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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Book #16 of 2021: The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo A short collection of dark fables from author Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse, some of which have been referenced before in the main novels and others that merely add further texture to the local cultures of the setting. It’s an interesting addition to series canon, especially …
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Book #15 of 2021: The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis (Tales from the Chocolate Heart #1) A cute little book about a young dragon who gets cursed into the body of a human and discovers her true passion for hot cocoa. Unfortunately, it has a few issues typical of the middle-grade fantasy …
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Book #8 of 2021: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #3) This is one of my favorite Narnia installments, in part because it’s an odd misfit even for such a haphazard and eclectic series. The fifth volume to be written, it’s also the first time author C. S. …
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Book #7 of 2021: The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo #1) This is a fun little #ownvoices YA novel, a contemporary fantasy featuring the Chinese folk hero Sun Wukong the Monkey King. I’m not terribly familiar with that character, so I can’t speak to the …
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Book #2 of 2021: The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny (The Chronicles of Amber #4) These novels are short enough that it’s never a major investment to continue on with the series, but that also means each volume has limited space to really wow a reader. In this fourth book, a lot of that …
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Book #303 of 2020: Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #4) And so my 2020 comes to a close with another 1000+ page tome, the newest release in author Brandon Sanderson’s massive Stormlight Archive, which is increasingly inseparable from his even larger super-series linking together everything in the multiverse Cosmere setting. (Earlier …
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Book #299 of 2020: The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #6) I’m not a big fan of the first half of this novel, in which the three protagonists — a returning Eustace, his classmate Jill, and a rather miserable creature named Puddleglum — are very nasty toward one another as …
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