Categories
Review

“Deep Work”

Cal Newport

I’m of a thoroughly mixed opinion about this book. It’s a mix of good examples and aged-like-milk references, useful thought technologies and toxic productivity. Many of the best ideas are things I already do, and have been doing for quite a while—but I suspect they trace back to this book, as filtered through some of the podcasts I was listening to around the time the book came out.

To try to pull out the most useful pieces:

  • Deep work, intense uninterrupted focus, is the productive part of the knowledge worker’s day. Shallow work—checking email, going to meetings, responding to Slack messages—will expand to fill as much space as you let it, and is more about performing productivity than actually producing value.
  • Focusing on doing more deep work than shallow can improve your career, productivity, et cetera et cetera. Take as a given that that’s a goal; the book explains why, but many of the examples are where those “aged-like-milk references” come in.
  • A few techniques for doing this:
    • Embrace boredom and practice the skill of not picking up your phone/going online whenever you feel like it. This is “calisthenics for the mind.”
    • Have a fixed productivity schedule. Make a hard line that you’re done with work at (suggested time) 5:30pm, and don’t even touch your work computer/phone after that. Now, backsolve how you spend the rest of your work hours to make that possible.
    • Consider simply… not answering emails. If you do answer an email, don’t jot out a quick response, drop a tactical nuke of focused response—basically, try to accomplish a week’s worth of back-and-forth in a single, cringe-inducingly-over-written email. It’ll save you time in the long run.
    • Try block scheduling! At the start of the day, fill out every single minute of your calendar with things you’ll be doing. It’s okay if your estimates are wrong, and if you’re doing the Deep Work Thing, just ignore the block scheduled things, go back and rebuild the schedule once the Deep Work Thing naturally ends.1

I’m not going to pretend that this is a 100% complete summary of the book, but I do think I’ve hit the key points here. Even knowing—and doing—most of this already, I still found it useful to read: it made me focus on these thought technologies, and re-evaluate my use of some of them.2

One last fun thought I had while reading: he’s got a description of a hub-and-spokes model for office design. The hub is a common shared space, room for those Steve Jobs-ian ‘serendipitous moments’ of collaboration. The spokes are individual office, ideally soundproofed, to which one can retreat for focused deep work sessions. And I thought about that, and thought about the current3 vogue of combining hybrid in-office/remote work schedules and cubicle-farms, and wondered: have companies accidentally arrived at this hub-and-spokes model, on the scale of the week? The hub is the office, a cubicle or open-plan hellscape, and the spokes are the home office? That sure is a cost-efficient way to do it. Insidious.

Anyhow, I did wind up enjoying the read, and thought it was a useful consolidation of a bunch of helpful techniques, so I’m quite comfortable recommending it. Give it a read.4

  1. Protip: any given calendar software will let you have multiple calendars, and these can often be color-coded. My work calendar has the actual Scheduled Things I Must Do in red, and I do the block scheduling in blue, so I can see at a glance if that upcoming event is a thing I actually need to interrupt my flow to do, or if I can ignore it. ↩
  2. I’ve got some thoughts about adjusting my email and Slack usage, for one. I may write myself a little utility to just quit out of both those apps outside of designated Communication Times. We’ll see. ↩
  3. As of this writing – who knows, maybe by the time this scheduled post goes up, the style will have changed! ↩
  4. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Paved Paradise”

Henry Grabar

Be still, my urbanist heart.

I loved this book. Being me, I probably still would’ve enjoyed it even if it was textbook-dry, dully reciting the history of parking policy in the United States, breaking for the occasional multi-page table of data. But that’s not what this book was. This was a wonderfully well-written piece, going through the surprisingly entertaining history of parking policy and arriving at the current state of affairs. (In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that parking lots were ripe for corruption — in the same way that the number of gym memberships sold has very little correlation with the occupancy of the gym, nobody knows the actual occupancy rate of a parking lot, so if it’s operating on cash… who’s to know that you pocketed half the day’s receipts?)

I’d actually listened to two different podcast episodes about this book before picking it up to read, so I was already filled in on the key points, but I don’t think the book lost anything for that. It was the details that really captivated me—little mentions of things like “UPS got a $6 million discount on their New York City parking tickets by agreeing to pay them in bulk instead of individually disputing each one,” which by the omission really emphasizes exactly how many parking citations UPS picks up in NYC in a given year.

