Here are 16 books that The Anvil of the World fans have personally recommended if you like
The Anvil of the World.
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Candle & Crow is the third and last book in Kevin Hearne's Ink & Sigil series and is set in the world of The Iron Druid Chronicles, another super series featuring an original magical system existing in our world and in the world of the Scottish fae. I was very happy to return to this world because I really couldn't wait to get back to Glascow and see if Al MacBharrais, the hero of the Ink & Sigil series, was finally able to rid himself of curse that makes everyone he talks to hate him. Quite a curse! Al has to depend on other methods of communication, as well as help from a foul-mouthed hobgoblin and a Irish death goddess. I love the interaction among all these eccentric characters, and the dialogue is often hilarious. I would read anything by Kevin Hearne.
'A NEW, ACTION-PACKED, ENCHANTINGLY FUN SERIES' Booklist on Ink & Sigil
From New York Times bestselling author Kevin Hearne comes the final book in his hugely entertaining Ink & Sigil series, as an ink-slinging wizard pursues the answer to a very personal mystery . . .
Al MacBharrais is a practitioner of ink-and-sigil magic, tasked with keeping order among the gods and monsters that dwell in the human world. But there's one supernatural mystery he's never been able to solve: years ago, someone cast twin curses on him that killed his apprentices and left him bereft and isolated.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
As a huge fan of Dorothy Sayers, I always have mixed feelings about an author writing a new Lord Peter Whimsey novel, "Based on the characters." But Jill Paton Walsh does an excellent job of recreating the spirit, dialogue, and the atmosphere of a Lord Peter mystery, and this time, his wife, Harriet Vane, is along to help with the investigation as they return to the Oxford of Gaudy Night. This was a satisfying read and a welcome chance to spend time with characters I really love.
'Cleverly plotted . . . Walsh's pitch-perfect re-creation of the charismatic leads is a delight' - Publishers Weekly 'Delicious' - Booklist
Lord Peter Wimsey is delighted to discover that along with a dukedom he has inherited the duties of 'visitor' at an Oxford college. When the fellows ask him to resolve a college dispute, he and Harriet are all too keen to spend some time in Oxford.
But the dispute quickly turns sour. The voting is evenly balanced between two passionate parties, and the Warden - who has the casting vote - has mysteriously disappeared. Even worse, several of the…
Where many people would see an empty package of Oreos, I see the remains of a lost civilization, an artifact crafted galaxies away by beings who flit in and out of existence in order to build rainbows for lonely children and who have left the empty bag, filled with dog poop, flaming on someone’s front step and are laughing uncontrollably as the person stomps on it to put it out. I want to find authors who see more than the bag of Oreos. I want them to be wildly imaginative and to paint what they see with cleverness and humor. I try to do the same.
Kage Baker is an Isaac Asimov compared to Terry Pratchett’s Marx Brothers. In the Garden of Iden is more sci-fi than fantasy, including time travel, cybernetics, and nanotechnologies. And love and loss. This book is part of a series of novels that Baker crafted about time-travelling enhanced humans who carry out critical tasks throughout history.
What I loved most about this book is how very human her main characters are. Like Pratchett and Bill Shakespeare, Baker is a master at showing us human nature. Her comedy is high comedy. I laugh because I recognize myself in her characters. Baker has a fine eye for the subtle and the absurd. And yet unlike many humorous authors, the tragedies of the heart are always at the core of her stories.
This is the first novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary Science Fiction, now back in print from Tor. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. One of these is Mendoza the botanist, who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Growing up in Indiana and Illinois meant that Chicago has always been, for me, the city—the place where people went to make a name for themselves and took the world by storm. From my local Carnegie Library, I read voraciously across genres—history, science, literature. They transported me out of my small town—across the universe sometimes. I learned that setting in fiction was for me a major feature of my enjoyment, and Chicago was where I set my own mystery series. These books, when I read them, explored that grand metropolis—and brought Chicago to life on and off the page. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.
When I first encountered Harry Dresden, a professional wizard solving a double homicide in Chicago, I was instantly hooked by its noir, fantasy, and traditional mystery with dollops of humor. This novel—the first in The Dresden File series—kept me engaged the entire time with a fast-moving plot and interesting characters.
I could see in my mind’s eye Chicago’s skyscrapers and their reflection in Lake Michigan as Harry dug deeper into the crimes and the supernatural world. This was my first urban fantasy read, and Butcher’s ability to blend a private investigator story with the supernatural ensured it was not my last.
In the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series, Harry Dresden’s investigation of a grisly double murder pulls him into the darkest depths of magical Chicago…
As a professional wizard, Harry Dresden knows firsthand that the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most of them don’t play well with humans. And those that do enjoy playing with humans far too much. He also knows he’s the best at what he does. Technically, he’s the only at what he does. But even though Harry is the only game in town, business—to put…
I’m a Virginia-based science fiction and fantasy writer who’s lived variously-enriching lives as a coroner’s assistant, customer service manager, university lecturer, secretary, factory technician, and clerk. I’ve bounced all around the Midwest, from Minnesota to Ohio to Colorado to Missouri and now out on the East Coast.
