Curtis Craddock has created an interesting world setting. It contains a blend of 1600s court life and intrigues (complete with musketeers and powdered wigs!), steampunk, a mystical religious order, and bloodline magics. Humanity lives on giant floating land masses referred to as cratons. Air ships traverse the skies of the aerosphere between cratons. KIngdoms are ruled by specific saintborn bloodlines, direct descendants of the Risen Saints. The book has a great cover that evokes the contents within. In An Alchemy of Masques and Shadows we follow the […]
Some cool bits in here, and Very Silly, but not great.
I like the Wizards books, I do. The scenes involving them are always a good time in making fun of bureaucracy and tradition and old white men. They are also usually very silly. But I have yet to love one of the Wizard books. It’s just so hard for them to have an emotional through line like so many of Pratchett’s other books do. Like, this book wasn’t really about anything. Sure, on the surface it’s the Wizards flouncing off accidentally to Not Australia (aka […]
In the Bleak Midwinter
My book reading year ends, and starts with, this classic children’s novel by Susan Cooper. The second book in the series of the same name is a seasonally appropriate touchstone being set between the winter solstice and twelfth night and since I first read it as a child is a book I return to most years at this time. The book is the tale of the youngest son in a large family turning eleven and finding out that he is the last of the “Old […]
The DODO Doorstopper
‘My name is Melisande Stokes and this is my story. I am writing in July 1851 (Common Era, or – let’s face it – Anno Domini) in the guest chamber of a middle-class home in Kensington, London, England. But I am not a native of this place or time. In fact, I am quite fucking desperate to get out of here.’ Having never read anything by Nicole Galland before, I may be speculating, but her influence on Neal Stephenson’s infodump tendencies seems to be a positive […]
Half a War – only kept me half engaged
In my review for Half the World, book two in the series, I said, “The two can’t stop worrying at each other and their eventual romance, with standard misunderstanding, is pretty predictable. Both characters have good arcs and come to happy endings, I just wasn’t as interested in their perspective of world events as I had Yarvi’s. While I am interested in the events occurring around the Shattered Sea, and how Father Yarvi and Gettland will get through the eventual war that is coming, I hope that […]
Terry Pratchett, you say? Good choice for the new year!
With the way this year started out, I figured some light, heart and wisdom would go a long way. It has taken me this long to go back to Sir Terry Pratchett’s books after his death, but I was feeling melancholy and in need of a lift. Witches Abroad is a fish out of water/fairytale nod that features Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick (who shall always be known as Magrat the wet hen). The titular witches do indeed travel abroad, and I absolutely […]
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