Moving Targets - Mercedes Lackey

Moving Targets
Edited by Mercedes Lackey
DAW Books
Copyright: 2008
9780756405281

This is the fourth anthology of stories set in Valdemar, the book came out at the beginning of this month. There are fourteen tales by different authors making up the book. The other three anthologies are in order: Sword of Ice, Sun in Glory and Crossroads.

I must admit that I found this anthology slightly disappointing, mostly as there are few stories that jumped out at me as outstanding. Generally I find the best stories are the ones that Mercedes Lackey herself adds to the volume. In Sun In Glory, it was the tale of how Talia became a Sun-Priest which was alluded to in the Mage Storms books. In Crossroads it was a take of Tarma and Kethry. Sword of Ice has no Mercedes Lackey story, but she helped co-write two, one of which was about Selenay. Also, unlike the other three volumes (and also unlike all the other multi-author anthologies such as Sword And Sorceress or the Friends of Darkover books like The Other Side Of The Mirror) there was no introduction by the editor.

The Mercedes Lackey/Larry Dixon story at the beginning of Moving Targets was a bit of a disappointment to me. From the beginning of the Valdemar books she's written kyree as mindspeakers. Here she's written a kyree in which you have to make out the words around spoken growls. With no explanation of why, especially given the kyree in Magic's Price, the Vows and Honor series and even Riss from the Mage Winds books, it just didn't seem to fit. The kyree in this story made me think of Scooby Doo instead.

What I really missed in this anthology was stories about characters I already knew, even with them as simple peripheral characters. Most of the stories had no recognizable time in which to place them.

I did like the story Passage At Arms by Rosemary Edghill. It seems like something most Herald Trainees would go through as they started out. We see hints of similar problems through the series: Vostel and Christa for example.

Another favorite from the anthology was A Dream Deferred by Kristin M. Schwengel. This one did the Kyree as Mercedes Lackey has portrayed them throughout the Valdemar books.

The story set after the Mage Storms in the Empire, Heart, Home and Hearth, by Sarah Hoyt and Kate Paulk, was another nice one. Given what Storm Breaking had laid out for the 'hobgoblins' this story has a very nice twist or two.

Judith Tarr's story Widdershins was another good one, and unique. I liked the use of advanced Dressage as the plot mover, although I'm not sure how well it works within established Valdemar. I've certainly liked some of Judith Tarr's other books like A Pride of Kings.

Overall, I'd have to say I probably built up my anticipation too far while waiting for the anthology to be released. I like it, but not as much as I'd hoped to.

Christmas Music

For the holiday season I'm taking advantage of a new widget offered by Blogger to supply a list of great Christmas music. This is a temporary addition for the season.

Librarything's 100 most popular

Found this list on Book Junkie's blog from a while back. I should be studying for tomorrow's final exam.

Here is the Top 100 Most Popular Books on LibraryThing. Bold what you own, italicize what you've read. Star what you liked. Star multiple times what you loved!



1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone by J.K. Rowling (32,484)
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling (29,939)
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling (28,728)
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling (27,926)
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling (27,643)
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling (27,641)
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (23,266)
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (21,325)*
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling (20,485)
10. 1984 by George Orwell (19,735)
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen (19,583)
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger (19,082)
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (17,586)
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (16,210)
15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (15,483)******
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (14,566)
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte (14,449)
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (13,946)
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (13,272)
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell (13,091)
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown (13,089)
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (13,005)
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (12,777)
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah's Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12,634)
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien (12,276)******
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (12,147)
27. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (11,976)
28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,512)******
29. The Odyssey by Homer (11,483)
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (11,392)
31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut (11,360)
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11,257)
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,082)******
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (10,979)
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (10,823)
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (10,603)
37. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (10,537)
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (10,435)
39. The lovely bones : a novel by Alice Sebold (10,125)
40. Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card (10,092)
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman (9,827)
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman (9,745)
43. Dune by Frank Herbert (9,671)
44. Emma by Jane Austen (9,610)
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (9,598)
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain (9,593)
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy (9,433)
48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (9,413)
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (9,343)
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (9,336)
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (9,274)
52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (9,246)**
53. The Iliad by Homer (9,153)
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus (9,084)
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (9,080)
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (9,027)
57. The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (8,960)
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (8,904)
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (8,813)
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery - (8,764)
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (8,421)
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (8,417)
63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (8,368)
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck (8,255)
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (8,214)
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (8,191)
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8,169) **
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (8,129)
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (8,096)
70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (7,843)
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (7,834)
72. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Barbara Kingsolver (7,829)
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare (7,808)
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck (7,807)
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (7,793)
76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648)
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde (7,598)
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk (7,569)
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (7,557)
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman (7,534)
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (7,530)
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (7,512)
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7,436)
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker (7,238)
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad (7,153)
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (7,055)
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (7,052)
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (7,043)
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce (6,933)
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera (6,901)
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (6,899)
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson (6,890)
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer (6,868) (both modern and Middle English versions)
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (6,862)
96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (6,841)
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (6,794)
98. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (6,715)
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (6,708)
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (6,697)

