My review of Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson is up on Fantasy Literature. It's a fine piece of young adult fiction that translates a French fairy tale by Charles Perrault into a tale set in the Mughal Empire. It teaches some lessons that young teenagers and even younger children would probably enjoy reading -- eating your spinach while getting a fairy tale, so to speak. It's not high art, but it is fun to read.

My review of Mike Shevdon's Sixty-One Nails is up at Fantasy Literature. It's a good enough fantasy for a first novel, though I think it's weighed down by its length. I'll be reading the next in the series (trilogy?) relatively soon; we'll see if Shevdon gets better as he goes along!

My review of Alan F. Troop's The Dragon Delasangre is up at Fantasy Literature. While I enjoyed the different depiction of a dragon -- here a fairly unique character -- I thought that Troop's ideas outstripped his writing ability. MAybe the sequels are better, but unless I stumble across one in the library, I'm unlikely to read them.