Book #52 of 2017: The Dark Talent by Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz #5) This whimsical series for young readers has been getting steadily darker, but the ending of this “final” book still feels jarringly out of place in its levels of death and suffering. It’s also deeply unsatisfying as a conclusion, so the revelation that one …
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Book #48 of 2017: Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce (The Immortals #1) More confident and less problematic than author Tamora Pierce’s earlier work Song of the Lioness, but with its same fun sense of magic and adventure. The Lioness Alanna and her friends return as supporting characters this time, with the main focus given over …
Book #47 of 2017: The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (The Queen of the Tearling #1) This post-apocalyptic fantasy was a little bit underbaked, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. (It helps to have a protagonist whose first act as queen is to storm in Daenerys-like, freeing a bunch of …
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Book #39 of 2017: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #1) Seanan McGuire isn’t the first author to wonder what happens to the children who have visited a fantasy world after their return, but she brings a rare warmth to this story of a boarding school built to shelter such travelers. McGuire’s …
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Book #36 of 2017: The Reader by Traci Chee (Sea of Ink and Gold #1) I was intrigued by the notion of a world with practically no written language, but I wish that the author had committed more fully to exploring the implications of that premise instead of just making reading be a form of …
Book #37 of 2017: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade #1) A fascinating character and culture study, most reminiscent of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books. Baru Cormorant is a young woman whose homeland gets annexed by an expanding empire, after which she privately vows to rise through her conquerors’ ranks to take …
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Book #30 of 2017: Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson A great collection of short stories and novellas in the cosmere, the larger setting that links many of Brandon Sanderson’s individual book series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. Sanderson plans for these series to eventually intersect directly, and there have been growing …
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Book #25 of 2017: The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman (The Magicians #3) An improvement over the first two novels, and a satisfying end to this loose adult fantasy trilogy. Both protagonist Quentin Coldwater and writer Lev Grossman feel like they’ve grown up a lot for this novel, and both approach their tasks here as …
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Book #22 of 2017: Inkspell by Cornelia Funke (Inkworld #2) I have mixed feelings on this one. Exploring the “Inkworld” that the characters in the previous story came from is a smart move on writer Cornelia Funke’s part, and I like that Meggie has grown as a character from the plucky kid in Inkheart to …
Book #20 of 2017: The Awakened Mage by Karen Miller (Kingmaker, Kingbreaker #2) A definite improvement over the first book, although at the cost of a few narrative threads and characters that are unceremoniously dropped in the transition. And I still don’t understand how Asher earns the love and devotion of so many other characters …
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