A Brief History Of Ancient Greece - Sarah B. Pomeroy

A Brief History Of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society And Culture
Sarah B. Pomeroy et. al.
Oxford University Press
Copyright: 2008
9780195156812

Ancient Greece: A Political, Social And Cultural History
Sarah B. Pomeroy et al.
Oxford University Press
Copyright 1999
9780195097436

I'm classing both books together as Librarything counts them as the same book. I don't see much of a difference between them either.

I've had both as textbooks over the years, with the most recent of the two being this past fall (2008). While I liked it, finding it fairly readable, the teacher spent much of the class picking the book apart. I don't agree with everything he's said, but he did have a point: the book is quite inconsistent at various points:
For example, when it's talking about the Spartans, in the first paragraph the book says that the Helots were not slaves, then in the next paragraph it's talking about their enslavement. There are other examples as well.

Another thing I found frustrating was the tendency for the book to make claims without stating the evidence it was using. That and the lack of dates. I took to reading it this morning with the Oxford Classical Dictionary in front of me so I could find the specific dates for events and write them in the margins. Otherwise it wasn't going to be much help for the final exam.

Still, it does give an understandable, if brief, overview of Greek history from the neolithic down through the Hellenic periods, with each era given it's own chapter. Obviously both versions of the text are good for introductory courses at the university level at least, although they need to be backed up with some more specific books as well. But then, isn't that usually the case?

Both books are likely to stay in my collection as I've added notes to both and they work well for double-checking some fact or another.

Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton

Edited to add a link to my earlier review of A Lick Of Frost (01/07/09).
Edited to add a review link at the end (12/11/08).

Swallowing Darkness
Laurell K. Hamilton
Random House Publishing Group
Copyright: 2008
9780345495938

Swallowing Darkness is the most recent novel in Laurel K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series. If I'm recalling the series correctly, it is the sequel to A Lick Of Frost. Honestly, it's been a while since I read the series through (I don't even own copies of the most recent novels), so I was a bit lost at the beginning of this one, but this book has inspired me to do a re-read. Currently I'm a few pages from the end of A Kiss Of Shadows.

The world Hamilton has created here is an interesting one. For the most part, it's the modern world, with the addition of magic and Faerie, which adds some interesting twists and background to events everyone knows about. This is not a series for children, which I assume by now everyone knows about all of Hamilton's latest books from both series, as the author gets fairly explicit.

Merry Gentry as she introduces herself in the first book is now pregnant, so the goal of the series to this point is mostly fulfilled. However, as anyone reading Hamilton's blog knows, this is not the final book in the series, no matter how much it looks like it is. I know I'm waiting for the next book quite eagerly, although in terms of buying this one I'm going to wait for it to come out in paperback.

Other books in the series include (in no particular order)
A Lick of Frost
A Caress of Twilight
A Kiss of Shadows

Also reviewed at:
Books And Other Thoughts

One Silent Night - Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm finally catching up on the books I read over the last month while working on NaNoWriMo. As a result, the reviews may be a bit shorter than normal. I know in this case it's been nearly a month since I read the book.

