A review by 38_simulated
The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

5.0

It's good to watch an author developing before your eyes. Jen Williams' previous books, The Copper Cat Trilogy were fun undemanding heroic fantasy, very clearly inspired by Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. The easy road would have been to keep turning out the Lankhmar pastiches, but this new book is on a different level. I'm not going to go into plot (because spoilers) but this is a vividly imagined world, with a great sense of place and history, some original concepts and engaging characters. Fantasy is a field that is very prone to repetition and staleness, but this is one of the freshest books I've read in the genre for a long time. Part two is definitely going to the top of my want list, if I can stick waiting another year!