Dale Lucas – Cannonball Read 17

Messing Around a Lot in the Woods

The Fifth Wards: Good Company by Dale Lucas

March 22, 2020 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

The Fifth Ward: Good Company was kind of hit or miss for me. I totally saw Rem’s big personal reveal coming a mile away, and a lot of the other characters’ reaction to it were not surprising either. Of course Indilen and Torval are going to accept it; on the one hand, I’m glad there wasn’t a lot of unnecessary drama there, but on the other, there was so little reaction it’s like all that time trying to build it up was wasted. The set […]

Medieval Mayhem Aligns with Modern Politics

Fifth Ward Friendly Fire by Dale Lucas

August 10, 2019 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

Bingo 14 (Reading the TBR) Fifth Ward: Friendly Fire has been on my shelf for a while, long enough for me to have gotten it not too long after it came out and have a sequel already out by the time I got to it. In a way, it’s a good thing that I waited as long as I did, because it seemed really timely for the political here and now in spite of not being set anywhere close. The Fifth Ward series is set […]

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First Watch by Dale Lucas

January 11, 2019 by RecurringExtra 3 Comments

First Watch is a buddy cop movie in a high fantasy setting, where our two comically mismatched partners (a wet-behind-the-ears human and a grizzled veteran dwarf) have to find a way to get along and solve an increasingly complicated mystery in an early-modern city riven by factionalism and peopled by elves, orcs, mages, humans and dwarves. The premise would have sold me on this book immediately… if it was 1988 and Guards! Guards! By Sir Terry Pratchett didn’t exist. Unfortunately for Dale Lucas, Pratchett’s […]

Watered Down Pratchett Doing Columbo

February 24, 2018 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

Fifth Ward: First Watch is pretty standard in a lot of ways. It’s a standard fantasy story of the sort which largely takes place in a vaguely medieval city in which a variety of difference races interact including humans, orcs, elves, and dwarves. It’s also a standard buddy cop story in which the naive young trainee is paired with the gruff experienced veterans, they get on each other’s nerves a lot, but eventually through a series of trials become friends and partners. As is not […]

From prisoner to watchman seems like a lateral move

First Watch (The Fifth Ward #1) by Dale Lucas

July 4, 2017 by J Leave a Comment

Rem, a human male in his early- to mid-20s, wakes up in a jail cell, barely able to recall the drunken antics of the previous night. Given that he can’t afford to buy himself out of whatever it was he did the night before, he impulsively volunteers to join the city watch. Within a few short hours, Rem is out on his first patrol in Yenara, a city he barely knows. Rem is clever and good with a sword, and he has no trouble learning […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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