Review: The Lost Metal

The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was late to the party with all the previous Mistborn novels of both eras for a variety of reasons, but I do still appreciate that it was a particularly long wait for this conclusion to Era Two, Wax & Wayne (and Marasi too!) A particularly long wait by any standard, but especially Sanderson’s, given his incredibly prolific nature. But now, as Mistborn reaches its tentative halfway point and we await Era Three to presumably start publishing in 2025, The Lost Metal justifies its long wait in so many ways, and even makes me want to go back and re-read the whole series from the start again. Expanding on the world map of Scadrial for the first time, showing so much more of this rusting land and countries beyond the grand city of Elendel, really hammering home the connections to elsewhere in the Cosmere, and building up to some of the most shatteringly high stakes Sanderson has written yet…suffice it to say that while the Cosmere is far from finished, for this segment, Sanderson absolutely sticks the landing.

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Review: Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man's Hand by James J. Butcher
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I hate to come almost to the end of the year with a terrible review, but I feel like I have no choice with this one. The first in a new urban fantasy series from the son of one of the genre’s most successful authors, this book makes it clear that sadly, James J. Butcher doesn’t come close to shining beyond his father’s shadow. There’s a glimmer of Jim Butcher-style humor and worldbuilding in this book, to ge fair, but the stakes feel lower than the earth’s core compared to the Doom of Damocles and the increasing shenanigans Jim Butcher would always put forth in each book, ever more courts of vampires and fae to go around. I do empathize with James Butcher’s protagonist Grimsby and the abominable job with which he’s saddled, but Grimsby is no Harry Dresden - he lacks charisma and agency, and frankly feels quite pathetic as a protagonist. Couple that with a dull, muddled mystery of a plot, and this book is a disaster all but guaranteeing I won’t be reading much more from Butcher the Younger anytime soon.

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Review: Mistborn: Secret History

Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this story a while back as part of Arcanum Unbounded, but rereading it now while I'm waiting for The Lost Metal at the library, it's become clear to me that I'm seriously overdue for a complete reread of this section of the Cosmere, right from the beginning. I'm very glad Sanderson got to give this book its own binding, though, because it's got so many key concepts of not only Mistborn to go over, but also the Cosmere in general. At this point, while I'd always recommend The Stormlight Archive, it's clear that a read of the original Mistborn trilogy, immediately followed by this story, will help make the multiverse of the Cosmere make so much more sense to anyone who hasn't set foot in it before. And, hell, to anyone who's been reading these books as much as I have, especially in recent years as I've come to appreciate Sanderson so much more.

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Review: The Kingdom of Liars

The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this one on the basis of Brandon Sanderson’s recommendation, and especially after seeing Martell himself getting his own table at this year’s Dragonsteel convention in Utah. Mad jelly I am of Mr. Martell getting to go there, and I really, really hope I could get a table of my own there in a future year. Maybe in 2024 or whichever year happens to be the year of Stormlight 5…but I digress.

Review: The Ballad of Never After

The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was under the impression at first that Stephanie Garber was going to write her debut series Caraval as a duology, and then it turned into a trilogy. So it goes again with the second series of Garber’s fantasy realm, which I was expecting to be a duology conclusion last year, but it’s pretty clear with the ending of this book (a particularly mind bending cliffhanger) that we’re getting another trilogy. I think at some point about halfway through, that became clear - as briskly paced and imaginatively detailed as Garber has made it, I was starting to sense that the book wasn’t going to end this particular story, which made me a bit afraid that Garber was going to do another series with steadily diminishing returns the way her first trilogy did. But what advantages this book has, though - namely, much more interesting characters and lore than the first trilogy, and dear sweet Fates above, that ending. It’s still got me scratching my head, and I don’t see that stopping for quite a while. Maybe not until the third book drops…

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Review: The Luminaries

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While we await the long-developing conclusion to Dennard's signature work in The Witchlands, here she brings us readers a smaller piece of more modern fantasy, based on the "Sooz Your Own Adventure" (as she called it) games she entertained readers with on Twitter a few years back. It's not an exact match to how the story went based on Twitter polls, but then again, I barely remember most of what went down in those polls anyway. What I do remember, though, is feeling the whole time like Dennard had every intention of writing The Luminaries into an actual book, and now the time has come for her to present this book, the first in a series if the loose ends at the conclusion are anything to go by. I've seen other reviews that say this book feels like a throwback to 2000s or early 2010s YA, and to an extent, those reviews are pretty well correct. It's a relatively short book set in a small town where there's a lot of fantastic mystery around every corner, and the protagonist is a misfit in this town because her father went bad and now everyone else, especially outside her clan, thinks it's open season to subject her to perpetual Mean Girls kind of crap. Everyone, that is, except for the stereotypical bad boy with a heart of gold, who constantly smells of cigarettes and weed, but was the leading lady's old friend so that's the source of their tension. So yeah, Dennard gets pretty tropey in this one, but it's still a zippy little read, easily done in a single sitting (Marie Lu certainly wasn't wrong about that in her blurb.) And yeah, those loose ends really do make me want to keep going and read the inevitable sequel. Hopefully, though, Dennard finishes The Witchlands first...

