By Blood, By Salt (J. L. Odom)

By Blood, By Salt

The Land of Exile series, Book 1
J. L. Odom
Azimuth
Fiction, Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION:

Azelta has been a debt soldier, a veritable slave, for thirteen years, assigned to the Maurowan imperial army company of the Black Wrens. His crime? Being a penniless, homeless boy in a Maurowan city - and being a "jackal," as the Mashevi people are known. Many desert cultures have been cast under Emperor Riada's shadow and those of the bloodthirsty Maurowan gods, but the Mashevi had the audacity to resist, if unsuccessfully. Now, even though Azelta has proven himself an exemplary soldier and earned the captain's trust, even allowed to wear a blade (normally forbidden for jackals), he will never be a full person, never be a citizen, not even after finishing out his debt sentence in seven more years. He will always and forevermore be just a jackal, a subhuman... unless he takes a bold chance at something more.
No empire is without political struggle and rivalry, and the Maurowans are no different. The Emperor's quiet brother has become a nexus of rumor and speculation by those who would oust Riada, a focus of brewing rebellion, and those forces have reached the Black Wren. Riada now wishes to quell all questions of his might and the power of the crown (and their gods) by sending soldiers into the wild southern reaches of the Sahr to capture a "jinn," one of the rumored devil creatures said to dwell there, which even the native cultures fear. If Maurowans can capture a devil, if the empire can prove it can dominate even these monsters, surely none will question their righteous, divine rule ever again. But the jinn the Black Wrens finally capture is nothing at all like anyone expects - and in it Azelta sees the opportunity he has waited over a decade to find.

REVIEW:

I gave this a try because I was looking for something a bit different and I saw it recommended on a BookTube channel I was skimming. At first, it seemed to deliver that, an epic in the making with a richly realized setting and myriad intricate cultures that mix and (mostly) clash in numerous ways. The writing also had a somewhat poetic overtone, with frequent intriguing turns of phrase. If it seemed to be taking its own sweet time getting to anything like what the back cover promised in the way of a plot, and if the characters seemed far more defined by whom they hated and dehumanized and plotted against and the faiths they clung to (or considered blasphemous)... well, it was early on, and surely I'd grow to, if not love, at least be invested in the fate of someone.
I kept waiting for that investment to materialize. Given the rating, it's not much of a spoiler to say that it never did.
The author draws on their background as a linguist and experiences as a serving Marine to create some truly impressive cultural work. Each character sees almost a different world from their points of view, often lowering those of other cultures to mere "its" rather than men or women. Even those who are cordial with Azelta are too ready to slip back into calling him a "jackal" and ask him to keep his head down and bide his time and maybe someday he'll earn the respect that the vast majority of the world will never give him because of his accent and skin tone and beliefs and all the other markers that show him to be a despised Mashevi. Even other cultures that have been stomped down by the Maurowan empire (and as an aside, I really struggled at the start with how similarly "Mashevi" and "Maurowan" scanned) hate the jackals, seemingly above and beyond all other peoples of the desert, with the exception of the "jinn" of the Sahr, a race so secretive and hated that they're made out to be literal devils. How burdened Azelta is, how stiffly loyal to the nebulous god of his people (the only one that only goes by God, oddly enough) and the customs of a culture he has been isolated from for the majority of his life, how unjust the whole world is to him in particular, yet see how he perseveres and bites down on the bitterness, how superior he surely is in spirit to the men surrounding him. (And it is almost exclusively men; there are only a few women involved at all, and of them they serve basically no purpose and seem utterly forgotten about by the end - save one, the Sahr "jinn," who is a cunning and selfish and devious being and possibly the only one more tormented than Azelta, though specifics of her origins and goals are maddeningly vague... and it's strongly implied that, if she really is a "devil" and "damned," then of course she must've deserved it.)
In any event, things slowly meander up to the expedition to the Sahr lands, which has some nicely stark and tense moments even before they encounter the hostile natives... and then they actually capture the "jinn" and the tale bogs right back down again, going back to wallowing in misery and the many clashing cultures, pretty much all of whom hate everyone else for not being like themselves and only are "friends" so long as they can use a body, if that long.
Throughout, the author plays their cards far too close to their chest on several accounts, shutting me out from too much and preventing me from actually caring about anyone or wanting them to succeed. While the players could be interesting initially, I eventually found them more frustrating than intriguing, especially when I was clearly not being allowed enough information to figure out why any of it could possibly matter. So what if the coup succeeds or fails? So what if Azelta is executed for impunity or not? So what if the Sahr woman is actually a damned soul who only wants to confront the god or gods who cursed her... or maybe not? Toward the very end were a few revelations that would've meant a lot more if they'd been built up properly, but the little buildup had happened way at the beginning of the book, so I'd long forgotten about it and had to do some mental backtracking to figure out why I should find the revelations important. It's like springing the punchline to a joke several days after offhandedly muttering about chickens crossing roads; by the time the listener even remembers the question, the laugh just isn't really going to be there. And by the conclusion the whole thing had taken certain plot turns that made me suspect that it had been intended to be more religious fiction than the fantasy epic I'd thought it was (something about a tormented potential leader of a scattered culture persistently placing faith in the only deity named "God" among packs of idol-worshipping heathens seeking specifically to oppress and exterminate the faithful... but maybe I'm reading too much into it, perhaps for lack of actually finding specific in-book characters or things to hold my interest long enough to maintain suspension of disbelief and separation from my own world).
It's this last point, the sense of bait-and-switch, that ultimately sank the rating below the flat Okay. While I could appreciate the detailed cultures created and how each person had their own particular beliefs and moralities reflected in their chapters, I just felt alienated by all the backstabbing and front-stabbing and general, seemingly insurmountable prejudices and hatred that soured everyone and everything. The whole lot of them could've been swept off the map in a sandstorm and it would've made the tale much brighter. (And, seriously, would it have killed the author to write one woman who actually mattered and wasn't implied to be literally cursed and damned by whatever god or gods ruled the world? Why bother including female characters at all, if that's all they are?)

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The Knight and the Moth (Rachel Gillig)

The Knight and the Moth

The Stonewater Kingdom series, Book 1
Rachel Gillig
Orbit
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Romance
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION:

The young woman known as Six remembers nothing before she first drowned in the sacred spring of Aisling cathedral as a sickly foundling child. Now, as one of the sacred diviners, she and her five holy sisters dream prophetic visions of the Omens and their sacred stone objects for the paying faithful of Stonewater Kingdom, a small realm of five hamlets surrounded by hostile inhuman sprites. Only the Omens hold the monsters at bay and give the people hope, and only the diviners, drowning in the spring, can glimpse their will.
Or so Six always believed.
As they near their tenth year of service, the girls look forward to the freedom to come; each diviner only serves a decade before being released. They have only had passing glimpsese of the greater kingdom, but dream of great adventures and grand lives... until, one by one, they begin to disappear in the night. At last, only Six remains - and she cannot believe the abbess when the woman insists that the others just "ran away" without telling her. She flees, finding her way to the only ally she might have: Roderick "Rory" Myndacious, one of the young new king's most trusted guardsmen, who made quite an impression when he visited the cathedral with King Benjamin as part of the coronation rituals. Rory is brash, rude, and blasphemous - the perfect companion, in other words, when her enemies are the gods themselves.

