Review: Song of the Beast by Carol Berg

– goodreads –

So far, 2023 has been the year of the backlog, finally getting around to many of the books that have been on my radar for years. I suspected I’d like it purely due to Berg’s reputation for writing broken protagonists (I quite enjoyed Transformation) and the first half was great. Unfortunately though, what could have been a fairly enjoyable standard dragon story started to drag on in the second half instead. And the romance subplot being unpleasant and annoying to read certainly didn’t help.

Mini Reviews: Even Though I Knew the End, Geometries of Belonging, Into the Riverlands, No Man’s Land

I’m very glad when I have a batch of mini reviews ready and it’s just enjoyable novellas or other kinds of books I simply don’t do full reviews for. No DNFs, no disappointments, just some good short reads.

Review: The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

– goodreads –

Look: I’m weak for a good cover. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it. In hardcopy. Oh, my weakness got me burned plenty of times in the past, but this time it paid off. Despite some initial misgivings because the protagonist is so rich and influential, it turned out to be a fun, fast-paced, twisty mystery set in a queernorm world. Oh, and each chapter begins with a cocktail recipe (alcoholic and not!).

Retrospective: Dracula Daily

This both is and isn’t a review. Yes, I’m among those who read Dracula via the Dracula Daily newsletter and I had a great time. On the other hand, it’s really hard to review or critique something that’s not only a book but also a minor cultural phenomenon, with the latter part being rather essential. You cannot talk about recommending or not recommending an experience that is unlikely to repeat for others to take part in, or at least not at such scale. But I had to write something for goodreads to mark it as read, and, well, turns out I have a lot to say.

Review: Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell

– goodreads –

Thanks to the publisher (Tor) for the ARC of this book.

Well, this was fun! I confess: I still haven’t read Winter’s Orbit, but something about description of Ocean’s Echo intrigued me enough to request it. And I was right. Sometimes all you need is some light, queernorm sci-fi. Even though Ocean’s Echo has its flaws, it simply clicked for me.

Mini Reviews: Agents of Winter, Yellow Jessamine, The Keeper’s Six, Kundo Wakes Up

Once again, it’s time for a quartet of mini reviews. This time, I liked three out of four books and felt meh on one of them, which is really not a bad ratio given how some of those roundup posts tend to go. Three novellas, one short novel, three SFF books, one not. I see a pattern here. I also admit I bought the last novella, Kundo Wakes Up, solely because I like to have four books before I post and I wasn’t willing to wait until I either DNF’d something or stumbled into a novella randomly again, but given that 1) I had planned to read it since release and 2) I liked it, this is not at all a bad thing.

Review: The Two Doctors Górski by Isaac Fellman

– goodreads –

Thanks to the publisher (Tordotcom) for the ARC of this book.

Of course I would have read this novella one way or another. Fellman is perhaps one of my favourite authors. The Breath of the Sun and Dead Collections are both some of my all-time favourites. I’d read anything he writes. The Two Doctors Górski was not quite as enjoyable – it’s a high bar! – but it was still a great, if heavy read in Fellman’s usual understated style.

Review: The Unbalancing by R.B. Lemberg (Birdverse)

– goodreads –

Thanks to the publisher (Tachyon Publications) for the ARC of this book.

Sometimes, you have to stop for a while and think a book over before you can review it and this was exactly the case here. I liked it, I was pretty sure – I read it in one sitting (or lying, as it were) after all – but it’s one of those books that give you a lot to think about. In either case, it made a great conclusion to the 2022 r/Fantasy Bingo.

Review: The Nightland Express by J.M. Lee

– goodreads –

Thanks to the publisher (Erewhon) for the ARC of this book.

I love the idea of weird westerns, but so far I haven’t managed to find a single one that’d satisfy the urge. I was especially excited at the prospect of one that deals with the racism and colonialism, but…I don’t know if it’s just because the cover and the blurb made me expect more weird western and less fae, but I wasn’t as much of a fan of The Nightland Express as I’d have hoped.

Mini Reviews: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, The Past is Red, The Lights of Prague, A Taste of Gold and Iron

This month’s batch of mini reviews, finally big enough to post, came out very varied. A book I liked but couldn’t give a full review to because I was on a vacation book binge, a pretty good novella that’d get a mini review anyway, a novel so mediocre that I didn’t have much to say, and a grumpy unexpected DNF. For once, more novels than novellas.