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Review: The Sunbearer Trials

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aiden Thomas returns to the style of their debut novel Cemetery Boys in the start of their first official series, a duology said to be a Percy Jackson and Hunger Games hybrid in a world inspired by Mexican cultures (particularly the old legends of the Aztec and Maya) and very modern in its sensibilities. Naturally, Thomas writes a great number of LGBTQ+ characters, including trans protagonist Teo, who, while still battling dysphoria (represented by his wings, which are smaller and less bright in color than are typical of cis boy semidioses), is fortunate enough to live in a society that affirms his identity quite freely. (Unsurprisingly, given that even the gods of this world are diverse in terms of gender - Sol, for instance, is established as nonbinary straight from the prologue.)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Don't Ever Say Marvel Has No Heart. Ever. Again.

 **NO SPOILERS FOR WAKANDA FOREVER, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU MOVIES AND SHOWS ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

T'Challa is dead.

Long live the king.

You know you're in for a vibranium spear to the feels when this movie opens with Shuri scrambling in her lab to synthesize the heart-shaped herb, lost when Killmonger burned the whole crop in the first Black Panther movie almost a full five years ago, in a last-ditch attempt to save her ailing brother T'Challa. Not unlike Chadwick Boseman in real life, T'Challa dies very suddenly of a terminal illness which no one had known about, and by the time it became clear, it was too late.

Then cue the Marvel Studios logo, the same specifically Black Panther edition which Disney+ placed on the streaming version of the first film in Boseman's honor, with the logo background in purple instead of red.

Total silence.

Don't reach for your popcorn.

And if you think that's the most intense tearjerker this movie has to offer, just you bloody wait.

As T'Challa once famously said, "This never gets old."

Review: Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman

Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alan Rickman…may he rest in peace. I was surprised to learn that one of the most iconic actors of this generation was a prolific diarist, and even more so that they were going to be published. Chronicling his life and career from 1993 through 2015, ending mere weeks before his death, we get to know a man of sharp wit, strong opinions, and terrific devotion to his craft and his friends. Frequent themes recur through his entries: the surreal nature of having to work after a dreadful disaster (as he observes in the wake of such events as 9/11 and the Northridge earthquake), the utter ridicule to which he subjects British and American politics and politicians (rare exceptions being his longtime partner Rima Horton, a Labour organizer and twice failed candidate for Parliament, and of course President Obama), and his innermost thoughts about what the hell is Snape’s motivation? Or any other character he played, for that matter, but rest assured that Snape is the role that confounded him the most, and David Yates in particular caused him much vexation. Not to mention his frequent digs at the talent level of the Golden Trio’s younger selves (he grew to respect them much more as he grew up, though.) Bottom line, Rickman was a serious fellow, loath to be typecast, but complex as it gets.

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Review: Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

R.F. Kuang's long awaited entry in the dark academia genre turned a lot of heads for months, even years, before its publication - and already the phenomenon is looking to repeat itself in her next novel Yellowface, her most realistic book yet but also very incisive in its social commentary from all the buzz I'm seeing about it already. Kuang is no stranger to harsh critiques of Western society and history, and this book, in which she shifts away from the largely allegorical parallels of the Poppy War trilogy and towards the real history of English imperialism (and yet still with some magical allegories to underline her thesis, as it were), is no exception. Kuang devotes hundreds of pages to the density of university learning and the subject of language, and the rapacious true purpose of the Babel Institute at Oxford, and the danger inherent in joining a revolutionary group that's been spending years and years planting the seeds for their eventual attack against a system that covers so many continents. And not unlike Kuang's previous novel The Burning God, this book builds up slowly to an ending that absolutely lays waste to everything and everyone in its path. And while there's easy room to assume that there could still be more stories to follow The Burning God, Babel has pretty clearly ended, though its presence in my mind will linger for quite a long time.

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Review: Poster Girl

Poster Girl by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Veronica Roth returns with not a sequel to Chosen Ones - though, as she admits, that one ends on a pretty good standalone note as it is. No, here she brings us another adult sci-fi piece with its roots in a world not out of place in YA, and especially not for one of the biggest riders of the early 2010s post-Hunger Games dystopian wave.

Review: Foul Lady Fortune

Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one goes out to all the people hopping on a ton of Chloe Gong hate bandwagons these last two years: 

Sit there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.

"without the monster, there is no madness. without the madness, he goes out of business."
These Violent Delights

"nothing was ever as simple as 'my people' or 'your people...'"
Our Violent Ends

"don’t upset me in the future and it will be swell, i suppose'"
Foul Lady Fortune

I wonder if Chloe Gong is going to take the years-long YA duology trend to its logical inception with a duology of duologies. If so, she’s got her next series set in early 20th century Shanghai off to a strong start.

