Folly of the Faithful Canine

Book Review: The Hurricane Wars

2026-04-14T21:02:44Z

Thea Guanzon does not have her own Wikipedia page yet; only her first novel does. I chose it from a list of recommendations because I tend to like romantasies but had read very few, and some weren't straight enough for my taste. There was also the aforementioned intrigue of a Southeast Asian influence, but that's apparent only in the frequency of major storms.

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Up next is Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade by Keith Laumer. I've waited long enough for this.

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Book Review: The Lightning Thief

2026-03-16T22:45:45Z

On the first of this month, there was a local production of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. I didn't watch it, but it demonstrated that the 2005 start of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series still has its fans. That may have inspired my reading choice.

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To take a break from fantasy and sci-fi, I'll try Sue Grafton's O Is for Outlaw. Not long since my last mystery, but this one should be magic-free.

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Book Review: Notorious Sorcerer

2026-03-08T20:07:40Z

Great, another book without a Wikipedia page. Even author Davinia Evans doesn't have one, because she's too new on the scene, with only two published novels afterward and none before. At least I can refresh my memory with others' reviews.

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Now I've started The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. At least it got a screen adaptation, however unpopular.

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Book Review: Royal Assassin

2026-02-02T22:50:43Z

After nearly six years, I still remembered Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb pretty well. The main hole in my memory pertained to Fitz's condition at the end of the novel: bedridden and having lost the independent use of the psychic Skill, thanks to an abortive attempt on his life. His illness dominates the early chapters of the second volume, until he finds the strength and courage to return to the royal palace after months.

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After those 675 pages, I feel like reading something shorter. That'll be H. Beam Piper's Cosmic Computer.

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Book Review: Fool Moon

2026-01-07T02:14:37Z

I'd been wanting to read the second Dresden Files volume for years. Sure, I could have bought it myself, but I like to give my family lots of options on my wish list, and I have enough trouble reading books as fast as I collect them. For once, I didn't wait to start on one of my latest literary Christmas presents.

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Seems I'm on a sequel kick, partly because it induces me to give away prior volumes afterward. My next read is Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin.

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Well, Shoot

2026-01-04T20:49:39Z

If you create a superhero, please don’t pick a name
That’s based on a projectile, as that sort is always lame.
Take Bulletman and Bulletgirl: They just wear dorky hats
And punch without a lot of power. Where’s the fun in that?
Torpedo topped a list of dumbest superheroes ever.
Each version failed before too long, because he wasn’t clever.
And then we get to those who use their namesake in a fight.
For instance, Captain Boomerang and Javelin aren’t right.
Let’s not depend on weapons that have long been obsolete.
No matter what your skill, they’re bad for cleaning up the street.
I realize the Green Arrow’s been successful on TV,
But that’s from expert writing and direction, seems to me.
OK, perhaps you want to add some humor to a battle.
If so, go right ahead with something silly like “Atlatl.”

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Book Review: The Kingdom of Copper

2025-12-25T04:22:00Z

For some reason, I thought I'd read The City of Brass much longer than four years ago. I could remember the general outline but none of the character names, nor the circumstances at the very end. An in-book synopsis would have helped, but I settled for the cast pages, plus Wikipedia and a brief browse of the first volume.

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Nor do I know what I'll read next. Let's see what I get for Christmas.

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Book Review: The Raven Scholar

2025-11-22T04:12:38Z

I rarely read a book in its year of publication, especially when the author (Antonia Hodgson in this case) is brand-new to me. I think I was just eager to get one of the largest tomes off my shelf, tho the story doesn't run for quite as many words as I thought.

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Looking for sci-fi, I picked up Larry Niven's N-Space. A similar number of pages, but I'm not reading all of them.

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Book Review: Mexican Gothic

2025-10-27T22:54:05Z

It's been almost three years since my last Silvia Moreno-Garcia reading. The two books were published so close together that each one ends with an excerpt of the other. Of course, they're not quite the same genre. Gods of Jade and Shadow may focus on the god of death, but it's still less charnel than this.

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I got the urge to pick up a less urban fantasy with fictitious maps up front. That would be The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson.

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Book Review: A Sorceress Comes to Call

2025-09-22T20:58:43Z

I was unfamiliar with the Grimm fairy tale "The Goose Girl." From what I gather, T. Kingfisher's reimagining bears very little resemblance. There are geese, yes, but they rarely figure into the plot.

