Tracy Hickman Presents: The Anvil of Time is a new DragonLance trilogy. Book one is The Sellsword, by Cam Banks.

The prologue of the story introduces us to the mysterious Journeyman. He is tasked with using the Anvil of Time to watch history but not to interfere. Our tale then begins 71 years earlier. The War of the Lance has ended but all is not roses in the land of Nordmaar. Highmaster Rivven Cairn, disciple of Emperor Ariakas himself, and her Red Wing of the dragonarmies still rule these lands.

Our central character is Vanderjack. We know he’s the central character because he is mentioned in the first sentence of every chapter of the novel except two. I don’t say that as a criticism. It was obviously done intentionally. Vanderjack is a sellsword. He’s The Sellsword. At the beginning of the story he’s low on coin and seemingly cursed with a haunted sword, the magical Lifecleaver given to him by his mother.

But circumstances find Vanderjack. He’s a man of action and he’s always in the middle of things. Thus, it became something of a matter of intrigue to see what he was going to be in the middle of at the start of a chapter. It wasn’t uncommon for Vanderjack to be surrounded. When he DIDN’T lead off the chapter, that break in the pattern was significant as well.

The Sellsword finds himself in the employ of a noble who wants him to recover something of great value to him. Vanderjack’s plans begin to go awry when he has to take the Baron’s assistant with him. Things become more complicated when they are joined by the gnome warrior and inventor (like all gnomes are) Theodenes, a former adventuring companion of Vanderjack’s. Things went sour the last time they saw each other though, and Theodenes had a score to settle.

After Vanderjack, Gredchen the Baron’s assistant, and Theodenes set off, things got more and more complicated as the group came under attack in their travels, and made enemies. When one makes an enemy of a dragon Highlord, things become more complicated indeed. Vanderjack also learned that the job he was doing wasn’t exactly what he’d thought. However, the need to settle some scores, some old and some new, continued to drive The Sellsword, as his assignment become more than just doing the work and collecting the money.

Through it all, Vanderjack was a sarcastic, trash talking “action hero”, who had a one-liner for every occasion. The dialogue was not classic fantasy. It featured back and forth banter between adventuring companions, between heroes and villains, and between villains. That term is rapid-fire dialogue and I enjoyed it here. Personally it reminded me of the way our characters interacted in my years of playing D&D, rather than the more formal and stylish manner of speaking from The Lord of the Rings.

I could easily imagine Vanderjack saying “Yipee-Ki-Ay Mu…” ahem…you know the rest, Bruce Willis style as he cleaves into a draconian with Lifecleaver. I ate it up, I admit. I loved Vanderjack. He is a very different type character than what I’m used to reading in DragonLance. He’s a man of questionable morality, as much interested in profit as anything else. However, in the spirit of DragonLance, some people are destined for greater things. Sometimes they just need a nudge in the right direction. While this was a bit of a grittier DragonLance, it didn’t turn the principles of the franchise on their ear.

At first I wondered how interesting a gnome character could be. But I liked Theo. His character worked very well with Vanderjack. I did wonder at times exactly why the gnome would travel with his old sellsword companion given how badly their last encounter ended. Don’t think Cam Banks left a plot hole in there. He left some mystery and intrigue in the story, and held some cards up his sleeve until the very end.

Our interesting heroes also had interesting villains to play off of, the determined Highlord and the devious Dark Robed Mage. No, not THAT Dark Robed Mage, but another one.

It appears that book two of the series is not going to focus on Vanderjack. That’s unfortunate, but never say never I suppose. There is a thread that links the books though. That would be the Journeyman. We got a little bit of a flavor of him in book one. Enough to be intriguing. I expect that we’ll learn even more as other authors pick up the series

I will admit that I had some doubts coming into this book. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman ARE DragonLance. Every one of their books that I’ve read have been gold. Once other authors began writing books in the series, they definitely became hit or miss.

Cam Banks definitely hit with The Sellsword however. I learned that Banks has been a managing editor with Margaret Weis Productions. So in a manner of speaking The Sellsword was kept “in the family”. That’s a good thing.

The plot was fast paced and action packed. However it wasn’t a one-dimensional creampuff either. Maybe not as deep and layered (yet?) as the original DragonLance Chronicles, but it was no slouch. I enjoyed how every chapter began with a “Vanderjack moment”. That made me laugh. I got a good chuckle out of the fact that one of the major cities is named “Wulfgar”. I appreciate a good tip of the cap to R.A. Salvatore, being a fan of his work as well.

If I have a complaint it’s that the book was too short. It came in at 307 pages. Give us a bit more of Vanderjack cracking jokes and putting on a cocky façade in the face of danger. We got sword battles, aerial battles, gladiatorial arenas, magic and more, all packed into 307 pages of an “action movie story” Give us 400 pages, and give us even more I say.. Or maybe the plan was to leave them wanting more.

