Book Reviews by Eitan

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review. My review will contain important spoilers for the previous two books in the trilogy, Foundryside and Shorefall , but not for Locklands itself. In Foundryside , Robert Jackson Bennett unveiled a steampunk-fantasy alt-Venice that ultimately became a story about artificial intelligence. In Shorefall , the links to cyberpunk and computer programming strengthened as Sancia, Berenice, Gregor, and Orso discover the power of cloud computing, extending the idea of magically linking objects together to connect minds. With Locklands , Bennett again takes his half-magic, half-programming to new heights, tacking the idea of reality as a simulation with re-writable laws. Craesedes Magnus had already offered a taste of this power at the end of Shorefall , but the ability to alter the world in even more profound ways than existing scrivings takes center stage, as Sancia and her allies, noworganized into the independent nation ...

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review. As part of my Hugo Awards read-through, I read A Spindle Splintered , the previous novella in this series, and thought it was a clever idea well worth an afternoon read. In A Mirror Mended , Alix Harrow delivers more of the same, blending a range of fairy tales with modern commentary for a fast-paced and engaging story that offers a potential conclusion to this series. My review will contain spoilers for A Spindle Splintered , since it's hard to talk about this very direct sequel without touching on earlier plot points, but rest assured that neither is a book that relies on a single twist or dramatic reveal to succeed. Still, if you'd rather head into the fairy-tale-verse on your own first, read no further! Zinnia Gray, the modern-day Sleeping Beauty turned fairy-tale Miles Morales, is back for more multiversal adventures, with the focus turned from her own rapidly advancing illness to a potentially colla...

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review. Having enjoyed both The Goblin Emperor and The Witness for the Dead , I was pleasantly surprised to find out that a direct sequel to the latter was arriving with minimal fanfare over the summer, and even more delighted to snag an advance copy a week ahead of release. Witness was a beautifully-crafted slice-of-life mystery, rich with Thara Celehar's voice and personality and packed with small digressions that always revealed its characters' inner lives even when they did not advance the "main" plot. The Grief of Stones delivers more of those same joys and sets up a presumed third novel to complete the post- Goblin Emperor trilogy.  After seeing Celehar struggle and suffer and ultimately open up and form friendships with a few residents of Amalo, I was pleased to see most of that cast return, especially the prelate Anora, the opera composer Iana Pel-Thenhior, and the members of the postal servi...