The Alchemist’s Apprentice – Dave Duncan
Penguin Ace, 2007
320 pages
RRP: US$14.00
ISBN: 9780441014798

Reviewed by Karen Miller

I picked up this book because it’s by Dave Duncan. I really enjoy a lot of his work – not every series he’s released, some resonate more than others – and so hoped to enjoy this one, too. But I got a real shock when I opened it, because this one’s written in first person, a stylistic choice that usually puts me off. It’s not Duncan’s usual choice, either, which is why I wasn’t expecting it and perhaps, if it hadn’t been a Duncan novel, I might not have persevered. Which doubtless means I’m a flawed reader… but be that as it may…

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Empress of Mijak (Godspeaker vol. 1) – Karen Miller
HarperCollins Voyager, 2007
565 pages
RRP: AU$20.99
ISBN: 978-0-7322-8451-1

Reviewed by Cat Sparks

Empress of Mijak is the story of a girl: a nameless she-brat, purchased by traders in the Savage North, favoured as a rich man might favour a pet, told she is beautiful and precious, yet imprisoned as a slave. Hekat, as she names herself, takes the words “beautiful” and “precious” to heart and sees how she might make something of herself in the brutal city of Et-Raklion. When she learns of the fate traders Abajai and Yagji have in mind for her, she mutilates her own face and cuts herself an alternate destiny, one in which she catches both the god’s and the warlord Raklion’s eye.

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