I enjoyed reading this
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-conspiracy-of-kings-turner","title":"A Conspiracy of Kings","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":4,"pages":316,"yearPublished":2010,"publisher":"Greenwillow Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30363362-a-conspiracy-of-kings","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"29021","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780062642998","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-conspiracy-of-kings-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/a-conspiracy-of-kings-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"9/20/2021","dateFinished":"9/26/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/12/2023","dateFinished":"4/14/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Sophos POV. Bang bang. I like this one.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-court-of-frost-and-starlight-maas","title":"A Court of Frost and Starlight","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","seriesNumber":3.5,"pages":232,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50659471-a-court-of-frost-and-starlight","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.42","numGoodreadsRatings":"2226176","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781635575620","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-court-of-frost-and-starlight-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/a-court-of-frost-and-starlight-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"6/14/2021","dateFinished":"6/20/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/27/2023","dateFinished":"8/30/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-court-of-mist-and-fury-maas","title":"A Court of Mist and Fury","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","seriesNumber":2,"pages":626,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50659468-a-court-of-mist-and-fury","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"3325552","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781635575583","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-court-of-mist-and-fury-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2.5,"url":"/books/a-court-of-mist-and-fury-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"5/31/2021","dateFinished":"6/6/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/8/2023","dateFinished":"8/14/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Rereading these because my girlfriend is reading them and I want to be able to talk about them with her
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-court-of-silver-flames-maas","title":"A Court of Silver Flames","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","seriesNumber":4,"pages":757,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53138095-a-court-of-silver-flames","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.9","numGoodreadsRatings":"2177600","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781681196282","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-court-of-silver-flames-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1.75,"url":"/books/a-court-of-silver-flames-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"6/21/2021","dateFinished":"6/27/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"9/7/2023","dateFinished":"9/27/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-maas","title":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","seriesNumber":1,"pages":419,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50659467-a-court-of-thorns-and-roses?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"4381332","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781635575569","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/a-court-of-thorns-and-roses-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"5/24/2021","dateFinished":"5/30/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/30/2023","dateFinished":"8/8/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Rereading these because my girlfriend is reading them and I want to be able to talk about them with her
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-court-of-wings-and-ruin-maas","title":"A Court of Wings and Ruin","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"A Court of Thorns and Roses","seriesNumber":3,"pages":703,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50659472-a-court-of-wings-and-ruin","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"2811750","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781635575606","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-court-of-wings-and-ruin-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2.25,"url":"/books/a-court-of-wings-and-ruin-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"6/7/2021","dateFinished":"6/13/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/15/2023","dateFinished":"8/24/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Similar issue to Foundryside, when Feyre is calling the court of dreams her “family”, she abandoned the sisters she provided for and didn't even seem to care that much, then had known these people for like 2 weeks and called them her real family.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-darker-shade-of-magic-schwab","title":"A Darker Shade of Magic","author":"V. E. Schwab","series":"Shades of Magic","seriesNumber":1,"pages":400,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22055262-a-darker-shade-of-magic?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"438488","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780765376459","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-darker-shade-of-magic-schwab-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/a-darker-shade-of-magic-schwab/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/29/2024","dateFinished":"4/3/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"So mediocre. Had a decently cool alternate / parallel world setup that has a lot of promise, but the character work and MacGuffin plot and dialogue and Kell all drag it down so much. And from everything I’ve seen the books just go downhill so I think I will call it here. Sad to see cool potential wasted.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-little-hatred-abercrombie","title":"A Little Hatred","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The Age of Madness","seriesNumber":1,"pages":480,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35606041-a-little-hatred","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.9","numGoodreadsRatings":"62943","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316187169","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-little-hatred-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/a-little-hatred-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/15/2024","dateFinished":"5/22/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"One of my least favorite’s so far in the First Law world (but still really good), I think I will enjoy the second book more it just was weird getting used to the new environment and characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-mark-of-kings-chmilenko","title":"A Mark of Kings","author":"Bryce O'Connor, Luke Chmilenko","series":"The Shattered Reigns","seriesNumber":1,"pages":582,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Bryce O'Connor \\u0026 Luke Chmilenko","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44674365-a-mark-of-kings","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"5054","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780998810690","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-mark-of-kings-chmilenko-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/a-mark-of-kings-chmilenko/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/30/2023","dateFinished":"4/7/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Pretty standard fantasy. Follows a lot of common tropes and sticks to the fantasy formula. Nothing all that exciting but still a decent read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-midsummer-night-s-dream-shakespeare","title":"A Midsummer Night's Dream","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":240,"yearPublished":1595,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1622.A_Midsummer_Night_s_Dream?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.9","numGoodreadsRatings":"585000","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743477543","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-midsummer-night-s-dream-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/4/2024","dateFinished":"3/6/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Probably the only comedy I have seen performed. Pretty funny. Donkey head.
\nA
A cool idea to continue the Ranger’s Apprentice series, but could have been executed a lot better. The timelines don’t feel the same for everyone and Maddie flies through her arc way too fast. Overall a decent read but not what I would have hoped for.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-practical-guide-to-conquering-the-world-holt","title":"A Practical Guide to Conquering the World","author":"K. J. Parker (Tom Holt)","series":"The Siege","seriesNumber":3,"pages":350,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48897284-a-practical-guide-to-conquering-the-world?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_30","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"2940","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780316498616","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-practical-guide-to-conquering-the-world-holt-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/a-practical-guide-to-conquering-the-world-holt/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/29/2024","dateFinished":"4/3/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I still think the first book in the trilogy is the best, but all 3 are super solid. This one was the most different but still felt similar in a good way.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-sorcery-of-thorns-rogerson","title":"A Sorcery of Thorns","author":"Margaret Rogerson","series":"Sorcery of Thorns","seriesNumber":1,"pages":456,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Margaret K. McElderry Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42201395-sorcery-of-thorns?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.08","numGoodreadsRatings":"161902","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781481497619","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-sorcery-of-thorns-rogerson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/a-sorcery-of-thorns-rogerson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"7/19/2021","dateFinished":"7/25/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-stranger-in-the-citadel-buckell","title":"A Stranger in the Citadel","author":"Tobias S. Buckell","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":256,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Tachyon Publications","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/139595692-a-stranger-in-the-citadel?ref=nav_sb_ss_3_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"6.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"390","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9781616963989","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-stranger-in-the-citadel-buckell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/a-stranger-in-the-citadel-buckell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/2/2022","dateFinished":"6/7/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A free novella on Audible. It wasn’t very eventful but had good character growth for a short story.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-wizard-of-earthsea-guin","title":"A Wizard of Earthsea","author":"Ursula K. Le Guin","series":"Earthsea Cycle","seriesNumber":1,"pages":183,"yearPublished":1968,"publisher":"Clarion Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16029682-a-wizard-of-earthsea","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"368027","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780544084377","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-wizard-of-earthsea-guin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/a-wizard-of-earthsea-guin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/20/2023","dateFinished":"2/4/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Interesting world, good characters, unique coming of age. Deserves the hype it gets, especially considering she made a non white protagonist way before that was commonplace. Written for younger people while understanding that teenagers are able to understand complex themes and vocabulary.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"a-wizard-s-guide-to-defensive-baking-kingfisher","title":"A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking","author":"T. Kingfisher","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":306,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Argyll","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54369251-a-wizard-s-guide-to-defensive-baking","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"58842","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Cozy","isbn":"9781614505242","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"a-wizard-s-guide-to-defensive-baking-kingfisher-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/a-wizard-s-guide-to-defensive-baking-kingfisher/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/13/2025","dateFinished":"6/17/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Minecraft book. I understand it is for children and kind of fun but just generally annoying and unpleasant. Also the genocide of wizards is a bit much if it is meant for young readers.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"abaddon-s-gate-corey","title":"Abaddon's Gate","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":3,"pages":539,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12591719-abaddon-s-gate","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"154066","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781841499925","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"abaddon-s-gate-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/abaddon-s-gate-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/11/2026","dateFinished":"1/21/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"The expanding war and universe is cool, and the characters are always super interesting. But the dialogue and constant action plot can get a bit stale at times. It’s exciting, but it does seem a little repetitive.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Abaddon’s Gate
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #3
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Abaddon%27s_Gate#Plot
\nA "slingshotter" takes his ship, the Y Que, through the Ring, an artificial stable wormhole created by Venus, in orbit beyond Uranus; it decelerates at 99 g and his body is splattered inside the ship, but the ship doesn't come out the other side of the Ring. A live feed from the Y Que broadcasts the events.
\nThe Roci crew has had a prosperous year; they've made a bunch of ship upgrades including joining Naomi and Holden's rooms and adding a railgun. Detective Miller continues to visit Holden, but he doesn't seem to actually hear Holden or talk directly to him; he mostly seems to speak gibberish. He asks Holden for help and says "they know I find things. They know you help me." Naomi knows about it, but Holden hasn't told the others.
\nThere's a food shortage for the outer planets and the Asteroid Belt, since Ganymede now produces less than 1/4 of its previous food output. Venus is completely dead. Inside the Ring is some sort of anomaly.
\nBull (Carlos c de Baca) is a former UN marine, now member of the OPA and XO on the Behemoth, the largest weapons ship in the Sol system. Formerly, it was known as the Nauvoo, but commandeered by Fred Johnson during the Eros incident. The Behemoth is considered a "retrofitted piece of crap" that wouldn't hold up in a real fight; it's mainly for show. Just before launch, Bull is re-assigned to chief security officer; Captain Ashford doesn't want a former Earther as second in command of the OPA's flagship.
\nClarissa Mao, daughter of Jules-Pierre Mao, gets a new identity as Melba Koh and will soon be shipping out on the Cerisier, a civilian maintenance ship going to the Ring. The guy selling her the new identity tries to shake her down and she kills him and his goons. As revenge for destroying her family, she plans to first humiliate and discredit James Holden before killing him.
\nEuropan Pastor Annushka Volovodov has been chosen for the Secretary-General's advisory group for the civilian trip to the Ring. She boards the UNN Thomas Prince, a Xerxes-class battleship.
\nIf the Nauvoo fires its railgun, the ship will be torn apart. Many of its parts were built to spin, since the ship would have thrust gravity only at the start and end of its journey. Bull can't get the budget from the XO, Michio Pa, to fix many of the problems. Samara Rosenberg from Tycho is the chief engineer.
\nHolden takes a job as far away from the Ring as possible, but the employer backs out at the last minute when Holden is served a summons from Mars; they want the Roci back, and it's impounded at Ceres. Monica Stuart from UN Public Broadcasting wants to do a story on the Ring, and asks Holden to take her and her team there; under the Freedom of Journalism Act, she has reasonable use of any hired materials and personnel. Holden believes Miller might be behind all of this.
\nMelba commands a team of 4 technicians on the Cerisier, but she's doing a poor job of faking it. She leaves a bomb on a ship called the Seung Un; she creates a video of Holden saying he's claiming control of the Ring on behalf of the OPA, and has paid someone on Ceres to setup a remote connection on the Roci. She confides in Ren, a member of her team, that she's in over her head with the engineering job, and he says he'll help her out.
\nThe Behemoth staff have been showing up to work high. Bull (with his deputy Serge), bust a drug dealer and Bull nonchalantly puts him out an airlock. Ashford relieves him of duty, but Bull explains that on a military vessel anyone endangering the ship is to be executed. Ashford waffles and tells him never to do it again. The XO recognizes that Bull did this to show the crew he's more Belter than the captain, and he just made her shit list.
\nMiller keeps telling Holden to check his doors and corners and to clear the room or he's going to wind up dead; Holden's not so sure he's just speaking gibberish anymore. Data shows that the Y Que is still moving in a straight line at a constant velocity of 600 m/s.
\nRen confronts Melba after he gets air filter data from the Seung Un indicating there might be a bomb aboard; she turns into a ninja, breaks his neck, then seals his corpse up in a storage locker in her room.
\nAnna starts holding prayer meetings on the Prince, as many of the crew are distraught about the Ring. She sees a young woman that looks like she needs help; it's Melba, and she's going crazy with remorse after killing Ren. She thinks Anna somehow knows what she did, and tweaks out at her.
\nMelba heads back to the Cerisier and activates the software on the Roci, issuing a trigger code to blow up the Seung Un, announcing Holden's responsibility and demands, then powering up weapons and targeting systems.
\nOn the Behemoth, probes sent into the wormhole have determined there are a number of large objects, possibly ships, on the other side. XO Pa revokes Sam's access privileges for making repairs Bull told her to do; Pa knows this, but is politicking to turn Bull's allies against him.
\nBull gets the transmission from Holden demanding that the information and resources about the Ring remain free to all people and that he'll kill anyone who tries to stop him. Bull and Pa tell Ashford to shoot down the Roci so Earth doesn't think the OPA is on his side; Ashford reluctantly fires a torpedo, but this causes the whole ship to lose power. The XO lets Sam out of confinement to fix the ship.
\nHolden realizes the lawsuit and the camera crew were a setup for this moment. The Behemoth fires a torpedo at them, but Naomi's countermeasures are all offline. With no other options, they take the Roci into the Ring.
\nAshford wants to follow the Roci through Ring; Mars vows to destroy them if they even get close to the Ring. Bull suggests to Pa that they overthrow the captain, but she insists they follow the chain of command.
\nHector "Hank" Cortez, a spiritual advisor to the UN Secretary-General, asks Anna to sign a petition to take the Prince into the Ring; she immediately agrees, seeing it as a way to reunite the fleets and stave off war.
\nMelba is extremely upset that Holden survived her sabotage. When the Cersier's employers order a number of crew to be dispatched to the Prince to chase after Holden, she volunteers. Before leaving, she removes Ren from her storage locker and stores him in her tool chest. On the Prince, she recognizes Anna's friend Tilly, who used to babysit her.
\nThe inside of the Ring is 1,000,000 km across, bounded by 1,373 wormholes spaced into a sphere. The only open Ring is the one to Earth’s system, Sol. In the center is the Ring Station, a metal sphere five kilometers across. Orbiting it are the Y Que and the probes that have been sent through. In the "Slow Zone", as it was nicknamed, nothing can go faster than 600 m/s.
\nAmos is replacing a lightbulb in the head, when he finds the transmitter that was hacking their system. One of the documentary crew, a blind guy, admits that he got paid to stick it there. His glasses have a sonar optic system that he uses to create a 3D model of the woman who paid him; Holden thinks it's Julie Mao.
\nNaomi puts out a broadcast saying the previous message was a fake; the other ships demand to see Holden, but he's EVA en route to the sphere. Bull tells Naomi that Ashford wants to send in an attack squad, and that he'll take the civilians off her hands.
\nThe sphere's irises open and lets Holden enter. Inside, Miller explains that he's not actually there in person; he's the "machine for finding lost things" and can interface with the sphere's systems.
\nMartian marines in exosuits catch up with Holden. An insect-like alien defense robot attempts to stop them, but they destroy it with a grenade; this teaches the station that even things moving as fast as a baseball pitch are dangerous, and the Slow Zone slows down even more, causing massive casualties on all the ships. More alien defensive mechanisms activate and begin ripping the marines to pieces; they fall back.
\nMelba uses the deceleration catastrophe to steal a mech suit and EVA to the Roci. She breaks in through the cargo door and attacks Naomi in engineering. Naomi’s shoulder is crushed by the mech, and just as Melba is about to break her neck, Anna tazes her. Anna had recognized Melba in Naomi's broadcast as the girl who freaked out at her and pieced things together when Tilly told her that the image was of Claire Mao. Anna, high on amphetamines due to having been injured during deceleration, stole a tazer and an EVA suit and followed Melba.
\nMelba starts to recover, so Naomi and Anna flee; Melba keeps ripping all the doors open with her mech suit. Naomi passes out from blood loss. Anna grabs her and they hide in a locker. Melba begins tearing the locker doors off, but her mech's battery runs out. She uses her glands and starts kicking and ripping the locker door off with her bare hands, but the effects wear off before she can get to them. Anna sedates her and tapes her to a chair.
\nHolden asks Miller to tell the station to help the people on the ships; Miller says it's utilitarian and can't do anything like that. Miller takes him to the central core; he needs Holden to physically touch the interface in order to authorize Miller for remote access to it, since Miller himself is actually just the protomolecule running "the most complex simulation in the history of [the] solar system" inside Holden's brain to make it seem like he's there with him.
\nWhen Holden touches the core, his consciousness ascends and he learns about the creators, who were a galaxy-spanning hive consciousness; he can sense entire star systems with his mind. He realizes the creators were sending fire through the Rings and blowing up entire star systems to try and quarantine something from coming through. The station has been waiting two billion years for the all-clear to re-open the wormhole network. Miller says the station is in "war mode.” Martians show up and take Holden away.
\nBull awakes in the medical bay, paralyzed from the waist down. The doctor insists on putting him in a medical coma, but Bull has too much work to do; the injured people on all the ships won't heal properly in zero-g, so he wants to spin up the Behemoth's drum to create gravity. Sam has to remove the railgun and torpedo tubes first, and when Ashford finds out Bull has orchestrated this, he goes crazy with rage and orders Bull into the coma. Pa and Bull relieve him of duty, making Pa the captain. Bull contacts the Roci and Anna tells him she thinks Melba blew up the Seung Un, and that they need help.
\nHolden is taken to the MCRN Hammurabi where he explains everything that has happened so far. He's put in a holding cell; Miller appears and tells him they all need to shut down their ship's power so he can unspring the lockdown. This will probably open up all the Rings, which could be very bad, but Miller needs to know what happened.
\nMelba is locked up on the Behemoth; she's near catatonic. Ashford is in a cell beside her and promises her amnesty if she helps get him out; she ignores him. She won't respond to Bull, so he sends in Tilly; she confesses that she did it all because Holden "hurt daddy."
\nAnna and the Roci crew are taken to the Behemoth. Tilly asks Anna to speak with Claire; she again confesses everything, but Anna wants to redeem her. Claire says there's no justice in that and doesn't want forgiveness for the terrible things she's done.
