Review: Maieman: Revelations

Maieman: Revelations by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

D.L. Hannah's tenth book overall in her great royal interplanetary saga reaches a natural stopping point with a grand finale - for now, although whenever the story is ready to continue, I'll be ready to order those new books too. With so many interwoven story threads, Hannah ties them together as excellently and dramatically as she's always done, and in particular, she confirms that my theory about what exactly was happening to King Jonah was correct. I'd say the best highlights are the lovely artwork of Queen Revari that King Jonah is painting in one key scene, and the eagle in the final paragraph, which - should this book ever get a film or TV adaptation someday - would make an evocative final shot.

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Review: Pendergast: The Beginning

Pendergast: The Beginning by Douglas Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hark! A (near) modern Prometheus! Preston and Child take a break from the present day and the wild time travel shenanigans of the Leng arc to give us a great new starting point for potential new Pendergast fans, with the 1994 case that got him kicked out of New Orleans before the events of Relic - and in fact, a chapter from that 1995 novel is the epilogue of this book, in which Pendergast meets D’Agosta for the first time. Here, however, Pendergast is partnered with a recently widowed New Orleans FBI agent, Dwight Chambers, tracking a particularly warped new serial killer that fits very well into the horror genre once again. And while it’s an early case for Pendergast, it’s also the origin story of Proctor, before he became Pendergast’s chauffeur and majordomo of many special skills. It’s a treat for us longtime fans, and a great place to start for new readers who can then jump back to Relic and continue the series from there.

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Review: Dead Lions

Dead Lions by Mick Herron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Once again, Herron presents a fast paced, (almost) single sitting read in the world of the Slow Horses, with the story that was later covered in great detail in the second season of the Apple TV series adaptation. I will say for sure, though - one big detail that doesn’t translate into the TC series as much is Jackson Lamb’s persistent flatulence, which somehow manages to be even more in your face in this non visual medium. Though I did like the series adaptation better on this one, it’s still a damn good action thriller of a book, and I’ve already got Book 3 waiting in the wings…

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Review: Twelve Months

Twelve Months by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jim Butcher is back after another five year hiatus for The Dresden Files, after personal battles took out his old energy that made him one of the most prolific fantasy writers in the business in the 2000s. Finally following up on the Battle of Chicago duology novels released back to back in 2020, it's clear that Butcher was working through those real-life problems through his novels, as Harry Dresden and his remaining friends struggle to pick up the pieces in a city that's been bombed back to the Dark Ages - literally. But the supernatural threats to the world continue apace, and one in particular feels like it's setting up for the eventual conclusion of the series in Butcher's projected "apocalyptic trilogy." But, if this ends up being the last book in the series, I'd say it ends on a pretty high note all the same.

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Review: Slow Horses

Slow Horses by Mick Herron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Now that I've got Apple TV back again, I was finally able to get back into the Slow Horses TV series adaptation, and as I work my way through the third season on streaming, I've got the first two books sitting on my library stack as we speak. The first book is not at all as slow as its name suggests - it's a blazing fast read, and the first season of the show did a great job of encapsulating everything that made it so compulsive. Even the long info-dumps in the prologue and epilogue read super quickly, and in a sardonic tone that wouldn't be out of place if Jackson Lamb himself (referred to by full name as he often is) were to be a parody of a film-noir narrator. I'll be breaking away to read the new Dresden Files book next before picking up the sequel, but I already can't wait to see how well Dead Lions captures the energy that made the show's second season its best yet for me.

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Review: Shadows Upon Time

Shadows Upon Time by Christopher Ruocchio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was wondering after Ruocchio and Pierce Brown released their long delayed sixth novels which of the two young masters would finish their saga first. That question is now officially answered as Ruocchio caps off the saga of the Sun Eater, Hadrian Marlowe, in a 900 page epic that finally truly gives his sobriquet its true meaning. Filled to the brim with world shattering weapons to be used against increasingly deadly truths of the metaphysics of the universe itself…all building up to a mournful ending as if Ruocchio was fixing his gaze on PB and telling him, “your move, boyo.” At long last, the time has come to tell Hadrian Marlowe, ave atque vale.

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Review: Alexandria: The City that Changed the World

Alexandria: The City that Changed the World by Islam Issa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Islam Issa presents a definitive, comprehensive, digestible, and all around fascinating history of one of the world’s greatest cities of all time. Delving into every era in detail - ancient precursors, Ptolemaic Greek, early Christian, caliphate conquest, Napoleonic, all the way to the modern Egypt Issa knows well - it still manages to teach me much I hadn’t known before. Like how Alexander himself never saw this city built in his honor, or how Egyptian figs are actually the fruit of a sycamore tree. But as a cosmopolitan center of world culture and politics back in the day, it’s the model city to which all others today must strive to follow, if they are to leave nearly as much of a mark even when their time appears to have come and gone.

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