I’m going to give The Sellsword by Cam Banks a very solid 7.5 stars. I hope we haven’t seen the last of The Sellsword. I also want to see how these events play into the events in the other two books. I certainly hope the other two books are published, given the state of affairs, or lack thereof, with the DragonLance license and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

Fans of the Noble Dead saga have watched Magiere discover her heritage, assist in rescuing an elven assasin, and constantly remain on the lookout for more vampires. Now, driven to recover a powerful talisman, she finds herself blindly following a mysterious dream to a castle somewhere along unknown trails. She must find the talisman before her half-brother, the vampire Welstiel, finds it first and uses it for untold evil. Readers will also see into the mind of one of the Undead, Chane, a “child” of the vampire Welstiel. Created by Welstiel, Chane owes him allegiance for the half-life he leads but finds that allegiance challenged in the days to come. The two sides are joined by a third, a powerful elven contingency who seek the talisman also to use it’s power to further their own agenda. All three collide at the mountaintop fortress that holds answers to questions raised throughout the entire series.

For a long and complicated series, the book is a quick read and easy to understand. The descriptions of the Undead and their practices are chilling and a bit unusual in this age of overdone vampiric clichés. There are a lot of characters with very odd names, which can make it difficult to keep them straight. (I would have appreciated a cast list but I realize that serious fans would not necessarily need such a crutch.) The elven casting was as expected, but the political byplay wasn’t. The power struggle between the three groups adds depth to what could have been a shallow story.

Readers definitely need to read the series in order, otherwise they will be lost from the beginning. The action starts right in the middle of the story where the last book left off. Many allusions are made to previous happenings and the events in this book gain significance by the experiences the characters have already weathered.

I appreciated the way the authors crafted the sense that Fate can be avoided for awhile, but eventually she catches up with you. Several characters in this story are pushing the limitations of their destiny, but each one will be called upon to finish their chosen task whether they want to or not. Sometimes the action became a bit repetitive but the grand finale was worth it.

The end of the book served as a bit of a teaser also, so I looked up the series’ website and discovered the authors are preparing to continue the saga by beginning a new series. The website suggests there will be a couple of characters carried over from this first series but that the action will happen on another continent. The first book in the series should come out around January, 2009.

From the back cover of the paperback book (blurb) -

Now the people know that the dragon minions of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, have returned. But the races have long been divided by hatred and prejudice. It seems the battle has been lost before it begins.

The companions are separated, torn apart by war. A full season will pass before they meet again—if they meet again.

It is always a pleasant surprise to find out that book that you loved, got turned into a graphic novel. That said though, visiting a world that you know and love in graphic form, it has to live up to some healthy expectations for the reader. Devils Due and their team brought it to life, and everyone should be very pleased by their work. Dragons of Winter Night, has the dark feel one would think it should and it comes across in the artwork and layout.

I thought the artwork was beautiful, and where it really seemed to shine was in the outdoor scenes and the artwork of the dragons. The characters were also depicted well for my personal tastes, whether or not they live up to what you envisioned them to be is something you have to look at for yourself. My favorite representation though was Kitiara, you can feel the evil bubbling below the surface, in her facial expressions. I always thought she was a great anti-hero to the group, and I can feel that in the artwork. I also enjoyed the depiction of Fizban as well; the humor of the character still shines through in the drawings. Overall the artwork had pretty big shoes to fill, if you go by the covers of the books done by Larry Elmore, and I think for the medium (a graphic novel can not be of the level of a single piece of canvas) the team of Kurth, Ruffino, Narvasa, Bradley, Rauch and Crowley, did an excellent job. They put together the perfect graphical companion to Weis and Hickman’s novel.

The adaptation by Andrew Dabb stayed pretty faithful and the overall feel and storyline stayed where they needed to be due to the restraints of the graphic novel medium. I personally find the graphic novel to be a nice companion to the book, but it still needs to stand on its own if one has not read the book. It worked for me on both of these levels as I had read this sometime in the 1980’s I believe. It does not hold the same weight as the book, but I do not believe it is supposed to. There is no way they can include everything and I found it to be a fun visualization after reading the books. Even if you are not familiar with the books though it is still very enjoyable just not of the same level I believe as someone that has read the books.