\nBull gets a call from Captain Jakande on the Hammurabi; she won't come to the Behemoth or give up Holden, because the MCRN won't let her surrender. Sam gifts Bull a modified mech suit that lets him walk; he's deeply touched. Bull asks her to turn the comm laser into a weapon so he can give the Martians a reason to surrender; they surrender willingly, and Holden is en route.
\nWhen Holden arrives, he tells Pa everything, including how to shut off the protomolecule's hold on them. He heads to the medical bay to check on his crew and he's accosted by Anna. She tells him about Claire, then takes him to see his crew, who are all grateful to her for saving their lives. Anna asks them to forgive Clarissa, and Holden reluctantly agrees when Naomi says she forgives her.
\nClarissa regains conscientiousness and is taken to hating herself instead of Holden. She eavesdrops on Ashford's visitors and realizes they're planning a coup. Hector Cortez, who used to golf with her father, asks her to join the coup; he feels responsible for many of the deaths, since he was the one who petitioned to come into the Ring. He's joined with Ashford so they can use the comm laser to destroy the gate – locking themselves inside – in order to stop others from following them. He wants Claire to use her abilities to keep Ashford alive. Deciding that all the deaths will be given meaning this way, she agrees.
\nBull gets a call from Serge warning that Ashford's people are taking over. Bull warns Pa, then calls Sam; she tells him Ashford's guys took engineering and asked her to overclock the laser, so they can destroy the Ring. She tells him to hole up in one of the storage lockers and he does. Serge is killed in a skirmish with Ashford's soldiers.
\nCortez asks Anna for her help controlling the mob after they close the Ring; she disagrees that that is the solution, and refuses to join him.
\nThe Roci crew realizes something is going down; Naomi calls Sam, who tells them to hide and that she'll join them shortly. While en route, they beat up a couple of insurgents and take their weapons. They rendezvous with Sam and she fills them in, explaining that using the laser will melt that entire side of the ship; Holden tells her that if they attack, the Ring Station might destroy their entire solar system. Sam sends them to find Bull while she sabotages the laser. Bull rounds up his people and they set up base in the admin offices where Radio Free Slow Zone has been broadcasting from. Bull has the journalist Monica and preacher Anna do a broadcast explaining the situation and asking everyone to shut down their reactors so the station will let the ships go.
\nSam continues to sabotage the laser; Ashford calls her to the bridge and when another engineer disagrees with how long the repairs should take, he shoots Sam. With Sam dead, Naomi is tasked with shutting down the reactor and gassing the bridge; Holden will take the bridge once they're all unconscious; Amos will stay and guard Anna; and Alex will head back to the Roci to secure it.
\nBull's team retakes engineering. Naomi tries to gas the bridge, but Clarissa disables remote access to it. Ashford sends out a team of four soldiers equipped with confiscated Martian power armor. He shut downs the rotating drum section of the Behemoth – leading to another catastrophic inertia change and injuring even more people – and sends the armored soldiers straight through to engineering.
\nBull, Naomi, et. al. are forced to retreat from engineering when the four power-suited soldiers arrive. Naomi managed to dump the core, but not the grid, thus Ashford can still fire the laser. They escape out an airlock and into an elevator shaft in vacuum. Juarez, the martian sniper, manages to take out one of the mechs. Bull stays behind to cover them; he throws his two remaining grenades at the pursuing mech warriors, killing one of them and sacrificing himself.
\nIn the offices, Amos manages to repel the attack, but his team suffers massive casualties. Anna broadcasts that they're losing the fight and that they need to stop Ashford or Earth will be destroyed. Clarissa calls and says she could open the bridge doors for Holden, but wants Anna to convince her; Anna says to have faith in the people who chose to forgive her in spite of the pain she's caused them, and to stop siding with Ashford, who kills innocents out of convenience. Clarissa opens the doors.
\nNaomi rigs the backup elevator to engage, squashing the two remaining marines in mech armor like bugs. The hatch opens and fire is exchanged from both sides. Ashford tries to shoot Claire, but she dropkicks him, then re-rigs the bridge access controls, allowing the grid to be taken offline. The ship shuts down and the lights go out.
\nHolden suddenly finds himself on an alien planet with proto-Miller. With all the ships powered down, Miller managed to shut down the station's defenses, which freed the ships and opened all the Rings. No malevolent force appears and kills them, but Miller warns him that they could still be out there. Even though his creators are gone, Miller can't stop searching for them and tells Holden he "needs a ride."
\nAnna insists that Clarissa get a fair trial on Luna, and asks Holden to transport her there. When he refuses, she offers to buy the Roci from Mars and give it to him if he'll agree; she calls up Tilly and asks her to foot the bill, and she will. Aboard the Roci, Claire helps Amos fix all the damage she caused, and finds she really enjoys the crew's company.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"academy-of-outcasts-correia","title":"Academy of Outcasts","author":"Larry Correia","series":"Academy of Outcasts","seriesNumber":1,"pages":424,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Aethon Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/222708053-academy-of-outcasts","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"2414","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781638493037","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"academy-of-outcasts-correia-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/academy-of-outcasts-correia/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/12/2026","dateFinished":"6/15/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A solid 4. The start was especially bad but it picked up a bit towards the back. The beginning made me think I was about to read a Red Rising rip-off. The magic system is honestly just not very interesting, I have no real desire to see what happens as the characters get stronger. The world has a couple interesting pieces with the different elemental realms and a time based connection mechanic but nothing that unique there either. Probably won’t read any more of this guy's books since I have not liked either of the ones I tried and they were both very different.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Academy of Outcasts
\nLarry Correia
\nAcademy of Outcasts #1
Academy of Outcasts Summary
\nOzwald Carnavon (Oz) works as a Red miner on the planet of Fogo. His family are among the many indentured servants of the noble Argent family, who reap the benefits of their mining. Fogo is a lava-covered fire element planet, filled with heat and dangerous monsters, but Red is a magical element used in casting magic so they harvest it to sell. All of their Red goes to the Argents who sell it in The Core, the central world connecting all of the elemental planes such as Fogo. Oz wants to be a wizard but tests as a 0 (The scale is 1-15 ish, 10 is a master). He works to learn magic on his own in secret.
\nDown the line some pirates attack his family ship and he kills a few with a rifle defending his group but the pirates blow them up, killing part of his family. When he turns 19 he hatches a plan to escape his indentured servitude and learn magic in The Core. He manages to sneak into The Core, a massive city that benefits from the work of the lower castes in all the elemental worlds who gather magical components. The Great Machine is the center of The Core, and rotates a portal so that each day a new realm is connected, each getting hit once a week. One of the Argent sons gets attacked in a market and Oz uses this opportunity to flee, but gets stopped by a watchman so he uses a bit of fire magic to escape. He runs down to the Slump.
\nThe Core is a very vertical city so the lower parts are the Slump and the Under Slump, where the poor citizens live. He gets in trouble with a gang and is about to be killed by them when a Squalo named Trax Bloodtrail saves him. Squalo are kind of like shark men, and can only communicate with their minds. Not many people can understand him so Trax hangs around with Oz. Together they try to gain access to a wizard college but they basically operate on bribery and status and Oz is a poor criminal so he can’t get it. He meets a girl from the Air world, Azarin, in a similar situation and they agree to teach each other some magic. Oz fights in a gladiator pit and meets Krachma, a rock golem dude. He wins some money and continues learning air magic.
\nOz gets kidnapped by the Argents, who blame the attack on their kid on him. They are about to torture him but Azarin and Trax save him. They then meet Rade Tartaros, who hails from the realm of death, and a friend of Krachma. Krachma and Rade join their little band of spell learning and share more magic. This is illegal because the council tries to control all magical knowledge in The Core. You need to be a rank 10 mage to start a magic academy. Oz also learns that The Core is slowly dying. One of the realms, the realm of time, got shut down 500 years back when some great evil tried to take over, and without the element from there everything will eventually shut down and die.
\nOz then gets approached by a powerful wizard named Adderlane, who turns out to be the chief police inspector. Adderlane has captured Azarin (who Oz has a crush on) and will kill her unless Oz delivers a cursed bauble to the Argent that almost died earlier. Oz sends Trax to save her and manages to stop the curse, but the Argents still think it was him that did it. They send Gaul Haddar, a rank 8 wizard, after him. Oz gets captured but he tells Haddar the truth of Adderlane so Adderlane attacks them. Through some trickery Oz helps Gaul kill Adderlane. Because he killed a rank 10 wizard Gaul Haddar is now rank 10, so he agrees to start an academy for Oz and his friends to keep learning legally before Gaul leaves to go do other stuff. The Argents decide to leave Oz alone. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"all-s-well-that-end-s-well-shakespeare","title":"All's Well That End's Well","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":282,"yearPublished":1604,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/104790.All_s_Well_That_Ends_Well?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"20415","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743484978","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"all-s-well-that-end-s-well-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/all-s-well-that-end-s-well-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/18/2024","dateFinished":"3/22/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Weird Weird. Tricking someone into impregnating you is not normal.
\nB
A lot shorter than I thought it was, I think I would have enjoyed if this book was a lot longer. It was impressive the amount of growth by the characters in such a short period, but I think it would have been much more satisfying in a longer form. Robots are cool and trying to interact with humans is hard, so this is a good book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"all-the-skills-rae","title":"All the Skills","author":"Honour Rae","series":"All the Skills","seriesNumber":1,"pages":513,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Avocado Ink","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210216566-all-the-skills","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"8324","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781039470217","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"all-the-skills-rae-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/all-the-skills-rae/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/10/2025","dateFinished":"2/19/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Bad, bad narrator.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"animal-farm-orwell","title":"Animal Farm","author":"George Orwell","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":141,"yearPublished":1945,"publisher":"Signet Classics","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/170448.Animal_Farm?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_7","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.98","numGoodreadsRatings":"4665533","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780451526342","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"animal-farm-orwell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/animal-farm-orwell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/11/2024","dateFinished":"3/12/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I forgot how short this book is. The allegory is very plain, not hidden whatsoever. Message is still there though. Orwell is a talented author.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"arcane-bronny","title":"Arcane","author":"Sever Bronny","series":"The Arinthian Line","seriesNumber":1,"pages":362,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Sever Bronny Ltd.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23617581-arcane","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"3764","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780993767609","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"arcane-bronny-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/arcane-bronny/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/20/2022","dateFinished":"6/25/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Did everything the druid did except better. Definitely written for a younger audience but that can be really refreshing at times to have slightly larger font and the good guys always winning.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":6,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/22/2023","dateFinished":"6/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A children's book, but a solid one that I think should be more popular.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"arcanum-unbounded-sanderson","title":"Arcanum Unbounded","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Cosmere","seriesNumber":null,"pages":672,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28595941-arcanum-unbounded?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.84","numGoodreadsRatings":"67881","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Collection","isbn":"9780765391162","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"arcanum-unbounded-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/arcanum-unbounded-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/14/2022","dateFinished":"9/21/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This was a collection of short stories and novellas set throughout the Cosmere, and in terms of lore it is an 11/10, especially Mistborn: Secret History. Helped to explain a ton of things and was really fun to read, I also really enjoyed Edgedancer since Lift is a nifty character. I have officially read everything currently written in the Cosmere and would appreciate more content please.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"archenemy-beddor","title":"ArchEnemy","author":"Frank Beddor","series":"The Looking Glass Wars","seriesNumber":3,"pages":370,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Dial Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7804936-archenemy","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"12022","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142416891","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"archenemy-beddor-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/archenemy-beddor/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/15/2026","dateFinished":"6/19/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Each book in the trilogy got worse. The first one had some fun, original ideas and new takes on old stories are always fun, but by the end of this book it didn’t seem like there was much plot or interesting stuff. The first book is a great kids book but the rest aren’t worth reading.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"ArchEnemy
\nFrank Beddor
\nThe Looking Glass Wars #3
ArchEnemy Summary
\nWonderland is still trying to recover from the war with Arch and Redd, which got interrupted when King Arch’s weapon WILMA got activated wrong by Hatter, destroying imagination everywhere. The Clubs have been going around taking citizens who used to have imagination to Limbo Camps by force. Alyss and Dodge infiltrate one to see what the Lord and Lady of Clubs are saying. They are spreading a view that people with imagination have oppressed those without for a long time and this is their chance to fight back. Alyss gets recognized and they have to flee, a man named Dumphy helps them escape through a wall into a Limbo Camp, where they are trapped.
\nRedd and Arch retreated following WILMA’s activation, but once Arch confirms Redd is without imagination (thanks to the green caterpillar) he betrays her and all the forces of Boarderland and Redd’s mercenaries follow him. Red flees with the Cat and her closest allies. They go into hiding until her imagination can come back. Redd gets depressed (after talking to the green caterpillar) and they head to Mount Isolation. Arch starts attacking Wonderland again with his forces, and is winning without Alyss’ imagination to interfere.
\nHatter and Homburg Molly have been grieving but return to Wonderland. The blue caterpillar appears and gives them a message for Molly, “You”. They are attacked by soldiers and forced to flee into the Pool of Tears and return to Earth, where Hatter leaves Molly with Charles Dodgson to keep her safe. She is very sad and sulky since her mother died. Hatter returns to Wonderland to try to help but does not do much the rest of the book. Alyss feels her imagination start to come back and readies caches of weapons for the prisoners to escape when the time is right.
\nArch captures the capital and wins the war. He forces Bibwit to help him learn about the caterpillars and makes General Doppelganger control the army. Redd arrives at Mount Isolation and her imagination also returns. Alyss and Dodge sneak out of the prison camp instead of announcing she has her imagination back in an attempt to be stealthy. Redd and Alyss meet via imagination and agree to work together to stop Arch for the good of imagination and the heart crystal. They plan to make a big decoy attack to bait out whatever plans Arch has. Redd tames some Jabberwocky.
\nArch has been building a sock out of caterpillar silk to put around the heart crystal which will dampen it and take away the power of imagination. Bibwit flees to help Alyss and he captures and tortures General Doppelganger. He sends his bodyguard Ripkins to Earth to hurt the Liddel family to lure Alyss to Earth. The blue caterpillar appears and tells Alyss this and she goes to help them. When she arrives Arch drains the pool of tears so Alyss is trapped on Earth. She meets up with Homburg Molly to plan an escape.
\nRedd has discovered where Arch moved the heart crystal, an old structure called the Iron Butterfly. She attacks and removes the sock, allowing imagination to return. Back on Earth Molly meets with an ex-wonderlander and creates a new pool of tears, allowing her and Alyss to return to Wonderland. Arch has attacked Redd for control of the heart crystal, and Alyss sneaks up on the battle. Dodge finally kills the Cat but almost dies in the process. Redd almost kills arch but he flees through the last of the Pool of Tears water. Alyss drops a bunch of bombs on the Iron Butterfly, killing Redd and her team and breaking the heart crystal. It turns into a big rainbow and the caterpillars turn into butterflies and say something about Everqueen. Dodge and Alyss get married and everything is happy. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"ariadne-saint","title":"Ariadne","author":"Jennifer Saint","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":308,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Flatiron","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54860614-ariadne?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_7","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"140388","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Mythology","isbn":"9781250773586","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"ariadne-saint-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1.5,"url":"/books/ariadne-saint/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/1/2025","dateFinished":"8/15/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This was painful to read. Really bad. Just retold a couple of ancient myths, primarily Theseus and the Minotaur, from Ariadne’s perspective. I understand the concept of promoting the female voice but it was honestly just poor writing, bad character work, did not pass the Bechtel test, and tried to use big words whenever possible even if they were used incorrectly.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Ariandne - Jennifer Saint
\nCharacters:
\nAriadne, Phaedra, Pasiphae, Minos, Theseus, Deucalion, Dyonisus, Hyppolotus, Perseus, Daedalus, Icarus, Astarion (Minotaur)
Places:
\nCrete, Knossos, Naxos, Athens, Argos
Things:
\nThe Labyrinth,
Story:
\nAriadne takes place in ancient Greece, on the island of Crete. Crete is ruled by the ruthless and tyrannical King Minos, and the novel opens with the story of his conquest of the kingdom of Megara. He kills its king, Nisus, when Nisus’s daughter, Scylla, falls in love with Minos and divulges the secret to her father’s defeat. In the wake of Minos’s victory, however, Minos ties Scylla to the back of his boat and drowns her as punishment for betraying her father. He goes on to wage war on the city of Athens, and the god Zeus aids him in his conquest by sending a devastating plague across the city. Athens has no choice but to accept King Minos’s demands; they must send seven young men and seven young women every year as sacrifices to a creature living in a labyrinth beneath the palace of Knossos in Crete.
Ariadne is the daughter of King Minos and half sister to this creature—the legendary Minotaur. She recounts the story of how the Minotaur came to be: Poseidon, god of the sea, sends King Minos a sacred bull to sacrifice in his honor. Minos’s decision to keep the bull rather than sacrifice it insults Poseidon, who afflicts Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, with lust for the sacred bull. She enlists the palace’s inventor, Daedalus, to construct a realistic wooden cow for her to hide within to trick the bull into mounting her, and she becomes pregnant with its child. This humbles King Minos and brings shame and scandal upon the whole family.
\nPasiphae shrinks away in shame during her pregnancy and gives birth when Ariadne is 10 years old. The child is part human, part bull, and Pasiphae names him Asterion. Ariadne does not view the creature with revulsion but rather sees him as her brother and hopes he could be “civilized” one day. She and Pasiphae care for him, but as he grows and becomes harder to contain, Daedalus constructs a labyrinth beneath the palace to house him. The creature lives isolated beneath the palace, feeding on the 14 youths from Athens once a year.