Review: Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting

Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Roseanne A. Brown has already proven herself as one of the best and brightest new arrivals on the YA scene in the last couple of years, and now that Rick Riordan’s selected her for his imprint, she’s gotten to prove her MG bona fides too. Serwa Boateng’s first adventure of many (as well it should be, after that cliffhanger!) is deeply rooted in the legends of Brown’s homeland of Ghana, and while the title specifically mentions vampires, these are pretty scary demonic creatures which elicit even more Halloween-appropriate chills and fears than any Dracula or knockoff thereof. Naturally, there’s also the real world specter of racism to cause Serwa some problems, especially in a new school where there’s got to be that ONE teacher targeting her specifically, but with the new friends she makes (themselves from a pretty diverse set of backgrounds too), she’s got a crew on her side worthy of any story in the Rick Riordan Presents pantheon. At least one book that I know of will follow this one, so hopefully by this time next year - just in time for another witchy Halloween!

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Review: The First to Die at the End

The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s been a while since I’ve read an Adam Silvera book, and even longer since I read one that reminded me of why he was such a huge fave of mine for so many years, especially in my book selling days. I would’ve benefited so much from how beautifully Silvera writes his many glorious geekboys in love if I’d had these positive portrayals when I was a teenage bisexual stuck in the closet even to myself…but I digress.

For the first time, Silvera gives us a prequel - a prequel to what has to be his best known book of all, aided no doubt by the ever increasing word of mouth, and proof that the scourge of BookTok may in fact be the broken clock that’s right twice a day. By the time They Both Die at the End takes place, though, DeathCast has been a thing for quite some time, so it’s a major cultural touchstone in universe. And it’s never wrong.

But what about when it all started?

Review: Mickey7

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up after hearing that it was the source material for Bong Joon-Ho’s next movie, starring Robert Pattinson - a pretty quick turnaround, given that the book just came out this year, started filming this summer, and is expected in theaters next year. Assuming, of course, the current bloody bellend regime at WB don’t screw over the auteurs. The premise sounded like a pretty nice update to Duncan Jones’s amazing minimalist movie Moon - you know, the one where Sam Rockwell meets his recycled self. And it promises a pretty similar style to the works of Andy Weir, sci fi with a snarky twist.

Review: A People's History of the Vampire Uprising

A People's History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well it probably won’t be a bloody movie yet for a while because it’d likely come off as way too on the nose in this era of Covid. But as a four star read, it earns its place on that particular list of mine all the same. I’m honestly amazed the ratings for this book are so low here on GR, but maybe that’s because people got tired of the World War Z style after a while? That said, though, the book has some terrific world building (a special favorite of mine being the brief interlude detailing different religions’ reactions to the vampiric Gloaming phenomenon) and the incisive satire of politics and pandemics keeps the pages turning - all the way to the end, even though that end is pretty sudden and wide open and honestly leaves a lot of unanswered questions. But you know what? It’s a fun, and funny, ride to that ending, so I’m gonna give this book a good rating like it deserves.

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Review: Nona the Ninth

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Expanding the trilogy to four Locked Tomb novels?

We've been officially Red Queen-ed.



So...Nona. She's a pretty interesting little character, introduced at the very end of Harrow the Ninth with all the mystery as we suddenly ported over from the apocalyptic futura gothica of the series so far and into what could almost pass for the present day.

Review: Legends & Lattes

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"High fantasy and low stakes," the ad campaign says? Well, you know what? It's pretty accurate a summary of the style of this book, but so is the fact that, like a coffeehouse ought to be, it's a cozy and comforting kind of read. We start with Viv the orc coming off a pretty intense battle, but she's finally realized that there's gotta be more in this life, and so she decides to take up a whole new vocation. As it happens, there's a vacant building, and a hot bean juice invented by the gnomes, and a few eager job applicants (among them the lovely succubus Tandri), and a particularly inventive way of describing what's so mainstream to us the readers in a way to appeal to the denizens of this fantasy world. Again, comfort food - and for that, I'm absolutely not surprised that this book lives up to its pretty strong hype.

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Review: Furysong

Furysong by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yeah...I think it's safe to say I figured out why Piéra Forde didn't want to finish this book. There's one scene in particular that I know just had to be everything that destroys her heart and then some, and I'm not gonna lie, I felt seriously sad reading that scene too. It was such a gut punch, and unexpectedly strongly emotional for a series that, honestly, I had such a difficult time connecting to all along. Maybe because we've mostly stuck with Lee and Annie as POV's, and they're still not the best developed, not like Griff and Delo (the latter of whom joins the POV rankings in this book.) But for this trilogy of dragons and revolution, I now declare anoshe and hope to see more from the mind of Rosaria Munda someday soon.