And I actually came out of this one feeling particularly optimistic. Not only do I live in one of the places that’s making a fair amount of the right sorts of moves to undo all that historic damage, but I’m also at the right time. We just came out of the pandemic, and boy was that ever a time for people to learn that… we can be doing better things with all that space? Outdoor seating at restaurants is great! Pedestrianized streets are awesome!

So hey, go read this one, it was super interesting. Absolutely worth the read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“How to Invent Everything”

Ryan North

It’s a popular science book! We’ve got some overviews of lots of technologies, presented from a very fun conceit—this is the repair manual for a time machine, which opens with “step 1: accept that the time machine cannot be repaired. step 2: rebuild civilization from scratch.” The tone throughout is educational, though written by an under-paid employee of the time machine rental company, with just enough “for which Chronotix cannot be held legally liable”s thrown in to really hit that “this is a corporate material” vibe.

And here’s the thing: it works super well. It’s answering an exact thought I have had many times: if I had a time machine, exactly how well would I do at surviving and then improving the past? The answer was, of course, “not great.” After reading the book, I’d say it has improved somewhat… but really, I’d want to keep the book with me. Preferably a few copies. Laminated. Maybe a set of the printing plates, too, since they’re tougher than paper. Belt and braces, over here.

So, all in all, I absolutely loved this book. It set out to do a specific thing, and did it incredibly well. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Hex Americana”

Bree D. Wolf

This is a fun setting – vaguely modern American, but with the addition of a massive variety of magic and magical creatures from folklore. Honestly, I think we should call that kind of thing ‘hex Americana’ in general, it really fits the vibe. The protagonists are a yokai and a ghost, and there’s also appearances by what look to be a wolf man, a Medusa, a cyclops, a mummy, and Baba Yaga. It’s a fun mix!

The actual story I mostly enjoyed – it’s a bit more “high schooler making bad choices” than I tend to prefer, to the point that my reading had a month-long break, but I did enjoy piecing together all the backstory. Definitely worth the read, and hey, I get to support a local author, too! Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: May 2025

At one point I did some data visualization of my playlists; it’d be interesting to do that again at the end of this year, because I’m sure there’ll be some Trends visible there. As per the new norm, you can listen to the whole playlist here.

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Rattlesnake – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

Everything Is Peaceful Love – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Well, Me 2 – Pardyalone on FUHLK MUSIC VOL. 1 – Single

GFU – Landon Smith on GFU – Single

93 – flora cash on i’m not okay – Single

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

DELUSIONAL. – Kesha on .

There’s A Rhythmn – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Canadian – Billy Raffoul on Canadian – Single

YIPPEE-KI-YAY. – Kesha on .

Since I Fell – Aidan Canfield on Since I Fell – Single

St. Helens Alpenglow – Max McNown on St. Helens Alpenglow – Single

If Only I Could Wait (feat. Danielle Haim) – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Alright Now – Hayden Calnin on Alright Now – Single

No Idol (ruff cut) – N4MESM on No Idol (ruff cut)1

Hexie Mountains – Orville Peck on Bronco

Virgo – TROY on Virgo – Single

From – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Breeze – Lonely in the Rain on Breeze – Single

Waterfall – Elderbrook & Ahmed Spins on Waterfall – Single

Flicker – Yoste on Flicker – Single

High Dive – Emmit Fenn on High Dive – Single

When We Was – MÒZÂMBÎQÚE & Vertefeuille on When We Was

Maze – Donbor on Solace – EP

Slave Shift (demo) – N4MESM on Slave Shift (demo)2

Something Beautiful and Bright – SYML on Nobody Lives Here

I’ll Be There – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

CONTAR – JC Reyes & Ozuna on CONTAR – Single

Stars Fading In Constellation – HurricaneTurtle on Stars In Constellation – Single3

Follows You – Michael Marcagi on Midwest Kid – EP

Sincerely, Your Son – Waylon Wyatt on Sincerely, Your Son – Single4

Angel – Kai Bosch on Angel – Single

Heat Ignited – Tep No on Heat Ignited – Single

Remember Me – Duce on Remember Me – Single

Take Me Away (Stripped) – Noah Brigden on Take Me Away (Stripped) – Single

Sweet Fruit – Erin LeCount on I Am Digital, I Am Divine – EP

Silence Underneath – Luke Beling on This Parlor Trick Life

Northern Thunder – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

  1. I need to update the artist name here, he’s changed it again. ↩
  2. M’s really validating my instinct to have local copies of things. ↩
  3. I’m used to HurricaneTurtle being instrumental/synthwave type stuff, so hearing singing really caught me off guard at first. ↩
  4. filed under “oof, ouch, my bones” ↩
Categories
Review

“Mars Express”

I finished this movie and had to just… go for a walk. Same vibe as “sitting with it,” but it left me wanting to get some air and see some trees.