DDP always brings us something new for the fantasy crowd looking to dip their toes in the graphic novel and comic market. I think once you feel the temperature you will want to dive right in. Dragons of Winter Night, the graphic novel, is a great piece to own; visually telling what I consider a classic story in the fantasy book market

Thorn is a neomage, a non-human descended from the unfortunate infants conceived before the first plague of the End Times destroyed life on Earth as we know it. These infants developed abilities to manipulate energies left from creation. They are believed to be soulless beings, less than human Only able to reproduce when aroused to mage heat - and this only happens in the presence of angelic beings - the mages are scorned by humans and live isolated in enclaves.

In this third installment of the story, Thorn has found a home in a small mountain village and is accepted by the humans around her. Her semblance of balance is rudely cast aside, however, when a mage shows up in her village for no reason. Apparently, the demon dragon she assisted in locking in metaphoric chains has almost broken free. At this point the story rockets out of control, demons and angels popping in out of nowhere and Thorn doing her best to protect the humans in her care.

The book culminates in a mighty battle that exposes the strengths and weaknesses of all involved. Because it is written in first-person, the reader sees inside the head of the main character. Her fears, motivations, all laid out for us as readers to judge. Faith Hunter does something with her characters I always appreciate - they are fallible and scarred by their experiences.

I found this book intriguing, a completely different blending of post-apocalypse and fantasy. While a little dark, I loved the juxtaposition of mage magic and angelic magic with a little human conspiracy theory thrown in (some humans believe the angels are really aliens bent on total domination of Earth). This may sound complicated, but at its heart Host is all about the battle between good and evil fought by the ones caught in the middle. Even though I know how this story ends, I will look up Seraphs and Bloodring (the first two books) to know more about Thorn and her angelic and human friends.

As many fanboi will complain, Salvatore’s last few Drizzt books lost a step here or there. The story needed to move on though and sometimes that takes a few books. Here we have the culmination of those efforts in “The Orc King” with a new and exciting chapter in the life of our favorite dark elf, Drizzt.

Salvatore gives a glance at the future in the prologue and epilogue of the books. On one hand, maybe these peeks into the future give us too much information by allowing us to see who lives and who may die. On the other hand, I have been told that allowing us to see the ending allows us to focus on the story more. I personally disagree with the second statement and would have liked to see both the prologue and epilogue removed from the book to allow me more of an element of surprise. Regardless of this, Drizzt and his friends/enemies are back and the story they have to show us is magnificent and action packed. Salvatore is doing what he does best: action, sword fighting, and battle description. He brings you so close you can smell the blood and sweat and taste the dust. Salvatore can plop you in the middle of a raging battle you are brought in with a magnifying glass without ever losing the whole picture.

The setting this time focuses on the Spine of the World (Forgotten Realms). Bruenor is looking to hold on to his kingdom while King Obould Many-Arrows is trying to build a kingdom where the orc tribes can unite. Along the way, Bruenor is searching for Gauntlgrym, which is pretty much the dwarven version of Atlantis. The Forgotten Realms is as richly detailed in Salvatore’s hand as we have come to know; with the world changing events that take place and look to be coming, it is a great read.

The characters in the Orc King are some that we have loved for over 20 years, and Drizzt, Bruenor, Cattie-brie, Wulfgar, Regis and the rest of the gang show up in this corner of The Forgotten Realms for a wonderful romp in the Realm. Salvatore brings us a bunch of new secondary characters to flesh out the cast and move the story forward. For me there were two characters though that were not on the top of my list, one which will sure bring boos from a few of you. Minor Spoiler if you have not read previous books- Wulfgar should have stayed dead. He is on my list of I do not really like his current story, hopefully it goes somewhere when he finds his destination. Also, there is a lich wizard named Jack who is pulling the strings of a secret rogue clan of orcs, like the Wizard of Oz. He seems like an afterthought to push the story, nothing more at this point. I was a huge fan of the Orc/Ogre clan as they worked into the story well, giving our anti hero (or hero?) Obould some needed conflict outside of Mithral Hall.

Salvatore’s writing style stays true to previous books, with his weaving of battle scenes and fast paced action, like Elminster casting a spell. This is not a complex book, but it does not need to be as it is very action driven with a group of characters we are all very familiar with. Drizzt’s inner musings are always well written and give us even more depth to one of the most well known characters in the Wizards of the Coast franchise.

The Spellplague pokes its head up in the prologue and epilogue which are set 100 years in the future. This is a world changing event and we are given an appetizer, but we are all waiting for the full meal where we get this whole story, either in the form of a book or when the 4th Edition Rules come out. It is nice when an author gets to introduce some world changing events like the Orc Kingdom and then the Spellplague. We also get to see the beginning of the way that Salvatore addresses Cattie-brie’s injury and her new role in the group (which seems like it will only grow, and may solve an early death problem we are all worried about) and I loved it! The intriguing find in Gauntlgrym will lead to another twist in the story in the future I am sure. Salvatore steps up his game and his fans will be happy for it.

