Ryan

This was an absolutely fantastic read. Dark, edgy, and sensual in the way that all good vampire stories should be, while at the same time engaged in fascinating world-building that combines a lot of the existing folklore about vampires from around the world and combines it with street-level urban fantasy.

Another fantastic volume of this series. Superhero comics often build themselves up on an edifice of being concerned with “justice” as a concept, but Ostrander is one of those few who looks critically and analytically at what that means. Should superheroes concern themselves with environmental justice? Where does the line fall between justice and vengeance? What place does justice have in areas where conflict has become multi-generational? (this includes visits to both Northern Ireland and Israel in this volume)

Definitely a fun read. Very clearly placed in the Tom Baker era, but at the same time oddly reminiscent of Capaldi in a lot of ways. Lots of very classic-feeling Douglas Adams as well (the interactions between Skaga's ship and the Doctor especially).

This made absolutely no sense. It's a bunch of short stories that are completely disconnected from each other, each of which are (I'm assuming) depending on other stories not in this book to have any tension or emotional connection. At the very least they shouldn't be in a collection together - I haven't read the rest of Secret Invasion so I can't comment on how comprehensible the storyline on the whole was.

This was almost depressing to read, when considering what my neighbours to the south could have had, and how it contrasts to what they ended up with. Sanders is a principled politician who has dedicated his career to social justice and fighting to ensure his society reaches their full potential. His book - equal parts a call to action and an explanation of the benefits of a comprehensive social safety net - takes a lot of concepts that other countries take for granted and looks at how they would work from a uniquely American perspective, while also discussing how those ideas could reasonably be implemented.

Hopefully this book will be on the bookshelf of every Democrat planning ahead to 2018 and beyond.

A short, yet thoroughly enjoyable look at how we value truth, idealism, and honour. Wilde's wit is as sharp as in his other works, and his insights into the social mores of Edwardian England remain incredibly relevant to contemporary times.

The idea of the USA invading Canada for control over our fresh water is a little too plausible for it to work as an allegory, but this was fun in a summer-action-movie sort of way.

I've long been a fan of steampunk, but it's always made me a little uncomfortable that a lot of the genre glosses over a lot of the actual history of the Victorian/Edwardian periods in favour of using the time period as window dressing. I appreciated Everfair because Shawl refuses to do that in this story of Fabians and American religious missionaries founding a new society in the Belgian Congo during the reign of King Leopold. Additionally, there's a lot of interesting, thought-provoking material on how socities come together and define themselves, and the perils they face in the light of doing so.

I almost feel like this should get two separate ratings - 5 stars if you're already invested in Westeros and A Song of Ice and Fire, three starts if you are not. Given that I can only enter one, and I am so invested, then it's an easy 5 stars for me.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdom follows Ser Duncan (“Dunk”) the Tall, squire to a hedge knight who is knighted himself and then becomes involved with the Targaryen family, especially young Aegon, a century before Robert's Rebellion. Readers of ASOIAF might recognize those names - the latter series tells us that Dunk becomes Lord Commander of Aegon's Kingsguard, and it's hinted that Brienne of Tarth is a descendant of his as well. So we know these are characters destined for great things. At this point, though, that greatness has yet to be thrust upon them, and we see them engaged in smaller acts, like setting quarrels over streams and getting involved in tourneys. The smaller scale of their actions provides a nice break from the epic structure of the larger story, and highlights the quiet nobility that the characters have.

This collection isn't a replacement for ASOIAF, and it's not intended to be such - but what it is is a beautiful, enjoyable look into the larger world of Martin's creation.

This was just fantastic. Kendrick is as funny on paper as she is on screen, and her deconstruction of the “glamour” of the film industry was both interesting and entertaining.

This was a lot of fun to read. A lot of the self-help/advice parts will be familiar to anyone who's done any reading about productivity and self-improvement, but Hardwick's background in comedy and his tendency to explain things in gaming and sci-fi terms make it more enjoyable than many other books in the field.

Kirk's Entreprise meets Q! Which ought to make for an amazing story. but it's Abramsverse Trek, so you end up with a nonsensical mess of a story that's like other Trek stories you already know, but worse.

I love the idea of surrealist objets d'art becoming living, breathing things that exist in the world, and of the recasting of Freud's life and death instincts as instincts between surrealism and fascism.

But for a novel that's about surrealism, having literal, actual Nazis teaming up with literal, actual demons seems a little too on the nose.

This was a lot of fun to read. A traditional haunted house type story, with the added layer of a sardonic commentary on modern consumerism, the relationship people have with their careers, and big-box retailing. I like shopping at Ikea but this sendup of it was delightful as well.

Bonus points for the layout, as well, with the chapter headings and cover designed to look like a product catalogue.

