Discworld Read-Along #36: Making Money

Continuing my occasional series as I work my way through the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s delightful Discworld series, one novel at a time.

Today’s entry is on the 36th novel, Making Money.

Geek Lit: Chosen (Alex Verus Book 4)

Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus, an unaffiliated mage whose magic specialty is divination,  has an established backstory of his former apprenticeship to a particularly nasty Dark mage that he broke away from after a particularly dark period in his life.

The fourth book in the series, Chosen, has that past come back to haunt him.  SPOILER-FREE review after the cut.

Discworld Read-Along #35: Wintersmith

Continuing my occasional series as I work my way through the late Terry Pratchett’s delightful Discworld series, one novel at a time.

Today’s entry is on the 35th book, Wintersmith.

Geek Lit: Midnight Riot (Peter Grant Book 1)

To make a rather broad generalization, many urban fantasy series tend to feature protagonists that seem to be either from the wrong sides of the tracks with a dark history, borderline con men, or they belong to some sort of barely mentioned supernatural crime fighting group that operates in secret within the bowels of a real world police force.  American authors tend to lean more towards the former, while British authors lean to the latter.

Peter Grant is the main protagonist in Ben Aaronovitch’s series.  He’s a London cop training to be a wizard.  Midnight Riot is the first book in the series, and I have a review with some SPOILERS after the cut.

Discworld Read-Along #34: Thud!

Continuing my occasional series as I work my way through Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, one book at a time.

Today’s entry is on the 34th book, Thud!

Geek Lit: Lovecraft Country

Matt Ruff’s previous book, The Mirage, was about a world where the various Arab states were united as a single country with a strong, secular representational democracy and the United States was divided up into smaller, poor, squabbling Christian fundamentalist nations that had more than a few terrorists shooting out of it.  It was an interesting book, seeing the real-world USA and the Middle East essentially switch places with each other, but didn’t quite stick the landing.

Lovecraft Country takes another angle:  the story follows a group of African Americans living mostly in 1950s Chicago, most of them relatives to each other, and has them dealing with the twin forces of evil.  On the one hand, there’s the sorcerous cult with quasi-Lovecraftian overtones that are out for power and looking to use the protagonists as their own pathways to power.  On the other hand, there’s the more real world problem of extreme racism the characters face every day.

SPOILER-FREE review after the cut.

Geek Lit: Morning Star (Again)

So, Ryan has already reviewed Pierce Brown’s Morning Star.  Now, while Gabbing Geek Enterprises, a division of a much larger entertainment conglomerate (not really) would prefer not to have repetitive content…here’s some repetitive content in the form of my review of the self-same book.

SPOILERS after the cut.

More Red Rising Is On The Way!!

“No…there is another…”

Amazing, fantastic, awesome news for all Red Rising fans!  Pierce Brown has just confirmed to USA Today that his next trilogy will build on the world set up in the Red Rising trilogy.  Currently titled Iron Gold, the first book in the new series is coming…oh…NEXT YEAR!!!  Thank you, Pierce Brown.  You are a treasure and a hero and you’re showing other authors how to do this writing stuff right!

The One Flaw In Morning Star And How I Would Have Fixed It

Morning Star was an amazing conclusion to the epic Red Rising series.  And while there are parts I liked more and didn’t like as much as previous books, I still gave it a perfect score in the end.  Because books can have flaws and still deliver an amazing story.  But there is one part of Morning Star that really stuck with me as being a mistake and I can only discuss it while spoiling some things.  So this is your warning.  [WARNING: AFTER THE BREAK WE’VE GOT SOME MAJOR MORNING STAR SPOILERS SO GO READ THE BOOK ALREADY AND THEN COME BACK.]

Review: Morning Star (Spoiler-Free)

The final book of the Red Rising series was released last week and for the first time in the trilogy I did not make it through the book in a day or two.  I found myself dragging my feet, both propelled forward to find out what happens next and also unwilling to see it all end.  Because it is all good.  So good.  And to have a series be this good and deliver on its promise is rare.  But I did finish, as these things must.  So jump after the break to read my spoiler-free thoughts on the conclusion of this epic tale.