Tag: fantasy

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Review

“Spellbreaker”

Charlie N. Holmberg

This book caught my attention so much more thoroughly than I expected it to. The magic system is fascinating: we start off with the titular character, a spellbreaker—one of a small group of people born with the natural ability to break spells cast by others. And, as it turns out, to sense their presence in a way that the actual spellcasters (or, as they’re called, aspectors) cannot. It goes into more detail: there’s four types of spells, and the way the casting system works feels… honestly a great deal like it was originally designed to be the setting for a videogame. Learn a spell by consuming Magic Points, and then after that you can cast it at will until you’re tired out and need to rest? That’s a writer, explaining a game mechanic.

So, we have a fascinating setting. And then we have two fascinating characters: Bacchus Kelsey, a wealthy scion, up for his mastery examinations in magic… and running face-first into a wall of “it is the 1800s and Britain is very racist”. And then there’s Elsie Camden, the (illegally) unregistered spellbreaker, who lives a double life. Mild-mannered—or rather, well-raised and -behaved—administrative assistant by day, vigilante spellbreaker by night, going on secretive missions to help the downtrodden masses. Magic, after all, may be magic, but it’s also a form of power… and power corrupts.

I was locked in to the book fairly early on, but by the end I couldn’t put it down. An absolutely delightful read, I highly encourage you to 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. ↩
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Review

“The Bruising of Qilwa”

Naseem Jamnia

A quick read, but a very enjoyable one. It’s a bit of a medical mystery, but mostly what it’s about is the experience of being… well, going into the author’s note at the end, of being Persian. Of being an oppressed minority… whilst also being aware that your people were once the oppressors.

The linguistics and magic were both very interesting, and I found all the characters to be well-developed. Definitely 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. ↩
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Review

“The Dragon Eater”

J. Scott Coatsworth

The ‘jumping the shark’ moment for this book was in the appearance of one of the Pern books in-universe. A bit on the nose to have your “fantasy setting, but it’s actually another planet that got colonized by humans before the big civilization collapsed” book feature, as one of the Ancient Artifacts… a book about the exact same concept. In this case, the threat is still unknown, but we do get to see it, and it’s a bit more… active than thread.

That said, I did really enjoy the setting; I’m a firm believer in the whole “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” thing, and dropping the general level of technology available to people lowers the threshold on “sufficiently advanced” enough to make it more recognizable.

It also helps that the love arc here was just… hilarious. I quite liked all the characters, and seeing them interact, but the fact that there’s at least one love triangle, one member of whom keeps thinking about jumping ship to a different love triangle, makes it fun.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the book; my main complaint is that it’s an entire book’s worth of setup, and the payoff is going to happen in, presumably, the third book of the trilogy. I’d rather one long book to three medium-short ones. Still, a fun little fantasy/science fiction thing, worth a try.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. ↩
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Review

“Wings of Fury”

Emily R. King

I’ve kinda got to enjoy a book that makes me think about what the pluralization of “apotheosis” is.1

This feels like it was inspired by Song of Achilles—or, at least, it’s within that same “let’s tell one of the ancient Greek myths in a way it hasn’t been told before” genre. It’s the story about the end of Cronus’ reign, about Zeus coming to power… but it’s from the point of view of a woman living under the Cronus regime, and boy, does he ever not believe in women’s rights. The latest in women’s fashion is self-mutilation in hopes that it’ll avoid catching his eye; “property rights for women” is a discussion of how many women a man can own. Not… a great place to live.

In that depressing setting, I did find the story rather fun. The romance arc was… confused, at best? There’s a clear romance arc, and then there’s the actual mythology, and they didn’t align super well. But then, what’s a retold myth without artistic license?

All in all, this was a fairly fun read; give it a go.2

  1. “Apotheoses,” for those wondering. ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“Song of the Forever Rains”

E. J. Mellow

I bounced off this book at first—it opens with a very violent scene, and that put me off for quite a while. Fortunately for this book, though, that happened right as I was going into one of my “I need to reread the Circle of Magic books” phases, so instead of completely putting it away, I wound up setting it aside for long enough to forget why I hadn’t finished it, and gave it another go. And as it turns out, it got a lot more interesting from there!

