Review: On the Shoulders of Titans

On the Shoulders of Titans by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While seeing me read this second book of Arcane Ascension at work, my coworker Tory, who recommended this author to me to begin with, would go off on tangents about the various connections between this series and others from Mr. Rowe. After reading this book in its entirety, I can see why - the ending to this one is slightly more concerned, especially right on the last line, with setting up a spinoff more than its direct sequel. In any case, I've already ordered both those following books at the library. In the meantime, I'll be able to sit and digest this one a little longer. It's for sure a bit of a bigger beast than the first book, but also pretty long and slow at times. But there's just a bit more family drama woven into the geopolitics of it all - we finally meet Corin's father Magnus, for instance, and learn just how much he needs to be under the continent for how horribly abusive he is to his own son and his son's friends. Corin also tries to navigate his complex feelings for Jin, as well as the fact that he's also finding himself drawn to a lady classmate, suggesting that he's biromantic. Best of all, the winter ball, built up ever since the middle of Book 1, finally comes along with all the drama one could expect - Buffy's proms ain't got nothing on this. Hopefully soon I'll have one or both of the follow-up books in my library pile...

View all my reviews

Review: The Clearing

The Clearing by Simon Toyne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ahh, now this is more like it. The second Laughton Rees mystery by Mr. Toyne dips slightly back into his fantasy roots, while also specifically going for the sort of folkloric West Country vibe that influenced Tolkien. (No seriously, there’s a lot of hobbit and orc jokes throughout this book, even in the internal monologue lament of an Earl whose historic house would require repair work from a very old fashioned blacksmith.) Far away from the humdrum city life of the first book (though thankfully DCI Tannahill Khan is only a phone call away), Rees now goes forth to investigate a disappearance around Midsummer’s Eve, leading her to a string of similarly vanished women, a cult based on the evil Cinderman spirits of the local legends, and a twist ending that reminds me of at least one Jack the Ripper theory (which I believe Will Thomas used as the basis for one of his Barker & Llewelyn mysteries.) Shorter and punchier than its predecessor, this book will hopefully be only the next in a long line for Mr. Toyne and his newest protagonist.

View all my reviews

Review: Dark Objects

Dark Objects by Simon Toyne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

With each series he’s worked on in the last decade, Simon Toyne has shifted more towards realism than the intense modern fantasy thrillers of the Sanctus trilogy, a series that I’ll not soon forget. This book is the first of a new series with protagonist Laughton Rees, a young profiler with a terribly troubled past - like Barry Allen, she saw her mum’s murder, but unlike Barry Allen, she wound up so traumatized that she lived on the streets, in shelters, and had a baby at a very young age too. Luckily for her, she’s been able to rise up and make a life for herself, but her past traumas will all come back on this case. It’s a very peculiar kind of mystery novel where the actual murder story is so dry that it winds up being overshadowed by a large number of competing storylines, including the secret truth behind why Laughton’s book on profiling is on prominent display at the scene of the crime, or her struggles to keep up with her daughter’s emotional issues due to school bullying, and the backstory of DCI Tannahill Khan, who is Pakistani and grew up very ashamed of that fact thanks to rampant racism. This book is a bit hit or miss for me, but it’s Toyne, so the hits are pretty strong. And I’ve already gotten started on the sequel, so we’ll see how that goes soon enough.

View all my reviews

Review: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson's third of his 2023 Secret Projects was also by far the quickest to reach me when the new quarter began. I guess the ongoing production and fulfillment issues at the Dragonsteel warehouse in Utah must have resolved themselves pretty well, and third time's the charm for the project which Sanderson has indicated to be his favorite of the Secret Projects. It's certainly my favorite from a visual standpoint, with its heavy use of blue and pink contrast between Painter and Yumi and their mysterious and divergent worlds. It's kept unclear at first where in the Cosmere they should be, relative to each other, but the answer to that question, when it comes, is a total mind blower. No wonder Hoid is just sitting there smugger of mug than ever as the truth ultimately unfolds for the reader and the protagonists alike. It's also pretty lovely in its romance, which apparently was Emily Sanderson's hope because she'd love to see more of that in her husband's work, and taking cues as it does from Japanese anime and Korean dramas (the soap operas the characters get to watch in the light up hion lines sound like a Cosmere counterpart to the real world K-drama Alchemy of Souls in particular), it's a romance for the ages for sure. Here's hoping that the last of Sanderson's Secret Projects is just as good as the rest, if not better...

