Do You Know This Book?

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Isles of the Emberdark is a 2026 fantasy novel by Brandon Sanderson. From the book’s official summary: “All his life, Sixth of the Dusk has been a traditional trapper of Aviar—the supernatural birds his people bond with—on the deadly island of Patji. Then one fateful night he propels his people into a race to modernize before they can be conquered by the Ones Above, invaders from the stars who want to exploit the Aviar. But it’s a race they’re losing, and Dusk fears his people will lose themselves in the effort. When a chance comes to sail into the expanse of the emberdark beyond a mystical portal, Dusk sets off to find his people’s salvation with only a canoe, his birds, and all the grit and canniness of a Patji trapper. Elsewhere in the emberdark is a young dragon chained in human form: Starling of the starship Dynamic. She and her ragtag crew of exiles are deep in debt and on the brink of losing their freedom. So when she finds an ancient map to a hidden portal between the emberdark and the physical realm, she seizes the chance at a lucrative discovery. These unlikely allies might just be the solution to each other’s crises. In their search for independence, Dusk and Starling face perilous bargains, poisonous politics, and the destructive echo of a dead god.”

There’s another heartbreaking one from the same period in which a woman mourning her son’s murder specifically grieves for “my son who will never bring wedding gifts to his father-in-law’s house, my son who will never bounce a child on his knees.”

And some time between 2200 and 1900 BCE, a refugee from the destroyed city of Isin (now in South-Central Iraq) wrote this:

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Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution is a 2023 nonfiction book about human evolution written by American scientist Cat Bohannon. From Wikipedia: “The book explores how women’s biology shaped human history and culture. One claim in the book is that when it comes to biological and medical research and clinical drug trials, women's bodies have long been overlooked because males have fewer "complicating" factors such as the estrous cycle.

The book won Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year in December 2023. In a review published in The Guardian, scientist Kate Womersley called the book "long overdue". Writing for The New York Times, Sarah Lyall concluded the book was "engaging, playful, erudite, discursive and rich with detail". In the same paper, Cindi Leive wrote in her review that the book "makes a powerful argument for the pivotal role female Homo sapiens have played in making us human".

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The Dragon of Wantley is a legend of a dragon-slaying by a knight on Wharncliffe Crags in South Yorkshire, recounted in a comic broadside ballad of 1685. From Wikipedia: “It was later included in Thomas Percy's 1767 Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, enjoying widespread popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, although less well-known today. In 1737, the ballad was adapted (in English) into one of the more successful operas to appear in London up to that point.”

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The Last Dragon on Mars is a 2024 science fiction novel by Scott Reintgen. From the book’s official summary: “Keep your eyes down and your feet moving, or this planet will rust you. That’s what Lunar Jones tells the other kids at the relocation clinic. All of them were born on Mars, a planet that never wanted people in the first place. With resources scarce and hope even scarcer, it’s easy to get distracted looking up. After all, their ancestors descended from the stars. Martian history always starts with Earth. The first astronauts discovered that space was already occupied. Not by little green men or flying saucers. It was full of dragons. One for every moon, every planet, every star. When humanity discovered that Earth’s dragon had sacrificed herself to make their home planet habitable, they set their sights on Mars. If one dead dragon could breathe life into a world, why not create another one? Mankind won the war that followed, but with one catch. As the dragon died, he whispered a curse over Mars. The first settlers found their crops wouldn’t grow. Animals hunted them. Storms raged endlessly. It took three generations to figure out the truth: Mars was doomed. Lunar knows all the old stories about dragons and space, but no one up there’s planning to help him or his crew. Instead, he focuses on scrapping valuable gear that the storms uncover in the war zone. Until one day, a salvaging run goes wrong. Desperate to find shelter, Lunar goes underground in a restricted zone. What he finds there, buried in the Martian dust, might just be the only hope left for a dying planet.”

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The Golden Door is a 2011 fantasy novel by Emily Rodda. From Wikipedia: “The first in The Three Doors series, the story follows a sixteen-year-old boy named Rye as he journeys through three mysterious doors in search of his missing brothers.

The Three Doors trilogy received positive reviews from critics, who initially praised the series for its writing, worldbuilding, and subversion of gender stereotypes, with one critic stating that The Golden Door's "concise prose builds strong images of Rye's world and the people and creatures he encounters." The reviewer also praised the characterization of Rye and how his "strengths are hidden and his weaknesses obvious."

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Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a 2023 historical fiction novel by Lisa See. From Wikipedia: “The novel is inspired by the true story of Tan Yunxian, a woman physician from 15th-century China. In the novel, Yunxian begins the novel as the sheltered eight-year-old daughter of a wealthy and prominent scholarly family from Wuxi. Her mother dies after her bound feet are infected, and the siblings are sent to live with their paternal grandparents in their large compound, the Mansion of Golden Light. Grandfather Tan and Grandmother Ru are trained physicians, and Ru decides to pass on her knowledge of women's medicine to her granddaughter.”

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A Darker Shade of Magic is a 2015 adult fantasy novel by American author V.E. Schwab. It is the first installment of the Shades of Magic trilogy. From Wikipedia: “Kell is an Antari—a rare magician with powerful innate magic that sets him apart from others, who have to study hard to master magic. As an Antari, he has the rare ability to travel between parallel Londons, which he calls Red, Grey, White, and Black. Kell was adopted at a young age by the King and Queen of Maresh Empire of Red London. He works as an ambassador, traveling between worlds to deliver messages between officials in magical and thriving Red London, the magicless Grey London, and White London, which has been ravaged by magic. Kell also has a secret life as a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of magic. When the Maresh king and queen receive an enchanted necklace from White London, they send Kell to deliver a message in return. When he returns home, he realizes their king and queen—twins Astrid and Athos—have slipped him a powerful black stone. The stone is a dangerous relic from Black London, which fell centuries ago when its people’s greed for magic exceeded their ability to control it, and all remnants of the lost world were supposedly destroyed. Together with the thief Delilah (Lilah) Bard from Grey London, the two come up with a dangerous plan to return the stone to Black London.

The Guardian called A Darker Shade of Magic "a compelling, swashbuckling read reminiscent of Tim Powers’ more gung-ho fantasies". It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and a Goodreads Choice Award.

The second installment of the Shades of Magic series, titled A Gathering of Shadows, was released on February 23, 2016. The third book in the series, A Conjuring of Light, was released February 21, 2017.

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The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany. From Wikipedia: “The novel is widely recognized as one of the most influential and acclaimed works in all of fantasy literature. Although the novel faded into relative obscurity following its initial release, it found new longevity and wider critical acclaim when a paperback edition was released in 1969 as the second volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

The novel's reputation has continued to grow in the ensuing decades. In his review of the 1999 edition for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Charles de Lint praised the novel as superlative: "It's not simply the beauty of the language, the astute eye for character, the hint of humor, or even the spell of legendry and wonder, but Dunsany's unique combination of all of the above. Even read today, with all the fantasy novels I've read, his work remains fresh and exuberant". Gahan Wilson also praised Elfland's Daughter lavishly, calling it "likely Dunsany's masterpiece" and concluding "that may well be the same as saying it could be the very best fairy story ever written".