The House of Always is book 4 in Jenn Lyons’ A Chorus of Dragons series, and I am just going to come out and say it: I loved this book. Not like, “hey y’all, this is a really good book”. Nope.
I. Loved. This. Book.
Several have compared the book to Game of thrones in space, The Expanse or even Mass Effect, but to be honest The Last Watch is unique in taking the best out of the elements mentioned and establishing its own nature. In conclusion, if you’re a fan of thriller-driven science-fiction with nearly a dab of magic and heartfelt characters, J.S. Dewes The Last Watch should be pretty high on your next read list.
Finna introduced the sardonic-yet-lighthearted world of LitenVärld, an IKEA-like corporation rife with wormholes and other multi-dimensional oddities. While Finna was a delightful adventure, rich with emotion and sarcastic, relatable characters, it felt like it was just the beginning of something, opening a wormhole to a broader literary world of potential. Now, with Defekt, the potential established in Finn takes a big step forward into the multiverse, in every possible way. And at its core is the one character from Finn that I never thought I would connect with: the hardworking and dedicated (albeit lonely and emotionally lost) Derek. Fucking Derek…
There’s something truly special about finding a novel that speaks to you, the words flowing from page to mind in a symbiotic creative fusion. That feeling of connecting so deeply with a book is priceless, something to be cherished, and it’s even better when that book becomes an author. For me, that author is P. Djèlí Clark. Ever since reading his short works A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015, I was enamored with his blending of the fantastical and historical. That connection deepened when I read some of his short stories, and then even more when I tore through last year’s Ring Shout. Count me lucky when his first full-length novel comes out a mere seven months later—in A Master of Djinn, Clark’s magically-infused Cairo is back and better than ever.
aisle of a specific section in a library. You grab several large volumes to return to your table and your extensive research thesis you’ve been working on for years. You sit down and in front of you lays a thousand-book-pages book, and you sift through every page, drinking the excitement of investigation and glancing at sketches, pictures and schematics of times of old, slowly taking notes and drawing your own conclusions. This is how I felt while I was reading The Way of Kings. A rich study about an extensive world name Roshar with interesting characters and their history. Even after the first 1000 pages of this grossly engaging and epic adventure (4000-5000 pages total), I felt like I only scratched the surface.
A Desolation Called Peace is the second and last (for now, at least – the author has been quoted as wanting to return to this Universe, but this book does conclude the current storyline) installment in Arkady Martine’s award-winning Teixcalaani series. It resumes the story soon after the events of book 1, A Memory Called Empire, and continues following Mahit et al after the crowning of a new Emperor in Teixcalaan.