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.)