Shaman's Crossing (Robin Hobb)

This is the beginning of a new series for Robin Hobb, author of the Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies - all very excellent fantasy novels with rich characterisation and an immensely detailed world and history.

Shaman's Crossing is set in a different world to Hobb's previous trilogies. Nevarre Burvelle is a second son of a new noble (a military man elevated into the nobility by the king), destined by the order of his birth to become a soldier. We watch him grow up, and enter the King's Cavella Academy, a military school where he is shocked at the animosity between the old nobles and the new. Nevarre is haunted by a dreamlike encounter from his childhood years, and this dream gradually comes to life, culminating in a dramatic encounter on Dark Evening which changes his life forever.

Shaman's Crossing is just what I enjoy of Hobb's writing - a world I can fall into without thought, characters with depth, and most of all, a fascinating and lusciously rich story. Magic which enters someone's life and awakens them to the much bigger world that surrounds them. A wonderful, wonderful novel.

Starman (Sara Douglass)

More overwrought fantasy from Douglass. Betrayal! Evil babies! Vows of undying love! Discovering that you're actually a god! People adoring you or hating you with a fiery passion, and nothing in between.

In fact, that's a good description of this book (and most of her others, as far as I'm aware. I'm rereading a lot of hers, for light entertainment) - it's all crazy ups and downs, with nothing in between. Most good books, in my opinion, go deeper into that in between. Douglass just rushes about on the surface of life.

Lots of fun, though. These books would be hilarious to parody. I wonder if anyone writes fanfic for these?

Myrren's Gift (Fiona McIntosh)

Will Thurst is the young Commander of an army, when Myrren, a young woman accused of witchcraft, gives him a gift as she lies dying. You don't find out what this gift is until halfway through the novel - suffice to say, it changes Will's life.

It all sounds rather intriguing, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's ruined by really, really bad writing. Like, "'Have you ravished Lady Thingy yet?', the Prince asked with a cruel sneer." Honestly, who uses the word ravished? Cardboard characters with cardboard reactions, clumsy language use, and people ravishing each other completely ruined this rather interesting idea. It took me forever to read this, because I kept putting it down in favour of other books. Not recommended.

Alyzon Whitestarr (Isobelle Carmody)

This is the latest YA novel by this very prolific Australian author. Despite the title (I do try to avoid books that use two letters where one will do - although to be fair to Ms Carmody, there's plenty of Starrs in the phone book), this is a very enjoyable fantasy book. Alyzon Whitestarr is the quiet younger child in a brightly eccentric family - her father is a musician, and her mother a nocturnal artist. An accident awakes certain abilities within Alyzon. She can smell people's feelings - the ammonia of her father's anxiety, and the aniseed of her sister's depression. As her control over these extended senses increase, she becomes aware of a terrible darkness that she must fight against.

It's certainly aimed at teenagers, and this is apparent in the writing. It's a fun read - a mystery/thriller, the narrative spiralling to an exciting conclusion. There are several all-too-neat coincidences, a few cardboard characters, and a touching love story - a 3 out of 5 story, with some gorgeously evocative description of Alyzon's sensory abilities.

Maul (Tricia Sullivan)

This was a strange, strange novel, and it would be fairly accurate to say that most of the time, I had no idea what the hell was going on.

It's a twisting cyber-punk novel, set in a world where most men have succumbed to a virus. Gangs of teenage girls terrorise a mall. An experiment run on an autistic man enables him to control the mall environment, and eventually be healed by the virus within his system. A scientist is desperate to bear a child. And it all barrels along messily and doesn't resolve into much. There's a wolf motif too, but that completely confused me.

I do hate admitting that I didn't get something, but I honestly just didn't get this. It was completely over my head, and just seemed pointless. It'd be 1 out of 5 for some briefly amusing moments, but that's all.

Battleaxe (Sara Douglass)

I enjoy Sara Douglass's fantasy in a sort of fast-food gobbling way, but it can be rather turgid, overly dramatic stuff. Battleaxe is in this vein - grandly cliched fantasy, complete with unrequited passion, destiny, overblown tragedy, and so on (and on and on).