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Review: The Dawn of Yangchen

The Dawn of Yangchen by F.C. Yee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

F.C. Yee already gifted us Avatar fans with two novels about young Kyoshi, and now he's back with the first of a promising new duology - at the very least - about Avatar Yangchen, the most recent Air Nomad Avatar before Aang in the cycle. I admit, there's not a lot to know about Yangchen because she gets so little attention in the main series - certainly compared to Kyoshi and Roku, Aang's two nearest predecessors, or Avatar Kuruk, who came between Yangchen and Kyoshi. If not for the fact that Kuruk's life story is very short and a serious downer, I'd be more surprised that Yee skipped past him to tell Yangchen's story instead. (Well, also, there's the fact that Yee has only ever written books with female protagonists to date, and that's a pattern this book keeps up.) But for this new book, I'm getting the vibe, even more so than with the Kyoshi novels, that this is the official commissioning of a novelization for which at least one upcoming work at Avatar Productions will be based. Well, they're already doing at least one Kyoshi project, I believe. But this book, especially with its story of a mysterious organization called Unanimity threatening to use a weapon of untold mass destruction in the face of the Earth King's dreadful leadership, it's absolutely the kind of story that would fit in perfectly to this universe. So far, though, there's no official announcement of the second book, but there's no way Yee isn't about to write one of those soon...

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Review: Flamefall

Flamefall by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay, so I said that this book was an improvement over its predecessor while I wrote my review of that one, but in the end, I have to say that this one still ended up being a pretty solid three star piece. Introducing a new POV character who stood out from Lee and Annie, Griff, was pretty nice to see (as was his pretty sweet, if stressful, romance with Delo), as well as the fact that individual chapters in this book tend to be much shorter so as to focus on a single POV character rather than the constant jumping between Lee and Annie. But overall, Lee and Annie are just too...I dunno, I feel like they're pretty weak as characters, they're just too samey as personalities and POV's. But you know what? I'll still power through into the third book just to see what it was that made Piéra Forde so heartbroken about it...

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Review: The Art of Prophecy

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wesley Chu, in a recent tweet, promised that this book, his epic fantasy debut, is a blend of the wuxia action of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the self aware humor of The Princess Bride. On that level, you will not be disappointed - hell, it’s a most apt description of this book, so steeped in Chinese inspiration from several periods in its medieval history, but also a sense of humor that wryly walks the line of an affectionate parody of the genre. Between the killer cool action and Chu’s ever smartass sensibilities translating well from his sci fi days with Tao and Io (not to mention his collaborations with Cassandra Clare), is it any wonder that this book reads as breezily, almost one sittingly, fast as it does?

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Review: Fireborne

Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up on Piéra Forde’s recommendation, because of how much she loved the trilogy - even if the third book broke her heart so much that she couldn’t finish. Reading my way through this book, I had a few moments where I was starting to wonder if I’d gotten a dud recommendation, a true rarity from her. Or maybe I’m just not as good at keeping up on YA anymore? In any case, while this book does suffer from a weird structure of switching POV’s multiple times within each chapter, and the world building is a touch thin on background, this series does have a very good way of keeping my interest thus far. And I can tell you that Book 2 is already a pretty significant improvement…

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Review: Upgrade

Upgrade by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blake Crouch returns with his latest terrifyingly fast-paced (helped, of course, by his trademark single-line paragraphs of sentence fragments) sci-fi thriller. This one is slightly less space-time continuum mind-bending than Dark Matter and Recursion before it, but makes up for it with its near-future post-apocalypse and its use of genetic warfare to a level worthy of Michael Crichton. Crouch also puts his protagonist in a pretty unique moral position, not only when he becomes the unwilling subject of an experiment to rewire his genes and increase his intelligence and ethics, but also when he realizes that he was selected specifically because of his connection to the experimenter. This, plus the fact that his late mother accidentally caused at least one part of the apocalypse, with her attempts at genetically-modified crops failing so horribly that at least 200 million have died in the Shenzhen Famine some decades prior. That said, though, Logan has already spent years making a life of his own, and that gives him the advantage as he rises to the challenge of preventing his same upgrades from killing yet more millions, if they're allowed to wreak their intended havoc in the world. I imagine this one will be pretty well ready for a film adaptation someday soon, even if the aesthetic might resemble Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan's misfire Reminiscence a little too closely...

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Review: The Reyes Incident

The Reyes Incident by Briana Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Briana Morgan's latest horrorshow takes readers to the small town of Dawsonville, Georgia, which wouldn't be out of place in the HBO adaptation of Stephen King's The Outsider. Of the three Morgan novellas I have on my bookshelf at the time of this writing, it's easily the shortest page wise, but also the most adult, focusing this time on a young woman who may know a little something about some murders and mermaids in this town, and the police officer who gets a little too close to the case in all the ways. Boasting some seriously unreliable narration for the ages, as well as some sapphic love triangulation (it wouldn't be Morgan without sapphic storytelling, would it?), I'm just sad that it took me as long as it did to finally buy myself a copy. Thank God for birthday gift cards.

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Review: Blade Breaker

Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I guess I loved this book enough to want to order two copies? Well, not intentionally, but when I got this book, not only was it sent to my old address by mistake, but I'd somehow managed to place orders for both a signed and an un-signed copy. The un-signed copy, I've sent to an old friend from my Wattpad days. The other, I read and savored over the course of several days - and while I could only read a few chapters at a time due to the generally busy nature of my schedule, those chapters that I could read, they read super hella fast. 

