Review: Eyes of Kings

Eyes of Kings by Chloe Gong
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Chloe Gong finishes her first officially adult series, her first trilogy, with a long-promised epic war between the forces of Calla and Anton, and August and Otta...but after two books of frankly uninvestable characters, this third and final book feels like it never had a chance to get off the ground and be as amazing as it ought to have been. The worldbuilding was always slow to make itself known, and while Gong was always big on sharp sociopolitical commentary - especially about the state of China throughout history and today, too - the moments of insight were never great in number themselves. I'm amazed I picked up this series to begin with, but at least it ended more or less like how I expected. But as much as I'll always go to bat for Chloe Gong, it's not going to be for this series, I'm afraid.

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Review: Stumptown, Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo

Stumptown, Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo by Greg Rucka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Almost seven years after this series of graphic novels was adapted into a TV series on ABC (with the pilot episode being loosely adapted from this first case), I've finally found all of the books at the libraries in Washington County outside Portland. And reading these books again, it reminds me of just how salty I still am that ABC went and canceled the series after initially planning to renew it for a second season, only for the pandemic to throw a wrench in things...but they kept several other shows on air, didn't they? Including The Rookie which went ahead to become a whole franchise with at least two spinoffs and counting to date, and yet Stumptown, an imaginative and fertile spin on the genre set in Portland, couldn't get that renewal? Well, I'm living in Oregon now and appreciating this series and its characters more than ever, and hoping to see some of my own mystery work get adapted to film and/or TV for all the salty Stumptown fans like myself.

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Review: Deathless

Deathless by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Julie Kagawa isn't hopping on the duology trend yet like so many other authors in the YA business have done in the last ten years, and I'm very glad to see that she hasn't lost her gifts for burning romance and breakneck pacing in this trilogy's middle book. Which does not suffer from classic Middle Book Syndrome, not when this book advances the plot with its Dune and Moonfall and Gideon the Ninth influences proudly worn on its sleeves. I was able to read almost the entire thing in one sitting, and I'm hoping to see Book 3 finish things off in terrific fashion next year, further cementing Kagawa's status as one of the most consistently awesome writers on the scene these last 20 years...

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Review: For We Are Many

For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s Bobs, Bobs, and more Bobs in this second part of the Bobiverse, which, though not entirely doing away with the monumentally screwed up apocalyptic politics that got humankind in its current mess, nevertheless shifts its focus to learning more about the indigenous peoples of various worlds which humankind now wants to potentially colonize. That is, if the voluntary extinctionist group VEHEMENT doesn’t have their way. Though not quite as laugh out loud funny as its predecessor, this book still carries a certain sharp wit and nerdy way about it, enough to give me reason to generously raise it from 2.5 to 3 stars. Still hasn’t lost me like Dungeon Crawler Carl, so at least there’s that too.

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Review: Out Law

Out Law by Jim Butcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's nice to see Butcher give us a little treat of a novella to tide us fans over a bit after Twelve Months and its depiction of the aftermath of the Battle of Chicago. As a magical novella in Chicago, it also feels like Butcher's version of the style that Veronica Roth was going for in When Among Crows, just not Polish in flavor. While Goodreads still thinks we're getting the next full length Dresden novel next year, knowing how Butcher's pace has significantly slowed these last few years, I find that quite unlikely. But in the meantime, there's this little book and its whip-fast action and bloody good fun.

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Review: There Is No Antimemetics Division

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can see why this one had a long waitlist at the library: it’s a little mind bender worthy of Christopher Nolan, particularly Inception, but antimatterized. The idea of antimemes, in universe, began with the noble purpose of experimentally eradicating Nazi thought, but like many other fictional AI’s or similar experiments, it quickly proved to be far more difficult to control, and now there is no Antimemetics Division except that which this book follows, along a wild and unpredictable path. It’s ultra relevant now, and way too much so, in a world perfectly content to hide in bubbles of lies for comfort, or just to think it’s right. And it’s as good an explanation as any for the mindlessness that surrounds us too closely.

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Review: Divine Ruin

Divine Ruin by Margot Douaihy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book that got me to notice the Sister Holiday series to begin with, being on the New Book shelf at Beaverton Library, and with that I’m now caught up on her New Orleans nunnery mysteries. Though each book has had personal stakes for Sister Holiday, threatening her place of unlikely peace and much-deserved redemption, this one feels extra devilishly personal as a sneaky drug dealer targets the schoolchildren she cares for with fentanyl. And it’s not just the children either: Sister Holiday might just lose someone with whom her connection has always been complicated. Though not as tightly paced as its immediate predecessor, this book keeps all the unique style of the series intact, and while I won’t be living in Beaverton anymore when the fourth book drops, I’ll still be ready to pick it up from the library all the same.

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