But sometimes you just feel like plunging into the murky pool of high fantasy, and watch the characters blink in surprise as destiny juggles with them and impregnates them with Grand Golden Magnificent Saviour Poobahs and suchlike. And the Grand Golden etc wanders around, bewildered by his destiny, agonisingly in love with his brother's wife, saving the world with a stiff upper lip, jutting and manly jaw, and gleaming muscles. Probably wearing a small leather loincloth, or something of the sort.

So if you're in the mood for that sort of thing, by all means, give Battleaxe a go. But if you're after some small strands of realism, I'd avoid Douglass's books at all cost.

The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

I had heard this book mentioned by others many times before reading it myself, but didn't know much about it. While it involves time travel, I wouldn't class it as science fiction. It's a love story, a tale that muses on connections and destiny, and the intricate ways in which we tie our lives to other people's.

Henry has a genetic disorder which causes him to uncontrollably travel in time, generally to important moments in his past or future. He spends time with his younger self, glimpses his future home, and when he is in his early twenties, he meets Clare, who says she has known him her entire life. When Henry is in his forties, he travels back in time and begins to regularly meet with Clare, who is six years old.

The Time Traveller's Wife charts Henry and Clare's relationship over the years, and it's a beautiful and very moving story. I felt so intimately connected to these characters, and the ending was rather heart-rending. A four out of five book - I loved it.

Blade of Fortriu (Juliet Marillier)

Marillier is an author of Celtic romance/drama/sagas - her first books, as far as I know, were the Sevenwaters Trilogy, and the first book, Daughter of the Forest, was based on the Seven Swans fairytale.

This book is the second in another trilogy, The Bridei Chronicles, the first of which was The Dark Mirror. Bridei is a Celtic chieftan, fighting against the Christian Gaels. The first book told of his childhood, and his friendship and consequent love affair with the otherworldly Tuala, a child of the Fair Folk.

Blade of Fortriu is set during the height of Bridei's military push against the Gaels. The story moves away from Bridei and Tuala, and centres around Faolan, Bridei's Gaelic secret agent, and Ana, a hostage in the court of Fortriu. It's in a similar vein to the first in the series, and to Marillier's other books - romance, passion, swords and magic, with an undercurrent of tragedy, but well written despite these cliched elements.

It was an enjoyable second novel, and I was happily satisfied with the way all the characters developed. I think Daughter of the Forest remains my favourite of Marillier's books though - I have a great fondness for the fairy tale it's based on, and she interprets it well.

The Minotaur (Barbara Vine)

I enjoy Barbara Vine (also known as Ruth Rendell). While as Rendell, the author concentrates on crime, Vine writes psychological mysteries/crime/thrillers. And while I'm not an great aficionado of crimes and mysteries, I like them as books I can race through in one or two sittings.

The Minotaur is a gripping story. Kerstin, a Swedish nurse, is employed by a very strange English family to take care of a schizophrenic son in his thirties. The character of Kerstin is a wonderful narrator, and this story is almost claustrophic in its tension. The inevitable ending spirals tighter and closer throughout the novel so that when you finally put it down, it's almost a relief to be finished.

So, while I'm not passionately attached to stories like this - I don't feel the urge to race out and buy it so that I can read it again whenever I like - they're still great reads. A 4/5 book.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (JK Rowling)

I'm not a huge raving fan of Harry Potter - I enjoy the books, but I also usually recommend authors in the same genre who are, in my opinion, superior writers (Philip Pullman, Diana Wynne Jones, and so on). But I think there is a childish element of "it's so popular, how boring, I'm not going to like it" in those thoughts.

I really enjoyed this book. It's rather exposition heavy, but it's interesting exposition. I liked the sense of threads drawing together. I really didn't like the grumpy Harry in Order of the Phoenix, and I much prefer the teenager he's turned into here - still fraught with teenage emotions, but with an increasing mature control over them. And I enjoyed the love affair with Ginny - in fact, I liked most of the love affairs in this story. I thought they went well with the very limited fighting action - the reader needs a break before what I imagine will be the action overload of the final book.

God, the ending was devastating. I knew it was going to happen (because I can't keep my nose out of spoilers), but it still shocked me. The funeral was one of the most depressing things I've read in a while. I think the final book is going to an extremely dark journey.

In terms of the writing, it has the usual things wrong with it - a bit clunky in places, adjectives sprinkled all over the place with a heavy hand. But who cares? It's completely absorbing, and that's the most important thing.