The Stardust Thief – Fun In The Sun

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah is a fascinating tale Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights. It feels like a melding of traditional oral storytelling and modern epic fantasy to create a very unique product. The first part of The Sandsea Trilogy, The Stardust Thief tells a tale resembling a Matryoshka doll,…

The Hidden Palace – Built Off The Grid

I have complicated feelings about The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker. On the one hand, it's an unnecessary sequel to a very powerful (previously) standalone novel that tells an unstructured, hard-to-follow story. On the other hand, it is a piece of poetic beauty that does a wonderful job exploring life in New York in the…

A Desert Torn Asunder – Out With A Bang

And so commences my final review of The Song of the Shattered Sands. Here we are again with another gigantic book by Bradley P. Beaulieu - filled with wonderful prose and thrilling worldbuilding set in an original Arabian-inspired world. This is my final plea for you to go check it out. But, now there is…

When Jackals Storm The Walls – Beaulieu Let The Dogs Out

Well, here we are. My annual “scream at the sky about Song of Shattered Sands” event. Each year, like clockwork, Bradley P. Beaulieu puts out an enormous, detailed, and dense epic fantasy about an original Arabian-inspired world. And each year, like clockwork, I tell people to go read it - but only a select few…

The City of Brass – Guess Who’s Coming To Djinner

We have been getting a lot of fantasy based on the desert and Arabian/Islamic lore recently and I dig it. I think djinn are pretty rad (they usually have fire for blood, which is awesome) and I will read every book that includes them I can get my hands on. The most recent entry into…