2024 reading, October-December

[a_small_dragon]

• Door into Fire by Diane Duane
• Last Herald Mage (books 2 and 3) by Mercedes Lackey
• The Red Scholar's Wake, Seven of Infinities and A Fire Born Of Exile by Aliette de Bodard
• The Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
• Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones
• Burning Chrome by William Gibson

Webnovel/Serial Corner

• Quill & Still
• The 5th Hero is a Beast
• Glass Kanin
• Runaway to the Stars
• many others...

Door Into Fire was fun as a comparison point to the Last Herald Mage trilogy reread, though after reading more about this trilogy of Duane's I did not continue. I'm just not a fan of Lackey's writing style these days though and the ending poisons any fun to be had.

Seven of Infinities and A Fire Born Of Exile were more enjoyable for me than The Red Scholar's Wake. Seven of Infinities probably takes it, but A Fire Born Of Exile has a strong supporting cast.

The Priory Of The Orange Tree is good if you want to read epic fantasy, I guess. It seems I don't!

The Derkholm books were two I never got around to reading so it was very fun to finally do so. The question of who gets to be a person in a children's story is interesting, especially in DWJ who tends to leave -- maybe it's just me -- a bitter edge underneath. In this case prisoners don't get to be persons, but test tube griffins and horses and geese do. Also, I am obsessed with Querida.

Burning Chome: I finished this in January but I'll count it here. Of the stories in the collection, "The Belonging Kind" and "The Winter Market" tie for favorites, followed by "The Hinterlands", "Burning Chrome", "The Gernsback Continuum", and "Johnny Mnemonic". The others are not worth mentioning.