Book #35 of 2021: The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones It’s always neat to see a fantasy story built on Welsh mythology, but the plot to this one is a slower and pretty generic quest narrative, and I haven’t quite found the protagonists interesting enough to justify spending so much of the novel with just …
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Book #33 of 2021: The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #7) What a depressing and offensive conclusion to a generally solid children’s fantasy heptalogy. Author C. S. Lewis has always had his share of mid-twentieth-century hangups, but they are seldom so blatantly awful as here, where traditional feminine interests like …
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Book #30 of 2021: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #2) Not quite as powerfully moving as the previous novella, but still well above much of the fantasy genre. In this story, returning protagonist Cleric Chih is waylaid on their travels by a pack of hungry tigresses, …
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Book #29 of 2021: The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #5) These Amber sequels have never really lived up to the promise of their series debut, and since this fifth book brings the initial story arc to a close, I think it’s a good moment to cut my losses and …
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Book #26 of 2021: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova (Brooklyn Brujas #1) A fun #ownvoices fantasy built on indigenous Latinx mythology, rather like Percy Jackson in aiming for the younger side of the YA market. The plot is a classic careful-what-you-wish-for scenario, in which a teenager frightened by her family’s magic tries to lose her …
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Book #25 of 2021: Eternal Life by Dara Horn I love a good story about angsty immortals, but it’s possible I read this one too soon after last year’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which explores a similar thematic territory far more movingly. In this 2018 novel, the protagonist is a woman who doesn’t …
Book #22 of 2021: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff (The Red Abbey Chronicles #1) Interesting fantasy worldbuilding, but the characters can seem a bit simplistic at times and the plot doesn’t really kick in until midway through, when a raiding ship attacks the island refuge where the heroine lives as an abbey novice. It gets pretty …
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Book #21 of 2021: The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #1) I always think that I like this prequel more than I actually do, because in my memory, only the strong parts stand out. The devious uncle, the rings that take you to the Wood Between the Worlds from which …
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Book #18 of 2021: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #6) I still like this series of novellas about children who temporarily stumble into various fantasy worlds and later yearn to return there, but the past few volumes have been a little underwhelming. I think the format tends to work best …
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Book #17 of 2021: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) A quiet but captivating #ownvoices fantasy novella, rich in feminist character work and immersive East Asian-inspired worldbuilding. I’m always so interested in stories like this that can compel the reader’s attention despite a complete lack of traditional …
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