Book picks similar to
Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser by Joe Bonadonna
fantasy
sword-and-sorcery
gr-author
straight-novels-rated-4-0-or-more
The Heart Does Not Grow Back
Fred Venturini - 2011
He comforts himself with the certainty that his stellar academic record and brains will bring him the adulation that has evaded him in high school. But when an unthinkable catastrophe tears away the one girl he ever had a chance with, his life takes a bizarre turn as he discovers an inexplicable power: He can regenerate his organs and limbs.When a chance encounter brings him face to face with a girl from his past, he decides that he must use his gift to save her from a violent husband and dismal future. His quest takes him to the glitz and greed of Hollywood, and into the crosshairs of shadowy forces bent on using and abusing his gift. Can Dale use his power to redeem himself and those he loves, or will the one thing that finally makes him special be his demise? The Heart Does Not Grow Back is a darkly comic, starkly original take on the superhero tale, introducing an exceptional new literary voice in Fred Venturini.
Winds Of Fate (Fated Hearts #1)
Lucia Omonobi - 2020
Too late Leah realizes the scheme is filled with lies and injustice. Beaten, bruised and without hope, Leah is prepared to die... but fate has other plans.Andrew...All he wanted was freedom. So willingly, Andrew Code trades slavery for exile to the new town. As his team uncovers the lies and deceit of the new town, Andrew remains determined to carve out a life worth living for himself.In an untamed forest filled with ex-convicts, starving residents, schemers, and murderers, will love and hope conquer all?
Grimdark Magazine: Issue #1
Adrian Collins - 2014
Fiction: Bad Seed (Broken Empire) by Mark Lawrence Shadow Hunter (Shadows of the Apt) by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Woman I Used to Be by Gerri Leen The Neutral by Anatoly Belilovsky (translator) and Mike Gelprin (author) The Red Wraith by Nick Wisseman Non-Fiction: An interview with Joe Abercrombie An interview with Graham McNeill Book Review: Joe Abercrombie's Half a King - review by Kyle Massa Article: Grimdark is Here to Stay by Layla Cummins
Pete & Daisy
Tani Hanes - 2018
Pete is an exchange student from Italy with a chronic case of poverty. She needs a baby-daddy, he needs a place to live, so they decide to help each other out by engaging in the time-honored device used by people in need the world over: a marriage of convenience. She’s beautiful and smart, he’s a gorgeous and talented musician, surely they can live together as husband and wife for one academic year? In a one-bedroom on the Upper West Side? With her old-fashioned granny living on the first floor, Pete and Daisy move into a tiny, rooftop apartment, ready to be roommates, husband and wife in name only, for nine months. Real life has a way of getting in the way, though, of messing with the best laid plans... Come along for the journey of Pete Santangelo and Daisy White and their turbulent and very sexy romance, and see how two strangers can become best friends and fall in love. See how a modern American family is born.
The Desert of Souls
Howard Andrew Jones - 2011
Charged with solving the puzzle, the scholar Dabir soon realizes that the tablet may unlock secrets hidden within the lost city of Ubar, the Atlantis of the sands. When the tablet is stolen from his care, Dabir and Captain Asim are sent after it, and into a life and death chase through the ancient Middle East.Stopping the thieves—a cunning Greek spy and a fire wizard of the Magi—requires a desperate journey into the desert, but first Dabir and Asim must find the lost ruins of Ubar and contend with a mythic, sorcerous being that has traded wisdom for the souls of men since the dawn of time. But against all these hazards there is one more that may be too great even for Dabir to overcome...
Liminal States
Zack Parsons - 2012
It is coming.It is 1874 and Gideon Long is dying. Wandering the savage desert of the New Mexico Territory, he craves a last drink before he bleeds out. On the brink of madness, he discovers a place best left forgotten and makes an insidious bargain: escape his fate and incur a debt too great for one man. His country will pay the price over the twisting course of more than a century and Gideon will learn there are worse things to bargain with than the devil.(Source: back cover)Liminal States is the debut novel from SomethingAwful editor Zack Parsons, and it's extraordinary. It begins as a grim, relentless western novel that describes a doomed love triangle between a simple lawman, the twisted scion of an land-baron, and a woman who has married one but thinks she might belong with the other. After a botched train robbery and an epic battle, Gideon (the rich man's son) finds himself gutshot in the desert, led by a mysterious spirit animal to a mystical pool that dissolves him and then reincarnates him, young and whole and vital and immortal. Gideon goes back for the woman he loves, only to discover that she has died in childbirth, and, enraged, he kidnaps the lawman who was her husband and throws him into the pool, too. And now they are both immortal. Every time they die, they are reborn in the pool, over and over, locked in orbit around each other like twin suns being drawn into a destructive nova. This first third of the novel is dark and bloody and remorseless, a story of revenge and tragedy that doesn't let up, until...
