In the Free States people love their Capes, the superheroes that defend them. With a few very notable exceptions Capes have a short life expectancy so they established the Academy where kids interested in becoming Capes can train. They also learn how to market themselves and take advantage of any vid and merchandising deals that come their way on the off chance they survive long enough to retire. Damian's father doesn't have a cool villain name like Cemetery Sally or Crimson Death and a body count of one isn't impressive for a necromancer, also called Crows. He only made headlines because he went mad and killed his wife in front of their five year old son Damian. Crows are the most hated Powers for obvious reasons and there has never been a Crow Cape or even one at the Academy and no one wants him there now. Half of his classmates are too frightened to get near him and the other half think they should kill him now before he starts murdering people. But Damian is determined to stay in the hopes that learning control will prevent him from going insane like every other Crow. If not he hopes they can stop him before he does too much damage. As Damian says at the beginning, it's a shame they couldn't do either.

The Girl and the Stars is a tale of magic, mysticism, science fiction, and survival. Like Lawrence's Books of the Ancestor series, The Girl and the Stars takes place on the planet Abeth, which was colonized by humans despite its dying sun. Only a narrow belt around the equator is kept warm by a satellite that concentrates solar energy into a laser. A few nomadic tribes eke out a living on the ice beyond that belt and theirs is a harsh way of life that sacrifices any children deemed unacceptable before they can become a drain on a clan's resources. As Yaz arrives at this year's gathering she expects to be rejected by the priests. She's neither small and weak, nor growing too fast and eating too much, but she is different. There is something inside her that lets her see beyond the surface of the physical world to a river that only she can touch and draw upon. As anticipated the priest sees her difference, but instead of casting her into the pit to die he pulls her aside before pushing her younger brother over the edge. Without thought Yaz jumps to save her brother and discovers that everything the priests have told her people is a lie.

1986's Barbary is a straightforward and short Sci-Fi novel about the twelve year old Barbary moving to her new home on a space station just when an alien vessel is approaching it. She smuggles her kitten on board with  her and doing so has an unexpected impact on Earth's first contact with an alien species. 1998's The Moon and the Sun is a historical fantasy set in the court of Louis XV. Marie-Josephé is a Lady-in-Waiting to the King's niece and her brother is his Natural Philosopher who has returned in triumph from the new world with a captive sea monster, a mermaid. As Marie-Josephé assists her brother is studying the creature she realizes that it is intelligent and she becomes determined to save it from becoming the King's dinner.

Amazon recently released Season 1 of the Wheel of Time based on the best selling series by Robert Jordan, which covers the first of thirteen books, The Eye of the World. While it may have served as the show's inspiration there is so much more to the book. This is a coming of age story framed by an epic quest and set in a world where the balance of power is in the hands of women rather than men. It's about five villagers from an isolated region who suddenly find themselves fleeing for their lives from legendary monsters and discovering that the world is much larger, and history far more complicated, than they ever imagined. All because one of the three boys will either restore the balance of the world and destroy the Dark One or doom them all if he gives in to the insanity that caused him to break the world in a previous life. 

Author Kristing Cashore made quite a splash in the YA Fantasy genre with Graceling. It's a good book but so standard for the genre that its mostly forgettable except for the world defining gracelings, people blessed with an extraordinary ability with the physical mark that their eyes are two different colors. It can be virtually anything but the most feared are those with mental gifts which brings us to the worst of those, King Leck, who used his Grace to brainwash and control an entire country. His assassination in the book Graceling leaves his daughter Bitterblue as queen of a people who have no idea how much of their past is real and have to live with the horrible things they did under his control. As Bitterblue delves deeper into the secrets of the past she discovers her father was worse than she ever imagined and quite literally a Monster from beyond what they thought was an impassable barrier. The companion novel Fire takes place on the other side of the barrier in a strange land with Monsters instead of Graces with their own story of Leck that will bring the two lands together.

When last we saw Sergeant Corrie Welling of the Maradaine Constabulary she was abducted while investigating a child slavery ring and thrown into a ship along with the latest victims. Corrie is the nineteen year old foul mouthed younger sister of Minox Welling and is now no longer is a minor character in the Maradaine Constabulary series. An Unintended Voyage is the first of Maresca's books to take place beyond the city of Maradaine. Its great to see more of the world and interact with people from many different cultures as Corrie attempts to make her way home from the other side of the globe.

A deadly pandemic strikes the world and within days ninety-nine percent of the human population is gone. The survivors all gained a super-human talent in the process but half of them are violent lunatics. The Savage North Chronicles, beginning with The Darkest Winter, follows a small band of survivors from Anchorage, Alaska as they struggle through the outbreak in December and the chaos that follows. In addition to the craziness of a civilization ending apocalypse, there are wilder elements as well, including super human abilities and military scientists who wipe memories and resurrect the dead. The survivors include Elle, who is a cruise ship photographer who wakes up after falling sick and immediately discovers that she can defend herself by summoning fire, and Jackson, who is a state trooper who's pregnant wife is killed by an intruder. Together with four children Elle picked up the group follows Jackson's intuition and sets off for Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Its a mix of The Walking Dead series, a survival game called The Long Dark, and a lot of conspiracy theories. 

The much anticipated conclusion to The Age of Madness trilogy has finally arrived and it is time to figure out how the mess created in the first two books sorts itself out. Since this is a Joe Abercrombie book, it doesn't really matter who the winners and losers are because there is little difference between the two. The Great Change is upon the Union and those who have brought it forth believe that to change the world they must first burn it down. The North isn't faring much better as Rikke struggles to keep the throne she so deftly acquired through her use of the Long Eye. So will your favorite characters make it to the end of the trilogy alive? If they do, will they wish they were dead?

Published in 1978, the Hugo and Nebula award winning Dreamsnake was lauded as a feminist reworking of the heroic quest. From the perspective of a reader in the 1990's its a solid blend of fantasy and genetic science set on Earth long after the nuclear holocaust. Snake is a young healer who travels and offers aid by using the venom of her genetically modified serpents. The rarest of them is the dreamsnake Grass who's venom offers a peaceful and painless death to those beyond help. Snake is willing to risk her life to find more dreamsnakes when she learns of an outlaw stronghold that may have some. What she finds is beyond her expectation and the answer to an old biological puzzle.

If J.K. Rowling and H.P. Lovecraft had a love child it would be Naomi Novik's Scholomance series. At the end of A Deadly Education El and Orion had survived their attempt to help that year's graduating seniors but wouldn't know if they were successful until their own upcoming Graduation. El is determined to concentrate on preparing for the Graduation Hall gauntlet with her allies, Aadhya and Liu, despite her attraction to Orion and her mother's cryptic warning to "stay away from Orion Lake". Senior year is supposed to be rough but it feels like the school itself is trying to kill her and it apparently wants something from her. If only she can figure out what that is before she dies. It turns out that death is indeed a strong possibility as she starts working on an insane plan to save every student and to destroy The Scholomance itself. She intends to be the very last graduate to exit through the portal or die trying.