Malasz

Each year, the reviewers here at the New Podler Review of Books pick the book (or books) which we feel are the very best independently published (or small press) works. The only other requirement is that we reviewed it here on the blog. Here are the winners for 2012. Libby Cone had two picks: "My favorite books of 2012 were Fred Setterberg's Lunch Bucket Paradise and Scott Dominic Carpenter's This Jealous Earth . Both featured excellent writing and interesting characters. Both had something intelligent to say about modern life." Rob Steiner had one pick: "For the second year in a row, I'll have to go with Colin McComb. Oathbreaker Book Two: The Magus's Tale had the beautiful language and vivid world-building I liked from Book One, but with different characters that gave added depth McComb's Empire of Terona. I'm looking forward to Book Three." It was difficult for me to pick the best story for 2012. There were five really good books among t...

The Magus’s Tale , book two in Colin McComb’s Oathbreaker series, primarily follows young Alton, a boy plucked from certain death by Magus Underhill to become the elderly magus's apprentice.  Alton spends his childhood and adolescence excelling at powerful magic despite abusive treatment from his master.  Once Alton becomes a magus in his own right, he learns that great power comes with a price—loneliness.  To earn acceptance from his nervous neighbors in the village of Lower Pippen, he uses his magic to cure their ills and protect them from the bitter weather and wild animals that assault their farms. But what seems like a minor encounter with petty brigands blows up into an unimaginably horrible event that releases a terror upon the world that “threatens life itself.” The Magus’s Tale is Alton’s story, but we do learn what the main characters from book one, The Knight’s Tale , have been up to.  Sir Pelagir, General Glasyin, and Princess Caitrona are living a relati...