Broadly, what’s sticking with me here at the end of the book is the dreamlike quality of the world. There’s a poetry to it; the titular Forever Rains are a decade-long rainstorm brought about by grief bolstered with magic. Everything about the magic system, really, has that feeling to it—that whatever rules there may be, they only exist to service the story. Unlike most soft magic systems like that, though, it isn’t “the author can change the rules for the sake of the story,” it really feels more like “within this world, magic changes the rules of magic for the sake of whatever story it’s trying to tell.”

It made for a fun read; Lark, the protagonist, is a delight, and reading her interactions with her sisters brought a smile to my face. So, if you don’t mind the occasional bit of violence, I can recommend the book. 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. ↩
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Review

“Uncommon Charm”

Emily Bergslien, Kat Weaver

I might have to go back and reread the first chapter now that I’ve finished this, just so I can understand what all was going on. The point-of-view protagonist spends that whole time talking a mile a minute, and there’s so much background that you don’t know yet that it’s rather overwhelming. Though, given that it’s a scene of someone being dropped off for a new apprenticeship, feeling overwhelmed is probably about right.

There’s a definite mystery vibe to this one, though it’s a cold case, as well as something of a coming-of-age. Really, quite a lot to shove into this short a book. It was an interesting read, though, and at least one reveal had me going back like “oh, that’s what that was about! oh! oh.” 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. ↩
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Review

“Any Way the Wind Blows”

Rainbow Rowell

Oh dear, it has been four years since I read the first two books in this trilogy, no wonder it took me so long to remember who any of the characters were or what had been going on.

That said, after an adjustment period of the first part of the book to remember what was going on and who any of these people were, I quite enjoyed it. There’s solid closure for some of the lingering threads that I remember cropping up in the first book, which was quite nice to see, as well as some additional characters being brought in to add some more to it.

Switching from POV to POV was a bit rough at times, but Rowell used it well—so many opportunities for cliffhangers!

I enjoyed the whole concept of this series, really. It came from another of Rowell’s books, where what these books are was a fanfiction being written by the protagonist of that book. Very clearly meant to be an homage to the whole Harry Potter fandom, without incurring the wrath of She Who Must Not Be Named. But instead of writing the children’s book series, we have the final book and then the epilogue.1 Because, hey, a child soldier? They’re not exactly gonna be in a great place, mentally at the end of their war. Can’t really hand-wave past a decade of trauma. These characters deserve time to work through that.

Anyhow, I really enjoyed this book. What’s not to like? There’s a whole scene that I’d describe as “divorce court in Hell,” which I’d call a B-plot, roughly, but with the POV swapping you can kinda choose whichever plotline you’d like as the A-plot. So many choices! Give it a go.2

  1. The Harry Potter epilogue (and later sequel) being so bad that there’s a whole “Epilogue? What Epilogue?” tag. ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“The Naturalist Society”

Carrie Vaughn

This was one of the free books that Amazon hands out every month as part of Prime, which meant my expectations were low—there’s the occasional gem in there, but on average, those books tend to feel rather bland. They’re aimed at the widest possible audience, so of course they’re generic.

This, though? This was a delight. The fact that two of the three protagonists were a gay couple was already putting it in the top 10% of Free Prime Books for me. That trio felt something like a Venn diagram to me—these two are queer, these two come across as being autistic, these two are part of the upper class but looked down upon for not being old white guys. It feels all the more progressive for being set in the late 1800s; everyone is so concerned with scandal, and for the majority of the book the scandal is simply that gasp, a woman is interested in science? Doesn’t show know that’s not a feminine interest? The shame!

I almost bounced off this book, at the beginning. It’s a rough time for me to be reading a book that has a scene of someone listening to a loved one breathe their last. I’m glad I kept with it, though—not just because of the aforementioned delightful setting and characters, but because so much of the book was about Beth fighting for her right to grieve, and doing so in the way that was right for her.

