Tag Archives: Review

Archivist Wasp is a strange blend of post-apocalyptic dystopia, ghost hunting, and metaphysical descent into the underworld. My response on completing it can be summarized as “very weird, very good.” Although intriguing, philosophical YA is nothing new, Archivist Wasp takes this to a new level. Nicole Kornher-Stace crafts a world predicated not only on life and death, but also on the interconnectedness of life and our inability to define ourselves without using others as points of reference. None of us live in a vacuum, and the only way to grow and maintain our sense of self is through those we care for.

Fans of low fantasy with mundane, yet endearing, characters will find much to love in H. G. Parry’s The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. I’ll confess, I was very slightly dubious when I encountered this book’s premise. It felt a little cheesy to me. However, when I saw the names who were endorsing it, I couldn’t resist prodding Orbit for a review copy. Alix E. Harrow loved it? So did Matthew Ward? Okay, I was in. And I didn’t regret it one little bit. This book has the one thing I love most in my books: absolutely wonderful characters. The characters took a book that would have been merely good, and made it into something loveable and joyous. I felt that same spark of joy that I encountered when I read The Ten Thousand Doors for the first time. 

Prosper’s Demon is an absolutely stellar example of KJ Parker’s signature wit. As always, Parker’s protagonist is more than a bit of an asshole, but you have to love the wry, humorous prose he’s couched in. This would be a great entry point for someone new to Parker’s short fiction, given how thoroughly it epitomizes the tone and characters he’s known for. Although this novella shares a universe with My Beautiful Life, they are both stand-alone and independent of one another.

If you ever wanted a love story across multiple reincarnations between an occult detective and a demon, well, here you have it folks. This is a beautifully realized, off-beat love story between two people with quite unusual tastes. As they connect and reconnect across their lives, their love grows ever deeper and ever stronger – two halves of the same rather unusual whole. 

When I began reading The Vanished Birds, I was unsure what to expect. The blurb didn’t prepare me for the book’s content, and hardly brushed the primary themes. Jimenez explores not just the idea of a found family, but, more importantly, discusses the ways we can be driven to hurt those we love. He has written a severe, yet tasteful, critique of the idea that the ends can ever justify the means. 

The Shadow Saint is a devastatingly brilliant new installment in the Black Iron Legacy series by Gareth Hanrahan. Although the initial book, The Gutter Prayer, had a few weaknesses in the character development department, these were beautifully resolved and a complete nonissue in this sequel. Eladora is the primary focus of this novel, with Cari as a side character. Several new characters are also introduced: Alic, the spy, and Terevant, a man of Haith. As the Godswar closes in on Guerdon, the goals and aims of these three will align in unexpected ways. Fans of the worldbuilding from the previous novel won’t be disappointed; the expanded scope brings in a great deal of new information and helps fill in the cracks from the previous book. 

Miles is the son of a politically connected mage who sits atop the secret magical hierarchy that keeps Aeland stable and functioning, but he is reluctant to “do his duty” to the family and take his place as a Secondary to his sister. In Aeland, Secondaries are mages who have less obvious talent despite having a large pool of innate magic; thus, they are magically bound as glorified thralls to their Primary mage. Witches, low-class mages, are “known” to go mad and are sent to insane asylums in the countryside. Given that Miles has shucked off his connections to his family name, he risks just that fate if anyone at his psychiatry practice discovers his magical aptitude. Although his family would protect him if he were found out, it would mean becoming his sister’s magical slave.