Reading Fantasy / Horror in April 2026

[Prairie_Dog]

I started this one and am finding that it is a lot of fun.

There is a wry humor to it. I slowed down at one point but powered through and found it picked back up.

 

[NickeeCoco]

Finished new release The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. Really quick read. Started at 7pm and finished it up a few minutes after 11pm. It was cute. Not my favourite by her but I had an enjoyable evening.

Picked up a few books from the library. Going to start with The River has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (coauthor of This is How You Lose the Time War). Teri Windling was singing its praises on Bluesky, and since Windling is my favourite editor, I figured I'd give it a read.

 

[Prairie_Dog]

Going to start with The River has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (coauthor of This is How You Lose the Time War). Teri Windling was singing its praises on Bluesky, and since Windling is my favourite editor, I figured I'd give it a read.

I liked The River has Roots it seemed like a classic fantasy for a while, then it transformed into a more modern fantasy.

 

[suciul]

Finished Solo 3 and 4 by V Mahanenko and the series starting going kind way too over the top - book 3 has some excellent stuff in the first 2/3 compensating for the jumping the shark last third, but book 4 was all Solo killing more and more powerful assassins at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, while in-between being kidnapped by even more super-powerful villains whom of course he also defeats... Hopefully book 5 gets back to a more interesting approach not the equivalent of a 100 miles per hour car chase and shootout for 300 odd pages, but there is enough of interest to keep me reading at least this one - will see about 6 after 5

 

[Rob B]

Highlight of the month, so far, is Ilona Andrews's This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me. My first adventure into one of their novels and it delivered more than I expected.

 

[AtramentousFlux]

Ilona Andrews's This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

I started this one after seeing your review and am liking it a lot.

 

[suciul]

Finished Solo 5/6 by V Mahanenko (6 is the last available for now, and 7 is now a huge asap) and the series got back on track big time; campy and madcap, but got back to being funny and inventive rather than the grim shoot them all of book 4; my Goodreads reviews:

Solo 5:

This was truly fun and arguably the best of the series to date - still non stop madcap action, but this time is a collective one as Solo becomes more and more the direction giver, but the girls and assorted Greymore mages actually lead the action - the book is also quite funny in places with lots of snappy dialogue.

Solo 6:

This was great fun and continued the rebirth of the series after a disappointing book 4 - the only thing is that the book ends at a tbc in the middle of the new storyline the author creates to expand the series, storyline that starts from the old adage "be careful what you wish for".

As we know Solo wants to get revenge on the Circle Order for destroying the Chaos Clan and recreate said clan, but after demonstrating once more the power of his house and especially of his 6 pupils who are now far surpassing him in power, though not in wiles of course as the girls are still young and not that seasoned in life - the current Circle Order leader convinces Solo he had nothing to do with the destruction.

So Drakewell Ignissar, Fire Clan chief, current Circle Order capo, and supreme commander of the Imperial army, offers Solo a deal -since Solo killed the instigator of the massacre, the Noctarion Dark Clan chief, former Order capo and agent of the dark masters who want to conquer/destroy etc etc the world, while the rest four of the surviving Order members who voted the destruction 60 years back were more followers than leaders - at least the two whom Drakewell believes to be essential for the good of the Empire - if Solo forgoes his vengeance, the Order will push the Emperor to reinstate the Chaos Clan and Solo can later quietly get rid of the two incovenient Order members, if he still wishes.

The Emperor, who had just restored some of his powers with the new Union houses, but had antagonised Solo when trying to claim a few element Crowns, Solo and his Graymore house got, is incensed but has to accept, hence the Chaos Clan is restored, and the Graymores are again a high noble house. But as the careful what you wish for saying goes, Solo soon discovers that the surviving Chaos mages whom he tried so hard to save - despite clearly being in league with the dark masters - are actually unredeemable, while to top it all, his wife Virena convinces him that the time has come to let the girls fly on their own - and that of course comes with quite some complications as we know.

In particular, since one of the six is Rosaline, the Emperor's daughter, whom Solo names Graymore clan chief, while keeping only the Chaos Clan leadership temporarily until Jasmine becomes more seasoned, all hell breaks loose when the news of said complications get to the Court.