So, for that, and all the other things, I absolutely loved this book. It’s so rare that my “why don’t you just-“ mutterings at the book actually turn out to be what they do, and work great for everyone. If I’ve got my scheduling right, it’s only available for pre-order at the moment, but I think it’s well worth 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. ↩
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Review

“Debunked”

Dito Abbott

Something like 100 pages in to this book I looked over at my sister and said “I can’t tell if I like this book or not, but hopefully I’ll figure it out by the end.” Here I am at the end of the book, and I’ve concluded that I did like it, although I don’t know if I liked it enough to go looking for the sequel.1

There’s parts of the writing that remind me of Terry Pratchett’s works for younger readers; the footnoting style is very reminiscent of that, really, but you can feel the different age group as the target demographic. I think the part I struggled with the most was the plot; the book feels less like A Story and more like a collection of setpieces strung together. A ramshackle lighthouse under siege during a storm! An airship full of strange creatures! A flying city next to a desert hurricane! A fortress library, suspended above the caldera of an active volcano! And, honestly, any one of these makes for a fun setting for some scenes, and a good little vignette, but piecing them all together into a coherent whole is… challenging.

That said, if you just want to settle in for a quick read with some solid comedy, this was a pretty good book. Go in with the right expectations, and have fun!2

  1. The book is very clear throughout that it is Book One of the series, it really wants you to know that it’s part of a series and there’s more books to read. ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“A Thousand Recipes for Revenge”

Beth Cato

Once again, a really interesting magic system—this time, focused entirely on food, although with a fun theological twist to how it works. In short, anyone can be a cook, but to make truly good food, you have to be a Chef: someone in possession of a tongue blessed by the five gods. Add to that the existence of magical ingredients, and the requirement that they only work when used by a Chef and blessed by the gods, and you’ve got a recipe for a very different course of history than we had.

And, wonder of wonder, this is an author that actually followed that. Some of the different cultures of continental Europe are vaguely recognizable, but which countries actually exist and what they’re called, entirely different. Which is very fitting, honestly; given how much of our history has been driven by arguing about capital-g God, if we had very clear miracles happening all the time, a whole lot of things would’ve gone very differently. There’s no need for converting people when the extremely-active deities are out there doing it themselves.

Wrapped up in that setting, there’s a very interesting story: a former military Chef, now in hiding for leaving military service.1 And, separately, a foreign princess, freshly arrived in this vaguely-France-inspired country to be married to their crown prince, sealing an alliance of their kingdoms. Where it gets fun is finding all the places their stories intersect; early on, it’s just a brief flash of “based on timing, I think that coach the Chef saw go by was taking the princess to the ball!” But as the story goes, you can find more and more moments like that.

Towards the end, the plot gets absolutely wild. Somewhere between an M. Night Shyamalan twist and a well-done Marvel story, in how it feels, but that’s all the spoilers you’ll get from me. Go read the book!2

  1. And, for reference on what time period we’re vaguely in, several of the chapter-start quotes pull from regulations and other materials that very clearly state that a Chef is the property of the Crown. ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“The Alchemist”

Paolo Bacigalupi

A sequel to The Executioness, and one that answered some of the questions I wondered about in that one! (If it seems convenient that I read them in this order, it’s because I read the jacket and decided to start with The Executioness so that I could end on the, presumably, happier note of someone figuring this out.)

Because of course bramble, even magical bramble, can’t be the end state. It’s too complex; entropy always wins in the end. And here, someone figured out the proper way to burn it so that it truly dies.

Unfortunately for me, that happened far too early in the story for it to be a happy ending just like that. Looking at how many pages you have left is a great way to stress yourself out about a book.1 Still, figuring out just what would go wrong, and how the protagonist would get out of it, made this one more of a fun read than the first. Check it out.2

As a fun follow-on, after I went to post this review: I have, in fact, read this before, and even posted a review here! It’s been long enough that I had no memory of that, so I’m posting a new one as well. I suppose you can compare Past Grey’s thoughts, if you’d like.