View all my reviews

Review: The Book Eaters

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I hadn't been aware that author Sunyi Dean was autistic, I'd have been very suspicious of her for writing a book where the main character's son, a rare monster among monsters, comes off like a grim allegory of how neurotypical people see autistic people as inherently creepy. That Cai, the mind eater character in question, is only able to adhere to what is typical for his people when dosed with a drug curiously known as "Redemption" doesn't help.

Review: Fractal Noise

Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A lot of one star reviews for this book are flat out review bombing. I don't engage in such a practice myself. But while I did give this book a fair shake, I was absolutely not impressed. Even leaving aside the utter ridiculousness of Tor being caught using AI to create the cover art (allegedly by accident, since they simply took from a normally reputable stock photo source, so they said) and Paolini defending it against deserved backlash, this book just doesn't deserve the hype. Paolini said in his afterword that he tried to write this one after finishing the old Inheritance Cycle, and that his initial draft was way too bleak and nihilistic, so he moved on to To Sleep in a Sea of Stars instead. If only he'd left Fractal Noise to molder away in the slush pile of oblivion, because this book belongs there. It's short, but plodding, dull, unfunny (most of the attempted humor comes from a really obnoxious Slavic stereotype named Pushkin who speaks in broken English like a side character on NCIS: Los Angeles, and most of the other characters run on sci-fi stereotypes as well, with a protagonist in mourning, a hyper religious teammate, etc. etc.) While I was never a big fan of Paolini, at least his previous works had heart. This one...let's just say I would be unsurprised if the AI was limited to just the cover. I suspect a lot of the inner artwork might've been AI as well, and there could've been some touch ups the editor might've run on the text, if not Paolini himself. I hate to speculate but...who knows. All I know is, I gave this one a shot and I found this book wanting for even a hint of enjoyment.

View all my reviews

Review: Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My coworker recommended me this big old self-pubbed piece of fantasy, a sprawling litRPG kind of novel that makes me think of the time a certain fantasy author - mostly YA, but dipping his toes into adult fantasy these days - once asked me to try my hand at writing that subgenre with him, but I had to say no because I didn't think I could do it justice. Seeing this example of litRPG live and in person, I think my initial assessment was right - it's a genre I wouldn't get right if I were to attempt it. Though maybe I can get to that level of epic someday, a word count comparable to Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive and a big world map full of complex geopolitics.

Review: Age of Vice

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I’m sorry to say that while I did go into this book with good expectations, I should’ve heeded Jaroda’s not so dazzling rating. This book, in addition to getting plaudits and blurbs from Marlon James and Lee Child both (when was the last time that happened? Or will it ever happen again?), also manages to be both compulsively readable and yet so unrelentingly downbeat and vicious to its own protagonist that after a while of long slogging, I just had to give up. I think it was the point where Kapoor introduced a journalist character clearly based on herself. That was the point where I just skipped ahead, found a few pages that had maybe one line of text, or a few lines of text in the middle all alone - a page count padding tactic I also remember from the only V.E. Schwab novel I didn’t like, Our Dark Duet - and that was where I decided to just nope out. As much as I sympathized with Ajay, I just couldn’t bring myself to continue reading about him and his endless cycles of tragedy and abuse. This one just wasn’t for me, sadly.

View all my reviews

Review: The Sun and the Star

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I'd finished this book a few days earlier, I'd have been able to cap off Pride Month with this review. But alas, time was not on my side, so we'll have to settle for, as the citizens of cyberspace may say, Gay Wrath Month instead. Lol.

It's not that it doesn't happen, but it is very rare for me to come across a Rick Riordan book that I read and don't super enjoy. Then again, I'm definitely well aged beyond his target audience by now, but still, Riordan and the many authors he's brought under his aegis in recent years know how to keep things adventurous and funny for their middle grade fantasy protagonists.

This time, though, Riordan collaborates with someone who's not exactly known for their sense of humor in their books, and it shows.