August 2022 Reading Round Up

August was an interesting month, in terms of what I read. A couple of big fat fantasies, a couple of darker novels, and I started a new space opera / military science fiction audio book series. I’ll only really mention the two big fat fantasies I read in August since the other two books are review books for SFFWorld.

August started in a big way with Into the Narrowdark the penultimate volume in Tad Williams Last King of Osten Ard series. This series is sequel to his landmark Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy. I reviewed The Empire of Grass (The Last King of Osten Ard #2) and The Witchwood Crown (The Last King of Osten Ard #1) as well as A Brief Retrospective of Tad Williams’s Memory, Sorrow and Thorn over at SFFWorld, so I’m a big fan of everything Tad Williams has written and it may be easy to surmise that Into the Narrowdark was quite high on my anticipated reads list for 2022. 

As it turns out, this is just the first half of what is the final volume of The Last King of Osten Ard. Tad has a tendency of publishing four-book trilogies. 

The premise of the series is that about three decades have passed since the end of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn with Simon and Miriamele ruling. Their son has passed away and their heir, Morgan, has not turned out to be the prince they’d hoped. In this novel, Tad deftly balances multiple points of view as the world is on the precipice of another momentous change. He does a fantastic job of balancing the weigh of each character’s storylines and weaving in plot threads dangling from 30 years ago. As it turns out, there’s been about 30 years since Memory, Sorrow and Thorn concluded and that’s about the same time that has elapsed in Osten Ard. Those older mysterious and revelations to the characters make for some great moments. 

I like what Tad has done with the character of Morgan over the course of these books as the young man matured and is coming into his own. He’s paired up with Nezeru, a harsh sacrifice who acts as his guide through the wilds while he guides her to a life that could be better than what she knew. 

Simon, I have to admit, was a little too wrapped up in his grief, but a switch went off with him in the later part of the novel and Miriamele continues to shine in every scene that features her. The Hayholt, the castle that serves as the home and seat of rule, continues to be a mysterious and often creepy place to navigate, as Simon’s granddaughter finds out. 

The conclusion/finale of this novel…just…damn you Tad! It was so well executed and is as much of a cliff-hanger ending as you’d want but also hate to read. I can’t wait for The Navigator’s Children. 

My only real slight on the book – and this is no fault of Tad Williams – is that DAW books decided to drastically change the look/cover art of the book. The legendary, iconic Michael Whelan painted all the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn covers and the two earlier volumes in this series (as well as many of the covers for Tad’s novels). That is not the case with this book. The cover is fine and eye-catching, but a small bit of magic is missing from the overall physical element of the book. A big, fat, Tad Williams tome just doesn’t seem right without a Michael Whelan cover. 

The other big Epic Fantasy novel I read in August was Lamentation, the first installment of Ken Scholes’s Psalms of Isaak five-book saga. This book was published a little over a dozen years ago (2009) and was Ken’s debut novel. 

Set in a world that has survived a few apocalyptic events, magic and science coexist, though not always quite comfortably. The inciting incident – the city of Windwir being destroyed, particularly its legendary library – was because a robot cast a spell. From there, the novel winds through a wonderful path of alliances, manipulation, romance, politics, and redemption. Religion is quite powerful in the novel as the philosophy of the long dead P’Andro Whym drives the Androfrancines who are led by a Pope, but that is where the large similarities end. 

The main players are Rudolfo, the heroic Lord of Ninefold Forest; the duplicitous Sethbert Overseer of the Entrolusian City States; Jin Li Tam, the prominent daughter of the house of Tam, whose father does a lot of plotting; Neb, the seemingly lone survivor of Windwir; and the old man Petronus who takes Neb under his wing. Scholes does a great job of jumping between these characters to keep the pace of the plot moving very briskly. 

The novel is more concerned with how these players react to the destruction of Windwir than anything else, so there isn’t too much world-building on display but the hints (robots and magic coexisting, essentially) are quite intriguing. There are also hints of a deep history to the world, so I'm hoping subsequent volumes will reveal more.

The series was completed a few years ago (in 2017 with Hymn) and I’ve got books 2, 4, and 5 on Mount ToBeRead waiting. I’m quite excited to see where this series goes over the course of those next four novels.