Thor: Love and Thunder - Taika's Still Bloody Got It.

 **NO SPOILERS FOR LOVE AND THUNDER, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS THOR AND AVENGERS MOVIES ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

Sounds like Marvel fatigue is setting in for a fair few fans, to the point where even when the apotheotic maestro of Ragnarok, Taika Waititi, returns with his latest Asgardian adventure, it's become a little too popular to rag on the movie just to rag on it.

I have to say, to the fans who've been dumping on this movie, kindly go eat a hammer. Taika Waititi's back and better than ever, and I'd like to say that his newest movie actually improves on Ragnarok in a few key respects.

Maybe it's not a perfect improvement. Maybe it does have its flaws.

But for Thor 4: More Thor (great, thanks for making me quote Gina Bloody Peretti), Love and Thunder is an unabashed cosmic rock-n-roll adventure with some genuine heart, and this time, Waititi even does a better job of sticking the balance between comedy and tragedy.

Taika's got another alien rainbow for you to taste...

Review: The Omega Factor

The Omega Factor by Steve Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Berry's taking a break from Cotton Malone and Cassiopeia Vitt this year, but his latest is absolutely still part and parcel of that same story 'verse. For one thing, the protagonists in this book are still linked to the Magellan Billet. For another, it delves into similar historical threads about the medieval world - in this case, focusing on Jan Van Eyck and his creation of the Ghent Altarpiece, plus the Cathars and some rogue elements thereof, and some secret history of Joan of Arc. While the modern-day characters somewhat pale in this one, especially in comparison to Malone and Vitt, it's the frequent and detailed historical flashbacks where this latest Berry adventure shines the most.

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Review: Tiger Honor

Tiger Honor by Yoon Ha Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suspected almost from the get go that Yoon Ha Lee wasn't about to have a one and done presence in the world of Rick Riordan Presents, so you can imagine the smile on my face when I saw a second book in the Thousand Worlds gracing the shelves at...I think it was Powell's? And now that I've finally read through this latest fast-paced sci-fi Korean-fantastic adventure, I'm happy to report that Lee hasn't lost an ounce of his touch. Bringing back some old faves from Dragon Pearl and introducing us to our tigery new hero, Sebin (who is nonbinary, as are many other characters in this book - I still really like how Lee writes it in that everyone officially has color-coded pins to indicate their gender identity), Lee makes it clear that his imagination knows no bounds, and makes me really want to go back and reread his previous books again too...

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Review: Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality

Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first official series of Rick Riordan Presents now reaches its long-awaited conclusion, though of course it's only the first taste of many in this whole wide 'verse of multicultural mythology. Building on the last book's stunning betrayals and cliffhangers (rivaling the grand master and executive producer of this whole imprint, and that's saying something), Chokshi brings the story of Aru Shah and her fellow Pandavas full circle at last, and it wouldn't be a Rick Riordan Presents book without the goofiness of the gods, a bit of rockstarin' awesomeness here and there, some little references to the wider world of myths and magic (Xib'alb'a from the Maya tradition gets shouted out at least once), and a deviously unexpected ending or two that makes it clear how much Chokshi was the perfect storyteller for Aru's many adventures.

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Review: Book of Night

Book of Night by Holly Black
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I'm sorry but I really should just give up on trying to find a Holly Black book that I actually like. Even the ones I kinda somewhat enjoy at first, I end up souring on them over time, and a lot of them, I just can't get into, period. For me, with this one (Black's much-hyped adult debut), it was more of the same deal, really. About fifty pages in, at least it was recognizably a Holly Black book, with a world that's pretty modern and well adapted to its fantasy element, and the inland Massachusetts setting, with all the college towns name-dropped, took me back to the days when Cassandra Clare's suggestions helped get me into Questionable Content (before Jeph Jacques became the insufferable, pandering, can't-take-the-slightest-criticism robot fetishist we know him as today). But our protagonist Charlie...man, was she ever so clearly a Holly Black protagonist. I don't know why, but there's something about Holly Black's protagonists that I just find them extremely difficult to connect with or root for, and after about fifty pages, I was so bored that I just gave up. Now I regret putting down money to buy this book, but hopefully it'll find a new home before I move to my new place soon...

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Review: You've Reached Sam

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has been bubbling on the periphery of my vision for a while, in part because of how much the internet seems to love it - wasn't it kind of a BookTok viral smash for a minute there? In an era where I'm starting to shift away from YA just a bit (while still writing some YA stories, whether on my own or together with my buddy Koda), along comes a book that makes me wish I could still be working in a bookstore again so I could suggest it to as many teenage readers as I can. It's a short but sweet little contemporary with a gentle fantasy twist, as Julie, grieving the loss of her boyfriend Sam, starts getting to talk to him again on her phone like he's still around, except we know it's a strange metaphysical phenomenon of sorts that's responsible for these conversations. And in the meantime, Julie struggles to maintain her grip on her earthly obligations - a bookstore job here, a school club there (in which she socializes with Asian exchange students because most of the rest of her white classmates are racist as hell in this small town on the back side of the Washington Cascades - and while I'm at it, Ellensburg was quite an unusual and specific choice of setting for this book, close enough to Seattle and Portland to serve as a most tantalizing goal for Julie's future), and of course her struggles with getting into college. It's a rough read at times, but Dustin Thao, in his debut, pulls it off with pretty good grace and leaves me hoping for him to write something new soon.

