Cassie

Ah, Gideon the Ninth. What a book. I originally picked this book up a year ago, and made it to the end of Part 3, decided I was going to back to it eventually, and then proceeded to forget to do that. Which is heartbreaking, considering the fact that now that I???ve read it, it???s one of my favourite books.

Tamsyn Muir has crafted one of the most interesting SFF universes that I???ve experienced in recent memory, and I???m ungodly excited to see more of it down the line. It feels like she was a massive fan of 40k, who decided she wanted an ending to the mythos, so she made her own universe that was similar to it, yet distinct enough to not be a direct rip. She then proceeded to make it gay as shit.

And hoo boy, does this book slap. Spoilers for the rest of this review, I have nothing bad to say about this book. I loved every single facet of it, every character, every line, and if I could go back to not remembering it so that I could have the joy of experiencing it for the first time again, I would.

First things first, Gideon, our protagonist, is probably one of my favourite fantasy protagonists ever put to page. I don???t think any author has managed to make the reader understand a PoV character as quickly as Tamsyn does here, because by the end of the first chapter, the reader will have a near perfect understanding of who Gideon is. But by no means is Gideon a shallow character. Quite the opposite actually. Without getting too deep into spoilers, there are truths about herself that Gideon isn???t quite ready to admit to herself, and watching her unravel herself from her traumatic childhood is a genuinely beautiful story.

And then there???s Harrow. Oh Harrow, my beloved. A character designed for you to loathe, and then love. The smartest woman in any given room, who shows just how stupid she is by ignoring the asset she has in Gideon. Again, I don???t want to spoil anything, because you should read the book, but her and Gideon???s animosity towards each other is such an entertaining dynamic because of how different the two of them are to each other.

The prose is beautiful in the book, and challenged me quite a bit at points, throwing words at me that I???d never even heard, let alone read, before, so it was quite fun having my vocabulary expanded like that.

The world is probably my favourite aspect of the book. Having the universe be set in our solar system, but so far into the future that the names of the planets as we know them have been lost, is an amazing touch, that adds a surprising amount of weight to the story.

The magic system within the world is also really cool, as there???s multiple different forms of necromancy within the universe. For instance, one of the houses style of necromancy comes in the form of freezing the person???s aging, allowing people to live forever. Some of the cooler aspects of the magic system are massive spoilers, so I won???t go too deep into those, but needless to say, it???s fantastic.

But let???s get to my one issue. My big, glaring, issue. And that is that Tamsyn Muir has refused to apologize for the sheer agony that the ending of this book put me through. I bawled my fucking eyes out. I don???t think I will ever emotionally recover from the beating my heart took from the last 20 pages of this book, so I will be pursuing legal action. It was absolutely fantastic, I couldn???t have asked for a better ending.

All in all, read the book, you???re doing yourself a massive disservice by not at least experiencing the first in the series, because it really is an absolute treat. If you couldn???t tell from the rest of the review, this is a 5 star book, and I???ll be recommending it to anyone who???ll listen to me.

Halo Evolutions Volume 2 is the second half of the now split Halo Evolutions, an anthology set in the Halo Universe.

For this review, I???ll be doing some mini reviews of each of the entries in the collection, with the exception of The Icon and Connectivity, as I feel like those are too small for me to really have a full opinion on. I???ll be giving each story it???s own separate rating, and at the end, giving a final overview of the book, with an average rating of the stories mentioned below.

Blunt Instruments - 3 Stars

Blunt Instruments is the opener to the book, and has us following Black Team, a squad of 4 Spartans, who are on a demolition job, the target of which is a Covenant mining rig. With the help of a drone, they execute their plan to take down the Covenant???s position.

This was a pretty okay story. The dynamic between Black Team was really enjoyable, with each of their personality???s jumping off the page, and the overall throughline of the story adds some fun lore tidbits to some of the Covenant species, primarily the drones, my opinion of which has now shot up due to how cool they were in this story.

That being said, at times, the prose is really murky, making it difficult to fully picture the environment that the story is taking place in. This is most notable at the end, as the Spartans are making their way from the demo site to their exfil point. I was thoroughly let down by this, as it took me straight out of the story at multiple points.

Overall, thanks to this story, I???m looking forward to seeing more of Black Team, as I know they appear in the Glasslands trilogy of books, but I was glad to move onto something else by the end.

The Mona Lisa ??? 4.5 Stars

This was the standout story in the collection in my opinion. It???s really easy to forget that you???re playing an unstoppable monster of a human in most Halo games, so seeing a story from the perspective of normal marines is always going to be interesting, especially when you add The Flood into the mix.

This story was fairly predictable, but in a manner that made the horror of the plot all that more tangible, as it allowed the tension to build to a crescendo before everything went utterly tits up.

