Book #147 of 2021: Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older (Dactyl Hill Squad #1) This is a fun little historical fantasy romp. Dinosaurs in the Civil War era! A mostly-POC cast including a protagonist who can control the animals with her mind! But as with many middle-grade projects, the characters don’t always feel like …
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Book #142 of 2021: Red Glove by Holly Black (The Curse Workers #2) I’m still not comfortable with the ethical implications of the memory and emotion manipulation magic in the Curse Workers setting, but I like how this sequel finds the hero himself grappling with the problematic nature of his family’s abilities as well. At …
Book #137 of 2021: Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo (King of Scars #2) This is a much busier volume than its predecessor in the King of Scars duology, but author Leigh Bardugo impressively manages to bring it all together in the end (which is a welcome change from how disconnected Nina’s storyline felt before). …
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Book #127 of 2021: The One Tree by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2) A thoroughly excellent nautical fantasy, fleshing out the wider landscape of this setting, adding fascinating new wrinkles to the series lore, and finally introducing readers to beings like the sandgorgons and Elohim who had been briefly mentioned …
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Book #126 of 2021: The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang (Tensorate #1) Some fantasy stories invent cool worldbuilding but then neglect to tell a compelling narrative within that space; others do the opposite and offer a rousing plot amid a generic landscape of medieval castles and kings. This novella, I am happy to …
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Book #123 of 2021: Passing Strange by Ellen Klages There’s a lot to enjoy in this detail-heavy novella of queer life (and particularly its romance of two women) in 1940 San Francisco, but I wish it would provide greater connective tissue between its chapters — and that the minor fantasy element at the start and …
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Book #119 of 2021: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (Danielle Cain #1) The setting to this supernatural horror novella is a lot of fun, offering a sort of queer punk commune made up of squatters and/or idealistic radical leftists who are noticeably less common in fiction than in real life. I …
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Book #114 of 2021: White Cat by Holly Black (The Curse Workers #1) I’ve enjoyed this fantasy novel enough to continue on to the rest of the trilogy, but I have some real issues with the memory and emotion manipulation magic that populates the story. The protagonist at least somewhat recognizes how problematic it is, …
Book #111 of 2021: The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #1) In the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, the titular antihero resisted the appeal of the fantasy realm that summoned him from our reality, but gradually came to decide that its ideals were worth fighting for even if he …
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Book #107 of 2021: The Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark This 2018 novella is short enough that it feels more like a proof-of-concept for the setting than a full story, and while that worldbuilding has cool potential — a steampunk Afrofuturist historical fiction version of New Orleans that’s neutral in a Civil War …
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