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: So Many Maestri, So Little Time

***NO SPOILERS FOR MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MARVEL MOVIES AND TV SHOWS - ESPECIALLY WANDAVISION, NO WAY HOME, INFINITY WAR, AND THE ORIGINAL DOCTOR STRANGE ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

Maybe in an alternate section of our multiverse, this Doctor Strange sequel would've dropped in May 2021 like nature intended. And maybe Scott Derrickson would've still been able to direct?

But no, the version we got comes to us from another horror maestro, one who also has well-established previous experience in the world of superheroes. And I just can't imagine how anyone could've done this movie better justice than Sam Raimi in the director's chair. With a touch of the old Spider-Man style from the 2000s - Raimi gets a fair few fight scenes choreographed in such a way that Tobey Maguire would feel right at home if he ever got the chance to pop through one of Strange's sling ring portals again - and a generous helping of Raimi's Evil Dead vibes, plus the welcome returns of Danny Elfman behind the conductor's stand and Bruce Campbell getting another most memorable cameo?

All on a backdrop of multiversal shenanigans to rival Fringe, or even Agents of SHIELD - which I do highly recommend you catch up on, especially since Season 4 was the first intro to a key concept around which this film revolves.

It's Raimi's funhouse. We're all just running through it.

"Things just got out of hand..."

Review: Kingdom of Bones

Kingdom of Bones by James Rollins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For the 16th time, James Rollins gifts the world with a stunning new novel about Sigma Force, and this time, he acknowledges from the very first page, with his author's intro, that it may be a bit of bad form on his part to release a novel about a viral threat so soon after Covid became a thing (and yes, Covid is acknowledged in the book, though more as a past event than anything else.) No, but this latest book is less about how viruses spread and more about why they exist, as philosophical as any of Rollins's past works if not more so, and yet as blazing fast as ever to the point where I got to read the whole book in (almost) one sitting. Bringing back Tucker Wayne and his war dog Kane after several years' hiatus (they still haven't had more than two solo adventures!), depicting a Belgian villain who fancies himself the second coming of King Leopold but make it corporate, following the journeys of Black missionaries rather than white colonists into the heart of Africa, and even making reference to the stories of a long-lived Black Christian king descended from Balthazar of the Magi (I admittedly hadn't heard about Prester John before, but then again there's a reason why Rollins is one of the best history teachers I never had in high school.) And as an autistic reader, I very much loved Rollins's inclusion of an autistic supporting character, Benjie Frey, whose passion for animals and Very Britishness makes me wonder if Rollins hasn't been watching at least one Fantastic Beasts movie in his spare time. Fair warning, though - this book will rip your heart out with one particular ending moment (for which Rollins also sends his apologies in the author's note at the end), but he promises some even more tantalizing adventures in that same note, especially since this is one of those books where Seichan doesn't really show up in the picture. Which means she's in for some major trouble next time...

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Review: Fevered Star

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rebecca Roanhorse returns to the Meridian and picks up pretty quickly after where Black Sun fell off, with Serapio and Naranpa now extra pitted against each other as rival godly avatars, Xiala rather heartbroken by the loss (and naturally, losing herself in a new lover for a few nights - I'm really starting to wonder whether or not Roanhorse took inspiration from Clarke Griffin for Xiala's characterization, and as a fan of Clarke, I'm here for that), and all the powers that be outside the city of Tova circling to try and take advantage of the chaos. Fevered Star is shorter than its predecessor, and takes its time to savor just as much, but also feels, dare I say, a bit unfocused in its storyline? Like, it's hard to tell where Roanhorse is taking things after the devastating ending of Black Sun, and frankly I kinda wish there could've been more focus on Serapio because he's always been my favorite character, and I really really really wish he could rise up against fate the way Xiala would want for him. But, y'know, drama. And Roanhorse cranks it up by the time this book is over, leaving me absolutely dying for the finale...