The Flood were phenomenally written throughout this, likely being at their most terrifying across all of Halo???s expanded media. The setting of the Mona Lisa, the titular ship, made a for a really intense atmosphere, similar to the library from Halo: Combat Evolved, but again, from the much more terrifying PoV of bog standard marines.

The expansion of certain aspects of the lore is really cool, such as being one of the earliest glimpses into the sheer depravity of ONI, and the lengths that they would go to in order to get a leg up on the Covenant, seemingly betraying every single moral that the UNSC strives to maintain.

The cast of characters is also extremely strong, with my favourite being Lopez, the matriarchal sergeant who leads the squad of marines throughout the book. Watching her slowly lose her hope of returning home was genuinely heartbreaking, and seeing her have to continue ever on, despite the losses of soldiers that she viewed as as important to her as children, was extremely tragic, and I loved the imagery the author used for it, with each soldier being one of her ???rosary beads???.

The relationship between Rimmer, a prisoner on the ship, and Henry, a Sangheili prisoner on the ship, was a really stark way of contextualizing just how menacing the flood were as a threat, as this book is set before the events of Halo 2, so the Elite???s were still their enemies.

My only gripe with this book, is that it ends on a really weird, unsatisfying note, where we don???t get closure on a couple of characters, who in the 13 years since Evolution released, have never reappeared in the franchise.

Overall though, this is one of my favourite pieces of Halo media, and I???d likely find myself recommending Evolutions to people just for this story alone.

Palace Hotel ??? 2 Stars

Palace Hotel was a really weak entry into this anthology. I???ve never read anything by Robert Mclees, and I think I???ll be making a point to avoid anything his names attached to, because oh my lord, his writing style is horrible.

This story takes place between the second and third missions of Halo 2, and follows Master Chief as he escorts a squad of Marines to the rest of their unit.

This is a pretty cool setup, let down by the fact that Mclees switched the PoV of the story twice, without any form of indication whatsoever. There was a point in it where you???re reading from

Master Chief???s perspective, and a few sentences late, with nary a page break to be seen, you???re in the head of one of the Marines. As I read this, it genuinely jarred me to the point where I nearly put the book down, or skipped onto the next story. This happens again later in the story, but wasn???t anywhere near as jarring.

The prose during action scenes is also really inconsistent. In anything longer than half a page, Mclees has a total inability to write interesting combat, but when he writes some that???s short, it???s generally fantastic. There???s a point early on, where Chief 1v1???s a Jackal, which lasts maybe a paragraph or two, but was the only moment that I genuinely enjoyed a fight scene during the story.

I don???t usually quote books in my reviews, but there???s a line I want to highlight here, because it???s one of the worst things I???ve ever seen a character say, so if I had to suffer, you should too.

???I believe I can honestly say that even though you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad, and that if you were to ask nicely I???d give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you could put them in me???

This is said by a marine corporal, who only a page or two before, had been cursing Chief out, and the only thing that had changed in that time, was they went up some stairs. I think that quote and context does enough to show my issues with Mclee???s writing style

The only reason I???m not rating this 1 star, is because there???s an amazing moment at the end, where Chief meets a childhood friend of his, and his this moment of realization that he???s not the person he was when he knew her.

Overall, this story sucked, and I would recommend that if you do read it, skip towards the end of it for the only amazing moment in it. I am genuinely of the opinion that when they split evolutions into two volumes, they should have just done away with this story in it???s entirety, allowing it to be forgotten.

Human Weakness ??? 4 Stars

I really enjoyed this story, and thought that it was a really well thought out deep dive into the psyche of Cortana, and the need to deal with your own mortality from the perspective of a character that???s never had to feel pain.

Watching her have to come to terms with the reality that she, like every other human, has an expiration date, was really intriguing, and added a lot of layers to her character that???s enhanced her arc in Halo 4 quite a bit for me.

I really engaged with the parts of the story where she was battling with the Gravemind???s offer, and the temptation that that created within her, especially since it was framed as a way for her to forever stay with John, her one and only friend.

Seeing her lose hope throughout the story, as the Gravemind broke her will, to the point where she genuinely believed that Chief was just a hallucination the Gravemind created to toy with her was fantastic, as it really added to her rescue in the game, something that I thought had been mishandled there.

Overall, it was really good, but nothing phenomenal. It???s a perfect piece of supplementary material to an already fantastic game, serving to enhance it further. It was definitely pallete cleanser following the train wreck that was the last story, so I give it props for that.

Wages of Sin ??? 4 stars

This one is interesting. I can see it being a story that people might glance off of because of the framing off it. This is the final confession of a member of the race of Prophet???s, where he outlines how his species failed the Covenant, and deserve the fate that they???re now reaping.