Firstly, the movie is gorgeous. I don’t know enough about animation styles to say anything in detail, I’d kinda just say “anime, but the realistic style?” and call it good. But the setting, all the backdrops, the stylings of the technology, it’s all absolutely beautiful. For that alone, I’d say it’s worth watching.

I will mention, though, that it’s a fairly violent film. The opening scene is the shockingly brutal murder of a college student, and the pace of death stays pretty high. (And, from here, the pace of spoilers will also increase; you’ve been warned.)

The thing that struck me, for the majority of the film, was how many of the story beats felt the same as I, Robot—the film adaptation, that is. Rule 1 of robots: you can’t harm humans. There’s one megacorporation that makes all the robots. Protagonist doesn’t like robots because of a traumatic incident in their past where the robots Did A Bad. Hell, there’s even a “self-driving car on the highway turns into a big fight” scene!1 And, for all those similarities, I absolutely didn’t mind; I was quite happy, going into the final act of the movie, to call it “I, Robot, but done better and prettier,” and was waiting for the big reveal that the Bad Guy was just a pawn of the ominous giant meat-computer-thing in his office.

I am, in fact, delighted to say that I fell for the red herring. The meat computer was just a meat computer! The villain was capitalism all along! France, this movie is a work of art, and I thank you for it.

But what really had me needing a walk to contemplate was the ending. It wasn’t a happy ending. It was the quick death of the protagonist, and the long denouement of the guy who’d been set up as The Supporting Character all along getting some form of closure. I fell for the red herring again! I wasn’t even right about who the main character was!

An absolute delight of a film. I loved it, I’m likely to watch it again. It still does feel like “I, Robot done right,” but even more so. It isn’t the same plot rehashed, it’s the same vibe from the book, restated with how we feel about technology now. Go watch it.

  1. Which is, by the by, one of the visually striking parts that’s still lodged in my mind. A highway through the middle of a cliffside, already a powerful aesthetic decision; the high speed chase with a missile, absolutely excellent; the replacement of airbags with quick-setting foam, and the way the road lit up to indicate a lane closure, just a cool concept. Using the immobilizing-but-bulletproof foam to turn a gunfight into a tense, suspenseful wait while yet another robot arrives to spray it away? Absolutely delightful. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Deep and Shining Dark”

Juliet Kemp

This is one of those books that makes me think about hard versus soft magic systems. A hard magic system has strict rules; an extension of the laws of physics. Soft magic systems are a lot looser; the rules are “whatever the plot requires them to be.” Pros and cons to either.

In this case, we have a pretty soft magic system; the only real rule seems to be that you need blood to control magic. With the exception of Marek, a city whose founders negotiated a deal with an angel, and it came to live there, interceding between the people that raw magic, making it a much safer affair overall. And, in true “wisdom of the ancients” style, they were very clever about it, and the deal included things like “you can’t use magic for politics” and “the angel has to keep the good of the city in mind.”

All of which worked quite well as backdrop for what is, essentially, a political intrigue. It may have taken a few hundred years, but no system works perfectly forever. Not without maintenance, at least. Once most people forget why and how the magic works, it gets easy to assume that it works that way because it works that way. You stop thinking about it. It becomes a norm.

But, eventually, someone comes along who doesn’t accept the norm. Who thinks, well, this rule seems breakable. Nobody’s actively enforcing it anymore.

I don’t think this book was meant to be quite as topical to politics as it felt, given that perspective, but it worked out well. Made for a very interesting read overall, and I can definitely recommend it. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Still the Sun”

Charlie N. Holmberg

Oh, this was a delight of a read. Sort of a slow burn overall, but it made it very effective at building up over time. By the halfway point I didn’t want to put it down, and at 4/5 of the way through I couldn’t. In a way, it’s a lot of filler, but it’s beautiful filler, and without the filler it’d be too quick. It’s the fun of digging through the filler to find the little pieces of the puzzle.

