Book #195 of 2019: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow This is a lovely fantasy debut about portals to other worlds, the power of stories, and the tension between stable stagnation and unpredictable change. The prose is lyrically beautiful in the Laini Taylor fashion, and the plotline of a mixed-race girl …
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Book #192 of 2019: Sunshine by Robin McKinley This urban fantasy novel feels severely underbaked, like a first draft that was rushed to publication without any editor’s notes. The worldbuilding is vague, and the few details that we get generally arrive via infodump right when they become relevant, rather than threading organically throughout the text. …
Book #189 of 2019: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (Simon Snow #2) Somewhat appropriately given the genesis of this series, Wayward Son reads more like fanfiction than a proper sequel to the first novel Carry On. There’s no pressing danger or overarching plot for much of the story, just three friends who still suspiciously resemble …
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Book #188 of 2019: Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack I’m really enjoying the recent trend of explicit Jewish representation in speculative fiction, and this new middle-grade fantasy novel is another fun example. The story is populated with all sorts of creatures from Slavic folklore, but the main conflict facing twelve-year-old Anya isn’t a …
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Book #187 of 2019: There Will Come a Darkness by Katy Rose Pool (The Age of Darkness #1) A competent but somewhat derivative fantasy adventure, heavy on portentous omens yet light on significant plot or character growth. I normally defend the Young Adult genre as telling stories about people coming of age, rather than necessarily …
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Book #185 of 2019: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials #3) Author Philip Pullman takes some odd plotting shortcuts in this trilogy’s conclusion — like offering practically no motivation for a pivotal trip to the world of the dead — and it’s easy to see how his populating a traditional Christian theology …
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Book #180 of 2019: City of Dragons by Robin Hobb (The Rain Wild Chronicles #3) Fantasy author Robin Hobb can effortlessly spin out a tale, but this quartet remains one of the weakest elements within her larger Realm of the Elderlings saga. Although this third volume is at least more action-packed than those before (and …
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Book #177 of 2019: The Sorcerer’s House by Gene Wolfe There’s some neat slipstream weirdness to this fantasy novel, and its epistolary format hints at interesting nuances of narrator reliability, but I just couldn’t get past the obnoxious treatment of all the female characters. Every woman in this story is either a perky flibbertigibbet, a …
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Book #171 of 2019: Redwall by Brian Jacques (Redwall #1) This is a fine if straightforward adventure story, and definitely one that grows on me as it goes along. The brave woodland creatures in its cast represent a fun change from most children’s fantasy literature, and the bucolic setting lends the tale a certain timeless …
Book #169 of 2019: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1) This middle-grade fantasy debut is a fun ride with an engaging young character voice at its center. The plot can be a bit episodic, and the worldbuilding doesn’t go much deeper than bringing traditional Greek myths into the modern …
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