REVIEW:

I've heard nothing but praise for Gillig and her books, and heard some intriguing things about this one, so I figured I'd give it a try. The opening pulled me in almost immediately, as a talking gargoyle lectures a bug caught in a spider web about morality in lieu of helping it free, and the whole concept of repeatedly drowning in a sacred spring to receive prophetic visions. This was a world I wanted to know more about, and the characters promised to be ones I'd enjoy exploring that world with. (The edition I got was also admittedly quite petty, a paperback with decorative page edges.) Unfortunately, as the tale unraveled, that promise frayed to bare threads, until the only reason I was turning pages was to get the thing over with.
The early parts at Aisling, the cathedral built upon the sacred spring where once the Omens came to unite the infighting humans against the many strange and deadly sprite creatures stalking the land that would become Stonewater Kingdom, were rather interesting. Six and her companions are, naturally, sheltered, convinced that their sacrifices are worthwhile and that they will be rewarded for their service, but they are not so strictly naïve (in some ways, at least) as to be insufferable; a few have been known to sneak out to the local fair now and again, and they aren't forbidden to "lie in the grass" with visitors so long as they're discreet. Six herself strives to be the perfect dreamer, the teacher's pet of the bunch, yet still feels very close to her sister diviners, as they spend their evenings concocting grandiose dreams of their adventures once they're free of the robes and the eye-covering shrouds they must wear day and night as part of their service. The meeting with Rory and young King Benjamin foreshadows troubling times ahead, and Six begins to consider questions and ideas she'd previously dismissed. There's a nice sense of growing horror as, one by one, her fellow diviners begin to disappear... and those remaining see a darker, colder side to their mother figure priestess, as she dismisses Six's concerns and withdraws even the minimal affection and love she ever showed them, until there's no choice but to flee - taking along the one talking gargoyle, which has several eccentricities but is unflinchingly loyal.
At this point, I was quite enjoying the ride, even if the writing itself felt weirdly dissonant. Descriptive passages could be quite poetic and distinct, while the dialogue was often casual and very modern sounding, even allowing for "translation convention" (the unspoken understanding that fantasy worlds are being "translated" by the author from whatever the native tongue is into an Earth language). And if the greater world and mythology beyond Aisling felt weirdly flat and thin, and if the gargoyle felt a little more like the sort of quirky "animal" companion that would mostly exist to sell merchandising if this were a movie than a character with anything like a pivotal role in the plot, well, it was early yet. Surely such things would be fleshed out along the way.
As one might surmise from the rating, such things were not satisfactorily fleshed out.
After a relatively strong start and her gutsy, heart-rending decision to flee the only home and "mother" she's ever known, Six too often reverts to being a passive follower in the wake of Rory, Benji, and Benji's chief knight Maude in their greater mission, which involves challenging the Omens themselves; Benji insists that he has proof that they're not the gods they claim to be, merely usurpers to power who have manipulated the whole of the kingdom, and his first act as king will be to end them and take the powerful stone artifacts they carry. Despite her dreams and service, Six is soon convinced that the Omens are much less holy and benevolent than she was raised to believe, but still, she feels weirdly passive much of the time, almost childlike (she has a weird quirk where she refuses to wear shoes, and I don't consider it a spoiler to say that, no, all the page count spent on her rejecting footwear never does lead to any greater plot point; she's just acting like one of those willful toddlers who just won't keep their shoes on, even in locations where shoes would be advisable). She's supposed to be rather strong, having worked with stone on the crumbling cathedral (all the girls were encouraged to have skills or hobbies), but acts quite weak many times. Rory's attraction does not quite feel organic. And, despite some nice descriptions, I never really got a sense of a full world or kingdom; the hamlets are full of flattened caricatures of extras (and the fact that they're hamlets at all, not even towns, makes the whole of Stonewater feel weirdly small - with no mention that I recall of a greater world beyond its boundaries), the sprites are just sort of there without rhyme or reason (save serving as an occasional threat; there's lip service given to how they're actually victims in a way, starving to death and becoming more aggressive, but they're only rarely shown to be a tangible threat, attacking at plot-convenient times and in plot-convenient ways). The gargoyle remains weirdly extraneous, comic relief that does something useful once in a blue moon, and only at the very end is any greater purpose given to it... too little, too late for me to really connect with it. By the end, I just wasn't buying the story or the twists like I should have were I properly invested in the tale, and the climax was just a massive brick dropped on everything, landing with a dull thud that obliterated anything like interest in continuing as it set up a very contrived complication.
In any event, I suppose I can place part of the blame for my disappointment on myself, for taking to heart all the hype I've heard. I suppose it just is not the right story for me, but it's nice that some people are evidently enjoying it. I shall be passing my copy on, in the hopes that it finds a more appreciative reader.

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Dragonborn (Struan Murray)

Dragonborn

The Dragonborn series, Book 1
Struan Murray
Dutton
Fiction, MG Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Alex's mother and father couldn't have been more different, but they loved each other - and Alex - very much. Dad was all laughter and stories and long nights watching the stars in "their" forest, a patch of woods near their home. Mom was all rules and structure and order, and when Alex's father died she only grew more restrictive. Lately, though, the girl has grown restless, like there's a burning scream deep inside that she can't seem to get out. Perhaps it's grief; it was only a few years ago Dad died, and all Alex has left of him is a small bag full of "treasures," little trinkets attached to various memories of her father. It's not until the strange, towering man appears in the woods and starts asking uncomfortable questions about that terrible night that Alex begins to wonder if there's something more to it... if perhaps the "scream" is something bigger, something fiercer, something out of one of Dad's magical stories: a dragon.
Unable to deny the truth anymore, Alex is whisked off to the hidden isle of Skralla, one of many "invisible" places where remnants of old magic and ancient beasts and beings persist in this age of humanity. Here, among other children (or "drakes") like herself, she must learn how to be a dragon, how to become the being of power and scale and flame and force that she truly is beneath her human form... but Alex has never been good with change. And her timing could not possibly be worse, as ancient forces are stirring that could rekindle the old war between dragons and humans. How can Alex find and make peace with her inner dragon when it seems the whole world is about to burn to ash?

REVIEW:

I freely admit the cover art by the talented Devin Elle Kurtz influenced my purchase, here. But... seriously, just go to a bookstore or do a quick search online and look at that gorgeous cover. And the endpapers in the hardback edition. Add in a blurb that promised plenty of dragon antics, and the money practically flew out of my pocket. So, did the story within hold up to that lofty promise? In general, yes, though there were some points that held it back a bit.
The setup here has many familiar parts: the twelve-year-old with the parent who died under mysterious circumstances and the other parent clearly keeping secrets, a birthday where the whole illusion comes crashing down, a hidden world of magic and monsters, the sanctuary/school and new host of friends and enemies, the discovery of a strange power and a terrible threat... they're tropes for a reason, and they tend to work more than they don't here. Alex is believably hesitant to embrace her dragonish self, and must find her own way to survive and succeed in an island filled with rowdy and truly dangerous companions; the ancient war left a deep resentment of all things human that lingers centuries later in the "Slumberers," the dragons who have been in human form so long that they've forgotten their true selves, even producing new generations ignorant of their true fire. The one human boy on the island, an orphan that the Skralla leaders didn't have the heart to turn away (they're hopeful that they can avoid another all-out war by learning to live with humans), is often bullied and in danger, and a dragon girl like Alex who can't or won't change is hardly a step above that on the rung of dignity. The teachers here do not coddle or intervene (save in cases of deadly harm), but they don't come from a place of aloofness or malice: life as a dragon is inherently dangerous, and a sheltered drake rarely survives to become a full-grown dragon, so the best way they can help the young ones is to make sure they learn how to defend themselves early on without expecting someone else to protect them. Though Alex has one friend, it doesn't help her find the confidence she truly needs, or the secret to becoming her true self - something nobody can really help her with, especially not when they apparently find it so easy.
Meanwhile, she learns some about the greater magical world and Skralla, and the nearby (by magical standards) hidden city of Undwin... places that are presented in what feels like a breathless rush, making them seem like blurs rather then solid, detailed settings. The whole story often has a breakneck feel to the pacing; I recall only a few times when the story slows down enough for the emotions and real sense of wonder to sink in. The dragons themselves are nicely described, in sensory details that make them feel very dragonish indeed; these aren't just "scaly puppies" but fiery, fearless, full of raw elemental power, the embodiments of forces beyond humanity's feeble reach. But other parts of Alex's expanded world sometimes feel just kinda thrown together with minimal follow through, such as the kaiju-like monsters that periodically attack Undwin and the menagerie of magical beasts kept on Skralla that feels more like a sideshow attraction and/or callback to other "hidden magical world" stories, a checkmark on the worldbuilding list - well, it's a hidden magical world, so there's gotta be a menagerie of dangerous magical beasties nearby - than a genuine and organic thing.
Other areas of the tale break away into more original territory, particularly as Alex must find her own way of surviving among dragons while stuck in human form and as she explores her "gwimmer," a rare gift that in her case lets her talk to the spirits of deceased dragons (not really a spoiler if it comes up early in the book). The latter is where Alex really shines. As the tale builds to the climax, some twists play out that I was expecting, but not quite in the way I thought they would, pleasantly surprising me. Alex also explores her own grief and must confront the issue of whether clinging to her memories and treasures is truly helping her cope, lending some weight to her journey. The ending offers some closure even as it sets up the next book in the series.
By the end, I'd enjoyed it much more than I didn't. I am very, very pleased with the dragons Murray created and featured. If the story had steered away from the more comfortable and familiar waters and trusted itself to chart its own course, and if it eased off on the throttle now and again to give itself a chance to breathe, it would've risen a bit in the ratings; I expect the target audience would likely rate it higher. I wouldn't rule out reading on... especially if I get sucked in by the cover art again.