It’s too easy, in time travel fantasies, to imagine that you would feel a step above the people around you... that you alone know what’s coming, and just, in general, have your advanced-future-person perspective on the world. That’s not how history should feel. The All Clear series’s time-traveling historians arrive to observe the London Blitz and have that comforting certainty ripped out from underneath them. They’re left lost, alone, and isolated in a well-painted portrait of a world on the edge of collapse.
Award-winning author Connie Willis returns with a stunning, enormously entertaining novel of time travel, war, and the deeds - great and small - of ordinary people who shape history.
I’ve been fascinated by science and space since I was a child and naturally gravitated toward science fiction. In many respects, it was a form of escapism, as I didn’t enjoy school. I always preferred escaping into another world or being taken on a journey to another world. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that most great science fiction is a commentary on our own world and the issues we face daily. Science fiction, more than any other genre, does a better job of exploring and dissecting aspects of our world, which in turn helps us better understand our world and our relationship with it.
Darwinia was the first novel I read by Robert Charles Wilson, who I believe is the best modern-day science fiction writer. Darwinia was a novel I had to read twice to really grasp how brilliantly Wilson had woven everything together. This is one of those novels where the ending can sneak up on you and blow you away and you weren’t even remotely prepared, which is preferred over any ending that I can predict.
In an alternative history of the twentieth century, Europe is replaced by a land of nightmarish jungle and monsters that contains the secret of human destiny.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’m a Virginia-based science fiction and fantasy writer who’s lived variously-enriching lives as a coroner’s assistant, customer service manager, university lecturer, secretary, factory technician, and clerk. I’ve bounced all around the Midwest, from Minnesota to Ohio to Colorado to Missouri and now out on the East Coast.
Not all books about the past have to be set in the past. In the far-flung future, deep in interstellar space and surrounded by impossible living technologies, an amnesiac takes part in a sociological experiment to reconstruct twentieth-century middle-class living. Glasshouse is, among other things, a playful, bitter, and funny takedown of both the era and the impossibility of actually reconstructing history. The paranoia engendered by twentieth-century living is only far too justified by the interstellar conspiracy that’s ensnared the study’s participants.
“ONE NIGHTMARISH PANOPTICON.” – The New York Times
When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn’t take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It’s the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees’ personalities—including Robin’s earlier self.
On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity: the Glasshouse, a simulated pre-accelerated culture where participants are assigned anonymized identities. But what looks like the…
As part of my exploration of science fiction, particularly works that deal with gender in that genre, I read “Ammonite” and found an engaging story with a broad array of female characters filling all sorts of roles in their respective societies. Marghe, the protagonist of this speculative fiction novel, is an anthropologist sent to the planet nicknamed Jeep to study the “native” population, the descendants of colonizers hundreds of years earlier. As in the envoy “The Left Hand of Darkness,” she is an outsider looking into a society; and like him, she barely survives her journey. This is a well written, imaginative, engaging story with strong, complex characters.
Winner of the Lambda and Tiptree Awards • “A knockout . . . Strong, likable characters, a compelling story, and a very interesting take on gender.”—Ursula K. Le Guin
Change or die. These are the only options available on planet Jeep. Centuries earlier, a deadly virus shattered the original colony, killing the men and forever altering the few surviving women. Now, generations after the colony lost touch with the rest of humanity, a company arrives to exploit Jeep—and its forces find themselves fighting for their lives. Terrified of spreading the virus, the company abandons its employees, leaving them afraid and…
The whole trilogy is worth reading, along with the (kind of) prequel, but this is the place to start. Bartimaeus' snark and deviousness is wonderful, and the book's world is thoroughly immersive.
The first volume in the brilliant, bestselling Bartimaeus sequence.
When the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus is summoned by Nathaniel, a young magician's apprentice, he expects to have to do nothing more taxing than a little levitation or a few simple illusions. But Nathaniel is a precocious talent and has something rather more dangerous in mind: revenge. Against his will, Bartimaeus is packed off to steal the powerful Amulet of Samarkand from Simon Lovelace, a master magician of unrivalled ruthlessness and ambition. Before long, both djinni and apprentice are caught up in a terrifying flood of magical intrigue, murder and rebellion.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
This was a fun, enjoyable read, with some subtle social critique, outlandish characters getting into even more outlandish situations. It was the perfect blend of fun escapism and some intellectually satisfying social critique. A humorous story with the right amount of depth.
A beautiful new hardback edition of the classic Discworld novel.
Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet.
It was a tough decision.
But he's got to see that the mail gets though, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer.
Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too.
