My 2025 Reading Trends
At the end of 2023 I had 3283 ebooks and magazines (a change of 234 - a similar gain to last year’s 256). Of those, 2636 were unread (an increase of about 200). I continued to get free issues of The MagPi (Raspberry Pi official magazine) and Hackspace Magazine. Tor.com pulled back on their free ebooks this year. However, Scarlett bought lots of books and I keep all the family’s books together in the same library. At the end of 2024 I had 222 audiobooks (an increase of 25 from last year).
Catching Up on Book Reviews Dec 2024
Once again grouping a bunch of book reviews into one blog post. Here we go!
An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Just like the Dresden Files (which it my nearest comparison point to this genre), this series does not seem to be read as a series of standalone mysteries a la Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew (or the adult equivalent). This book is full of details that are building on the details from the last two books. This is a series that happens to have an investigator as the protagonist.
Catching Up on Book Reviews
It’s been a while since I posted a book review on here and rather than have a whole bunch of book review posts, I thought I’d collect the most recent ones into this post.
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
I listened to the audiobook, so, in all likelihood, I’m going to mispell everyone’s names
As I said with the first entry in this series, Yarros does a great job writing a compelling fantasy story. The romance is there, but it’s not what brings me into the story. We’ll get back to that momentarily. The best thing I could say about novel is that when I got to the end, I was upset that I have to wait until some time next year to continue the story. Yarros gives us a complete story (well, 2 of them - more on that as well) and does leave us with quite a compelling reason to come back, but even without the events of the last chapter, I would be there for the aftermath of the macro events of this book. If you need another reason to get into this book before I get to the details - there were multiple moments where Yarros had me reacting strongly to events in the book - like the precursor feeling to crying. Usually this involved Violet’s squad mates, but the penultimate chapter (not including Xaden’s epilogue) with the Sorengale family - I almost had to pull off the road for a moment.
Review: Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I saw that this book topped the lists for most checked out book in 2023 in multiple library systems my curiosity was piqued. But it was this episode of Our Opinions are Correct that pushed me over the edge into getting this book. Boy am I glad I did!
How to describe this book? One of my thoughts was Ender’s game meets Harry Potter, but with college kids. But then I cam up with a better comparison: RF Kuang’s Poppy War Trilogy (first book: The Poppy War The Poppy War, but with Western settings. Is it dark academia? I’m not sure. I was a kickstarter funder for a few dark academia anthologies, but haven’t read them yet. No matter how it’s classified, it does (eventually) have some really graphic sex. Like, the beginning of the book has a warning about all the violence and how graphic the sex is. I think if you’ve read a romance book before, it’s probably nothing you haven’t heard before. But if you’re used to the usual sex scenes in SFF, this is quite a bit more.
Review: Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition
Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since the first season and I can’t imagine that I would find this collection if my kids hadn’t gotten me into D&D a year or so ago. Almost all of the humor comes from D&D jokes and Easter Eggs.
Review: Fault Tolerance (Chilling Effect, #3)
Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Valerie Valdes continues the Gen X/Millenial pastiche that the Chilling Effect in this third, and final, entry.
A few of the references across the trilogy:
- Voltron
- Portal (from previous books)
- Smash Bros (crash sisters)
- Death Star-like weapon
- Solid snake reference?
- Transformers
- Pokemon (in previous books)
-Captain Planet
Sometimes the references are just in the chapter titles and other times they are important plot points. The insane thing is that this WORKS for three whole books! You may or may not shake your head, but this doesn’t feel like Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs. This feels like a real, cohesive universe. It’s not jokey (although it’s not overly dramatic). I don’t know how Valdes pulled this off.
Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 114, November 2019
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 114, November 2019 by John Joseph Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Science Fiction
———————
The Concubine’s Heart (Matthew Bright) - I could not even Begin to predict the turn the story would take. It was quite a fascinating story. I wonder at the culture (a sort of sci-fi Chinese culture) that would lead to the events in the story. Very well done.
Her Appetite, His Heart (Dominica Phetteplace) - a continuation of the world we first saw in “One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit” back in Lightspeed #111. Interestingly, most of the story is a character study and it’s not until the end of the story where we see the consequences of the events of the previous story.
Review: Wrath of Empire
Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m usually not a fan of the middle books in planned trilogies. They often can’t resolve anything because most trilogies are just one gigantic book split into three. While that’s also somewhat true in this book, McClellan has done a great job giving us a mini try/fail cycle that makes this book pretty satisfying on its own. We learn a TON about Ka-Poel. There’s also a good amount of character growth for Vlora and Ben Styke.
Review: Sins of Empire
Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you put a godstone on the mantle in act one….
Just to get my one issue out of the way - this trilogy is really just one giant book broken in 3. This book doesn’t really have a resolution at the end. In a strict technical sense, at least one of the storylines finishes up.
I really enjoyed this return to the world of Powder Mages, Privileged, and Knacked. We have the return of one of my favorite characters, Olem, as well as Vlora. Since the last series they’ve gone mercenary and for their storyline we follow as they have to deal with the missions they’re hired for. Just like the previous series we also have a couple more storylines that will eventually link up. One of them involves Michel, a member of the Blackhats - a gestapo-style police/intelligence force in Fatrasta. The other storyline is about Ben Styke. I don’t remember if we saw him in the previous series since people later bring up that he worked with Taniel Two-Shot.
Review: Fugitive Telemetry
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Murderbot continues to be awesome. As with most mysteries, there isn’t too much to say that won’t end up being a spoiler. Muderbot continues to grow as a character while also not losing that which makes Murderbot such a delight to read. It’s similar to the way I feel about the alien character in Resident Alien.
I could potentially see a long life for the TV show as a mystery-of-the-week show that leaves the novels and novellas in the series behind after the first season.