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Scythe (Neal Shusterman)

Scythe

The Arc of a Scythe series, Book 1
Neal Shusterman
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

The Age of Mortality ended with the rise of Thunderhead, the world-encompassing AI that supplanted fractious national governments, offers access to all human knowledge, and ushered in an era without disease, poverty, aging, or even death. Thanks to nanobots and advanced medical technology, almost everyone can be revived (though some who "splat" from a significant height may take longer)... but that created a new problem. How can the population be kept in check when lifespans are essentially limitless - and should an AI, even a benevolent overlord like Thunderhead, be in charge of such an essentially human experience? Thus was created the Scythedom, a society of humans a step apart from the rest of the population, even separate from the all-seeing, all-knowing Thunderhead. It is only they who can "glean" others, killing them permanently. As generations pass and memories of the mortal age fade, Scythes alone are the face of true death in this deathless world. How terrible it would be should that power lose its guardrails of purpose, duty, and morality...
The first time Citra met Scythe Faraday, he stopped into her family's apartment for dinner before he gleaned their next-door neighbor; by law, a Scythe can go where they wish and demand food, drink, or whatever they desire from anyone. Rowan met him when the scythe came to his school to glean a classmate and only Rowan stayed with the boy to the end. Without realizing it, both impressed Faraday to the point where he took them on as his apprentices, training them in killcraft and Scythedom code and custom. Neither loves killing or permanent death, and they both initially want nothing at all to do with scythes, but the more they see and learn, the more they realize just what purpose the Scythedom serves and how they might actually be good fits for the robes. But a rot has formed at the heart of the society, and Citra and Rowan are soon pulled into a tangle of politics and rivalries and the struggle over who will determine the future of the Scythedom - if the old codes and restraints crafted in the last days of mortality will stand, or if a newer, darker strain of gleaning will rise to threaten the whole populace.

REVIEW:

I've heard about this one for quite some time, almost all of the talk positive. Some consider it a modern classic. Reading it, I can see why. With echoes of dystopian classics like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (yet presented in a way more relatable to modern readers; Huxley's work loses a little relevance if one isn't familiar with the then-current movement/threat of Fordism, for instance), Scythe creates an outwardly glorious future where humanity has finally conquered its oldest enemy, Death itself, but in doing so has - seemingly unwittingly - traded away most everything that made life worth living. Even old age is a minor inconvenience; anyone can "turn a corner" to reset themselves to their twenties, complete with refreshed minds and hormones, even raising new families and finding new lovers. So what is left to fuel passion, to drive people to greatness? With Thunderhead accumulating all knowledge, granting access to everyone at any time, why push oneself or push boundaries at all? Nanobots even regulate extreme emotions and blunt pain, so love itself isn't what it used to be anymore, either. (And if you're bored with people, well, there are robot facsimiles almost indistinguishable from humans to serve as partners.) Most of the great works of human history now languish in a population that cannot relate to all-consuming emotion or existential angst or isolation or other motivators to great thought or science or art. As one scythe openly wonders, are people even truly human anymore? Only the scythes offer anything like true danger, which makes people both uncomfortable with them and fascinated by them; a celebrity cult has sprung up around particularly noteworthy scythes. The scythes themselves, so intimately entwined with true mortal death, may be the last vestige of what it means to be truly, mortally human, but even their experiences are proscribed in certain ways; they have the same emotion-regulating and pain-suppressing nanobots as everyone else, they "turn the corner" at will like anyone else, and - until and unless they self-glean, as the only scythe who can end a scythe is themselves - they can potentially live forever like anyone else.
Citra and Rowan come from different places (though not vastly different worlds as one might find in the Age of Mortality; though Thunderhead allows some minor income inequality and there's still a little cultural variance, for the most part there aren't the vast divides of experience and opportunity that there once were). Citra is a much-loved member of her family, while Rowan's friend nicknamed him "lettuce" for how he's an unappreciated and overlooked filling in the "sandwich" of his large, sprawling, many-generational clan. Citra strives, while Rowan coasts. But both, when faced with Scythe Faraday, in their own way stood up and stood apart from the others around them as he did his deadly work - and both, in their own way, have qualities that would make them truly good at the job... especially because neither rushes to embrace the robes or the power that comes with even being a scythe's apprentice. Inevitably, there's even a spark of attraction between the two, despite the somber circumstances - and then the political games and growing schisms roiling within the Scythedom of MidMerica throw a spike in the works, determining that only one of them can ever take the ring and robe of a scythe, and the winner must glean the loser. The plot, which already wasn't slow, really takes off in some satisfying directions from here, as Citra and Rowan find themselves pursuing different paths and seeing different sides of death and themselves, both tested and tempted in ways they did not anticipate (and in which they sometimes fail). Around them is a web of fellow scythes and a few civilians, precious few of whom can be trusted as allies when needed. And always, front and center, is death, and what the world has become when final and ultimate death is in the hands of an elite few rather than the birthright of every human. If you think that this being a Young Adult title means that Shusterman fades to black or skirts around the gory, messy, dark subjects of "killcraft" and death, think again. It's there, always, and characters do not (or are not allowed to) shy away or blink. Even the characters may end up "deadish" more than once ("deadish" being what most people experience when they are not ultimately gleaned; an ending, followed by waking up, woozy and sore, in a revival facility).
This is not a book that drags its heels much, or overexplains too often. There are some aspects of the future that I felt could've used a touch more fleshing out and focus, as for the most part Shusterman keeps the lens on the scythes. Everything builds to a decently cathartic climax that sets up the next book, but feels satisfying enough that I don't need to rush right out and buy the sequel. The whole is an interesting, absorbing, and thought-provoking tale, one where there aren't always easy answers or clear divisions between right and wrong, good and evil.

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A Parade of Horribles (Matt Dinniman)

A Parade of Horribles

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 8
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

After the epic chaos of the Faction Wars, the crawlers of Earth have arrived at the tenth floor... those who did not take deals to escape the dungeons early via indentured servitude. For those determined to hold out for better deals after the next floor or two - or those who, like Carl and Donut and their friends, are committed to fighting back against the whole system profiting off Earth's grotesque death throes - the next challenge seems fairly straightforward, almost mundane. It's a seven-heat race where the losing team of each leg is instantly annihilated. Naturally, being the dungeons, there's still plenty of danger: the tracks often have quests and challenges that must be completed before the finish line, and the races are designed to pit each team against each other and break down the camaraderie forged in the Faction Wars. But Carl and Donut are no neophytes to the twisted games they're being forced to play, and every indignity they survive only makes them stronger. It might take divine intervention to stop their quest for vengeance. Unfortunately, the dungeons have no shortage of gods to throw at the crawlers, too... and several of them need no motivation to smash the rebellious crawlers into primordial ooze.
This book includes the eighth installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," an ongoing bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW:

