Review: The Republic of Thieves

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There are some books you can just immediately recognize are the result of a bunch of research notes leftover from the earlier good novels.
I just could not get to relate to this. The situation was off - funny, but ultimately feeling very pointless. There seemed to be something about this story - this specific situation - that seems to have some subconscious significance for Scott Lynch, but honestly, it's not come through... so there's a kind of frustration and bemusement that colors the entire reading experience.
And the mages... were better when unrevealed. This lot is seriously disappointing.

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Review: Sympathy for the Devil

Sympathy for the Devil by Tim Pratt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some of the stories were good. Some were viscerally terrific. Some were meh. And a couple were 'what the F is going on' in ways both good and bad.
Is it worth a read?
Sure, because with this kind of diversity you're sure to find at least one you really, really like.

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Review: Heaven's Queen

Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ends with a bang. The series is actually a lot better as a series, not a one-off. There's a bit of a deus ex machina thrown in to make everything wrap up nicely but it doesn't grate... and there's an excellent little plot twist that, in my opinion, just fell a little short of going far enough to be a really great plotline.
But... it was a good read.

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Review: Honor's Knight

Honor's Knight by Rachel Bach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It gets better. Boy, does it get better.
Complexity increases, it reads more and more like a good TV series, and Deviana starts getting a little bit more interesting. There's still a lot of exposition and hand-wringing but it starts falling into place better and better, still with a lot of classic TV sci fi tropes but put together in a much more interesting way than you'd expect.

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Review: Crooked Kingdom

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It continues. I sometimes seems to get a bit... slower? But that's just the classic fantasy story paradigm holdover. Take it as a story of a gang of thieves, and it holds up brilliantly, in the league of Caine Black Knife or Locke Lamora.
Definitely unmissable if you recognize the last two names.

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Review: Six of Crows

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pretty awesome. Easy to get lost in the fantasy element of a magic world, especially after the mage wars of the Grisha trilogy, but the Crows saga is a rogue story through and through.
And what a story, and characters, they are!

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