Human assassin Artemis Entreri and his dark elf companion Jarlaxle have come to the demon-haunted wastelands of the frozen north at the request of their dragon patron. It doesn’t take long for them to find themselves caught in the middle of a struggle between powerful forces that would like nothing more than to see them both dead . . . or worse.

But Entreri and Jarlaxle aren’t just any wandering sellswords, and the ancient evils and bitter blood-feuds of the wild Bloodstone Lands may have finally met their match.

The Sellswords Series has my attention. Largely because while it’s not Drizzt, Bruenor, Regis, Cattie-Brie and Wulfgar…but it’s set parallel to those stories.

Review by Jeff Preston

It starts with an ill conceived radio show. Megan Chase is a respected psychologist, as well as a psychic who uses her talents to help her patients without their knowledge. In order to stop a colleague whose practices she despises from becoming the psychology voice of radio, Megan takes a job as a radio host, which advertises her as a demon slayer. Understandably enough, the personal demons–small demons that encourage people to make bad choices and commit crimes–are a little threatened by what they view of as a declaration of war. But Megan is unaware of the world of demons, beyond her own psychic abilities, and so when she is approached by a mysterious (and sexy) figure who offers her help, she doesn’t know why she’ll need it, or why she should trust him. As it turns out, mysterious and sexy is Greyson Dante, who is also a demon, but is determined to keep Megan safe, whether she wants his help or not.

Review by Alana Abbott

I love Richelle Mead’s stuff, so I was completely ready to be won over by the new series, “Dark Swan,” from the first time she posted an excerpt on her site. Both the excerpt and the novel, Storm Born, begin with shaman Eugenie Markham, also known as Odile Dark Swan, exorcising a shoe. What’s not to like? Eugenie is a lonely heroine working in a sort of mercenary line of demon slaying–taking calls, getting rid of spirits by banishing them either to the Other world or the world of the Dead, and getting paid. She doesn’t make friends easily, and has only her assistant Lara (most often a voice on the phone rather than human contact) and her roommate Timothy “Red Horse” (who masquerades as an “authentic” Native American, despite his Polish heritage).

Review by Alana Abbott

Dante Valentine’s past comes back to haunt her in Lilith Saintcrow’s Dead Man Rising.

Rigger Hall, a hellish school that damaged much more than it taught its students, was mentioned in the first novel of this series, Working for the Devil. It’d be an interesting (but too much like snuff) setting for a spinoff YA series, but instead it’s the plot for this novel. This futuristic urban fantasy is perfect for readers fed up with cutesy-faff paranormals. Don’t expect to smile and be merry, but do expect to read something of great merit.

Demimonde, by Justin Achilli, isn’t a pleasant novel to read through. It is coarse, over-wrought, overindulgent in so many ways and unapologetic about all of it. It is Brett Easton Ellis for the 21st century. It is Less Than Zero meets American Psycho, with a dash of Nietzsche, a few sprinkles of Emmanuel Kant and whole lot of King James.

Demimonde refers to the shadowy world of the unvisible, those people gifted with the ability to not be noticed, to be the glimpses on the periphery while feeding their excesses beyond all normal limits. The demimonde is a fae world, where zombies exist because of the faith in their existence but where all-too-human political and religious ideologies rule over both conscious and unconscious thought.

Review by Joe Rixman

Riley Jenson hunts down two serial killers, in Keri Arthur’s The Darkest Kiss.

One of the murderers is targeting Melbourne’s rich and powerful; including the infamous Toorak Trollops (they’re not prostitutes, just skanks). The other murderer is hitting closer to Riley. All their security systems can’t save the high society types from gruesome deaths. Among the charity functions and whatnot, I almost expected Lillian Frank to pop up and spout something about polo.

Instead, we get Quinn O’Conor, the vampire Riley was emoing over in the previous novel, Embraced by Darkness. Their relationship seems rather superficial, so why they seem so tied to one another, I don’t quite understand. But Riley’s relationships have never been a series drawcard for me: the mysteries are.

Annalise offers a new look at a time-honored monster, the vampire. In this game, players take on characters who are somehow influenced or otherwise affected by the story’s vampire,
which is always a concept of the story rather than a player. Annalise takes a pinpoint topic–the relationship between a group (the players) and a vampire or vampires–and attempts to make a playable game out of it.

Review by Todd Cash

A World Torn Asunder is the first book in the Vampire Apocalypse series by Derek Gunn. Secretly vampires have existed alongside humanity for generations, hunting and killing from the shadows. A series of events, including a fuel shortage, allows the vampires to step out of the dark corners of modern society and forcibly take over vast areas of the world. They and their minions slaughter any humans that resist and build caged cities for the rest.

This book focuses on the efforts of a small group of resistance fighters that hope to stage a last-ditch attack on the local vampire lord and rescue some of the citizens trapped behind the walls of the city. They face a number of threats, including the minions of the vampires, called Thralls, who have superior weapons and some supernatural abilities.

I’m frankly a sucker for many things — ghost stories and samurai films among them. On discovering the book In the Service of Samurai by Gloria Oliver, I was pleased to discover that two of my passions had been rolled into one package.

In the Service of Samuari tells the story of a young apprentice mapmaker, Chizuson Toshiro or “Toshi,” who is purchased from his master to act as navigator for a strange samurai with an even stranger ship and crew. Cursed and betrayed in life, the undead Samurai and his ghostly men must wander the sea until they have completed their mission. In the end, only Toshi’s wits and determination can help them see it through. The tension of the story grows as Toshi learns to accept his situation.

Holy hell, what a game.