\nWhen Ariadne is 18, hostages from Athens arrive. She and her sister, Phaedra, immediately take notice of Theseus, the prince of Athens who has volunteered as a sacrifice to the Minotaur. The sisters are infatuated with him, and Ariadne seeks Daedalus’s help to guide him safely through the Labyrinth, though she betrays her family in doing so. Daedalus gives her a ball of red twine. Ariadne gives Theseus the twine and instructs him on how to navigate the Labyrinth; in exchange, Theseus promises that he will help Ariadne and Phaedra escape from Crete and that he and Ariadne will marry. Theseus successfully defeats the Minotaur and guides all the hostages out of the Labyrinth unharmed. Ariadne escapes with him, leaving Phaedra behind on Crete. They sail to the deserted island of Naxos, but the morning after their arrival, Ariadne wakes to find Theseus has abandoned her on the island.
\nIn the wake of the Minotaur’s defeat, Phaedra witnesses Daedalus escape the palace using wings he constructed. The news of both Theseus’s and Daedalus’s escapes reaches King Minos, and he immediately sets off to find his inventor. His son, Deucalion, arrives to rule in his stead and brings Phaedra news of Ariadne, provided to him by Theseus: He tells her the goddess Artemis killed her in her sleep. To improve relations with Athens, Deucalion has arranged for Phaedra to marry its king—Theseus, who now rules in the wake of his father’s death. Phaedra does not trust Theseus’s account. Still, she takes on an active role as queen of Athens and marries Theseus when she comes of age, becoming pregnant with his child.
\nMeanwhile, Ariadne is saved when Dionysus, god of wine, arrives on Naxos. He treats Ariadne kindly and names her guardian of his island whenever he is traveling. He returns from one of his travels to bring news of Phaedra: She is safe and betrothed to a great prince. Ariadne and Dionysus develop a relationship, and Ariadne is comforted by the knowledge that Dionysus has a gentler nature than other gods or great heroes. Young women, called “maenads,” flock to the island to worship Dionysus and seek freedom from the oppressive men in their lives. Ariadne and Dionysus marry, and she bears him five sons.
\nEventually, Phaedra discovers the truth about her sister’s fate and her marriage to Dionysus, but the birth of her son prevents her from traveling to Naxos. She despises motherhood and resents that her child resembles Theseus. When she gives birth to her second son, she experiences the same lack of maternal feeling.
\nAriadne has a much easier time adjusting to motherhood, and life is peaceful until she realizes that her husband’s rituals with the maenads have taken a macabre turn; she catches the young women washing blood out of their robes. Before she can ask about this, she notices a ship arriving from Athens: Phaedra has come. The sisters reunite, and Phaedra tells Ariadne everything that has happened outside of Naxos. She talks about Hippolytus, Theseus’s son by an Amazonian princess, who came to live with them in Athens. Phaedra has fallen in love with him, but Ariadne warns her that she risks scandal if she reveals her feelings. Phaedra gets defensive and promptly leaves Naxos.
\nDionysus returns from his travels, perturbed by his mortal half brother Perseus’s refusal to allow his worship in the city of Argos. Ariadne soon finds that his rituals involve sacrificing animals so Dionysus can bring them back to life, and this horrifies her. She sails to Athens to see Phaedra again and deter her from acting on her feelings for Hippolytus.
\nPhaedra greets Ariadne but still plans to confess her feelings to Hippolytus. She speaks to him while Theseus is away, but he rebuffs her advances. Humiliated and fearing he will tell Theseus, Phaedra hangs herself. Theseus returns, and he and Ariadne run into each other. The two of them find Phaedra’s body and a note with Hippolytus’s name on it, and Theseus assumes Phaedra died by suicide because Hippolytus raped her. He calls upon Poseidon to avenge her, and Hippolytus is killed.
\nAriadne returns to Naxos and to Dionysus. They set sail for Argos so Dionysus can confront Perseus. Dionysus, desperate to gain the city’s worship, brings a frenzy upon all the women of Argos. To demonstrate his power over life and death, he has them kill their own babies. The city immediately prepares to fight. Ariadne charges straight for Perseus to ask him to leave Naxos alone, but upon his shield is the head of Medusa, whose gaze turns onlookers to stone, and Ariadne locks eyes with it and is petrified. A grieving Dionysus turns her into a star in the night sky, makes peace with Perseus, and leaves the island of Naxos to women and children only. Ariadne listens to the prayers of women, and her sons go on to lead quiet, peaceful lives.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"armada-cline","title":"Armada","author":"Ernest Cline","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":355,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Crown Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16278318-armada?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_6","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"129508","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780804137256","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"armada-cline-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/armada-cline/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/17/2022","dateFinished":"8/22/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this first like 7 years ago, it’s by Ernest Cline (The author of ready player 1) and follows the same formula of referencing a bunch of “geek culture” from the nineties and 2000’s which is fun but not as good as RP1.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"artemis-fowl-colfer","title":"Artemis Fowl","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":1,"pages":396,"yearPublished":2001,"publisher":"Miramax","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18376853-artemis-fowl","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"564159","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780141312125","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"artemis-fowl-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/artemis-fowl-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/29/2024","dateFinished":"5/1/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Haven’t read these in a while. The first one is ok but they get better until the last one. I am alternating these between malazan books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"as-you-like-it-shakespeare","title":"As You Like It","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":263,"yearPublished":1599,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42607.As_You_Like_It?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_14","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"90109","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743484862","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"as-you-like-it-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/as-you-like-it-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/11/2024","dateFinished":"3/13/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Kind of dumb. Lots of crossdressing and disguising in these comedies. Was it that easy to fool people back then?
\nD
Pretty simple dragon rider story, reminiscent of Eragon which is based on lots of other classic works and tropes. A few original ideas and decent character work.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ashes-of-man-ruocchio","title":"Ashes of Man","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":5,"pages":544,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60427253-ashes-of-man","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"7031","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780756416607","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ashes-of-man-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/ashes-of-man-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/4/2025","dateFinished":"4/16/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Pretty disappointing, feels like the biggest step down by a good margin. A certain characters death was incredibly disappointing and big let down. Hope next book is better. For the first time there was no gap between books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"assassin-s-apprentice-hobb","title":"Assassin's Apprentice","author":"Robin Hobb","series":"The Farseer Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":435,"yearPublished":1995,"publisher":"Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77197.Assassin_s_Apprentice","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"370263","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780553573398","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"assassin-s-apprentice-hobb-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/assassin-s-apprentice-hobb/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/29/2025","dateFinished":"6/7/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Perfect book. I read this twice in high school but it has been almost a decade since I last read it. Everything about it is perfect, the pacing, the world, but obviously the characters shine the most. The relationships we see building the emotions Fitz goes through. Incredible book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"assassin-s-quest-hobb","title":"Assassin's Quest","author":"Robin Hobb","series":"The Farseer Trilogy","seriesNumber":3,"pages":757,"yearPublished":1997,"publisher":"Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22016392-assassin-s-quest","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"191175","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780007562275","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"assassin-s-quest-hobb-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/assassin-s-quest-hobb/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"11/27/2025","dateFinished":"12/13/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Easily one of the best books I have ever read. Constant action, realistic character development and growth. An understanding of loss, a happy ending. May be the perfect book. A fantastic trilogy.The middle book is the “weak point” but even that one is exceptional outside of a few slow points. Just so many emotions, all the time, and especially at the end. If I didn’t know there were 13 more books I would be upset it was over.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Assassin’s Quest
\nRobin Hobb
\nThe Farseer Trilogy #3
FitzChivalry comes back from the dead. He used his wit bond with Nighteyes to hide his soul away in the wolf’s body and live with him for a few days. Because of his royal blood he was buried unmolested, and Patience was allowed to clean and tend his wounds. Burrich and Chade dig him up and are the only ones who know the truth of him living. For the first months he is still more wolf than man and does not remember much, but Burrich lives in a far off shepherds hut with him while he recovers and remembers himself. Regal has retreated with the court to Tradesford and the coastal duchies are more alone than ever.
\nAs he becomes more human Verity skills to him one night saying that he is alive, sending Chade to start a quest in the name of the true king and save the sic duchies. Burrich eventually leaves Fitz to himself and goes to take care of “a friend”. Fitz almost reverts to animalistic ways but snaps out of it. Gets attacked by forged ones and kills one then has to flee. Much later he comes back to get supplies because he has decided to kill Regal as a personal vendetta (He clearly has PTSD from the dungeon and Regal’s men beating him). He finds the dead body of one of the forged ones he killed still outside the hut, but Burrich had been there and left clothes for him inside. Fitz does not realize but Burrich assumed the corpse was Fitz and thinks he is truly dead now. We later learn he is taking care of Molly who is pregnant with Fitz’ child.
\nNighteyes and Fitz head inland to Tradesford to kill Regal, and Fitz tries to remember how to be a person. Along the way they meet a blind minstrel and his daughters, who attach themselves to him temporarily and he kills forged ones to save them. Later he helps a man who turns out to be “Old-Blood” (witted) and is bonded to a bear. He takes them to his hut and gives them some warnings and more info about their bond. Nighteyes leaves temporarily to join a pack of wolves. Fitz continue to Tradesford and Fitz infiltrates Regal’s manor and plans to kill him. Regal’s coterie learns he is there after he has to kill a guard and Will uses Skill tricks to lure Fitz into a trap, but Verity saves him with a mind-blast and imprints upon Fitz “Come To Me”.
\nFitz flees to a nearby town and plans to head to the mountains then on to Verity. His desciprtipon has been circulated by Regal and he is now a wanted man. He finds work in a caravan with some others and a minstrel named Starling. Eventually some guards find them and realize Fitz is himself, but he has already poisoned them so on the ride back they all die. The caravan has left without him so he makes his own way to Blue Lake. While there Starling recognizes him but instead of turning him in helps him since she wants to write a song about him. Fitz is going to kill Regal but a ferret bonded to another old-bloood warns him it is a trap so he manages to escape. They connect with some smugglers because Regal has shutdown all travel to the mountains. Fitz drives the wagon of an old woman named Kettle. Halfway there the smugglers betray them to Regal’s men, who were in disguise and Fitz is taken hostage but Nighteyes returns to try to help. They break 2 of starlings fingers but then everyone except Fitz escapes. They take him to a nearby town, the place his mother was from and he was born. He is in prison but then a huge fire starts amd Starling shows up and them and Kettle flee. Fitz leaves the two women to try to save them and heads off on his own. He is pursued the whole way and finally, even by another old-blood. Nighteyes does much to save huim but Fitz takes an arrow to the center of his back. Luckily they are near Jhaampe and a local saves Fitz.
\nTurns out it was the fool, who has aged and is now more ivory than white. Fitz spends a long time healing but eventualyl Chade and Kettricken learn he is there and he has to tell them everything. A party is supposed to head into the mountains to search for Verity, but Regal offers to not attack the mountain in return for Fitz, so they must flee with just Kettricken, Starling ,Fitz, Kettle, and the Fool. Fitz is also very mad at Chade and Kettricken since because she had a stillbirth, they want to use his daughter as the next Farseer heir. The road they find Kettle says is “Skill-Wrought” and plays tricks with Fitz’ head, weakening him.
\nThey find a black stone that can teleport those with the Skill and Fitz explores an old city, the one he saw Verity at earlier via the Skill. They continue on, except they know a party of guards and Regal’s coterie is close behind. Fitz and Kettle go back and kill the guards and destroy their supplies. They continue on and find a Stone Garden with beautiful carvings of dragons beasts that seem to have life in them accordion to the Wit-sense. Burl, a member of the coterie, shows up and attacks who he thinks is Fitz but is actually the Fool. He was tricked since Fitz and the Fool have developed a skill-bond. Later The Fool asks Fitz where Molly is and he tells him then collapses. They continue on trying to find Verity and reach a Quarry. Verity understands the coterie was using the fool when he asked that and they will try to kill Molly. FItz skills and sees her, Burrich, and the child escape. Verity also killed Corrum, the third coterie member. He has been carvbing a dragon like the ones in the gaarden and appears very old and weary. He has poured his life and memories into creating this beast. We learn Kettle is 260 years old and used to be in a coterie until she killed her twin sister over jealousy and was exiled. Fitz frees Kettle’s Skill and Kettle works with Verity on the dragon. Kettricken is very upset since Verity does not seem to possess much humanity left. Fitz returns to the garden via a stone and sees a ton of guards. They are almost out of time, but one guard recognizes Verity and pledges his allegiance to the true king. Back at the Quarry they skill and Fitz sees Molly and Burrich (Who both believe he is dead) profess love for each other and adopt his child Nettle as their own. He is heartbroken but moves on. Verity takes over his body and sleeps with Kettircked, and tells her she will have a child. Fitz gets his body back and feels betrayed and sleeps with Starling in a healing way. Kettle and Verity fulls surrender themselves and fade into the dragon, one of the mythical elderlings, who comes alives and flies off. The Fool is attacked bu Burl but Burl’s is killed by Nighteyes wich awakens another elderling and Fitz and the Fool and Nighteyes kill a ton of gaurds and awaken all the statues in the stone garden, and hurt will. At the end of the fight theFOol leads all the elderligns to the coast to kill the red ship raiders. Fitz worms his way through Will’s mind to Regal, and instead of killing him imparts a lot of commands upon him. Fitz and Nighteys set off alone to explore. We learn the Kettricken, with the help of patience, retakes Buck and unites the duchies again, and the dragons kill all the red ships and stop the raids. Regal returns all the money, fights to save the kingdom, and pronounces Kettricken the true queen. He is later killed by ferrets. Fitz and Nighteyes live alone in isolation outside Buck, and only Starling knows where they are. She brings him a young boy who he takes care hom.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"avempartha-sullivan","title":"Avempartha","author":"Michael J. Sullivan","series":"The Riyria Revelations","seriesNumber":2,"pages":331,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Ridan Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6342483-avempartha","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"16063","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780979621116","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"avempartha-sullivan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/avempartha-sullivan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/23/2026","dateFinished":"4/28/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this as a part of the Theft of Swords, but due to series numbering broke it up into the two smaller books. Slower and much less light-hearted than the first book, but instead focused a lot more on expanding the world and setting up larger scale conflicts to come. The Crown Conspiracy was a great one-off story that I think anyone could enjoy, but Avempartha shifted us into the usual epic fantasy, world-spanning conflict. The expansion of the church and the roles of the different races was great and by the end I was excited to continue in the series, I may have to bump the rest up. Still has the same problems as the first one, so if you didn’t enjoy that I would not continue with the series, but I am still more compelled by Royce and Hadrian and the fun characters and world than the flaws in dialog and writing.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Avempartha
\nMichael J. Sullivan
\nThe Riyria Revelations #2
Avempartha Summary
\nThe gods:
\nErebus - Father of the gods
\nFerrol - Eldest, Father of Elves
\nDrome - Seconds, Father of Dwarves
\nMaribor - Third son, Father of Men
\nMuriel - Only daughter, goddess of nature
\nUberlin - Son of Muriel and Erebus, god of darkness
It has been a year or two since the first book, and Royce and Hadrian have tracked down the man who gave them the set up job of stealing a sword at the start of the last book. He turns out to be a destitute sailor named Wyatt who needed the money. They let him go once they learn he is taking care of a half-elven adopted daughter named Allie, as well as a massive young man. While in the city of Colnora, they are stopped by some of Royce’s old crime group, the Black Diamonds. They tell them a girl named Thrace is asking for them by name but after they see her they should leave the city.
\nThey save Thrace from a man, and take her to get cleaned up. She came to ask them to help her father, Theron, and her village, Dhalgren. They are being attacked by a beast of some kind. They are going to refuse when she reveals that Esrahaddon told her about them, and he wants them to break into the elven tower of Avempartha and steal a sword. Royce agrees because he is curious about the wizard, and they set off.
\nMeanwhile, Arista is saddled with a new maid Beatrice, who acts as an overwhelming mother figure, not letting Arista do much. Alric assigns her as ambassador and she sets out to the outlying kingdoms. She is accompanied by Bishop Saldur, who before the events of the last book she always thought of as a family member, but now she is suspicious. The Pickering boys, Mauvin and Fanen, also accompany them since “The Contest” will be held where they are going. Saldur tries to convince Arista that Esrahaddon orchestrated the death of her father. The church has a meeting, and the sentinel Luis Guy, one of the few people allowed to speak to the Patriarch (Leader of church), says he will be leading the group at the contest. Sentinel’s only job is to hunt for the Heir of Novron, who we know the church actually wants to kill.
\nRoyce, Hadrian, and Thrace reach Dhalgren, but Theron seems dismissive of his daughter and her guests. He is full of hatred since everyone but Thrace in his family has been killed by the beast. They stay with other members of the small village, and Royce sees the beast that night with his superior night vision. It takes one member of the village, and the following day Hadrian convinces everyone that they need to move into the manor house for safety (Commoners are not supposed to be there). Deacon Thomas, the clergyman technically in charge of the town right now, complains but Hadrian convinces him. Royce and Esrahaddon go and investigate the tower. Avempartha is in the middle of a river that separates elven lands from human lands, according to an ancient treaty. Esrahaddon explains how back in the days of Novron the human empire was much more advanced than they are now, and fears that when the elves have regained strength (slow birth rates), they will attack again. Royce can not figure out how to get into the tower but assumes Esrahaddon has his own motives besides slaying this beast.
\nBack at the village, Royce tells the villagers what he saw last night and Esrahaddon informs them it is a Gilarabrywn, a magic elvish summoned monster used in the old wars. It can only be killed with a sword with it’s name inscribed upon the blade, which is what they need to steal from the tower. Esrahaddon tells Royce later how 900 years ago he, accompanied by the emperor, his young heir, a bodyguard and others went to Avempartha to meet with the elves. While their the Gilarabrywn attacked, although the elves were also confused as to why. It seemed to only want the emperor. He and the knight bodyguard helped the heir escape, but the church killed the emperor. Esrahaddon used a sealing spell on the tower to trap the beast inside, and then told the knight to go into hiding with the heir. He gave them a necklace to wear so he could always find them, but needs something from in the tower to be able to find the heir, assuming the necklace has been passed down.