It???s one of the more beautifully written stories in the anthology, having prose that is far beyond any of the other stories.

And again, like a lot of the stories in this collection, it adds a lot to the expanded lore of the Covenant, giving a degree of sympathy to the one race the games don???t portray as victims of an unfair religion.

I???d probably rank this one as the third best in the collection, just behind The Mona Lisa and The Return.

The Return ??? 4.5 Stars

This is one of the most intriguing bits of lore Halo???s ever had. This story follows a Covenant Shipmaster 7 years after the events of Halo 3, as he returns to a planet that he glassed twenty years prior to the story.

This story deals with the guilt and doubts that plague the shipmaster after learning of the Prophet???s betrayal of the other races. He relives the memories of his assault on the planet as he sees the destruction that he wrought in the name of false prophets, and this forces him to tackle the meaning of his existence, now that he???s played such a key role in the perversion of his people???s religion.

The structure of the story is really cool, since whenever the shipmaster sleeps, he has vivid dreams of the events of the war, ranging from his glassing of the planet that he???s on, to the day he executed his ship???s prophet in front of his crew during the Great Schism.

This is a very short entry in the book, but in my opinion is the most effective at getting a message across to the reader. It???s tied as my favourite with The Mona Lisa, as I just don???t have the heart to pick between either of them.

From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal ??? 3 Stars

While interesting, I think that this one could have been left on the cutting room floor. This is a letter from a member of ONI informing Xenoarchaelogists that they???ll now be working on understanding the Forerunners in order to get a leg up on the potential future threats the Covenant may still pose.

It adds some new lore tidbits to the excession, and shows that ONI are still acting on the assumption that the Covenant are the enemy, but other than that doesn???t really do anything all that interesting.

Overall rating ??? 3.5 Stars

Halo Evolutions was a solid read, and despite being let down by a really weak story at one point, almost everything in the collection was well worth the read, especially if you???re a fan of the expand Halo mythos. I can confidently highly recommend this to almost any fan of Halo, if just for The Mona Lisa and The Return alone, as they???re well worth the box price of the book.

Soul Music is the third entry in the Death sub-series of Discworld, and marks a low point in my journey with the character. This book was at some points a legitimate slog to make it through, but when it hit its stride, it hit heights that I wasn???t quite expecting from it.

The book opens with Death reaping Mort and Ysabell from the first Death novel, intermingled with scenes of their daughter, Susan, receiving the news. Death, reeling from having to kill his daughter and former apprentice, goes off on a journey to understand the purpose of life, and by extension the Duty. This leaves an opening that has to be filled, or else the events of Reaper Man might be repeated, so Susan is forced to take up the mantle, and do the job in Death???s stead.

Meanwhile, a young man arrives in Ankh-Morpork, looking to be the world???s greatest musician, and with the help of a powerful magical guitar, takes the city by storm, creating a new type of music. Music with rocks in it.

It???s not really accurate to call this a Death novel if I???m being honest, as he has extremely little screentime in this, with the focus sitting squarely on Susan, who, despite being a fairly solid character, doesn???t bring much new to the table, as her arc is a sort of retreading of Mort???s arc. It???s concluded in a different way, but the steps that got us there felt very similar.

Despite being content with how Death was handled, I would have loved to see more of his journey of self discovery, as each of those scenes were highlights of the book, and only served to strengthen my absolute adoration of the character.

I really enjoyed getting a more in depth dive into Ankh Morpork???s culture, as so far, all I???ve read has been Death, so I haven???t really had an opportunity to get a grasp on what the city was like, so getting Buddy???s PoV as he also has to learn about was a really good introduction to the culture of the city. The guilds were a definite highlight of the book.

Something I didn???t really connect with was the satire of the book. I didn???t think it was quite as clever as the previous two, and I think that???s down to the fact that it???s laser focused on one specific topic, making the humour feel really inflexible at times. It felt like it was relying on a lot of in jokes for a specific community, which is a shame, though when it was at it???s best, it shone as brightly as the other works I???ve read from him.

The biggest issue with this book has to be the fact that it absolutely refused to go anywhere for a good quarter of it???s page count. I understand that it???s introducing a new character to the readers, but oh my lord, I was bored shitless for a good chunk of the book. It was definitely funny, and it had a few highlights here and there, but overall, it???s early pacing was just really sluggish, which was a massive issue for me, especially since I started this the same day I finished Reaper Man, which had exceptionally tight pacing.

The middle section wasn???t much better, as there???s a subplot going on throughout the book, where Ridcully is trying desperately to understand the science behind Music with rocks in it. But this kicks off pages after we get a perfectly sufficient explanation from Death about what???s going on. Overall, the entire wizard aspect of this book was fairly monotonous, and I feel like it getting trimmed down to their newfound obsession with the music would have probably led to the entire book flowing in a much better manner overall.