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Now I'm in the mood for something older and more masculine. I've picked up H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain.

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Book Review: First Among Sequels

2025-09-04T00:59:34Z

Despite the title's implication, this is the fifth Thursday Next novel, not the second. That said, it reportedly kicks off a second series. While published in 2007, only 2 years after the previous entry, it's set 14 years later, in 2002.

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My next read is A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, whom I recently discovered is Ursula Vernon. I've been enjoying her Hamster Princess kid lit (not reviewed here), so now I'll try a darker fairy tale take.

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Book Review: The Gilded Ones

2025-08-19T20:27:14Z

Normally, I'd wait longer to read another fantasy by a Black woman, for what I now realize are rather arbitrary reasons. But this one promised to be a little different, partly by being more genuinely YA (no sex, little swearing). Besides, the beautiful cover illustration drew me in.

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I have now picked up Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next: First Among Sequels. That ought to be funnier.

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Book Review: Red Seas Under Red Skies

2025-08-10T02:36:52Z

It's been more than five years since I read The Lies of Locke Lamora, the first book in Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard Sequence. Fortunately, I remembered the plot pretty well and was never confused for long when the sequel made reference to past events. You might even choose to start here.

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My next read is The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna. Back to a focus on country folk.

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Book Review: The Blood Trials

2025-07-15T22:11:23Z

When I picked up N.E. Davenport's 2022 novel, it reminded me a bit of Dragon Pearl: a sci-fi/fantasy combo featuring a young, non-White, female first-person narrator. I wouldn't count it as YA, tho, because it includes a sex scene, gore, and a lot of swearing. Good thing my previous read was so tame.

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Believe it or not, I still have an appetite for long, dark fantasy. Next up is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.

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Book Review: The Princess and the Goblin

2025-07-05T02:05:39Z

I first heard of George MacDonald from his appearance in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, serving a guide role similar to Virgil in Dante's Inferno. Years later, I caught some clips of MacDonald's own writing on a Facebook group (now disbanded) dedicated to him, Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton. When I found one of his two stories I could name in a Little Free Library, I finally gave him a try. It helped that at a mere 201 pages with frequent chapter breaks, I could easily finish the book right before my beach vacation.

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Speaking of dark fantasies, I've picked up The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport. So far, it has an angry tone.

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Kobolds

2025-06-29T00:12:21Z

In German lore, a kobold is a mostly household sprite.
It’s apt to do domestic chores for those who treat it right,
But if it feels insulted, it will soon resort to pranks
Or worse, so folks would often leave it milk to give it thanks.

This kobold is invisible until it takes a form.
A little human figure with a sharp red cap’s the norm,
But sometimes it’s an animal, especially a cat,
Explaining why the feline race is mischievous like that.

Some kobolds make a shop, a ship, or underground their home.
The last type is conflated with an older term for “gnome.”
Our cobalt gets its name from kobolds spoiling silver mines.
(And “nickel” meant a goblin, as derived along such lines.)

The English-speaking world adopted “kobold” rather late,
In print in 1830. Its reception wasn’t great,
Until the rise of RPGs, which call for lots of foes
From fantasy, including ones not everybody knows.

To make them more distinctive from a bunch of other races,
The games made kobolds canine-like, not least within their faces.
The later D&D type’s more a lizard or a dragon.
If you see one of those, it’s on the D&D bandwagon.

Indeed, the modern reptile’s gotten popular these days.
At least among the nerds like me, it almost is a craze.
The kobold may be wicked, but it’s made to look so cute,
In contrast to the ogre, goblin, orc, and other brutes.

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Book Review: Greenteeth

2025-06-09T02:50:53Z

I don't recall where I first learned of Jenny Greenteeth, the dangerous amphibious fairy from English folklore. It wasn't in A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits, which I still check on occasion. Regardless, Molly O'Neill's 2025 debut novel sounded promising.

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On a whim the other day, I picked up a Silver Age collection of Doom Patrol comics. It may be a while before I pick up a non-graphic novel.

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Book Review: Dragon Pearl

2025-05-01T02:19:44Z

It's easy to tell from the cover that Yoon Ha Lee's 2019 novel is written with younger readers in mind. For starters, the top reads "Rick Riordan Presents," and Riordan is best known for the Percy Jackson series. (Further reading tells me that Disney publishes all books with that header.) Second, the one illustration is a little more cartoony than usual, albeit not to the point of evoking comedy. I knew I'd finish before long.

