I first discovered Adrian Tchaikovsky through his novel “Children of Time” which is one of my favourite science-fiction novels and one of my favourite books in general, and if you like spiders (a big ask, I know) you’ll love it too. So when he released “Shards of Earth” book 1 in the Final Architecture trilogy I had to give it a try. And I was not disappointed.

This is a book consisting of 7 fantasy short stories by some big names in fantasy. Some people may be put off by anthology novels because you may not like some of the stories, but you are guaranteed to like some as well.

What I like about them is that I always find new authors and new books to read. This is definitely the case with The Books of Swords Part 2.

Set after the original First Law trilogy this stand alone novel takes place in the disputed land of Angland, A northern territory ruled by the Union for over 600 years. But the North, led by their bloodthirsty and violent Ruler Black Dow has plans to take it back.

The entire novel is broken down into 3 parts each represents one of the 3 days of battle that occurs.

Mortimer is young, hopeful and looking for work. Death is old, tired of his job and looking for someone else to usher souls to the next life. So he hires Mort to become his apprentice. Unfortunately Mort is very accident-prone and his idealistic views don't work well with being Death.

When rural banker Richard Harper from the Manawatu goes missing it is up to local police to figure out what happened.

Taking place in New Zealand, this is a detective fiction following our main character Detective Senior Sergeant John Baldrick 'Archie' and Detective Constable Ben Travers as they try to figure out whether Richard is actually a missing person, on the run, or has something much worse happened to him?

Far into the future, the last remnants of humanity travel through space on the ship 'Gilagamesh' to a new world and hopefully a new home. But what about the inhabitants? Will they be friendly and inviting to a people that destroyed their own world?

The book spans thousands of years and we follow two perspectives throughout.

In the distant future corporations travel planet to planet looking for resources "All Systems Red" follows Murderbot; A cynical, sarcastic and socially awkward A.I security unit built to protect humans while they survey these planets. Only thing is, Murderbot doesn't really like humans and would rather watch TV all day.