Libromancer's Apprentice

Alright ya'll. Spoilers ahead. And a bunch of grousing. If you want my spoiler free and more neutral review, please check out my original review here: https://libromancersapprentice.blogspot.com/2020/03/book-review-peace-talks.html Alright... spoilers and complaints below the cover art. What I can say about Peace Talks  is that I did race through it, but I need to mitigate that with the fact that I kept finding my eyes sliding over whole passages without really absorbing any of it.  The writing isn't quite as tight or as connected as his last few novels, with the parts struggling to add up to a whole that led to unintentional skimming.  This was most noticeable in the power fantasy level descriptions of Harry and in a lot of the combat scenes.  By "power fantasy" descriptions I mean the fact that it's mentioned that he can now bench press a truck, which sure, is super strong, but there's been so many other better "show, don't tell" examples of ho...

Harrow the Ninth (Locked Tomb #2) / Tamsyn Muir This book people. This book. Where to start? At the beginning, I suppose.  Or a little bit further than that with Gideon the Ninth . "In the myriadic year of our Lord -- the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! -- Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth." Gideon is sarcastic, irreverent, and stubborn.  She's in your face and demands your attention, tempestuous and bold.  We start with a laugh as we dive into this twisting murder mystery adventure about lesbian necromancers in space.  We end with tears. "One flesh, one end." The prologue is titled "The Night Before the Emperor's Murder," told from a second person narrator that makes it very clear that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Next we get the parados (from Merriam-Webster : "t he first choral passage in an ancient Greek dram...

A Deadly Education (Lesson One of the Scholomance) / Naomi Novik You ever finish a book and end up furious that it's over?  That there's not more?  That you have to wait for the next book to come out? Yeah, that's me with this book. The fact that I got to read this book several months early just makes it worse, because it means I have to wait that much longer for book two. I wanted to throw my phone across the room in frustration that I'd read the last page and there was no more to read. Don't get me wrong.  I knew there was going to be at least a second book, if not more, and not just because the cover says "Lesson One."  You can tell early on that this is a story too big for a single book. When the story gets started you're OK that it's not going to be contained to this single volume, but then before you know it the story is barrelling forward and you're caught up in the action.  You can see the end coming, the story arc is utterly satisfy...

Imaginary Numbers (InCryptid #9) / Seanan McGuire Previously reviewed Chaos Choreography (InCryptid #5) Magic for Nothing (InCryptid #6) Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7) That Ain't Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) So... it's been a long time since we've spent time with Sarah.  Several years since Ch aos Choreography , in fact.  Finally healed enough to risk venturing out into the world again, she's going home.  To the Price family, and to Artie.  It would be a perfect homecoming, being accepted into the family in ways she never has been before... except for one thing. There are other cuckoos in the area.  Not just one, a worrisome concern on its own in normal circumstances, but several of the notoriously solitary predators.  Telepathic predators that are effectively clones of each other at that.  Who want Sarah for their own plans. Things devolve further as Sarah, and the Prices, learn more and more about what's going on, and try to figure out the truth...

Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson #12) / Patricia Briggs Previously reviewed: Fire Touched Silence Fallen Storm Cursed Ooof, it's been a minute since I've written a review, and I have a pile of books waiting accusingly for me to correct that.  It's been hard to focus enough to read these past few months, let alone write. Smoke Bitten is a book that I loved but that is difficult for me to read on a deeply personal level, and will likely be so to anyone that has experienced a long term relationship fracture.  I don't know much about Briggs' personal life, but she captures what it's like to know that something is wrong but not what and the desperate attempts to break through to an increasingly distant partner. But what matters is what comes next, that hope is not lost, that the source of the problem is attacked. That goes for the monster of the week that the book is named for.  Briggs gives us something unexpected here, a threat that seems outside the better known l...

Peace Talks (Dresden Files #16)  / Jim Butcher Previously Reviewed Cold Days (Dresden Files #14) Dresden Files: War Cry (Graphic Novel) Dresden Files : Down Town (Graphic Novel) Brief Cases (Short Story Collection) OK. It's been six years  since Skin Game came out.  A lot has happened since then, both to me as a reader and to Butcher as an author.  And there's been one heck of a lot of anticipation and expectation for this book, which presents a challenge.  So this is going to be a first pass review, I intend to read and review it again closer to it's release date, hopefully in final print and not e-galley format. When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, joins the White Council’s security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago–and all he holds dear? I ...

Stars Uncharted (Series) Stars Uncharted / S.K. Dunstall Stars Beyond / S. K. Dunstall I first became aware of this series thanks to kudos from Charles Stross who provided a cover blurb.  "An absorbing Space Opera in the tradition of The Expanse and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ."  S. K.  Dunstall, two sisters writing under a single name, provide the reader with several engaging writing and and compelling hooks right off the start.  The initial threads seem far flung, but they are skillfully braided together. Space Opera can be many things, but one thing I need from it is an expansive story and adventure, and Stars Uncharted delivers.  Some elements are recognizable genre standards, such as a notorious ship, a rag tag and fiercely loyal crew, characters with dangerous secrets, and plot that spans across the known (and unknown) universe of the setting.  Others are fresh takes on science fiction elements, such as the nature and exe...