My favorite moment, and this will be a spoiler, is reading the very careful, analytical description of an artifact of the Ancients, and saying to myself “it’s a sundial. Obviously it’s a sundial. How have you not figured this out?” And then we get to see this lovely analytic mind of the viewpoint protagonist answer that question: why would you know what a sundial is on a planet that isn’t rotating? Would you look at that, the title makes sense.

As I said, an absolute delight to read. The protagonist is building something, and I get that seem feeling of building towards something as I try to piece together the mysteries. Give it a read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“A Feast for Flies”

Leigh Harlen

This was chaotic and fun to read; it did a pretty good job of capturing the feeling of being in over your head, one normal person trying not to be squished by the movements of the movers and shakers of the world. A mind-reader, forced to work for the police, hating her job but legally not allowed to leave it. Bea, the support dog, was a fun concept—there’s a passing reference to people with less sci-fi reasons for needing a support animal getting by with robots, but here, the disability is “can constantly hear the thoughts and feelings of people around her,” and being in contact with the dog (or through the conductive leash) dampens all of that.

The mind reading was done fairly well, I thought, and just different enough in the details that it felt interesting but still easy to follow. A fun, quick read; check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Little Nothing”

Dee Holloway

I didn’t quite click with this one. The closest I got was with the “little nothings,” the small pieces of magic, and even there, I wanted it to be a bit more. I want magic that actually feels like magic, not magic that feels like someone believing in themselves by telling a story in their head that it’s magic. The biggest ‘little nothing,’ as it’s referred to, that appears in this book is someone getting themselves untied… and the way they do that spell is to spend an hour slowly fidgeting with the rope until the motion and them bleeding on the rope from the sores on their wrists loosen it enough that they can pull the knot the rest of the way undone. The spellwork is simultaneously treated as “enough of a threat that they have to be tied down so they can’t move their hands” and also “basically a form of self-affirmation” and it just bugged me.

Complaints about magic aside, it was an interesting read—I’ve never been much for Civil War-era stuff, so the perspective of people loyal to the Union, living in Florida, in the lead-up to the actual declaration of the Confederacy, was a new perspective to me. Worth it for that, I suppose, though the concept of “what if Florida had carnivorous swimming horses in addition to the alligators” was a bit more fun of a twist. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: April 2025

Back to sharing links and doing a bit of annotation this time, but still a short playlist. Listen to the whole thing here, or see my lightly-annotated track list:

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Towers – Zach Bryan on The Great American Bar Scene

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

i Am A Mountain – Coldplay on Moon Music (Full Moon Edition)

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Drunk Again – Aidan Canfield on Rivertown – EP

Old Neptune, He’s Roaring – Brian Sauvé on Hearth Songs

Wake Me up (Country Version) – Cooper Alan & Aloe Blacc on Wake Me up (Country Version) – Single

Blue Jean Baby – Zach Bryan on Blue Jean Baby – Single

Heartbreaker – Hayden Blount on Heartbreaker – Single

Ordinary – Alex Warren on Ordinary – Single

Trauma Kid – Majik on Trauma Kid – Single1

SOTTOMARINI – Mahmood on SOTTOMARINI – Single

Street Level – Jon Bryant on Street Level – Single

Have to Know – Daniel Leggs on Have to Know – Single

Sagittarius – TROY on Sagittarius – Single

Rattlesnake – Jack Van Cleaf & Zach Bryan on JVC

Domini Lost – IcoS on Domini Lost – Single

Alien Cowboy – Gordi on Like Plasticine

to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Woodkid on to the wilder (from “DEATH STRANDING 2 : ON THE BEACH” Soundtrack) – Single

Bad Cameo – James Blake & Lil Yachty on Bad Cameo

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

AWARDS SEASON – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Everything Is Peaceful Love – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Like I Do – Dylan Gossett on Like I Do – Single

Well, Me 2 – Pardyalone on FUHLK MUSIC VOL. 1 – Single

GFU – Landon Smith on GFU – Single

93 – flora cash on i’m not okay – Single2

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

Missing Man – James Blake & Lil Yachty on Bad Cameo

DELUSIONAL. – Kesha on .

