matt_doyle

As the third book in a trilogy about con artists, I can't tell you anything about this book without spoiling it.  Not plot-wise, at least.

I can tell you that the payoff to a series never winds up being quite as good as you expected -- and in this case, it was better.  I can tell you that I never knew what was coming next, but the moment I saw the words on the page it was all perfectly clear, perfectly logical.

I can tell you that nobody's the good guy (but almost everyone is trying to be) and almost nobody's the bad guy.  And when the characters have their emotions spilled out on the page, I felt them as if they were my own.

Favorite book so far this year.  I'd have to check, but I think Red Glove was my favorite last year.  And I'd have to check again, but I'm almost 100% sure that White Cat was my favorite the year before that.

If you haven't read White Cat yet and you like stories about grifting, impossible moral choices, and a villain with a heart of gold, go get it.  Go get it right now, and then come back and discuss it with me when you're done.

Thanks, Holly.

Just finished The Magician King.

The characters do in fact learn not to be huge douchebags.

I cheered.

Still some deeply problematic shit here and there, but all in all redemptive enough and interesting enough that if/when the next one comes out, I'll pick that up too.

Comments may contain spoilers as people discuss.

So. I just finished reading Collegiate Harry Potter Goes To Narnia Only Instead Of The Kids From Harry Potter We Used The Cast From RENT.

AKA The Magicians, by Lev Grossman.

HOLY GOD.

I am not going to know whether I liked this book or not until I get my hands on the sequel.

Thus endeth the review. Please to discuss in the comment threads, por favor.

I got 2447 words of fiction written, mostly on the next couple chapters of The Hellion Prince, but also including three (mutually exclusive) openings to my Cthulhu Christmas story.  I also read a lot, though I didn't nearly make it through all 17 books.  In fact, I almost exclusively read graphic novels, but some of them were big enough to take up novel-length stretches of time.

I read:

Amulet, Volume 3: The Cloud Searchers by Kazu Kibuishi
Amulet, Volume 4: The Last Council by Kazu Kibuishi

This series continues to be fantastic and far more nuanced than a first glance at it appears.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 2, Flashpoint  This was a re-read, because I can never keep track of which volumes of this I have read and which i have not, but it was still enjoyable.

Superman: The Wrath of Gog  Like most Superman stories, this was one was crap.  In my not-so-humble opinion, Superman stories are only worth telling when the author puts an ethical dilemma center-stage:  the kind of problem that power cannot solve.  Otherwise, Superman has a tendency to turn into a blustering slugfest finished either with a Dramatic Punch or a deus ex machina.

Kill Shakespeare: Vol. 1 by McCreery, Del Col, and Belanger.  I've heard a lot of good things about this series, and it's intriguing to me, with its metafictional concept; but the writers are frankly sloppy at crafting good Elizabethan dialogue, especially when it comes to grammar, and in other ways the execution is imaginative but so far fairly directionless.  Still, I'd read the next volume in the hope that it improves.  They better stop mixing up thee, thou, and thy; however.  That shit is unforgivable.

Justice League of America:  When Worlds Collide.  Written by Dwayne McDuffie.  Meh.  Not great, not terrible.  not one of McDuffie's better efforts.

Castle Waiting, Volumes 1 & 2, by Linda Medley.  Frankly fantastic.  An entertaining but original remix of folklore with a spectacular and diverse cast of characters (and boy are they characters) and an intriguing, if slow-building, plot.  The plot moves well through Volume I and nearly stalls entirely in Volume II, but watching the characters interact with one another was well worth my time.  Still, when I get my hands on Volume III, a little more better happen.

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson.  Actually the second book in the Mistborn trilogy, and I have not read the first, but it does a good job of standing alone.  I was relatively impressed by the worldbuilding, very impressed by the magic system and the plot twists.  Some of the characters were one-dimensional but others were incredibly nuanced, and the prose was uneven but better than average on the whole.  I'm definitely going to track down the first book in the trilogy, and almost certainly the third as well.  'Original' is not something I say often about epic fantasy series; but I'll say it about this one.

Alex Rider:  Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz.  This series is more or less equivalent to James Bond, but centered around a modern teenager; and this is apparently the final title in the series.  The series as a whole is a great adaptation of the unique Bond blend of action-excitement, techno-gadget porn, cheesy names and plots, and genuine drama; and the last book fully lives up to the promise of the series.  At times, certain scenes were so evocative that my brain actually conjured the James Bond soundtrack to play in my head.  I can only hope that Horowitz will get Conan-Doyled into continuing these books.


Seven titles to go, and I expect I'll get to them later this week.  With luck, I may even review them...