An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors was a delightful surprise of a book, with unique/excellent worldbuilding, fun characters, great wordsmithing, and a solid mystery of a plot. A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery has all three once again, although we mostly lose the mystery of the of first book and get a bunch of politics instead. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still great, it just took me a bit to get into the tonal shift.

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I think that for the most part The Wyrmling Horde takes everything I mentioned in Worldbinder and does a bit more of that. There are some really fascinating worldbuilding ideas being explored here, although I miss the smaller scope of just the Endowments and possibly the wizards of the early books. The characters are cool–and I do actually find the inversions of several of them fascinating–but we’re also missing a few faces that I really wish we would see more of.

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“But at a great cost,” Williams continued, looking at the men and pointing in the direction where the Nineteenth suffered so horrendously. “The cost will be felt in hundreds of homes, factories, and farms back in Indiana…not only now, but for generations. Although we’ll be forever saddened by the price that the Nineteenth has paid on this field, we should always remember that those lives and limbs were not lost in vain.

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One heck of a crazy longer story (Haunted, one of the best of that length) and a bunch of shorter ones, ranging from not much to really good. Mini-reviews and pretty pictures (spoilers): Haunted That’s a story. Enough time to breathe, a cast of new and interesting story, and all sorts of gross and creepy scenes. Part One Oy. Although you can’t say she’s wrong. Murder scene description: oy that’s graphic.

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Three multiple parters? No single issues? Sweet. Up the Down Staircase want my favorite, but both How to Play with Fire and Son of Man were excellent. Mini reviews, pretty (horrifying) pictures and spoilers: Up the Down Staircase Memes? I feel like I missed something. Interesting character development, but no real pay off. Part One You are dating the wrong man. Other than that, we have a fairly standard meet the family type scene.

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A solid one. Big stories are interesting, little ones are touching_weird_sweet, and Constantine’s got some new people and problems to deal with. Nothing too surreal either, which I appreciate. Mini-reviews (spoilers): Days of Wine and Roses A little bit of Constantine, a little bit of regular human terror. The Wild Hunt Oh my. Also: Colts! Last Man Standing Argue and his men as ancient immortals? Merlin as a dragon? Sign me up!

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Fortune telling, Constantine’s father, more evil demons and arguably worse angels, and of course dead soldiers who can’t find rest. Not a standout volume, but still pretty good. Mini reviews (spoilers): The Nature of the Beast Sure… Reading the future is a common enough trope in this genre, but I enjoyed it. Walking the Dog Another ghost story… …ish. Oops. A neat twist. Punkin’ Up the Great Outdoors Going to be a weird one:

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