Blood Ninja III: The Betrayal of the Living by Nick Lake YP FIC LAKE

The evil Lord Oda is dead (after already being dead, then undead, and now totally dead), but Taro’s greatest challenge is still ahead.  He must vanquish a dragon in order to get permission to marry the girl he loves.  Wait fighting dragons to win the heart of a fair lady is supposed to be for knights, nit vampire ninjas!?  Taro is doomed!  As if that wasn’t enough to worry about the dead are rising.  No, not vampires, ZOMBIES!  The super, evil and very creepy Kenji has crawled back from the dead and is raising an army of corpses to destroy all he sees.  OH!  Also, Taro’s very own flesh and blood family plans to betray him!  Being a vampire ninja in feudal Japan is ROUGH!

Vampire ninjas VS Dragons and Zombies!  What’s not to love!? This is a great finale to a wonderful action series.  This book, like the two before it (read my reviews here and here), have loads of fast paced action and ultra-violence, perfectly evil villains to root for, and enough plot twists to keep things interesting.  Also, Nick Lake does a nice amount of research to make the Japanese setting feel real and authentic.  Basically the Blood Ninja series is like a super awesome manga series without the pictures.  It doesn’t have the most realistic characters, but they aren’t boring or entirely one note either.  The heroes are almost always outmatched and that makes for tense and exciting action sequences.  The romantic plot does get a little sparkly when Taro learns that he can’t be with Hana without turning her into a vampire, but that never drags the plot down to a soap opera.  This is a must read for fans of action, manga, or historical-fiction-fantasy-horror.

You can check our catalog for Blood Ninja III here.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen Illustrated by Rebecca Guay YP FIC YOLEN

All the dragons are gone from the island of May.  So when Tansy and her father discover Dragon’s Bane, an herb that only grows where dragons lie, no one will believe that a dragon still lives.  When Tansy’s father disappears she knows it is the dragon that she is partly responsible for awakening.  As the town’s new healer she must find a way to rally her town and find a true hero that can slay a dragon.  When instead all they can find is a con man, braggart named Lancot she realizes she’ll have to improvise. 

This is a truly lovely book.  Beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated, filled with magic and heart, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It succeeds magnificently as a straightforward fairy tale with excellent touches or romance and adventure, but it also works on deeper levels.  There’s a wonderful subtext about the role of women in society, about the pressure to become the people are parents want us to be, about the power of imagination in confronting fear and evil, and about the necessity of stories in our world.  The art is just perfect for a fairy tale. Each panel is like a mix between a illustration form a children’s book, a painting, and a modern comic.  It all works together seamlessly.  I especially applaud the character designs, far too many comics resort to clothes and hair to differentiate characters, but Rebecca Guay actually draws character’s with faces...that…look…different!!!  Novel concept I know!  I also thought it was great to have a strong female character, while beautiful, that isn’t defined by her beauty or running around in a ridiculously revealing outfit.  In fact, the character of Lancot is the eye candy, and in fitting with notions of beauty in classic times is drawn as attractive.  This is a treasure of a book and I hope people (yes even dudes) give it a chance and discover it’s magic.  It’s one of the rare comics that shows the potential of visuals to tell a deeper (or at least different) story than text alone can.  Hopefully it will also move people to check out Jane Yolen’s novels which are just brilliant as well.  Which you can read in YP FIC YOLEN.

You can check our catalog for The Last Dragon here.

The Painted Boy by Charles De Lint YP FIC DELINT

Jay Li has known he was different when a dragon tattoo magically appeared on his back on his 11^th birthday. Now 17, Jay is headed from the mean streets of Chicago to the desert of an Arizona border town. Jay discovers that not only is he part of an ancient society called the Yellow Dragon clan, but he is also a dragon himself. He has to navigate the criminal gangs that run the town, avoid run ins with other mystical animal clans, and form new friendships if he is to learn about his new powers and survive the quest he is destined to undertake.

