https://jonathanmckay.com/tags/mystery/Recent content in Mystery on Jonathan McKayHugoen-usSat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/ubik/Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/ubik/Decohere Ubik—the only book that reads you as you read it. Side effects include narrative dissonance and ontological vertigo. Do books need to make sensehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-drop-of-corruption-shadow-of-the-leviathan-%232/Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-drop-of-corruption-shadow-of-the-leviathan-%232/Murder, Magic, Malaise If Romantasy is court intrigue with a swooning heartbeat, this is its jaded sibling: Mysterantasy—suspicious deaths, arcanehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-city-the-city/Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-city-the-city/Exactly what I want out of fiction. A well paced plot, a few characters to root for, and surprises that keep the story ahead of, or at least more complexhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/six-of-crows-six-of-crows-%231/Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/six-of-crows-six-of-crows-%231/Fantasy Heist genre with characters interesting enough to keep turning the pages. Read it out of order, but the characters were interesting enough tohttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/and-then-there-were-none/Thu, 13 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/and-then-there-were-none/Mechanical writing, heavily foreshadowed plot, and multiple povs made this book highly soporific. Only one character had the right motive, making thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/city-of-stairs-the-divine-cities-%231/Sun, 29 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/city-of-stairs-the-divine-cities-%231/Surprised it took me so long to get to this. Dead gods and a strong flavor of colonialism are good themes for fantasy. Good characters to explore thehttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-master-of-djinn-dead-djinn-universe-%231/Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-master-of-djinn-dead-djinn-universe-%231/3.5 stars, great setting, solid writing. Somewhat disappointing characters and a predictable plot.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/leviathan-falls-the-expanse-%239/Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/leviathan-falls-the-expanse-%239/Leviathan Deflates She was reaching for supernatural answers, when memory and mundanity were enough. Frankly disappointing. Tiamat's Wrath had managed tohttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/winters-orbit-winters-orbit-%231/Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/winters-orbit-winters-orbit-%231/DNF Chapter 6.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/fugitive-telemetry-the-murderbot-diaries-%236/Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/fugitive-telemetry-the-murderbot-diaries-%236/43rd book of 2021: Fugitive Telemetry takes place in-universe between Exit Strategy and Network Effect (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3274092254)https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/network-effect-the-murderbot-diaries-%235/Tue, 02 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/network-effect-the-murderbot-diaries-%235/27th book of 2020. You would think that the narrative of a grumpy antisocial robot who just wants to get back to watching TV serials would get boringhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-name-of-the-wind-the-kingkiller-chronicle-%231/Tue, 28 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-name-of-the-wind-the-kingkiller-chronicle-%231/7th 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?), washttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-secret-commonwealth-the-book-of-dust-%232/Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/the-secret-commonwealth-the-book-of-dust-%232/74th 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 definitionhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/thunderhead-arc-of-a-scythe-%232/Sun, 03 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/thunderhead-arc-of-a-scythe-%232/68th book of 2019 When I'm bored and on a plane, sometimes I write book reviews (i.e. right now). Other times I watch marvel movies. This book fitshttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/scythe-arc-of-a-scythe-%231/Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/scythe-arc-of-a-scythe-%231/67th book of 2019. Scythe -- an interesting, somewhat meditative YA scifi novel on death. The premise was fun, and I appreciate how the author went tohttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-%231/Sun, 01 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/a-memory-called-empire-teixcalaan-%231/54th book of 2019 -- I enjoyed it. It felt like a sci-fi version of bureaucratic fiction (i.e. 驻京办主任) where the grinding gears of tradition and successionhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/head-on-lock-in-%232/Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/head-on-lock-in-%232/Not as good as lock in, but I don't think sports corruption would ever be that interesting to me. Worth reading though. Like it's predecessor, charactershttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/exit-strategy-the-murderbot-diaries-%234/Wed, 10 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/exit-strategy-the-murderbot-diaries-%234/I, too, love murderbot!https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/artificial-condition-the-murderbot-diaries-%232/Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/artificial-condition-the-murderbot-diaries-%232/The narrator is so compelling, these books are just fun. I'm going to read every book in this series.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-%231/Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-%231/Fun. Reminded me of all you need is kill, combined with Andy Weir.https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/terms-of-use/Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/terms-of-use/A thriller about a social tech company entering the Chinese market and rigging US elections? You have my attention. Welcome to Circles (not to be confusedhttps://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/little-brother-little-brother-%231/Sun, 03 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000https://jonathanmckay.com/reviews/little-brother-little-brother-%231/Fun, but squarely in the uncanny valley between fiction and non fiction. Taken as a collection of short vignettes, it was entertaining. However, the