On the audio front, I started Glynn Stewart's The Terran Privateer, the first book in his Duchy of Terra Space Opera/Military SF saga. More on that next month once I finish it since I was only about half-way through when September began.

First and Last: What's Next? Butcher, Scholes or Redick?

I receive a lot of books for review, I get books as gifts, and I buy books on my own. In short, I’m a bibliophile. Most of you who are reading my blog are aware of this, many of you likely have the same habit. As I've mentioned many times, my reading leans towards Epic Fantasy.

One of the odd occurrences or results of receiving so many review books is that I will often receive series books out of sequence. That is, I will be sent the third book of a four book series without having received the first two books, or on other occasions, just the last book in the series. Scenarios like this have led to this blog post, as three series fit into this category. I've seen good things from quite a few internet colleagues and friends about these three series, which makes plucking the first book of one of these series a bit more challenging.

For Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera I purchased the first installment Furies of Calderon years ago and when the final installment First Lord’s Fury published, it arrived for review. I'm two books away from being caught up with his wonderful Dresden Files, so I'm not sure if I want to get caught up with Dresden before diving into the Codex.

I recently received the fourth book in Ken Scholes’s The Psalms of Isaak, Requiem. I have the first installment (Lamentation) on my kindle and have had this series on the back burner to read for a while since reading the short story, “Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise,” which is a precursor to this series, way back in Realms of Fantasy in 2006. One quirk on this series is the drastic change in cover art and design after the second book.  I like Chris McGrath's art but the sweeping landscape Greg Manchess did for the first two installments gave the books a more epic feel, at least on a superficial level. It just seems odd to change the look and art of a series mid-stream.

The third author / series to complete today’s Triforce is Robert V.S. Redick and his Chathrand Voyage four book series. This one is odd because I had an ARC of the first book and third book that sort of left my house in one of a few purges (either donations to troops or when I let my gaming group pull books from the unread stacks). As it stands, I currently have the first book, The Red Wolf Conspiracy and the final (which switched form initial hardcover release to trade paperback release) The Night of the Swarm. (Oddly, Redick’s debut was in a poll I ran when I first received it since I wasn’t entirely sure which debut fantasy novel to read).

All that said, anybody have thoughts on which way I should lean for the next series of these three should be pulled from Mount ToBeread? (I am and have been leaning strongly towards one of these for a while).

Books in the Mail (W/E 2013-06-15)

Two physical books arrived with a third arriving on kindle this week’s edition of Books in the Mail



Wisp of a Thing (The Tufa Novels #2) by Alex Bledsoe (Tor Hardcover 06/18/2013) – Second in a modern fantasy combining music, mountain ranges, and magic.



Alex Bledsoe’s The Hum and the Shiver was named one of the Best Fiction Books of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews. Now with Wisp of a Thing Bledsoe returns to the isolated ridges and hollows of the Smoky Mountains to spin an equally enchanting tale of music and magic older than the hills….

Touched by a very public tragedy, musician Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that might ease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa is what he has read on the internet: they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy, black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth and controversy. Some people say that when the first white settlers came to the Appalachians centuries ago, they found the Tufa already there. Others hint that Tufa blood brings special gifts.

Rob finds both music and mystery in the mountains. Close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught up in a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wife goes missing, raising suspicions of foul play, and a strange feral girl runs wild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit.

Change is coming to Cloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree…and a timeless curse must be broken at last.

“This beautifully handled drama of Appalachian music and magic once again comes complete with fascinating characters, a persuasive setting and intriguing complications. Bledsoe’s on a roll.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on Wisp of a Thing


Three (Legends of the Duskwalker #1) by Jay Posey (Angry Robot Hardcover 07/30/2013) – A post-apoclyptic debut from the fine folks at Angry Robot. Eye catching cover on this one.



The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more.
But when a lone gunman reluctantly accepts the mantel of protector to a young boy and his dying mother against the forces that pursue them, a hero may yet arise.