  1. I’ve got another one I’m working on that I’ve had to take a break from for a month or so, because everything is going great for the protagonist… and I’m just barely halfway through. Something is about to go horribly wrong. ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“The Executioness”

Tobias S. Buckell

This is one of those stories where the worldbuilding is executed incredibly well, and it leaves me with so many interesting questions. The short version: magic exists! But using it generates bramble—a plant that you apparently can’t kill, and whose thorns, in a very fairy tale fashion, make you fall asleep. I, of course, immediately start wondering about the sort of ecosystem this implies—because, given something like that, surely something has evolved a way to eat it, right?1

The story itself is… not fun, really, but an interesting read, at least. Worth giving it a go, as it was a pretty quick one.2

  1. Or, also a fun concept, maybe not yet! Which does imply that the combination of magic and bramble is, on an evolutionary timescale, pretty recent. And that puts me back into my common thought “how can I explain this magic system as actually being some kind of advanced technology from right before the sci-fi civilization collapsed back to these dark ages?” ↩
  2. 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. ↩
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Review

“First Test”

Tamora Pierce; graphic novel adaptation by Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow

I somehow missed that this was going to be a thing until the day before it was released. It took me something like ten seconds between finding out it was up for preorder and actually putting in the preorder; I consider it a testament to my willpower that I made it days after it was delivered before I finally let it jump the queue and be my next thing to read.

Keladry of Mindelan is my comfort reading. The visual treatment here brought me so much joy; it’s quicker to read than the original novel is, and I suspect I’m going to wind up rereading it quite often as a result. Sitting down to reread the Protector of the Small quartet is an investment, it’s what I’m doing with my reading time for a while. This, I can get through in something like an hour.

There’s a couple places where I could feel the edits, but for the most part, everything felt natural; sure, the story was abridged some, but all of it made sense.1

Two thoughts on this visual treatment, specific to that: my immediate thought upon seeing Neal was “he looks like Sokka!” and I sorta held on to that feeling throughout.2

And, even more so in this visual treatment where the words stand alone more, one of my favorite quotes jumped out at me. I was glad it made it in:

The short sword is the sword of law. Without it, we are only animals. The long sword is the sword of duty. It is the terrible sword, the killing sword.

It should surprise precisely nobody that I’m going to recommend this book. I grabbed the paperback—I think I already knew that this was going to be an oft-reread comfort book for me, and wanted the comfortable feel of a paperback to match that. Please, vote with your wallet; get them to do the rest of the series, too.3 I really want to see a baby griffin. And, weirdly, one of the killing machines.

  1. Well, okay, the fact that the Gift was shown (only twice) and was the same vague sparkles each time instead of being the color of each person’s magic, that bugged me a bit. ↩
  2. Hakuin Seastone also sorta reminded me of Zuko, although I think he’s a bit more Live Action TV Series Zuko than Animated Series Zuko. ↩
  3. 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. ↩
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Review

The Family Cooper

Tamora Pierce

I generally follow a rule of “only post a review the first time I read a book,” and while that seems like a reasonable policy to stick to, I do occasionally feel the desire to break from it. In this case, it’s a little bit that I feel silly not acknowledging that I’ve just finished reading 9 books, but mostly that I want to heap praise upon Tamora Pierce, who is one of my absolute favorite authors.

This time, what I read through was all the books that, to a greater or lesser degree, focus on a member of the Cooper family. Following the in-universe chronological order, this was the Beka Cooper trilogy, the Song of the Lioness quartet, and the Trickster’s duology. It is, I’ve realized, an interesting way to read through them. My thoughts, though, are definitely in light of not having this be my first read through.

These three collections of books are a really wonderful way to get acquainted with the Tortall universe. Alanna is the place it all started, the grand fantasy telling a big story about big events. Alanna herself, the Lioness, is a hero known well beyond Tortall’s borders; from Aly’s eyes, we see that even in Rajmuat, an ocean away, people still know of the Lioness. She’s the heroine, moving in the innermost circles of power.

