Book #130 of 2017: Mister Monday by Garth Nix (The Keys to the Kingdom #1) This somewhat generic tween fantasy adventure is sort of like a cross between Neverwhere and So You Want to Be a Wizard, featuring a young boy who learns he’s heir to a magical power and must travel through a twisted …
Tag Archives: fantasy
Book Review: The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Book 128 of 2017: The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (The Queen of the Tearling #2) It’s still a little uneven, but this second book in the Tearling trilogy is a definite improvement over the forgettable first volume. The magic is still over-powered and under-explained, and Kelsea’s character beats don’t always feel like …
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Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Book #121 of 2017: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger (Finishing School #1) A lightweight little YA steampunk fantasy novel about a finishing school for teen girl spies. A good summer read, it was fun but not particularly deep. I believe it’s also in the same setting as some of author Gail Carriger’s other works, …
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Book Review: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
Book #117 of 2017: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #15) This second Discworld City Watch novel is an improvement over the first, thanks mostly to some appreciated deepening of the characters of Carrot and Sam Vimes. But it’s still not great, and the satire on affirmative action involving the appointment of fantasy creatures …
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Book Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Book #115 of 2017: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (Gemma Doyle #1) I liked this book, but I didn’t quite love it. Author Libba Bray is talented at writing realistically flawed teenagers, and the downside is that her heroine Gemma Doyle comes across as very selfish, impetuous, and otherwise immature. I also …
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Book Review: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Book #114 of 2017: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1) A gorgeously-written fantasy novel about a boy raised in a library, who spends his early life chasing down obscure references to the faraway city whose name was removed from the world by magic. It’s a bit reminiscent of The Kingkiller Chronicle, …
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Book Review: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Book #106 of 2017: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #2) As much as I liked the fantasy heist novel Six of Crows, I was a little put off when the ending seemed to wrap up its main plot and then throw a curveball cliffhanger out of nowhere, because I didn’t relish the …
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Book Review: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Book #101 of 2017: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (The First Law #1) An overall solid fantasy novel, very much in the George R. R. Martin tradition of court intrigue and gratuitous violence. Unfortunately the plot was slow-moving and fairly opaque, and I found myself struggling to care about most of the characters. Still, …
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Book Review: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Book #98 of 2017: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (Temeraire #1) The plot of this novel moves at glacier speed, which is fairly agonizing when the premise is as rich as this fantastic alternate history of dragons fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. So although I did love the characters, I’m not sure if I’m …
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Book Review: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Book #92 of 2017: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness A powerful novel of grief and guilt, where a boy struggling to come to terms with his mother’s cancer must also face down the primeval creature that has crawled out of his dreams with harsh truths of its own. There’s a reading of this story …
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