One Silent Night
Sherrilyn Kenyon
St. Martin's Press
Copyright: 2008
9780312947064

This is the most recent offering from Sherrilyn Kenyon in her Dark Hunters series. On the down side, I found it a bit too short (I finished it by mid-afternoon the day I bought it, and I wasn't even at home. This involved doing most of the reading on the bus), which I found disappointing given the cost of the book. I've found lately that font sizes and margins are going up for a few authors, including Kenyon.

I did find the story to be good to say the least, although it was different. I don't think she's done a story from the villain's point of view before. In fact I don't think I've ever read a story in a series that's set from the villain's view. I liked it though.

Before reading this book you really need to have read Acheron. A lot of her books can be read out of order, but for this one, you need to have the background, or else a lot of the characters won't make sense.

I'm waiting for the next book now, as she's left plenty of open questions to tease us with.

Upcoming Books

These are a list of books I'm looking forward to reading, along with the release date according to http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/

Moving Targets
Mercedes Lackey
December 1st 2008
This is the latest anthology of Valdemar stories. Included within are stories by Mercedes Lackey, Tanya Huff, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Fiona Patton, Judith Tarr, Rosemary Edghill and a number of other authors.

Storm From The Shadows
David Weber
March 3rd 2009
According to the blurb on http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/ this is the sequel to The Shadows Of Saganami.

Order In Chaos
Jack Whyte
August 4, 2009
The third and final book in the Knights Templar trilogy. This is one I know a lot of people are looking forward to. If he follows the pattern set in the other two books, this one will be about the fall of the Knights Templar.

For the fourth book, I have no facts other than that there's an excerpt for it in the back of Diana Gabaldon's Lord John And The Hand Of Devils. http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/ isn't listing the book yet, so I can't even find the title. It's supposed to be the next book in the Outlander series though.

New Feature and excuses

I know I haven't posted anything about any of the books I've been reading lately, and it's not because I'm not reading. I hope to get reviews of One Silent Night, Swallowing Darkness, a few Darkover books and the new Dragonriders novels up soon.

I've been attempting NaNoWriMo this month, and I'll claim that as my excuse.

On the other hand, I realized that I'm collecting a lot of author's blog addresses, so I've added a list of author blog links to my blog here. If you want to hear what an author is doing in their own words, check there.

Foundation - Mercedes Lackey

The Collegium Chronicles: Foundation
Mercedes Lackey
DAW Books
Copyright: 2008
9780756405243

The amazon.com product description:

In this chronicle of the early history of Valdemar, a thirteen-year­old orphan named Magpie escapes a life of slavery in the gem mines when he is chosen by one of the magical companion horses of Valdemar to be trained as a herald. Thrust into the center of a legend in the making, Magpie discovers talents he never knew he had-and witnesses the founding of the great Heralds' Collegium.

Foundation is the most recent of the Valdemar books, Foundation is the first of a new series about the start of the Heralds' Collegium. It's a good read, if a bit of a quick read (I finished it the day I got it).

The story follows Mags, a young orphan who ends up being Chosen through the start of his time at the new Collegium. In many ways this is a typical Lackey book as the character follows the pattern set down by Talia of an intelligent child who grew up in a bad situation. On the other hand, I don't know how many books this series is going to run to. Unlike the Arrows books, Mags was not finished with his training by the end of the book. Also somewhat frustrating was that Lackey raises plot point after plot point without really resolving any of them in this book. In that sense, it is definitely a first book, and I'm waiting for the sequel to get some answers.

Also, with this book as with her last few set in Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey seems to be returning to books for a slightly younger audience. Where the Mage Winds books were definitely for adults, as were the Mage Wars trilogy, this is more like the Arrows books, which I first found in the Young Adult section of the library.

There is one thing, in the timeline at the front of the book it lists this book in the same time-slot as Magic's Price which is a mistake, and slightly disappointing. When I saw that I'd hoped for more on the characters from those books and the adaptation from Herald-Mages to Heralds. In actuality the one and only time reference in the books sets it about three generations later and no familiar characters.

In no way is that a criticism, as ALL of Mercedes Lackey's books are ones that I've enjoyed reading over and over. I do recommend Foundation, however at this point it's not going to be one of my favorites. That place is firmly held by Magic's Price, one of the few books to bring tears to my eyes every time I read it.

