Hannah’s Book Round-up

Out Now

Elves: Once Walked With Gods by James Barclay

Here's another chance to get your feet in the door at the beginning of another promising series, with the new offering from James Barclay.

Once Walked With Gods is the rather epic sounding tale of elves, the evil Garnonin and ,of course, humans. In this particular jaunt into fantasy, the elves are being cruelly crushed by the Garnonin and one last fight to stay alive cost them 100,000 of their own kind. Now fragmented, confused, and angry, they turn on the man who lead the last battle, Takaar, and force him into hiding. With him gone, they turn on each other in bitter civil war. But a new threat looms and an old hero is called upon. But is it too late?

If you like Tolkein or Barclay's astoundingly popular Raven series, then get your eyeballs round this one too.

Dragongirl by Todd McCaffrey

If dragons were real, I'd like to think I'd have this next heroine's job. Fiona has spent three years healing and caring for dragons and their riders, in order for them to be able to fight the dreaded Thread. However, a seemingly unstoppable illness is destroying the dragons and leaving Fiona feeling helpless. That is, until she's given a whole lot of responsibility and forced to make some tough decisions.

Also, she has to figure out how a thousand dragons can fight as if they were three thousand. Not sure that one's possible, but I'll wait and see.

Sequel to the best selling book Dragonheart, this is one for dragon lovers everywhere.

Old Classics

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

I usually like to start these Old Classic reviews with a little paragraph about why this week's book is of particular importance to me. However, A Canticle For Leibowitz was, for me, a happy accident.

One day I happened to pick a book off my bookshelf. (I say bookshelf, I'm not a proper adult yet, so all my books are piled up in one corner, looming dangerously over the rest of the flat with their wobbly threats.) Anyway, I picked up this little book and thought I'd give it a go. By the final page, I was pretty swept away and decided this was one book that simply had to go in the column. "People need to know!" I thought. Then I looked a bit closer and found that people did already know. Quite a few people, in fact, including the judges of the 1961 Hugo Award.

Well, with egg on my face I present you this week's Classic, A Canticle For Leibowitz.

Set over a time line which spans thousands of years, the story centres on one particular sect of monks, who are dedicated to collecting and preserving any fragments of scientific knowledge that weren't destroyed in the catastrophic nuclear war. The only thing holding them back is everyone else.

You see, in a world where knowledge brings science and science brings nuclear weapons, pretty much everyone wishes science would just go away for the time being and let them get on with things. Ok, perhaps they don't say it as nicely as that, and therein lies the danger for these monks.

But as the story progresses and new generations are born, science is once again embraced and given the respect it deserves. Though considering the disastrous effects this had last time, can humankind really learn from its mistakes?

It’s a harrowing look at humanity and the almost inevitable and tragic circumstances that knowledge can bring.