ELITIST BOOK REVIEWS

There are five known magical ‘kennings’ or types: air, water, fire, earth, and plants. Each nation specializes in of these kennings, and the magic influences the society. There’s a big pitfall with this diversity of ability and locale–not everyone gets along.
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Lois McMaster Bujold’s delightful series of novellas featuring Penric and his demon Desdemona continues with “The Orphans of Raspay” where Penric becomes hopelessly caught up in the sad situation of two orphan girls. If you haven’t read the previous novellas, go check them out, starting with “Penric’s Demon” (EBR review), where you’ll get my opinion on the Audible reader as well as the low-down on what it means to be a sorcerer with one’s own demon.
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Kaz is a lieutenant for one of the crime lords of Ketterdam. He’s made a name for himself, mostly because he’s willing to do anything for money. And when he’s offered an insane amount of money for a job that may get him killed, he takes it. If anyone can out-think an impossible situation, it’s Kaz Brekker.

But he needs the right crew if he plans to pull it off.
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It’s not often that I realize I’m not going to like a book by the time I finish its first line. It does happen though, and this happened to be one of those. For your reference:

“They named the child Rory, because the firstborn of every generation was always a Rory, and had been since the first of that name had cut his way through the cursed briars on the homeworld and saved the kingdom of Thorne–and, incidentally, the princess–from the consequences of poor manners.”

In this case, it was the combination of its length and a failed attempt at nonchalant humor that just turned me off. Well, that and the tone of the thing, which portended nothing short of hundreds of pages of unnecessary detail, generic character, and lazy meanderings of plot. At least in that, I was not disappointed.
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“Last” is the name of a man you can hire to lead you through the confusing realm of Driftwood. But that’s not the name he was born with. If he can remember back that far.

First you need to understand Driftwood, a realm where dying civilizations get caught up into its black hole (not really any way to explain it, even though that’s not what it is). At first their neighbors disappear. Then their boundaries. Then they find themselves with new neighbors of different worlds, races, and languages. And all of them are moving toward the inexorable deterioration of their society until it disappears completely. It may take a few generations (depending on the life-expectancy of the natives), but their apocalypse is inevitable.
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A lot of books can’t wait to reveal all of their secrets. Others dole them out slowly, reeling the reader in little by little. And while unintentional disorientation is the sign of bad writing, intentional disorientation can be fun. It requires a little more work and patience from your reader, but once you figure out the game, it can heighten the pleasure inherent in reading, the tension and relief of revelation.
MIDDLEGAME takes the ‘low and slow’ approach, revealing its secrets bit by bit. It’s effective because McGuire centers a complex story structure around compelling and simple character stakes to make an unusual story.
Asphodel Baker, a talented alchemist who was ignored and underestimated because she was a woman, had a big idea. She wanted to embody the Doctrine of Ethos, which McGuire describes as the “balance between language and mathematics” (kindle location 108). Basically Baker believed that these two forces shape the world, and could bring magic back into it if […]Read the rest of this review »

Okay, so yes. I admit it. I’ve been putting off writing this review. In case you might have somehow missed my response to the first book in this series, ALONG THE RAZORS EDGE (EBR Review), it absolutely left me gasping for more. That story is easily one of the best dark fantasy stories I’ve read in the last year, and I haven’t only been noodling around in the self-published arena during that time. I’ve read some authors that I consider to be some heavy hitters. So to say that I was super excited to get into this book would be a pretty powerful understatement. I absolutely couldn’t wait. Like fingers twitching and stuff, grasping for more of The War Eternal. It stands to reason that there will be some spoilers here. So, if you haven’t read that first one yet… seriously, go buy it and read it and then you can come back for my thoughts on this one.
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A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAGICIANS explores the ways that magic might have intertwined with slavery, trade, and politics during the political upheaval of the 1790s. Also, there’s dark magic. And vampires. And they storm the Bastille!

But you knew that last one already.

In Parry’s past, “commoner” magicians are prevented from using their magic with heavy silver bracelets, monitored by the Knights Templar. Europe lives under the fear of another Vampire War, like the one that devastated that continent 300 years ago. And the sense that people should have the right to practice their own magic freely is growing.
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I love reading speculative fiction. So much so, that I hardly ever read anything that isn’t at least somewhat speculative in nature — at least not by choice — but when I do read something that is just “fiction” I always find myself pining for that little bit of made-up tomfoolery. So this read was a bit out of the ordinary for me, because there really wasn’t anything to do with the speculative in it. However, when we got the book, I couldn’t help but jump at the chance to read it because of how much Steve enjoys this guy’s stuff. We have pretty similar reading tastes, Steve and I. And so even though this was straight-up fiction, I was surprised in the least to find that I *really* enjoyed reading it. There’s something to be said for masterful story-telling, and these stories are completely riddled with it.
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This one sat on my shelves for way too long. Being fair, after I first got it, I read the opening chapter and was totally turned off by what I found. Put it back on the shelf and forgot about it for a while. After seeing some buzz about it though, I decided to pick it back up. Still hated that opening chapter (a prologue that really wasn’t a proper prologue), but after that it got pretty decent and didn’t bother me again until the end of chapter 1. 🙂
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