A couple years ago, the folks at Dark Matter Studios released an RPG called Epic Role-Playing. It was a game I enjoyed, found very well-crafted for a first attempt, and ended up giving a generally positive review to. However, one of the complaints I (and several other reviewers) noted was that Epic was too segmented. The original Epic came in 4 parts—the Rules Manual, Bestiary, Book of the Arcane, and Atlas of Eslin (the default setting for Epic, which also listed many of the guilds/profession available). This compartmentalization was likely a big turn-off to many who otherwise may have given the game a try.

Review by Zach Houghton

One of the great elements of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series is the large cast of interesting characters that Harry Dresden encounters throughout his adventures. Friends, foes and fellow wizards make up a variety of supernatural (and a few “normal”) beings in the Dresden-verse. One of the most interesting characters is Harry’s half-brother Thomas Raith, who also happens to be a vampire.

Although the marketing for this tale makes claims of it being a novella, I’d have to say it is more of a short story with great art. Without the fancy hardcover or the illustrations by Mignolla this would fit just fine in one of the urban fantasy anthologies we’ve seen other Dresden Files tales in (My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding for example).

Riley Jenson needs all her supernatural abilities to hunt down a particularly eerie serial killer, in Keri Arthur’s Embraced by Darkness.

Riley Jenson is one of the Directorate of Other Races’ guardians, trained to hunt and destroy her prey. With both vampire and werewolf genes, she is mostly werewolf, but has a host of other paranormal skills: she can switch her vision to infrared, is clairvoyant, and can wrap shadows around herself. Mixing searching for a missing pack member and investigating recent serial murders, Riley’s on the hunt.

Review by Tez Miller

The Drizzt books are a guilty pleasure for me, and this one was akin to the previous few. Enjoyable reads, but a bit cookie-cutter and the characters are just way too “uber” to relate to. Is this a new thing? No.

I appreciate that there is some character depth as far as seeing the internal struggles of the protagonists. That’s a good thing. That said, it seems that there was no real challenges besides those. Physically the protagonists FAR outclass any of the antagonists: they are veritable combat monsters. It seems that the only challenges left for these characters are emotional.

The setting is just a bit after the Hunter’s Blades Trilogy (not a hundred years afterward as one reviewer has posted).

Review by Jeff Preston

Princeps Fury is the latest novel in a series dubbed “Codex Alera” by Jim Butcher. The fifth book in the series, its plot centers around a promise made in the previous book and the deadly war between the Vord and well, everyone else. Alera, the Kingdom run by the First Lord who isn’t well liked for many, intricate reasons, is under attack while Tavi escorts the Canim back to their homeland over a turbulent sea.

Whenever I read a book in a series like this, I have to ask myself two questions. The first question is, “Could you read Princeps Fury without knowing anything about the Codex Alera series?” The answer to that question is, “No, definitely not.”

The Doom from Below is a stand-alone (ish) Call of Cthulhu scenario from Super Genius Games. It can be, with minimum effort, tied directly to the events in their previous adventure Murder of Crows. The PDF weighs in at 38 pages (35 of these pages are pure meat) and seems quite generous for a one-shot adventure intended for four investigators.

First, a little blurb about the adventure itself. The Doom from Below takes investigators to the depths of a two-hundred foot chasm. The descent itself is semi-treacherous while The Things Not Meant To Be Seen at the bottom are even creepier.

Review by Todd Cash

Michael Reaves’ novel, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, really wants to be a good book, but it fails to achieve that goal for the exact same reason that many fans believe the film Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace disappointed on so many levels…both were tragedies that had no idea that they were tragedies!

Be warned, the following contains numerous MAJOR SPOILERS and does so only because they are integral to telling why this book ultimately fails.

Review by Joe Rixman

Book three of this series has Tavi being sent out of the way (both because of who he is, and to get training) to infiltrate a new legion being created. Since most lord’s have their own legion, a new one was being created to try to serve no political uses. But Tavi is supposed to see if anyone in the legion is in fact a spy. That is what he does since he is a Cursor (also a spy) for the First Lord.

Quickly, things escalate. Lord Kalare, whom has eyes on the First Lord’s throne, launches an attack and starts civil war in the realm. He also kidnaps other high ranking nobles, and holds them prisoner at his fortress.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

“Vampires’ Quest” is a card game about competing vampires and is the first offering from Headless Games. In “Vampires’ Quest” players compete to match Bite cards with Victims, turning them into vampires and racing to create an army of the undead.

The game is played in rounds, scoring points based on the number of bitten victims claimed.

There are 15 different kinds of cards (including Bite and Victim cards) that can affect game play. Some allow you to steal claimed victims from other vampires, send claimed victims back to the deck or counter other players’ cards.

Review by Michael Erb

One of the challenges of any fantasy role-playing game is coming up with new, unpredictable and fearsome foes to tangle with your heroes.

“The Random Esoteric Creature Generator” by Goodman Games is sub-titled “For Classic Fantasy Games and their Modern Simulacra.” Simply put, it’s a monster-maker for d20 and similar fantasy
role-playing games.

The 31-page .PDF document is filled with random roll charts to help you design bizarre and unique creatures, giving you everything from size and body shape to special attacks and defenses.

Review by Michael Erb

An innocent human learns of the supernatural amongst us in Kelley Armstrong’s Living with the Dead.

Robyn Peltier’s client has been killed, and she’s being set up for murder. Still recovering from her husband’s death, the last thing she needs is her pal Hope Adams and her guy Karl Marsten parading their coupleness in her face, but they’re the only ones who have insight into who the murderer really is…and with whom she’s in cahoots.

But Robyn doesn’t know that Hope is a half-demon and Karl is a werewolf. And when she does find out, Hope and Karl are less than civil to her.