Category — Historical

Folks, this is AWESOME.
Okay, basically Walton’s set this alternative history in a world where Britain and Germany work things out, and WWII never happens. Germany’s building concentration camps ALL over the continent, and things suck for Eastern European Jews. Britain’s got its own issues with rising fascism, but, interestingly, Walton examines this rise in the upper classes. So, [...]

Barnes’ alternate history explores the evolution of slavery and racial formations in a world where the West never rose to prominence. The New World is in the process of being conquered by various African empires, and both women and enslaved whites are starting to buck up for independence. This is a very cool context — [...]

Barnes’ promising first effort introduces the reader to a wild reimagining of turn of the century London. It’s very “The world has moved on” a la Stephen King — technology is on the rise, magic/mystery in the form of our main guy Edward Moon, and the disappearance of the titular character, who exits stage left at the [...]

Wowzers. Slammerkin is an amazingly well told tale based on the court case of Mary Saunders, an 18th century Londoner hung and burned for the murder of her mistress. Donoghue takes as her starting point an excerpt from Saunders’ so-called confession, where Mary claims she committed her crime because of her love for fine cloth. [...]

Hmm. It’s a toss-up. On the one hand, Roberson’s writing at full force here. All the delightful sensory details that made the dry deserty world of Tiger and Del a reality are present. You can feel the dust coating your face in Roberson’s lushly realized world. And she neatly establishes that it’s a world in [...]

I’ve just finished reading Empire of Ivory, the fourth book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, and it is delightful.  It’s rare that the fourth book in a series is as thrilling as the first, but Empire of Ivory broadens the focus from the protagonists to their world, and the result is epic and majestic.
The series [...]

The Witch of Cologne has a really awful cover. I actually resisted buying/borrowing it for a while, because the cover featured a woman in an awkwardly unlaced corset and sporting the 16th century equivalent of bed-head. but really now… Kushiel’s Dart had as raunchy a cover, and it was great fun, so I finally was [...]

I’ve been looking for a copy of this book since I first read a preview chapter online, several years ago. After such a long delay, the risk of disappointment is high, but this book met my expectations. Point of Honour is a period piece set in a period that never existed: Regency England [...]

Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassinhas been herald as one of the finest novels of the 21st century. And it is. Yet, it is perhaps a novel that often gets overlooked because of it’s “sci-fi” billing. Don’t’ get me wrong, I ADORE sci-fi/fantasy novels. In fact, at least eight out of ten [...]