TOP PICKS – August 2024
After taking a break for Women in SFF, welcome back to Top Picks!
Every month, we’re going to share with you our favourite reads of the month. We’ve rounded up our contributors and asked them each to recommend just one favourite read of the month.
A big thank you to Nils for coming up with this feature, and our contributors for taking part!
Let’s find out what the team has read this month…
Nils: The Way Up is Death by Dan Hanks
This month I had a fair few DNF’s, I don’t know whether I just wasn’t in a reading mood or whether the books I picked up just weren’t my cup of tea or if I was in a reading slump. However, I did manage to read two very different but excellent reads.
The first was The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst which is a cosy cottage core fantasy featuring an introverted librarian and her sentient spider plant starting a new life on an isolated island. This was so soothing to read.
Yet my Top Pick goes to the second book which was The Way Up is Death by Dan Hanks. This title won’t be released until next year but I had the pleasure of reading an early copy and wow, I could not put it down. A floating tower appears, thirteen characters are chosen, a countdown begins, one instruction: ascend. Each chapter had fresh new waves of horror and no character was ever safe so I was constantly gripped. A mindfuckery of a read that blends scifi and fantasy together to create a heart pounding and unexpectedly emotional story.
Review coming soon | Pre-order here
Theo: Witch King by Martha Wells
My fantasy reading this month has been somewhat constrained by my going to Worldcon (Did I mention I’d been to Worldcon?!). Pretty much a full week of attending panels and socialising with online friends who (amazingly) are also real people can punch a bit of a hole in your reading schedule.
However, I was hurrying to read at least one Hugo nominee before I got there and so I rocked through Martha Wells’ Witch King. (And I even got to queue up for a book signing by the author herself – though unwisely I neglected to buy a hard copy of Witch King before they had all sold out – did I mention I went to Worldcon!)
In essence it’s a fun opening to a series with innovative magic systems and cunning plotting around two timelines set about seventy years apart. Ever since I read of Tolkien casting the Lord of the Nazgul as the Witch King of Angmar, there is a fascinating draw to that moniker – although Martha Wells’ Kai is a more sympathetic and fully fleshed individual (literally and metaphorically) than the “foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion” who was poor Snowmane’s bane!*
*This Top Pick is in no way affiliated with WorldCon
Vinay: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler
It was a pretty good reading month for me with 5 books down (and at least 1 more to go) and most were 3.5-4 star reads. Coincidentally, the theme of the month turned out to be mostly strong, spunky, disruptive, rule-breaking women characters across different settings (5 of the 6 books of the month were led by women MC).
My pick of the month would be Django Wexler’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying – a fabulous fantasy adventure of a woman stuck in a timeloop trying to defeat a Dark Lord and ultimately decides to become the Dark Lord herself. I love time loops and time-travel related shenanigans but this is unique as the MC decides to stop being righteous & go against her mandated quest after making no headway. The book focuses on the toll that the endless time looping might have on an individual and the choices and relationships they make due to that. Davi as the lead MC is foul-mouthed, profane, irreverent, and spunky and kind of a devil but at her core, even if she wants to become the Dark Lord, she cant stop caring about people, is conscience driven and is aware of the costs of her actions. The book is an absolute breeze and makes clever use of footnotes.
Kat: Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
While not my favourite book of this month, the standout book for me is Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. This book is more hobbitty than The Hobbit with bonus fairy tricks and village feuds.
It’s a quick, easy ready packed full of whimsy and intrigue and so many bonkers characters and it’s a little taste of what fantasy looked like before some of the well-known juggernauts started to influence the genre.
I highly recommend!
Cat: Strange Stones by Edward Lee and Mary San Giovanni
I’ve had a busy month IRL and books have been true medicine in their escape from everyday stresses! Having said that, my favourite has a poor protagonist who’s having the very worst of days. Maybe it’s schadenfreude 😂
Strange Stones is a novella by Edward Lee and Mary San Giovanni, a zippy Lovecraftian read about what happens when a pompous academic takes an author’s name in vain! Huge fun, beautifully descriptive in its weirdness and reminiscent of the fun ‘Tales from the Crypt’ short morality tales, these are two brilliant horror authors doing what they do best.
Loved it!
Hil: The Shadow Key by Susan Stokes Chapman
I’ve had a busy month with reading non-fantasy books!
Of the few fantasy ones I did manage to read, my pick of the month is The Shadow Key by Susan Stokes Chapman. It’s set in the Victorian era, and follows a new doctor settling into a small Welsh village against a backdrop of fishing, mining, demonology and satanic cults. The narrative is engaging and the magic is deliciously ambiguous.
Definitely for people who loved The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell, it’ll trigger your hiraeth if nothing else.
Beth: Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang
I’ve had a very quiet reading month – I always struggle during the summer holidays when the kids are off, and I had two weeks annual leave so no lengthy lunch breaks spent reading.
I only read three books: Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang, The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang, and We Solve Murders by Richard Osman.
I’m going with Blood Over Bright Haven as my top pick; in all honesty, I did struggle to get into it at first. The opening chapter was amazing, but then we switch to another perspective, and there’s a great deal of world set up, because, to be fair to M.L., this is yet another super complex world from her. I struggled a little through how that was portrayed, but once past that and the story hit its stride, I couldn’t put it down. The magic system is very clever, a clear software coding influence, and it takes the exploration of social and racial class and justice to depths many other books doing the same hadn’t considered. So for those reason, definitely a worthy top pick!
What was your favourite read of the month? Share with us in the comments!
