Bujold, Lois McMaster. Paladin of Souls.

NY: HarperCollins, 2003.

When last we saw the Dowager Royina Ista of Chalion (who’s actually only about forty), she had regained her sanity, the curse over the royal family (and thus over the country) having been removed by Castillar de Cazaril, who has now become Chancellor to Ista’s daughter, the young Royina Iselle and her husband, Royse Bergon of the kingdom next door.

Harrison, Kim. A Perfect Blood.

NY: HarperCollins, 2012.

I almost hate to confess to it, but Harrison is another of my “automatic” authors, those few novelists whose new books I buy without even bothering to read the reviews. Vampire/witchcraft romances are very much not my thing, but I read the first volume in this hugely popular series a few years ago almost by accident — and now I’m trapped. (Is that a charm or a curse?)

Pratchett, Terry. Eric.

NY: Harper, 1990.

As Pratchett fans know, the several dozen tales set on the Discworld aren’t a single series, or even a cycle. They’re a collection of skeins of stories featuring a variety of focal characters, though many of these overlap in various ways. (The two best subseries, I think, are those about the witches and those about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork.)

Baker, Kage. The Bird of the River.

NY: Tor, 2010.

This very appealing book is the third and last volume in a trilogy set in a fantasy world that is both very like and very unlike our own. In fact, unless she had an unpublished manuscript or two in her desk drawer, it’s the last work we will see from Baker, who died of cancer in 2010. (Which means fans of the “Company” novels are never going to find out what happened in 2355, dammit.)

Baker, Kage. The House of the Stag.

NY: Tor, 2008.

This is the second volume of the fantasy trilogy that began with The Anvil of the World, and it’s a far better book. It’s also not a sequel but a sort of prequel, and you still must have read the first book or you’ll miss the import of nine-tenths of what’s going on in this one. Every world, real or fictional, includes “furniture” — the history, cultural evolution, mythology, and religion that provide the background to present-day life.

Baker, Kage. The Anvil of the World.

NY: Tor, 2003.

Except perhaps in her very first book, The Garden of Iden, and though Baker has often excelled in developing intriguing characters, and in creating interesting worlds for them to live in, and writing scintillatingly witty dialogue for them to communicate by, she has just as often fallen short when it comes to working out a coherent plot.

Harrison, Kim. Pale Demon.

NY: HarperCollins, 2011.

Way back in 2004, an unknown author came out with a sort-of urban fantasy called Dead Witch Walking, about an earth witch (a “white” witch, that is, and a sort-of private detective), named Rachel Morgan and her partners, Ivy Tamwood (a “living vampire”), and Jenks (a six-inch-high pixie, complete with wings and Tinker Belle dust, and thoroughly deadly).