Above, by Canadian author Leah Bobet, is a truly well-crafted novel, written by an author clearly comfortable with voice, language and imagery. In this dark, modern fairy tale Bobet writes from a very difficult point of view, yet manages to sustain tension that leaves the reader flayed. Her pace and the emotional impact of that pace is relentless. Not an easy read, not a novel you'd wish to pick up for a quick escape into something creamy, dreamy and fluffy, yet Above is very much worthy of your time and attention.

Overall the story deals with the story of Matthew, the story-keeper of a Torontonian underground society, and his tragic love of one of his fellow mutants, Ariel. But to summarize Bobet's tale by calling it a love story is to describe the Mona Lisa as a portrait. Just like the dystopian Toronto she creates, the story has layers upon layers. It is primarily a dark fantasy, yes. But it is also an indictment of barbaric psychiatric practices, of society's inability to deal with the homeless, with the estranged, with the strange. It is a social commentary written with adroitness and insight, and all done with an accomplished story-teller's art.

My only quibble, and it is a middling one, is the classification under which the publisher chose to list the book: young adult. While I can understand the reasoning behind that decision, I also cannot help but feel it was one chosen as an expedience, rather than a true understanding of Bobet's work and its impact. The tale is so dark, and the writing so at the edge of avant guard, that the novel might gain wider and better recognition under an adult classification.

But, as I mentioned, I quibble.

Certainly Bobet's novel is one worth your time. Recommended.

Short-listed for the 2013 Prix Aurora, Food for the Gods ticks all the boxes: It's impeccably researched, craftily written, with wit, humour, screamingly funny but believable characters and a rocketing good pace.

Dudley unfolds the story of Peplos, a put-upon murdered-but-resurrected son of the King of Lydia (a king, it should be noted, who fancied serving up an economical stew-of-son to his guests), who now attempts to make his way in Athens as, what else, a celebrity chef. What follows is a mad-cap and yet endearing escapade of villainous acts, interfering but well-meaning gods, who-dunnits and a love-story to boot. And Dudley carries this all off with a ridiculously deft hand, never missing a beat. Truly, I didn't want the story to end, and never once had a moment of flagging interest.

Published by Canadian indie press, Ravenstone, Food for the Gods is a shining example of the kind of genius and excellence that can result from small, independent press. If you're looking for an intelligent bit of escapism, Food for the Gods is your ticket.

A deftly and sensitively written novel, set in contemporary Pakistan and Afghanistan, which examines the pressures, complexities and ambiguities of both political and religious issues.

Aslam could have so easily succumbed to stridency and pontification about the Taliban and extremism whether Islamic or Western, and instead delivered an exquisitely heartbreaking story about being human, about what we will endure in the name of love, and about the irrelevance of human life in the face of absolutism. His writing, while subtle and lyrical, never meanders into purple prose, and instead weaves both character and environmental description into a seamless narrative that never flags or become ponderous. His characters are fully realized, lifting off the pages to inhabit the reader's world as living, breathing entities. His story lingers long after reading.

This is a novel to which I will return again and again, each time finding pleasure in the subtle tragedy Aslam reveals. Highly recommended.

Despite glowing Kirkus and reader reviews, I'd have to say Azuski's Travels In Elysium is a poorly researched, inconsistently written novel.

The story ostensibly revolves around a young man, Pedrosa, who takes up the position of a lifetime, to work with the legendary archaeologist Huxley, on a dig of epic proportions.

And that's where everything goes badly wrong, from a research point of view. Azuski presents a lost Atlantis as the foundation of his story, set in the Greek Islands, completely overlooking the research and news of 2011 which alleges to have found the lost city of Atlantis in an environmentally protected swamp in the south of Spain.

Further, Azuski's knowledge of archaeological technologies and procedures is naive, bordering on Indiana Jones gonzo exploration, so that characters are bulldozing, drilling and hacking away with glee through meters of ancient ash and lava without a clue as to whether their digging will produce any hope of finds. There is no use of geophysics technology, no radar, no sonar, no magnetic sweeps, nothing. Just frantic and erratic digging which sweeps away all the earlier layers of history and dumps them into the sea in the quest to find the lost city.

Then couple that with the fact the characters in the novel are digging on an active volcano, with poisonous gas leaks through vents in various unearthed buildings, and the entire credibility of the story falls apart. People are hallucinating on toxic fumes, experiencing metaphysical journeys to the Isles of the Blessed, when in fact they'd be falling into coma and dying.

