The Wit is both a blessing and a curse. This low magic enables a human to form such a close bond of kinship with an animal that the two share thoughts and even start to take on each other's personalities. Such an enriched life does come at a price though as the lifespan of most beasts is much shorter than that of their human companion and the death of the animal is a devastating loss. This magic becomes the focus of Robin Hobb's Tawny Man series as her story telling returns to the Six Duchies where it all started. Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Farseer Trilogy and it is time to catch up with our old friends Fitz and the Fool.

After thoroughly enjoying the Farseer Trilogy I was pretty excited about reading more of the books that take place in the Realm of the Elderings created by Robin Hobb. My enthusiasm was quickly dampened when I discovered that Ship of Magic was full of bratty kids, over-bearing parents, and a heavy dose of family squabbles. Normally fantasy literature is an escape from such mundane and stressful topics but not so with the first book of the series. Luckily some interesting magic systems and concepts intrigued me enough to continue on... 

The Night Angel trilogy tells the tale of Azoth, a young orphan who barely gets by from day to day as a member of the Black Dragon thieves guild. Azoth and his friends must find a way to steal enough coin each day to pay their dues to the guild enforcer, Rat, and still have some money left over for food. One night Azoth stumbles upon Durzo Blint, the best assassin in the city, as he flees the scene of a just completed job. Street smart and a good judge of character, Azoth asks to apprentice under Durzo but he is instantly rejected by the master assassin. When Azoth's best friend is beaten and raped by Rat, he becomes more determined to apprentice under Durzo so that he can learn to stick up for himself and his friends. Azoth encounters Durzo a second time and threatens to kill him if he won't take Azoth on as an apprentice. Durzo sees something in the boy and agrees to take him on only if he kills Rat by himself before the end of the week. 

The Farseer family rules the Six Duchies as they have for many generations but dire times are at hand. The Red Ships are raiding the coastal cities and King Shrewd's health is failing. He has many sons so the line of succession is well defined and with the King in poor health Prince Verity does the majority of the ruling. Of course that doesn't sit well with Prince Regal, a selfish and cruel individual who is the son furthest down the line of succession and unhappy with his station. Sound familiar?

Exigencies and despair are two of Stephen R. Donaldson's favorite words and there is no shortage of either in this final entry of the Gap Cycle. The fifth book of the series is the largest of the bunch, and despite some of the typical un-needed bloat found in any Donaldson book, it builds up to a worthy conclusion. Holt Fasner has put the Earth itself in jeopardy with his attempt to unlock Amnion secrets that will allow him to live forever and Warden Dios turns out to be just as culpable for the extreme actions he takes in an attempt to stop him.  Both have abused their power in unforgivable ways and those who have been the recipients of that abuse, mainly Angus and Morn, finally arrive back at Earth just in time for a public reckoning.

The Summoner trilogy, by Taran Matharu, is a YA series that combines classic rpg video game elements, a Hogwart's like academy, and the teen vs teen survival trials of the Hunger Games. Fletcher is an orphan who finds, and successfully uses, a demon summoning scroll in a world where the human battlemage summoners support the army in an endless conflict with the orcs. 

Brandon Sanderson's magnum opus continues with Words of Radiance (Book 2 of The StormLight Archive) clocking in at 1088 pages which makes it the biggest book ever printed by Tor Books. I only wish it were bigger - it's that good. The world is rich and deep, the characters are complex, and the magic systems are true Brandon Sanderson - well defined, unique, and interesting. All of the main characters are back and the story just gets bigger and bigger. For most authors the end of this book would be a satisfying conclusion to any series but it is obvious that this one is just getting started. Sanderson set the bar so awfully high with the Mistborn series that I am truly impressed he was able to surpass himself with the Stormlight Archive.

Our solar system will never be the same.  Book 6 of The Expanse picks up right after the end of the last one in the bleak aftermath of the sudden and devastating attack on Earth by the Free Navy. Out of nowhere they laid waste to the bread basket of the solar system and now humanity struggles to pick up the pieces and find a way to survive. The super powers of the solar system who were central to mankind's expansion into space now find themselves mere shadows of their former selves and short on resources. Earth is in disarray after the attacks with billions of starving people and Mars is a hollow shell after being left behind by those that moved through the ring gate to colonize other planets with actual atmospheres. To add insult to injury, those same Martian defectors were the source of the military ships acquired by the Free Navy to wreak havoc on Earth so Mars also finds itself in the middle of a political upheaval. 

Just wow. This is the first book of the Stormlight Archive series and it represents over ten years of world building on the part of Brandon Sanderson. The world is so rich and the magic systems are so detailed that this single book contains more depth than most Fantasy series do in their entirety. The paperback version is 1280 pages (the audiobook is 45+ hours) of great character development and story telling. The entire series is planned to be 10 books in total composed of two story arcs of 5 books each. The Way of Kings is an amazing work of fantasy that grabbed my attention from cover to cover and is not to be missed.

This one starts slowly as the Machiavellian schemes of Holt Fasner and Warden Dios are flushed out in great detail. However, when the story finally transitions back to the main characters aboard the ship Trumpet things really pick up speed. Fasner and Dios are locked in a battle of plots and schemes that puts the very government of Earth, and their own lives, in great peril. With a new bill being proposed that would move the UMCP (the human police) out from under Holt Fasner and over to the government itself, Fasner is willing to go to any length to stop such an action, including terrorist actions against the government. At the same time, the two of them are also manipulating events as they relate to Trumpet who is on the run from the Amnioni with multiple other ships in pursuit.