Song of the Dragon by Tracy Hickman


I have to admit that I haven’t read anything with Hickmans name on it for a pretty long time. I really have always wondered why his books do so well since I have found the books fairly sub-par compared to some of the greats in the genre. Of course since I have that view everybody else should also, right?!

That being said I decided to give his newest book, Song of the Dragon a shot.

SotD has the standard players, Dwarfs/Humans/Elves/Gnomes with a few add-ons such as Manticores and Chimerians (shape changers) along with a hint of Dragons to come.

I  actually found the book to be fairly enjoyable, Drakis the main character is a fairly standard human warrior whose destiny isn’t that of a slaves, and try as he might, Hickman didn’t make it so I really felt anything for Drakis. So far the main Elf character is one of the most interesting “people” in the book. The Elves are not the high and mighty good guys, they are in fact “Dark” Elves who control most of the magic in the world and have dominated the other races reducing everybody else to the status of Slave.  I found the magic fairly interesting in the way the characters travel and  in the way the Elves use it to control their subject races.  Plus I’m a sucker for magic in general.

Drakis unintentionally starts a chain of events that frees himself and many other slaves from the power of the elves. He also just happens to have a Dwarf and a Manticore on hand who know the prophecy and that some human named Drakis will save everybody and crush the elves. This of course starts of a chain of events that result in Drakis and friends running to get away for the elves so that Drakis can be proved to be the savior, though he of course is in denial and isn’t buying that he is anything special.

A fairly standard book with a few nice touches. If you want some lighter reading and don’t mind some tried and true ideas then this is for you. If you have liked Hickmans other books, then this will be a book you will like also!

I do feel that this book (the 1st of a series) has some promise. If Hickman delves into the Elves a bit more and works on making Drakis a character that one can feel for, then this series will really gather steam. I did enjoy it and am giving it 6.5 out of 10.

Late last week a box showed up at my door with a few new books in it and one of them was The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross. I have to admit to having heard the authors name in the past, but to knowing absolutely nothing about the series.  Since the book I was reading was boring me to tears I decided to try this one.

The cover blurb from the San Francisco Chronicle stated “Stross gives his readers a British superspy with a long-term girlfriend, no fashion sense, and an aversion to martinis.” I have to suspect the blurb was based on  another book in the series and not this one since, well, he seemed to be married to this long term girlfriend at this stage…

The story is based around Bob Howard, who is an agent with the Laundry. The Laundry is a cross between the CIA, Men in Black and Ghostbusters (to be slightly over-simplistic), they are on the front line in keeping the dead … dead, the boogyman out of downtown London and in short keeping the UK (and the rest of the world) safe from all sorts of things that might go bump in the night.  There is a ton of Evil out in the world and a lot more knocking at the door to get in.

Overall it was a fairly well written and truly enjoyable read. it’s the latest part in the Laundry Files series but I didn’t feel unduly lost by not having read the prior books. Howard is part bad ass, part geek and all fun, good characterizations, plenty of humor, solid action and enough plot twisting to keep you wondering.

Overall I would give it a 7.5 out of 10 stars!

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the deley in posts here, I have been buried on all fronts over the last month.

I just now got up the interview with Jesse Bullington and over the next couple weeks i will be posting a few new reviews as soon as I get time to clear up my rough drafts.

Sales are starting to take off after a slow start. I thin so many people are used to the $3.99 shipping from Amazon that our .99 shipping caused some confusion at the beginning, especially on the used books!

As always we are more than  happy to special order a book and 99% of the time it ships out within 24 hours!

W&D: What on earth prompted you to create the Brothers?

Jesse: To me characters must be intrinsically attached to, and a product of, their time and place, as opposed to simply being the sort of characters that one might at any old place or time. I've also got a strong interest in writing about the historically under-represented and villainized. That, and one too many late night roleplaying sessions.

W&D: Has religion played a roll in your life and times? The brothers are very much into discussing religion and their beliefs, though Im sure most of it would cause the Church to run for the hills.

Jesse: I'm decidedly agnostic, and was not raised in a religious household, which no doubt plays into my interest in religion--being outside of something as fascinating and faceted as religion compels one to examine it more closely, not less, in my experience. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to conflate my beliefs with those of Hegel and Manfried.

W&D: What are your greatest influences, who or what do you use as inspiration?

Jesse: All the usual suspects in terms of the general--books, movies, history, comics, roleplaying, my experiences. In terms of the specific, I learned to write from reading, and I've never been one to stick to a single genre--Roald Dahl and Douglas Addams were early influences, and later on I got into the old school weird triumvirate of Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Lovecraft, and also the Italian post-modernists Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco. I''m one of those people who listens to music when I write, and while I often go in for instrumental pieces--European folk music, orkestars, Kronos Quartet, that sort of thing--I also get a lot of mileage listening to The Tiger Lillies, Nick Cave, sundry metal outfits like Cradle of Filth and Amon Amarth, and more recently a group called The Widow's Bane. I've also found myself listening to wildly inappropriate stuff like They Might Be Giants and that one Lady Gaga track that was really big when I was editing my last novel, but don't tell anyone.