\nThey realize that Theron is not at the manor, Hadrian believes he wants to die in his grief. Him and Royce ride to save him, and Thrace follows them. They convince him and rush back to the manor, but Thrace hits her head and falls off the horse. They are only saved by Esrahaddon summoning a wall of fire and scaring off the beast. Thrace is in a bad condition and Theron realizes the mistake he has made, he still has hope and family with her. Hadrian gives Theron some sword lessons, and Thrace eventually wakes up.
\nArista learns the contest will be held in Dhalgren. We learn the church releases the Gilarabrywn and have a plan to name a puppet, Lord Rufus, as emperor after he uses a copy sword to slay it. The point of the contest is to show the beast is invincible by letting it kill a number of people, then having Rufus go in. The church arrives at Dhalgren and kicks all of the villagers out of the manor. Hadrian meets with the Pickerings and begs them not to compete, since the beast can not be killed. Luis Guy comes over and questions Hadrian, seeming very suspicious.
\nRoyce and Esrahaddon find Magnus, the dwarf that killed King Amrath, eavesdropping on them. They learn he is the one who was asked by the church to make the copy of the Gilarabrywn killing sword. He agrees to tell them how to enter the tunnel if Royce does not kill him. They sneak in, and it is confirmed that Royce is at least part elf (We have been suspicious), when he can open a door in the wall. He steals half of the blade (and recovers Hadrian's swords he lost with his old horse). Magnus looks at it and sees there is an inscription on both sides of the blade, meaning his copy will never work. Back at the manor the beast is angered part of it’s murder weapon has been stolen and kills Lord Rufus, as well as razing most of the village and manor. Almost everyone dies and Hilfred (Arista’s bodyguard) is badly burned. Hadrian saves the villagers by hiding them in the well. Many members of the church (Including Saldur and Luis Guy) saved themselves by leaving with all the horses and wagons. The beast captures Arista and Thrace and tells Deacon Thomas it will trade them for the sword half tomorrow night.
\nMagnus and Hadrian are trying to forge a copy of the half of the sword they have to trick the beast, and Theron and the Pickerings stay to help. Luis Guy shows up with Seret Knights (warriors of the church), and after saying he would let them go attacks Theron. Theron manages to stab him in the shoulder, so Luis Guy runs away and his 8 knights attacks. Fanen is killed and Mauvin badly injured, but they kill all the knights.
\nAt the tower, Royce and Esrahaddon sneak in and use fire to make the beast flee, but it grabs Thrace on the way out. Arista tells them Thrace has the other half of the sword. Esrahaddon needs both their help to work the magic to figure out where the heir and bodyguard (Or their descendants with the necklaces) are. Esrahaddon warns them that war with the elves will come, and he wants to help the human side. Royce hurries back to check on Hadrian, and Arista interrogates Esrahaddon about her fathers death, which he admits he partly caused. She is angry and leaves.
\nThe Gilarabrywn shows up and Theron offers it the fake half of the sword. It accepts it and gives them Thrace, but then says anyone who has seen part of its name must die. Hadrian is hurt and Theron killed in the battle. Thrace is so upset she uses the two parts of the blade and kills it. Deacon Thomas sees this, and believing what the church was saying, proclaims her the Heir of Novron and the Empress. Then the rest of the church (Luis Guy and Saldur) return. They capture Mauvin and Hadrian, and keep them in a tent with Arista (who walked back) and Hilfred. Royce meets with Magnus, who agrees to help if he gets to touch Royce’s dagger Alvenstone, which he believes was made by a god. They steal horses and Royce, Hadrian, and Mauvin flee. Arista stays to care for Hilfred and Thrace.
\nWe listen to Saldur come up with a plan to make Thrace empress, then marry her off to someone they choose and hide her away. Royce asks Hadrian about a necklace he always wears and Hadrian says he got it from his father. That combined with his fighting ability make it seem like Hadrian is either the heir or the bodyguard of the heir. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"babel-kuang","title":"Babel","author":"R. F. Kuang","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":544,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Harper Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57945316-babel?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_5","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"504607","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9780063021426","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"babel-kuang-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/babel-kuang/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/17/2023","dateFinished":"3/30/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"First 10 of the year. This was an awesome standalone novel. Dove into a ton of cool language roots, comparing how words in different languages are related but also unique and different, as well as exploring many racial injustices and colonial attitudes present in the 1800’s. The last quarter of the book also completely switched up and was way more action packed and shocking. All around a really interesting book that I am very glad I read. I was hesitant at first because it sounds very historical fiction-y and the intro worried me, but I got into it quickly and enjoyed it more and more once Robin got to school.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"babylon-s-ashes-corey","title":"Babylon's Ashes","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":6,"pages":532,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25877663-babylon-s-ashes","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"99692","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780356504261","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"babylon-s-ashes-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/babylon-s-ashes-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/23/2026","dateFinished":"2/28/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Weak entry. Everything that made the last book the best in the series was missing from this one. Instead of focusing on the crew of the Rocinante we got a bunch of disparate POV’s from around the system. I understand the point, but I don’t care all that much about Michio Pa. Most of it just felt like a long, winding conclusion to the last book rather than doing anything itself.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Babylon’s Ashes
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #6
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Babylon%27s_Ashes#Plot
\nOn Earth, Namono (Nono) collects food from a government food truck to take home to her wife, pastor Annushka Volovodov, and their daughter Nami. Anna's leg has been badly wounded, but she wants to start having congregations at their house anyway. She tells Nono that she heard on the radio that the Free Navy tried to drop another rock on Earth, but the UN Navy caught it in time.
\nMichio Pa (OPA, former XO of the Behemoth) is in control of seizing ships at Medina Station (formerly the Behemoth, formerly the Mormon generation ship Nauvoo). The OPA outfits the station with rail guns (which should have enough force to move the station, but the physics dampening of the "slow zone" prevents this from happening). Marco Inaros asks her to come and meet with him and the other top brass of the Free Navy.
\nFilip Inaros, the son of Marco and Naomi Nagata, is quite depressed that his mother killed herself and Cyn. He finds out that he's the only one on the ship that didn't know that she survived and secretly rages.
\nJames Holden and his crew undergo intense interrogations on Luna. Chrisjen Avasarala asks them to check out the ship that seems to be coordinating the rock drops on Earth--with Bobbie Draper in command. Holden acquiesces.
\nPa meets with Anderson Dawes, some other Belter bigwigs, and Marco Inaros on his ship the Pella. While Marco spouts off his accomplishments, Pa questions to herself just how successful his plans really were, since Earth is still fending off attacks, Fred Johnson is still alive, and so was the Prime Minister of Mars. He says phase 3 is about to begin: he wants a system-wide Belter civilization, with spin stations, power plants, factories, and other extensive infrastructure.
\nThe Rocinante ("Roci") crew intercepts the Azure Dragon and puts a rail through it. Thinking they rendered the ship inoperable, they dock with it--but the OPA ship locks their airlocks together, with Bobbie stuck inside, then they begin attacking the Roci's hull using using EVA mech suits. Amos Burton and Clarissa Mao (called Peaches by Amos) go out to try and stop them, but in the process Peaches is shot multiple times. Just as she thinks she's about to die, Holden makes it out and provides backup. They get Clarissa back to the medbay just in time to save her, and afterwards Holden regrets putting her in danger, and starts treating her like an actual member of the crew.
\nDuring a bar altercation on Ceres Station, Filip shoots a security guard and lands himself in jail. Dawes tells Marco that he has to take his son off of Ceres and that he can never set foot there again, otherwise he will be tried and executed for the crime. Marco smiles deeply and promises him that Filip won't be on Ceres again.
\nThe Roci goes to Luna for repairs. Holden meets with Avasarala and she's brought all 8 of his parents to Luna as refugees despite their farm and energy system still, temporarily at least, operable. Holden tells Avasarala "I owe you".
\nBack in her personal quarters, Avasarala records another message to her husband Arjun Rao, who still has not been found, before heading to her numerous meetings. She meets with Martian Prime Minister Nathan Smith about the gate-eaten ships; he expects to be voted out of the position in short order and says he can't give her any data on them, but she offers him asylum if he does. Afterwards, she meets with her top advisers. Admiral Souther tells her that logs on the Azure Dragon indicate Marco Inaros having a meeting with the top OPA on Ceres presently; Avasarala decides to take the offensive and launch an attack.
\nPa feels guilty that her late girlfriend Samara Rosenberg (Sam, former Roci engineer) was killed by Captain Ashfordon the Behemoth, all because Pa had too stubbornly adhered to the chain of command, in spite of the warning signs. Later, she meets with Marco who says he's heard news that the UN is redeploying to Ceres. Instead of staying to fight, he wants to employ Afghani guerrilla tactics and flee the base, leaving the Belter civilians behind. PA gathers her marriage partners on her ship, the Connaught, and tells them how guilty she feels that she's stuck following the chain of command again when she knows it's wrong.
\nOn Luna, the Roci is being repaired with experimental hull plating created with technology derived from studies on the protomolecule; the crew are unsure of how it will hold up, but Holden tells them to embrace the future. The Roci will be an observation ship carrying Fred Johnson in the Earth/Mars/OPA counter attack on the Free Navy. Holden says goodbye to his parents.
\nOn Ganymede, Praxidike Meng (Prax) has been going about his life as normally as possible, as the people there declared that they don't care who runs things as long as their research can continue. One of the researchers under him wants to skip animal testing on a yeast GMO to help grow food faster for Earth, but he won't allow it. Later, in the middle of the night, station security gets him out of bed and takes him to the morgue to identify the researcher's body; she was shot 4 times. Prax believes the Free Navy killed her because she was trying to help Earth.
\nFilip has been confined to the Pella by Marco, and having shot the security guard while in a drunken stupor is weighing on him--and so is his impending punishment from Marco. Eventually the crew come back and they all leave Ceres behind; of the about 6 million inhabitants, only about 1.5 million can get off before Earth/Mars get there, leaving millions behind as refugees. Marco finally pops in to see Filip late one night, but never even mentions the shooting.
\nMars and Earth make an announcement that they've taken Ceres and are now helping the 4 million refugees left behind. After carefully planning out her mutiny offline using a grease crayon on the walls of her quarters, Pa contacts Carmondy, the captain of the Hornblower under her command, and tells him the new plans. He doesn't want to be included in the mutiny, and she tells him she's going to have to destroy his ship to make an example of him if he won't fall in line.
\nAlex Kamal is gets drunk in a bar on Ceres, shocked that the Free Navy abandoned it and is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Alex and Sandra Ip exchange googly eyes; Holden, ruminating about his dad's racism towards Belters, decides he needs to do something, so he begins recording little puff pieces about Belters that he sends to his reporter friend Monica Stuart; she broadcasts the videos to humanize the Belters. Fred Johnson wants Bobbie to be the new Mars ambassador, since the Martian government is in turmoil.
\nMarco receives Pa's video message saying she's defecting and he retreats inward. Rosenfeld Guoliang, part of the inner circle, gets anxious that Marco hasn't issued any orders to the fleet in response, and says he's going to start giving them himself soon. Marco eventually responds by ordering the destruction of the Witch of Endor, a ship following Pa. When Pa finds out the Endor was destroyed, she decides that the best course of action for still getting the necessary supplies to the Belters in need is to ask Fred Johnson (who she still vehemently hates) to protect her ships.
\nNaomi tells Bobbie that she can be a permanent part of the crew if she wants to be; Bobbie isn't sure about it since she's just been made Mars Junior Ambassador. They meet with Fred to discuss Pa's defection, and Fred wants none of it until Bobbie tears him a new one: the OPA isn't lining up behind him, afraid of joining a coalition with the inner planets. Holden tells Fred he's contacting Pa and Fred can get off the Roci if he doesn't like it.
\nAt Medina Station, the first ship built on the other side of the rings, the Proteus, has arrived, with Captain Montemayor commanding. Rumors are that Marco asked Winston Duarte (defected Martian military commander that got Marco many of his ships) to send the ship, but the Proteus says it's just there to help.
\nThe Roci leaves Ceres without Fred and his crew and rendezvous with Pa. Marco has destroyed another ship, the Munroe, that was under her command. Pa agrees to transfer control of the Minsky over to him--and Ceres launches missiles. The Roci shoots them down just in the nick of time; if Pa's ship would've fired, all hell would've broken loose. Holden insists that Fred didn't fire the missiles, Free Navy agents did, and Pa still agrees to the transfer. She gets the hell out of there. Marco puts out a video message telling the Belters she's a traitor working with the UN/Mars.
\nPrax is starting to feel the oppression of the Free Navy. When his subordinates ask for the data on their recently deceased colleague's partition, Prax puts it out there for them, unencrypted. Later, after everyone leaves, he logs in as a guest and sends the results to Earth and Luna.
\nFred asks Holden to take him to Tycho Station for an OPA meet-up. Avasarala chastises Fred for working with Pa, calling him and Pa pirates, but after he tells her about all the resources he'll be sending because of the collaboration, she says she guesses they're all pirates now.
\nWhen the Roci leaves Ceres for Tycho, Marco attacks; 3 of his ships against the Roci. Fred calls Ceres for help and one of the ships breaks off to intercept; Bobbie uses some fancy maneuvering to take out the two support ships with the Roci's railgun. The Pella, however, gets wise to her tactics and dodges the rails every time--but Bobbie notices it dodges the same way every time, so she shoots some PDC rounds and missiles in the dodge path, then fires the railgun. The Pella dodges straight into the PDC rounds and is forced to retreat. Bobbie fires missiles; Holden, video-conferencing with Marco, sees Filip and, realizing he can't bring himself to kill Naomi's son, disarms the missile right as it's about to hit.
\nDuring the battle, the high-G evasive maneuvers cause Fred Johnson to have a stroke and die. Holden sends Avasarala a video message explaining what happened and she has a mini-breakdown. She eventually pulls herself back together and replies to Holden that he needs to make the OPA meeting work in Fred's place.
\nOn the Pella, Filip is gutted when he finds out Marco blames their defeat on his gunning.
\nPa finds out from Sanjrani that since she diverged from Marco's original plan, there are barely enough supplies to last the Belt, Earth, and Mars 3-3.5 years.
\n14-15 ships from the other side of the rings, coordinated by Duarte through someone at Medina Station, come back through the gates and attack the station--though they're all destroyed by the newly mounted rail guns. From intercepted data, it appears that not all the ships made it through, however.
\nHolden meets with the OPA heads and tells them he wants to take over for Fred and enact his plan (even though Fred never actually told Holden his plan). Anderson Dawes, newly defected from Marco's inner circle, shows up to the meeting uninvited and Holden, wanting to appear strong in front of them, tells him he can't be in the meeting since he wasn't formally invited. Dawes later convinces the others to give Holden a shot, even though they all seem reluctant.
\nWhen going over the post-battle logs, Amos notices that Holden disarmed the torpedoes. He confronts Holden about it and asks him if he's really the best man for the job; Holden says "no", but that he was given the job and will follow through next time. Amos says that's a good enough answer for him.
\nThe Pella goes to Callisto for repairs (where Filip stole the Martian stealth coating and dropped the first rocks) and Filip is really starting to feel the weight of everything he's done. He's about to confess to Karal when the newsfeed announces that he killed Fred Johnson during their battle. Marco gives him a look that says "we did it," and Filip realizes that when something good happens Marco will always take credit, but anything bad is Filip's fault. Filip can't stop thinking about what Naomi told him about Marco putting blood on her hands too.
\nWhile Holden works with the OPA leaders, Alex continues hooking up with Sandra Ip, even staying in her quarters. It comes as no surprise when Holden tells him later that they'll be shipping out in a few hours.
\nAvasarala meets with the Martian military leader to discuss taking Medina Station: she wants to send the Rocinante and the ice hauler Giambattista, packed with 4,000 smaller ships--most of them decoys--to take out the station's railguns.
\nThe Coalition fleet launches their first major offensive against the Free Navy against all of the Navy's bases--the largest attack in history, involving hundreds of ships--mostly just to draw Marco's attention away while the Roci and the Giambattista try to reach the gate.
\nThe Free Navy and Pinkwater Security finally come for Prax, having discovered that his putting Karvonide's data on an unencrypted partition was how it got leaked to Earth. Certain he's going to die, he confesses that it was his fault for putting it out there; luckily for him, that's when the attack begins, and they let him go.
\nPa takes the Connaught and 2 other ships to attack Pallas base. She systematically removes the station's defenses, points one of her ship's drive cones at the dock, and tells the station that if any Free Navy ships try to attack, she'll slag the whole dock. She tells Rosenfeld Guoliang (in command at the base) that this is his chance to fix his fuck up of following Marco, and he agrees.
\nMarco defends against an attack by Micah al-Dujaili (a former member of the inner circle whose brother died because of Marco), destroying al-Dujaili's ship and a few others, while suffering only minor casualties to his own fleet. Sanjriani again warns him that the fighting is going to make it nearly impossible for the Belt to subsist, but Marco shrugs it off. Later, Marco calls a meeting with all his head people and declares he wants to take Tycho, the jewel of the Belt, in a counterattack. Everyone nods their heads except Flip, who finally has the balls to confronts his dad and asks why his entire inner circle has abandoned him if this is what he planned all along? Marco tousles his hair, treating Filip like he's just a stupid kid acting up, and Filip storms out. Marco's advisers inform him that the Roci isn't actually on Tycho and is instead transporting an ice hauler headed for the ring gate; Marco starts to panic.
\nThe 2 Free Navy ships coming from Ganymede to head off the Roci launch their attack, but the Roci and the Giambattista both take minimal damage. The thousands of small ships deploy from the ice hauler start entering the gate. The station's railguns and other defenses take out most of the thousands of attacking ships, but don't realize that the ships that appear to be "malfunctioning" were actually intentionally drifting toward the ring station where the railguns are mounted.