Wow... that's all I could think to say after I finished this, the last installment currently in print (as of mid-August 2026). After the sprawling and truly epic events of the previous book, Dinniman shifts gears to refocus on the core crawler crew with the more straightforward tenth floor challenge, which is a bit like the old Hanna-Barbera Wacky Races cartoons as filtered through a cracked fun house mirror in a haunted amusement park populated by nightmares. The majority of crawlers who survived the Wars tapped out, and not a single person could possibly blame them; Carl and the others even encourage as many people as they can to take at least a chance at survival over the near-certain deaths awaiting those staying in the game. This reins in some of the character sprawl, though there are still a few new-to-the-reader faces, not just in the NPC teams. But the show runners and the AI are not about to back off or show anything resembling mercy. If anything, they only grow more sadistic, the defiance of the enduring crawlers an insult that must be punished. The AI itself, which is well and truly beyond the control of the ostensible game runners, does not become a friend or ally, but a potentially far more dangerous entity than even its (former) masters imagined. It has its own agenda, and is ruthlessly using both the crawlers and the trapped aliens - the ones it won't let leave the system, many of them the galactic elites who have been profiting off AI-driven planet-killing death games for generations - in pursuit of that agenda. This adds a new challenge, as it's clear that nobody is going to survive this off-the-rails game unless someone can figure out what the AI is after by piecing together seemingly incompatible clues. New secrets and truths are revealed, turning what people thought they knew about the Primal Engines, the AIs behind them, and the galaxy itself on its ear... and revealing just how badly the races of the galaxy have screwed things up by messing with technology they did not understand.
Of course, there's still plenty of room in all this for the humor (if sometimes gallows humor) and heart that's run through the series, the banter and character moments that keep things from spiraling too dark (and which throw those dark moments into greater contrast). Even as Carl and Donut both show some psychological cracks from what they've had to do, they still cling to their humanity, the thing the dungeons are trying their best to rip away. Their relationship is the lifeline they both cling to when they feel overwhelmed, and the one the reader can come back to when the rest of the dungeons look too violent and bleak.
The whole event ends with the Parade of Horribles, a truncated eleventh floor co-opted by the AI and designed to destroy whoever survives the races. It might be the best chance for the crawlers to strike back - or the end of everything they've tried to do and everyone still alive, even the people they thought they were saving. Things wrap up with a truly game-changing finale... and a cliffhanger that I'll have to cling to until the next book drops.
As for the bonus story, this is another shorter installment, but also a pivotal one, reacting to the events that have shaken up the rest of the dungeons. The plight of the wakened NPCs is tied even more closely to that of the crawlers at this point.
It's almost hard to believe that I only picked up the first book at the end of January and binged eight by mid-August, an almost unprecedented rate of series consumption. I just could not stop myself. So now, here I am, sitting not at the end of one of the wildest roller coaster ride I've been on in recent memory, but paused at the top of a long drop into a no doubt twisting, looping, breakneck track. There's a nonzero likelihood I'll be rereading the series alongside whatever books I pick up next, and I haven't had the overwhelming urge to reread a series - especially not so soon after finishing - in some time; the fact that this utterly insane concept works so well for so long is just fascinating to me, and I want to go back to the beginning to see if I can figure out how Dinniman pieced the whole thing together.
(As a closing note, it's worth collecting the hardcover editions if possible; check underneath the dust jackets. It's worth it.)

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Frostbite (Ian Boothby)

Frostbite

Ian Boothby, illustrations by Pia Guerra
Graphix
Fiction, YA Graphic Novel/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION:

A busload of high school hockey players, on the way home from a winter game, takes a wrong turn and slides off the road in the middle of the snowy woods... and is never seen again. This is just the latest disappearance in the valley between the two rivers.
Teen influencer siblings Jen and Dante have a popular channel filming themselves doing outrageous stunts - including jumping out of a helicopter to snowboard down a mountain. But they find themselves in way over their heads when they end up in the dangerous valley as night falls, and something dark and deadly begins to stir beneath the snow.

REVIEW:

A hidden valley, a secret danger, half-seen beasts lurking unseen, a desperate plan to survive a freezing night in the woods... Frostbite may not be the most original of tales, but it's a quick, clean, reliable concept, and it's not badly executed or rendered, but there were some issues that held it down in the ratings. For one, sometimes it was a bit tough to tell a few characters apart as they're bundled in snow gear. For another, the in-story logic feels weak and stretched at times. The monsters themselves have clear patterns and rules, but the people, especially the ones who have lived next door to the monsters for generations and the subset who have dedicated themselves to protecting others from the danger, really should have more situational awareness, particularly regarding the final "twist" in the last frame. I realize that many horror/monster stories require the odd bout of plot-enabling numbskull moments, but this one stretched credulity at a couple or three places. It doesn't overstay its welcome, though, and in the moment it produces some tense moments and startles.

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This Inevitable Ruin (Matt Dinniman)

This Inevitable Ruin

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 7
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

The Faction Wars are traditionally a place where the galactic elite get to play at war, capturing castles and seizing territory, sending countless mercenaries and NPCs to their dooms and picking off most of however many unfortunate crawlers manage to survive to the ninth floor of the dungeons. But there hasn't been a crawl like this season before. Now, instead of being outside the carnage as usual, the warlords are now themselves vulnerable to the maiming and death they usually inflict on underlings. There's also a new wrinkle: the changeling NPCs, now wakened to their true nature, have claimed a seat at the table. With an AI that's well and truly beyond anyone's control now calling the shots, the only guarantee is that nobody is safe - making everyone that much more desperate, and dangerous.
Carl and Donut have managed to help keep a record number of crawlers alive this far, but the Faction Wars are going to be a bloodbath no matter what they do. They get unexpected help from offworlder allies - former crawlers, each of whom endured the devastation of their own homeworlds and indentured servitude in crawls to earn some semblance of freedom. But these new allies also bring new complications, not to mention old vendettas. Top that off with further entanglements with the volatile dungeon gods, and the slender thread of luck that's kept Carl and Donut alive this far may finally snap.
This book includes the seventh installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Club," a bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW:

What more can I possibly say about this series? Once again, Dinniman manages to maintain the addictive magic that sucked me into this series, its mixture of humor, cultural callbacks, and cutting moments of trauma and depth. The cast and associated interpersonal complications (and lore, both in the greater galaxy and within the dungeons) continue to grow, sometimes bordering on unwieldy, but it all comes together enough to ride out any moments of confusion. Victories are hard-won and not at all guaranteed; Carl, Donut, and their allies make some mistakes along the way with serious repercussions. Carl also has to learn to step back and let other people help out, including Donut. Still, they remain determined in their mission to bring the pain visited upon Earth to the people responsible, though their vow to remain unbroken by the torments of the dungeons faces some serious threats; it is not truly possible to remain unbent or unaltered, physically or mentally, by the dungeons, as their interactions with the former crawlers reveals all too clearly. There's a saying among them, that everyone who enters the dungeons ultimately dies there, and one way or another that seems grimly true. Yet there is still hope, and more than a few humorous moments to keep the darkness from overwhelming the characters (or the reader).
Like the previous books, the central premise of the floor itself is different enough to keep monotony from setting in. The war "games" of the ninth level demand new tactics, particularly if Carl and Donut want to keep not only themselves alive, but save the NPCs who have helped them so much already (even if calling them true allies might be a bit of a stretch; the changelings still have their secrets and their own agenda, as does everyone involved in the Faction Wars). There's also the matter of the curse Donut inherited when she first donned the purple tiara at the start of the dungeon, the one that obligates her to eliminate all heirs of the naga Blood Sultanate in order to leave this floor of the dungeon... further complicated when fellow crawler and close friend Katia revealed that she, too, ended up with the same curse, meaning only one of them can survive. And Carl still carries the burden of the Eye of the Bedlam Bride, which constantly threatens to break free of his control and destroy everything he has tried to build, every plan he has attempted to put into action to get as many people through the Faction Wars alive as possible. It all makes for a very high-octane installment, after some slower setup at the start of the dungeon floor, building to yet another spectacular, complication-riddled finale.
As for the bonus story, this installment is notably shorter, but marks a very sharp turning point in the plot.
All in all, I quite enjoyed this outing, and will be queueing up the eighth book (the last currently published, as of late July 2026).

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Houses With a Story (Seiji Yoshida)

Houses With a Story: A Dragon’s Den, a Ghostly Mansion, a Library of Lost Books, and 30 More Amazing Places to Explore

Seiji Yoshida, translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash
Harry N. Abrams
Fiction, MG? Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

From the mountaintop sanctuary of a dedicated astronomer to a modern bookshop whose proprietor is more than he seems, from a Victorian mansion with a playful young ghost to the dwelling of a dragon tamer who carries the mail across the mountains, artist Seiji Yoshida presents numerous fantastical homes with hints of the stories behind them and the people (or spirits) who live within.