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Review: Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charlie Jane Anders returns with the second of her admittedly weird YA sci-fi trilogy, and as she promised in a recent series of tweets about the ways that middle entries of trilogies tend too often to be More of the Same (I'll forgive her for naming one of my favorite middle entries, Catching Fire, as an example), this second book is pretty well different from its predecessor. For one thing, Tina is no longer the primary POV character - Anders instead toggles, every four chapters or so, between third person present tense POVs from Tina's friend Rachel and girlfriend Elza, with occasional interspersions of emails of various length from Tina and other characters. This time, we're not quite as concerned with building the universe as we are with destroying it - and there's a truly existential threat on the horizon that looms larger and larger as this book progresses, and it's not just the encroaching fascist movement rising higher and higher each day. More than before, this really does feel like part of something bigger, with a pretty diabolical cliffhanger leading into the upcoming third and final novel. I do wish that this book was bigger in and of itself, because (and this is a flaw I found with the first book too), it's really just too short (and, dare I say, a tad unfocused story-wise) to encompass all the complexities of this diverse array of alien and human civilizations. But again, Anders delivers on that diversity and delightful detail but good, from the distinct backgrounds of our three protagonists and all their assorted friends to the ways these friends all struggle to balance communications between themselves both in person and virtual. (And express some shared love for Olivia Rodrigo, proving that even if they're in the future, they're still Gen Z kids at heart.) But yeah...that cliffhanger. Charlie Jane Anders, how very dare you.

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Review: Youngbloods

Youngbloods by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I...guess that this fourth and final novel of Westerfeld's second cycle of the Uglies world is taking things full circle back to the original? After all, it gets its name from original protagonist Tally, who makes a return as the leader of an ongoing rebel faction roping Frey into the mission to eliminate the last vestiges of the old families...or something like that. One thing I thought was sad about the first book of this new series was how thin the world building was, and I feel like that thinness, even if it was somewhat corrected in the intervening novels, kinda makes this finale fall flat a bit. Granted, it's every bit as action-packed as one can expect from Westerfeld, but it still feels like...what even is going on most of the time? Especially in the end, which is surprisingly open and yet loaded with Mind Screw almost to the very last page. Well, to this finale, I now say ave atque vale, though I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Westerfeld decided to do a third series in this same world. Hopefully one with more engaging characters and world-building next time. And please God, no more Tally, not after this one...

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Review: Crimson Reign

Crimson Reign by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three years ago, it seemed like, thanks to one of the most ludicrous cancellation campaigns in YA Twitter history, this book would never even be published, and neither would its two predecessors. Ironic, then, that Zhao has gotten the glorious chance to finish her debut trilogy, while I've noticed a few of those who spoke out against her and her first novel have had their own careers sidelined in recent years. No new publications, their own series on indefinite hold, that sort of thing. Perhaps karma does exist in the YA sphere after all, and the voices constantly trying to make enemies and cancel people will finally burn out as I've been hoping for for quite a while. 

But I digress. 

Review: Gallant

Gallant by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

V.E. Schwab returns, and this time, with her initialism previously used only for adult novels, this time for YA. Well, partly because she's looking to unify her brand under that one umbrella. But also because didn't she re-release The Near Witch as V.E. Schwab? But still, though, this latest book of hers, her latest haunting piece and most gothic one yet by far, is technically YA but really feels like it can cross over into the middle-grade and adult audiences very easily. It has a certain Neil Gaiman vibe to it in that respect, and while I haven't read The Near Witch yet, I expect it'd have a similar vibe like that too. So I'll have to add that one to my list at long last soon, and in the meantime, let this chiller of a book simmer and percolate in my mind a tad longer...

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Review: All My Rage

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's Sabaa Tahir.

Auto.

BUY.

Review: The Iron Sword

The Iron Sword by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Julie Kagawa likes to stick to a few certain patterns in her storytelling, I've found, and this latest book in the world of the Iron Fey breaks a few of those patterns. While previous series in this 'verse stuck to the same POV throughout, here Kagawa shifts away from Puck's POV (as was in this book's predecessor) in favor of Ash's, with a great deal of emphasis on him confronting his past failures and how they haunt him deeply. Thematically appropriate, given the revelations this book makes about the nature of Evenfall itself. And also thematically appropriate that it serves as a good allegory for a lot of today's problems in the world - namely, emphasizing the nature of the internet delivering fake news to rile up people of various political stripes. And while Kagawa doesn't break form with this book's cliffhanger ending - and make no mistake, she goes all out on that - what really makes this book cliffhang like none other is that, unlike virtually every such time Kagawa's done that before, we still have no idea what the next book will be called, or even when it'll come out. So brava, Kagawa, for this, one of your most solidly punchy and powerful books in many years.

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Review: This Woven Kingdom

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's not the first time Tahereh Mafi's done a fantasy book, but it's the first time she's done one for the YA audience she's worked with for the vast majority of her career, and it's also pretty well steeped in the legends of a long gone by Persia as she's been hinting she'll write about for many, many years. So here we have it, the first of a promised trilogy focusing on a young woman of secret djinn heritage and a prince whose heart and soul lead him soooooooo astray as only that of a Tahereh Mafi lead could. For just over 500 pages, one of her biggest books yet, Mafi leads us around on a delicious slow burn of a story before dropping some of the most shocking cliffhangers in her history. All I'm gonna say is this: more than any other story of Mafi's since Shatter Me, this is the one I need to see them make a movie of the soonest.