This was hilarious and delightful. plays a lot with the tropes and inherent silliness of superhero comics in a way that reminds me a lot of 80s indie comic (without any of the hipper-than-thou cynicism that a lot of those works had).

This was a fun thriller. I love the central idea (a city in the wilderness where people can disappear to avoid or escape from negative experiences in their life), and Casey is a strong, likable protagonist (which is pretty much par for the course for one of Armstrong's novels). In comparison to Armstrong's other work it's definitely more like Nadia Stafford than the Otherworld material, while still managing to have its own strong sense of identity.

This was a fun little coming of age story about ghosts, amusement parks, and an old man looking back on life. It's not “horror” in the sense that many of King's classic works are, but more of a spooky campfire tale, and King is arguably at his best when telling that kind of story.

Dark Horse's foray into superhero comics was a bit of a mess. There were some interesting ideas here - I love the way that the action is broken up into four different locations, each with their own unique feel - and there were some interesting character designs as well.

However, the collection also suffers from being something of a disorganized mess. Dark Horse tried to supercharge a superhero universe in 16 weeks with as much depth and content as Marvel and DC built over decades. As a result, even after 400 pages the characters feel flat and paper-thin.

Not a lot of material here in terms of new knowledge, but put together in a nice little package to help teach about financial literacy. Chilton has an accessible, enjoyable reading style (although he leans a bit too heavily on 1980s-sitcom gender stereotypes at times). Overall, a good refresher or introduction.

This was a nice continuation of the series. It continued to not really be about Fionn, which is fine, because in Fionn's aunt, Bodhmall, and her lover Liath Luachra, O'Sullivan has created an intruiging warrior women who each provide their own strength to the narrative. I could continue reading a series about just them without any difficulty.

Four pre-teens investigating weird happenings in the middle of the 1980s. The Stranger Things comparison seems obvious, and while the books themselves are very different there's a similar level of quality in the story being told.

In its simplest description, The Watch That Ends the Night seems like a lighthearted romantic comedy - a man marries the widow of his best friend, and years later their relationship is thrown into chaos when the friend walks back into their life years later. It's so much more than that, though: this novel is an introspective look at the human condition, and of a society that seeks to leave behind the horrors of the Second World War and enter a newer, more modern world.

I read this (and discovered MacLennan as a writer) entirely because of Gord Downie paying homage to him in a song. I mention this not to be self-effacing, but because the material that he drew from is essential to understanding the themes of the book:

“I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.”

The Watch That Ends the Night is a breathtakingly beautiful meditation on the process of aging, the ways that our life experiences shape the person we become, and the ways that our understanding of romantic love are impacted by those things.

This was the Expanse version of a “ship in a bottle episode”, although with enough new characters introduced that some might quibble with that description. But compared to the other books in the series, this one just didn't have the scope or depth that I've come to love (and, I guess, expect) from James SA Corey.

It was still a fun novel to read, though, and I think that if it hadn't come on the heels of a book as good as Abbadon's Gate I probably would have enjoyed it more.

This book, the latest in the Expanse series, sort of exists on two separate levels, so I think it's appropriate to consider it on two separate levels.

First, there's the character level, which is the primary focus for the first half of the book (character continues to be important in the second half, of course, but it's not the only focus). The crew of the Rocinante gets shore leave, and use it to tie up some loose ends in their personal lives. It was nice to see how the characters exist separate from one another, as it allowed Corey to highlight how their personalities complement each other and how they've grown into a cohesive group.

The other level is the main, actual, plot, which becomes a major part of the story in the second half. I've seen (favourable) comparisons of this to The Empire Strikes Back, and I think that actually undersells the moment when it happens. The Big Moment™ hits like a cross between the Red Wedding and Adrian Veidt's “I did it 35 minutes ago” speech, and seeing how all of the individual storylines were dovetailing into it was phenomenal. New life has been breathed into the series, and I can't wait to see where they take it next.

The Expanse, as a series, has seemed like a masterclass in how to balance an engaging plot with in-depth characterization, and this novel in particular is a nigh-perfect example of that.

This series continues to be fantastic. With each book, Corey establishes what feels like a new status quo for the crew of the Rocinante, and then smashes it completely to hell. This results in a string of novels that feel like a cohesive whole, while each one also has a unique flavour to it. It's hard to pull off, but it's done well here.

In this novel, our characters venture out of the solar system for the first time - and given that the book is named after a demon known as “the destroyer”, one can imagine how well it goes. What's fascinating about it, though, is that most of the catastrophe in the novel comes from people acting like Holden - while Holden, at the same time, starts to realize that his habit of jumping in to situations without looking isn't always the wisest course.

Abaddon's Gate ends the first act of The Expanse, and does so in a fascinating way. It will be interesting to see where the next act goes from here.