Time for some more mini-reviews of fantasy books. The only thing these books have in common is that I read them all on holiday this year. We had a week at the seaside without going anywhere but the beach and our rental, so we did A LOT of reading and napping. It was awesome, it’s been a while since I’d had a holiday with nothing to do but read.

Well, actually, another thing about them was that I loved them all (I also tried Gardens of the Moon which will not be getting a review as I only made it 70 pages in). Oh and they were all physical books I’d owned for a while but hadn’t gotten round to, so this as really made a difference in my physical TBR.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

I’d been putting this off for a while because I was worried I might not like the second-person narration, but I ended up loving it. I always picture things very vividly when I’m reading so the second person just sort of worked well with that, like a narrator telling me what I was doing. I can’t explain it well.

I was also worried cause I’d been warned it would get dark, so I braced myself a bit too well I think, to the point that I was always expecting much worse than it got.

In the end, I loved this book and I’m very much looking forward to the sequels, as soon as I make enough progress on reading what I already own to buy more books. Though parts certainly were really dark, from the start Essun deals with the death of one child and the disappearance of another, and there are some other instances of children coming to a lot of harm.

I thought the worldbuilding was great and super creative. The book opens with “This is how the world ends” and we learn that this world ends pretty often because it is very geologically unstable. And the magic users of this world can manipulate the earth, to both protect and destroy, so they are feared and tightly controlled. The world felt very real, in the ways that different societies functioned based on how close they were to the center of power and tectonic calm, how much architecture differed. There’s also a sense of a very old world that keeps changing and going back to square 1 in some ways.

I also loved the characters, and a romantic relationship at a certain point is just great. But it’s a very spoiler sensitive book so I’d rather not go into details. In fact, that was my favorite part about reading this, figuring hints out, and seeing everything come together. It’s really rewarding for an attentive reader (I’d think), and also great for an absent-minded goofball like myself.

Goodreads

r/fantasy bingo: climate, number in the title, feminist

BLM book bingo: MAGICIAN: set in a secondary world, DEVIL: book you’ve been putting off, EMPRESS: mother MC or mother-child relationship

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Another book that starts with the mention of the end of the world, in this case, the main character is warned that the end of the world is happening sooner. I loved this book too, it’s super weird, timey-whimey and a breeze to read, the narrator’s voice and humor are great.

TFFLoHA is basically a Groundhog Day like story, the main character keeps repeating his life over and over, and learns that he’s not the only one. I had a few questions about paradoxes and time flowing in these sort of parallel realities, but nothing pressing enough to get in the way of enjoying the story. Overall I found the whole reincarnation mechanism super interesting and a great premise for a story. And where the story ended up going was closely derived from the premise, so it all worked together really well.

One of my favorite parts was interacting with some of the others who are also living on a loop, and how these relationships evolved across time. I also really liked Harry’s personality, and right off the bat when I started reading I could his voice very clear and distinct in my head, which is usually a good sign for me liking the book.

Goodreads

r/fantasy bingo: number in the title, Made You Laugh

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

I’d heard nothing but praise for this book before starting it, so expectations were high, and I was not disappointed. The worldbuilding was just wonderful, the characters were great and the story was packed with mystery, politics, conspiracy, and history.

The City of Stairs is set in a world where the gods were very real, they’ve been killed and now all mention of them is banned. One of the narrative threads I found most interesting is about figuring out exactly what happened to each individual god. Another aspect of the worldbuilding that I found very compelling was the colonialism. I loved how there’s been a reversal in the power structure and all the complexities that lead to, and also the way bureaucracy was almost weaponized against the conquered country, to keep it stagnant.

One thing I’d often seen Bennett praised for is writing women well. And I gotta agree, all the characters felt well rounded and I didn’t notice any falling back on lazy stereotypes. The main character was competent and driven, but she was not my favorite. That distinction goes to two other people: the barbarian with a troubled and secret past, who is just so much fun to read about, and the seasoned military leader who just wants to be done with this shit and retire to an island, but she keeps getting dragged in and is too good at her job to stop doing it.

There was some big stuff going on in this book, so I’m really curious to see where the trilogy goes from here. I did like how City of Stairs didn’t have any first book syndrome, it felt complete in itself with lots of stuff going on and getting resolved too.

Goodreads

r/fantasy bingo: epigraphs, made me laugh, politics

Turning Darkness into Light by Marie Brennan

This happens a few years after the events from The Memoirs of Lady Trent and features her granddaughter. Theoretically, it could be read as a stand-alone without having read the original series, but I wouldn’t suggest it because the original is great and this removes a lot of the mystery.

As such, I don’t suggest you read this review unless you’ve finished The Memoirs of Lady Trent.

• no, really-

A few years later, after the events of Lady Trent, we come back to a world torn on the question of what to do about the draconeans? There are people in favor of trade and travel with them, and people who are afraid, understandably so to some extent, given what is known of their and humanity’s history. When some tablets are found that might shed some light on that past, the pressure is on to translate them as soon as possible.

This is a novel told entirely in an epistolary form which I thought went well with the main subject of scholarship. I really liked the mix of documents, there were the translations of the tablets, diary entries, newspaper articles, and at a certain point, police reports. The tablets also made for a story with a story, and I always like that. And I was super interested to see where that story would go.

I liked the characters here, especially the draconian, and how he tried to function in the human world, but I did miss Lady Trent. She does show up in a few letters though, so that was really cool.

It turned out to also be a really fun and exciting book. Yes, most of it is super bookish and just translating books in a library, but things really do ramp up, and the tone in which it’s written just makes it so fun and easy to read.

Goodreads

r/fantasy bingo: book about book (if we accept ancient tablets = books)

Like mini-reviews of fantasy books? Check out some more:

• 4 Shortish-Reviews of Beautiful Books: The Curse of Chalion, Realm of Ash, 10K Doors of January, Snow, Glass, Apples
• BLM Bingo reviews: Dread Nation, A Song of Blood and Stone and Queen of the Conquered