File Under: Science Fiction [Three For All | Apocalyptic Wasteland | A Journey Home | Fear the Weir]

Requiem (The Psalms of Isaak [Volume 4 of 5]) by Ken Scholes (Tor Hardcover 06/18/2013) – The fourth installment of Scholes fantasy series hits shelves. I have the first installment on my kindle and have had this series on the back burner to read for a while since reading the short story, Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise, which is (I think) a precursor to this series.

Ken Scholes’s debut novel, Lamentation, was an event in fantasy. Heralded as a “mesmerizing debut novel” by Publishers Weekly, and a “vividly imagined SF-fantasy hybrid set in a distant, postapocalyptic future” by Booklist, the series gained many fans. It was followed by Canticle and Antiphon. Now comes the fourth book in The Psalms of Isaak, Requiem.

Who is the Crimson Empress, and what does her conquest of the Named Lands really mean? Who holds the keys to the Moon Wizard’s Tower?

The plots within plots are expanding as the characters seek their way out of the maze of intrigue. The world is expanding as they discover lands beyond their previous carefully controlled knowledge. Hidden truths reveal even deeper truths, and nothing is as it seemed to be.

Books in the Mail (W/E 10/25/2008)

Some interesting stuff this week, so here goes:

All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear (Tor Hardcover 10/28/2008)– Post apocalypse meets far future science fiction meets myth? Sounds cool to me and a good enough introduction to Bear’s novel-length fiction, of which I have (embarrassingly) read none. This is the first of a series I think, but either way it sounds pretty good. Reviewed here by Joe Sherry. Here's the synopsis: It all began with Ragnarok, with the Children of the Light and the Tarnished ones battling to the death in the ice and the dark. At the end of the long battle, one Valkyrie survived, wounded, and one valraven – the steeds of the valkyrie. Because they lived, Valdyrgard was not wholly destroyed. Because the valraven was transformed in the last miracle offered to a Child of the Light, Valdyrgard was changed to a world where magic and technology worked hand in hand. 2500 years later, Muire is in the last city on the dying planet, where the Technomancer rules what’s left of humanity. She's caught sight of someone she has not seen since the Last Battle: Mingan the Wolf is hunting in her city.

The Stormcaller (Book One of the Twilight Reign) by Tom Lloyd (Pyr Trade Paperback 10/21/2008) – The first in a new fantasy series, previously published in the UK, one of the few straight up fantasies to come out of Pyr.

Here’s the brief description: In a land ruled by prophecy and the whims of gods, a young man finds himself at the heart of a war he barely understands, wielding powers he may never be able to control.

Isak is a white-eye, born bigger, more charismatic, and more powerful than normal men. But with that power comes an unpredictable temper and an inner rage he cannot always hide. Brought up as a wagon-brat, feared and despised by those around him, he dreams of a place in the army and a chance to live his own life. But when the call comes, it isn’t to be a soldier, for the gods have other plans for the intemperate teenager: Isak has been chosen as heir-elect to the brooding Lord Bahl, the white-eye Lord of the Farlan. The Stormcaller is the first book in a powerful new series that combines inspired world-building, epoch-shattering battles, and high emotion to dazzling effect.

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi - It's Scalzi and I've yet to be disappointed yet. This is his first book, which is set to be republished by Tor in November. The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: They’re hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity’s trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.

Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it’s quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he’s going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

Lamentation by Ken Scholes (Tor Hardcover February 2009)– Ken Scholes has been writing short fiction for a few years now and this is his first novel. I read the short story, Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise, which is the root of this story. There’s already a bit of positive buzz surrounding this title at SFFWorld forums. Here’s the synopsis:

An ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands.

Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city – he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant. Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others' throats, as alliances are challenged and hidden plots are uncovered.

This remarkable first novel from an award-winning short fiction writer will take readers away to a new world – an Earth so far in the distant future that our time is not even a memory; a world where magick is commonplace and great areas of the planet are impassable wastes. But human nature hasn’t changed through the ages: War and faith and love still move princes and nations.

Drood by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown and Company Hardcover 2/09/2009) – This is the next big book from Dan Simmons, and I mean big. I could probably kill small cats with the ARC that was airlifted to my house yesterday. I’m still kicking myself for not reading The Terror, because I haven’t really been disappointed by anything I’ve ever read by him.

Here’s the synopsis: On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever. Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research … or something more terrifying?

Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.