God's War

If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Kameron Hurley's God's War. Hurley's heroine, Nyx, is one of the most bad-ass characters I've seen in a while. She's a bounty hunter on a world where two Islamic countries are in the middle of a three hundred year old war. Nyx has a handful of employees and other than that it seems everyone else wants her dead or at least severely beaten on a regular basis.

There are magicians and shape-shifters, though this is science fiction rather than fantasy novel. Having said that, what happens to the shape-shifters mass when changing form isn't explained and so it seems pretty magical. The magicians are mighty handy surgeons who have organ and limb transplants down to a ho-hum. And there's this thing with bugs. There are bugs and bugs and bugs everywhere and they're used for all manor of useful things, many of which - like powering semi-organic vehicles - happen without my understanding, but my understanding isn't necessary to a great story. All this weirdness just makes for lots of cool.

It's a very brutal world and Nyx is on the receiving end of much of that brutality. Her ability to get back up even when her body, her team and her circumstances are falling into shit goes beyond making her an interesting character and actually inspires me. If you like Batman or Conan, but wish they had a little more depth and humanity, Nyx is your lady.

Check it out and if you like it, the sequel, Infidel, will be out in mere days. I'll definitely be picking it up. You can get both books through Kameron Hurley's website.