Review: "Arm of the Sphinx" by Josiah Bancroft

It’s a rough life, but former school teacher Thomas Senlin is finding that piracy suits him somewhat in Josiah Bancroft’s “Arm of the Sphinx” ($14.99, self-published), the follow-up to “Senlin Ascends.”

Senlin, under the name of Capt. Tom Mudd, and his small crew navigate the skies around the Tower of Babel, finding ever more creative ways to rob his quarry and escape what passes for the long arm of the law in the Tower. Still, he searches for a way to find his lost wife, even as her ghost haunts his steps.

He’s learned that she’s in the Ringdom of Pelphia, a tightly-guarded aristocratic port where his ship, the Stone Cloud, was almost shot down the last time he tried to dock. To make matters worse, his crew is running out of places where they’re welcome, and Tom is running out of ideas.

Desperation leads them to the top of the Tower, to a being that many think is a myth – the Sphinx. Edith, now known as Mister Winters aboard the Stone Cloud, knows well that he exists. He created the fantastic mechanical arm that replaced her lost one. She also knows well what making a deal with the creature costs, but Senlin and his crew may have no other choice.

Review: "Senlin Ascends" by Josiah Bancroft

I read a lot of good books and an occasional few great books, but rarely do I find something that’s truly remarkable in just about every way. That’s just what Josiah Bancroft’s “Senlin Ascends” delivers, though.

“Senlin” first came to my attention as a runner-up in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off, but it’s grown quite a buzz of late with reviewers and other authors praising Bancroft’s work. And it’s most worthy of that praise.

The story begins with a small-town teacher, Thomas Senlin, headed off on a great adventure with his new wife Marya. Senlin has always been fascinated by the great Tower of Babel, which looms over the landscape of his world. It’s a massive structure with each level being its own kingdom, or ringdom, as they’re called. No one is sure how many there are, and each is full of wonders. Or so the handy guidebook that he’s studied tells him.

Review: "The Aeronaut's Windlass," by Jim Butcher

With “The Aeronaut’s Windlass” ($27.95, Roc) Jim Butcher introduces us to a very different world from the ones he’s worked in before.

In this world, people no longer live on the surface because it’s too dangerous. Instead they live in spires, which rise high above those dangers. Travel and trade between the spires is done in airships powered by lift crystals. One of those belongs to Captain Francis Madison Grimm, a disgraced naval officer of Spire Albion turned privateer. Grimm starts the story a bit down on his luck with a busted ship and limited ways to repair it.

Bridget Tagwynn is the last heir of a once-mighty family that has now fallen into obscurity. When she joins the Spire Guard for a year of mandatory service required for children of the aristocracy (along with her cat protector Rowl), she runs afoul of a son of a powerful family, and finds a pair of unlikely allies in Gwendolyn Lancaster and her warrior-born brother Benedict Sorrelin Lancaster, children of one of the spire’s strongest families.

Review: "Phoenix Rising" by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine

I readily admit to not being very well read in the steampunk subgenre, or very interested for that matter, but there a few things that caught my attention about Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine’s “Phoenix Rising” ($7.99, Harper Voyager).

For one, there was a pretty familiar name on the cover. I was part of fantasy writers’ e-mail list with Morris some years ago and was introduced to his other books “Morevi” and “Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword,” both of which I enjoyed, through that list. The main reason, though, was that it just looked like a fun book. And it is.

Wellington Books, the archivist for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences who prefers his files and organization to action, has been kidnapped and whisked to Antarctica by the secret organization the House of Usher. Field agent Eliza Braun is given the task of quietly eliminating the possibility that Books will reveal the ministry’s secrets. When she sees him, though, she has a change of heart and decides to rescue him instead – very loudly and with lots of dynamite.