Rob

I didn't read the whole thing, so I'm not going to rate the collection. I only read the Dresden story: Mister Petty, which is actually a Goodman Grey story. It was fine, but nothing special and likely easily skippable. 3 stars.

Some of the subplots in this started slow for me, but things picked up as the book went along. I'm not really sure how they are going to wrap this series up in 3 books, but I'm excited to find out.

Jefferson Mays does his usual excellent job. He doesn't really do a variety of voices, but after 9 expanse books (plus the first in this series) I've just gotten used to him being the voice of James SA Corey books.

I thought this one started slow but picked up as it went along. It's probably my age but the teenage angst from both Olive and Darin got annoying at times, but not so much as to turn me off the book.

Overall I'm not enjoying this series as much as original one, but I am enjoying being back in the world again.

The audio books are good. I think both narrators work well for their character POVs.

This felt a bit like DCC lite. Not as good, but it had some of the same plot points. It was different enough that I though it was worth reading though and found myself interested to listen whenever I had time.

I've really enjoyed Travis Baldree's narration of other series, and this book was no different. He always adds that little extra that makes doing the audio worthwhile.

It's been a while since I finished The Core and my memories of how that wrapped up are a bit fuzzy. I found the start of this book a bit slow, but once things got going it really picked up. I had picked up the this and the second book on deals but never got around to reading them. Now I've jumped straight into The Hidden Queen.

I'm generally not a huge fan of multiple narrators but for the 2 main POVs it made sense to do so and I thought both did a great job with their respective chapters.

This one started really slow for me, but once it got going it really sucked me in. I liked the world quite a bit and it was cool to see the Cosmere in the future. I'd really love a sequel, the book left me wanting to know what happens next, always a good sign.

The narration was very good. I'm not always a fan of multiple narrators, but it worked well with the story and POV swaps

Another solid entry in this series. After Battle Ground it was a bit of a change of pace. The events of this book take place over the course of a year (though more like 9 months). It feels like a transition book from the massive events of that book to whatever is coming next.

I mostly did this in audio, and James Marsters does his usual excellent job. I mixed in a few chapters from the hard cover I mostly buy to add to my collection. But it was nice to have the option to get in a bit more reading when my audiobook time for the day was done.

Looking forward to next one in this series. I'm glad we're getting more regular Dresden books again, but I'm also going to be sad when the series is done.

I've had this one in my library for a while. I was looking for something short to fill time waiting for another book to come out. This one fit the bill.

Overall I enjoyed it, but didn't love it. It got overly detailed in places for my liking, but was mostly well paced. The book ends in a decent spot, but has lots of open threads being the first book in a series.

I did this one in audio and thought the narration was solid. Nothing special, but a good option.

This is a great mashup of mystery and fantasy with great characters and an interesting world setting. I've enjoyed most of Mr. Bennett's novels that I've read and this one is no different. I hadn't planned to jump right into the next one but decided to keep going.

This story is fairly self contained, something that is generally uncommon these days where everything is a series. There are hooks to build out the world further and continue on with the characters but the mysteries of this book have been addressed in a satisfactory manner and I feel like it'd be easy to stop or take a break without needing to jump right into another book to find out what's next.

Andrew Fallaize does a solid job with the narration. He does a variety of voices to add a little extra to reading of the book.

Slow at times, but overall enjoyable. It's always refreshing to get a stand-alone story (although I guess she's since written a prequel or something). I don't necessarily feel like I need to read the next book, though I may look into it at some point.

I really enjoyed when the focus was on Ead more than some of the other subplots, but I feel like the payoff for those subplots made them worthwhile by the end, even if I was less interested in them at the time.

The world building was pretty good. Initially the magic is not super detailed but you learn a fair bit about it as it goes along.

The audio was enjoyable. Liyah Summers does a variety of voices for the main characters.

I generally pick up every new John Scalzi book as it comes out, and the Old Man's War series is largely the reason why. I really enjoyed the world he built and the characters that inhabited it.

It's been 10 years since The End of All Things was released, so my memory of things was pretty bad. It seemed like a re-read of Zoe's Tale in particular might have been a good idea. That said I didn't feel lost and there was enough background provided in this book for me to pick up without re-reading any of the previous books.

I really enjoyed the main protagonist (who I guess was a character in Zoe's tale?), Gretchen Trujillo and her assistant Ran. The book has the usual Scalzi banter and a fast paced plot that is light on the science.

The book is self contained but certainly seems to be set up for more books in the series, which I'd welcome.

I loved wrestling as a kid and watched the WWF through most of college. But after a while I got tired of it. Woman's wrestling in particular was not very good. A young teenage boy was titillated by all the T&A and hot woman, but otherwise uninterested in that aspect. So I completely missed out on AJ Lee's run in the WWE.