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Review: House of Sky and Breath

House of Sky and Breath by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well, you know, this latest book of SJM's modern urban fantasy would've maybe been a 3.5 rounded up to a 4...if not for a few key points against it. As much as I enjoyed the first book for getting my ship right, and I liked that there was some natural progression to that ship's course, I still found that SJM really leaned a little too much on a lot of her biggest and worst tropes that are such pet peeves of me and other fans, many of whom have long since abandoned her over these storytelling sins. So it's a bit eye-rolling from me when I see SJM double down on everyone being a "male" or "female," all the "males" having enormous penises like in that Da Vinci's Notebook song, sex scenes long enough to match those dicks...

Review: Leviathan Falls

Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this is it...after nine novels (and a collection of stories which I still haven't read because the print compilation is still forthcoming), the book universe of The Expanse finally comes to an end. While it's a shame that the TV/web series ended first after tackling Book 3, then Book 6, is it too much to hope that this book and its two immediate predecessors eventually get adapted too? I'd sure hope so, because it feels like the Corey team was still writing this one with adaptation in the style of the hit series in mind. Still introducing more new characters, and yet bringing back some long dormant old perspectives human and supernatural alike. And the very end, let's just say it reminds me pretty nicely of that of Babylon 5. And that's as much as I'll say without spoilers for this, the ave atque vale to the world of The Expanse...at least, until Memory's Legion hits shelves at last.

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Review: The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks

The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So how long has it been since the second book of this series - two years? Three? Something like that. Maybe it just feels longer because it's so unusual for a YA author to go more than a year in between publishing novels - but then again, this is Mackenzi Lee we're talking about. It was over a year's gap between the first two Montague books, if I remember correctly. And then of course, Lee's reputation has taken quite the beating in the last few years as the target of numerous Book Twitter cancellation campaigns (at least one of which I'm sure she obliquely referenced with the Amsterdam section of this book opening up with mention of all the tulips being dead). But you know what? For a surprising distant epilogue to the greater stories of Monty and Felicity, as well as the exploration of the life of Adrian - by far the most heterosexual of the three siblings, but also for sure someone who would be marginalized in "polite" society due to his debilitating mental struggles, which Lee has said are inspired by her own, as, I'm sure, is Adrian's desire to champion liberal causes even in the face of his conservative upbringing - I'm just glad to see Lee get back up to her rollicking, adventurous storytelling style once again. And to the Montague siblings - all of them - I hereby bid ave atque vale at long last.

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Review: Aurora's End

Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, gentlefriends, it's been at least a year and a half since K&K delivered one of the most gnarly and notorious cliffhangers in YA history...so where do we go from here? Why, right into a time loop that has too much fun as it repeats itself repeats itself repeats itself (as Sam said in the second Transformers movie), and that's just for starters. Though the balance of the numerous POVs and storylines is truly an unwieldy affair in this third and final book of the cycle, Kaufman and Kristoff remind us all, in the end, that love is all we need if we're to win an interstellar war - and what better representatives of that theme than the squad we love, as out of time as they are? (Even if, yes, they're a bit too hormonal at times, but they're teenagers of various species, so it's to be expected, no?) For all this, and for giving Finian de Karran de Seel, my favorite Unpopular Popular Character bi boy in need of all the love this side of Stiles Stilinski or Eros, the spotlight in all the ways he deserves, I now happily bid this series ave atque vale.

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Review: The Starless Crown

The Starless Crown by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While James Rollins is still going to have a new Sigma Force novel coming out in the next few months, he's starting off 2022 with a pretty big bang of a fantasy novel, set in a world of his own design and following an ensemble of characters across all the strata of class you can imagine as they struggle to stave off an impending apocalypse. To the best of my knowledge (and the bookseller who was looking this up at Klindt's in The Dalles when I asked if they had any in stock), this is to be the first of a four part series, for which I commend Rollins for continuing to be one of the most inspired, and inspiring, writers in the business.

Review: Ashes of Gold

Ashes of Gold by J. Elle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

J. Elle debuted last year with a pretty kickass YA fantasy recommended by Sabaa Tahir herself, and this year she concludes the story with another action-packed and highly relevant thriller. With her mission to save Ghizon and take her rightful place in society, Rue's got her work cut out for her every step of the way - but mercifully, she also has some of the strongest allies a girl could hope for. Elle wraps up the storyline pretty neatly, but I still would love to see some more adventures in Ghizon, whichever character they may follow as they spring from Elle's fertile imagination...

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Review: Girls of Fate and Fury

Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Ngan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was a point where I thought Natasha Ngan wasn't going to be able to finish her debut trilogy, in part due to her ongoing real-life health issues, but also due to the folding of the Jimmy Patterson imprint (a real shame given that, with this and other books and authors, it had become quite the house of diverse YA). But after an extra year's delay, Ngan finally gives us the dual-POV trilogy conclusion we've all been waiting for, and it's about as tense and thrilling as you can expect, every page turning with the threat that Lei and Wren won't get the happy ending they deserve. I'm glad Ngan took the time to really work on this one, though, because it is exactly the ending the readers and characters deserve, and at no point is it an easy road to get there. So, to Girls of Paper and Fire, I now declare ave atque vale while waiting to see what Ngan has in the pipeline next...

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