W&D: I kind of suspect there is a touch of Grossbart in all of us if we look deep enough. Did they borrow any traits from yourself?

Jesse: I try to be honest to a fault, but the Brothers G put me to shame in that regard. They're meant to embody much of what is problematic about humanity--our myopic, selfish natures, our casual violence, our general insanity--but also our perseverance, and our unfailing loyalty to our families, and our dreams. For better or worse, I think the Brothers did inherit their obsession with being correct from me--I can be a real boor sometimes.
>What can we expect from you next?The Enterprise of Death is my next novel, and it will be released from Orbit in march of 2011. This one has a slightly higher fantasy element to it but is still historically set and carried by its humanity, I think. I also have short stories forthcoming in several venues, details of which can be found at my website www.jessebullington.com.

W&D: What do you do for fun when not writing twisted characters?

Jesse: I love the outdoors, especially hiking, and spend as much time in the mountains as I possible can. I also read every chance I get, and play boardgames, videogames, and various other diversions.

From WrathofMe on the aSoIaF forum:
>I have studied the German language and German history extensively, because of my strong interest in the region and the culture. What interested you in Germany and German folklore?

Jesse: I've always had a fondness for folklore, at least as far back as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to spend a year or so living in the Netherlands when I was a child, and for part of that time we traveled in Germany, where several friends of our family live. I don't think it will come as a surprise that to a child already enamored with the Brothers Grimm, and fantasy and horror, that country's brooding castles and benighted forests struck a deep chord, one that still resonates with me. As I grew older my childhood experiences and interests informed my growing interest in history, and the result is a continued fascination with the region. My language skills, I'm unhappy to report, are perfectly atrocious.

>I realize that this is a bit broad, but could you briefly describe the research process for the writing of this book?

Jesse: I went into the project with a decent background in the historical setting, and researched as I went in a very general sense--re-reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, for example, but also seeding the manuscripts with notes to myself in terms of specific items I needed to research better. When I began the novel I was not sure exactly what year the novel would take place in, and only settled on a date when I decided which major historical event I most wanted the Brothers Grossbart to blunder into. Prior to my fixing the date, I had a rough twenty-year window I was working with, but once I decided it would begin in late 1364 I had to go back through and excise certain bits and edit others to make it as accurate as possible. Finally, after completing the revised manuscript I went through the copious notes I had made and researched the individual items I was unsure of--my wife was a grad student and generously allowed me to pillage her university's library to this end. At a certain point you have to come to terms with the fact that you're never going to be able to get everything spot on, but I think the effort is nevertheless crucial to good historical writing--the night before I had to mail the completed, copy-edited manuscript back to my publisher I finally received a book on medieval sailing that I had been trying to get forever, and jumping to the chapter I was after I saw I had made a rather massive blunder and thus worked until about four in the morning re-writing a scene on the boat--I had the anchor on the wrong end of the damn ship, and equipped it with an anachronistic chain to boot. To reiterate, I had already done quite a bit of research beforehand, researched as I was writing in terms of the setting and a few important details, and then researched many of the details after the fact--for me research is something that takes place before, during, and after. 

>I have read that "Watership Down" was simply the novelization of stories that Mr. Adams told his children. With that in mind, I wondered what inspired you to write "The Sad Tales of the Brothers Grossbart"?

Jesse: Part of it was the simple notion of writing something I would have liked to read as a teenager, which is when my taste in literature really solidified, but of course also something that would be enjoyable to me as an adult. I also wanted to write something that my friends would enjoy, and that was really the extent of my ambition for the project at first--to write a book that my role playing cohorts from high school would get a kick out of, and see bits of themselves in; to be frank, I assumed it would be a little too weird to ever find publication. That I was wrong on that count has been one of the happiest misconceptions of my life! Thanks Jesse

Hi folks.

Normally I wouldn't be posting something to encurage you buying a book from another source, but in this case I feel the cause is well worthwhile.

From now till May 21st a portion of all sales of SPECULATIVE HORIZONS published by Subterranean Press goes to help fight breast cancer.

Here's what the Subterranean Press had to say about the anthology:

Speculative Horizons is the newest in our series of short anthologies, helmed this time by Patrick St-Denis, best known for running Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, the place to go for fantasy news, contests, excerpts, and interviews.

Pat’s gathered an eclectic mix of contributors, including L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (with a new Recluce short story), C. S. Friedman, Tobias S. Buckell, Brian Ruckley, and Hal Duncan, who has written a story so wrenching it’ll rip out your heart and come back for your lungs.

