SCI-FI & FANTASY
ANGEL MAGE by Garth Nix
(Gollancz £18.99, 560 pp) Think of rapiers and gauntlets, cardinals and queens, add in a healthy dose of magical icons, angelic hierarchies and ashblooded beastling monsters, and what do you have? The Three Musketeers, but with wings on.
Four young people arrive at the court of Queen Sofia in the land of Sarance. But to make their mark — and drag themselves out of trouble — they must join the Musketeers and go treasurehunting in the cursed land of Ystara. Angels are called, swords are swished and there are jealousies and romances galore in this riotous romp.
Best of all, our four musketeers are pitted against a gorgeous villain, the deadly Liliath, awoken from the sleep of ages to wreak havoc on the world.
CALL DOWN THE HAWK by Maggie Stiefvater
(Scholastic £7.99, 448 pp) To wRiTE about magic, it helps if you write like an angel — like, in fact, Maggie Stiefvater, who conjures up an America where dreams really do come true and awful consequences play out with pin-sharp clarity.
The Lynch family is different. Their father was a dreamer, Ronan has inherited the blessing/ curse and his younger brother is, well, a dream in more ways than one. But suppose a dreamer dreams up the end of the world? Enter Carmen, a determined but very human killer, tasked with stopping it all.
Add in an unbelievably irritating teenage psychic and an uber-cool art forger, and hey presto — you’re in for an utterly beguiling, unsettling read that will get into your head and make you pray for quiet nights.
SURVIVORS by G X Todd
(Headline £18.99, 512 pp) iT’S the voices. Some of us have them and some of us don’t, and in the way of such things, the have-nots are waging war against the haves. it’s understandable, in a way: the voices have led to the destruction of people’s minds and society, and pretty much everything has gone to hell in a handcart.
Moving from the grim confines of a mental institution to a post-apocalyptic America, we follow the enigmatic Pilgrim and his gang of misfits on an obsessive odyssey to find a girl named Lacey.
it’s all told with bleak precision — Lee Child channelling Stephen king — but the vision is unique and, against all the odds, the humanity of the survivors shines through the gloom.