John Crowley's Aegypt Quartet asks the question, "What if there was more than one history of the world?"; David Walton's Quintessence, on the other hand, actually explores one of these alternate histories. It is set in a world that follows the rules of known science in the sixteenth century--which means the world is flat and …
Category: Historical Fantasy
Endless Things by John Crowley
If you arrived at a crossroads, would you take the right or the left fork? We are faced every day of our lives with choosing a path. Once our decision takes us onward, we cannot return. The past that once was--and the path we might have chosen instead--grows more and more distant with each 'Y' …
Demon Hunter Severian: Lady of the Night Gates by Giovanni Anastasi
Milan during the time of Bishop Ambrose and Emperor Theodosius in 394 AD was the new centre of the Roman Empire, a cosmopolitan city home to Christian and pagan alike--the perfect setting for demon hunt. A young girl and an elderly priest are found dead in their beds under similar circumstances, after a night of …
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Daemonomania by John Crowley
An old world is dying; a new one struggling to be reborn. What was possible, during the old age, becomes something that had always been impossible, in the new. Daemonomania is John Crowley's third novel in his Aegypt Cycle. It continues the story from Love & Sleep and The Solitudes, which blends New Age occultism, …
King of Egypt, King of Dreams by Gwendolyn MacEwen
Gwendolyn MacEwen's historical novel King of Egypt, King of Dreams was published in 1971 and as far as I know, it is out of print-except by online order from Insomniac Press. Nonetheless I am fascinated to review it, because it stands as a powerful testimony to the tragedy of those who own a unique, transcendent …
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The Chalchiuhite Dragon by Kenneth Morris
Perusing the books on sale at MythCon 45 at Wheaton College in Norton, MA this summer, I stumbled across a most peculiar historical fantasy novel. It was the long-lost masterpiece of Kenneth Morris, The Chalchiuhite Dragon. Well-known, if not actually famous, for his modern Celtic fantasies such as The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed …
Gateways by Brian Gottheil
Brian Gottheil has self-published Gateways through Smashwords. If you would like to order a copy, click here. We re-imagine World War I, a century after its declaration in 1914, as a time of heroic sacrifice. It was also a time of foreboding, since it alluded to the mass causalities that would follow in the various …
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
What if dragons and their riders formed their own corps of soldiers adjacent to the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars? You get Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, the first novel of which, His Majesty's Dragon, I have just finished reading on my Kobo. William Laurence, a Royal Navy captain engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, captures …
Love & Sleep by John Crowley
The sequel to John Crowley's Aegypt (The Solitudes), Love & Sleep continues the story of Pierce Moffet's quest to write his history of histories, a book that in which he will propose that there is more than one history of the world. He must decide what to do with the posthumous, unfinished manuscript of historical …
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
We had magic before the crows came. Joseph Boyden begins The Orenda with an allusion to the lost world of Huronia that is suggestive of a certain insight proposed in John Crowley's Aegypt sequence: the world was not always what it has since become. Huronia, the land of the Wendat nation, has since vanished, along …
Matthew Rettino 