User Profile

A brilliant start to an epic series. Set in a near-present alternate world in an East-meets-West city filled with warring clans and the shadow of colonialism all around, this is a truly massive undertaking. Sporting complex world building and a vibrant cast this first book does an incredible job taking us through thrilling action and the depths of despair as felt through family legacy. It's some of the best low-fantasy I've read in years.

This was a decent enough conclusion to the trilogy, but not as tight as the earlier books. Things bogged down in the middle and the ending was just a little too rosy.

Surprisingly insightful. Beautifully written, painting vivid pictures of pastoral life. What a depth of introspection. Highly recommend if you want to try something different.

I haven't read X-Men in a long time and I heard good things about this series. It's just as disjointed and cryptic as I remember. If you don't follow every storyline of every character for decades then you're left guessing at key moments, references fail to land, and everything just feels like noise. We're two decades into the twenty-first century and these characters have a new homeland where they can be themselves and at peace, but they still wear their costumes and uniforms. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

A whole novella of one of my favorite side characters in the series! YES PLEASE.

Lift is such a fun (awesome) character but her role in the main plot is just in passing. Here we get to explore some of her backstory, meet one of the cultures of Roshar which has been left in the background until now, and spend some time with a herald. It's a really fun story with plenty of humor, action, and insight.

As I mentioned with Dawnshard, the novellas to the Stormlight Archive are all worth reading. Do yourself the favor of checking this one out.

The writing is high school quality: too formal, verbose, and with far too many adjectives shoved where they aren't needed. The accent on the lady narrator is atrocious. DNF.

There's a lot packed into this short novel. It managers to blend a positivistic Afrofuturism with the gritty realities of prejudice, monopoly, and corruption. Really well done.

My misgivings about book one were confirmed here and in greater display. The excuse of backstory bought the series summer leeway with wish fulfillment badass mcgoo but the character is irredeemable. His choices mature no sense even internally. His actions win the day without risk and the rewards are meaningless. I could rant more (and I did to my wife) but all this is to say... DNF.

I can see why it's a successful book and I can understand why people would have eaten it up in the same way Robert Crumb captured minds. Despite this I felt a great distance from it. The humor and absurdities didn't break the shell of society to reveal cracks of honest truth, they felt like a cartoonist's caricature work. The themes were explored, but without heart.

Here we have a cultivation series showing what would happen if the main character had cheat codes. It's Mary Sue through and through, but it doesn't pretend to be otherwise. The adventure is pretty fun regardless and I picked up the next two books for next to nothing in a sale so I'll keep going.

The third book in the Jill Kismet series went to some gross places. When a friend asks Jill to look into a mundane crime she's not thrilled but takes it on reluctantly. When things on the nightside heat up suddenly the combo has people trying to kill her multiple times a day, and nearly succeeding. The action follows the spider web and not everything turns out okay in the end. It's the gritty reality of a hunter, and part of the charm of the series.

This started really strong with vibrant characters and world-building. The second half of the story started to drag, though. It invested more in character development than action, which is a fair choice, but it lost a lot of momentum in doing so. There's a lot left open at the end that promises at an interesting series. I'll probably get around to them eventually.

Ton's of great content here, especially for the Agents of Edgewatch adventure path.