to The Bonehunters, the pieces on Steven Erikson's MASSIVE chess board have been rearranged mid-series. In the aftermath of the Letherii-Tiste Edur war, all arrows now point toward the continent of Letheras. It's time to discover their targets (cannot be singular in this huge series) in Reaper's Gale (2007).

Reaper's Gale, as with all Malazan books thus far, features not one but several main storylines, as well as several minor. One at the forefront is that of Silchas Ruin and his quest to find and destroy Scalbandari's soul. Alongside him are Fear Sengar, Udinaas, Seren Pac, and Kettle. In Letheris city, the immortal emperor Rhulad battles his inner demons while continuing to take on any and all challengers. Karsa Orlong, a mysterious Seguleh, and Icarium wait in line. On the shores of the continent, a new threat to the Letheri/Edur empire arrives in a wave of boats, while the eastern part of the continent opens up to reveal age-old feuds coming to a boil as a warleader from a tribe called the Awl brings a powerful duo of warriors with him to attack and defeat the Letherii.

Review of A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

Robert Jackson Bennett strikes me as a compulsive writer, a writer driven to sit down and write, regardless the output. The quality of the output can therefore be hit or miss. At one book per year and on to the next, it's easy to be mediocre or poor, true inspiration only occasional. 2024's The Tainted Cup was therefore a surprise. Considered, embedded, developed—it bore the signs of a story a long time brewing, not something a compulsive writer typically produces. That the sequel arrived in 2025, A Drop of Corruption, was not a surprise, but I definitely had worries it would not be as inspired as its predecessor.

My worries were misplaced. A Drop of Corruption equals, and may even top, The Tainted Cup. Bennett is starting to show himself a master of fantasy mystery. And it's a difficult genre to pull off. Where mimetic mysteries have real world constraints to invisibly guide the reading experience, the author of fantasy mystery must do double work. They need to string along a good mystery, but they also need to ground it in a world that doesn't exist. There are fewer invisible guardrails to guide the reader. A locked room can be entered by a wizard, for example. But they still need to ensure their readers' hunches hit somewhere near the mark. It's this fine tuning of 'what is possible in my fantasy world' where Bennett excels.

Review of Garro: Knight of Grey by James Swallow

Note: If you are looking ahead in the Siege of Terra series, finding reviews of potential books to read, strongly consider reading Garro: Knight of Grey before Mortis. It is listed after Mortis due to publishing date, but exists prior in the internal chronology of the series.

In my lurking around Warhammer forums and Horus Heresy discussion, it seems Garro, the Death-Guard-warrior-turned-warning-beacon in The Flight of the Eisenstein, has clout among some readers. People seem to like him. He doesn't stand tall in my reading of 30k, however. He has been more of a flat, hardboiled stereotype not to mention incidental character—one who happened to be in the right place at the right time—rather than a character with proper agency worth developing in the series. Take this review of Garro: Knight in Grey (2022) with that in mind.

Review of The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

The first five novels of the Malazan Book of the Fallen saw three major conflicts explode and collapse. Seven Cities, Genabackis and Letheras (at least Western Letheras) all had continent-wide wars ravage them. The Bonehunters (2006), sixth novel in the series, picks up the pieces and looks at what's next.

The Bonehunters starts where things left off from two settings. First is House of Chains and the Seven Cities continent. Adjunct Tavore, having killed her sister/the Whirlwind, looks to take down the last threat to the Malazan empire that the continent offers: Leoman of the Flails and his army in the city of Y'ghatan. Second setting is Midnight Tides and Letheras. The Tiste Edur have spilled out beyond the continent and are looking for a person who can kill their own god-ruler once and for all. Whether they like it or not, Icarium and Karsa Orlong's story threads wind that direction. And behind it all, Empress Laseen works her own strategies to ensure the imperial machine grows and grows.

Cardboard Corner: Citizen Sleeper: Spindlejack [print-n-play]

Citizen Sleeper: Spindlejack is a quick pen-n-paper game that burns through a couple satisfying hours solo-style. Fun escalates as the player figures out better and better ways to scoot their airbike from A to B—literally. (And C, too.)

In Citizen Sleeper, players take on the role of a cyberpunk delivery boy (a spindlejack) trying to earn a buck and get some street cred by delivering packages to various points of a space hub. To make deliveries on time, spindlejacks must navigate busy intersections of haulers without getting crushed or overheating. Thankfully they've got a couple tricks up their sleeve—drifts, grinds, and skitches—in getting goods where they need to be. Do that on time and get some cryo cash to feed yourself and upgrade your airbike. Fail and lose reputation.

Review of Echoes of Eternity Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Mortis by John French, sixth book in the Siege of Terra, laid low the defenses of the Emperor's Palace. Horus' legions are now on the brink—demon-crazed, ready to run rampant. One gate stands in their way, and with Angron and Magnus pushing with all their might, it seems just a matter of time til it falls. With Rogal Dorn organizing the Palace's defenses from a central location, there are only two primarchs to hold back the tide: Sanguinius and Vulkan. Echoes of Eternity (2022), seventh book in the Siege of Terra, tests their might.

Echoes of Eternity is the most powerful book in the Siege of Terra yet. The two most recent books, Mortis and Saturnine, have seen the fighting build and climactic events bigger than anything yet—at least in terms of character deaths. But these small compared to Echoes of Eternity. It takes the upward slope of the Siege of Terra story and converts it into a parabola. Things escalate.

Review of Past Master by R.A. Lafferty

Christian apologetics and science fiction make for interesting bedfellows. One a be-all end-all explanation of how things came to be, the other a fantastical potential for things to come, they would seem to be at odds. And yet there have been books which make it work, notably Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and James Blish's A Case of Conscience. Can R.A. Lafferty's Past Master (1968), a book which likewise features extra-terrestrial Christian shenanigans, join the list?

An exercise in utopianism, Past Master is set on Golden Astrolobe, an Earth colony famed for its high quality of life. But the story begins in the middle of a firefight planet-side. Robots attack a trio of men who have been tasked with finding the next leader for the colony. The three agree that special measures are required to solve the situation, and so they head into history and pluck Sir Thomas More out of time and space to bring him to Astrolobe. The trio hope his wisdom writing Utopia will be able to resolve their conflict. Can it?