The conclusion of the book was genuinely the only point where I was content with the pacing of the story, as I felt like it wasn???t missing a beat there. There wasn???t any plodding along. It had a point, and it made sure to get to it before the reader got bored of it.

Despite my issues with the book, I still walked away having enjoyed my time with the book, though I???m beginning to expect that it???s going to be nigh on impossible for me to not enjoy a Pratchett novel to some degree, as they???re just utterly wonderful. It???s a solid 3.5 stars, and despite my issues, I still fully recommend this book.

Gah, my absolute adoration for these books grows with every single one that I read Pratchett is proving himself to have been an absolute mastermind in the art of weaving a heartfelt story that has the ability to absolutely floor me with laughter.

I don???t think I???ve ever read a book that has been this profound while still managing to maintain such a lighthearted air to it. The balance that he strikes between these two is done so deftly that he can heel turn the tone of the book in a matter of paragraphs without it feeling even remotely out of place at any point.

This is achieved through a few different factors, the main one being the characters. The most obvious one has to be Death, who in my opinion is probably the best character that Fantasy has ever been graced with. His adoration for humanity and life in general shines through brilliantly in this book, capitalising on what Pratchett had set up in Mort.

Then there???s the various characters from the undead rights movement, who are just wonderful. Of particular note are the Winkings, who are a married couple, one of whom is a vampire, that being Arthur. Doreen, his wife, has decided to take on the part of being a countess to him, in order to be supportive of him, donning a fake Transylvanian accent, doing up their house like a vampire???s castle, and renaming the Notfaroutoe???s. The entire time, Arthur is very disapproving, as he never wanted to be a vampire in the first place. In my opinion, it???s a very sweet dynamic that shows just how dedicated to each other they are, even if Arthur seems a bit sick of it at times.

Then there???s the story itself, which is an absolute gem. Death has grown a personality, and for the auditors of reality, his bosses, that just simply won???t do, so they give him the sack. This, in a subversion of expectations, delights Death, since now he gets to experience the life that he???s only ever experienced the end of, or has lived vicariously through his daughter and apprentice.

He takes a position on a farm, helping out an old lady, and becoming a person unto himself. This is used as a contrast to the job of being Death, where he still gives reverence to each individual blade of grass, or head of wheat, since it???s in his nature to give every piece of life it???s due reverence.

Whilst all this is going on, things around the disc are going rather pear shaped, as people have stopped dying in the interim between our Death being fired, and a new one being believed into existence.

What the book ends up becoming as these two plot threads are explored, is a wonderfully vibrant love letter to being alive. As you read it, you can tell that Sir Terry Pratchett adored life, and wanted others to at the very least be able to glimpse how wonderful life was. And to an extent, it works quite well. I think you???d be hard pressed to walk away from this book without at least a minor improvement to your outlook on life.

The pacing of the book is something to be noted, because oh my lord, it flows so well. It???s a reasonably fast paced book, but Pratchett knew when to slow down and let the story breathe. There wasn???t any point where I felt like the pacing didn???t fit.

On top of all of that, this book was just an emotional rollercoaster. I got ping ponged between emotions almost constantly, to a point where I felt like I was suffering from emotional whiplash. And I loved it. One minute I???d be busting a gut laughing, then I???d be contemplating the nature of my existence, and after that I???d be basking in how great being alive is. When I finished the book, I just broke into tears for a solid 5 minutes. This was such a bittersweet book, and I???m begging you to read it.

I could gush for ages about the book, but I genuinely don???t see a point. As I said before, you should read it, you do yourself a disservice everyday that you don???t, it???s just that good. Pratchett is one of the greatest authors of our time, and we???re likely never going to see someone as gifted as him again. This is one of the easiest 5 stars that I think I???ve ever given, and has shot Discworld up to a top 3 fantasy series for me.

Saint???s Testimony was a really fun read. This short story tackles the question of whether or not the Smart AIs in the Halo universe deserve to be considered Human, and the morality around decommissioning them after 7 years just to prevent their rampancy.

The book is told from the perspective of the AI Iona, who was previously a main character of a comic series set within the universe.

The book lends a lot of credence to the arguments made by Cortana in Halo 5, enhancing the ending to a game that desperately needs any help it can get, so it definitely gets points for that.

The use of other AI that we???ve met in the Halo universe is also a really nice touch, as we get to see their perspectives on it as well. We also get a deeper dive into the mind of AI, and how they function, demonstrating that despite the fact Cortana was the most well made model of Smart AI, the others are still just as Human, and deserve the respect that goes along with it.
I really enjoyed this story, but I struggle to recommend it unless you have Kindle Unlimited, as I think a pound is a lot for how short the story is, clocking in at only 40 pages or so. 4/5 Stars