Chris Horne

The anti Abercrombie.

I am not the target audience for this book. I love Grimdark, I love grey characters and i love cynical humour.

Bookshops and Bone Dust is none of the above, the characters are good, they do good things and are rewarded for their efforts. Boring right? Wrong! The author executes the story so well that the characters, rather than being sickly sweet, feel like real people who make real decisions. They just choose to be kind to each other.

There are two plots in this book, a low stakes and a higher stakes one. I found myself caring about the low stakes plot and found the higher stakes an unnecessary distraction. I can go to thousands of other fantasy books for life and death situations. I come to this world to spend time with a wonderful bunch of characters being nice to each other in nice places and that is when this book is at its best. Oh and when it describes the cake. Do not read when hungry.

In this book Jim Butcher takes on the difficult task of writing an entertaining book with a grieving, often passive, protagonist and he takes it seriously. There are no short cuts, no instant recovery, and no fading to black at difficult moments. Dresden repeatedly descends into dark periods of mourning and just when you think he’s out, he falls back in.

To my understanding what Dresden goes through in this book reflects many peoples reality of grief and in this way the writing is excellent. However, while this process of grieving feels real, it is difficult to make it interesting for a reader when it happens over and over again. Butcher has created a series that is famous for its fast moving plots, quirky characters, cheesy quips and big set pieces and while some of these are present they are toned down and seem less fun than usual. This is a well thought out book about grief, I just wish more of the things I love about Dresden were there to balance it out.

There are some stories that are so well realised that they feel like they have always existed. That the author has reached out and grabbed it fully formed and put down on paper. This is one of those stories.

This is a book that will make children fall in love with literature forever and remind adults why fiction matters.

This is quickly becoming my favourite urban fantasy series. The book is a low key, urban fantasy which spends a lot of time in the day to day life of its protagonist. The pace of the story is slow but the world is well realised so it is a pleasure spend time there. The book is at its best when dealing with political intrigue, that is well written and unravels satisfyingly.

If the book has a fault it’s that it relies on a character monologuing plot explanations rather than allowing the reader to come to conclusions from the characters actions.

I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys slice of life story telling with moments of action. While the magic and set pieces are less showy than other urban fantasies, this add an edge of realism that grounds the characters in a world you can believe is just out of sight of everyday London.

A Dark Academia novel published in 2023 by former self publishing sensation M.L Wang.

This book really had me split down the middle. On the one hand, it is a tightly paced, well plotted, turn pager of a book. There is an unlikeable protagonist who the author skilfully makes you route for. The world building is fun and the prologue is a stand out moment of brilliant writing.

But on the other hand this book suffers from a white saviour issue that is very difficult to see past. The book spends little time with the oppressed people and most of them have limited personalities or agency.

The books political themes are heavy handed and lack nuance to the point where it often becomes tell rather than show.

Within this books pages there is the possibility of a great story, the character of Carra, a girl of the oppressed people, is charismatic, funny and dynamic. I would love to have spent more time with her and seen how she interacted with this world and what decisions she might have made when offered the possibility of freeing herself.

Overall this book is a miss for me, although there are many good parts to it and I would read the author again.