Book #51 of 2024: Book of Oceans by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #8) Unfortunately the weakest Diadem title yet. This next sequel finds Pixel’s new girlfriend Jenna still squabbling with Helaine, despite six months having passed since they left their homeworld’s rigid class system behind them at the end of the previous volume. …
Tag Archives: books written in 2005
Book Review: Book of War by John Peel
Book #45 of 2024: Book of War by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #7) The Diadem series had its ups and downs, but when it ended its initial six-book run with Scholastic in 1998, there weren’t really any major lingering plot threads that made its continuation seem likely or at all necessary from a …
Book Review: Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
Book #16 of 2024: Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler This collection of short stories (originally published in 1995, then revised in 2005 with two additional entries) was the last work of author Octavia E. Butler’s fiction that I hadn’t yet read, so it’s been a bittersweet experience for me this week to …
Continue reading “Book Review: Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler”
Book Review: Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Book #70 of 2023: Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin The concept of an afterlife where everyone ages in reverse (until becoming a baby again and getting sent off to earth to be reborn as someone else) is neat, but I’m less sold on the rather generic plot that this novel provides as our lens into that …
Continue reading “Book Review: Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin”
Book Review: Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories by Garth Nix
Book #67 of 2023: Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories by Garth Nix Overall I would say that this book of short fiction — most but not all of it situated in either fantasy or an adjacent genre — is a success. The strongest piece is probably the novella that …
Book Review: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
Book #280 of 2021: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly (Mickey Haller #1) I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Harry Bosch‘s estranged half-brother, but I’m delighted to find that he’s a lawyer in the Jimmy McGill style, barely scraping by as he represents various miscreants — literally operating an office out of the …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly”
Book Review: The Closers by Michael Connelly
Book #262 of 2021: The Closers by Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch #11) After two volumes spent as a private investigator, Harry Bosch has now returned to his roots at the LAPD. (In an afterword, author Michael Connelly explains that his favorite cases are the murders, and it seemed too implausible for a civilian to keep …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Closers by Michael Connelly”
Book Review: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
Book #85 of 2021: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly It’s March 2021, and I’ve read quite a few titles over the past year looking at the global history of pandemics, the science behind their causes, and the strategies that led …
Book Review: Thud! by Terry Pratchett
Book #264 of 2020: Thud! by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #34) Maybe it’s due to the inevitable comedown from the thoroughly excellent Night Watch, but I haven’t enjoyed this next City Watch novel nearly as much as I expected to. There’s a great worldbuilding revelation at the end, yet this is one of those Discworld books …
Book Review: Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne Jones
Book #90 of 2020: Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne Jones (Chrestomanci #5) This fifth Chrestomanci volume — in both publication and author’s suggested reading order; actually the second chronologically — has a great set-up, but it throws out too many intriguing complications that aren’t given the development they’d need to land with any proper impact. …
Continue reading “Book Review: Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne Jones”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 