Third Daughter by Susan Kaye Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this book as part of the Storybundle.com Extraordinary Steampunk Bundle. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading it. Based on the cover, I figured it was basically a Steampunk novel taking place in India rather than England. That, alone seemed kind of interesting. As I read through the book, it quickly became apparent that this was actually taking place in an alternate Earth with an India-like culture spread across three countries. After just a few chapters, the book becomes a spy thriller and I found myself unable to put the book down. Many times, while reading, I would keep telling myself “just one more chapter.” While this trilogy seems to have been plotted as one large story, this book has a story that comes to a satisfying ending.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading this book. The rating went up from 3 to 4 stars

This book revisits Granny Weatherwax, but while it keeps a lot of her personality traits, it seems to at least half-retcon the events of Equal Rites. The earlier book seemed to point to witches sticking strictly to headology while this one just has it as a preference. While Pratchett does keep Granny’s unreliable broom, she seems a lot more comfortable on it than she did in the previous book. Did she grow to like it or simply an outgrowth of ignoring the first few Discworld books?

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was quite a slow burn. (And I know some of the later books in this series are strongly disliked for keeping the story running in place) About a quarter of the way through the book I was certain this would be the end of my stroll through the Wheel of Time. But, gosh darn it!, Robert Jordan pulled it through at the end. The climax was pretty incredible and we learned some very interesting aspects of the in-world history. I thought the best part was the damane sul’man backstory which reminded me a lot of the backstory to The Handmaid’s Tale. There was definitely some schaudenfreude there.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was quite an excellent book! My 9-year-old read it and then wanted to share it with me, so she asked me to read it to her before bed. I must say, this book was a lot more sophisticated than I expected from the title and from the expected audience. It’s quite a mature take at the subject matter; T. Kingfisher definitely believes in the maxim of not talking down to her audience. There are themes of death, PTSD, fantasy racism, wrongful arrest by the state, war, and so much more. It really does prepare kids, mentally, to deal with the fact that the adults don’t have it all together. The key, of course, that it does so realistically. It’s not the cruel or ineffectual adults of British kids novels, these are adults doing their best and still failing; or acting under selfish motives.

The Official Scratchjr Book: Help Your Kids Learn to Code by Marina Umaschi Bers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many of you may be familiar with Scratch if you’ve got kids about 15 or so years old or younger. It’s the hot language for the elementary and (in some places) middle school set to teach programming. It’s particularly great for the younger kids because programming takes place using blocks that slot into each other. This allows for the kids not to have to worry about spelling or curly braces or semicolons. You just plug blocks into each other and code. I scoffed at it at first until I saw the complex programs kids can create with Scratch. Scratch Jr is almost exactly the same thing, except it’s for younger kids and it’s a tablet program.

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading this book

I believe this book marks the inflection point from the retconned books to the more continuity focused books. It appears that Equal Rites has already been retconned away by this book or else Rincewind is ignorant of those events when he tells Conina that no women enter the doors of the university. Although, I guess we can’t trust him too much because I believe even this one mentions that women work in the kitchens and so forth.

Mort by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading Mort

I dropped the rating from 5/5 to 4/5 because I’m using the tooltips for the ratings. I really enjoyed this book a lot. In my re-read this is the first tone I have enjoyed without any reservations. But it wasn’t “amazing”.

This is the first Discworld book that can be read completely independantly of the others. Are there some Easter Eggs if you’ve read the first 3 books? Sure. There’s mention of Granny Weatherwax’s Discworld version of “marital aides”. You’ll know why the librarian at the Unseen University is an Orangutang. And this will be the second time you meet Death’s adopted daughter. But, outside of that, this really is a great standalone book. If I wanted to do a survey of British fantasy humor (say I was a University professor), I could assign this book and folks would get the idea without feeling that they were being dropped 4 books into a 30-something book series.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading this book

This is DEFINITELY a book of its times. I remember in the late 80s and early 90s there was a lot of fiction around whether women could really equal men in the workplace. Why then? I guess because it’s one generation removed from the Civil Rights era in the 60s and 70s? I know the backlash had grown by then, leading to Atwood to write The Handmaid’s Tale. Of course, that leads later into the Girl Power movement.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is my second time reading this book

This second time around I dropped the rating from 4 stars to 3 stars. The book is definitely an improvement over The Color of Magic. I think, perhaps, Pratchett was starting to consider that Discworld might extend beyond a couple books. That said, from my memory, there’s about 1-2 more books that contain plot points that are effectively somewhat retconned later. A the very least, Equal Rites seems to never be spoken of again - and Discworld seems to revert to male wizards and female witches. And I can’t remember if Sourcery has last consequences or not.

On 30 June 2021, I attended my first concert since COVID-19 started. I was masked since the Delta variant is a thing and singing indoors is definitely an activity that increases transmission. Despite that, it was awesome to get to do it again and there was a real sense of joy in the room from both the audience and the performers at once again being able to engage in the ancient human ritual of enjoying music as a crowd.