Book #112 of 2019: Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal (Glamourist Histories #1) This Regency drawing-room pastiche has an interestingly low-key magical element, but the characters and plot leave a lot to be desired. The whole novel is full of wide-eyed speculation over who likes who — which is silly because both …
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Book #111 of 2019: Nightingale’s Lament by Simon R. Green (Nightside #3) I’ve been enjoying this pulp paperback series far less on a reread than I did when it was my first introduction to the urban fantasy genre back in high school. The main plot has yet to really kick off beyond vague portentous rumblings, …
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Book #110 of 2019: Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #3) On balance, this final volume in Robin Hobb’s The Tawny Man trilogy probably has too much falling action after the major plot stakes are resolved. And it’s odd that the Piebald threat which loomed so heavily over the previous books is mostly …
Book #108: Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey This debut novel from author Sarah Gailey goes far on its concept of a non-magical detective investigating a murder at a school for young mages, but the worldbuilding is nothing special — more The Magicians than Harry Potter — and the procedural elements could have been a …
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Book #105 of 2019: The Gameshouse by Claire North This book collects three novellas from author Claire North, previously published independently in 2015. Together they tell of a secret society who play wide-ranging games of skill and chance for fantastical stakes of extended life, memory theft, and more. North utilizes an omniscient first-person plural perspective …
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Book #100 of 2019: Golden Fool by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #2) This second Tawny Man novel is as slow-paced as the rest of author Robin Hobb’s wider Elderlings saga, but it benefits tremendously by situating its hero back at his old home of Buckkeep with a variety of interesting people to bounce off …
Book #99 of 2019: Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling (Nightrunner #1) There are some fun moments of swashbuckling fantasy spycraft in this 1996 series debut, but the worldbuilding is fairly minimal and the plot often feels like a generic tabletop campaign that anyone could have wandered into rather than anything arising from these …
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TV #16 of 2019: Game of Thrones, season 8 The final season of this powerhouse HBO fantasy drama is both entertaining and frustrating for long-time fans. Well past the most recently published novel of the source material, the TV writers have been forced to use their own judgment (along with input from original author George …
Book #91 of 2019: Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb (The Tawny Man #1) As expected for the seventh entry in her larger Elderlings saga, the world of Robin Hobb’s first Tawny Man novel feels quite well-developed and lived-in at this point. And it’s a real thrill to revisit the surviving characters from her initial Farseer …
Book #88 of 2019: Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin (A Targaryen History #1) One of the main attractions of George R.R. Martin’s famous A Song of Ice and Fire series, as well as its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, is the richly textured backstory that the author has built up for his fantasy …
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