This time the Emperor is so angry, that he cares nothing even about his future and invokes a secret ancient pact, by which every Clan chief has to do something considered suicidal with a third of his clan - if he refuses, the Clan chief and a third of his clan dies within a few days of natural seeming causes, while if he accepts the mission and dies on it, the Emperor and the correponding number of his house die too - this is how house Flameward became the imperial house a few centuries back, when the previous Fire Clan chief accepted the pact and both the Fire Clan and the former Imperial house got destroyed in the process - unless Solo and Rosaline break off their plans, which of course is not possible anymore...

So Solo- because there is now a Chaos Clan per his dearest wishes, as no Clan, no pact, has to accept the mission - luckily his Clan consists currently only of three people, so he can go solo, so to speak on said mission, and if he dies, well only the Emperor will die too per the pact. And so it starts with a complete new locale, new rules, new characters, including some cool new sentient monsters, but with the same madcap non-stop action until the "I want the next book soon" finale.

Energetic and fun, getting back to the original entertainment of the first few books, and I definitely will get Solo 7 when available as the storyline hooked me back again.

 

[blailock]

Empire of the Damned is a great book 2 in this trilogy. We get more of the good stuff from the first book, and Jay adds a new twist to keep it fresh. Excellent! I have to shout out the illustrations too. After every one, I look forward to the next. Really good stuff!

 

[Westy]

I read No Man's Land by Richard Morgan - set after the first War where the Forest has overgrown and encroached on human settlements, driven by an old Fae race called the Hudlu. When they start taking children, soldier Duncan Silver is determined to find them.

This is very different from the author's usual SF books (something he acknowledges as a risky step in the afterword); it's well written and researched, and fairly good overall with some misgivings.

One noticeable thing for me was it was very violent at times, seemingly too much - and it's generally not something that bothers me but it felt out of place at times. Also the main character isn't that likeable overall - given he does have reasons to be angry and it shows in his actions, but it made him hard to warm to.

On the other hand I do like reading books that have a fae/folklore bent as this does - with a noticeably more montrous Fae race in the Hudlu than most others in this sub genre. So I liked these sections of the book especially.

On the whole probably a 3.5/5 for me.

 

[suciul]

Finished the first 4 (out of 10) books in the Condemned series (or Lord Valevsky: Last of the Line) by V Mahanenko - it starts like a typical revenge fantasy combined with magical academy, monsters and plots, but it doesn't go where one expects, as it twists and turns in crazy ways - very addictive, energetic and fast as long as you just go with the flow; also the books are quite darkly funny in places and I found myself often laughing out loud - just no non-sense, no illusions, no pieties, at least as Max and most of the important people, whether aristocrats, Church leaders, or academy bigwigs go - in a way the dark converts are more of true believers than the ones supposedly on the side of light and good; and the characters are excellent, most flit in and out, but of course a few tag along in all the series with Sister Alia (now "Mother" after the "miracle" ending of book 2 - organized by one of the bigwigs for various purposes, most notably to increase his power base, which among thing entails persuading both Max and Alia that their fates are interwtinned by divine dictate - by book 4, Max eventually has some suspicions of course but cannot yet figure out how it was done), the Evil Engineer (the only Church sanctioned Dark One before Max), Father Nor (former Inquisitor Supremo and actual biological father of Alia), Academy Chancellor Kimal Sarento (plotter in chief) Father Urg (leader of the Church and Max and Alia sort of protector/boss), Magister Elor (the leader of the opposing Dark side in the Empire whose plots tend to go sideways now that Max is on the scene) and of course Karina Fardi, one time Max's partner, rival and sort of friend until Max calmly shot her in the head with a crossbow from point blank range, which tends to make one reevaluate relatiosnhips...

Book 1:

While it starts a bit slow, it soon gets going in full energy with non stop action but also light and funny moments.