Just when I think I have a handle on the magic in Elantra, Sagara throws a curve ball. By this, her third novel in the Elantra Series, she has given Kaylin healing magic and the talent to control the elemental power of fire. Now, Kaylin takes on the other elements in the face of a wizard bent on destroying everything. In the process, she discovers more about her role as Chosen as she meets an ancient dragon who has waited millennia for her.

Once again, Kaylin delves into a nonhuman society. In Cast in Secret, she works with the beings that repulse her the most - the Tha’alani. These unique people appear human-like yet they have appendages reaching from the heads like two tentacles. They use these to communicate mind-to-mind. They give Kaylin the screaming meemies. Yet, when one of their children goes missing Kaylin steps into the breach. Her journey to find the young one takes her far afield, although she never leaves the city of Elantra.

I love how Sagara layers on another fold of complexity to the character that is Kaylin. After each story, she (and we as the reader) knows a little more about herself and her personal limitations. Like us, she grows into herself a bit more each time. Here she faces prejudices deeply ingrained in her personal viewpoint of the world as she uses her detective skills to solve the kidnapping and stop the wizard.

I feel a bit like a detective myself as I piece together the information Ms. Sagara is giving us about Elantra. I would advise anyone interested in this book to read the first two books of the series, Cast in Shadow and Cast in Courtlight. Be prepared. I have begun to identify with the captor of Scheherazade in the Thousand and One Nights. Sagara is like Scheherazade. She tells one story that contains hints of the larger tale taking place. The subjects in each story are bright and crisp, yet the overarching tale itself is cloaked in mist. Using such storytelling, she lives to tell another piece of the tale tomorrow.

Sagara’s writing is not complex or intricate. Her dialogue is terse, straightforward and very witty. I find it an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon but would not say it challenges me in any way, except maybe in patience for more information. In fact, the books themselves are more like brain candy - very yummy but they don’t stay with you for long. Regardless, I still enjoy reading them.

This is the second installment in Sagara’s fantasy detective series featuring Kaylin, a woman marked for destiny yet determined to take her own path to get there. I wasn’t blown away by the first book, Cast in Shadow, feeling frustrated by the limited information Sagara dribbled out to her readers. But with Cast in Courtlight, I begin to see the overarching design she has created by developing one large plot and hanging smaller stories beneath it like ornaments on the branch of a Christmas tree. Not only do we as readers see more of Kaylin’s abilities, but we are able to delve into the most opaque of the cultures she has created - the Barranyi. Her relationships, or lack thereof, with Nightshade and Severn are also focal points. Because she builds on the knowledge gained from the first book, readers should really take the time to read both books in order.

I found this second book better written than the first. This may be because I am seeing the big picture more, but I felt I could understand why Kaylin does what she does. Once again, Sagara’s clever wit and minimalist prose deliver an enjoyable read. The story is held together with colorful characters who do and say the unexpected, reminding the reader that this is not the world in which we grew up. The protagonists are very much hidden, making Kaylin’s understanding of herself the driving force of the story. I would still like to be able to settle Elantra in a time and place, but Sagara’s lack of description in that matter merely serves to zero in on the characters themselves. Not only that, but she is stoking a hunger in her readers for more. I give in, Ms. Sagara, give me more!

Dragons of the Highlord Skies is Volume II of the Lost Chronicles. Again it’s set between books 1 and 2 of the original DragonLance Chronicles. We get more of the viewpoint from Kitiara and the forces of Takhisis. Kitiara and Lord Soth occupy one sub-plot of the story, and a knightly quest occupies the other sub-plot.

We do get to see some of the Companions during the course of the book and that is always enjoyable since those characters are always the high point for me. I enjoyed the focus on the Solamnic Knights as well, and the interplay between three knightly friends and their differing interpretations of honor, duty, and even The Measure, by which they conducted themselves as Knights, was very well done. I often see depictions of knights that are one-dimensional. They’re honorable, loyal, duty bound, rigid and unyielding in their beliefs, and often stereotypically done. It was nice that to deviate from that in this book.

In Volume 2, Sturm was the Companion who stood out and shined for me. I was glad to see that, as I was disappointed with him in Volume I. That was addressed though. The character grew from that and was now more of the character that I remember him being in the originals. His nobility and honor shined through in this story.

The story did actually pick up where the previous story left off. So where I did expect to have to spend time acclimating to another snipped in time as we peered through the looking glass at a portion in time from the War of the Lance, I was able to get right back into the timeline of the story, since Volume I was still fresh on my mind. If it is for you too, that’s great. If it’s not, Weis and Hickman get you back up to speed in short order before they move on.

