Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to say about the second book in this Asian-inspired novella series. Though it features the same central character (a cleric named Chih who travels the empire of Ahn looking for stories to collect and tell), it was very different from the first book, The Empress of Salt and Fortune….
Category: (3 out of 5)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski — Book Review
This is a hard review to write (but that is probably expected for a notoriously challenging read like this one). I have mixed feelings about this bizarre story that is ostensibly about an acclaimed photographer and his family, who discover a room in their home that is mysteriously larger on the inside. There is a…
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron — Book Review
I don’t know if this is going to count as a review once I reveal how little I retained from reading this collection of stories. For spooky season, I have read a couple of story collections from horror writers who fall into the eldritch/Lovecraftian area of the spectrum. These are stories that convince us there…
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making (Fairyland, Book 1) by Catherynne M. Valente — Book Review
If you got winded just from reading that very long, wordy title, you may be surprised to learn that it’s this quirky, Victorian chapter-summary style of title, that first drew me to this book. I liked the pretentious phrasing and long word (mainly “circumnavigated”) for a middle-grade book. It gives it that “I want to…
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay — Book Review
I wanted to love The Lions of Al-Rassan. I have always wanted to learn more about medieval cultures, especially Islamic and Jewish cultures of those periods. I was fascinated by how those cultures were the most learned and intellectual of the day, and yet we have been taught so much more about the mainstream —…
Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman – Book Review
I have had a really good time with Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief and The Daughters’ War, so I was excited to dip my toes into his horror writing with Those Across the River. Instead of being set in a medieval-style fantasy world full of thieves, soldiers, wizards, corvids and goblins, this story is set…
Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 3) by Martha Wells – Book Review
This is the third novella in a series about the adventures of a security cyborg (self-nicknamed “Murderbot”) who freed themselves from their restrictive programming and are able to find their own way in the universe. It’s a bit challenging to discuss this third book, not because it’s part of a continuity of stories throughout a…
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm – Book Review
What did I just read?! If you’re familiar with this popular scifi book about a secret government agency protecting the world from mysterious anomalies that can disappear themselves from people’s minds (i.e. everyone forgets they exist) you might be thinking that I’m doing schtick. You might think I’m making jokes in the tone of this…
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang – Book Review
I have not had the best track record when it comes to Asian-inspired modern fantasy stories. I was underwhelmed by Fonda Lee’s Jade City and Jade War, and reading R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War was so disappointing that I took a one-year break from the sub-genre. To motivate myself to try again, I decided to…
