Book #34 of 2023: Sabriel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #1) A thoroughly excellent modern fantasy classic, published in 1995 but just as enjoyable now upon my umpteenth reread. (I can’t remember when I first encountered it, but I do recall thinking in amazement that it was like a written version of the Diablo …
Tag Archives: fantasy
Book Review: The Afterward by E. K. Johnston
Book #30 of 2023: The Afterward by E. K. Johnston I like the idea of following up with a band of adventurers after they’ve completed their quest to save the world, and all the more so that our focus is on a pair of young women who became romantically entwined on that adventure but are …
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Book Review: Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard
Book #29 of 2023: Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard (Carter & Lovecraft #1) The vibes of this fantasy noir, in which a private investigator learns that H. P. Lovecraft actually experienced some of the cosmic horrors he wrote about and gets caught up in a plot with the writer’s descendant, are top-notch. As …
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Book Review: The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink
Book #28 of 2023: The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink Two-and-a-half stars rounded up, in recognition of the fact that I’m not in the target audience for this middle-grade horror/fantasy novel, despite how I often enjoy that genre regardless, or how much I love author Joseph Fink’s unrelated Welcome to Night Vale podcast and books. …
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Book Review: The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice by David Calder
Book #24 of 2023: The Dragonslayer’s Apprentice by David Calder I remember checking out this book from the library on multiple occasions as a kid, but upon belatedly getting around to an adult reread, I’m disappointed to report that it seems an utterly unremarkable story. The setting is the most generic medieval fantasy land, with …
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Book Review: The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #23 of 2023: The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #6) This final Earthsea volume is fine, but it hasn’t grabbed me like the series can at its best. We again find author Ursula K. Le Guin in course-correction mode, and if books 4 and 5 were primarily intended to rectify and …
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Book Review: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Book #21 of 2023: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean This is certainly a distinctive fantasy novel, but it’s not one that entirely works for me in execution. Part of the problem is the split timeline, alternating between the heroine’s experiences leading up to her separation from her family and her subsequent life on the …
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Book Review: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Book #18 of 2023: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo (Alex Stern #2) Overall a three-star read for me, and a marked step down from its predecessor. I actually do like the middle of this book — the slowest part of many novels — when, as promised by the title, the protagonist and her companions invoke …
Book Review: Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard
Book #16 of 2023: Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard This novella revisits and expands upon a slice of backstory previously mentioned in author Victoria Goddard’s excellent fantasy doorstopper The Hands of the Emperor, when Cliopher Mdang first began service as His Radiancy’s personal secretary. Except while that book was generally presented from Kip’s third-person limited …
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Book Review: Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater
Book #15 of 2023: Bravely by Maggie Stiefvater This seems like it should have been an easy layup: beloved YA fantasist (and Celticist) Maggie Stiefvater writing an officially licensed sequel to Pixar’s Brave, the one about ancient Scottish magic, the mom who turns into a bear, and the headstrong daughter who breaks the curse by …
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