REVIEW:

With strong shades of the whimsicality of Studio Ghibli films and the fantastical locales that feel so real you could step into them presented by James Gurney in his Dinotopia series, Houses With a Story is precisely what the title promises: a series of pictures and cutaways presenting all manner of imagined homes and imagined characters in imagined yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. These are the kind of imagination-stirring, thought-provoking images that one could pore over for hours, inspiring tales and perhaps compelling one to draw original homes and characters of one's own. At the end, Yoshida includes some sketches and a walkthrough of his art process for further inspiration.
That said, there were a few quibbles - nothing truly awful, but a few little nits and itches that held it down a bit in the ratings. For one thing, the "stories" are uneven; some locales have plenty of extra images and ideas about them, while others are there and done in a single page, as though the artist were less invested or interested. For another, I borrowed this via my library and the Hoopla app, and digital was perhaps not the best choice. Though my tablet is not top-of-the-line, it's not underpowered or underpixeled by any means, yet some of the "zoom" images included to show details had poor resolution, and navigation was sometimes confusing. Also, there was a certain sameness that settled in; there were a few outliers that were wildly imaginative, but many of the others started feeling... I suppose "safe" and "familiar" are the best words, not exploring the far corners of imagination but sticking to what was clearly familiar territory for the artist.
On the whole, though, this is a fun, undemanding book to page through on a lazy afternoon.

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The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Matt Dinniman)

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 6
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

Every floor of the dungeons has been designed to break not only the bodies but the wills and spirits of the surviving humans, and the harder Carl and Donut and the others resist, the more sadistic the "game" becomes. The eighth level is dedicated to reminding all of the crawlers just what was lost when the aliens took over. It's a "tribute" to the last days of free Earth, where the crawlers move through recorded, ghostly versions of the surface world nations in the days leading up to the end of everything... where people cannot be interacted with, but physical objects like cars can still be deadly. Also, the creators and AI have recreated many of the local monsters of folklore and legend for each locale, from Irish banshees to Pacific Northwest sasquatches to the myriad deadly demons of Japan. But this time, there's another game at play: the crawlers not only need to fight these new mobs, but take at least six powerful monsters for "totems" in a card game that will unfold in the second phase of the level, one that will determine who gets to proceed to the ninth floor and who dies here and now. With the way this crop of crawlers has already messed with the systems (and meddled in intragalactic politics and profit margins), the creators clearly have no intention of letting any crawler survive to reach the Faction Wars of the ninth level, meaning to make their deaths as painful and humiliating as they possibly can... but the "Princess Posse" won't go down without a fight, and may find some unexpected allies even as they unearth new enemies and complications.
This book contains the sixth installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," an ongoing bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW:

What else can I really say about this series? Dinniman delivers yet another astounding, sometimes horrific, sometimes hilarious outing for Carl, Donut, and the rest of the crew. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride maintains the momentum of the previous installments admirably, building on prior developments in the greater arcs and creating new complications that will no doubt come back to haunt the characters in future installments, even as the cast yet again thins by a few notable names. Carl and Donut are drawn deeper into the drama between the "gods" of the dungeon world and the greater galactic political nightmare, even as the already-unstable AI slips a few more notches away from sanity and out of the game runners' control. They're both getting better at juggling the demands of life in the dungeon with the need to play the larger game, especially now that they've secured an official spot in the Faction Wars on the next floor, but that only puts them in more danger, creating more ways for enemies to strike at them. It can be a bit sprawling and overwhelming, but generally one can ride it out and trust Dinniman to know what he's doing, which so far he seems to. More is also coming out about the origins of the "Primal" AI systems that are used to create the reality-altering bubbles in which the dungeon games occur, and how even the people running the show are unaware just how massively they've blundered in mishandling tech they still do not truly understand.
For the in-book arc of the eighth floor, the dungeons find new ways to twist the knife in the guts of the surviving crawlers, forcing them to witness just what it was that they lost when the aliens arrived and the dungeons appeared. Each have been placed deliberately to endure encounters with ghosts of their past, both as memory phantoms playing out the recording of the final free days of the species and as resurrected and twisted versions of family and loved ones that they're forced to confront... but first the crawlers have to fight their way through hordes birthed from the collective imaginations and fears of humanity in the form of legends and monsters and other iconic ideas made flesh (including an "Uzi Jesus," the assault rifle-bearing, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, enemy-crushing, and hate-spewing embodiment of a church gone so far off the rails it wouldn't even recognize its purported founder). These bring their own complications and side-quests, as well as unexpected opportunities if a crawler is clever enough about the (literal) cards dealt them. As for the card game, I don't play the sort of games that inspired this, but I could follow the gist of the action if I just let things play out; I'm sure I'd have gotten much more out of it if I were more familiar with the intricacies of combat card games.
As I've come to expect from the series, the action just keeps building to a truly explosive finale, which entails some sacrifices but also offers a faint glimmer of hope going ahead, that maybe Carl and company can indeed survive what's ahead... at least for one more floor. The epilogue, of course, promises more wrenches in the works, as does the sixth installment of the bonus story.
It goes without saying that the seventh book is on deck, to be started as soon as I can clear a little breathing space in a summer that's already overloaded even though it just technically started.

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Bea Wolf (Zach Weinersmith)

Bea Wolf

Zach Weinersmith, illustrations by Boulet
First Second Books
Fiction, MG? Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Humor/Poetry
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

Hey, wait! Hark now to a tale of heroes and monsters, of foam swords and green soda and tooth-rotting treats, of the ancient King Carl and the many who bore the cardboard crown after he passed into the teen-lands, and of the greatest warrior to ever raise her sugar-sticky fist against the fun-breakers and the bullies: Bea Wolf.
In the high hall of Treeheart, a magnificent stronghold of childhood wonder and hijinks, King Kai and his loyal band enjoy raucous merriment, trading jokes and telling stories and playing video games without parent-approved content... until the enraged neighbor, Mr. Grindle, can stand it no more. His mere touch instantly turns the wildest of children into a dull-eyed, dull-minded teenager, stripping them of their power and joy and ushering them into the doom of gray adulthood. All seemed lost, childhood forever ruined by the mustached monster - until an ally arrives to do battle with the fiendish foe.

REVIEW:

In this homage to the classic epic poem Beowulf, Weinersmith projects age-old concepts of mythology, heroism, loyalty, storytelling, and even the inevitability of entropy and decay of all great things onto the ultimate lost country of childhood.
Intentionally evoking the language and poetry of the original, as well as the alliteration and the dance of words, the tale relates the founding of the "kingdom" by the great king Carl, who - when he inevitably found the chin-whiskers and cracked voice of adolescence upon him, called for a pyre to mark his "death" and passed his crown on to future generations... knowing, even in his "afterlife" checking groceries at the supermarket, that his legend lives on. Heroes of old are evoked throughout, such as the twins who defied bedtime for seven whole days and gained wizardly powers before succumbing to sleep, and the girl whose Halloween candy haul remains unmatched. The current heir to Carl's throne, Kai, has raised the great high hall Treeheart, a place of feasting and merry-making and bedtime-defying for all brave children. But he faces a new threat: Mr. Grindle, "gloom's guardian, teacher of grief," a man who so embodies the epitome of boring, nasty, petty, cruel adulthood that he has become a monster, who only needs to lay one finger on a child to "begeezer" them, leach all their joy and imagination and magic (and there very much is magic involved in this story, which blurs the lines of reality and imagination to create a realm of epic marvels and dangers for the young and a gray, staid "afterlife" for the adults) and make them into phone-staring, rule-following young adults devoid of dreams. Treeheart technically partly overlays his property line, but it's the pure expression of childish joy and anarchy that truly drives the man into a rage, prompting him to defy the traps set to keep grown-ups out - a ladder laced with bug carapaces and boogers and other things repellent to their kind - to savage the very sacred hall itself, until no child dares set foot within. In Kai's time of need and woe, however, an ancient pact is recalled, and an ally from a distant kingdom (another suburb, up the "sliding sea," or river, from his) sends her greatest band of warriors to his aid. The chief of these warriors is the girl Bea Wolf, whose each fist holds the strength of sixty children. But is Mr. Grindle a match even for her bravery and might?
As in the original story, there is, even underneath the moments of triumph and humor, a sense of fate to both victories and defeats, as well as inevitable ending and tragedy, that even the greatest of kingdoms and mightiest of legends will inevitably fade. No child can escape adolescence forever (well, almost no child; there are a few tales mentioned in passing that hint at children who either managed to hold onto their dreams into adulthood or... did not grow up, though I may have been reading a little too much into those). Only the stories survive to inspire and inform the next heroes, passed down by young poets and bards from child to child like Carl's cardboard crown.
At the end, Weinersmith discusses the original Beowulf, the history of the surviving manuscripts, and how Bea Wolf was written to evoke the ancient epic, as well as a few pages of concept art that went into developing the idea. The art itself is worth noting, too, giving noteworthy children their own heraldic shields and creating distinct, occasionally surreal characters and monsters, matching the text in how it blurs lines between realism and fantasy.
The whole is an imaginative ode to timeless classical themes, a story that a clever child should enjoy, but which might speak also to those looking back at childhood from the other side of the teen-lands, hoping perhaps that magic and wonder and adventure yet remain somewhere in this gray and dreamless world, at least for the young.