Our hero and narrator - though as usual there are bunch of interludes from various pov's of interest - Maximilian Valevsky, third son of a landed old school baron has to pass his 18th birthday test - being dropped somewhere in his father's lands, he has to make his way back to the castle - choosing a path close to the water, Max arrives at the tail's end of an unexpected event - a dark creature battling and killing a mage - Max has no choice but to fight the monster luckily weakend and somehow defeats it becoming a budding mage, but potentially of the dark side - in the Empire this means a one way trip to the pyre unless the Church makes an exception which is like once every generation if that - while seemingly unfortunate, this event saves his life as returning home, he finds his family summarily executed for treason on the orders of powerful Duke Odoevsky - later we find out that the imperial council has approved the order and the Emperor signed it so it's more complex than a Duke wanting to get more lands etc; fighting till the end and quite unexpectedly killing some steel clad and supposedly invincible guards, Max is taken prisoner but not killed as all budding mages condemned to death are to become doomed soldiers. Legally dead, with no name or possessions until earned, the doomers also as assets of the Church of Light have unexpected "rights" - no one - even the Emperor - can give them orders except their doomer commanders or the priests of Light, and while they must protect anyone even at the cost of their lives against the dark beasts, and cannot instigate any fight on pain or death, any act of physical aggression against them is treason so they can react with deadly force.

At the academy, Max is recognized as a potentially one in a generation talent but the head priest honcho, father Nor is ready to burn him at the stake at any dark tendency hint, since after all it would not do to train him to fulfill his immense potential only to turn to the dark side ... And so it goes with Max tendency to get into unexpected trouble combined with father Nor continual testing, taking the storyline to some unexpected turns - anytime one feels the story will go this way, it tends to turn a bit that way so to speak - eg on a routine training mission, Max encounters some regular academy students who overestimated their capabilities and broke the rules to fight some more powerful dark beasts and gain power, only for their leader to be gravely injured and the rest on the verge in being overrun - Max easily saves them, but the dying student turns out to be quite important so the invisible mage shadowing Max has to reveal himself and try save her, so Max is ordered to fight truly powerful beasts to cover their retreat; and later when the student in cause presents herself to Max to acknowledge her life debt and tells him she is Karina Fardi, well even if Max initially doesn't react as he has no clue who she is, this is another of father Nor tests as of course Fardi is the family name of Duke Voevodsky and Karina is his daughter...

And so it goes, energetic, lots of cool characters and interesting setting with much more subtleties hinted at than the usual light versus dark setting in an aristocratic Empire with a good ending at a tbc point that immediately invites one to read book 2

Overall I greatly enjoyed this one - somewhat unexpectedly after the slowish beginning - I expected the energy but the twists and turns were cooler than expected

Book 2:

This wasn't quite at the level of book 1 for the most part - still fast and energetic but some of Max decisions seemed a bit dumb just because the plot needed to move this way or that way - still a degree of unpredictability but occasionally forced rather than natural, however the ending was just awesome making up for the ok but not great most of the rest - more new characters, plots within plots etc but not that much "I can't believe this happened" compared with the first volume until the twist at the end.

Book 3:

Another crazy fun, throw all and the kitchen sink in, energetic book - more twists and turns, new reveals etc - at least Max gets his name and status back though not quite as he planned and acquires a few followers to rebuild his line - even Gustav and the twins are back as is the Countess and her team.

In the big picture, the plot thickens and while Max cynical view of the world is actually quite rosy as it turns out, "Mother" Alia is still a believer - though even putting all the best motives on everything the Church does or condones, she starts having some misgivings in the end - but ultimately that matters less as the fact that Max finds out how little he knows anyway...

Book 4:

Continuing the addictive, crazy stuff, throw in all including the kitchen sink - ok here this is a stone altar everyone wants but has to carry around to keep it - this one continues the twisting no holds barred storyline; the ending is on a bit of a cliffhanger so one needs to start volume 5 asap to see where Max ends up and how he deals with stuff, but other than that there is a lot of universe expansion here - the more we and Max find out, the more all that came before is shown to be not that important in the big scheme of things. And of course new characters pop in, including a fascinating academy teacher, just not from the academy we know so to speak.