Beka, on the other hand, starts among the lowest of the low. She was born in the slums, the Lower City of Corus, and is desperately uncomfortable around those sorts of powerful people. It’s very nearly the opposite perspective on this universe. Alanna takes her nobility for granted; Beka knows the biggest change she can make is in the lives of a handful of people.

Aly fills out the middle, in a way. She was born into the nobility, daughter of the Lioness, but her heart lies in espionage. She’s a spy, and she winds up enmeshed in a popular uprising. Her work will change the world in a way more akin to Alanna’s than Beka’s, but she won’t be in the history books as the protagonist. Her job is to be invisible, to effect change without being the center of attention. And as she walks between those two worlds, she shows us the spaces between.

I absolutely love a well-built universe like this. You can tell that the Lioness quartet was the first written, because it’s the most compact, the least filled-out of the universe, but each additional series in that world added more. By now, it feels massive, vibrant, and alive. It feels like what the Marvel movies can never quite accomplish; the protagonists of each previous series are present in a way that cinematic universes never manage outside of the anchoring ensemble pieces. There’s no hand-waving of why the hero of the previous one doesn’t show up to help this time—they’ve always got their own lives visible in the new series.1

I love these books, and Tamora Pierce is great. That’s gonna be the end of every review I write of her work; these are comfort-reading for me. I’ll be halfway through a reread of one of her books and only then realize what I’m doing, and that’s how I tell I’m more stressed than I thought. Seriously, go read anything she wrote.2 It’s all excellent.

  1. Two examples, to compare: Aly can’t call Numair Salmalín, introduced in the Wild Mage quartet, for help, because he’s busy juggling his duties in the Scanran War (the center of the Protector of the Small quartet) and trying to help his wife through her pregnancy.

    Captain America can’t call Iron Man to help during the events of The Winter Soldier because… he can’t remember his phone number? The real answer is “because they didn’t want to pay for Robert Downey Junior and the Iron Man VFX,” but there’s no in-universe reason given in a satisfying way. ↩

  2. These are Bookshop affiliate links – 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. ↩
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Review

“Greylady”

Peter Morwood

I went into this expecting it to feel more like a Diane Duane novel, which entirely wasn’t the case. (For context, they’re married—that wasn’t an entirely random thought to have.) Instead, it felt like a storyteller; the plot didn’t quite line up in the way I expect from a novel, but I think it works fairly well as a story being told to a great hall full of revelers.

There’s a couple odd spots, still—near the beginning, a couple chapters from a different character’s perspective, and I kept expecting to go back to them, but they never reappeared. And, towards the end, a skip forward in time that feels like it’s glossing over a lot of things that happened. This is listed as “Book 1” in the series, but I feel like, in the interest of closure, the last chapter was actually borrowed from the end of Book 2 instead.

Those issues aside, I quite enjoyed the book. The prose flows in a way that, again, feels like a story teller in a way; there’s a rhythm to it throughout. I’m still a bit unclear on the system of magic—there’s a distinction between sorcerers and wizards, but I still couldn’t tell you which was which—but that feels like just a mixing of words, and the actual system feels reasonably clear.1 And I appreciated that, while it doesn’t wrap up every thread, and actually specifically starts up some new ones at the end, it still came with enough of a sense of closure on the story that it felt complete. It’s the start of a series, but I don’t feel cheated out of anything by having only read the first one so far.

All in all, this was a good read, and a fairly approachable fantasy novel. Give it a read.2

  1. Which, again, very different from Duane’s works—in here, it’s clearly a ‘soft magic’ system, whereas the Young Wizards series has a fairly hard magic system, with very clear rules and functionality… that can still occasionally bend for the betterment of the plot. But then, in-universe, that kind of thing still makes sense, because the reader isn’t the only outside force looking in, and the others are able to influence things more directly. ↩
  2. 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. ↩