Fantasy

75th book of 2020: Lost in Calculations Read through this in one sitting, which was about as long as I think I would be able to suspend my disbelief. The world itself held promise, like a rotary calculator working through a math problem. Every obvious crack in the worldbuilding is addressed by some expository aside. Yet characters are part of worldbuilding, and that’s where things fell apart. The main character was consistently mean, sarcastic and indefatigable. While this is a bold character choice, it strained credulity. The entire school, and premise of the book, is that everybody is playing Queen’s Gambit worthy mental chess with one-another in order to stay alive. There are themes about inequality, but the plot makes me think it should be a book about trauma. If only 50% of the students survive, there are no teachers in order to serve as emotional role models, it feels like the place would turn into hunger games faster than the hunger games themselves.

Shorefall was a James Bond film, set in the Foundryside universe. Start with a caper, introduce a cookie-cutter villain, then spend the next few days going from one exotic locale to the next, blowing everything up in the process. In this installment, we find the old gods, who are coming back and are angry, and then spend the rest of the book fearing their wrath. Our heroes never really have time to catch their breath, and Bennett is deliberate with the chaos. ...

Not as compelling as the second book, mainly because a lot of the plot reveals were telegraphed so clearly in the first two books, it felt like I already knew how most of the character arcs would resolve. I’ll probably keep going with the series, but it’s not near the top of the list.

Better than the first book. Shallan is a far more interesting character than Kaladin, and the twists related to her story were the most surprising thing I’ve seen in the story so far. Despite this series being known for its world building, it still feels pale in comparison to other series.

2025 Re-review Sometimes, a fragment of a book stays with you - like a song you can’t get out of your head. That’s what has happened with Sanderson’s first ideal. The ideal itself is pure Sanderson: cliche, optimistic, noble. But the structure works. Plug in some different ideals, and the grammar has worked as a prayer ever since. “Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” * 2020 Review: 21st book of 2020. ...

13th book of 2020. A story of a boy who needs to take some time off from magic (code?) and travels east (Iraq?) where he learns how to navigate palace politics and strange cultures. Then he travels further east (China?) engages in questionable relationships with teachers before finally coming back to resume magic studies and finally starts to make some money. Fantasy drama version of my life from 20-28.

7th book of 2020. A story about a boy who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else (check), who grew up with a traveling troop of nomads (carnival?), was homeless before eventually ending up at university while scraping pennies together studying magic (code?). So I guess this is the fantasy drama version of my life from 16-20.

76th book of 2019 Didn’t like the protagonist, didn’t enjoy the setting, just felt like i was on a plane going nowhere as Senlin went from one cringe worthy decision to the next. would rather watch snowpiercer again.

74th book of 2019. Not disappointing. Picking up a beloved childhood series as an adult can be a gamble. It’s like rewatching films in high definition, and flaws that were buffed out in the haze of memory become glaringly apparent, while sometimes the author, out of ideas, ends up recycling the b-side plots into endless books of dwindling quality. Exhibit A: the Ender’s Game series. It was a compelling first book, and even first series, but once Card started to get into geopolitics, a lot of questionable racism came out, discrediting the entire series in my mind. ...

64th Book of 2019: Disappointingly Bland. I’ve been on a hot streak of fantasy this year, really enjoying The Raven Tower, as well as Foundryside, and even releases that didn’t hit all the right notes were very enjoyable, such as the Priory of the Orange Tree and Middlegame had redeeming qualities that made them enjoyable. Over the course of a lifetime, I’ve read plenty of bad fantasy (hello Eragon), and this book deserves to be thrown in that bin. ...