It took me maybe 20 pages to get into the story and get interested in the non-Kitiara characters. So maybe slow starting, but just long enough for the story to draw me in. I think maybe in the back of my mind some characters weren’t interesting right off the bat because in the back of my mind I knew how things were going to end. Their fates were sealed. But this series is more about the journey than the destination, since that destination was already written 20 years ago.

The one other thing I will note, just so I can review this book and not just say “Bravo! Bravo! Perfection! Write more books!” is this. I thought Kitiara’s climactic moment for this book built up wonderfully and dramatically throughout the book. Then right at the apex, boom it was over. I was surprised. I thought that could have played out for a couple more pages? “That’s it? Just like that?” I thought. I read it a second time to see if maybe I was just so sucked in and flipping pages at a furious pace that I just lost the overall sense of the build up and the payoff in the scene. I still had the same sense of abruptness the second time. But then maybe I’d build it up in my mind over the course of the book (because I really was sucked in. I like Lord Soth, what can I say) so however it played out couldn’t match my imagination. So maybe that scene was a bit of a victim of its own success. I’m not sure on that. But my feeling was “Great scene, could have been a couple pages longer in its resolution.”

The locations that we saw on Krynn were rich and vivid as they always have been. Weis and Hickman took great care in establishing the history of the world, and making it clear that there was a deeper history than the pieces that we were seeing at that moment. That creates depth, which makes the reader (or at least me) care more about what’s happening. You’re not just seeing a dusty library that the characters are walking into, will then use to suit their needs, then move on from. Or a generic icy castle, which must be taken because the heroes of light will defeat the villains of darkness.

It seemed to me that Weis and Hickman took great care to maintain continuity with the original series and to continue that same standard of excellence. I have too high of a regard for them to ever think that they’d just “mail it in” so to speak and let the DragonLance name alone sell books, but I suppose things like that have been done before. There was one thing at the end of the book that made me smile in regards to the level of attention that they paid. In the Author’s Notes (of the Advanced Reading Copy at least) they addressed a point from the previous book, which some readers have apparently been pointing to as a continuity error. They knew exactly what they were doing they said and the point noted was done deliberately. It was a catch that I admit that I didn’t make. But even in having readers catch that point, they’d intended to use that as a subtle plot point to make the reader learn a little something that they hadn’t known before. It’s almost as if they knew they’d be leaving us in suspense for 20 years then come back for an encore performance.

As an encore, I for one give it a standing ovation.

The next book will be Dragons of the Hourglass Mage. I don’t think I need to tell you who is central to that story. It will be a long year waiting for that book. But I sure hope it’s me who gets to review that one as well.

McDevitt returns readers to his well-known character Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins, Academy starship captain and willing space explorer. While remains of several civilizations have been discovered, no living intelligent societies have ever been located. In fact, at this point in the story the official opinion is that no such life forms exist. However, a civil organization calling themselves the Contact Society firmly believes the establishment is wrong. When an alien satellite begins broadcasting to an unknown receiver, they demand a full expedition take place and commission Hutch as their captain.

I always enjoy McDevitt’s work. His talents lie in making science fiction seem completely believable. The technology is well-crafted and I enjoy the idea that space exploration calls for archeologists as much as NASA scientists. He doesn’t answer all the questions, but leaves a bit of mystery to intrigue his readers. The people are very real and always seem to remind me of someone I know. chindi continues this tradition, containing characters complete with blind spots, hang-ups, and as many opportunities for mistakes as brilliance. This is not a book for readers who need a neat and tidy package with all loose ends firmly tied. Like real archeology, the reader never gets the entire picture. The search, however, is addictive and completely worthwhile.

Likeable as chindi is, I felt the ending lacked the usual punch. He had me totally involved until the very end and then lost me in the grand finale. Yes, we are talking about alien life forms, but what happens at the end of chindi is too alien for me and therefore anticlimactic. Having said that, I have read this book several times and enjoyed it each time. The story is good, even if the end is a little campy. If you like McDevitt, definitely continue exploring space with Hutch. If you haven’t tried any of his books, feel free to start with this one. Each book can stand alone and I think chindi is worth it.

The Wanderer's tale was my pick in Jay Tomio’s Blind Desires: Fantasybookspot.com's 2007 Speculative Fiction Picks, based on magic, weapons, and the epic fantasy blurb that Tor put out in their catalog. By the end of the first chapter, I knew it was going to be a win for me. A quest to stop an ancient evil by a rag tag band of heroes seems cliché, but nevertheless, it worked on many different levels for me.

From the back of the book:

I hope whoever wrote that blurb got a bonus check because it was right on the money.

