Walking through Harlem first thing in the morning was like being a single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up. Brick and mortar, elevated train tracks, and miles of underground pipe, this city lived; day and night it thrived.

At first, it’s a story about a black man in the boroughs of New York in the 1920s. A gritty world, but somehow alive, dripping with some wonderfully written descriptions of the people and places of the time.

And then…

The Sleeping King is dead but dreaming.

Things take a somewhat supernatural turn.

This is another of those cases where I put a book on my ’to read’ list because it looked interesting and, before getting around to it, completely forgot it was going to be about.

By the end… that took a much darker track than I was expecting¹… and that’s starting from the point of view of racial disparity and violence in the 1920s.

And then… things get even darker. But I’ll leave that for you to read.

Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.

Overall, it’s short. ~150 pages or a few hours audio. But I think it does a good job of hitting hard without overstaying it’s welcome. If you’re a fan of cosmic horror / weird fiction, I think you’ll like it. I certainly did.

Onward!

Here we go again, dealing once again with bad decisions made long ago coming back to bite those who made them… and anyone else that might be standing nearby.

Of course it’s up to Jack and Thorgil to go on ANOTHER QUEST. And once again, save the day.

I’d guess that you have some purpose to fulfill and that is why you were saved. But don’t get a swelled head over it. A cabbage has a purpose when someone needs to make soup.

We get all sorts of interesting new beasties, friends, and enemies (sometimes all three). Chief among them are the Mermen and Mermaids, but also more half-trolls and even (perhaps) a god along the way, which was a take I’ve seen before, but interesting to see here.

Gods, if they’re neglected, tend to fall asleep, but they never really go away.

The cultural classes and worldbuilding, being based on our own (messy) world and history are interesting gone truly magical are still interesting and (so far as I know anyways) well researched. A joy to read.

I like seeing more of what happens to our characters, even if the ending is a bit bittersweet.

I remembered what Olaf always said: You must never give up, even if you’re falling off a cliff. You never know what might happen on the way down.

Overall, I’d say it’s stronger than the second, but not quite up to the level of the first in the series. Overall, I enjoyed the series and hope to share it with my children, perhaps in a few years.

Onward!

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“You’d better tell me about that lie, Giles," said the old man, massaging his forehead. “From all the sin you keep going on about, I’m sure it’s going to be spectacular.”

Well… when you put it that way.

A year has passed. Jack learns family secrets and has to go on ANOTHER QUEST. I’m actually curious to see if the backstory we get here was planned all along or developed from clues in the first book only when a second was need. It really could go either way.

This time, we see elves (meh) and hobgoblins (lots of fun). Along the way, we end up with another new main character: Pega. Former slave, freed by Jack, and fond of commenting on ‘how it all could be worse’. She’s fine… but not as interesting as Thorgil, personally. (We get both though!)

It’s another adventure through the magical land of alt ~800 AD British Isles. Weaker than the first, but still absolutely solid enough that I enjoyed reading it. Onward to the thrilling (I hope!) conclusion in The Islands of the Blessed!

Well that’s a surprisingly fun book!

In a nutshell:

The year is A.D. 793; Jack and his sister have been kidnapped by Vikings and taken to the court of Ivar the Boneless and his terrifying half-troll wife; but things get even worse when Jack finds himself on a dangerous quest to find the magical Mimir’s Well in a far-off land, with his sister’s life forfeit if he fails.

I started out reading this since it’s a great (and rare) fit for the 2024 Book Bingo ‘Bard’ square, since both Jack and his mentor are explicitly called ‘Bards’ (even if, interestingly music is a relatively small part of their training), but it ends up being so much more.

It’s got Vikings–including digging into what makes them who they are and how they think differently from the people Jack grew up with.

Just say no to pillaging.

It’s got monsters–the Vikings for one, along with Trolls (sometimes more human that anyone), dragons, ravens, and giant spiders.

“Norns keep the tree Yggdrassil alive. Without them, nothing would exist… They show up when you’re born and decide what kind of life you’re going to have."
“I guess they were in a rotten mood when I came along,” Jack said. He loaded up the water bag and supplies.
“Me too,” Thorgil said gravely.

Look around you…Feel the wind, smell the air. Listen to the birds and watch the sky. Tell me what’s happening in the wide world.

It’s got magic. Bardic magic. Shapeshifting. Talking to animals. Calling up / banishing storms. Norse mythology. Norns. Yggdrasil.

“It’s my fault," said Rune. “He’s untrained and likely to overdo things.”
“Like turning the queen bald. That was a good trick, though.” Olaf smiled.”

I’ve absolutely no idea if it’s particularly historically accurate (barring the above of course :)), but it’s a fun read and I greatly enjoyed it. Now I really want to know what happens next!

Side note: Great fun for an audiobook, lightly accented. Just enough to get into the feel of the book all the more!

Second side note: I totally caught the Jack and Jill reference from when we first learned her birth name. But man. Them just outright using that as an in universe poem was fun.

The Night Masquerade really continues the story of Home. If you enjoyed that story, you’ll enjoy this one as well. If you read the ‘Binti Trilogy’ binding all three, it fits as the conclusion to the story.

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Change was constant. Change was my destiny. Growth.

After all the events of the first story, Binti’s finally at Uni, learning about the magical sort of math that’s mostly been hinted at up until then–and dealing with more than a touch of PTSD. So of course she decides to return home to her people for a pilgrimage–and Okwu the Meduse will come along.

Nothing was asked of Okwu and Okwu was pleased, preferring to menacingly loom in the background behind me. Okwu was happiest around human beings when it was menacingly looming.

What could possibly go wrong?

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I quite enjoy this book. It’s got some fascinating worldbuilding, interesting characters. It’s a bit hampered by being a novella–there are a few threads that I really could have used more of. Well worth the read.

One warning: the story takes a turn towards the more ‘horror’ (or at least thriller) side of sci-fi part of the way through. I was not expecting that–I enjoy that sort of thing, but be warned if that’s not your sort of story.

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That one has been on my list for years now. It’s just got such a fun title!

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

Now, having read it… I think that I enjoyed it?

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That is quite a ride.

At it’s core, it’s a fairly standard military sci story: the aliens attacked and now we’re going out to get them back.

And then you peel back a layer and you have the development of AI–all the more relevant with the recent developments in LLMs. Now, you don’t even need humanity to fight the war. But true to form, if you don’t need people to fight, it’s all the harder to convince those back home to care. (Read: $$$)

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