Book #202 of 2025: The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green (Nightside #12) And so the Nightside series comes to an end, more or less. (There’s still a collection of short stories in the setting, which I’ll be rereading next, and a few crossovers with some of author Simon R. Green’s other works …
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Book #201 of 2025: Superboy: A Celebration of 75 Years by various This 2020 anthology commemorates three-quarters of a century of the titular junior superhero via a selection of comic book issues from across that span. In fact, it turns out that four different Kryptonians have each worn the mantle of Superboy at one point …
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Book #200 of 2025: A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #6) Another short but immersive tale of Cleric Chih on their wanderings around this East Asian-inspired fantasy land, recording local stories and trying to sift fact from legend. As usual it’s a fairly standalone adventure that doesn’t rely on readers …
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Book #198 of 2025: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia An excellent horror novel that unfolds across three quasi-related timelines. Primarily we’re following a graduate student in 1998 as she pursues research on her thesis topic, which concerns a lesser-known (fictional) female contemporary of H. P. Lovecraft. She’s investigating a rumor that one of the author’s …
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Book #196 of 2025: Doctor Who: Transit by Ben Aaronovitch (Virgin New Adventures #10) This cyberpunk / cosmic horror mashup is big on worldbuilding texture but light on plot and character work. The worst thing about it, though, stems from its place in the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures series, as the first installment with …
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Book #195 of 2025: Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is Brandon Sanderson’s second collection of short fiction, following Arcanum Unbounded in 2016. That earlier volume collected all the writer’s smaller works in his expansive Cosmere setting, while this one contains the opposite: ten tales expressly not …
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Book #194 of 2025: The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy (Daughters of the Empty Throne #1) I’m not blown away by the generic fantasy setting or the one-dimensional villainous motivations here, but as a personal story rooted in its protagonist’s gender identity, it’s certainly a more distinctive entry in the genre. Sixteen-year-old Lorel is someone …
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Book #193 of 2025: Star Wars: The Last Order by Kwame Mbalia This Star Wars title has definite potential, but it unfortunately doesn’t live up to it in my opinion. The action unfolds across three different timelines, one of which at least should have automatic appeal for any fan — it’s canonically the latest story …
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Book #192 of 2025: The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (The Ripliad #4) Two observations I made earlier in this series continue to prove fruitful in shaping my understanding of Mr. Thomas Ripley: that his adventures can be as ludicrous as those of Dexter Morgan on TV, and that he’s best read as …
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Book #191 of 2025: A Hard Day’s Knight by Simon R. Green (Nightside #11) This isn’t the worst entry in its urban fantasy series, but it might be the most generic. Our protagonist received the legendary sword Excalibur at the end of the previous volume, and in this one, he has to return it to …
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