Book #158 of 2025: The Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green (Nightside #8) One of the blander adventures in this urban fantasy series, further hampered by a streak of sexism and unaddressed poor behavior from the protagonist. And look, I get that John Taylor is something of an antihero — the whole crux of this …
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Book #147 of 2025: Hell to Pay by Simon R. Green (Nightside #7) The initial story arc of this series came to an effective crescendo in the previous volume, so it’s only fitting that this next installment feels like a bit of a breather by comparison. It’s a back-to-basics sort of plot that returns the …
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Book #137 of 2025: Firestorm by John Peel (2099 #6) After a couple weaker entries that passed without much action, the final volume of this middle-grade sci-fi series thankfully delivers with a bang. Everyone is scrambling to defeat the villain Devon’s terrorist threat to end all life on Earth (via a crashing ship full of …
Book #136 of 2025: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green (Nightside #6) A satisfying enough conclusion to the initial arc of this early 2000s urban fantasy series. The protagonist’s mother has been built up as the big bad of the Nightside over all the previous volumes, and here her threat is finally …
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Book #125 of 2025: Paths Not Taken by Simon R. Green (Nightside #5) This is one of the better entries of its urban fantasy series, I think, propulsively moving the major plot arc along while also delivering immediate thrills and significant character work. After several volumes of throat-clearing on that first front, the previous novel …
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Book #114 of 2025: Hex and the City by Simon R. Green (Nightside #4) A largely forgettable urban fantasy sequel, featuring a bland supporting cast and case of the week. On the former side, the protagonist has a new roster of temporary sidekicks, none of whom I can recall ever appearing again after this: Madman, …
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Book #109 of 2025: Meltdown by John Peel (2099 #5) After a promising start, this middle-grade sci-fi series has stalled out in a major way, and I can only hope that the sixth and final volume manages to tap into that original sense of imaginative fun that propelled the earlier books. Just like in the …
Book #105 of 2025: Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer I read this novel back in high school, a few years after it was first published in 2000, and when I saw it recently on my mom’s shelf, I remembered it vaguely as a Michael Crichton kind of science-fiction, channeling the writer’s deep background research …
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Book #103 of 2025: Nightingale’s Lament by Simon R. Green (Nightside #3) Not great, but I like it better than I did on my last read in 2019. I’ve described the Nightside books before as having rhythms similar to a police procedural TV show, and after a pilot outing and a fairly thrilling followup, this …
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Book #101 of 2025: The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire #1) This is currently my very favorite book, which I’ve now read three times in as many years. (I’m not necessarily committing to maintaining an annual reread, but I’m not ruling it out, either.) Like Kip scribbling additions to …
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