Over the Dragon’s Wallby Alanna VanePublished by Cold Blue PressReview by Kelli Worton$15.99 ISBN 9781738023325 Book One in the Children of Koshluk series, Over the Dragon’s Wall is a tremendous surprise of a book. In it, we are introduced to 13-year-old Sage, who lives in the woods outside a small village in Koshluk with her mother, father, and two younger siblings, Violet and Wren. Here, they live a simple life. Sage’s mother is a musician, and often sings and plays the violin for the family; Sage’s father makes furniture, and while they don’t have a lot, they have a home filled with love and warmth. This ends when Sage’s mother dies. Overwhelmed by grief, Sage’s father is unable to take care of even the children’s most basic needs. He finally abandons them, leaving Sage responsible for her siblings, and thrusting them into a tenuous, uncertain future. Then one day, Sage finds a picture of a dragon named Nytari, who is said to be the Guardian of Fate. Searching for a way to keep her siblings together and hoping to appeal to Nytari to change her fate, Sage undertakes a journey to find him. A gate to a mysterious world where…

The Good Soldierby Nir YanivPublished by Shadowpaw PressReview by Kelli Worton$24.99 ISBN 9781989398821 People always say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it was the cover that first drew me to The Good Soldier. An obvious mockery of war propaganda posters that boldly proclaim unstoppable military power and the imminent defeat of all enemies while also featuring images of ideal soldiers (I’m looking at you, North Korea), The Good Soldier’s cover instead shows a jubilant, chubby soldier riding a missile while holding a grinning, fluffy white dog. It’s a pretty good indication of what you’ll find inside: an absurd, yet blistering satire of military culture and war. The meaning of the dog is revealed in due course. The jubilant soldier in question is the book’s extremely unlikely hero, Pre-Private Fux (yes, really), a recent recruit to the United Planets’ Imperial Navy, stationed aboard the spacecraft UPS Spitz. He’s an idiot, second-class, a fact confirmed by the police on his home planet Bohemia IV, and noted on his ID. As he causes one incident after another on the UPS Spitz, he’s quickly labelled a menace; in the first five chapters alone, medical devices are broken, officers are…