In the years since, I would periodically read about the goings on in WWE, in particular this group of nerds called The New Day, who would dress up like Super Saiyans or play the Final Fantasy victory music when they won. I also started to hear about how the Woman's division was actually good, if not BETTER than the men's.

2020 started making me nostalgic for the good old days (which maybe weren't that good, but I was younger and things were simpler). I started watching a lot of documentaries on Wrestling, and then started following the storylines while not actually watching the show again.

Then I saw some of the woman's matches and I found myself pulled back in. The woman's division is by far the best thing they got going. A lot of this it turns out was due to what AJ and a few others had done to create the path for this current generation's female superstars to take things to such a high level.

I had watched this sadly cancelled Starz show called Heels. CM Punk had a small role and I knew who he was, even though I had missed his run in the WWE too. When I was looking up who played one of the female wrestlers on the show I discovered that AJ Lee was Punk's wife. And that was all I knew about her until maybe 2 months ago. Turns out that's one of the least interesting things about her.

CM Punk had famously left the WWE on bad terms, but time (and money) heals all wounds and he returned a few years ago. Then they started to set up a story hinting at the possible return of AJ Lee. When it actually happened, I started reading up more about her and discovered she wrote this book.

I mostly do audio books these days, so it was great to see that she read her own book. AJ is very funny and that comes across in her reading.

AJ is very brave in the stuff she admits in this book. Although as she mentions in the book, after some of the stuff she did in her run in the WWE, there isn't anything that embarrasses her anymore.

There is a lot of wrestling in this book (in particular the last third or so), but much of this book focuses on her childhood, family and her (and her mother's) struggles with mental health. In particular both AJ and her mother are bi-polar.

When I was younger my mom had bouts of depression including a stint in mental help facility. I didn't understand it. It was embarrassing. Or so I thought as a young kid. There is a negative stigma on mental health that is only starting to change in recent years.

I also learned many years later as an adult that my grandmother was bi-polar when she went off her meds are started behaving in ways I had never experienced. Our family had never talked about it. No one explained to us when we were a kid. So I can really identify with some of what AJ went through.

I think some of changes in the stigma on mental health has begun to change thanks to people like AJ. Hearing a WWE crowd cheering for Therapy in 2025 was not something I had on my Bingo card.

The book was fascinating, funny and inspiring. I don't know where AJ Lee's stint in WWE will end up, but I'm interested to find out.

4.5 Stars.

I really enjoyed The Art of Prophecy, but found The Art of Destiny uneven and didn't always keep my attention. This one was a pretty solid finish to the series. There were a few lulls keeping me from giving it a 5, but nothing like the last book.

I came to really enjoy the world and the cast of characters and am sad to be leaving them, but I think that's another sign of a good book.

I'll be curious to see what Mr. Chu writes next.

Picked this one up from the library. Did the audio, which is narrated by Tom Felton himself. It's non-fiction, so in general the narrator doesn't matter much, but there was some times when he would slip into Draco or do some accents or whatever to add a little extra to his story.

I didn't know about any of the post Harry Potter stuff (or most of the pre-Harry Potter stuff for that matter). He's had a fairly interesting life and the book had some good stories in it. He also talked about his mental health issues and how that led to his issues with drugs and alcohol.

The parts I enjoyed the most were the Harry Potter bits, something that is a lot harder to do these days. I don't want anything to do with JK Rowling, but I still love the books and enjoy the movies despite her recent crusade to be an awful human being.

Tom certainly mentions her a few times. It's hard to know what he feels about her now, but certainly he comes off as grateful to her for the books and what Harry Potter has meant to his life.

I like to think the best of people and it's not his job to take a stand on someone else's beliefs. I'm also not certain when this book was written vs. when JK Rowling started her crusade.

So if you're all out on Harry Potter, I totally get it and probably will want to take a pass on this book. But if you still love it like I do, and want some interesting stories about his time on the films, this is a good book to check out.

I'm never a big fan of short stories, just when things start going they end. So I tend to like/rate them less than full novels.

I thought this one did a good job of feeling like a complete story and not just the start of something though.

I struggled a bit with this at times. My attention would drift. I'd go several days without picking it back up, often opting for a podcast instead. It got better as it went along and I already bought the final book in the series, so I will probably wrap it up later this year, but there are some other books I plan to listen to first.

Stephen Brand once again does an excellent job with the narration. This really helped me get through the slower parts when I was less interested.

I have mixed feelings on this one. I struggled with the characters, including Mickey. His view on people doesn't vibe with my own. His choices that lead to him becoming an expendable are not ones I'd make, but I guess I understand. Most of the supporting characters are worse, except maybe Nasha.

For me the thing that kept me picking the book back up was the story itself. There is a bit of a mystery and I wanted to know what happened. Mickey did grow on me as the book went along. He had some interesting character growth. The book explores a lot of ideas about what is self.