If that’s not incentive enough to preorder a copy, until the end of day, May 21, 2010, we’ll be donating 10% of the price of each copy sold direct through SubPress to the American Cancer Society.

Head over to Pats Fantasy Hotlist or Subterranean's site for more info. Pats link is on the right, under the "links of interest" portion.

Simply put, WOW!

I have to say this was one of the most disgusting, violent and utterly hilarious books I may have ever had the distinct pleasure to spend time with.

The Brothers Grossbart are diabolical, devious and utterly off their rockers, yet at the same time 100% dedicated and honest to their view of the world.

The story follows the brothers bloody path from the Germanic region of Europe all the way to the deserts of Egypt. Nothing stands I the way of the brothers and God help those who they deem as “doing them wrong” because that’s the surest way to find an early grave.

It was a rich story that was overall well paced although I feel the last 1/5 of the book was a bit hurried compared to the earlier portions. A ton of fights and a good mix of moments that had me laughing.

This really is a good book, though it is not for the faint of heart. If you like a good wizard hanging out with a pure knight then this book isn’t for you. If you like a dark, gritty romp full of humor and violence that is well written, then go and buy this book now!

9 out of 10


Signed copies available on www.wdbooks.net

Hi folks!

You might just notice a couple changes going on here. We are upgrading to a new site to hopefully provide a better inventory selection and a fully searchable data-base!

I just had to kick back for a little while and read a book that I’ve been wanting to pick up for some time, but have been just to busy. Red Iron Nights by Glen Cook.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to read Cook’s Garrett P.I. novels yet, you really need to get going! Garrett is a classic P.I., always willing to slack off, get into a fight and go after the beautiful woman. The catch is he lives in a world full of sorcery, elves and all the stuff that dreams are made of.

In this round Garrett has to help the Watch deal with a serial killer, who is of course subject to a curse. This makes for some twists and jumps before the Dead Man can get a handle on the situation and direct our buddies to the right path. Toss in the Mob and a conspiracy theorist and the book becomes a fun ride.

Once again Cook offers up a good, light and fully enjoyable read.

Im sure some of you have noticed that John asked my help in getting a good word out there about this book. Let me assure you that no matter how much I like a free book and ego stroke I have not colored my views on Rhone.

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I just finished Rhone, a book from a new fantasy author named John A. Karr and what follows are my opinions of it. 

I found Rhone to be a very enjoyable book, that’s not to say I didn’t have any issues with it, and those I’m going to start with.

Rhone was published by a small UK based publisher Wild Wolf and if John is any indication of Wild Wolfs talent selection then I suspect they may have a stable of pretty good authors. However, the biggest issue I have is based on editing. I’m not the pickiest reader out there and I’ve read reviews by some very good reviewers who have had fits over books that I didn’t notice any errors in. With Rhone there were several cases of editing that stood out and I really hope Wolf takes a little longer on Johns next book so I don’t have to mention this again. By no means do I think you should not buy this book due to the issues, just be aware of them and not think your too crazy when some things show up.

The main character is of course Rhone, a human/demon cross bred. The story revolves around a Demi-Gods desire to cast down his betters and rule the Heavens and Mars for his own amusement. To do this Rhone plays a very important part in the plan, and because of certain actions taken by the Demi-God, Rhone is pissed off enough to do what needs to be done.  Rhone is a good character, John took some time to develop him and show some depth. Rhone also is a total bad ass who grows in power slowly through his trials and tribulations.

The world building is pretty standard, even though it is Mars, for the most part one can consider it just a fancified earth. The author doesn’t try to toss too many crazy ideas at the reader, just enough so you know that you sure aren’t in Kansas anymore. One complaint I have was the mention of a 6 legged deer. It felt like a new author trying to toss something out there that somebody could sort of relate to. As a reader I didn’t need to hear about a 6 legged deer, just call it a deer or make up a name and describe it a little so the reader knows what it “is”.

Magic tends to play an import, yet fairly small role. With any story that has Gods and Demons running amok there has to be some, but for the most part it doesn’t try to take over the story.  At times, and towards the end there is a bit more, but again, it isn’t overwhelming.

So far for the books I’ve read in the last 6 months I have to put Rhone near the top, and unless something changes John A. Karr will be on my Top 10 list for the end of the year. If it wasn’t for the editing I feel John could be easily in the top 5.

I haven’t been this into a new author since I picked up The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I really feel that if you like the Abercrombies and Gemmells of the world you should really give Rhone a shot.

New killer deal here at W&D!

Shadows of the Apt (books 1-3) by Adrian
Tchaikovsky

Buy books 1 & 2 and get book 3 for FREE!!!
Trade paperback
Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling & Blood of the Mantis

To snag this steal find them for sale on the main page!