The title of the book makes it seem like a single character’s tale, but the band of adventurers includes many different individuals. This worked well as no one character in the heroes group stood out, while they all seemed interesting. It was also quite interesting to see how they played off one another, as one would think of a group of people thrown together with different ideals. The group takes from each end of the fantasy spectrum with warriors, sorcerers, priests, mercenaries, squires, and the like. What was great is that each one of the people in the party was given a side story, which fleshed them out quite nicely. The side stories themselves were quite interesting, and a pleasant diversion. Hopefully we will get to revisit their effect on the overall larger quest. A famous hero of legend in the world of Lindormyn even makes an appearance and we find out he was not up to the standards of the bards.

Nibulus, the leader of the group, was given that title after his father appointed him to that position. This was done so Nibulus could have an epic quest of his own. One thing I found quite interesting was how Nibulus realizes he does not have the experience of failure because all the campaigns he was on under his father were successful. We get to see behind the man that Nibulus is – a leader that seems real – by watching him lead with a host of emotions floating around him.

The secondary characters of The Wanderer's Tale were really top notch. David created unique characters ranging from giants, to fairies, to a band of roaming thieves that have enough magic weapons to be featured in an ancient elven armory. David gave this world enough fleshed out races to keep the characters fresh, as well as the secondary characters that he introduced. It was nice to be in a world that is filled with more than just humans.

One of David’s strong points was his ability to create a world that feels real and imaginative all at the same time. He did not disappoint as I was immediately drawn into this world from the first page and was gasping for breath to the very end. A great example is the town of Myst-Hakel. David really does a good job with describing this town on the edge of civilization and the characters that inhabited it. The smoke, the smells, the watching for things hiding in the shadows, I felt as if I were really there! Eotunlandt, which is a little cluster of old fey land hidden in the far reaches of the world, is also done wonderfully by David, with a sort of Jurassic Park feel. An epic fantasy needs a world that the reader can feel is real, descriptive, and fun to read about. It has to have a real history to it where one could imagine the life of a peasant all the way to that of a hero. David accomplished this.

The author’s writing style gives the reader a lot of information and description, but in a way that you could digest it and not let it take away from the swift pace. It gave a wonderful first hand view of the world he created. Plus, I am always a fan of an author that loves weapons and magic weapons. Some of my favorite scenes come later in the book when the group of heroes came in contact with a band of thieves with quite a weapons arsenal.

There are a few stumbling blocks to the story itself, one of them being the way that the group was brought together. It did not seem all that realistic, and it was glossed over in the beginning of the tale. There was a full group of hundreds of warriors that are asked to go on the quest, but when they all pretty much refuse, this small band still decides to go? Hmm. Another point, which is the polar opposite of some other reviewers, is I personally felt there were what I call “television transitions” in the story. What I mean is that we can go from one scene to the next without really knowing what happened. Ever see the end of an old Batman episode where he is tied up and the next episode the first thing you see is Batman with Robin and they are free and have the Riddler in jail? Like how did that happen? Well, I felt a little bit of that with this book. I will even go out on a limb and say I wish this book was enlarged to encompass two books so we could get a little more of the characters’s backgrounds, filled in some of the parts of the story, and not feel rushed through the book.

One might perceive an issue with this story in that it brings nothing new to the genre, but I am not one who believes this is necessary for a book to be good. There have been hundreds of thousands of love poems written, but that does not mean that a poet in our current year cannot write a classic love poem. It can be of the same subject material but have a new take on it. This is how The Wanderer's Tale pans out. Remember when old school meant it was something in the past that was actually good? This uses the same formula as old school sword and sorcery, and I really liked the ride.

Richard K. Morgan's antihero Takeshi Kovacs returns in Woken Furies, the followup to the excellent Altered Carbon and Broken Angels.

In the far-future on Harlan's World, Kovacs licks his wounds in a dive bar. After stepping in to defend a woman from a pair of zealot priests and running afoul of the local yakuza, Kovacs is forced to depart for (not much) greener pastures. Having fallen in with the woman and her mercenary companions, Kovacs realizes his problems are only just beginning: The mysterious woman's dual identities, remnants of ancient artificial intelligence on Harlan's World, and even a younger version of Kovacs himself has been sent to kill him.

As with the previous books, the mix of cyberpunk and scifi is effectively done and Morgan has a great eye for action and gritty detail. However, some background on the DeCom/mimint conflict might have helped early on in the story. Additionally, the plot thread concerning Kovacs' younger double feels a bit tacked-on and doesn't build up to much.

Nonetheless, Woken Furies should please the current Kovacs fans and recruit new ones.

Story: We get Alexander Carter who has the ability to visit the world that he grew up dreaming about that is filled with all the childhood friends one would expect. Mythical characters are the standard fare, but we do have some interesting break out characters like the dance instructor rock giant Paddington, a side kick fairy Kiwi, and his elf love interest Nastajia. Even though it is a very cliché story, I found there was enough to keep me interested.

