Book Review Roundup: Short Tales (mostly)

Where I round up some quick reviews of books I don’t have the time or inclination to give a full review for. This time most of my reviews are for novellas or short story collections.

First off, Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie, a collection of short stories set before, during and I think slightly after the events of the first six books of his First Law world. Quite a hit and miss collection for me, but when they hit they really did hit. Definitely worth checking out for those who enjoyed his full length novels and want to see more of the world.

And then The Law by Jim Butcher, a short novella set during the events of his upcoming novel Twelve Months in the Dresden Files series. I thought this novella did a great job of portraying the PTSD Dresden would have following teh events of the last book, and managed to perfectly walk the line between fun romp and down to earth character piece in a smaller scale story.

Less short was Bluebird by Ciel Pielrot. This sci-fi space adventure novel about a woman trying to rescue her sister and prevent a deadly weapon from entering the wrong hands wears its gunslinging sci-fi influences on its sleeves. Unfortunately I found it took me far too long to get properly into the story, and I felt like it coasts more on vibes than strong character/plot work. Fun enough, but I’d hesitate to recommend it unless the above sounds like exactly your sort of thing.

Finally, I dived into A Time for Grief by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the second collection of short stories based in the Shadows of the Apt world. These ones span the length of the series (and slightly beyond) telling stories of characters in the times of peace between the wars. While the collection was more uneven than the last, the highs were higher, especially the stories that featured recurring characters like Balkus, Tisamon and Dal Arche. I think this collection benefits reading the first collection (and should be read either concurrently with or after the main series, there’s a reading order inside for those who want to be chronologically correct).

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That’s all for now, I’ve got some reviews on other platforms coming soon that I’ll try to share here too!