On September 1st of 2025, the conclusion to one of my favorite recent fantasy series is releasing. With seven installments, this novella saga is criminally underread, and the final entry sticks a ten-point landing. I am talking about The Infernus Gate, novella seven of The Seven Swords by Anthony Ryan. I don’t know what I…
I have some ground to cover before our end-of-the-year wrap-up, so I am saving some space by talking about two great stories by the same author in a single review. It has been a big fall for Ryan, which means a great season for readers. Today’s books are both phenomenal, but are each a little…
Continue reading ➞ A Tide Of Black Steel + The Road of Storms – Anthony Ryan Double Hitter
Here we are closing out another Anthony Ryan series— the man is a writing machine. Today we are here to talk about The Traitor, the third book in Ryan’s The Covenant of Steel series. This brick of a book tells the end of the story of Alwyn the scribe, a man of many hats who…
I really hope Anthony Ryan reads this review because if there is one thing I want to accomplish with the following pile of text, it is to thank Ryan for finally adding a recap of the previous book to the start of one of his enormous novels. I cannot express how much better this made…
Another year, another slamming sword and sorcery novella from Anthony Ryan. Welcome back to the newest installment of “novellas that are killing it that you have never heard of,” starring City of Songs. This is the third installment of The Seven Swords, a novella series published by the independent company Subterranean Press who are famous…
The Pariah is the first book in Anthony Ryan’s latest series, The Covenant of Steel. Ryan is a pretty beloved author in the fantasy genre at this point, with multiple large epics under his belt. We have reviewed a number of his books already: The Waking Fire, Queen of Fire, The Pilgrimage of Swords, and…
Continue reading ➞ The Pariah – Journals Of An Observant Rogue
This week 2020 is finally rolling to a close and we have been spending some time resting, recuperating, and catching up on a number of books from this year. Yet, the show must go on and we have been furiously planning a site refresh and scheduling all of our content for 2021. In the midst…
You may have noticed we didn’t include any novellas on our Best of 2020 list. As we combed through the year’s many magnificent reads, we struggled to balance the short, punchy narratives of 2020’s various novellas with the sweeping stories of the novels that made our top rankings. To give credit where it is so…
The real takeaway I got from The Kraken’s Tooth is that Anthony Ryan is a strong writer. I obviously already knew that, given my familiarity with his other work, but it's nice to be reminded that the authors you like are good at their craft. The Kraken's Tooth is the second installment of a seven-part…
Continue reading ➞ The Kraken’s Tooth – What’s Krakenalackin
I continue to be very happy that Anthony Ryan has decided to return to the world of Blood Song. The Black Song is the conclusion to Raven’s Blade, a duology that starts with The Wolf’s Call set five years after the original trilogy. The Black Song is a strong and enjoyable conclusion to this duology…
