Tag: Book Reviews

August 2026 Reading Responses

Posted on by Taking One Step at a Time

August 2026 Reading (will be deleted once posted)

The Game Master’s Book of Adventures on Demand by Ben Egloff. Filled with adventures that look like they’re going to be a lot of fun to run. The only issue is that all of them (or just about) involved planar travel, which I have specifically locked down in my campaign right now. (That’s what the players are doing, fixing it.) So, it’s not specifically very useful right now, but I’m looking forward to the future. 4 stars.

Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous by Autumn K. England. Slight fantasy, but enjoyable look at recovery from trauma and ethics of belonging to a mostly-good organization. Not sure if it’s a reread, but pleasant and cozy. 4.5 stars.

The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman. It’s nice to read a series in which, even if it isn’t the main point of the series, the characters grow. It’s also nice to read a story about those over sixty who haven’t stopped living. Otherwise, nice little mystery with some interesting twists. 4.5 stars.

Everyone in this Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson. The latest (last?) book in the Ernest Cunningham series, it highlights the fact that Ernest isn’t just a writer. He’s a risk-taker and more than a little criminal himself. Ernest does make you want to join Juliette in smacking him upside the head to have him think things through a little. 4 stars.

Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn. A reread, although the initial time I read it was long enough ago that I’d forgotten most of it. It’s primarily a novel watching a young woman who exists on the borders (half-noble, half-wise woman) growing up and understanding the world around her. There are some romantic subplots, although not enough that I think it would fit into the current “romantasy” subgenre. An enjoyable book, and worth the reread. 4 stars.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. A reread, because the most recent book in this series has just come out. A fascinating look at Yale and all of its privileges from two characters who mirror what those privileges mean. The main character, Alex Stern, is a young woman with none of the standard Yale privileges—she’s female, brown, poor, and poorly educated—but she’s smart and she understands people and power. Darlington, her foil and mirror, appears to be everything she isn’t and, in many ways, he is. But . . . Watching these two navigate what appears to be a simple murder mystery, and all of its fallout, is delightful. This is much darker than I usually enjoy, but I did enjoy it. 4 stars.

The Best of All Possible Planets by Alex Shvartsman. First, note what this is described as. This is not a character-driven story. There is a little character growth, a very little character growth, but the story is not driven by them. It’s also not really a plot-driven story. The book is spent with the characters searching for a MacGuffin, which is helpfully labeled a MacGuffin, but it’s not really about the search. It’s described as being like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which is kind of true. It seems to be aiming for the same kind of humor, but it misses that mark. Dhawan is not an everyman character wandering through the universe trying to figure out how to survive; he’s an idiot who needs a major plank applied to his head to figure out what’s going on. (I spent the first part of the book practically enraged by him; the simulation planet does make him better.) What this book really is is a scavenger hunt of references, mostly science fiction, but also musical theater, movies, religious texts, and general fiction. It’s supposed to be funny; I started to smile by the end of it, but I nearly didn’t get that far. If you can handle Dhawan’s privilege and assumption that his world is the best (that is straight from Candide, as the title references), you might find it funny. I found it a waste of time. 2 stars (I did manage to finish it.) Not reviewed on Goodreads because I don’t think it would be helpful.

Level 1 Innkeeper by Jason Ritter. An LitRPG novel. A perfectly adequate novel; however, I found the LitRPG aspect of it too intrusive to want to read any more of these. 3 stars.

Alien Olympus by Glynn Stewart. A perfectly acceptable next chapter in the series, but not much more to say about it. 3 stars.

My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse. I’m afraid I’m either too far from the time period or too much not in the demographic of idly wealthy single white male with butler, but I found these stories mostly annoying rather than funny. 3 stars.

July 2026 Reading Responses

Posted on by Taking One Step at a Time

Platform Decay by Martha Wells: I enjoyed this. I didn’t find it one of the best of the series, but it’s a more than worthy addition which I’ll likely be rereading when the next book of the series comes out. I wavered between 4 & 5 stars before finally deciding to grant it the 5 stars.

The Man Who Died Twice: Fun mystery, somewhat unexpected killer. It does appear, however, that all of the mysteries will involve Elizabeth personally. And that she’s acquiring quite the body count. 4.5 stars out of 5.

The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking: Delightful. YA, so I normally wouldn’t read it, but the title and description were too whimsical to turn down. I fully agreed with the book’s lessons: that those in charge are not necessarily out for your best interests, that you need to watch out for yourself, that you need to watch out for your people, and that anyone can turn their talents to good use. 5 stars.

A Natural History of Dragons: Lovely. Regency-coded, very young woman wanting independence, finding it through marriage to an allied husband. 18th – 19th century science. 4 stars

The Practical Guide on How to Annotate Like a Professor. Annoying, but useful. List of useful symbols to annotate; color-coding; list of useful reading apps. Self-edited, terrible editing, bad typesetting and more repetitious than needed. (Some repetition is necessary, but this was two to three times longer than it needed to be.) Also, discovered that writing in Scribe can only be seen on the actual device that notes are made. 2.75 stars.

City of Broken Magic. DNF. Could never get invested in the characters (36% of the way through)

A Gentleman in Moscow. Not my usual read, but a lovely, gentle book. Read for a Goodreads challenge (Fact or Fiction and Staff Shelves). 4.5 stars.

Good Omens. Reread for a Goodreads challenge (Community Picks). Fun and a little silly in a very British way. 5 stars.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Read for a Goodreads challenge (Staff Shelves). This isn’t my usual read; it isn’t genre fiction, but it is genre-adjacent. It was recommended by AI for me specifically for the Goodreads Staff Shelves challenge, which wound up fill by A Gentleman in Moscow, also an AI recommendation. It’s good; the story and the characters are compelling, although I hate that Marx died. (He should have lived, damn it! He was the best of the trio.) It’s an almost-hit for me, but I’m glad I read it, if for no other reason than I’ll stop seeing recommendations for it. 3.5 stars.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret. Third in the Ernest Cunningham series. So far, my least favorite of the series. Not bad, just not especially good. 3 stars.

Project Hail Mary. Read for a Goodreads challenge (Challenge Faves). I’d been avoiding it because very popular things always make me suspicious, but I’m glad I gave in to this one. It’s a delightful story, with suspense and an excellent bromance. And he ends up with kids in the end. 🙂 5 stars.

Foundling Fathers. This is a take-off on The Boys from Brazil, in which four of the founding fathers of the U.S. (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams) are cloned and raised to become the leaders of an ultra-conservative reboot of the U.S. It doesn’t work. Slight. 3.5 stars.

A Simple Introduction to the Axial Age. A basic introduction to the concept of the Axial Age, including the controversies (at least, some of them). It also includes the major philosophies associated with the concept. Good for an introduction, although I suspect heavy AI influence. 3 stars.

Everybody’s Perfect. One of those books I probably should have given up; I considered it when I was halfway through, but decided to push on. I never really grew to care about the characters. (Too many POVs?) 2 stars