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Review: Blood of Tyrants
Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik My rating: 4 of 5 stars Oh, Temeriaire, you sweet summer child-dragon (to mix together 2 vastly different dragon-containing series). Yes, you’re learning, but you still are way too optimistic about people, dragons, and battles. This was one of the better Temeriare novels, although so far they’ve all been…
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My Reading Life in 2023
By the end of 2023 I had 3049 ebooks and magazines (a change of 256 – pretty even with last year). Of those, 2434 were unread. Some chunk of those – maybe as much as ¼ were giveaways like Raspberry Pi Magazine, HackSpace Magazine, and Tor.com book club freebies. I stopped getting the monthly free…
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Review: I am not a Serial Killer
I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m not a horror person – I got this to listen to with my wife on a car trip. She calls the book Baby-Dexter. She’s not wrong. I think the book fits in a very interesting intersection. It’s (in my…
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Review: Tongues of Serpents
Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik My rating: 3 of 5 stars Just like the Africa book, this one is a lot of just passing the time without much happening. Then in the last few chapters we get a bunch of bombshells about how the world continues to differ from ours because of the the…
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Review: Lightspeed Magazine, April 2018
Lightspeed Magazine, April 2018 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTION What is Eve? (Will McIntosh) – Will does a great job with the story. The reader can probably guess the general direction of the story, but it’s the details that make it shine. I think he also does a…
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Review: Victory of Eagles
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik My rating: 4 of 5 stars I found this book to be a nice change of pace from book 4. It was more exciting and moved the plot along quite a bit. We’ve had the dragon suffrage plot as a Chekov’s Gun since around the first book and we…
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My First Week with Finis Smart Goggles and Ciye App
For the past 9 years I’ve been using a Garmin watch while swimming. Back then I had a swim-focused watch, now I have a multi-sport watch. Most days the biggest benefits are the fact that I can pre-load a workout (so that I don’t need to print one out or keep my phone nearby (while…
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Review: The Sunlit Man
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Year of Sanderson is over (book-wise anyway). This book is the most Cosmere book of the year. Both Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter were basically standalone stories that happened to have Hoid in them. The ending…
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Review: House of X/Powers of X
House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is Hickman at his most Hickman. There are repeated timelines, conspiracies, and a semi-non-linear story that goes out 1000 years from the time of the first book. It’s more sci-fi than a typical X-Men book. It’s also, almost 100% setup.…
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Review: Skin Game
Skin Game by Jim Butcher My rating: 5 of 5 stars Putting aside any feelings you, dear reader, may have about Rick and Morty – I have to say that their episode parodying heists had ruined me any time I come across a heist in any narrative media. That’s right, folks – Harry Dresden is…
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Review: Uncanny Magazine Issue 19: November/December 2017
Uncanny Magazine Issue 19: November/December 2017 by Lynne M. Thomas My rating: 3 of 5 stars “Making Us Monsters” (Sam J. Miller & Lara Elena Donnelly) – A story that takes place during WWI and the inter-war period. The main characters are gay and the story serves mostly to remind me of the horrible treatment…
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Review: Lost in the Moment and Found
Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the hardest book to read of the entire series. There’s a content warning at the front of the book that explains why – but it is truly one of the cruelest. I think it’s also a book that…
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Review: Dead Beat
Dead Beat by Jim Butcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Even though there’s a timeskip of, I think, a year – this book is a direct follow-on from the previous one. That is to say that Dresden spends a big chunk of the book dealing with the consequences of the last one. Even the…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 144, September 2018
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 144, September 2018 by Neil Clarke My rating: 5 of 5 stars A Study in Oils (Kelly Robson) – a neat blend of science fiction and fantasy, I love how the author evokes the setting. I can really picture it in my mind. Although not entirely unique, I like the idea of…
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Review: Apex Magazine Issue 138
Apex Magazine Issue 138 by Jason Sizemore My rating: 4 of 5 stars Original Fiction The Relationship of Ink to Blood (Alex Langer) – I world have interpreted the actions this story very differently had it not been in a SFF magazine. But in Hebrew we have different expectations about what’s real and what’s not.…