Book #125 of 2024: The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman An excellent and appreciably queer new prequel to 2021’s The Blacktongue Priest, although the two stories are so standalone that they could probably be read in either order. Approaching them by release date, as I have, merely underscores the tragic nature of the present title: …
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Book #124 of 2024: Stone Speaks to Stone by Victoria Goddard A roughly-standalone prequel novella to author Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing & Dart series (which is itself just a smaller piece of her overarching Nine Worlds fantasy saga). I’ve chosen to read it after the first three G&D novels, which feels like the right choice, as …
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Book #116 of 2024: Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse (Between Earth and Sky #3) A satisfyingly epic conclusion to this queer and Mesoamerican-flavored fantasy trilogy. As expected, it doesn’t quite hit the heights of the first volume, while cementing the middle book as a fairly forgettable bridge towards this more eventful finale. But everything wraps …
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Book #115 of 2024: Taltos by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #4) We’ve once again jumped around in the timeline for this fourth Vlad Taltos installment, though as usual, the context clues make it pretty easy to place the adventure in its proper spot within the protagonist’s personal lifespan. In this case, it’s his earliest outing …
Book #113 of 2024: Whiskeyjack by Victoria Goddard (Greenwing & Dart #3) Another noticeable step forward for this Regency-pastiche fantasy series, though still not quite strong enough to clear the three-star rating tier for me. (I thought it might for a while, but the lengthy scene where Jemis applies esoteric Kabbalistic cryptography to decipher a …
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Book #110 of 2024: A Whisper in the Walls by Scott Reintgen (Waxways #2) This second novel in the Waxways YA fantasy trilogy has quintessential middle volume problems, laying foundations for the conclusion ahead at the expense of the immediate story at hand. It also represents a significant step down in quality from its predecessor, …
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Book #104 of 2024: Teckla by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #3) Another crisis with antihero Vladimir Taltos, sorcerer-assassin and crime boss of his local fantasy city. This third adventure takes place soon after book one (the second volume being a prequel), and offers probably the most straightforward plot yet: the protagonist’s wife has gotten involved …
Book #103 of 2024: The Way of Kings Prime: A Sanderson Curiosity by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is not The Way of Kings, the debut novel in the series The Stormlight Archive that author Brandon Sanderson published in 2010. It’s rather his initial attempt at telling a story …
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Book #102 of 2024: Bee Sting Cake by Victoria Goddard (Greenwing & Dart #2) I’m still not loving the Greenwing & Dart sub-series nearly as much as the other books I’ve read in author Victoria Goddard’s broader Nine Worlds saga, but this second volume is a marked improvement over the first. Taking place only a …
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Book #95 of 2024: The Will of the Many by James Islington (The Hierarchy #1) This fantasy novel starts off strong and gets even better from there, spinning a tale that’s rather reminiscent of Red Rising in both its Roman-inflected worldbuilding and its rage-filled protagonist infiltrating the high society of his enemies (and subsequently feeling …
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