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Dungeon Drawler Carl: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 (Matt Dinniman et al.)

Dungeon Crawler Carl: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1

The Dungeon Crawler Carl Graphic Novel series, Issues 1 - 13
Matt Dinniman (author and creator), Aethon (creator), and Actus (creator), illustrations by Laurel Pursuit Studios
Vault Comics
Fiction, Fantasy/Graphic Novel/Humor/Media Tie-in/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

It was 2 AM on a cold winter night in Seattle when Coast Guard vet Carl watched the world end. He'd run outside in nothing but his boxers and a pair of too-small pink crocs after Princess Donut, the award-winning Persian who belonged to his ex Beatrice, escaped, so he could only watch in shock as every building suddenly was squashed out of existence, along with everyone and everything inside (including his pants). A booming voice informs everyone that aliens have arrived to take the planet's minerals, but humans could regain control of their world... if anyone dares brave the eighteen levels of the dungeon "game" that have been created underground. Carl didn't even want to do it, but he and Donut will die of exposure if they don't get out of the frigid air, so when a stairwell opens nearby he ventures down, hardly expecting how his life is about to change...
This volume collects the first 13 chapters of the webtoon based on Matt Dinniman's novel, Dungeon Crawler Carl.

REVIEW:

Yes, I'm on a bit of a Carl kick at the moment (so sue me, I seriously need something to enjoy with the way everything's going), so I went ahead and sprang for this graphic novel adaptation. The story sticks pretty close to the book, covering the first third or so of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and was clearly made with the author's input. The only major change that I noticed is that Donut is now a colorpoint (mostly white) cat instead of a tortoiseshell, a perfectly understandable compromise for the medium (torties being far more complicated to consistently ink and color, plus the simpler markings of a colorpoint make expressions easier to render and read). The art, effects, and overall layout and conventions reflect more manga influences than I usually read in my admittedly-limited graphic novel experience, but do a decent job getting ideas and emotions across.
That said, I do have a few gripes. The size is a little smaller than I'd hoped, being roughly eight inches by five and a half inches, which can make some of the text a little hard to read. Speaking of hard to read, several of the dungeon announcements, such as the AI's often-hilarious "achievements" for various tasks, are printed in fine white lettering on gold/orange backgrounds. Either my copy is slightly off true in color alignment, or it's just plain too small and with too poor contrast, because a good third at least of these announcements I could not read; the text is just too grainy even with a magnifier. There's no real gutter at the inner margins of the pages, which also cuts into images and text in ways that affect readability; I can't open the thing flat enough to see it all without damaging the spine or pages. I'm also unsure how well I'd be following it if I didn't already know the story (again, in part due to bits being a little tough to read). I'm not sure it picked the best point to end, not really being at a conclusion or a cliffhanger but just in the middle of things. And there were times where the panel layout and progression wasn't quite clear, though I expect this is down to me not reading enough manga-influenced material to be familiar with how they flow compared to more "Western" graphic novel styles.
Still, for all that, it's still a fun story that doesn't stint on the emotional weight, and the visual aspect highlights both the comic absurdity and the overall darkness of what's happening to Carl, Donut, and the world.

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Sea Legs (Jules Bakes)

Sea Legs

Jules Bakes, illustrations by Niki Smith
Scholastic
Fiction, MG General Fiction/Graphic Novel
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Living aboard a boat would be a dream come true for most kids, but sometimes Janey gets tired of being adrift her whole life. Once in a while they drop anchor in an American port long enough for Mom and Dad to earn money, and she gets to go to school and make friends, but soon enough the red sails on the Merimaid rise and it's off across the sea again. Janey's determined to keep in touch with Rae, the best and closest friend she's ever made, but phone calls are expensive and letters sporadic and hard to mail. Then, at dock in the Bahamas, Janey meets teenager Astrid. Like Janey, Astrid lives aboard a boat, but otherwise they're nothing alike, challenging Janey to rethink her own life and her place in the world.

REVIEW:

This was an impulse borrow via the library and the Hoopla app to change up genres a bit; it's been a while since I read a graphic novel, especially one not in the fantasy/sci-fi genres, and I was looking for sea-related ideas for a personal project. Inspired by the author's own childhood aboard a boat built by her parents, Sea Legs is a coming-of-age tale as young Janey learns to navigate the difficult waters of an unusual childhood and different ways people can be friends. She loves her parents, and there are many wonderful things about life aboard the Merimaid - starlight, flying fish, colorful new places and amazing new foods - but sometimes it's tough when all she wants is friends she can see every day and a teacher who isn't her own mother.
Astrid is almost everything Janey is not: confident to the point of arrogance, cynical, (apparently) fearless, and independent to a fault. Their friendship is more a matter of proximity and a dearth of other minors on the docks than anything else; most other boat-dwellers are adults. Sometimes Janey resents Astrid's dismissive attitude and how she treats the younger girl like she's silly or stupid, but she also wants to be like Astrid... not seeing (at least not at first) how all the qualities she admires are the result of a harder life than Janey can imagine. The fact that Astrid keeps coming back to hang out with Janey speaks to something Astrid needs in a friend, too, but can't say out loud, not even to herself. Even as they form a fragile, fractious, and unlikely bond, however, the shifting seasons and tides threaten to destroy everything. The seas are never still, and neither is a life lived on the water, but sometimes you can find something to carry with you when you go.
The story moves decently. The art is bright and full of tropical colors and exotic locales, bringing to life a bygone childhood and the wonders (and hardships) of growing up on a boat. I enjoyed it.

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A Mouthful of Dust (Nghi Vo)

A Mouthful of Dust

The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 6
Nghi Vo
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

The cleric Chih and their neixin - talking hoopoe - companion Almost Brilliant have come to Baolin to record stories of the famine demon that devastated the region almost twenty years ago. Though now it's a thriving town known for its sweet leopard melons and succulent pork dishes, in those days the people were reduced to eating mud and dust and even each other, and the scars linger... as do the unquiet ghosts, tied to secrets that some people don't want in the Singing Hills archives.

REVIEW:

The Singing Hills novellas are a nice break between longer works, bite-sized tales one can finish in a single sitting yet not too simplistic or shallow to enjoy. They can also be read in most any order, mostly connected by Chih and Almost Brilliant, reminiscent of older TV shows that were more episodic adventures and less massive mytharcs to unravel, with only a few passing references to prior adventures. Here, the cleric and their bird companion have been tasked with recording tales of the region, mostly about the famine demon (in this world, there is indeed a demon at the heart of famine, a monstrous thing ever hungry for anything it has not consumed before) but also about anything else they happen upon, being curious by nature. This, naturally, does not sit well with those in power who still have shameful secrets about their actions in the face of terrible times... but hunger is a monster, whether or not a physical actual demon is involved, and when it comes to survival people can be amazed - and revolted - by what they find themselves capable of. Not for the first time, the Singing Hills abbey duo get on the wrong side of a powerful person, both because of their vocation and because of Chih's tendency to tug on loose threads in tales to see where they lead, and are mostly witnesses as a tale that started long before their arrival comes at last to its conclusion. It made for a quick and satisfying meal.

