ELRIC by MICHAEL MOORCOCK
Gollancz/Millenium Masterworks paperback, 432pp, RRP GB£7.99

Reviewed by David McWilliam

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Elric of Melniboné can perhaps be considered Michael Moorcock’s most successful creation in terms of sheer popularity. The albino prince of a dying race, Elric is a powerful sorcerer whose physical prowess is bolstered by his sword, Stormbringer.The blade exacts a heavy price from its wielder, tormenting his dreams, influencing Elric’s decisions in favour of violence so that it can feed on the souls and blood of the living. Without Stormbringer Elric is reduced to a weakened, near-blind state, becoming vulnerable to his adversaries and execrable to his own elitist, imperial heredity. The blade and fighter have an almost symbiotic relationship, seemingly bound together by the threads of Fate - and it is unclear as to which of the two holds mastery over the other.

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Tags: book • Elric • Fantasy • Moorcock • review • Stormbringer

AIRMAN by EOIN COLFER
Puffin hardback, 432pp, RRP £10.99

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

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Eoin Colfer’s Airman is a wonderful novel which is greater than the sum of its parts, half quasi-historical novel and half steampunk fantasy. Set on the Saltee Islands off the Atlantic coast of Ireland, Colfer creates an alternate history of derring-do and great invention.

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Tags: Airman • book • Eoin Colfer • Fantasy • historical • review • steampunk • YA • young adult

THE RIVER KNOWS ITS OWN by JAY LAKE
Wheatland Press paperback, pp263, RRP $19.95.

Reviewed by PENNY HILL

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“Tommy “Leviathan” Hobbes was short, nasty and reeked of Brut.”

This is my favourite opening line in The River Knows Its Own, Jay Lake’s bohemian collection of short stories; simultaneously an homage to a cliché and a swift character sketch.

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Tags: book • collection • Fantasy • Jay Lake • review • Science Fiction • short stories • slipstream • The River Knows Its Own

STEVE AUGARDE interviewed by Iain Emsley

Steve Augarde has just completed his first young adult trilogy with Winter Wood. It has been five years since the first book, The Various, was published and he’s aware that his readers have grown up.

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Tags: author • Fantasy • interview • Steve Augarde • YA • young adult

WINTER WOOD by STEVE AUGARDE
David Fickling Books hardback, 512pp, £12.99 RRP

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

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Winter Wood, the final part of Steve Augarde’s trilogy about the Various, is a bitter-sweet read. In the previous two books, The Various and Celandine, he has created a wonderfully deep and very English mythological landscape.

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Tags: book • Fantasy • review • Steve Augarde • Winter Wood • YA • young adult

RUNEMARKS by JOANNE HARRIS
Doubleday hardback, 500pp, £14.99

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

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Joanne Harris’s d?©but children’s novel is a fantastic romp which is eminently readable. Her adult fiction flirts with the fantastic, delivering it gently, while Runemarks is a retelling of Norse myths which also sets up a mythical - almost ‘asterisk fantastic’ ‚Äì world within which she finds some very human characters.

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Tags: book • Fantasy • fiction • INTERZONE • Joanne Harris • review • Runemarks • young adult