To Chart the Clouds (Legend of the Five Rings) Evan Dicken Aconyte Books Reviewers Note: I need to start with an apology. This is the first book review I’ve written in nearly 18 months and it’s going to be a lot shorter than the reviews I’ve traditionally written. This took a long while to complete, and I’m still far from the good place I was back in early 2022; if and when I get future reviews written, they’re going to be shorter and less detailed than before, until I can hopefully get back into the swing of things. Hopefully you can bear with me while I get going again. But now to the su ..read more

Age of the Undead: A Zombicide: Black Plague Novel  C.L. Werner  Aconyte Books  It seems like every few months, publisher Aconyte Books – rapidly taking multiple genres by storm at the moment – announces that they have the license to another awesome boardgame or role-playing game that they can use to develop some more of their incredibly high-quality tie-in fiction. They began with stalwarts like Arkham Horror and Legend of the Five Rings, two properties that still form a key part of their portfolio, but the publisher quickly expanded with a wide variety of licenses across numer ..read more

I am absolutely delighted (and honoured) to be able to publish the first ever guest article here on The Scifi and Fantasy Reviewer – the first of what I hope will be many thought-provoking articles focusing on different aspects of writing, editing, publishing and even reviewing the written word. To kick off the series, author and publisher David Flin asks us to consider how authors tackle the past as a subject – and some of the common pitfalls when dealing with the past ‘as a foreign country’ The Past is Another Country David Flin One thing that all historical writers have in common, be they w ..read more

The Flower Path Josh Reynolds Aconyte Books I must admit that, of all of the books due to be published by Aconyte Books this year, Josh Reynold’s The Flower Path has been at the top of my ‘most anticipated’ list ever since it was announced back in 2021. There’s a couple of reasons behind that – firstly, Reynolds is an absolutely superb writer at the top of his game, who has this incredible talent to somehow create brilliant, engaging stories regardless of the setting or genre (and whether it’s his own setting or an I.P. setting like those published by Aconyte Books); and secondly the Rokugan s ..read more

The Necropolis Empire (Twilight Imperium Book #2)  Tim Pratt  Aconyte Books  While the horror genre will always be my literary home-away-from-home, there are times when I find myself needing to take a break from the genre, especially when current events mean that reading and reviewing horror titles feels less like escapism and more like an increasingly-realistic vision of the near future. When that happens – as it does now with politics, pandemics and a war that seems to threaten to spread across an entire continent – I find myself gravitating towards more hopeful titles that of ..read more

The Night Parade of 100 Demons (Legend of the Five Rings) Marie Brennan Aconyte Books Over the past year publisher Aconyte Books have been kind enough to send me physical copies of many of the books that they are publishing. Many of them are titles that I have already reviewed, but some of them are novels that I had either missed completely when they were available to review as ebooks, or hadn’t had time to read despite knowing about them. As various things have eased slightly in my personal life, I find myself with a little more time available to undertake reviews, and I thought that this wou ..read more

Meghan Douglass – Author Interview After a bit of a hiatus, I’ve been able to find the time to bring back my popular series of interviews with authors and editors that I’ve featured here on The Scifi and Fantasy Reviewer over the years; and I’m absolutely delighted to continue with this series by interviewing Meghan Douglass, a new author focusing on science-fiction and horror stories. Her debut publication was the scifi/horror novella Humanity Lost which I reviewed in November last year, and found to be both a sterling debut – well-written, atmospheric and quietly disturbi ..read more

The Deadly Grimoire Rosemary Jones Aconyte Books Once again I find myself reviewing an Arkham Horror novel and being deeply impressed by the way in which publisher Aconyte Books are developing the setting. Under the sure hand of editor Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells, Arkham Horror is shaping up to be one of the most impressive brands being developed by Aconyte, as well as the gold standard to which all tie-in fiction should aspire to and hope to eventually match. Because not only is Aconyte gathering together some of the most impressive authors in the horror and science-fiction genres to write ..read more

The Damocles Files Volume II: Seeds of Destruction Anthony Watson and Benedict J Jones The Damocles Files series, from veteran horror authors Anthony Watson and Benedict J Jones, is my new gold standard for occult horror set during the Second World War. Together, the two authors have created a highly atmospheric, action-packed and intriguing take on the old trope of occult conflict between the Allied and Axis powers during the globe-spanning conflict that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading and reviewing over the past year. The series opened with novella Wings in the Darkness, which introduced the ..read more

Sons of Sol Kevin R. McNally Demain Publishing When I was approached by Demain Publishing about reviewing Sons of Sol I have to admit that I was both highly intrigued, and yet also a little wary. Demain are one of my favourite publishers, both in terms of working with them and as well as the exceedingly high quality of the fiction that they publish – starting with horror fiction in the form of the superb Short Sharp Shocks! series’ and now rapidly expanding into science-fiction, fantasy, crime and numerous other genres. I’ve never been anything less than deeply impressed by any tit ..read more