I had a few frustrations with The Ranger of Marzanna. There were many things I ought to have enjoyed more than I did – I love the idea of magic coming at a price of your own humanity, for example. Unfortunately, I struggled to connect with the characters and found the prose to be mediocre at best. The dialogue in particular tended to take me out of the narrative.  … More The Ranger of Marzanna by Jon Skovron

After having read and loved The Goblin Emperor, I was incredibly excited to see that Katherine Addison had a new book out! I cannot express how quickly I smashed “request” on NetGalley. Unfortunately, I regret to say that this book was a bit of a hot mess. Admittedly, I came into it with slightly incorrect expectations: when I heard that this novel had begun as a Sherlock Holmes wingfic, I instantly made the assumption that I would see some of my favorite tropes from that particular subgenre of fanfic. However, even outside of this mismatch of expectations, I felt that the book had major issues with pacing, character development, worldbuilding, and queer representation. It did not grab my attention at any juncture. Every time I thought it was going to do something interesting, it went nowhere. I felt set adrift and overall dissatisfied.  … More The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison

This book held promise, and kept me interested by introducing new ideas and premises as it progressed. It was short and a quick read. The prose was more than serviceable. However, every promise the novelette made to me as a reader ended up unfulfilled. I think this book needed to pruned back heavily, and perhaps would have been more appropriate as a short story instead of a novelette.  … More Duchamp Versus Einstein by Christopher Hinz and Etan Illfeld