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Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment (Anna James)

Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment
The Chronicles of Whetherwhy series, Book 1
Anna James
Flamingo Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: On the island of Whetherwhy, everyone has a little magic, each influenced by the four seasons, from the creation of spring through the learning and revelation of summer, transitions and transformations of fall, and destruction and endings of winter. But only a few are enchanters, with power rooted in all four seasons. Enchanters can weave powerful spells from the threads of Whetherwhy's magic, even creating lifelike "Tangle" creatures of pure magic, and must learn to control their gifts properly lest things go terribly awry. Some even rise as far as the queen's personal retinue! That is why, at age thirteen, all children are tested to reveal their particular season of magic, and enchanters are whisked off to Thistledown Academy in the capital of Stormgrove.
Juniper Quinn wants none of that. She loves reading about adventures in books, but doesn't think she has it in her to do great things... so only her twin brother, Rafferty, knows that she has enchanter magic. She'd much rather stay in their small town of Honeyvale with their bookbinder family than go off to a big city like Stormgrove, away from everyone she knows and loves - and besides, everyone seems to think enchanters are arrogant snobs looking down on the rest of Whetherwhy. But there's no tricking the testers, so - like it or not - she's soon on her way to Thistledown. Here, she learns it's not so bad being an enchanter. She might even get to enjoy it... but from the start there are secrets and dangers afoot, starting with an attack on the way to the academy itself that robs her of her magic.
Rafferty, meanwhile, has never lived apart from his sister. But when she's taken away, he realizes that he wants to see the wider world himself, and what better place to start than Stormgrove? He applies to various printers and gets accepted as an apprentice in a bindery not far from Thistledown. What a great way to start an adventurous life, and how surprised Juniper will be to find her twin brother right next door in the big city! But being away from his family for the first time exposes him to a different Whetherwhy than he knew, a place where enchanters are distrusted, inequality is rampant, and secret societies seek to level the playing field. Soon, he begins to wonder which side he's on - and if he can still trust his own twin sister, now that she's a Thistledown student on the other side of the academy walls.

REVIEW: I mostly got this because the second book in the series intrigued me; I liked the concept of the "Tangles", magical constructs with lives of their own (with their dark counterpart "Knots"), and it looked light and whimsical. But at some point it simply did not deliver on its best promises, staying in the shallow end of a concept that kept teasing at deeper and more interesting waters.
It starts out as just what it promised on the cover, a fun and somewhat whimsical fantasy adventure, and if it isn't exactly original, it has that worn-in-shoes comfortable familiarity of tropes done decently. Juniper and Rafferty Quinn are decent enough characters for the story and world they inhabit, twins who share everything except their magic; while Rafferty is a strong spring mage, using his creative gifts to embroider beautiful designs for the family's bookbinder business, Juniper struggles to hide the enchantment powers that she knows will separate her from her loved ones and thrust her into a life she doesn't feel ready to live. It doesn't help that their own father makes a comment about enchanters being stuck-up snobs (before he knows about her gifts), and others in Honeyvale agree with him. But when her powers are revealed, everyone comes together in support and doesn't say a bad word about enchanter magic again, so that little plot point fizzles out... the first of many hints at greater conflicts and prejudices that gets lip service but little to no actual page presence or follow-through. The reader is told more than once that enchanters are an elite class of people, viewed as considering themselves better than the average Whetherwhy citizen with their smaller magics... but we barely ever see people in Whetherwhy actively using their magic anyway, and we never see enchanters actually treating people bad (or people being treated poorly as a direct result of enchanters existing). The classism that exists is a little clunky and is the sort that seems like it would exist even without magic at all, tied to wealth more than magic itself, enchanters being so rare that you just don't get whole families of them; Juniper has two classmates from wealthy families, neither of whom built their wealth solely on enchanters, one of them being a spoiled snob and the other embracing Thistledown's efforts to teach students to do most everything without magic or even servants, including gardening and mending and cleaning. How are students from this system coming out as the uppity snobs that everyone complains about (save the few who started out that way)... or why is everyone so jealous of powers we only really see used in moments of danger? There's talk of increasing numbers of "Knots" (malevolent free-roaming magical constructs that are the result of misfired spells or other magical accidents), but they seem too rare and random to really account for the resentment that drives so much of one half of the plot.
Anyway, while Juniper is dealing with the academy and the theft of her magic, Rafferty sets out on his own big adventure, and soon finds himself pulled into a dark conspiracy of anti-enchanter agitators. At first, they seem not so bad: surely they're just studying magic and enchantment on their own, and if there really is a way to share powers so those with less get a little more, is that so terrible? Maybe he can be close to his sister again... but he also starts to listen to the wrong voices and takes her prolonged silence in response to his letters the wrong way, thinking she's becoming elitist like everyone seems to think all enchanters become as they develop their magic. He has a fellow apprentice, Jessy, and both are pulled into the secret Papercut Society via an exceptional plot convenience that only crops up once Rafferty is in town... which is odd, as Jessy has been an orphan for much longer than he's been there and the coincidence that drags them in involves the deaths of her parents. It's like she was sitting there twiddling her thumbs waiting for a main character to show up and kickstart her adventure. In fact, too much of the plot starts to feel like people and events were sitting around waiting for the Quinn twins to come along in order to start moving. I understand there's going to be some level of plot convenience in many stories, but it started feeling like a bit of a stretch, even for a title aimed at younger readers.
The ending leaves a few questions dangling for future volumes, but by then I was no longer interested; it was all too shallow and glossy and neat, a smothering hug of an overprotective storyteller bound and determined not to let anything too perilous reach little ears. There's even a dragon for quite literally no reason that needed a dragon. I am an absolute sucker for dragons, but when even I just shrugged my shoulders after its brief appearance - after the characters made a point of being amazed that one even existed when they've been gone so long that even Whetherwhy, the isle of magic, considers them mere myths, only for everyone to dismiss it the moment it was out of sight, no attempt to follow up with the person who apparently captured or smuggled it into the city, no questions, no lingering hint of it as an ongoing threat, no nothing, like young toddlers whose concept of object permanence is not yet fully formed - that's a waste of a dragon.
By the end, I found the story just plain lacked the sparkle and punch to even keep it at a four-star Good rating. Characters never really surprise or change much, plot points are telegraphed with the subtlety of a jackhammer, and it wraps up too neatly (yet not neatly at all given all the unacknowledged issues and questions that should be dealt with but aren't). There's real potential and some nice descriptions of the magic and world, but James just bubble-wrapped it too much, shying away from any of the truly dark and interesting bits that would've kept me satisfied and reading onward.

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The Butcher's Masquerade (Matt Dinniman)

