Review: Fae: The Wild Hunt

Fae: The Wild Hunt by Graham Austin-King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. Really more of a 2.5-star review.

The world building is interesting. The characters also have a lot of potential.

But this is not a complete story. It is the opening to a good story. It appears to be the beginning of a multi-book saga. The book sets up plenty of conflicts, but it resolves none of them.

As a secondary nitpick, one of the societies involved has a significant physical barrier to keep outsiders from attacking them and maintains a capable and highly competent sailing fleet. When faced with the prospect of being an over-populated nation of islands, how do they respond?

By becoming traders? By becoming a place where wealth can be safely deposited?

Nope. They turn into bloodthirsty pirates abroad who have respect for hard work and private industry at home. Erg.

This book could have been so much more, but it ended up being so much less.

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Review: Black City Saint

Black City Saint by Richard A. Knaak
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review.

While I have enjoyed some of the author's books in the Dragonlance series, this book was quite disappointing.

Most of the characters were pretty two-dimensional. The female lead character was the most frustrating as she had no existential motivation. She loved the male lead character because she loved him.

The plot was pretty straight-forward; mostly a hard-boiled detective does some detecting-with-magic-thrown-in. The setting (roaring 20s Chicago) was uninteresting.

The only redeeming character in the book was the dragon.

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Review: Truthwitch

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a solid 4-star review.

I am not in the target audience for this book. The story revolves around two teen girls developing their magical powers into something greater than themselves. It is a story of two girls that share a strong bond of friendship. And it is a story that involves a moderate amount of romance. I'm really not in the target audience.

I loved this book.

The girls were smart and determined. The world building was meticulous. The variety of magic available offered so many intriguing options for the story. It was largely a well-told story.

There were a couple of areas where it fell a little short.

(view spoiler)[
The girls spend a lot of time ignoring the advice, instruction, and direction of the men in their lives. But when I got to the end, it seemed like they would have been better off had they just followed that advice/instruction/direction. They had been told not to get in trouble, yet in the first chapter, they are out robbing a stagecoach. Apparently, they had done something similar in the past. With that action, they open themselves up to a powerful witch with the power to track them down. Had they just avoid that situation, most of the rest of the story would have gone smoothly.

An author has to create tension to tell a good story. But in this case, had they just been a bit more obedient, the story wouldn't have been necessary.

There are other portions of the story that have similar impacts on the unfolding tale. Had the girls not done A (as instructed) then they wouldn't have had to deal with B, C, and D on their way to E. At the end of the story, it seems that our protagonists are in almost precisely the same situation as would have happened had they listened to all those men. The only difference is a whole lot less death, mayhem, and other trouble along the way.

The whole story seems to be a fable instructing girls to always do as they are told.

The other criticism is that the story doesn't really let us see how the non-witches in this fictional world live/exist. It is implied that they exist, but there isn't much information provided about their role in the world.
(hide spoiler)]

Switch your brain into a slightly lower gear and then enjoy the fantastic story offered in this book.

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Review: Death's End

Death's End by Liu Cixin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review for a book that I did not finish.

The one character that I cared about early on dies early on. What is left is a female character that does as she is told and a male character that is the epitome of a cardboard cut-out, mustache-twirling villain.

The plot early on involves a plan to send a very small spaceship towards an attacking force. To be of any use, the ship must be light with a light payload. They use a solar sail and a series of precisely time nuclear bursts as propulsion.

Not only is this a version of propulsion first envisioned by Vernor Vinge roughly over 30 years ago, it ends up failing.

Which is where I closed the book and went on to something better.

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