“The
Magician King” by Lev Grossman. So I could finish the series.
It’s a heist story! I liked how he handled time, POV, and backstory in this
one. It was smooth. This series hit a sweet spot for me. I guess I read the
same things as LG growing up.
“In the
Labyrinth of Drakes” by Marie Brennan. Well, I thought I might as well
just finish this series off too! Ed got it for his birthday.
“A
Darker Shade of Magic” by V.E. Schwab. I finished the previous book
on Christmas, but we weren’t giving out gifts until the 27th, so I
was left with nothing to read (we’d gone away, and my sister’s house isn’t
exactly filled with the sort of thing I might choose to read). I asked the boy
for an early Christmas present, but he said he’d only do a trade, and I hadn’t gotten
him any suitable trading item (lesson for next year), so I asked my sister, and
she went and hunted under the tree and gave me this. It was on my list.
V.E.Schwab might be my new favorite author. There weren’t any unnecessary words
in the whole thing. I loved the two main characters, and the revelation about
Lila’s eye… well. I hope in subsequent volumes she doesn’t become some major
magic wielder or anything, that would be so unsatisfying. People who choose to
go a different route than their “potential” marks them for are somewhat missing
in the fantasy I read.
“Karen
Memory” by Elizabeth Bear. The boy gave it to me for Christmas. A neat
thing about reading it has been I follow EB on Twitter, and she’s been working
on another story with some of these characters, so I’ve gone from feeling like
an outsider to an insider. I started reading, thinking the steampunk elements
were kind of stupid, but then they became integral to the story, so that was
good. The character was great. Bear sure makes her suffer!