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 …

The Weather in Books Tag

I saw Lisa from Way Too Fantasy do this tag and it looked like a fun one! I have no idea who its creator is, so if anyone knows, drop me a note! And speaking of weather, we've finally gone from Fire, Smoke, and Lung Cancer to rain--sweet, glorious rain--so that's something! My sincerest condolences …

Top 5 Wednesday – Auto-Buy SFF Authors

"Top 5 Wednesday" is a weekly meme currently hosted on Goodreads by Sam of Thoughts on Tomes, where you list your top 5 for the week's chosen topic. This week's theme is: your auto-buy authors that write SFF. I used to buy a lot of books on their release date without reading samples or consulting reviews. …

“Champions of the Genre” – Explanation and Examples

As I write more and more reviews on this blog, you'll see a small notation/badge (that I've yet to design) sometimes appear beside the review score: "Champions of the Genre." You'll also notice an identically-named shelf on my Goodreads page. It's a designation plagiarized from inspired by video game critic Jim Sterling from the Jimquisition. …