\nBobbie, Amos, and her Belter squad land their shoddy cargo container/shuttle on the surface of the alien station, where they meet stiff resistance. Unable to attack the railgun's defenders head on, Bobbie takes the shuttle back up and uses it to dive-bomb the railgun she thinks might house the main reactor, then she launches the rocket from her Martian armor suit at the enemy attackers. The station turns an angry green color and seems to shrink, shrugging off the metal bands holding the railguns on and effectively rendering them inoperable. Bobbie and Amos capture or kill the defenders and find that they're not Free Navy but Duarte's Martians.
\nThe Roci and the Giambattista make it through the gate and destroy their 2 pursuers. Captain Samuels of the Free Navy on Medina surrenders peacefully.
\nWhen Marco finds out that the Roci is the only ship guarding Medina, he rallies all the ships he can find, about 15 in total, to intercept, telling Filip that his plan is finally coming to fruition. Filip has finally had enough of his dad's flip-flopping bullshit and instead of returning to the Pella, he recycles his hand terminal and his gun and goes to find work somewhere else under the surname "Nagata."
\nDuring the battle for Titan, Pa was badly burned and 2 of her spouses killed when the Connaught was hit by a torpedo. Avasarala send Pa a message saying that Marco has sent his ships to Medina and wants Pa's help saving it; Pa tells her that she's sorry, but she's got no ships left to send.
\nNaomi reads through the station's logs and finally notices a pattern in the 2 dozen ships that disappeared going through the gates; she thinks if they load up enough mass on the Giambattista and send it through the gate fast enough, they can create the energy wake that will swallow up Marco's fleet when he comes through--as long as he comes through within a window of about 10 minutes after sending the Giambattista through.
\nAs Marco's fleet nears, the Giambattista enters the gate and just as Naomi predicted, Marco's entire fleet blinks out of existence as they come through the gate; Marco senses a dark shape coming for him in the space between atoms.
\n6 months later, the war is all but over. Mars is still pissed about Winston Duarte's defection (he provided Marco ships so Marco would leave him alone in the Laconia gate). Everyone else from Marco's inner circle--Rosenfeld, Dawes, Sanjriani--are captured or dead. Avasarala holds a meeting with all the important representatives of Earth, Mars (new Prime Minister Emily Richards presiding), and the Belt where they outline their new plan for what Holden dubs the "space guild", the new role the Belters will play in trafficking ships and resources back and forth through the gates. Avasarala nominates Holden as the new leader, but he immediately declines and nominates a true Belter, someone with the principles and skills required, Michio Pa.
\nPastor Anna, Nami, and Nono are on a ship called the Abbey heading to the colony on Eudoxia.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"banished-wisehart","title":"Banished","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"Street Rats of Aramoor","seriesNumber":1,"pages":351,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Michael Wisehart","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53662446-banished?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.8","numGoodreadsRatings":"3321","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780998150536","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"banished-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/banished-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/8/2023","dateFinished":"6/11/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"The fourth book in the Aldoran chronicles came out recently, and at the start it says you have to read this book first, so I read this book first. It was solid middle grade fantasy, and it is cool to learn about Aryion’s backstory, but the target audience is a little young for me. I was surprised how far into the story it got before he actually got banished (Spoilers maybe? It is the title)
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"before-they-are-hanged-abercrombie","title":"Before They Are Hanged","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The First Law","seriesNumber":2,"pages":441,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24958073-before-they-are-hanged","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"224684","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316387354","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"before-they-are-hanged-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/before-they-are-hanged-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/26/2023","dateFinished":"9/6/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Awesome
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"best-served-cold-abercrombie","title":"Best Served Cold","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"First Law World","seriesNumber":4,"pages":534,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2315892.Best_Served_Cold","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"114813","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780575082458","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"best-served-cold-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/best-served-cold-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/6/2024","dateFinished":"4/17/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I really liked everything about this, except I felt like the middle (like numbers 4-6 of the 7) kind of stretched out. But Abercrombie continues to cement himself as one of my favorite authors. Love seeing the characters you already met keep popping back up. I also didn’t check what order to read the standalones in and just got lucky.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"between-two-fires-buehlman","title":"Between Two Fires","author":"Christopher Buehlman","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":432,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Ace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54408033-between-two-fires","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"56056","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Historical Fantasy","isbn":"9798662731349","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"between-two-fires-buehlman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/between-two-fires-buehlman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"11/30/2025","dateFinished":"12/10/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"The ending made me happy. Clearly a phenomenally well written book, just not completely my style for most of it, especially the middle section, but the start and especially the end were wonderful.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Between Two Fires
\nChristopher Buehlman
Oh man I forgot to do this one for almost a month
\nSer Thomas and a band of ruffians come upon a donkey outside a barn. The black plague is ravaging the french countryside during the 13th century and they kill the donkey and cook it in the barn. Eventually a young woman walks in and tells them they killed her donkey. The leader of the group is going to rape her but Thomas stalls him so she runs away. Later the leader sends another member out to get the girl but Thomas then kills everyone present but the girl. They go on the road together and the girl claims she can see angels.
\nThey come to a small town and a local priest gives them wine but wants Thomas to help him kill a monster in the river. Thomas (an ex knight) agrees and kills it but almost dies. The girl saves him. She seems to have some sort of divine blessing and says she needs to get to Avignon to see the pope but is not sure why. The three take a long, dangerous, winding journey there, encountering many demons, angels, mortals, and learning about their own backstories and moral failings. Eventually the priest dies but Thomas and the girl reach the city and find the pope to have been replace by Beazelbub the demon. In the end thomas kills some demons and the lord awakens and the devil is thrown back down and the world is saved and the girl is the second coming of christ.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"beware-of-chicken-farmer","title":"Beware of Chicken","author":"Casual Farmer","series":"Beware of Chicken","seriesNumber":1,"pages":485,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Podium","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60888209-beware-of-chicken?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"11228","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Cozy","isbn":"9781039413993","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"beware-of-chicken-farmer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/beware-of-chicken-farmer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/1/2025","dateFinished":"7/10/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Free book for pool, not very good. Farmer slice of life progression.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"beyond-the-shadows-weeks","title":"Beyond the Shadows","author":"Brent Weeks","series":"Night Angel","seriesNumber":3,"pages":689,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3754026-beyond-the-shadows","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.54","numGoodreadsRatings":"104555","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316033664","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"beyond-the-shadows-weeks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/beyond-the-shadows-weeks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/9/2022","dateFinished":"12/12/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"So much better than the last book I almost refuse to believe they are from the same series. By far my favorite track on the project. Characters finally started actually evolving and growing, the action was frequent and well written, and it both separated and then brought back together multiple plot lines without feeling forced. The last 200 pages I read in like an hour I was enjoying it so much. A great conclusion to an overall not great series in my opinion, maybe a little to much “everythig worked out perfectly” considering how dark parts of the books are but still good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"black-sand-baron-kirrin","title":"Black Sand Baron","author":"Kyle Kirrin","series":"The Ripple System","seriesNumber":2,"pages":835,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Portal Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59450543-black-sand-baron","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"3419","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781913695286","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"black-sand-baron-kirrin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/black-sand-baron-kirrin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/4/2022","dateFinished":"10/12/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Very similar to the first book, maybe even a little better.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"black-sun-roanhorse","title":"Black Sun","author":"Rebecca Roanhorse","series":"Between Earth and Sky","seriesNumber":1,"pages":454,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Saga Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50892360-black-sun","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"54711","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Religious","isbn":"9781534437678","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"black-sun-roanhorse-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/black-sun-roanhorse/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/10/2026","dateFinished":"2/14/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Short book, got a lot better as it went on. I would recommend not doing the audiobook for this one, took a lot out of the story. The writing is solid, but just a pretty bland story for most of the first half but then shoves a ton of action in the back half. It was enough to make me want to finish the series someday, but better pacing could have made this a way better book. I also went on a nice long walk when I was finishing it and that always helps.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Black Sun
\nRebecca Roanhorse
\nBetween Earth and Sky #1
The People of the Meridian
\nThe Obregi Mountains
\nSerapio - Crow God reborn
\nSaaya - Searpio’s Mother
\nMarcal - Serapio’s father
\nPaadeh - Serapio’s first tutor
\nEedi - Serapio’s second tutor, a spearmaiden
\nPowageh - Serapio’s third tutor, a knife
City of Cuecola
\nXiala - Captain, Sailor, Teek in origin
\nCallo, First mate, sailor
\nPatu - Cook, sailor
\nLoob - sailor
\nBaat - sailor
\nPooc - sailor
\nAtan - sailor
\nBalam - Merchant Lord
\nPech - Merchant lord
City of Tova
\nThe Watchers:
\nNaranpa - Sun priest, order of oracles (hawaa)
\nIktan - Priest of Knives, Order of knives (Tsiyo)
\nAbah - Priest of succor, order of the healing society (seegi)
\nHaisan - Priest of records, order of historical Society (Ta Dissa)
\nKiutue - Former Sun Priest ( deceased)
\nEche - Dedicant, order of oracles
\nKwaya - Dedicant, order of the healing society
\nDeeya - servant
\nLeaya - servant
Sky Made Clans:
\nYatliza - Matron, carrion crow
\nOkoa, Yatliza’s son, carrion crow
\nEsa - yatliza’s daughter, carrion crow
\nChaiya - Captain of the shield, Carrion Crow
\nMaaka - Leader of the Odohaa, Carrion Crow
\nAshk - stablehand - carrion crow
\nFeyoue - healer, carrion crow
\nKutssah - giant crow
\nBenundah - giant crow
\nPaida - giant crow
\nIeyoue - MAtron, water strider
\nAishe - water strider
\nZash - Water strider
\nTyode - water strider
\nPaipai - giant water strider
\nNuuma - Matron , golden eagle
\nPeyanna - Matron, winged serpent
The Dry Earth (Clanless):
\nDenaochi - Brother to Naranpa
\nAkel - Brother to Naranpa
\nJeyma - Father to Naranpa
\nZataya - witch
Serapio is a boy, and his mother has told him he is going to be the Crow god reborn. She gives him a numbing agent then carves his “Hey-Han” (Audiobook spelling), basically scars to make it look like he has crow features (wings and beak). This is an old tradition of the Carrion Crow clan. She also stitches his eyes shut. His father starts banging on the door trying to save his son but his mother then kills herself to complete a ritual.
\nXiala wakes up with a hangover in prison in Cuecola. She sleeps with women which is frowned upon a bit, but also pushed a merchant lord (very powerful dudes) off his ship. Lord Balam comes to bail her out but says she has to crew a ship for him and escort a passenger (adult serapio) to Tova city before the “convergence” (eclipse + winter solstice) which is in 20 days. People are also racist to her because she is a Teek and has magic powers. Her first mate Callo is racist to her, but they take off on a boat.
\nNara (Naranpa) was born in the dirty, gross, poor dry earth region, but has worked her way up to being the sun priest. People in the “sky made clans” view those who live below as second class humans, so it is shocking she made it this far and has caused some ripples. Her family is all dead except her brother Denaochi who is now a crime bos, but she has not seen him in 23 years. She is out caring for people when she is almost killed by an assassin with a Hey-han, making it seem like carrion crow is behind this, but her best friend / body guard / ex Ichtan saves her life then says lets think this over more before jumping to conclusions.
\nThroughout the book we get flashbacks of Serapio training. His father mostly ignores him due to his scarring and blindness, but he has three tutors of prophecy to forge a new vessel for the crow god. He learns many things but mostly how to be a really good fighter, even blind. He can also do some magic and see through the eyes of crows.
\nXiala uses her magic to propel the ship at night while the crew rests, and begins to form a friendship with Serapio in the meantime.
\nNara is trying to pass reforms in Tova to help out the less fortunate and generally be a decent human, but faces pushback from a lot of people. Another priest, Abah, who is only 19, outwits her several times and makes her seem like an idiot and is really annoying. The matron of Carrion Crow dies so now they have to deal with that along with the convergence coming up.
\nOkoa, who has been at a war college for a long time, returns to Tova when his mother dies to take up his role as his sister’s shield. He should not have had any POV chapters.
\nXiala and her crew are doing ok, some tension, but then a storm comes they have to fight it, so she has them tie together. Her and 2 dudes get washed over so she cuts one free and uses her magic to transform into a mermaid and save the second guy, but he was already drowned. When she returns to the ship the crew hate her and lock her up with Serapio. Buyt eventually the cook gets sick and dies and more people are getting sick so they come to her for help but some people still say they should just kill her. It gets dicey and then someone tries to cut her throat so Serapio goes crow mode and him and lots of birds kill the entire crew. Every man.
\nNara is facing more and more challenges in the priesthood. Ichtan seems to be keeping secrets from her. Then at the crow funeral, Okoa is just trying to say hi and shake her hand but Ichtan attacks him and claims he meant to hurt Nara. There are riots in the streets and stuff. Many in the priest hood seem to want to keep crow clan as the enemies (some events the night of knives happened a long time ago where abunch of crows were killed).
\nSerapio saves Xiala and they grow even closer, eventually reaching a port town where they find a barge to take them up river to Tova in time for the convergence. Xiala tries to do sex on Serapio but he says no. They make friends with the barge people and the owner knows stuff about clan carrion crow.
\nAbah maneuvers the priests and gets Nara stripped of her title basically and a rich dumb kid put in her place. Nara sneaks out and climbs down her tower to “The Coyotes Maw”, where she was born, and goes to visit her brother. It seems they used cocoa beans for currency? Denaochi introduces her to his witch Zataya, who gives Nara a necklace so she can find her. Nara returns to her tower and eventually Ichtan fully betrays her and takes the sun priest mask and leaves.
\nXiala learns the truth of Serapio’s mission, and understands he is going to die to birth the crow god. She is devastated and almost convinces him to live with her, but he must do it. They spend one last day together in Tova before Serapio leaves to prepare for the Convergence tomorrow, where he plans to kill the sun priest while the sun is weak.
\nAbah comes to Nara’s room and uses 5 men to kidnap her and threaten to kill her. She wanted to pin it on Carrion Crow, but Ichtan is w orking hard to find and save Nara so they end up just planning to slit her throat, but Nara manages to jump off a bridge to save herself. Her body washes up on the shore and the witch finds her and prepares a ritual to revive her.
\nSerapio summons Okoa’s big crow Benundah and uses it to fly close to the priests during the convergence. He cuts his eye stitches and speaks his true name and the crow god takes over his body, killing a ton of people and all of the priests, but Nara is still the true sun priest and he senses he failed.
\nXiala uses her magic to try to calm the crowds that are rioting and dying.
\nBenundah takes Okoa to where the priests are all dead, and he grabs Serapio’s dying body (Covered in dead crows) and takes him back to crow home or whatever.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"blackflame-wight","title":"Blackflame","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":3,"pages":370,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36274089-blackflame","avgGoodreadsRating":"9","numGoodreadsRatings":"39598","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780989671781","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"blackflame-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/blackflame-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/29/2023","dateFinished":"6/6/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I received my Kindle today and have 3 months of Kindle unlimited, which has the books for me to finish a good number of series that I have read the initial book for so I will be trying to bust a lot of those out. This was the best book in the series so far. They keep getting better and more interesting as I go on, and all of Will Wight’s ebooks were free a few days ago so I will for sure finish this series. Lindon keeps getting stronger and Eithan is still cool so I am excited to keep reading.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"blood-meridian-mccarthy","title":"Blood Meridian","author":"Cormac McCarthy","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":351,"yearPublished":1985,"publisher":"Vintage","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28715.Blood_Meridian_or_the_Evening_Redness_in_the_West","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"195164","genre":"Historical Fiction","subgenre":"Western","isbn":"9780679641049","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"blood-meridian-mccarthy-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/blood-meridian-mccarthy/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/8/2025","dateFinished":"4/13/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A really good book, there were multiple points that I kept thinking it was overrated and didn’t get it, but then kept getting yanked back in. The prose really enhances the brutal story
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"blood-of-a-novice-ashura","title":"Blood of a Novice","author":"Davis Ashura","series":"The Eternal Ephemera","seriesNumber":1,"pages":774,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Dusum","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62617415-blood-of-a-novice","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"543","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781960031914","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"blood-of-a-novice-ashura-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/blood-of-a-novice-ashura/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/28/2026","dateFinished":"5/7/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"An incredibly painful one to get through. What makes it worse is the author has some talent, the writing is passable and the progression system has some promise, but everything put together was just bad. The biggest issue is this book was twice as long as it should have been. I actually found myself mildly interested at points in the back half. If the same amount of content got properly edited and trimmed down it could be an ok read. A couple of small things that bothered me a ton: constantly calling Cyra / Professor Maharaini and the stupid switch between the two / internal debate that was brought up way way way too often. Then the fact that this felt like an anti drinking ad? We see Cam’s POV as a kid, then it skips forward a few years and he is a young adult, but in that time we skipped he got addicted to drinking, and that will get brought up every paragraph for the rest of the book. Both of these issues (and it happens with other aspects) is just the author basically repeated the same sentences 50 times and it wastes space, gets more and more annoying, and distracts from the story. Overall, there are much better books that cover the same stuff.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Blood of a Novice
\nDavis Ashura
\nThe Eternal Ephemera #1
Blood of a Novice Summary
\nCam Folde sees two sages fight when he is 5 years old. Sage is one of the highest advancement levels before you reach divinity. Seeing this fight inspires him or something. Fast forward to him as a teenager, and him and his group of friends Tern, Jordyl, and Lylia, “dive a pathway” together. Pathways are kind of like magical dungeons that help people advance in the world of Ephemera. In the pathway they meet a Crown named Cyra. She helps them escape and says it was stupid for some “neophites” to enter a pathway alone. Before they can leave an ephemeral wind kills Tern and injures Cam. Luckily, Master Winder (One of the sages Cam saw fight a long time ago), is there and helps heal Cam by making him take Plasminia as his primary tang.