Review edited: March 11, 2010.

Other Reviews:
Bookspot Central: Foundation

Plot - Ansen Dibell

Plot
Ansen Dibell
Writer's Digest Books
Copyright: 1988
9780898799460

This is one of the books in the Elements Of Fiction Writing series put out by Writer's Digest. In it, the writer explains what sorts of things are needed in order to make a good novel or short story, and how to write them.

He talks about character viewpoints, how to chose them, and what not to do. About the different types of story or ending, for example the circular ending or the linear one. About the different patterns a story can take, and much more.

The author not only explains the different aspects of plot, he gives examples. Two of his favorite examples to use are the Star Wars movies and Lord of the Flies. The first I'm familiar with, the second I've never read, but the way he does it the examples still make sense.

I'd like to write a novel or two and I think reading this book has helped. It's certainly strengthened my ideas of what I'll need for a plotline! And, he's done it in a way that's easy to understand, inspiring and fun to read.

The Excalibur Alternative - David Weber

The Excalibur Alternative
David Weber
Baen Books
Copyright: 2002
9780743435840

This is an interesting mix of a novel. It's science fiction, yet the characters are from the medieval times. I've read the book before, more than once and I greatly enjoy reading it.

I'm sure I've seen the plot before, where humans end up acting as soldiers for extraterrestrial races, but I can't think of which other authors or books have done it, aside from David Drake's anthology Foreign Legions which I'll admit I haven't read. I know of it from the author's note inside this book.

The one thing about The Excalibur Alternative that I don't especially care for is the way the ending feels rushed to me. For almost the entire book, we are following one character's point of view. Within the final pages of the book, we are abruptly thrown into another character's point of view and the book is finished from that point of view.

Still, as with Weber's other science fiction novels, this is a good book, and one I'll probably be re-reading sometime again. It's certainly a book that stays in my permanent collection.

It's certainly a book that rather leaves me wondering about what will happen after the book ends.

Life in a Medieval Village - Joseph and Francis Gies

Life In A Medieval Village
Francis and Joseph Gies
Harper and Row Publishers
Copyright: 1990
0060920467

The book Life In A Medieval Village is, of course full of detail about everyday village life in thirteenth century Britain. The authors are looking particularly at the village of Elton. There is lots of information about the structure of the village, both physical, such as the design of the houses and the layout of the fields, as well as social, looking at the various duties and responsibilities, but also not forgetting the fun and festivals.

Much of the evidence used in the book has been gleaned from surviving documents as well as from the physical evidence remaining today, such as it is.

As is often the case with history books, this book is divided into sections, each focused on a particular aspect of medieval life, such as the chapter on Marriage and the Family, or the one on Medieval Justice.

Perhaps Life In A Medieval Village doesn't go into as much detail as it could, but the writing style is engaging for anyone interested in this period and easy for the non-specialist to understand. It certainly makes a good introduction to the period. I know I'm planning to buy some of the other books these two authors have written about the period, namely the book on life in a medieval city. It should make for good reading too.

Other medieval history books I've read and reviewed:
Pilgrimages - John Ure
The Worlds Of Medieval Europe - Clifford R. Backman
Reading The Middle Ages - Barbara Rosenwein
The Crusades - A Very Short Introduction - Christopher Tyerman
1215: The Year Of The Magna Carta - Danny Danziger and John Gillingham
By Sword And Fire - Sean McGlynn

The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction - Christopher Kelly

The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction
Christopher Kelly
Oxford University Press
Copyright: 2006
9780192803917

While the book The Roman Empire A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Kelly was an interesting read, there were some aspects I found to be less than satisfactory. The biggest issue was the book is so short and there is so much to Roman history. It simply doesn't have the space to go into whys and after effects of events. For example, the battles given seem to be more of a list of dates, locations and commanders. The book skims the surface of the Roman Empire, dipping further in here and there, with 'there' usually not being what I'd like to know: daily life for the ordinary person. Additionally, there is no bibliography or 'Further Reading' section included, which would be useful for someone choosing this as a starting point to find out about the Roman era of history. Usually an introductory text will give some hints as to where to find out more on the subject in question. It would have been nice as well to know which translation(s) the author was using for quotes, as well as to know where in any particular work the quote came from.

