Early Reviewers

A thought-provoking sometimes heartbreaking novel which absorbingly examines the dynamics and power shifts between oppressed and oppressor. Elemental Logic: Book 2 Spectrum Award winner The second book of Shaftal. The country has a ruler again, Karis, a woman who can heal the war-torn land and expel the invaders. But she lives in obscurity with her fractious found family. With war and disease spreading, Karis must act. And when Karis acts, the very stones of the earth sit up and take notice. “With this follow-up to Fire Logic, Marks produces another stunner of a book. The powerful but subtle writing glows with intelligence, and the passionate, fierce, articulate, strong, and vital characters are among the most memorable in contemporary fantasy, though not for the faint of heart. Definitely for the thinking reader.”—Booklist (starred review) “The sequel to Fire Logic continues the tale of a woman born to magic and destined to rule. Vivid descriptions and a well-thought-out system of magic.”—Library Journal “Twenty years after the invading Sainnites won the Battle of Lilterwess, the struggle for the world of Shaftal is far from finished in Marks’s stirring, intricately detailed sequel to Fire Logic. . . . Full of love and humor as well as war and intrigue, this well-crafted epic fantasy will delight existing fans as surely as it will win new ones.”—Publishers Weekly “Rich and affecting. . . . A thought-provoking and sometimes heartbreaking political novel.”—BookPage “Intelligent, splendidly visualized, and beautifully written. Laurie Marks’s use of language is really tremendous.”—Paula Volsky “A dense and layered book filled with complex people facing impossible choices. Crammed with unconventional families, conflicted soldiers, amnesiac storytellers, and practical gods, the story also finds time for magical myths of origin and moments of warm, quiet humor. Against a bitter backdrop of war and winter, Marks offers hope in the form of various triumphs: of fellowship over chaos, the future over the past, and love over death.”—Sharon Shinn “A powerful and hopeful story where the peacemakers are as heroic as the warriors; where there is magic in good food and flower bulbs; and where the most powerful weapon of all is a printing press.”—Naomi Kritzer “Earth Logic is not a book of large battles and heart-stopping chases; rather, it’s more gradual and contemplative and inexorable, like the earth bloods who people it. It’s a novel of the everyday folk who are often ignored in fantasy novels, the farmers and cooks and healers. In this novel, the everyday lives side by side with the extraordinary, and sometimes within it; Karis herself embodies the power of ordinary, mundane methods to change the world.”—SF Revu “It is an ambitious thing to do, in this time of enemies and hatreds, to suggest that a conflict can be resolved by peaceable means. Laurie Marks believes that it can be done, and she relies relatively little on magic to make it work.”—Cheryl Morgan, Emerald City Cover art by Kathleen Jennings. Laurie J. Marks's Elemental Logic novels (Fire Logic, Earth Logic, and Water Logic) received multiple starred reviews and the first two both won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. Marks's fourth Elemental Logic novel, Air Logic will be published in June 2019. She lives in Massachusetts and teaches at the University of Massachusetts.