\nEphemera is the magical stuff that makes up the world, and by processing and refining it you can progress from Neophite > Novice > Acolyte > Adept > Glory > Crown > Sage > Divinity. There are 4 “tangs”, Kinestia (Body), Synapsia (Mind), Sinestra? (Spirit), and Plasminia (No one really knows). Taking Plasminia makes Cam incredibly weak and he can’t do much on his own, yet still somehow grows super tall and muscular. Cam falls into drinking because he is depressed (His father and older brother are the town drunks), but his sister helps pull him to sobriety after a couple years.
\nCam gets the opportunity to dive an Adept pathway, which is one of the only things that can help him. He goes with their teacher from the town (Travers), and his friends Jordyl and Lylia. He enters the pathway and an Awakened Squirrel named Honor helps him break down a fruit and get his other 3 tangs to novice. Honor dies by helping him do this. Cam exits the portal and they return to Travers, but just outside town are attacked and Lylia is killed by “Rakshasa” wolves. Rakshasas are those who choose to advance their ephemeral advancement by stealing it from other living things, they are evil. Shortly after this Cam get bullied out of town by everyone calling him a drunk and a curse.
\nOn the road he meets Pan, an awakened Panda who is headed to the city of Nexus to join the Ephemeral academy. While they travel Master Winder shows up and asks Cam what happened. He offers to sponsor them and teleports them to the academy. Most of the students are nobles, who are rich and look down on country folk (Cam’s country accent is a talking point for half the book). They join Light Squad with Avdija?, Jade, and Weld. Light Squad (or Squad Screwup) is the only non noble born / sponsored squad in the academy. Their professors are an Awakened Turtle (Professor Chivane), Cyra (The woman from Cam’s first pathway), Professor Gray (Who knows genuinely everything), and Professor Wyrm. They begin to learn and advance.
\nCam works extra hard because he starts so far behind his classmates, and ends up becoming the most advanced one of them. Weld is annoying and Cam really dislikes him. They face various tests such as lancing (destroying) fake boils. Boils are like summoning stones for Rakshasas? Throughout the year Light Squad learns to work as a team and Cam becomes their leader due to his strategic mind. They beat a test called “The Unwinnable” and are the best squad in history. Master Winder comes and takes them out into the world to lance a real boil, and they succeed. They get challenged by the Nobles who don’t like losing and beat them.
\nTheir success leads to a noble, Card Wulver, joining their squad. At first they don’t like him but then he becomes their friend. Towards the end of the year, Master Winder takes them to a big engagement with a bunch of forces on both sides. Cam advances to Acolyte and him and Cyra lance the boil. Overall, Cam becomes the greatest student the academy has ever seen and everyone loves him, and he pulls his squad along with him. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"blood-of-liscor-aba","title":"Blood of Liscor","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":8,"pages":1684,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61880401-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"1948","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"blood-of-liscor-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/blood-of-liscor-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/29/2025","dateFinished":"2/18/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Good
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"blood-over-bright-haven-wang","title":"Blood Over Bright Haven","author":"M. L. Wang","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":448,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208430658-blood-over-bright-haven","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"152555","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9780593873359","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"blood-over-bright-haven-wang-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/blood-over-bright-haven-wang/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/7/2024","dateFinished":"7/13/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Really good book. The first third is perfection. Saw the “big reveal” coming pretty early but still enjoyed it. ML Wang is an incredible author, writes good characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"blood-song-ryan","title":"Blood Song","author":"Anthony Ryan","series":"Raven's Shadow","seriesNumber":1,"pages":591,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Anthony Ryan","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13569581-blood-song","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"92729","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Religious","isbn":"9781466085664","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"blood-song-ryan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/blood-song-ryan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/2/2026","dateFinished":"4/14/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A great book that left me unsure how the series will continue. Could be a standalone but left the world open for more growth. This had some great worldbuilding throughout, without ever dumping information at you. It’s biggest flaw would probably be Veilan being too perfect. His connection to the Blood Song aids him in all things, but he never once makes a mistake in the book. The drama and conflict comes from watching those around him and how he changes the lives of others. I will continue the series at some point but didn’t end on a cliffhanger that makes me want to dive into the next one.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Blood Song
\nAnthony Ryan
\nRaven’s Shadow #1
Blood Song Summary
\nLord Vernier of the Alpieran Empire is introduced to the prisoner known as The Hope Killer. He has many names, Vaelin Al Sorna, Darkblade, Younghawk, Sword of the Unified Realm, but in this empire he killed the future emperor who was called the Hope. Lord Vernier is part of an escort taking him to fight a champion in the Meldinian Isles, where Vaelin is supposed to die. As they travel aboard a ship Lord Vernier, a chronicler and historian, asks to record Vaelin’s story.
\nVaelin Al Sorna is the son of the Battle Lord of the United Realms. His father worked his way up from a commoner to be honored by King Janus. Vaelin’s mother disliked how often his father had to go and fight wars and killed people. Shortly after his mother died his father brought him to the Sixth Order, a religious convent where they trained warriors. His father left him and Vaelin was absorbed into the order with a class of other 10 year old boys. They are taught they have no outside family and their only family now are their brothers and sisters of The Faith.
\nThe Faith does not have a God, and says that a God is a lie. There are six orders all specializing in something else. Vaelin is part of a small cadre with other boys, notably Norta, a spoiled noble’s son who hates being her; Caenis, a quiet boy who admires the king and royalty; Dentos, a whore’s son; Barkus, a blacksmith’s son; and a couple others. Together they train and become talented in all forms of combat, riding, woodcraft, and survival. Each year the trainees are given a test. The first year is test of the run. The boys are dropped off randomly along a river a good distance from the sixth order house, and have to return before the following dawn or they are kicked out of the order.
\nVaelin gets an arrow shot at him, but an internal sense warns him and he dodges, and returns fire, killing a man. He is on guard and sneaks up on a fire he finds, and overhears two men talking about how they are hunting him. They killed and beheaded one of his groupmates instead. A large wolf appears and kills the men, and Vaeling buries the head of his friend then returns to complete the test. He meets with the Aspect of the Order, and is told that for now they must lie about what happened and say it was a bear attack. Vaelin hates lying but does anyway. The second year is the test of the wild. Each boy is left alone in the forest for a week during the winter and has to survive.
\nVaelin makes a small shelter, but a terrible snow storm hits. He hears voices on the wind and goes to investigate and finds a man and young woman who he helps carry to his shelter. The next morning he learns the man is Eloan? And the girl also has a name. The girl is mute but Vaelin can read sign language since one of the masters at the sixth order uses it to teach. He learns from Eloan that the girl is a “denier”, someone who practices a different religion than the Faith. Deniers are punished and killed without exception, and Eloan helps them flee to other places. Vaelin spies some soldiers on horses nearby, and offers to help the pair. He takes the girls scarf to get her scent and runs in the opposite direction. The hounds chase him and his kills two before the third submit. One of the soldiers is about to kill him when Vaelin realizes they are off the Order. Another brother from the Fourth order shows up and deescalates the situation. Vaelin tells them he met the pair but did not know they were outlaws. They tell him the girl is a witch who practices “The Dark”, with magic that can control people if she touches them, but she never touched Vaelin. The dogs are Valerian Slave Hounds, and since he killed the third ones pack leader it will now be loyal to him. He names it scratch and completes the test. Scratch hangs out the rest of the book.
\nThroughout his training thus far Vaelin has seemed to have an incredibly strong intuition for when he is in danger and what the right course is. It is starting to seem magical. Barkus returns and tells them he found another one of their group dead in the test, so it is down to just Vaelin, Norta, Barkus, Dentos, and Caenis. During their horse training one day Vaelin meets a girl who he learns is his father’s bastard daughter with another woman, and they form a connection despite only talking once. There is a summertide fair they are allowed to attend, but Vaelin and Norta are not allowed to go due to brawling or something. Norta sneaks out anyway and Vaelin chases after him, learning on the way that the King’s Minister (Norta’s Father) is going to be hung for corruption. This is why Norta was not allowed to go and Vaelin has to stop him before he does something stupid. He catches Norta in the middle of the city and they are forced to injure and beat some members of the Realm Guard in their escape, earning notoriety.
\nVaelin got help from a street urchin named Frentis when looking for Norta in the city. He gave the boy a few throwing knives for help (The order uses them as currency of a sort), and told the kid to come by the Order house some nights for training with them. Frentis does not show up for a long time, but eventually comes and says he threw a knife into the eye of the cities crime boss, now One-eyed Harold. Frentis joins the order to stay safe, and begins to excel at everything.
\nEach brother of the order is sent to spend a week with another order of their choosing. Most pick the fourth order since they are also warriors, but Vaelin picks the fifth since he feels called there.
\nThe fifth order specializes in healing, and he meets Sister Sharon, a promising young healer. At first she is standoffish, but he saves her from a criminal, Gallus the climber, and they begin to become friends. On his last night in the order, another young female healer comes to his room and starts making advances on him, but a wolf howls outside and he senses something is wrong. She slashes at him with a dagger but he is able to deflect it so it only skims his shoulder. He restrains her and asks who she is. She says “Once there were seven”, then takes a poison pellet in her mouth and dies. He is running to save the aspect who he suspects is in danger, but the blade was poisoned so he is starting to succumb. He kills three men, the last one at the Aspects door, but saves Aspect Aleara’s life. Vaelin has a long battle with the poison but Sister Sharon saves him. At one point he thinks he is dreaming but tells her she is beautiful and they should run away together. In thanks, Aspect Aleara tells him some answers. His mother was a very promising healer in the order but left to marry his father. Also his mother is the one who asked he get sent to the sixth order. His whole life Vaelin has hated his father for this but now is confused and conflicted.
\nBack at the order house we learn all of the Aspects of the orders were attacked, with only the Aspect of the fourth dying. Vaelin’s father also resigned as Battle Lord and the king granted him a boon, he requested his son back. But since the King can not command the Orders of the Faith, Vaelin is allowed to refuse which he does. Vaelin and his team forge themselves their own starsteel swords, Barkus is a good smith.
\nFrentis gets kidnapped during his test of the wild and they have to go save him. Harold one eye, the guy Frentis hit with a throwing knife way back, took him. They find him in a secret basement carving symbols into Frentis’ skin. He uses magic to freeze Veilan and conjure a wall of fire in front of the others. He has been drinking blood and other dark stuff to gain power. He suddenly seems to speak like someone else to Veilan, like an entirely different being controlled him. Then Caenis jumps through the fake fire wall and kills him and they save Frentis.
\nThe final test before they will be full Brothers of the Order is the test of the sword, where they will face three convicted criminals in an arena and have to kill them. Master Solace has been training them nonstop in the sword. Vaelin is the best. They begin the test and Vaelin goes last. He comes into the arena where spectators watch, and kill two of his opponents. The last one is a skilled swordsmen and Vaelin senses something is not right. He asks the man if he is actually a murderer (What he was told), and the man only attacks. Vaelin is forced to stab him and the man dies talking about his wife. Vaelin confronts Master Solace since he sure that man was no criminal, and they get angry and Vaelin’s cadre are forced to restrain him and take him away. They all passed the test and are full brothers. They go drinking, but Vaelin leaves and meets Eloan, the man from the test of the wild. He confirms the the man Vaelin killed was no murderer, but forced to fight or his wife would be carted off as a denier.
\nVaelin goes to the castle and requests an audience with the king. He is famous enough by now as the Battle Lords son, the savior of an Aspect, and when he rescued Norta, that he is granted audience. The king agrees to punish the corrupt lords who made this happen, but in return Vaelin is going to go to the Cumbraelin forest to fight rebels and a certain young lord who is causing trouble will die. As Vaelin is leaving Princess Lerna meets him and he learns when he was a boy they were supposed to marry, that is why his mother wanted him sent to the Order. Lerna is smart and seems power hungry and Vaelin does not like her.
\nFast forward to him and his Brothers helping a young Lord Al Hestian lead a group of soldiers against some Cumbraelan rebels led by the denier Black Arrow. King Jannus had told Veilan that the young lord was an oaf and it would be better for the kingdom if he died, but in reality he is kind and charming and a good leader of men. Eventually they attack the main bandit camp, and Vaelin is about to shoot Al Hestian with a bow, but the wolf appears and he does not, instead saving his life and helping with the attack. They win the battle, but the lord gets shot with an arrow right at the end. Vaelin goes feral and by himself chases down the archer, who he assumes is the leader Black Arrow.
\nHe kills “Black Arrow” in a clearing and then has a vision. A lady with solid red eyes and no pupils appears to him in a vision, and tells him she is of a mysterious magical order and she can kind of send visions through time. She names Veilan the Raven’s Shadow since ravens symbolize change and Veilan brings change. She also tells him the wolf and his intuition are called the Blood Song, and are a form of magic. Veilan comes out of his trance, and Barkus is there. He recovered some documents from “Black Arrow” written by the fief lord of Cumbrael allowing the holder free passage. The young Lord Al Hestian dies (he is slowly dying and Veilan slits his throat to ease his suffering), asking Veilan to give his love to Princess Lerna. He came on this mission to win the king's favor to ask for her hand in marriage.
\nVeilan is pretty angry about this and returns to court to confront the king. He meets princess Lerna and the younger brother of Lord Al Hestian. He realizes him and Lerna are at fault for his death, and he dislikes her even more. The younger brother wants to go to war to avenge his brother but Veilan warns him not to. The King orders the Fief Lord of Cumbrael to come to court, but before he can his younger son, known in the fief as the “Trueblade” kills his father and starts a coup on King Jannus. Veilan is forced to war with his brothers, the younger Al Hestian marching with them. Before they left Veilan was named a Sword of the Realm and given his own regiment to command. Frentis also graduates and becomes a full brother I think around here.
\nKing Jannus names the father Lord Al Hestian battle lord. The man hates Veilan for letting his son die. Veilan and his cadre lead his regiment into a secret back path to attack the keep where the Trueblade rests. They learn according to the Cumbrean faith, Vaelin is the “Dark Blade”, the anti true blade. They storm the keep and Veilan corners the trueblade, but he has Sister Sharon captive. Veilan puts down his sword and talks to the man. Suddenly the same voice that spoke from Harold One Eye speaks through the lord and he seems confused when it ends. Veilan is convincing him to surrender when Barkus shows up and throws his new axe into his chest. Veilan is pissed, but realizes Barkus did it to save him. He talks to Sharon and they become closer, although she does not like that he kills people. They stay at the captured keep for a while.
\nDentos and Norta rode out to tell the king news and report to the battle lord. When they did, the battle lord still planned to execute all the prisoners despite the King ending the war. Norta took objection, and then the Battle lord insulted him and his dead father a number of times until Norta attacked him. He cut off his hand and would have killed him but Dentos stopped him and Norta fled. When Veilan hears he goes to hunt down and kill Norta. He goes north into the lands of the Lorna? Strong tribal mountain warrior people. He meets one and is told he is allowed to pass in peace since their high priestess willed it. He tracks Norta to an ancient city but is knocked unconscious by a large cat. He wakes up after a number of people help heal him. The girl he helped save during his test of the wild is there, and her and Norta are in love. Apparently everyone here has some kind of dark/magic. Including Veilan with his blood song. He reconciles with Norta and takes his necklace and sword to report him dead. He also finds a member of the community burning books, who says he is a member of the seventh order. They used to exist openly and practice the dark, but infighting and war led them to go into hiding.
\nVeilan returns and reports Norta is dead. We learn here in an interlude with Lord Vernier in modern time that Veilan is not telling the chronicler everything we hear. He told the man he killed Norta. The battle lord does not believe Veilan and hates him even more now.
\nDown the line a bit King Jannus decides the realm needs more money, and plans a war with the Alpiran Empire to the south. The battle lord takes the main army and Veilan and his crew, the Wolf Runners, go ahead to secure a landing. They land and are attacked by a local garrison, where the future emperor known as the hope just happened to be residing. Veilan kills the hope in the battle, earning the moniker of Hope Killer and making everyone hate him. The battle lord draws up plans to split the army and hold multiple cities that is basically sending Veilan to draw the enemies ire and forces. Veilan and team take the city and the governor surrenders for his daughter.
\nVeilan is attacked by someone else's blood song, and incapacitated for 5 days. When he wakes up he seeks out the man, a stone mason, who can also control the song. He begins to teach Veilan how it works. Caenis has been managing the city in the meantime. The governors daughter catches the Red Hand (Bubonic plague esque), and the port town goes into quarantine. Sister Sharon has been working on a cure, so Veilan sends the fastest ship in town with Barkus and Frentis to retrieve her. Sister Gilma (another healer), dies caring for the girl. Veilan has befriended the stone mason singer, and in revenge someone burns down the stone mason shop and he is hurt. Men come from the other part of the army and they learn a city has fallen and an army is on the way here. Veilan, Dentos, Frentis, and some knights track the army at night and burn down their siege weapons. Veilan then announces himself as the hope killer and lures them away, but Dentos stays with him. They almost make it back to the city but their pursuers are closing in. Veilan then sees the blood song wolf and it summons a sandstorm. Veilan runs, and when the storm clears he sees Dentos hit by an arrow and dead. He makes it to the city. Veilan and Sharon do romance and relationship against the rules. Frentis was in a city that got recaptured and they know now if he is dead or captured.
\nShips from the Unified Realm show up and bring word from the king. He has reached a treaty and the men are free to leave. But the only condition is that Veilan turns himself over to the emperor. He lies to the others to get them to leave, and drugs Sharon with sleeping stuff. Before he leaves one of the Cumbraelan archers in the army tells Veilan that he was black arrow and led the troops against Veilan back in the day.
\nCut back to modern time. Veilan is being sent to the Maltish Isles to fight their champion. The Hope’s widow thought of the plan to avenge her husband, plus Veilan’s father burned the city where he will fight to the ground when he was battle lord. Veilan knocks the “Shield” out right away and makes a democratic case about anti violence and stuff, and they say the challenge is over and let him go. We end with him getting on a boat talking to Lord Verniers, and we know that he lied about much of his story to the chronicler.
