I’ve been wanting to post thoughts on books I read more frequently as I read literally hundreds a year and don’t review enough of them. So here goes, the first of what I’m hoping will be many many reading round-ups.
“Malice” by John Gwynne- epic fantasy – Not bad, but wasn’t blown away and was expecting to be. Might try book 2 but for now not chasing it down. Felt like pretty standard fare fantasy.
“The Lies of the Ajungo” by Moses Ose Utomi (Novella)- mystical fantasy about a desert city that sacrificed… a lot… to survive: fabulous, haunting, bewitching; loved it, have the next on hold at library.
“Road to Ruin” by Hana Lee- magical motorcyclers deliver mail across a wasteland: not a bad debut novel; kinda expected a different book than I got, mostly just wanted mad max insanity on a motorcycle but it had way more love story/backroom stuff than I expected. It was fine.
“Empire of the Vampire” by Jay Kristoff – book 2 of a fantasy series where vampires took over a medieval-ish tech world- Loved the first book in this series, STRUGGLED to stay into and with this one. It had several great moments, but overall didn’t feel as strong as book 1.
“The Prince and the Coyote” by David Bowles- retelling of some Mesoamerican history and mythology complete with Mayan poetry; this book was absolutely killer, and had some wonderful illustrations.
“Service Model” by Adrian Tchaikovsky- robots go haywire when humans start going absent- to me the idea felt stretched thin over a novel length; would have made a better novella, but since it’s Tchaikovsky it’s still quite well done
“The Silverblood Promise” by James Logan- Indiana Jones x Lies of Locke Lamora was a common comparison: doesn’t quite live up to the promise of that combo and ends up a little more Locke Lamora and less Indiana Jones than I wanted but still honestly excellent. Very well written, fabulous debut, going on my Astounding award nominees list for Hugos next year.
“Moonstorm” by Yoon Ha Lee- mechs and spaceships- Yoon Ha Lee has written some excellent sci-fi, but this one struggled to hold me for a while. It would have benefited from more smashy smashy robot scenes imo.
Eclectic Theist 