Shale is the lowest of the low-an outcast from a poor village in the heart of the desert. In the desert water is life, and currency, and Shale has none. But he has a secret. It’s the one thing that keeps him alive and may save all the cities of the Quartern in the days to come. If it doesn’t get him killed first…

Terelle is a slave fleeing a life as a courtesan. She finds shelter in the home of an elderly painter but as she learns the strange and powerful secrets of his art she fears she may have traded a life of servitude for something far more perilous…

The Stormlord is dying in his tower and there is no one, by accident or design, to take his place. He brings the rain from the distant seas to his people. Without a Stormlord, the cities of the Quartern will wither and die.

Their civilization is at the brink of disaster. If Shale and Terelle can find a way to save themselves, they may just save them all. Water is life and the wells are running dry…

I always love it when a fantasy book has some proper world building. Instead of going down the familiar route of alternative middle ages, I prefer it when fantasy series try something a little different. In The Last Stormlord it’s all about water.

Water has become so rare that the entire community is built around it. There once was a time when people were dependent on random rain and they barely survived that era. Then the Stormlords came and water became regulated. The Stormlords would pull water from the clouds and shift them to the cities that needed it. Each city and each citizen receives an alloted amount of water, unless you live on the outskirts or in the slums and aren’t a ‘proper’ citizen.

But at the start of this book we find out the current Stormlord is dying and there is no replacement. As the Stormlord grows weaker decisions have to be made: which cities get water and which get cut off? It’s an interesting premise and Larke does a great job describing the class divide and the harsh choices the characters must make.

There are 3 different story lines at the start, which (of course) all merge at a certain point. The first is about those around the failing Stormlord: his son Nealrith, rainlord in his own right, but not strong enough to be a stormlord; and Ryka and Kaneth, two rainlords who are forced to marry to heighten their chances of a Stormlord offspring. The second is about Terelle, a girl sold to a ‘snuggery’ (read: whorehouse) but flees before she’s forced into a life she doesn’t want. And then there’s Shale, a boy with water powers, enough to maybe be a Stormlord some day.

I really enjoyed this book, although it was a whole lot bleaker than I expected it to be. Larke raises some interesting moral dilemmas and makes you wonder what you’d do in that type of situation. I can’t wait till the next book comes out! I so want to know how this story continues…

The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.58 and on Amazon.com for $7.99

I don’t tend to read that many young adult books, but this one looks like fun!

The description on Google Books:

Benevolence is not your typical princess. With her parents lost to assassins, Princess Ben ends up under the thumb of the conniving Queen Sophia. Starved and miserable, locked in the castle’s highest tower, Ben stumbles upon a mysterious enchanted room. So begins her secret education in the magical arts: mastering an obstinate flying broomstick, furtively emptying the castle pantries, setting her hair on fire . . . But Ben’s private adventures are soon overwhelmed by a mortal threat to her kingdom. Can Ben save the country and herself from foul tyranny?

Princess Ben by Catherine Murdock is available on Amazon.co.uk for £4.86 and on Amazon.com for $8.99.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is about Yeine, a 19 year old girl, who wants nothing more than a normal life in her homeland of Darr. But her mother was of the powerful Arameri family, and when Yeine is summoned to the capital city of Sky a month after her mother’s death, she cannot refuse. Dakarta, her grandfather and the Arameri patriarch, pits her against her two cousins as a potential heir to the throne.

This book was awesome! The description above doesn’t do the book justice at all, yet it’s so tricky to explain this world of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. It’s so complex and rich in mythology, and one of the great parts of the book is slowly discovering the different facets. Yeine doesn’t know anything about the world of the Arameri and we, as readers, slowly discover as she learns about her heritage. Jemisin has managed to tell a unique origin story of the gods of this world, and it doesn’t compare to anything I’ve read before.

In short, the backstory told at the start of the book is this: there were once 3 gods, who lived in harmony, Bright Itempas, the Nightlord Nahadoth and the goddess of twilight and death, Enefa. But Itempas was betrayed by Enefa and Nahadoth, so he killed Enefa and enslaved Nahadoth. Nahadoth and his 3 god children all got trapped in mortal bodies and were given to the rulers of the Hundred Thousand kingdoms to be used as weapons. Yeine soon encounters these ‘weapons’ at her grandfather’s court, who have to obey everything the ruling family says.

The story is told from Yeine’s perspective, albeit a bit of a weird perspective. From the start, you know there’s something not completely right. For instance, here are the first couple of lines from the book:

I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore.

I must try to remember.

My people tell stories of the night I was born. They say my mother crossed her legs in the middle of labor and fought with all her strength not to release me into the world. I was born anyhow, of course; nature cannot be denied. Yet it does not surprise me that she tried.

My mother was an heiress of the Arameri. There was a ball for the lesser nobility — the sort of thing that happens once a decade as a backhanded sop to their self-esteem. My father dared ask my mother to dance; she deigned to consent. I have often wondered what he said and did that night to make her fall in love with him so powerfully, for she eventually abdicated her position to be with him. It is the stuff of great tales, yes? Very romantic. In the tales, such a couple lives happily ever after. The tales do not say what happens when the most powerful family in the world is offended in the process.

