My Reading Habits

After finding myself bizarrely questioned on twitter by a random person about my reading habits, I thought I would write a post about those habits. Everyone has their own way of going about reading, and those who read in volume tend to be more aware of those ways than others. Without any more waffle, let’s begin!

On My Radar: Epic Fantasy

In this series of posts, I make a quick list of some books that I’m hoping I might read at some point in the next several months. These are mostly books I already own, generally any ARC or e-book. It’s not really a promise, or even a goal. Whether or not I get to these books is immaterial. But it’d be great if I did.

Book Review: The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday

When the djinn king Melek Ahmar wakes up after millennia of imprisoned slumber, he finds a world vastly different from what he remembers. Arrogant and bombastic, he comes down the mountain expecting an easy conquest: the wealthy, spectacular city state of Kathmandu, ruled by the all-knowing, all-seeing tyrant AI Karma. To his surprise, he finds that Kathmandu is a cut-price paradise, where citizens want for nothing and even the dregs of society are distinctly unwilling to revolt.

Everyone seems happy, except for the old Gurkha soldier Bhan Gurung. Knife saint, recidivist, and mass murderer, he is an exile from Kathmandu, pursuing a forty-year-old vendetta that leads to the very heart of Karma. Pushed and prodded by Gurung, Melek Ahmer finds himself in ever deeper conflicts, until they finally face off against Karma and her forces. In the upheaval that follows, old crimes will come to light and the city itself will be forced to change.

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain is a svelte novella that packs a big punch, with a far future setting, boastful Djinn, larger than life characters and a clever plot.

Book Review: Leech

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

Leech by Hiron Ennes is a pathogenic horror with a Gothic feel, a hive mind protagonist and a post post apocalyptic setting with a new weird sensibility. Dark secrets collide with a deadly parasite in a book that manages to combine all of these elements effortlessly into a moody and morally dark tale.

Book Review Roundup: Souls, Spirits and Qi

Where I round up some quick reviews of books I don’t have the time or inclination to give a full review for.

Book Bingo 2022 – Row 5 Thoughts & Plans

Welcome to the fifth and final post in a five part series looking at each row in the 2022 r/fantasy Book Bingo, looking at how I feel about each square, and what books I might read to fill each of them. This year I’m trying to have an option for each of the squares with books I already own. As far as I’m aware, all my options should qualify for Hard Mode at time of writing. If you want to learn more about Book Bingo, here are some related links:

Official r/fantasy Book Bingo

Book Bingo Visual Card Spreadsheet

Book Bingo Recommendations Thread

As mentioned before, I have already filled a bunch of these squares! But I may want to replace some and move others round, so I’m going to have backups for an many as possible

Book Review: The Discord of Gods

Potential Spoilers Ahead: The Discord of Gods is the fifth and final book in the A Chorus of Dragons series. As such, the blurb for this book and the following review will inevitably have some level of spoilers for the previous books. I’ve tried to keep those spoilers to a minimum, but you have been warned.

The end times have come.

Relos Var’s final plans to enslave the universe are on the cusp of fruition. He believes there’s only one being in existence that might be able to stop him: the demon Xaltorath.

As these two masterminds circle each other, neither is paying attention to the third player on the board, Kihrin. Unfortunately, keeping himself classified in the “pawn” category means Kihrin must pretend to be everything the prophecies threatened he’d become: the destroyer of all, the sun eater, a mindless, remorseless plague upon the land. It also means finding an excuse to not destroy the people he loves (or any of the remaining Immortals) without arousing suspicion.

Kihrin’s goals are complicated by the fact that not all of his “act” is one. His intentions may be sincere, but he’s still being forced to grapple with the aftereffects of the corrupted magic ritual that twisted both him and the dragons. Worse, he’s now tied to a body that is the literal avatar of a star – a form that is becoming increasingly, catastrophically unstable. All of which means he’s running out of time.

After all, some stars fade – but others explode.

The Discord of God’s by Jenn Lyons is the explosive finale to her Chorus of Dragons series. The final stage is set as godlike powers come into play, with the stakes being the fate of the souls of almost everyone in the world.