Book #59 of 2025: Tsalmoth by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #16) We’ve gone back to near the beginning of the protagonist’s timeline again, in the days when he was still a low-level Jhereg crime boss. It’s a productive visit, however — not so much for the immediate plot, which is a very typical Taltos affair, …
Tag Archives: fantasy
Book Review: Féonie and the Islander Regalia by Victoria Goddard
Book #57 of 2025: Féonie and the Islander Regalia by Victoria Goddard A lovely little companion story to author Victoria Goddard’s cozy fantasy novel The Hands of the Emperor. Near the end of that longer work, the protagonist Cliopher Mdang is honored with a ceremony requiring he dress in his finest clothing, and the servant …
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Book Review: Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three Omnibus by Robin Furth, Peter David, Piotr Kowalski, Jonathan Marks, Nick Filardi, and Lee Loughridge
Book #49 of 2025: Stephen King’s The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three Omnibus by Robin Furth, Peter David, Piotr Kowalski, Jonathan Marks, Nick Filardi, and Lee Loughridge Nearly but not quite the last of Marvel’s Dark Tower comic adaptations, as this volume — already smaller than the first two — for some reason …
Book Review: Vallista by Steven Brust
Book #48 of 2025: Vallista by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #15) In this installment, Vlad Taltos goes full Gormenghast, and the results are somewhat underwhelming. I do appreciate how author Steven Brust continues to periodically shake up his usual storytelling rhythms for this series, and it’s hard to name a bigger change than this adventure, …
Book Review: Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros
Book #47 of 2025: Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros (Ring of Solomon #1) [Disclaimer: I am Twitter mutuals with this author.] Overall a solid entry in the Percy Jackson genre of middle-grade fiction, where tweens battle fantastical monsters drawn from some culture’s traditional mythology (increasingly #ownvoices for the writer’s particular background, as here). In …
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Book Review: Traditional Culture Days at Uni by Victoria Goddard
Book #46 of 2025: Traditional Culture Days at Uni by Victoria Goddard This Discord-exclusive story is a lightweight snippet, depicting Kip Mdang from The Hands of the Emperor as a young person at university. It’s fun to glimpse him at that age with friends and family we’ve previously seen when they’re substantially older — namely …
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Book Review: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Book #41 of 2025: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow An atmospheric modern gothic / romantasy, in which a feisty heroine from the wrong side of the tracks is drawn to the creepy haunted house in her community and its reclusive and volatile caretaker. My favorite part of this story is its rural Kentucky setting, …
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Book Review: Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
Book #40 of 2025: Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura This is an odd little story. It’s a translated version of a Japanese bestseller, and I’m sure there are some cultural nuances that I’m missing, as I’ve had a particularly hard time swallowing the basic premise here. Not the mirror that magically transports …
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Book Review: Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Book #38 of 2025: Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #26) Circling back to one of the Discworld novels I’d never read before. I’ve been away from the series for a while, but this one strikes me as even more of a random mishmash than usual, with characters wandering in from other titles and …
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Book Review: Hawk by Steven Brust
Book #37 of 2025: Hawk by Steven Brust (Vlad Taltos #14) Way back in the fifth volume of this fantasy series, the hitman / mob boss Vladimir Taltos turned on the criminal organization that had previously employed him, resulting in them putting a bounty on his head and forcing him to flee his familiar home …
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