\nFlashback to right after Veilan surrendered but before he gets taken by the Alpirans. Barkus shows up after swimming to shore from the ship that he was supposed to be on and Veilan confronts him. He figured out that Barkus planted those notes found on the supposed “Black Arrow”, and has caused a lot of strife. He thinks whatever force has controlled the men who attacks him also has Barkus, and makes the force admit it. He learned a while ago their is a prophecy about him battling “The One Who Waits”. Anyone who was close to death this force is able to take over and control. Scratch saves Veilan’s life and they kill Barkus, but then Scratch dies. Sad. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"bloodline-wight","title":"Bloodline","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":9,"pages":378,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141821002-bloodline","avgGoodreadsRating":"9","numGoodreadsRatings":"28274","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001072","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"bloodline-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/bloodline-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/6/2025","dateFinished":"9/13/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A step down, which seemed inevitable after how good the last one was. This one was frustrating since it was the first time the power decreased almost, due to Sacred Valley. And seeing how untrusting and annoying all the weaklings are is just super frustrating.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Bloodline
\nWill Wight
\nCradle #9
Long ago, King Daruman was a wise, charismatic ruler, and the very first to unite his home iteration. He was quickly recruited by the Abidan, who considered him a perfect, humble hero. He was the first of the Executors, a group given special dispensation to alter Fate outside of the Eledari Pact. Unfortunately, after some time, the group known as the Executors turned on the Abidan. Their minds cracked under the power. Daruman held out the longest, but miscalculated when he defeated a Class One Fiend, Oth’Kimeth, by sealing it inside of him. While the Abidan couldn’t find traces of corruption in him after, the Court of Seven nevertheless sealed him away to ensure that if the Fiend did gain the upper hand. Centuries later, the Abidan’s worst fears were realized. Daruman has been corrupted by the Fiend, and he escapes the clutches. He proceeds to create the fortress Tal’Gulour, where he focuses on gathering and protecting people, who he prizes above protecting the Way.
\nLater, two hundred years ago, Daruman heads to Iteration 216: Limit to test out a stealth artifact he’s forged from other treasures as a method of hiding himself from the Abidan. He calls it the Origin Shroud. He enters undetected, but Ozriel finds him anyway. Ozriel allows him to escape, but first destroys the Origin Shroud.
\nNow, in modern day, Daruman is using a Scythe to destroy Iteration 129: Oasis, and all the Abidan present there.
\nOn Iteration 246: Commandment, the Vroshir and Abidan are battling. The Vroshir are are winning until Suriel arrives and turns the tide by reviving the downed Abidan. Simultaneously, she is reinforcing the Abidan on another iteration, Iteration 247: Jester. A dozen other worlds beg for her help, but she’s at her limit. On Commandment, she allows the Vroshir to escape so that she can focus fully on Jester. While this is a victory, she remains pessimistic as far as the larger war is concerned.
\nBack in Ninecloud City Akura Pride is still wounded emotionally and mentally, but is much better on the physical front. He’s anxious to be active again, but Mercy forces him to rest as best she can on the strength of Charity’s instructions. Her Uncle Fury drops in unannounced, surprising them. He informs them that Seishen Daji has been captured, and that Mercy will be the one to sit in judgement at his trial. He also informs them that his ascension beyond Cradle as a new Monarch will take place this evening. While he might like to stay, he recognizes that his existence upsets the delicate balance of power on Cradle.
\nLondon and Yerin are on their shared cloud fortress. They are locked down in Ninecloud City, with no air or spatial travel in or out allowed. Charity, Fury, or Malice could teleport him, but they’ve made themselves scarce when he tries to find them. London is itching to leave – there’s a dreadgod on its way to Sacred Valley, and he intends to do what he can to save his home. Dross and Yerin threaten the Ninecloud Soul a bit to no avail, but fortunately Charity decides to show her face shortly after. She teleports just outside their fortress – London has wards to make entering via spatial travel challenging on preparation for the day Eithan learns to teleport. Charity argues with them, stating that an Underlord Sage and the world’s first pseudo-Herald cannot be allowed in the path of the Wandering Titan – nor in Sacred Valley where the labyrinth security measures will sap their strength. Yerin makes the connection between the dampening field and the death of her master, much to her dismay. London informs Charity he will go to Sacred Valley even if he has to walk, and she begs him not to go, stating that she will do anything in her power to keep them as allies. Mercy arrives at that moment. After discussion, Charity allows that they may help with evacuation efforts, but must leave at the first sight of the Wandering Titan. They agree.
\nThe trial of Seishen Meira, Daji, and King Dakata is underway. All three are in rough shape. They are accused of conspiracy to assassinate members of the Akura head family. The spatial anchor Daji used previously to summons assassins is presented as evidence. Dakata’s face is horrified, showing that he had no idea about what his son had done. Under oath, Meira testifies her innocence. Dakata screams that he was him, attempting to take the blame and save Daji. Mercy is having none of it, telling him to shut up. Daji, under oath, appears to somehow be capable of lying. London suspects Reigan Shen’s meddling. Daji claims that London has a personal grudge against him. As such, London challenges him to a duel. London wins, handily, nearly killing him. Dross asks why he didn’t. As Daji is dragged off to the Akura dungeons, London responds that his name isn’t Merch.
\nFury and an entourage of about two hundred Akura family members ascend that evening. Malice is not in attendance. London and Yerin, however, are, and they’re treated with a great deal of respect due to their newfound status. Watching Yerin and Lindon, Mercy experiences a pang of envy for their relationship – she’s had few friends, and those are her two closest despite their short acquaintance. Yerin shares a moment with Fury, gleefully recounting how it felt to swat the Dragon Monarch like a fly. Akura Grace’s parents approach London. He apologizes to them for her death, but they surprise him by instead thanking him for having avenged her. They give him a gift in a generous bag of scales of various types of madra. London is torn as to whether to accept the gift, but ultimately expresses his deep gratitude as he pockets the scales. As a final goodbye, Fury speaks to Mercy, telling her to become a leader in her own right and avoid falling into the traps their family will weave around her. He opens a portal to the Abidan, and they welcome him to a great blue world, Threshold, filled towers and light.
\nCharity begins preparing the portal to Sacred Valley. While they watch, Yerin holds London’s Remnant hand, and they talk about London’s worries as they prepare to return to Sacred Valley. He reaffirms his pledge to look out for them and save as many as possible. Yerin holds a grudge against Heaven’s Glory now, but also recognizes that it would be abhorrent to take her rage out on Jades. London and Little Blue are both surprised and pleased by her vehemence on the matter. She hates them… But they’re not worth anything to her, either. They kiss, and Eithan times his entrance appropriately. He promises a surprise.
\nCharity completes the portal, scouts the other side, and proclaims it safe. They enter, and Lindon notices his Sage perceptions give him greater understanding of the structure of the portal as they pass through. It feels twisty, a hole bored through space. They exist above Sky’s Edge, which has been reduced to rubble. The Wandering Titan is feeding in the water, pulling aura from the earth. They move away towards Sacred Valley, quickly. The Wandering Titan chooses that moment to move, giving them all a fright as it takes a giant step and cycles it’s madra. One cloudship is destroyed, collateral damage. As they move into a safety, Eithan reveals his surprise: he’s smuggled Mercy aboard. She’s looking forward to one more mission with her friends. Ziel joins them as well.
\nLondon gives Ziel a tour of their cloud fortress, which they’ve named Windfall. There is a miniature volcano for Blackflame aura cycling and a sharp sword cave for Yerin. Yerin dejectedly notes she’ll need blood aura now too, what with having integrated Ruby. There’s also a sacred orus tree for spirit fruit and a crystal pool for Little Blue. Eithan’s portion of the island is dedicated to farming plants and herbs for use in the sacred arts. A flock of bird monsters attacks, and they make a game of taking them out and testing their new abilities, which prompts Mercy to ask why London is still an Underlord and hasn’t advanced yet. He explains that since Sacred Valley saps power, it made more sense for him to wait.
\nWhile helping Lindon train with his new Authority, Eithan reveals to him that he was formerly an advisor to Tiberius Arelius.
\nThe crew arrive at Sacred Valley. They land and make their way with a group of Golds on Thousand Mile Clouds towards Mount Samara. When they pass the boundary, Yerin collapses. The field took too much from her. On examination, Ziel and Eithan realize that her ascention to Herald left her imbalanced, hence the disproportionate impact on her. They say she shouldn’t get any worse, so she chooses to continue rather than head back to the Windfall.
\nWhen they arrive at The Ancestor’s Tomb it appears abandoned, until a lone Iron appears and attacks. The attack is not very effective. London is disconcerted when they speak and he hears his own old, humble way of speaking coming from the young Iron. It’s a bit cringey to him. The Iron believes they are exiles from the Wei clan. Elder Rahm arrives next, recognizing London. He attacks with four constructs, which Lindon destroys with a flick. He asks Rahm for information on the Wei exiles, but Rahm refuses. They go to Heaven’s Glory school, which is in shambles. Apprentices scurry about repairing the buildings. Further, it appears that a grimy prison was formerly here. When a Jade elder appears, they attempt to explain the impending Dreadgod attack and offer refuge.
\nThey go to speak in the Lesser Treasure Hall. It is at odds with London’s memory – it feels tiny and insignificant now. The Jade, Emara, reveals that the Wei exiles are in league with… A giant turtle. London, Mercy, and Eithan take off to find Orthos.
\nOrthos, Kelsa, and Jai Chen and Long are in battle, losing against Heaven’s Glory. They sought refuge with the Fallen Leaf school, but were refused. They debate covering the retreat of the refugees including London’s dad. Jai Long and Chen leave, cutting their losses, as Kelsa and Orthos accept that they are likely to die covering the Wei Exiles retreat. And then… Orthos senses Lindon. He laughs, joyful, telling Kelsa the battle is almost won.
\nThey fight is brutal, Jades attacking ruthlessly. They are near defeat. And then Lindon arrives. Kelsa doesn’t recognize him at first, only realizing who he is when she catches sight of his badge: Unsouled. London and co wipe them out without breaking a sweat, not killing, but disabling. After, London, Kelsa, and Orthos reunite tearfully.
\nThe arrival of London and co and the gold’s accompanying them bring the Fallen Leaf school to open their gates to them all. London finds himself angry at the way Heavens Glory has treated his family. They’ve suffered, needlessly. He could have wipes them out if he’d wanted to. Kelsa takes him to his parents. His father’s eyes have been burned, and he retains only a tiny amount of vision. His mother is traumatized, paranoid and anxious. Meeting them again is nearly surreal. They’re familiar, but also strangers. They also can’t fathom the notion that he grew powerful himself, instead choosing to think that his friends lent him power. Kelsa comes to his defense, however, telling their parents what she saw against Heaven’s Glory. The conversation goes downhill as his parents insist they should fight Heaven’s Glory and display their own ignorance of the power of Golds, and they talk over London. He feels as though he never left. Dross, however, pushes him to action. He tells them, bluntly, that he is more advanced than they can understand, and that behind that, he’s just… Very good at the sacred arts. Further, he’s taking them away to save them from the Dreadgod attack. He leaves, heads to Yerin and Orthos, and sobs.
\nJai Long is being denied exit from Sacred Valley by the Fallen Leaf school. Internally, he expresses admiration for Kelsa – and by extension Lindon – for her personal drive to improve, in comparison with others of the Valley who seek to simply politic with each other. Just as he prepares to force the matter and battle the Fallen Leaf elder guarding the exist, Lindon arrives. Jai Chen remembers him fondly, and is very pleased to see Little Blue again. London explains that a Dreadgod is on its way, and that there are Akura cloudships for evacuation. Jai Long, however, doesn’t trust them and decides to leave now from here instead. He panics when he realized London is an Underlord, and tells Jai Chen to run. To his embarrassment, it quickly becomes apparent that London does not intend to fight. London begins speaking to the Fallen Leaf Elder re the Dreadgod.
\nBack at the main school, Lindon and co begin planning out who will go where to manage the rest of the evacuation. The residents are, unfortunately, less than cooperative, even as they run low on time. Eithan, being Eithan, takes this as a training opportunity to work with Lindon on using his authority. He explains that authority can generally be used to accomplish the same things you could do without it, but skipping the steps between start and finish. Further, actions related to his Icon are much easier. Eithan also demonstrates that he can use his own will to block Lindon from taking authority actions, despite not yet being a sage himself.
\nAs for the evacuation efforts, the Golden Sword School in the west has already left before London and co arrived. The Holy Wind School is in process of evacuating. London and Yerin will go to the Wei Clan. Orthos and Little Blue will handle the Fallen Leaf School. London is surprised Little Blue wants to be apart, but suspects she wants to grow independently to be able to protect him, too. Eithan volunteers to handle Heaven’s Glory. Mercy volunteers to handle the Li clan, and Ziel will take the Kazan.
\nZiel negotiates passage for himself and his Golds into the Kazan compound. His assistant explains to the Kazan that they’re Gold’s from outside the valley representing the Akura clan and the Sage of Twin Stars and warning of the Dreadgod attack. Ziel feels the Dreadgod strongly in the veins of earth aura in the camp. He meets with the Patriarch and his wife, the other clan members having retreated from the room. He voluntarily allows the Patriarch to place half silver bracelets on him, restricting his spirit. They’re not locked and he could remove them, but believes it to be an important gesture of goodwill. He tells them that what they’ve been sensing is the Dreadgod, and that they will all die when it arrives if they do not evacuate on the Akura cloudships. The Kazan are uncertain, having hoped to rely on their defenses. A young boy child approaches Ziel, clambering up onto his cloud, much to his the Patriarch wife’s horror. Ziel reassures her that it is okay, and that he’d never harm a child. He pulls on Ziel’s hair as Ziel continues to encourage the Kazan to evacuate. When they continue to be reluctant, Ziel decides to be vulnerable, discussing the sacking of the Dawnwing Sect by the Weeping Dragon. And that was merely by its passing – an attack would leave no survivors. There is escape, or there is death. Ziel’s speech convinces them as it aligns with the reports of their scouts and scholars, and they send out the call to the other Kazan to gather and evacuate. Ziel reluctantly accepts his new position as a leader.
\nMercy has been having less luck. After much difficulty, she finally gains and audience with the Matriarch of the Li clan. The Matriarch is uncooperative, insisting she must convene with the clan elders and accusing Mercy of rudeness with her urgency. Kashi, Mercy’s True gold commander, recommends using force to evacuate them, but Mercy believes they’ll come around.
\nJai Long and Jai Chen have ended up with Eithan heading to Heaven’s Glory school. Eithan is being extremely obnoxious, as per usual, though Jai Chen enjoys speaking with him. She shares that the name of her bonded spirit dragon is Fingerling, since he started as small as a little fish. They both have a touch of Eithan’s bloodline power, though Fingerling is better at it, able to see things over a mile away. Jai Long insists to Eithan that he’s left the sacred arts. Jai Long is derisive of Eithan, considering that he expects Eithan to someday reach Overlord (note: Eithan is already Archlore, Jai Long just doesn’t know it). He tries to needle Eithan, congratulating him on London’s ascension to Underlord and saying that maybe London will even surpass Eithan. Eithan, of course comes back with the fact that London is a Sage, and allows a grin to come over his face when he notes that Jai Long hasn’t yet scanned Yerin. Jai Long assumes Eithan is lying. Jai Chen, however, had noticed that something was odd with Yerin, though she doesn’t know enough to understand that she’s a Herald. Eithan reveals he’s and Archlord, and Jai Long immediately changes attitude. Eithan asks where they intend to go after leaving the valley, and when Jai Chen says they’re unsure, Eithan invites them to join him. London had already extended an invitation. Jai Long is suspicious of their motives, believing it couldn’t be a good faith offer. Jai Chen convinces Jai Long to help the evacuation efforts.
\nLondon arrives at the Wei Clan. It’s not as grand as he remembers, though he’s glad that Elder Whisper’s tower is as tall as he remembers. He’s nervous, and Yerin comforts him. The Iron at the gate challenges him, having no spiritual perception and believing him truly unsouled. The Wei clan believes his group are exiles. London tells the guard to hit him with his spear. The spear cracks, and Lindon tells the Iron to tell the First Elder that Wei Shi Lindon is here to see him. The Iron runs. They walk in, and it becomes apparent that the Iron hadn’t gone to the elder. Instead, he’s gathered a half dozen Irons and “trapped” London in a security script. Yerin, however, is very impacted by it in her weakened state – so London destroys it immediately. When they attempt the Fox Dream Ruler technique, Dross fires back and tells them it’s clumsy and stupid.
\nOne of the Irons approaches Lindon. It’s Mon Teris, the same person from Unsouled (book one) who left London to the fight the tree Remnant. He says he’ll take London to the First Elder. Unfortunately, he betrays them and attempts to attack Yerin, believing she is in charge since he thinks Lindon is Unsouled. It goes poorly. Mon Teris agrees to actually guide them. They reach the gathered Elders, who believe London to be Jade when they scan him. He gains audience with the First Elder, and explains the situation. Dross projects memories of the Titan into everyone in the room as proof. For further proof, he places the full power of his spiritual pressure on all of them. He informs them that if he wanted revenge, he could have it. He could kill them. But he doesn’t want that. He wants to save them. The Patriarch gives the order to call the clan to the Heaven’s Glory school for evacuation. London is happy and proud.
\nHeaven’s Glory arrives, claiming Eithan sent them to help. London does not trust them, and it proves wise. Heaven’s Glory came to betray them in cooperation with the Wei Clan. He confronts them before they can begin their attack, but they begin to set up their boundary formation. They get two layers set up, and it severely impacts Yerin. London uses his Dragon’s breath to destroy the script. Yerin teleports using her moonlight bridge back to the ships. London has Dross break down the Path of the White Fox for him, and he begins attacking the Wei Clan with their very own Path. He confronts the Patriarch, who accuses him of hubris and of attempting to take over the clan. The Patriarch says he doesn’t know the Path of the White Fox, and attacks. London tells him that he should pay attention: Lindon will show him the Path of the White Fox. He destroys him with the Path and finally cripples him with an Empty Palm. The Elder still chooses not to believe London, but at that moment the Titan nears – it’s aura over the mountains to the West. London uses his authority on the Patriarch, and tells him to walk to the Titan, since maybe HE’LL save him, then.