There’s A Rhythmn – Bon Iver on SABLE, fABLE

Canadian – Billy Raffoul on Canadian – Single

i’m not okay – flora cash on i miss you – Single

DREAMBOY – Lil Nas X on DREAMBOY – Single

  1. I’m deeply sad to not have a link here; Majik appears to have pulled it from Apple Music, and his various social media accounts have vanished again. It was nice while it lasted.
    … he said, before going down a bit of a rabbit hole; there’s a new TikTok username, which links to a SoundCloud account with a couple tracks. Not the same sound as Majik, but still worth listening to. ↩
  2. This is the catchy one this month. ↩
Categories
Review

“Off-Time Jive”

A.Z. Louise

An interesting little story. Not long enough for me to really figure out the magic system in any detail, which was a bit of a bummer—I quite liked the idea of there being an Old School of magic and a New School of magic, and tying it together with race relations in the Jim Crow era sure did add an interesting twist. A surprisingly good ending, everything came together better than I was expecting. Worth the read, I think.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Rabbits of the Apocalypse”

Benny Lawrence

I’m kinda amazed by how much I enjoyed this book, because it’s a hodgepodge of a bunch of things I really don’t like. It’s post-apocalyptic, for god’s sake! And not even a particularly hopeful post-apocalyptic, it’s a “and things are still getting worse!” post-apocalyptic. Gross.

I suppose what shone was the characters—I was interested in all of them, in their relationships. Which, again, kinda surprising, because they’re basically all terrible. Hell, one of the main characters in this spends a whole lot of time justifying their actions, and even towards the end where they’re starting to crack and admit that the Big Bad they work for is, in fact, not the good guys… they never address the fact that said Big Bad is a slave empire. Like, c’mon. Have some self-awareness.

I dunno, though. Like I said, I did enjoy reading it—fairly well-written, and the banter really brought a lot of joy to it. If you’re into… Fallout, but as a sapphic romance(?), and a little bit of X-Men, then this might be the book for you. Worth a shot, anyways.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Salt & Broom”

Sharon Lynn Fisher

This book probably would’ve felt a bit more familiar and interesting I’ve actually read Jane Eyre, but as I haven’t, it took me a while to get used to the style of it. I nearly gave up about halfway through, in fact; I get the feeling that ‘regency romance’ as a genre isn’t for me. Still, this book managed to add in a fun supernatural mystery element, which I did enjoy; it twisted enough that I kept coming up with theories and then being proved wrong, though in a way I didn’t much mind. A fairly quick read, surprisingly light and fun, occasionally spooky, but overall enjoyable. Give it a go.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Book 2”

Ginn Hale

As promised, I went right into reading the second book.1 And I quite enjoyed it, though admittedly not as much as I did the first. I think part of my issue was that this seems to be an advance reader copy or something — not the final edition, is all. There’s a few clear errors that a final editing pass should’ve caught.2

That said, I did enjoy the read. I was worried that it was going to do the Syfy thing, and try to continue escalating, but it didn’t — the scope stayed “well, we’re all gonna die, but the world will go on.” Nice to have a sort of series-scale denouement like that, after the first book featured “well, we’re all gonna die, and then also this thing might end the world after that.”

The other thing this reminded me of was Diana Wynne Jones. It had that same kind of “slow build right up until everything comes together at once” feeling; in the same way that I spend the first half of the book going “I dunno, I don’t think this is really capturing me as much as I’d like it to…” and then suddenly I’m forgetting to eat because I can’t put the book down that long. It wound up being fun, and tying up some of the remaining threads from the first book pretty well, so I appreciated that. A good read! Start with Book 1, but then give it a go.3

  1. At some point in the book I thought “is there going to be a third?” and found out that this is, in fact, the fourth book in the series — evidently a great deal of the Mysterious Backstory I’d been piecing together as I read was just the events of the first two books. Whoops, guess I was reading on challenge mode. That said, I think it held up quite well as its own little duology! ↩
  2. And I mean obvious stuff like a word that was meant to be replaced still being there. The subtler things, like a character’s name being spelled differently, are harder to notice if you haven’t just read the first one. And, presumably, particularly if you didn’t spend every appearance by that character in the first book thinking about “her name isn’t ‘Fleur’ like from Harry Potter, it’s ‘Fluer’” so that it suddenly becoming ‘Fleur’ really stands out. ↩
  3. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