Artwork: The artwork for The Dreamland Chronicles was very Pixar like, which is a good thing. We did get a glimpse of some of the non rendered work at the end of the book based on some covers done by comic book artists in the industry like Mike Wieringo. After see that I am a little curious how the whole comic would have looked, I am sure just as splendid. Some of the color combinations though do not do the graphics justice, I would have liked to see less pastels personally. A very nice computer generated world for the characters and knowing a little about rendering I know how much work must have gone into this.

Quality: The book was put together nice, even though I think all larger graphic novels should go hardcover, but financially this probably does not make sense. It is rather lengthy novel with some extra at the end including how it was designed, as well as some of the author’s thoughts. I like extras and this book does not disappoint with them.

Final Thoughts:I really think this is one of those graphic novels that would make a great adaptation into a quality movie. It is also an ongoing title that you can check out at http://www.thedreamlandchronicles.com/ where you can see the online version of The Dreamland Chronicles and I believe that it is new Monday thru Friday every week. Scott has also done pilots from Nickelodeon You can watch the Emporer Pilot short at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0aXTae7B3Y I do not see why this was not picked up based on the short and I hope Scott gets some more chances to bring some of his creations to life either on television or on the big screen.

Fact: I like robots. Whether they are broken, sadistic, stupid, massive iron giants, or just downright sexy, I am constantly fascinated by humanoid machines. Yes, they fall on metal knees to robotic clichés: either they want to be real with a soul thingy or they are angry and revolt against their makers. Fine, that's fine. I can read through a couple versions of these stories again and again so long as everything else is fresh enough to keep me awake. Our gadget-enthused society (pretty soon cell phones will be able to microwave meals, tazer small dogs, and rewire bank accounts; I promise you, give it five more years and you’ll see) makes it quite easy to foretell a world where robots and humans co-exist.

With all this said, it’d be a no-brainer that I’d enjoy Robotika by Alex Sheikman and Joel Jason O’Chua, a story of discarded cyborgs, genetically-enhanced samurais, and biological experiments in a future far removed from the one we know today. Unfortunately, I didn’t fall as hard for it as I’d have liked.

It’s the future (though the year is unknown), and humans are constantly upgrading their latest stream of robots, tossing the old and outdated wayside. These discarded bots slink away to the edges of the universe where they begin their own existence, forgotten and ultimately uncared for. The Queen’s chief scientist has created a “biological machine” that could finally properly unite cyborgs and humans. Silly science guy, biological machines are for kids. He’s assassinated (rather abruptly) and his creation is stolen away. The Queen puts mute-face Niko to the task of returning the invention, and fast, as she has a meeting soon with some bigwigs and is unable to cancel. Queens, think everything rotates around them. Out Niko goes to steal back what was wrongfully stolen, make some new friends, and never say a goddamn word. Genetically-enhanced soulless ronin sellswords—what are they good for? Absolutely nothing.

Honestly, I learned more about Robotika from its Amazon page than from actually reading the hardcover book. Er, graphic novel. Graphic book? I don't really know what it is. Both the writing and art are so unconnected that it was hard to follow what was happening, why it was happening, and whether or not I was supposed to care. The writing is sparse and so stock that I just wanted to stab every character in the mouth whenever they spoke. Actually, of the three main "heroes"—Niko, Cherokee Geisha, and Bronski—one never says a word, the other talks in an unreadable manner, and the last uses such brainless phrases like "Take a chill pill!" The plot is very ho-hum and not the clearest thing to follow. I believe the two stories within Robotika are only the beginning, but even then I had no idea why anyone was doing what they were doing.

Let's take a moment to address the biggest problem for me with Robotika. That'd be Cherokee Geisha and her speech problem. To show that she's not speaking the same language of everyone else, Sheikman and O'Chua has her words written down, and I mean downwards as such:

T
H
I
S
!

Imagine reading like that for any number of pages. Enjoying yourself yet?

Sheikman’s art, along with O'Chua’s coloring, was a hit or miss with me. Some pages are clearly more detailed than others, and when it comes to futuristic landscapes or smoking deserts, the artwork is spot on. Buildings rise up into the clouds, flying mobiles zooming around them, or vast wastelands stretch out to the horizon, coupled by a pitch-perfect sky. But then a lot of the panels are merely talking heads with no backgrounds at all. Half the time the characters are barely colored in. There are a couple of "cover" shots that are impressive, but other than that I wished they had a more narrative feel to them. Seeing how one panel went to the next became a chore, especially when the action picked up. There are two bonus comics at the end, both drawn differently than the main work, and they are fairly enjoyable. They give some background information and offer complete stories where the others are part of a much larger epic.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Robotika, especially at the price tag of $19.95. It's a story and world we've seen before (cough The Matrix cough), and there's little reasoning to care about those parading about in this adventure. Sheikman and O'Chua do have some interesting ideas here and there, but not enough to make their silent samurai and renegade robots stand tall above the competition.