The Book of Swords
Gardner DozoisC.J. Cherryh - 2017
Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic characters like these made sword and sorcery a storytelling sensation, a cornerstone of fantasy fiction — and an inspiration for a new generation of writers, spinning their own outsize tales of magic and swashbuckling adventure. Now, in the Book of Swords, acclaimed editor and bestselling author Gardner Dozois presents an all-new anthology of original epic tales by a stellar cast of award-winning modern masters — many of them set in their authors’ best-loved worlds. Join today’s finest tellers of fantastic tales, including George R.R. Martin, K.J. Parker, Robin Hobb, Ken Liu, C.J. Cherryh, Daniel Abraham, Lavie Tidhar, Ellen Kushner, and more on action-packed journeys into the outer realms of dark enchantment and intrepid derring-do, featuring a stunning assortment of fearless swordsmen and warrior women who face down danger and death at every turn with courage, cunning, and cold steel.Contents:- The Best Man Wins by K.J. Parker- Her Father’s Sword by Robin Hobb- The Hidden Girl by Ken Liu- The Sword of Destiny by Matthew Hughes- "I Am a Handsome Man", Said Apollo Crow by Kate Elliott- The Triumph of Virtue by Walter Jon Williams- The Mocking Tower by Daniel Abraham- Hrunting by C.J. Cherryh- A Long, Cold Trail by Garth Nix- When I Was a Highwayman by Ellen Kushner- The Smoke of Gold Is Glory by Scott Lynch- The Colgrid Conundrum by Rich Larson- The King’s Evil by Elizabeth Bear- Waterfalling by Lavie Tidhar - The Sword Tyraste by Cecelia Holland- The Sons of the Dragon by George R.R. Martin
Angel Kiss
Laura Jane Cassidy - 2011
She's missing Dublin but she's making new friends: artistic Colin, feisty Emily - and Nick, gorgeous yet unavailable. But no sooner is Jacki settled than the torturous headaches and nightmares begin - followed by strange visions, voices and signs.
The Arrival of Missives
Aliya Whiteley - 2016
The scarred veteran Mr. Tiller, left disfigured by an impossible accident on the battlefields of France, brings with him a message: part prophecy, part warning.As Shirley's village prepares for the annual May Day celebrations, where a new queen will be crowned and the future reborn, she must choose between change and renewal - will the missives Mr. Tiller brings prevent her mastering her destiny?Exploring complex ideas of fate and power, and questioning the authority of those who write our cultural narratives, The Arrival of Missives is a unique work, deftly marrying literary and genre influences. It heralds the arrival of a major new voice in speculative fiction.
Already Dead
Charlie Huston - 2005
Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt.
There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.
The Reader of Acheron
Walter Rhein - 2014
Yet, there are those possessed of the will to seek illumination. Kikkan, a former slave on the run, and Quillion, a mercenary and self-taught scholar. Together they seek out a small band of rebels living in hiding who offer the promise of a better world. Their leader is a mysterious figure known only as The Reader of Acheron.
The Waste Lands: The Dark Towers, Book III (The Dark Tower Series)
Stephen King - 2019
The Brothers' War
Jeff Grubb - 1998
The Magic.Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titantic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies.The saga of the Brothers' War.Linked to the Antiquities expansion of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game.
Illegal Alien
Robert J. Sawyer - 1997
Then a popular scientist is murdered, and all evidence points to one of the Tosoks. Now, an alien is tried in a court of law-and there may be far more at stake than accounting for one human life.
Never Knew Another
J.M. McDermott - 2011
M. McDermott delivers the stunning new novel, Never Knew Another — a sweeping fantasy that revels in the small details of life.Fugitive Rachel Nolander is a newcomer to the city of Dogsland, where the rich throw parties and the poor just do whatever they can to scrape by. Supported by her brother Djoss, she hides out in their squalid apartment, living in fear that someday, someone will find out that she is the child of a demon. Corporal Jona Lord Joni is a demon's child too, but instead of living in fear, he keeps his secret and goes about his life as a cocky, self-assured man of the law. The first book in the Dogsland Trilogy, Never Knew Another is the story of how these two outcasts meet.Never Knew Another is the first book in the Dogsland Trilogy.