The Butcher's Masquerade
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 5
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: Since the start of the dungeons, Carl and the other crawlers have not only been prey for various "mobs" and NPCs, but subject to the whims of the game sponsors and other outside influences. But before, those outsiders could not directly interfere or enter the dungeons (save as embodied in other forms).
On the sixth floor, everything changes.
The Hunting Grounds see the crawlers subject not just to increasingly-deadly monsters and quests, but to hunters from the greater galaxy, come to collect bounties or simply trophies and bragging rights, as well as valuable loot for the upcoming ninth floor faction wars. It all culminates in the Butcher's Masquerade, a grand party - complete with pet show and talent competition - to close out the level... and, not incidentally, pick off the top crawlers to shake things up for future floors. Carl and Donut already have made enemies among the political elite, even as they've gained countless followers and fans. This puts a target on their heads, and the hunters are eager to take a shot.
But Carl, Donut, and their other allies are not the same people they were when they wandered down that first stairwell from the devastated surface of Earth. If the hunters think the crawlers are going to die easily, then they haven't been paying attention.
This book contains the fifth installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," an ongoing bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW: Many series either plateau or drop off by the fifth book. Once again, Dinniman astounds.
Carl, Donut, and the others are not at all the same people they were at the start of the series, not always in good ways. Carl remains determined to resist all efforts to break him, but he and his morals have been distinctly bent by the needs of survival, even as his rage at the dungeon masters grows ever greater. He's taking bigger risks, and they sometimes blow up in his face, or the faces of the people he talked into trusting him. In the previous floor, he and Donut stopped being mere victims of the dungeon and started fighting back (though, of course, they're still stuck playing the "game" even as they plot acts of sabotage and rebellion). Here, with the faces of actual enemies before him in a setting where he has power - unlike the moments before when they've been transported to talk shows and other settings for grotesque interviews or game shows - he finally has a chance to unleash some of the rage that's been building within him from the start... but the game masters, of course, have ways of retaliating.
Donut, too, is not the cat she once was, and anyone who dismisses her soon learns that, long before they were bred for cat shows and companionship, cats were natural hunters. But her mind is no longer that of a pure animal, and she's feeling the stress, shock, and trauma every bit as much as Carl, even as she struggles to articulate it. Her increasingly human intelligence is also shown in how she remembers her life before the dungeons, which comes to the forefront when they encounter a face from their past. The dungeon throws an extra low blow at her when it brings in her old beau Gravy Boat, a.k.a. "Ferdinand," the neighbor's orange tom, now enhanced, brainwashed and turned into an NPC familiar of the floor's ultimate boss.
Carl and Donut know full well the twisted truth behind NPCs, how even those with familiar faces are no longer, and never will be again, the people they once were, but that doesn't make it easier to see one's family members, lovers, or even fallen crawlers "return"... which is, of course, quite intentional. The games have always had many layers - entertainment, blood sport, political commentary, and more - but first and foremost they are designed to inflict as much physical and psychological damage on the involuntary "crawlers" before their deaths as possible. It's thrown into surreal perspective when Carl is forcibly recruited to appear (holographically) at CrawlCon, a convention for fans of the dungeon crawler season. While Donut revels in her fan base, Carl cannot help feeling repulsed by the packed rooms full of people who are, in their own ways, cheering for the torture and death of everyone on his planet, despite all the cosplay and fan art professing their affection... and, of course, it's one more trap set up by the creators, another way to both psychologically mess with him and create more enemies and complications that will haunt him and his allies further into the dungeon, especially concerning the mantids.
The floor itself, the Hunting Grounds, changes up the formula again. The addition of the hunters adds a fresh wrinkle on top of the new monsters and quests and the backstories. Carl also has to reckon with the bargain he made with the elite Signet and the production company behind her show (that she is blissfully unaware of, being an NPC)... but the show is not the safety net he'd hoped, and may be a greater danger than an asset. There's also the goddess-possessed decapitated sex doll head from the previous floor, Samantha, who is becoming more of a character, if one driven by her own agenda and with unreliable motives. And the other crawlers have their own stories and fates, particularly the enhanced goat Prepotente and his former shepherd Miriam Dom. Donut and the goat have a particular bond, being the only enhanced animal crawlers, but Prepotente gets a particularly unpleasant shock that changes him in ways nobody anticipated, and which Donut can't help him with. Needless to say, the crawler cast thins significantly even before the Butcher's Masquerade finale, which provides a truly gory and spectacular ending to a brutal level, complete with a dinosaur dance line.
Meanwhile, the fifth chapter of the bonus story introduces another new character and angle on the ongoing arc of the NPCs building their revenge dungeon on the eighteenth floor, not all of whom believe in the promise of paradise beyond the games. But even here, the AI and game masters revel in cruelty and torment, yanking hope away even when that hope was barely a glimmer in the darkness.
I kicked this back up to a full five stars because of the plot twists and developments that ramped up the stakes even higher than before, and some truly heartbreaking moments and lines amid some bright spots and hilarity. There is still a bit of name sprawl and political tangle to navigate, but nothing I couldn't read around or past and pick up the gist. I might take a short break to read a novella before the sixth installment, which is a whopper of a book (north of 800 pages), but I'm looking forward to where things go from here.

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The Gate of the Feral Gods (Matt Dinniman)

The Gate of the Feral Gods
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 4
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Reluctant dungeon crawler Carl, his ex-girlfriend's cat Princess Donut, Donut's pet dinosaur Mongo, and their partner Katia have survived to reach the fifth level, and once again find a fresh challenge and even more devious traps awaiting them. The surviving human crawlers have been scattered into a series of bubble-like microhabitats, each with four castles that need to be conquered. Sounds pretty straightforward, but nothing in the dungeons is ever straightforward. As before, there are deeper layers of lore, ever-escalating boss monster threats, and situations specifically engineered by the game runners to maximize suffering and boost body counts... and that's not taking into account the increasingly destabilizing effects of intragalactic political clashes and an AI that's increasingly unpredictable. But, even as they face dirigible-piloting gnomes and shapeshifting changelings and undead gods, one thing remains the same: Carl is determined to defy the game masters and strike back any way he can, even at the cost of his own life.
This book contains the fourth installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," an ongoing bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW: For a series that could easily fall into repetition and "level grinding," Dinniman manages to keep things fresh and interesting, ratcheting up the stakes and the challenges and growing the characters in unexpected ways. Carl and company make some new allies (and enemies), but they're also learning enough to start resisting more effectively, finding ways to circumvent the increasingly intrusive observers (both show-runners and viewers). The party's reputation is a mixed bag when it comes to convincing other crawlers to aid them, and the bounties don't exactly help engender trust, but they still try their best to avoid antagonizing more people; they have enough active enemies, some of which have become terrifyingly overpowered (and terrifyingly free of any lingering morality about helping the aliens exterminate the species). The expanding list of named crawlers again sometimes threatens to overwhelm at times, but Dinniman has a way of jogging the reader's memory about who they are and where they fit in.
Within the game, the horrors of what's happening to the humans and the NPCs grows even more grotesque and unbearable, and Carl and Donut find their most useful outside contacts threatened directly - the political game of the greater galaxy is potentially every bit as twisted, sadistic, and cruel as anything within the dungeons. Worse, the AI's fetishization of Carl moves from a peculiar quirk to a potentially game-destabilizing obsession, further signs that the Syndicate's corner-cutting rush job going into this "season" is causing greater chaos and danger to everyone involved - but at this point too many people are too deeply invested to pull the plug, assuming the plug can even be pulled. And it's pulling great ratings, so why would they?
As before, there are some humorous moment, some crude (if funny) bits, and all manner of violent battles and unique monsters and intricate puzzles that have me in awe of Dinniman's ability to craft involving but ultimately understandable game elements (not to mention how he can plant tiny details that end up coming into play later down the line; the man must have a series bible the size of a small planet by now), but there's also a very human heart and tragedy underneath it all that keeps the whole concept from flying completely off the rails and beyond caring about. All of this ratchets up to a finale where Carl and Donut prove that they're ready to step up and stop simply letting the dungeon's horrors happen to them.... just when the epilogue promises a fresh monkey wrench about to be thrown into the works.
The fourth installment of the ongoing bonus story brings in yet another group of NPCs, further exploring the lives of the NPCs recruited to craft a death-trap level deep in the dungeons for any survivors who defy the odds to get that far down. Not all of them are buying the party line about a promised paradise beyond the end of the game, and more trouble is brewing even as the game up above is spiraling further out of the creators' control.
All in all, this series just keeps me riveted - enough that I found myself pre-ordering the eighth installment even before I'd finished reading the fourth. Since that book just arrived today, I may do something I rarely do: buckle down for a solid, back-to-back series binge read. If I manage to sneak a shorter title or two in between, I may, but I'm really getting invested at this point, and it's so very nice to have something that truly makes me excited anymore.

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Skeleton Song (Seanan McGuire)

Skeleton Song
The Wayward Children series, Story 7.7
Seanan McGuire
Tor
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In the world of Mariposa, days belong to the butterflies and bees and bright flowers, while the nights are the realm of the skeleton people, revived and maintained by the song of the world until dawn, when they rest again in their catacomb beds underground. The human boy Christopher came to Mariposa through a door from the hospital where he lay dying of bone cancer, but the Princess used her magic to save him. They fell in love. But she's a skeleton girl and he's a boy of living, hideous flesh, from another world no less... can they ever be together, or will the doors tear them apart again?
This short story is part of the Wayward Children series.

REVIEW: Like all children and teens at Eleanor West's boarding school for former world-travelers, Christopher's backstory has been teased and hinted at, as he speaks of his beloved Skeleton Girl and plays silent tunes on his bone flute that make bones dance. This short story delves into his time in Mariposa, and like all stories of the lost worlds beyond the doors, it's a tale of wonder and sorrow and deep, inevitable loss. Mariposa is a world of golden light and brilliant butterflies and endless song, where death is a celebration and life a bad memory quickly forgotten. Despite the prejudices of the skeletons and his status as an outsider, Christopher truly does love the world and the Princess, and she loves him. They wish to marry, but first they must speak to the King and Queen deep in the catacombs, where they will learn if their union is even possible; even if he were to die naturally, none of the skeleton people remember their living selves, so Christopher's reborn skeleton may be an entirely different person. Always, though, there's the threat of another door that might whisk him back to Earth.
It's interesting and beautiful and sad by turns, though it's ultimately just a little vignette, a glimpse at another world lost and soul torn by the seemingly fickle doors, and doesn't tell the reader anything they hadn't already been told (or could infer).

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