To sum up Justina Robson's ultra-edgy, explosively musicpunk Keeping it Real with only keywords would look something like this: elves, rock shows, drugs, machines, demons, faeries, sex, Games, assassinations, magic, AI, conspiracies, a whole lot of andalune, and lastly, with capital fs, Futuristic Fun. And there's more to be listed. Being a novel of so many aspects, Robson crafts an adventure that is filled with legend, lore, love, and laughs with a steady hand. It both makes light of itself and takes things very seriously. To call the work anything but a ball of sheer originality would be an insult to pointy-eared elves everywhere.

But let's start with the Quantum Bomb of 2015, the catastrophe that changed everything for everyone. Of it, Robson claims:

The explosion had followed an unknown quantum catastrophe inside the machine. However, it was not the kind of explosion that blew matter to smithereens and laid waste to worlds. Its actions took place in the near-infinitely tiny spaces between one raw energy flicker and the next.

This explosion opens up five other realities previously unknown to Earth folk (Earth is no called Earth though, as it is now referred to as Otopia). Of these new ethereal regions, the most important is Alfheim, home to the elves. Now, these elves hate Otopian lifestyles and the constant comparisons to their film counterparts in such flicks as Lord of the Rings. They also hate any of their own that rebel. Enter Zal, the singing elf leader of the rock/Mode-X band The No Shows. Lila Black has been assigned to guard the rockstar while he's on tour as assassins are popping up left and right. But is there more to Zal than just a rebellious nature?

At first I found Agent Lila Black to be a bit familiar, almost strikingly to another Pyr title's robotic heroine: Cassandra Kresnov from Joel Shepherd's Crossover. But after mulling this over I began to see the differences. Where Cassandra is more of a robot with a yearning to be human, Lila's machinery is only from an unfortunate encounter with an elf on a battlefield. Becoming more of a machine was the only process that could save her life and she took it without a second thought. The part I always find interesting is that while these two heroines both seem to be perfectly built for each and every situation, they are not. Though they have access to indefinite information and enhanced weaponry, they are not perfect. They can still be human and err, making them much more believable and not just some gun-toting super-hottie.

Robson's pacing in the book is perfectly set, and there's a point towards the end of the book when everything happening is so heavy and tension-filled that I was reminded of how everything was only a few chapters back. Back then Zal was singing songs and Lila was making sure that only fans on the guest list were allowed to the special parties. Back then it was all business-related, with faeries giggling during band practice and Lila scouting out recording studios.

When I was a youngling, I read a lot of light fantasy and science fiction: Piers Anthony's Xanth series, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, anything by Robert Aspirin, and even The Otherworld by Mercedes Lackey, Holly Lisle, and Mark Shepard. Where that book failed to impress on its mixture of the fantastical and the surreal, Keeping It Real shined. But please note that I'm not calling this work light at all. Though it has elves and demon groupies, it does have an underlying gritty feel to it. Unfortunately, it is another book in another series and so I must sit and wait for the next one. Until then, I encourage everyone to check out The No Shows' website, which is a nice tie-in into the novel.

Xandr is the last man of his people, the Ilmar. After the destruction of his home by the dark centaur Nessus, Xandr wanders the realms of the world of Enya bearing the legendary sword Emmaxis, knowing only that he has been chosen by the goddess Alashiya to be the Batal of legend who will end the Dark Age.

Following a summons to the city of Hedonia, only to witness the destruction of Hedonia at the hands of the Merquid, Xandr flees with his fellow Ilmar Thelana, the last woman of his people, and the golem Grimosse, to seek out his destiny.

If you're thinking this sounds predictable, you would be right. The back cover of the book as well as Nick Alimonos' own commentary on Amazon plays up the fact that he is tired of formula-driven fantasy and wanted to create something meaningful. While there are some good moments here and there, The Dark Age of Enya fails to live up to this ideal.

Aside from the plot that leaves little to the imagination, the characters don't fare much better. Despite Alimonos' attempts to provide some background for them (which does manage to be one of the better bits of the story), they never really rise above the archetypes of fantasy, especially Xandr.

Finally, the style could have used a bit more buffing. I hate to criticize too much on this point since it is the author's first published novel, but let it be said.

The Dark Age of Enya has its share of issues but if you're looking for something that doesn't break the mold of "traditional" fantasy, this may be right up your alley.