But I forget myself. Who was I, again? Ah, yes.

And it continues like that throughout the book. Yeine will be telling you something and she’ll suddenly interrupt with a completely different thought or tell you about another event. It doesn’t happen too often for it to get annoying; it only makes you more interested in what happened to her.

I loved how different this book was; the gods, the world, everything just works in this book. It’s the first part of a trilogy, but I don’t think it’s trilogy in the usual sense; the 2nd seems to be set in the same world, and will continue the story, but with different characters. Intrigued?

If you’re not convinced yet, you can read the first three chapters on the author’s website.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.58 and on Amazon.com for $10.07.

I just received a review copy of this book! It looks awesome, and once I’ve finished the book I’m currently reading I’m so going to pick this one up.

The description on Amazon:

Shale is the lowest of the low-an outcast from a poor village in the heart of the desert. In the desert water is life, and currency, and Shale has none. But he has a secret. It’s the one thing that keeps him alive and may save all the cities of the Quartern in the days to come. If it doesn’t get him killed first…

Their civilization is at the brink of disaster. If Shale and Terelle can find a way to save themselves, they may just save them all. Water is life and the wells are running dry…

The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.58 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

I’ve only just started this book, but so far it’s pretty intriguing. I’m only on page 12, yet I’m already completely hooked!

Here’s the description:

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is about Yeine, a 19 year old girl, who wants nothing more than a normal life in her homeland of Darr. But her mother was of the powerful Arameri family, and when Yeine is summoned to the capital city of Sky a month after her mother’s death, she cannot refuse. Dakarta, her grandfather and the Arameri patriarch, pits her against her two cousins as a potential heir to the throne.

If you’re not convinced yet, you can read the first three chapters on the author’s website.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.58 and on Amazon.com for $10.07.

Ooh, this book sounds goooood: set in an alternate Renaissance Venice with vampires, werewolves, assassins and pirates!

Here’s the description:

In the depths of night, customs officers board a galley in a harbor and overpower its guards. In the hold they find oil and silver, and a naked boy chained to the bulkhead. Stunningly beautiful but half-starved, the boy has no name. The officers break the boy’s chains to rescue him, but he escapes…

Venice is at the height of its power. In theory Duke Marco commands. But Marco is a simpleton so his aunt and uncle rule in his stead. They command the seas, tax the colonies, and, like those in power before them, fear assassins better than their own…

In a side chapel, Marco’s fifteen-year old cousin prays for deliverance from her forced marriage. It is her bad fortune to be there when Mamluk pirates break in to steal a chalice, but it is the Mamluks’ good luck – they kidnap her…

In the gardens beside the chapel, Atilo, the Duke’s chief assassin, prepares to kill his latest victim. Having cut the man’s throat, he turns back, having heard a noise, and finds a boy crouched over the dying man, drinking blood from the wound. The speed with which the boy dodges a dagger and scales a wall stuns Atilo. And the assassin knows he has to find the boy…

Not to kill him, but because he’s finally found what he thought he would never find. Someone fit to be his apprentice…

The downside: you’ve got to wait for it till January 2011…

Zombies and bloggers! I like the setup for this series:

In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as “Marburg Amberlee”—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed “The Rising,” and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Twenty years later, when Senator Peter Ryman of Wisconsin decides to take a team of bloggers along on his run for the White House, Georgia and Shaun Mason are quick to submit their application. They, along with their friend Georgette “Buffy” M. are selected, and view this as the chance to launch their careers to a whole new level… that is, if they can survive the campaign trail.

There’s a cool site with tons of info about the book with even campaign posters for the fictional elections. Really curious to see how this story is; mainstream media covering up the news stories with bloggers being the only ones willing to reveal information. And then get killed for it? At least that’s what I make up out of the snippets on the site.

Definitely going on my To-Read list! Feed is coming out in the UK on 3rd of June and is the first part of the Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant (Feed, Deadline, Blackout).

Ooh, this looks interesting! I still haven’t read any proper steam punk books, but those worlds look intriguing.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

At the start of the Civil War, a Russian mining company commissions a great machine to pave the way from Seattle to Alaska and speed up the gold rush that is beating a path to the frozen north. Inventor Leviticus Blue creates the machine, but on its first test run it malfunctions, decimating Seattle’s banking district and uncovering a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead.

Sixteen years later Briar, Blue’s widow, lives in the poor neighborhood outside the wall that’s been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father’s name from the clutches of history.

Boneshaker is available on Amazon.co.uk for £7.49 and on Amazon.com for $10.87.

Wow, these book covers are gorgeous:

They’re designed by Jim Tierney, an illustration student at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, as a Senior Thesis project. I wish I could buy these, they’d look so pretty in my bookshelves!

Via doubletakes

I know many of my readers here own a lot of books (as do I), but how many of you could fit a library of 6000? If so, here’s the perfect library for you:

This spiral staircase is part of a project to convert the former home of Portuguese poet Antero de Quental into a library center. The staircase spirals up through two storeys and into a tower, with shelves back-lit through translucent plexiglass.

For more pictures of these bookshelves check out dezeen.com.