Evru

I honestly did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. I suppose I'd grown a bit cynical about Rothfuss' writing and now I'm feeling a bit silly for having done so. This story reminded me why I fell in love with The Name of the Wind in the first place. Yes, the way he crafts words is excellent, but more than that its just a truly heartfelt story. I can't think of a single thing I would change about it.

Great for fans who want to learn more about Bast, but also is a great standalone short story that doesn't rely on any foreknowledge of the world.

Enjoyable and a generally cozy mystery. If you enjoyed the preceding Alex Benedict novels you'll provably enjoy this one, too.

That being said it's also bizarrely unimaginative. My feeling at the end was "Oh, okay. Huh. That's... fine, I guess." A few key plot points felt forced for the convenience of the author rather than making sense for the characters. Overall not one of McDevitt's best works.

Very well written. I quite enjoyed the ending, even though I almost gave up on the book once or twice.

Honestly, its mostly a book about miserable people being miserable to each other. Area X spends most of the book as a backdrop to the petty scheming in the dysfunctional government agency of the Southern Reach.

Its fine. Its not the funniest book you'll ever read, nor the most exciting, the most intriguing, the most insightful, or most interesting. But its fine.\n I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this book to anyone, bjt I also wouldn't go out of my way to dissuade anyone from reading it.

Its a fast, easy read, and pretty accessible for non-sci-fi focused readers.\n The most interesting character is a supporting role that gets a pretty short amount of page time. Everyone else is pretty flat / cookie cutter.\n I don't regret my time reading it, but I also don't feel like it would be worth my time to continue the series.\nIts fine.

Overall a very good book. I loved the updating of the "knights who return when the realm is in peril" concept. It was interesting to see different characters ideas of what "the realm" was.

The humor is definitely there, however the context around it is so bleak I rarely found it laugh-out-loud funny. In one particularly Pratchett-esque moment I found myself thinking "yeah, okay, this would be hilarious if everything else wasn't so depressing."

The book's message seemed a little at odds with itself. There is some very inspiring messaging about personal responsibility and not relying on someone else to magically fix things for you. And then there's a superhero montage with an all powerful magic staff to fix all the main conflicts of the story for everyone.

Not a perfect book, but well worth a read and I will be on the lookout for Lee's next novel.