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Urskuul’s Reading Circle: Parasitology by Mira Grant – Series Review
Spoiler Warning: This review contains some spoilers for the Parasitology series. Please read with caution if you have yet to finish the books. “Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot – in this case, my brother Shaun – deciding it would be a good idea to […]
The Emerald Blade by Steven Kelliher
Eight months ago, I wrote a (fairly critical) review of Valley of Embers, the first book in Steven Kelliher’s Landkist cycle. Kelliher’s debut, I felt, had a solid and interesting premise which was somewhat let down by its execution. However, I also felt that: ‘. . . the more successful indie authors are those who […]
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
“The library knows its own mind…When it steals a boy, we let it keep him.” I want to be stolen by a library. Pick me! Pick me! All wishing aside, there are books where you soak in words so beautifully written that sometimes you don’t need to turn the pages just yet. Laini Taylor writes […]
Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb
Robin Hobb’s genius isn’t flashy. The world she has created is fully articulated, complete with complex characters and histories, detailed magical systems, and fully realized political intricacies, yet she rarely is mentioned alongside Brandon Sanderson and others recognized as fantasy’s greatest world-builders. Her prose isn’t particularly flashy in the same way as writers such as […]
Wizard’s Holiday by Diane Duane
It’s probably a safe assumption that people who read my reviews are familiar with the website TV Tropes. (For those who are not, beware: this website will quite literally eat hours of your time, along with expanding your to-be-read and to-be-watched lists.) There is a certain trope which the site refers to as a Busman’s […]
Cold Counsel by Chris Sharp
A troll, a night-hag and an undead goblin walk into a bar. What? Oh, it’s not a joke. It’s how the post-credits scene would look if Chris Sharp’s novel were a Marvel movie instead of a book. Slud of the Blood Claw Clan, Bringer of Troubles, was born at the heart of the worst storm […]
Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
So, that Adrian Tchaikovsky is a clever bloke. He tricked me (and plenty of others, no doubt) into thinking Spiderlight was a tropey, cliched, rose-tinted throwback to the ‘good old days’ of D&D. You know the days: when men were men and spiders were spiders and women were damsels in distress and mages were all […]
Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale (Movie Review)
If you’re anything like me (and gods help you if you are), you’ve spent a lot of time playing video games and watching anime. If that’s the case, you’ve probably already seen Sword Art Online, the immensely popular anime based on a light novel about a group of people trapped in a virtual reality MMORPG […]
Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Tor’s novella series was started in 2015, with the aim of promoting this shorter medium. The line includes both established authors and those just making their debut, and has included a number of authors from diverse backgrounds. The resulting line is full of interesting and different stories from authors both familiar and new. This column […]
Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan
The fifth – and final – of Lady Trent’s memoirs is a difficult beast to review without lurching firmly into spoiler territory, both for the preceding books and for the plot of this one. So, in order to set the scene for this review, the next paragraph will contain brief spoilers from the previous entry. […]
Urskuul’s Reading Circle: The Bear & the Serpent
Hello, and welcome to the second official Urskuul’s Reading Circle Newsletter! Read on for brand new details of the discussions that occurred at the latest meeting (wherein we reviewed the book of the month), and of the thoughts and insights that were raised during the meet. Hello lovely, paying members of Urskuul’s Reading Circle and […]
Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel
Warning: this review contains spoilers for Sleeping Giants! Waking Gods is the sequel to Sleeping Giants, which established a world where a gigantic robot named Themis had been found, put together and stocked with two special pilots under the guidance of the person who discovered her – Dr Rose Franklin. (Our Overlord Marc Aplin wrote […]