Later, when the volcano finally begins an eruption, people are walking around through volcanic ash falling so heavily it's like snow. Again, Azuski demonstrates a complete lack of regard for any type of research, so that there are no ill effects whatever from these volcanic ashfalls. No one is burned. Everyone breathes perfectly fine in the shadow of the volcano. Boats at anchor experience no difficulty with being top heavy because of ash and pumice accumulating aboard.

As to the writing itself, although Azuski demonstrates evocative phraseology, his use of tense often shoots off in inconsistent directions, so that within one paragraph we're reading a narrative in past tense, then present tense, and back again.

Apparently the author has a penchant for fishing, because there are so many red herrings used in the first half to two thirds of this overly long novel, that the reader after awhile is ready to give up. First there is an allusion to vampires. Which turns out to be nothing. Then there's an allusion to a return-from-death cult which may have the privileged and decadent scrambling to inhabit both the temporal and metaphysical city being unearthed. And that fizzles. Then we have political unrest and thuggery, which fizzles. Then we have paparazzi swarming for a scoop on illegal export of priceless artifacts. And that slides off the pages. An addiction to staring blankly into the beyond within a certain temple in which people allegedly experience the metaphysical and live alternative lives. Which turns out to be gassing, which should have in fact meant death. And then, and then, and then....

Until the very end in which Azuski pulls the most amateur and novice stunt of all: it's all a coma-induced dream of the protagonist, Pedrosa.

Over six hundred pages. And it's all a dream.

What Azuski really needed was a developmental editor, someone to say get rid of the smelly fish, cut this novel in half, stick to a plot and revise, revise, revise.

Sergio Vila-Sanjuan's A Barcelona Heiress has all the ingredients for a great novel, following in the tradition of early 20th century writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck. There is the hotbed of political unrest during the Crown-supported dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, anarchists bombing Barcelona, a growing discontent of the country's poor and working classes.

Into this the author introduces a protagonist based upon his own family's history, an indigent aristocratic lawyer who moonlights as a reporter, and through the lens of that individual a series of seemingly disconnected characters and events.

All these elements could have been riveting, for certainly there is enough intrigue and danger in Spain's 20th century history to inspire even the most mundane minds. The execution, however, of that narrative tended to drag, partly because of long passages of exposition and political rhetoric, and partly because the author is so familiar with the history of which he's writing that he forgets to inform the reader. Historical characters walk on and off the page like old familiars, without giving the reader any reference or landmarks, which would be fine for a Spanish audience, but alas not for an English-speaking one, even one as familiar with Spain's history as this reviewer.

Transitions between scenes often runs to abruptness, leaving the reader adrift, although certainly the use of metaphor and language is accomplished. Overall, the novel needed the guidance of a good developmental editor, at least in this reviewer's opinion.

Worth reading? Indeed yes. Why? Because of the historical background if nothing else. Memorable? Not so much.

Harrison Demchick's The Listeners is a novel which, in this reviewer's opinion, could have been great, breaking all borders of genre. Alas, it falls short, due I believe to lack of good developmental editing. Certainly Demchick demonstrates he is a literary adept, with several passages that are breath-taking in their impact, and his concept is a new perspective on the much-overdone zombie apocalypse trope, enough so it kept this somewhat jaded reviewer reading. That says a great deal.

The story revolves, for the most part, around a young boy, Daniel Raymond, who finds himself adrift in a locked-down American city borough. There is the impression, through the boy's actions, he might be autistic, but that is never realized, so the reader is left to assume the boy is instead suffering from extreme shock. Simply put, the plot sees Daniel adopted by a quasi-religious male cult in which all followers, but for the leader, are relieved of their right ears so they might better hear the truth, or lies, we're not sure which because the lines become very blurred after awhile.

While the plague that destroys the city revolves around a zombie-creating virus, the real story is one of brutal survival and the bestiality of humankind, and ultimately becomes a vignette of gun-culture, jingoistic America. All very gritty and powerful stuff.

The actualisation, however, of the story is a confused and conflicting timeline that jumps so rapidly between past and present, without any linear landmarks in either period, that the story falters, stutters and several times comes very close to termination. Demichick's attempt to echo the protagonist's confusion and isolation through this timeline device is laudable, and with even a little guidance from Bancroft Press' editors would have been brilliant.

