A world divided.
A queendom without an heir.
An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Unicorn Variations by Roger Zelazny

If an anthology starts as strong as this one did, then there’s no way I would not continue reading it! Consider the human species about to become extinct and our fate hinging on a chess match between a bartender, a unicorn, and a sasquatch.

Fire Watch by Connie Willis

I had already read this story & liked it. Keep a box of tissues handy when you read it!

Hardfought by Greg Bear

I am not ashamed to say that I abandoned this one halfway through into the story. It was too convoluted and complex for me to care about what was happening to the characters.

The Peacemaker by Gardner Dozois

Fanaticism can be found in all kinds of worlds and often results in innocents getting hurt and this story was no exception.

Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler

In a world gone silent due to a viral mutation, chaos and animalistic behavior is the rule of the day.

Press Enter by John Varley

Press Enter and find out things, if you dare!

I hugged her, and her breath came again, hot on my chest. I wondered how I'd lived so long without such a simple miracle as that.

Portraits of His Children by George R. R. Martin

I was surprised to read this story but not when it didn’t turn out to be anything special. The premise was good but the execution was too typical for me to enjoy it.

Rachel in Love by Pat Murphy

An ape raised as a human child by a scientist is left to fend for herself when her father dies.

Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans

A hamburger joint that serves customers from all dimensions.

Even in the realities where the Europeans never found America and it's the Chinese or somebody building the cities, there just isn't any reason to build anything near Sutton. And there's something that makes it an easy place to travel between worlds, too; I didn't follow the explanation. She said something about the Earth's magnetic field, but I didn't catch whether that was part of the explanation or just a comparison of some kind.

 

Ripples in the Dirac Sea by Geoffrey A. Landis

A time traveler who can’t return to his own time. Because. Consequences.

Once I tried to commit suicide by murdering my father, before he met my mother, twenty-three years
before I was born. It changed nothing, of course, and even when I did it, I knew it would change nothing.
But you have to try these things. How else could I know for sure?

 

Boobs by Suzy McKee Charnas

A teenager has to deal with teasing and bullying at school because of developing earlier than her classmates and finds an unusual bloody silver lining that just might help her get through!

The Manamouki by Mike Resnick

A couple emigrates to a Kenya-esque world and tries their damnedest to fit in and yet…

Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson

Exactly what the title says and yet you will enjoy it, if you have fun reading weird things.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

Genetic developments allow parents to specify what their offspring should be like down to the last detail. When a couple is about to have a baby, the father chooses to have her be sleepless. Even a world so advanced in genetics isn’t ready for sleepless people taking over it.

Barnacle Bill the Spacer by Lucius Shepard

Barnacle Bill is a simple man whose job is to remove barnacles from the shuttle’s exterior walls. All he wants is to make himself useful, so he won’t be sent back to Earth, which would be a death sentence. Is it ever that easy?

The power of the Strange Magnificence, you see, lay in the subversive nihilism of their doctrine, which put forward the idea that it was man's duty to express all his urges, no matter how dark or violent, and that from the universal exorcism of these black secrets would ultimately derive a pure consensus, a vast averaging of all possible behaviors that would in turn reveal the true character of God and the manifest destiny of the race.  Thus the leaders of the Magnificence saw nothing contrary in funding a group in York, say, devoted to the expulsion of Pakistanis from Britain by whatever means necessary while simultaneously supporting a Sufi cult.

Fiction or prescience?

Danny Goes to Mars by Pamela Sargent

Danny is the next presidential candidate who is advised to join an astronaut team to Mars to increase his chances of winning in the upcoming elections. The results didn’t quite meet his expectations but when do they ever!

The Nutcracker Coup by Janet Kagan

A human diplomat unwittingly incites a people (I use that term loosely because they are quadrupeds and had quills) to rebel against their ruler. Oh, and nutcrackers play a big role in the rebellion!

I think this anthology was a really good one even if did take me ages to finish it. I enjoyed reading, Unicorn Variations, The Manamouki, Barnacle Bill the Spacer, Danny Goes to Mars, & The Nutcracker Coup, the most. I purchased this book from Kitabain and am so glad that I did!

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This is one where I threw it in. I had the next couple volumes on deck even, but alas, I am done with this series. And it's all because of Jack; fuck that guy. I am free of fucks to give, and I absolutely refuse to follow his side-comics to catch up, which I would have to do if I wanted to go on with this series. 

I'm not even mad, though, and I'll tell you why: volume 12 came to such a credible and touching crescendo that I feel like the series is a wrap anyway. I've had my ups and downs with this series, and that was a high high up. While I see them trying desperately to set up the next Big Bad, I kind of can't even deal with the denouement of the last. I am deeply not ok with mass murderers being treated like funny grumpy old dudes who don't get Kids These Days, and I want that motherfucker on trial, at the very least. That last awful funeral killed me so hard, and that in a war of losses which must be answered for. It might even be brilliant writing that makes it impossible for me to continue. Which, whoa. 

But anyway, Jack. He was ejected from Fables in series one. And good riddance to bad rubbish. I even read the first of his spin-off adventures, but he's such a tragically douchey dudebro that I couldn't go farther than that. Apparently he gets in with some Sandmanish Eternal-types. Which usually I'd be down for, but, weirdly, it turns out I care about the tenor of the protagonist. Which is to say that I don't mind if the protagonist is evil or damaged, but I do care a lot when characters I think are unworthy of my attention become imbued with narrative exceptionalism. 

See also: Books four to current in Song of Ice and Fire. Oh, snap. 

Currently

This is a series review with no spoilers :D

First off, let me just say that GRRM is an amazing storyteller (also my favorite author). He's created a whole new world with its own history with complex characters and wicked plot twists around every page. The character depth in the series is excellent making it very difficult to pick a favorite character. Even the characters that I love to hate are brilliantly written. I have highlighted my favorite quips and phrases from each of the books. There's so many cause GRRM is just that much of a badass writer! I love that the chapters are divided by giving each character their own perspective. This allows me to see the world through their eyes and then view that same scene through a different character's point of view. Unlike other fantasy books, the characters in ASOIAF are not purely good or evil. Not all characters are lovable but their actions are justified (in their minds, at least) even though it often affects the world and people around them in a negative way. It's a domino effect.

This an ADULT fantasy series. There is incest, rape, violence and war. Profanity abounds. This is all in accordance to the time and world that GRRM has created. If you have an aversion to any of those - maybe this isn't the series for you.
It has political intrigue where everybody has a claim to the Iron Throne and elements of magic which do not detract from the central storyline. Non-fantasy readers should give book 1 a try. There is little to almost no magic in the first novel.

Marvelous, epic, dark and twisted -- this is not an easy, mindless read. I really had to challenge myself to remember who all the characters were by reading the appendices in between books ... but ohhhh, how I love getting lost in the world of Westeros.

Prepare to invest a lot of time and emotion into the series. There are only five books out with two more still to follow. I really hope GRRM is able to finish this series. I HAVE to know how it all ends!