Half a King is the first book in the Shattered Sea trilogy by New York Times bestselling fantasy author Joe Abercrombie, who has also written The First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, The Heroes, and Red Country. This latest novel, his first YA book, will be followed by Half the World in February 2015. Half a War, the conclusion to the trilogy, is scheduled for release in the fall of 2015. Prince Yarvi plans to sit beside the Black Chair […]

Yesterday I finished a draft of a review of Elfland so hopefully that will be up in the next couple of days. After that, I only have Lady Lazarus left to review – at least until I finish reading The Broken Kingdoms (I’m about halfway through it now). As soon as that is done, I’m starting The Habitation of the Blessed. After that, I think I may dig a science fiction book out of the to read pile since I […]

Best Served Coldby Joe Abercrombie512pp (Hardcover)My Rating: 8/10Amazon Rating: 4.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 3.94/5Goodreads Rating: 4.23/5 Best Served Cold is a stand alone novel by Joe Abercrombie set in the same world as his First Law trilogy with a different set of main characters. It takes place sometime after the end of the series, although I’m not sure exactly how much time has passed other than it must have been at least a couple of years. Although I enjoyed the First Law […]

Right now I’ve only read one book that I haven’t given at least the mini-review treatment – Last Argument of Kings, the conclusion to Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. Since I read it about a month and a half ago now, I’m not going to review it. I put that one to the back of the review queue when I was busy with wedding planning then getting caught up once that was over, figuring the world didn’t really need yet […]

Orbit announced today that Little, Brown UK announced the audio version of Transition by Iain M. Banks will be available as a free podcast beginning on September 3, its publication date. Banks is best known for his series of science fiction novels set in the Culture universe, but he writes some science fiction novels not set in the Culture and this is one of them (he also writes mainsteam fictions as Iain Banks). I’ve read two of the Culture novels, […]

Before They Are Hangedby Joe Abercrombie539pp (Paperback)My Rating: 7/10Amazon Rating: 4.5/5LibraryThing Rating: 4.24/5Goodreads Rating: 4.34/5 Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged is the middle book in his First Law trilogy, following The Blade Itself and preceding Last Argument of Kings (which has an official US launch date of Sept. 23, but is already available from some outlets). Much like The Blade Itself, Hanged is a book that I enjoyed reading for reasons I don’t entirely understand. When viewed separately its […]