This is a great read for contemporary fantasy fans. It has a well developed lead character, cool powers, and a great setting. The mix of the beauty of the American Southwest with mystical elements is a brilliant choice by De Lint. The mix of criminal gangs and ancient clans of animal shapeshifters also works really well, because the more magical elements are grounded by the real world problems. I especially enjoyed having a cast of Asians and Latinos that are well developed and can show readers a look into other cultures. Like most, Child of Destiny discovers new powers, learns to use them, undertakes a grave and perilous quest books Painted Boy starts a little slow and occasionally covers ground that is too familiar, but the unique setting and cast and De Lint’s skill at writing make this one well worth reading. Fans of the Percy Jackson books (YP FIC RIORDAN) really need to give Painted Boy a look.

Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson YP FIC MCKINLEY

Fire is five stories about magical creatures born of fire and the people that encounter them. There is Phoenix, a story of an old man that finds the legendary fire bird in a small English forest and is changed in an extraordinary way. In Hellhound a fiery eyed dog from the pound is more than it seems. Fireworm tells of a prehistoric young man that must become one with the spirit world to fight his clan’s ultimate enemy. In Salamander Man a slave must become more than human to fight an invasion of evil wizards. The final tale is First Flight, the story of Ern, a boy that must guide a dragon home.

This is a great collection of stories for almost any fantasy fan. It has very realistic and modern settings in Phoenix and Hellhound and three very different magical settings in the other three tales. It was great to have such variety and I think it will appeal to a large range of fantasy readers. Dickinsion wrote Phoenix, Fireworm, and Salamander Man and of these I would say Fireworm is the best. The ancient world of primitive man is an excellent setting for fantasy because in that time what we see as myth and make believe was reality to people. My favorite of the collection however is McKinley’s Hell Hound. The main character Miri is an animal lover that has a creative mind and finds that her imagination is dead right when she calls her dog Flame a hell hound. The realistic setting and characters make the magical elements really believable and effective. Also check out Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits by the same authors in YP FIC MCKINLEY.

Bone: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith YP FIC SMITH

The first of a nine volume series of graphic novels, Out of Boneville starts the story of three strange characters from Boneville called Bones (they are entirely white child sized creatures with big noses and tiny black eyes). Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone have been run out of town due to Phoney Bone’s latest get rich quick scheme and have to cross a desert. After they get lost and separated they find themselves in a strange land they have never heard of filled with wondrous and dangerous creatures. Bone makes new friends and is quickly enamored of a local girl named Thorn, but soon discovers that they are in more danger than they know as an ancient evil has awoken and has special plans for the Bone brothers and Thorn that could mean the end of all existence.

Bone is a masterpiece of illustrated fiction. Jeff Smith is a gifted illustrator, using a style that mixes influences from classic animation and classic fantasy to create a style that seems modern and timeless at the same time. He is also a brilliant storyteller and has created truly deep characters that change greatly over the nine volume story. The Bone saga is filled with action, humor, excitement, and emotion. It’s a great pick for almost any one that has an interest in fantasy or in graphic novels in general.

His Majesty’s Dragon (Book 1 – Temeraire Series) by Naomi Novik

Ms. Novik started this series back in 2006, and is still going strong with book five, coming out in July 2008. The book is set during the Napoleonic wars, and it is alternative history/fantasy, because in this universe the history is given a new twist – with dragons existing and even being used in warfare by England and other European nations. Will Laurence is a Captain in the British Navy, but his station changes when his ship captures a French ship carrying a dragon’s egg. Dragons are matched at birth with their “trainers” and the fledging dragon chooses Laurence. Now he’s forced to become a member of the British Aerial Corp, but he finds his new status more than acceptable once he realizes what it’s like to be a dragon trainer, an “aviator”. Although the flying is exciting, Laurence’s principal gain is finding out how creative and endearing dragons actually are, and soon he can’t imagine being without Temeraire, as he has named him. Novik does a wonderful job of sustaining our interest both in Temeraire’s development and in the plot, which is predictable only in its unpredictability. I am hooked on the series, having started on Book 3, and am now reading them in order. Novik is enamored of history, particularly this period, and has woven the details of dragon warfare to mesh skillfully with the actual mechanics of war at that time. I’d love to hear from others regarding your reaction to the series.