And while I'm greatly attracted to ambiguous endings because they often reflect life, Demchick's ending defies understanding and seems to completely contradict his protagonist's motivation. It's almost as though having gone on for too long (the story does tend to drag on after awhile), Demchick threw up his metaphorical hands and said, the hell with it, plucked an ending out of the air and tacked it on to his manuscript.

Having said all that, Demchick demonstrates clear promise as a writer, and I hope, with better editorial guidance, he will realize his full potential.

Ronlyn Domingue's latest novel, The Mapmaker's War: A Legend is an ambitious literary novel that more easily slides into the canon of magic realism than it does commercial fantasy. Generally an epic tale of a woman who defies convention and national obligation, the story explores issues of equality not only of the sexes, but of cultures, of governments founded on imperialism at the expense of all integrity, versus the cost of pacifism.

Brilliantly told from second person, present tense, Domingue's handling of this difficult voice is immediate, brilliant and compelling. At no point is dialogue written, rather it's told, and again demonstrates the author's skill in being able to take what could have been an extremely narrator-intrusive, action-stopping technique, and instead has rendered a story of imperatives.

The story itself is, as all timeless stories, driven by relationships and the characters behind those relationships, and in this case both are three dimensional and believable.

In tone I was very much minded of some of Ursula K. LeGuin and Candas Jane Dorsey's works, in particular Always Coming Home and Black Wine respectively.

Both an emotional and contemplative read, I highly recommend The Mapmaker's War to any lover of novels with depth and insight.

As many know, I don't readily give out 5-star reviews. In this case I'm compelled to do so. Why, when this isn't a literary series of books, but rather genre fiction? Because Suzanne Collins clearly demonstrates mastery of her craft, and by virtue of that talent she deserves high accolades.

If I had to use one word to summarize The Hunger Games trilogy it would be riveting. It isn't often a writer creates plot and characters so real, so compelling, I am haunted by them throughout both waking and dreaming hours.

Although the premise is simple: evil overlord/government reigns through tyranny, oppression and manipulation, it's this latter, Collins weaves so deftly through her story and thereby creates screaming tension and sense of outrage.

The language throughout is simple, conversational, written in first person present tense, not an easy feat, but certainly one done so deftly as a reader this literary device slides by almost unnoticed. And yet it is the use of first person, present tense which enhances the immediacy of the story. Like the children who are forced to participate in the killing-field of the Hunger Games, the reader is held suspended in the now, aware of the horror of the past, and the promise of only more horror to come. And although Collins periodically weaves in a moment of hope, they are so fleeting as to be like sunlight through storm clouds, and because of that poignant.

Simple moments become moments of import, both terrible and glorious. She has a way of setting up her reader, and then not only pulling out the rug, but the floor, collapsing the walls, leaving you wounded in rubble.

If you haven't already found yourself caught up in the hype around The Hunger Games I can assure you the trilogy is well worth the time and emotion you will expend.

I have every confidence this series will be studied in classrooms alongside other SF greats like The Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Brave New World.

It's always difficult to review a translated work, because when you come across either brilliance or lack of lustre, it's difficult to assess whether that boon or bane is attributable to the author or the translator.

Such is the case with <The Goddess Chronicle, by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland.

The story is a retelling of an original Japanese creation story. I suspect the original work by Kirino is a charged, tight story. Copeland's translation, however, lacks passion, and certainly this is a story about passion, in fact eons of passion as we trace the history of the Yin/Yang gods of Izanami and Izanaki through the mortal lives of Namima and her unscrupulous lover.

There is much here of sibling rivalry and betrayal of sacred trusts, of epic journeys both temporal and spiritual. There is a genesis story, a parallel to the Greek Persephone myth. There is the struggle of the desperately poor serving religious tenets that serve only to embed their poverty.

It's all there. And not a single phrase of elegance or startling insight to lift the reader from a grey narrative to the chiaroscuro the story demands.

Joan Druett's Island of the Lost is an impeccably researched, well-written, well-presented history of two concurrent wrecks on the Auckland Islands in the late 19th century.

Her easy style balances journalistic integrity with the need to captivate the reader, and holds you from the first paragraph and never lags.

Overall, the stories of these two groups of shipwrecked sailors is a keen contrast between the higher ideals and purposes of humans, and our more base, predatory instincts. In fact, the actions of these real, historical people will both astonish and disgust you.

Oh, and now Auckland Islands is now the second place on earth I would never wish to visit unless I had a death-wish.