God Save the Queen is junk, but it’s fun junk. 3.5 stars really. It reads sort of like a Janet Evanovich novel, not terribly well-written but entertaining because of some interesting characters and narrative possibilities. In a world where vampires and werewolves are in charge (Queen Victoria is one of said vampires), goblins run the underworld (literally), and humans are viewed with suspicion (because they hate the monsters and half-breeds), of course Xandra the half-breed daughter of an aristocrat would discover something unusual about herself […]
A Conjuring of Light – consumed at nearly light speed
On April 20th I went to see the always highly entertaining John Scalzi at my local independent bookstore. While waiting for him to autograph several books, I was perusing the shelves as the line slowly wound through the store. When I got to the Fantasy “S” section, the spine of A Conjuring of Light, third book in the Shades of Magic series, smacked me in the eyeballs. A Conjuring of Light is the sequel to A Gathering of Shadows, which I reviewed last year. When I found AGoS it was […]
Until Your Old and Broken Bones are Laid into Their Resting Place
When I was about 14 or so, my family was in Wisconsin visiting relatives. We decided to go see Taliesin, but when we got there and my parents found out that tickets were like $50 a person, or maybe they were sold out or something, we had to find something else to do last minute. We ended up at the House on the Rock. Now, if you’ve never been to the House on the Rock, I can’t do it justice with sheer words. I simply […]
Monsters and Humans doing Romeo and Juliet right
The ideas of humanizing monsters and monstrous humans seems to be a big theme with Victoria (V.E.) Schwab. This would normally annoy me, except that she does it so well, and with variety each time. This is my third series of hers that I’ve started, and each one is different in terms of world and characters. I’m saving the conclusion of one series, A Conjuring of Light, until the end of the current semester in 3 weeks; if I don’t I’ll be buried by grading […]
Attack of the Bigfoot Werewolves
This is a much better story than some of the novels for several reasons, but suffers from some of the same old weaknesses too. First plus: Cinder stays on Luna. It turns out watching her try to learn politics is much better than her trying to save the day as an action heroine. Iko is more interesting and relatable in that role. On the other hand, the gang does not get back together; instead, we see bits of each of them, some not enough. The […]
The Art is Better Than the Story
I think a few Cannonballers reviewed the Monstress series last year, and when I saw volume one at the local comic book store, the art was so beautiful I decided to make the purchase. The art is truly stunning, a combination of anime and Art Deco (the blurb on the back says Art Deco, but I think it looks a bit Nouveau; maybe elements of both). The story itself is complicated and involves a variety of races of creatures that have a complex history together. […]
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