Malasz

A ribald and irreverent tale from the Italian renaissance - Add a conniving servant and his amoral master; a murderous priest and his equally homicidal sidekick; an odious mother-in-law; a beautiful but barren wife wed to an ancient attorney; and a potion brewed from the root of the Mandragora, a plant alleged to help women conceive, and you have a prescription for pandemonium, especially when Mandragora (known in less reputable circles as “God’s Little Joke”), possesses a fatal flaw: after a woman drinks the potion, her body becomes a temple of poison. The first man to have sex with her will be dead in seven days. What's a man to do? Based on Niccolo Machiavelli’s play, The Mandrake , this is a tongue-in-check story of a rake desperate to sleep with a certain woman, a husband desperate for a child, and a wife desperate for control of her own life. The heart of the novel lies in the question, “Does the end, when a noble one, justify the means, however wicked?” The story starts with...

Adam Copeland , fantasy author and friend of the blog, has launched a funding campaign for Ripples in the Chalice , the sequel to his debut opus, Echoes of Avalon , on Kickstarter . If you read Echoes of Avalon or are a fan of historical fantasy a la Marion Zimmer-Bradley, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Seth Tatton is a "middle-of-the-pack attorney" struggling to help his suburban family keep up with the Joneses. Through his firm, he becomes a fixer; he gets things done no matter what the job entails. He's clean, methodical, and a stickler for detail. The opening of Windfall introduces us to Seth and his accomplice, William, while out on a job. Seth is clearly in charge and instructs William to wait in the car while he approaches a target that can help cover up a murder committed by a client. Posing as a police detective, Seth conducts the interview with aplomb. His knowledge of the law enables him to play the part, extracting all the information from the target for Seth to construct the perfect coverup. Seth's boss is part of a cabal of the wealthy and political elite who are scheming to take control of several western states and secede from the Union. Culled from the political chatter that's out there now, I wouldn't be surprised if it went down like this...

The Tattered Banner by Duncan M. Hamilton is not your typical rags-to-riches fantasy story, but it does start out as one.   The hero, Soren, is plucked from a starving street urchin’s life by a famous nobleman to attend Ostia’s prestigious Academy of Swordsmanship.   Magic is outlawed in Ostia, so the Duchy’s best and brightest become master swordsmen to move up in society.   It’s an opportunity that’s too good to be true, and Soren recognizes this.   He becomes the hardest working student at the Academy because he knows that one failure could throw him back on the streets; something his rich, noble classmates don’t have to worry about.   It soon becomes clear that Soren has a magical “Gift” with a blade that enables him to defeat almost anyone he faces despite his limited training. That’s where the story turns away from the typical hero’s journey. The Tattered Banner is not about undertaking quests or vanquishing dark lords, but how one young man survives from ...

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 we have is that it was reviewed here on the blog. Here are the winners for 2013: The Bookworm: I'm going to go with Realmgolds by Mike Reeves McMillian. It's everything that a reader could want in a steampunk novel. It combines politics, innovation, social unrest and the fight for basic freedoms in a compelling story. And the books in the series are even better. Rob: Black Book: Volume 1 by Dylan Jones, is my pick for the best of 2013. It had a cool blending of genres (Western, sci-fi, and fantasy) that you don't often see in traditionally published books. However, be aware that it's a serial novel made up of three "episodes." You'll need to buy future volumes to learn the characters' ultimate fates. DED: It should come as no surprise that my selection...

Mondays With Mephistopheles: 9am-Rhys is a short story written by Dan O'Brien. It covers one session Dr. Abraham Rogers—he insists his patients call him Abe—has with one patient, Rhys. You can probably guess from the title that Abe's patients aren't the regular human kind. However, through this session we learn that even supernatural beings have their hangups and need the help of a psychologist. Abe and Rhys have a clever exchange. Abe tries his best to get Rhys to come out of his shell while Rhys resists. Rhys counters with his acerbic outlook on humanity and modern culture, particularly with its unhealthy obsession with his kind. O'Brien's writing is solid. His characterization is splendid. But all that being said, this piece doesn't work for me as a standalone story. It reads like a chapter in a book. There is no resolution; the session ends and so does the story. I re-read the story twice just to make sure I didn't miss anything. While I liked the story...

The 2013 Philip K. Dick Award nominees were announced on Friday . Have a look at the first book on the list. Go ahead, I'll wait. Nah, I can't wait. Readers of this blog will recall that A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock was reviewed here last year. Several weeks later, it was picked up by 47North , Amazon's publishing imprint. And now, it's been nominated for the prestigious Philip K. Dick Award. Congratulations, Anne! Anne's success is yet more proof that indie authors should not be shunned merely because they lack the backing of a traditional publisher. I don't deny that indie publishing is a veritable haystack full of poorly edited manuscripts and lousy covers, but there are needles, make that diamonds, that can be found. \_/ DED