Review: The Monster Baru Cormorant – A Chess Game, A Lesson in Economics, And a Masterclass in Character Work

Title: The Monster Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade 2) Author: Seth Dickinson Publisher: Tor Books Release Date: October 30th, 2018 Genre(s): Epic Fantasy Subjects and Themes: Politics, Economy, LGBTQIAP+ Page Count: 464 (hardback) Rating: 9.0/10 As the long-awaited sequel to Traitor Baru Cormorant, Monster was one of my two most anticipated releases of 2018 and I …

Top 5 Wednesday – Books I Want to Read Before 2019

"Top 5 Wednesday" is a weekly meme currently hosted on Goodreads by Sam of Thoughts on Tomes in which you list your top 5 for the week's chosen topic. This week's topic is "Books You Want to Read Before 2019." Short answer? All of them. But I don't think a list of five different spreadsheets cataloguing …

Review (DNF): Mage Against the Machine – An Exercise in Anger Management

Title: Mage Against the Machine Author: Shaun Barger Publisher: Saga Press Release Date: October 31st, 2018 Genre(s): Fantasy, Science Fiction Subjects and Themes: Artificial Intelligence Page Count: 512 (hardback) Rating: DNF (@ 50%)     The year is 2120. The humans are dead. The mages have retreated from the world after a madman blew up …

Review: Bloody Rose (The Band 2) – Zigazig Ah-ing its Way to Glory

Title: Bloody Rose (The Band 2) Author: Nicholas Eames Publisher: Orbit Release Date: August 28th, 2018 Genre(s) and Subject(s): Epic Fantasy, Humour Page Count: 560 (paperback) Goodreads Rating: 8.5/10         Before we dive in, let me just mention that Chapter One of Bloody Rose sees our protagonist reverse-mansplaining to an idiot and …

Review: The Last Sun – Fantasy Written to Perfection

Title: The Last Sun (The Tarot Sequence 1) Author: K.D. Edwards Publisher: Pyr Release Date: June 12th, 2018 Genre(s): Urban Fantasy Page Count: 367 (paperback) Goodreads Rating: 10/10       I've been sitting on this review for over a month, all the while rewriting and tweaking and coming to the realization that a written …

Review: Fire Dance – Beautiful and Etched with Heartrending Loneliness

Title: Fire Dance Author: Ilana C. Myer Publisher: Tor Books Release Date: April 10th, 2018 Genre(s): Fantasy Page Count: 368 (hardback) Goodreads Rating: 9.5/10         That, he believed, was the essence of what it meant to be a poet. Not to work magic. Rather it was to see, and weave verse from, …