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It's been almost a year since my last pre-1900 novel. I think I'll try Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe.

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Book Review: The Last Graduate

2025-04-21T03:29:31Z

I'm not going to summarize the premises of the Scholomance trilogy again, so click here if you want a refresher. Fortunately, the second volume fills in new readers nicely as it goes along.

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Up next is Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee. Looks like it blurs the line between fantasy and sci-fi.

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Book Review: Jitterbug Perfume

2025-04-12T03:56:32Z

Sorry, Tom Clancy fans, but I gave up on Red Storm Rising. After nearly 250 of about 750 pages, I noticed I was plagued not by boredom but by apathy. There's not-so-Cold War action, all right, but I forgot the sequence of events and why I should care about any particular character. No wonder it became a video game but never a movie.

For a replacement, I picked up my first book by the late Tom Robbins and the only one I'd heard of besides Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. It's also the only book ever recommended to me by a tour guide. I don't recall how much I'd told him about what I like to read, but it sounded pretty quirky.

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I might as well throw in a bonus review of what I read alternately and finished at the same time: The Language Lover's Puzzle Book by Alex Bellos. The 100 puzzles range from simple Pig Latin translation to admittedly super-challenging inferences for languages I'd never heard of. About a quarter of the time, I didn't even try before turning to the answer section, which is almost as long as the rest. For me, the main joy was in learning trivia, not least about conlangs. Made for a nice break from my other reading.

Next up is The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik. I'm going from a novel about living indefinitely to one where lots of people young.

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Book Review: A Wind in the Door

2025-03-24T01:11:48Z

I had had Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time read to me in late elementary school, but at the time, I found it too weird to follow. Only in adulthood did I read it for myself and become a fan. And only when I saw the immediate sequel in a Little Free Library did I think to check it out.

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Now I've picked up Red Storm Rising. My first non-screen taste of Tom Clancy.

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Book Review: Brisingr

2025-03-19T01:31:10Z

When I picked up Volume 3 of the Inheritance Cycle, I had assumed it was the conclusion of a trilogy. Well, so had Christopher Paolini before he wrote it. Like Tad Williams with Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, he had more to say than he thought. So much for reaching closure yet, and this tome is longer than each of the first two.

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Now I've started A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle. Yep, another YA fantasy, but this one's way shorter.

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Book Review: The Clan of the Cave Bear

2025-02-13T02:02:35Z

I learned of Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series as the source of the name for a prehistoric woman in Chrono Trigger (Square Enix games sure like synthesis). Further references, not least in Darwin's Radio, made me think I could use the cultural education. Indeed, it's rare for so many acquaintances to show familiarity with a book I'm reading that was published after 1965. This one's from 1980.

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Now I've picked up Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. I trust him to keep to a fair clip for younger readers' sake, and it's been a while since my last dragon book.

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The Great Race

2025-01-26T01:45:47Z

In lore, ancient China’s Jade Emperor hosted
A race for all critters within his domain.
The first twelve to finish would garner the honor
Of years in the zodiac bearing their name.

The end of the race involved crossing a river.
The ox took his buddy the rat for a ride.
The rat then hopped off to place first with the ox
A close second. Their friendship regardless abides.

You’d think that the dragon would fly to first place,
But it stopped to make rain for a village in drought,
Then blew on a log for a rabbit to ride
Into fourth, with the tiger just beating it out.

The horse didn’t notice the snake wrapped around
A front hoof till it reached the home (literal) stretch.
The sight of the snake shocked the horse, who would settle
For seventh. And I thought the rat was a wretch.

The monkey, the sheep, and the rooster teamed up.
In some tellings, they somehow acquired a raft.
The sheep came in eighth place, the monkey in ninth,
And the rooster in tenth. Did he sit at the aft?

Eleventh place went to the dog, who took time
For a bath in the river. And lastly, the pig
Had stopped for some food and a nap, but at least
It completed the dozen. The honor was big.

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Book Review: Ballad & Dagger

2024-12-11T23:06:33Z

This Daniel José Older YA novel is the first in a duology called Outlaw Saints, which somehow rang a bell for me. I probably added it to my wish list because of an article about the best fantasies of 2022. The series is not significant enough for its own Wikipedia article, but someone must have meant to prioritize diversity.

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I have tentatively picked up N.K. Jemisen's The Fifth Season, but I can't promise I'll finish. It gets off to a weird start that's hard to follow.

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