I guess there is a sequel, but I'm not likely to pick it up. I am fine with this as a stand-alone.

I enjoyed this one more than the previous entry. Probably because it refocused on the elements of the series (the towers and magic progression) that have kept me continuing with the series. I don't recall as many infodumps (though they are present as always) and we got some really interesting plot developments that seemed to move the story forward.

The narration is excellent as always, and this series will remain an audio-only thing for me.

I will continue the series, but every time I pick up a new book in this series I'm reminded how much I can struggle with the writing. I love the characters, the world building and the overall plot has me interested. That said there are just huge lulls of infodumps or overexplaining things and I just sort of tune out. I want to see where the story goes. This book finished much stronger than it started.

The narration is fantastic as always. I think it's a huge help to get through the slow parts of the series. I was annoyed when the book got delayed, but I'd rather it be delayed than have a different narrator.

For a while John Scalzi was one of my favorite sci-fi authors. Anytime a new book a pre-order was automatic. However I was mostly underwhelmed by his last two novels The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. Both had fun sounding premises and both didn't end up being as fun as their premise.

So here comes this book about the moon turning to cheese. In the afterword Scalzi mentions how its the final book in what he sort of considers a loose trilogy of unrelated books. I was staring to think that maybe I'd be more selective of which novels by Mr. Scalzi I'd pre-order in the future.

Thankfully this was a book that ended up being as fun as the premise. If you're looking for a hard sci-fi novel, well you must not have read a John Scalzi novel before. The science is hand wavy at best. But that' not the point.

I'm not generally a fan of short stories. This book is almost that, but not quite. Some characters we meet once and never again. The book explores a lot of ideas, characters and parts of the US with the question of "how would they react if the moon turned to cheese?". It's a silly premise and question, but somehow it leads to some really interesting vignettes that worked well together into a novel length story.

Despite my somewhat low expectations and a style of story telling I generally don't enjoy, Mr. Scalzi somehow pulled it off.

Wil Wheaton does his usual good job with narrations. This book has far less snark than other books by Mr. Scalzi but I still think Wil is always a great fit for his novels.

It's been a while since I read the last book in this series. Apparently that one was set on the moon and featured Nicole instead of Elma and the book I loved the most.

This book returns to Elma and Mars. I'm not sure how much was the return to Elma and how much was just the plot not being as strong, but this one wasn't as good as the last.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed it, and would read another one if she writes one, but at points of the book Elma was getting on my nerves and the interactions with some of the other characters did as well.

Once again Mary Robinette Kowal does an excellent job narrating her own book. The audio is a great option for this series.

Similar vibe to the original. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as that one, but it was still a fun read. In general I don't tend to enjoy prequels, but I thought this one worked well enough. There was a good mix of characters and subplots to make this different enough from the first. Everything here feels pretty self-contained apart from maybe the epilogue that makes this feel mostly like a stand alone.

I guess there is now going to be a 3rd book, though I don't know where that falls in the chronology of the first 2. I will check it out at some point, but I won't necessarily rush to pick it up.

Travis Baldree does his usual excellent job at narration for this. Normally I'm not a huge fan when authors read their own works, but I enjoy Mr. Baldree's narration for a few other series so he's an excellent choice here.

It's been a while (3.5 years) since I listened to Heaven's River, so my memory of the characters and where things left off was fuzzy. I did mostly get back into things after a bit without feeling the need to look for recap.

The book was enjoyable enough that it kept my attention, but it also sort of felt like a bit of a transition book. There were like 4 main plot lines, and all of them felt like setup for more books. I'm good with that, I'll read more books.

I thought it ended in a fine place where I'm looking forward to the next book but not going to be impatient for it to come out. There are lots of loose threads but nothing I'd call a cliffhanger.

Audio narration was fantastic as usual. Ray Porter is excellent.

It was quite good, but not quite as good as the last book. It did finish really strong though and I can't wait for the audio version of the next book to be out next month.

I've been binging this series in audio now for the past 2 months or so and I'm sad I'm not able to jump right into the next one.

The narration continues to be fantastic. I guess they are redoing the series as an audio drama with multiple narrators, but I'm good with just Jeff Hays. He's one of the best narrators I've listened to in quite some time.

This series is a lot of fun. The humor can be a bit sophomoric, which may turn off some folks, but it works pretty well for me.

If you haven't checked this series out yet and you like RPGs/heavy action fantasy series give this one a look.

You know a book is great when you will stare at a wall just to get some extra audiobook time in. Easily the best of the series so far. He's been building up the "6th floor" since early on in the series and he didn't fail to deliver. I really love this series. It's going to be hard to top this book though.

The quality of the audiobooks has gone up with each one. I'm generally not a huge fan of the music and sound effects in audiobooks, but they do a good job of it and don't overdo it.