On the other hand, this little book did include something I don't remember seeing in any of my textbooks from history classes before: an explanation of how life-spans and the proportions of a population at any given age is determined. If that is the typical method, it is something especially interesting to know, as I'd figured that the numbers were more gained from archaeology. Apparently not. Also, there are some interesting comparisons to modern day given, such as on page 10, which really brings home the scale of the Roman Empire more than simple numbers do. Another nice point was the last chapter, which looks at modern uses of Roman history and propaganda based on that history. The author also makes some interesting points about the layout of Plutarch's Lives, which is especially interesting as today, rather than being arranged as they were in ancient times; paired with one Greek and one Roman, for the most part the Lives are generally sold in two volumes with one being exclusively the Roman Lives and one the Greek. Therefore any implications and inferences Plutarch intended to come from reading them in parallel the way the original readers did is something that are not as easily picked up on.

Overall, this book has its good points and it's not so good ones, and between them the two more or less cancel each other out.

Krispos Rising - Harry Turtledove

Krispos Rising
Harry Turtledove
Del Rey
Copyright: 1991
0345361180

The amazon.com product description:

Videssos was beset by enemies abroad and had fallen into decadence at home. But on his first night in the imperial capital, The Empires health mattered less to Krispos than finding a dry place to sleep.

Driven by crushing taxes from the farm where his family had lived -- and died -- Krispos had come to the. city seeking what fortune a good mind and a strong back could earn. He had a single goldpiece to his name -- the gift, years past, of a nomad chieftain to a ragged peasant boy. Now, though the night was raw and the inn was warm, he was loath to spend that coin, for the barbarian had claimed it carried magic.

Keep his lucky goldpiece or trade it for a warm, dry bed? Krispos tucked the coin away and stepped back into the wet streets -- all unaware that so simple a choice would lead to a world of peril and possibility...

This is the first of the second set of books that Turtledove has written set in the world of Videssos. The first series began with the book The Misplaced Legion, which I haven't read, though I intend to. The second and third books are, in order: Krispos of Videssos and Krospos The Emperor.

The world appears to be modeled at least somewhat on Byzantine society, although I am no expert on the subject. The author however, is, having a degree in Byzantine history.

I came to this series in an interesting way, through Turtledove's essay in the book Meditations on Middle-Earth. So far, and this is my first re-read through the series, I haven't found it disappointing. I do however, find that I have to be in the right "mood" to read the books.

I like a well-created world with believable characters, all of which can be found here.

The book starts in Krispos' childhood as a peasant and continues from there, following his rise to Emperor of Videssos through hard work and some lucky breaks. Many, but not all of the characters introduced as the story progresses turn out to play major roles later on.

The author is well known for his alternative history and science-fiction novels, such as his Cross-time Traders series, most of which I'll admit I haven't read.

Although the series is a older one, the books have been republished in an omnibus form as The Tale of Krispos. I'm wondering if The Videssos Cycle, the other series set in this world is ever going to be re-published as well. Currently, I'm still combing the used book-stores for some of them.

Fantasy Art Now - Ed. Martin Mckenna

Fantasy Art Now
Editor: Martin Mckenna
Ilex Press Limited
Copyright: 2007
978-0-06-13097-7

This is a glorious book if you like fantasy themed art. It's all quite contemporary, including a few book covers I recognize as titles on sale in bookstores right now. Many of the pieces were intended for collectible card games or are from the artists' portfolios.

The art is divided up into themes such as landscapes or mythical creatures, and there are many different interpretations to enjoy. The images are all on glossy pages and most of them are either full page images or close to, so they are certainly large enough to appreciate.

Given that this is a hardcover book with a stitched binding, the price is quite low, at $31.99.

Although most of the images are done digitally, not all of them have been. There are a few done in acrylics or watercolour etc. However, the majority were done in Photoshop or similar programs.

Fantasy Art Now is inspiring for people who would perhaps like to do this kind of art, or simply as an art book to admire.