Book #73 of 2022: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (The Laundry Files #1) This 2004 publication — which in my edition includes the novel The Atrocity Archive followed by a sequel novella “The Concrete Jungle” — introduces the Laundry, a secret British intelligence division dealing with magic and related otherworldly threats. It’s urban fantasy, …
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Book #26 of 2022: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell I would not call this experimental novel from 2004 a stone-cold classic, but it’s a surprisingly readable tome with an interesting structure of six nested narratives, each of which is reasonably compelling in its own right while offering thematic parallels forward and backwards in time to …
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Book #12 of 2022: The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) While I think the first trilogy of this fantasy saga remains its most thematically brilliant segment, and the second neatly integrates a new co-protagonist for a different perspective and set of psychological issues to work …
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Book #250 of 2021: The Narrows by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #10) This is one of the more serialized Harry Bosch adventures, at least of what I’ve read so far. Terry McCaleb, protagonist of Blood Work and the detective’s reluctant partner in A Darkness More Than Night, is dead. His widow suspects foul play, and …
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Book #178 of 2021: Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone by Kenneth Cain, Andrew Thomson, and Heidi Postlewait I have profoundly mixed feelings on this 2004 book, which documents its three authors’ experiences as United Nations peacekeepers in the 1990s. They initially meet while stationed together in Cambodia, but …
Book #176 of 2021: The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes (The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone #2) Another strong entry in this unfairly-obscure fantasy quartet. I don’t like it quite as much as the previous volume, in part since a couple of the new storylines — Anne’s to some extent, but especially Aspar’s — seem …
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Book #173 of 2021: Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #33) I generally enjoy the Discworld comic fantasy series, but this entry is perhaps a bit shaggy for my tastes. Although the basic premise of a con artist conscripted into running the failing Ankh-Morpork post office has potential, and that protagonist’s arc is a solid …
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Book #236 of 2019: The Man Who Tried to Get Away by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Man Who #3) In 1990, author Reed Stephens published this final book in an odd little mystery trilogy that seemed to care more about putting its detective characters through suffering and atonement than having them actually solve crimes. A …
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Book #155 of 2019: The Final Solution by Michael Chabon This novella offers a sparse but effective character study of an aging detective, unnamed yet clearly intended to be read as Sherlock Holmes. Feeling adrift in the new century, he comes out of retirement to help a young Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Germany — hence …
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Book #111 of 2019: Nightingale’s Lament by Simon R. Green (Nightside #3) I’ve been enjoying this pulp paperback series far less on a reread than I did when it was my first introduction to the urban fantasy genre back in high school. The main plot has yet to really kick off beyond vague portentous rumblings, …
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