Book #140 of 2025: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Eternal Path Trilogy #1) A seriously strong fantasy debut. I thought while reading this novel that I might wind up giving it my top rating of five-out-of-five stars, and though it falls short of that in the end, I’ve still really enjoyed the piece and …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson”
Book #136 of 2025: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green (Nightside #6) A satisfying enough conclusion to the initial arc of this early 2000s urban fantasy series. The protagonist’s mother has been built up as the big bad of the Nightside over all the previous volumes, and here her threat is finally …
Continue reading “Book Review: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green”
Book #134 of 2025: At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire #2) The Hands of the Emperor is my very favorite novel, which perhaps paradoxically is why I took my time in getting to this direct sequel. While Hands remains a great entry point for the wider Nine Worlds …
Continue reading “Book Review: At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard”
Book #129 of 2025: Oathbound by Tracy Deonn (The Legendborn Cycle #3) It’s rarely a good sign when an author revises the projected length of a series midway through to tack on some additional volume(s). This particular YA fantasy story, for instance, winds up taking quite a lot of pages and yet accomplishing very little …
Book #126 of 2025: The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer At the beginning of the fourth Thomas Covenant volume The Wounded Land, the returning protagonist tells the new one, “I’m on the inside of this thing, and you aren’t. I know it. You don’t. It can’t be explained[…] It’s a question of experience. You’re just …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer”
Book #125 of 2025: Paths Not Taken by Simon R. Green (Nightside #5) This is one of the better entries of its urban fantasy series, I think, propulsively moving the major plot arc along while also delivering immediate thrills and significant character work. After several volumes of throat-clearing on that first front, the previous novel …
Continue reading “Book Review: Paths Not Taken by Simon R. Green”
Book #123 of 2025: The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul by Victoria Goddard (The Red Company Reformed #2) This is my favorite Victoria Goddard book since The Hands of the Emperor, which was the first one that I ever picked up. That earlier novel is often heralded as a great entry point to the author’s extended Nine …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul by Victoria Goddard”
Book #118 of 2025: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks Big on vibes but short on plot, unfortunately. I was fine with the worldbuilding remaining a bit mysterious early on, but there never really are many concrete details for us to latch onto. Instead we have a generic alternate history of …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks”
Book #114 of 2025: Hex and the City by Simon R. Green (Nightside #4) A largely forgettable urban fantasy sequel, featuring a bland supporting cast and case of the week. On the former side, the protagonist has a new roster of temporary sidekicks, none of whom I can recall ever appearing again after this: Madman, …
Continue reading “Book Review: Hex and the City by Simon R. Green”
Book #112 of 2025: The Return of Fitzroy Angursell by Victoria Goddard (The Red Company Reformed #1) There’s not really a wrong order in which to read author Victoria Goddard’s sprawling Nine Worlds fantasy saga, but I would say that this particular volume is probably best picked up sometime after The Hands of the Emperor, …
Continue reading “Book Review: The Return of Fitzroy Angursell by Victoria Goddard”
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more