\nMercy has not yet convinced the Li clan when the Titan arrives. She gives the order to leave, with as many of the Li clan as they can carry. The average citizens are clamoring to leave, but the Matriarch is holding them back, disbelieving Mercy. Mercy attacks her and takes control of the clan. She hates that it’s come to this, especially since it’s what her mother would have done, but it is effective and there’s no time for anything else. She takes control, and the evacuation begins. She feels sick to have perpetuated the power structures of weaker bowing to stronger.
\nZiel, leading the Kazan clan, is set by a terrible earthquake. He saves many of the clan, but others fall to their deaths in great fissures. He tells the Akura Golds to grab anyone who fell but to keep moving. The gold, however, says they must leave – they were instructed to prioritize their own lives at the first sign of the Titan. They offer to take Ziel and the Patriach’s family with them. Ziel refuses and tells them to make the offer to the Patriach and other Kazan. He’ll lead the rest.
\nEithan arrives at Heaven’s Glory, now abandoned by his Akura Golds. There are twelve Kazan prisoners, whom Eithan intends to take with him and save. He’s given up on persuading Elder Rahm, who is adamant about staying. Eithan discover Heaven’s Glory’s treachery against London and the envoy they sent. Eithan confronts them, and whole Rahm knows he can’t take Eithan directly he knows one way to attack indirectly… And sets fire to the house the Kazan prisoners are in. Eithan asks if he’d prefer to die rather than let the prisoners leave. Rahm says he’d rather die than now to Eithan. So, Eithan kills him with the Hollow King’s Crown, destroying his soul. He kills the others who attack him, bit states that anyone who goes into the building to help rescue the Kazan will be forgiven. None come to help. Eithan tells them he will remember this.
\nAlthough Yerin meant to teleport back the ships, her Moonlight Bridge missed because of her current spiritual imbalance and suppression. She ends up near Orthos and Fallen Leaf School, weakened and coughing. She’s afraid for London – what if he’s been more impacted than he realized, or takes stupid risks? When the sky turns gold with the titan, she panics and teleports successfully to Orthos. She tells Orthos Lindon has been betrayed, and Orthos informs her that Lindon does not feel as though he’s in danger. Yerin relaxes. They discuss next steps, and determine it’s time to leave, assuming the Titan is still two or three days away… Just as the Titan crashes through a mountain, entering Sacred Valley. It’s here. But they need more time, or else they’re trapped. Yerin tells Orthos to go get Lindon. She’s going to go slow down the Titan. She heads outside the valley, and uses the Moonlight Bridge to take her to Akura Malice.
\nMalice is perched in a giant tree over a large valley, killing dragons inside it with her bow. Yerin asks for her help to stop the Titan. She tells Yerin her ability to slay these dragons is thanks to Yerin, and asks how she can bless her life. Yerin asks again about the Titan. Malice states that it will weaken her and her people too much – but Yerin responds saying she’s willing to make this her tournament prize, keeping all Monarchs at the same degree of disadvantage. Malice creates a communication array of darkness, bring the other Monarchs in. The Blood Sage is gleeful at Yerin’s success in incorporating her Blood Shadow and advancing to Herald. Malice silences him, and expresses surprise Reigan Shen allows him to speak on his behalf. Yerin catches his eye: she wants his knowledge on the Bleeding Phoenix and the labyrinth when this is over. She makes her request, but Emriss responds that it’s already been tried to corner a Dreadgod in the boundary formation. It was ineffective, as the formation also affects Monarchs. Fortunately, the Dreadgods can’t breach the labyrinth in Sacred Valley and lose interest quickly. Yerin threatens to say they broke their promise if they don’t intervene, but they respond that there are limits… And further, her spirit is not balanced. It was further harmed by the valley. If it’s not fixed, she may never advance again. It’s possible it could resolve on its own, but not a guarantee. With the understanding that this will help her function in the valley, she reluctantly agrees. They rewrite reality to heal her. After, Malice reveals that she’d been manipulating her – she was always going to come help, but she wanted to mislead the other Monarchs beforehand.
\nReigan Shen is working in his own plan. He’s avoiding the attention of other Monarchs with false trails. He teleports to an area with many eggs of the Bleeding Phoenix, and uses an Abidan artifact. The key to the western labyrinth a mummified, chalk white hand. Hunger madra. If it’s exposed too long, it could even manifest an Icon. The Phoenix eggs respond and begin to reform. He feeds the Phoenix a single join of a finger from the hand, and notes that it should be enough for it to know the way home. It looks west, to where the being called the fifth Dreadgod, the father of the Dreadgods, lies. Their progenitor from which they all formed. Subject One. The next phase of Shen’s plan has begun, and he follows the Phoenix.
\nLondon is driving the remaining members of the Wei clan to Heaven’s Glory, with much physical encouragement via shows of strength. They follow him out of fear. They arrive at Mount Samara, and Lindon finds Eithan in battle, drained and flickering. The Kazan are protecting him. He beats the rest of the Heavens Glory and sets them to helping evacuate.
\nThe Titan is on the move again, and roars it’s anger. The refugees run. Eithan’s airship, barely flying in the valley, is there and they load people on. London goes to Orthos, Little Blue, and his family on Windfall. They take off, leaving some behind, but they are out of time. The Titan is destroying the valley. Some Akura ships left before filling with refugees, and others stayed longer. London doesn’t blame them for going, but is grateful to those who hung back.
\nMalice arrives and begins to attack the Titan. She nods to London before continuing to engage. Yerin arrives, smug in having brought Malice with her. London lands the ship, unloads the refugees he has now, and turns back to pick up more. Yerin chats with London’s family, who ask about the Uncrowned Tournament she won. She is humble, and notes Lindon was top sixteen. They don’t really understand the scale, and Lindon doesn’t want to come off as bragging. London’s family believes that Lindon is Yerin’s student, and she’s unsure how to react or explain. His family catches on that they’re romantically involved, and ask Yerin what she sees in him. She tells them that he’s determined, loyal, and brave. He’ll win at any cost, but fiercely dedicated to those he cares about. He’s embarrassed, unsure if he can live up to that description. But he wants to.
\nLondon picks up more refugees on Windfall. Some are leaving on foot or in whatever vehicles they have. He hopes for the best for them. Mercy has arrived as well, and surreptitiously hides something in the ground. Something scripted that feels like it might create a portal. She’s not hiding it from London and Yerin, but from the others present.
\nAbruptly, Yerin pulls him aside. Her eyes are bright red… And so is the sky over Mount Samara. The Bleeding Phoenix has arrived. Blood spawn begin to form.
\nNorth strider is destroying the harvesting towers of the Abyssal Palace, designed to siphon power from the Titan’s passing. He’s collecting samples from dreadbeasts, as well – they’re his best source of info and materials since he’ll never risk the inside of the labyrinth again. North strider senses the Phoenix and teleports to it. Initially he plans not to intervene directly, until he senses Lindon and co. He’s furious Malice allowed them in the path of the Dreadgods, clustered.
\nZiel’s company of Kazan is attacked by bloodspawn as the Phoenix approaches. He starts to run, believing he made a mistake in staying, before suddenly finding that he’s moved himself back into the fray, protecting the Kazan and destroying bloodspawn. He forges a boundary field, destroying all in his vicinity why the Kazan cover him. They begin moving again towards the exit.
\nLondon lands an Empty Palm on Yerin, but it’s unnecessary. She still has control despite the Phoenix. Yerin handles the spawn while London focuses on getting them further away. The Bleeding Phoenix turns it’s attention towards him, and he struggles beneath it’s pressure. It’s crushing Windfalls defenses. Yerin believes it wants her back – it’s focused on HER. Just as their defenses begin to buckle, its attention is diverted: North strider has attacked it. They fight in a blur, but it’s clear that the Phoenix has the upper hand. It’s not completely imbalanced, however. London understands the delimma of the Monarchs better. They’re on an almost even level, but if they go too hard the Dreadgods will all wake and work together. And the Monarchs have people to protect where the Dreadgods don’t. However, Lindon isn’t quite satisfied. Monarchs outnumber the Dreadgods. There must be something more. Malice joins the fray with NS and they begin pulling the battle further north away from Sacred Valley.
\nThe Titan is still in the Valley, sitting. It begins to move, destruction raining down. It destroys the Wei compound, including Elder Whisper’s tower. The refugees and Lindon sob, and Malice abruptly scoops them up and teleports the cloudship back to Moongrave. The fight is over.
\nYerin reassures Lindon she’s okay from the fight, even if Ruby had separated into a distinct identity for a moment under the Phoenix. London doesn’t believe her – he saw the Moonlight Bridge and knows she’d have tossed herself to the Phoenix if she could. Eithan tells Lindon that Ziel, Jai Long, and Jai Chen are not here with them.
\nWith the Titan destroyed the Valley, he feels like he failed. Dross, however, points out that he did save the people – and are those not the true soul of Sacred Valley? But they’re not even impressed with him. But… They did make it. He relaxes a little, feeling that perhaps his job is done. Until he spots Mercy to the side. She asks… Does anyone want to go back? She knows they can’t bring anyone back as rescue, but they could stall the Titan. London’s family says it would be insane for him to go back, and expresses their gratitude for what he’s done so far. London prays to Suriel for guidance, hoping for an answer.
\nSuriel is at that moment checking in on him. She’s surprised by how fast he’s grown and how well he’s done. She’s looking forward to his decision on whether to return. Given that she’ll be facing the Mad King soon, she decides to take this opportunity to speak to London. He tells her about the Titan, but she informs him she knows. She’s been keeping an eye on him. She tells him circumstances have changed since they last spoke, and warns that Cradle may experience corruption of space, with strange beasts that don’t obey the laws of reality appearing. She tells him the Abidan won’t abandon them – Cradle is one of their core worlds. He begs her to save Sacred Valley, but she says she already has. London is her solution, and he is in position. He tells her he’s not ready, and she shows him a vision of the refugees as they are now. He already HAS saved them. It’s up to him to decide when he’s succeeded. And… Who he’ll be after that. She shows him possible futures of all sorts for himself, happy ones, peaceful ones, and even ones where he kills Dreadgods. She leaves him to make his choice.
\nWhen he returns, he opens the void key he took from Sophara. He prepares to advance to Overlord. Orthos joins him. When he’s ready, he speaks his Overlord revelation: I advance. And so he does.
\nOutside, he meets Yerin’s eyes. He says he’ll see her soon. And using his authority, he returns.
\nJai Long and Jai Chen are in a bad position, overwhelmed by Bloodspawn. He believes they will die, but he is determined to protect his sister to his last breath. London arrives and uses launcher constructs to destroy bloodspawn, fifty firing simultaneously with Dross’ help. Jai Long doesn’t understand at first – he’s only seen sights like this from entire sects previously. But this is just Lindon. Finally, he believes that Lindon truly is the Sage of Twin Stars.
\nSuriel is in Iteration 129: Oasis to face the Mad King. Makiel is there too. They battle, Suriel with her Razor, the Mad King with the Scythe, Makiel with the Sword of the First Judge. The Sword is a symbol of order, and has been since the Abidan first rose from Cradle so long ago. The Razor is meant to separate the diseased from the healthy, and the Mad King is a cancer. The iteration becomes less stable the longer they battle. They nearly drive off the Mad King, but the tide turns at the last moment and they are forced to flee.
\nLondon faces down the Titan. He realizes that the Titan isn’t attacking now, but rather looking for something. When the Titan reaches for Samara’s Ring, he attacks with a Dragon’s Breath from outside the boundary field. It fades as it passes through. It doesn’t harm the Titan. It eats part of the ring, using hunger madra. Just as he’s about to plunge in, space cracks, and Yerin arrived. She’s mad, and tells him he’s an idiot to think he could leave her behind. Mercy, Orthos, and Eithan all arrive too. They begin to attack the Titan, with… Mixed success. The Titan waves away their attacks. Yerin manages to stop the Titan’s fist when it strikes at her, and Lindon senses a power beyond the physical in Yerin, a weigh of conceptual strength. But only for a moment before she’s pushed aside. London prepares to attempt to command the Dreadgod with his will, but Dross stops him. Neither Charity nor Malice commanded them directly, instead working their Sage powers though techniques. They continue to attack together, simultaneously hitting it with the Hollow Crown, The Endless Sword, and The Dragon Descends. They finally have the Titan’s attention properly, and it takes out Eithan with a stream of earth madra from it’s mouth.
\nLondon begs Dross for a way to win. Dross tells him it will be too much, that he doesn’t want to. He tells Lindon it will hurt himself. But… He does it.
\nDross accelerates the perception of time in each person he contacts, meaning that it feels like time is frozen when he arrives.
\nZiel is flying away from the Dreadgod when Dross appears in front of him. Dross tells him he has little time, but they need help against the Dreadgod. All Ziel has to do is make some platforms where Dross tells him. The goal is to make them more trouble to beat than they’re worth so that the Titan goes away. Ziel thinks about what it would have been like to see the Weeping Dragon turn around and leave… And he agrees.
\nMercy is working with Jai Chen to protect a large group of Irons. Dross appears and asks for her help. He wants it will hurt her – a lot. But hopefully not permanently, because her family should be able to fix her. He needs her bloodline. She agrees.
\nOrthos, having advanced to Underlord with the treasures in London’s void key, is next on the list. Orthos agrees to help too.
\nEithan is collapsed and in pain when Dross comes to him. Eithan says not to waste his energy, knowing he’s split so many ways. Eithan says to just say what’s needed. Eithan must stop a Titan striker technique from hitting Lindon. Dross will handle getting Eithan into position. Eithan agrees, but is worried – he’s hurt badly enough this might be a problem.
\nDross arrives at Yerin beneath the Titans raised foot, preparing to stomp her. He’s visibly strained, but tells her not to worry. He asks her to hold the Titan in place so London can hit it. She’ll need to use her master’s sword. And she’ll have to overload it, and there’s no way around it short of advancing right now to Archlord, which she can’t in Sacred Valley. She clings to the hope that the Winter Sage might be able to fix it, and agrees. Dross tells her to just do it when the Titans foot comes down.
\nDross releases his time acceleration. The Titans foot comes down. Yerin’s madra flares below it, and freezes it into place. Green rings appear to the south, Ziel flying through the air using them. Mercy sprints in coveted in her bloodline armor, the size of a tall building with Orthos under her arm and filling himself with soulfire. The Titan punches Mercy, she ducks, but then is hit by it’s tail. Mercy stands her ground and lobs Orthos through the Dreadgods legs. And the turtle begins to grow, soon he’s half the height of the Titan. The Titan prepared to attack Orthos, but Dross cues Lindon then. London and Mercy catch the Titans attention from Orthos. London jumps down, and the Titan targets Eithan. Eithan dodges.
\nOrthos roars, empty of soulfire and frankly gigantic. His shell is splintering as the Dreadgod grips him. London tries to send him reassurance, and he drops onto the back of the Titans neck. With all his will, he begins to Consume. He feels frustration, irritation, dissatisfaction, and exhaustion. The Dreadgod wanted to satisfy it’s eternal hunger, and followed the scent of the thing that could end it’s suffering here – but nothing is here. All it wants is to eat and then sleep. London breaks contact and tells Dross that the Titan is tired and wants to leave – they CAN drive it out.
\nThe Titan tosses down Mercy and her armor shatters. The Dreadgod wants to go through Mount Samara to get out. It had thought mount Samara might have been it’s ancient home, but had discovered that not to be the case. It wasn’t home. Not quite. It prepares to throw Orthos at the mountain. London begins to Consume again, costing the Dreadgod power. But it’s not enough.
\nDross groans. He’d hoped it would work. He turns to London. “Hey, London. You wouldn’t… You wouldn’t throw me away, would you? . . . I’ve always been afraid of being thrown away. Please, just keep me around.” London is suddenly nervous. He tells Dross he’s NOT going to throw them away, and asks him to please help. Dross replies that that’s good, he just needed to hear it. And then dream aura floods out from Dross. The Fox Dream. Dross blazes with madra, and sends a dream to the Titan. Right figured over Mount Samara, all Monarchs, and erasing Orthos from it’s mind. The Titan is irritated – all it’s found is very well defended nothing. It turns around, and begins to walk back the way it came, absently dropping Orthos.
\nThey did it.
\nLondon sags, thanking Dross for saving them. But Dross doesn’t respond.
\nIteration 001: Sanctum. Suriel is restoring Makiel, even as Makiel works to find a way to preserve Fate. She watches Makiels map of the iterations, and sees 129: Oasis wink out. The Spider, Telariel, connects her to the other judges. She tells them what happened. They are shocked by their defeat. She commands them not to engage the Mad King, and to abandon any world they cannot hold. Fortify those the can. The Vroshir will finish their raid, many will die, but they will endure and rebuild. The Court of Seven (including the Hound, the Phoenix, the Ghost, the Spider, the Titan-Gadrael, the Fox-Zerachiel, the Wolf-Razael, left out is Ozriel whose relationship is unclear) are in agreement. From ten thousand worlds, they’ll be reduced to perhaps one hundred.
\nOne sector in particular has already been surrounded by the Vroshir. Sector 110. Containing Iteration 110: Cradle. Before it closes off, she sends a message through London’s marble. It is short and simple: I’m sorry, hold on. Cradle is now at the Mad King’s mercy, and he well knows the significance of it. It was the birthplace of the original Abidan, and Ozriel’s home.
\nLondon and co are recovering as best they can. To Eithan’s dismay, he’s had to cut his hair as it was terribly damaged. He’s only three inches left. Barely enough to style. Though, he reassures himself he still looks great. Other than that, he’s got braces on his neck and all four limbs and is filled with pills and healing elixirs, but that’s not as important.
\nMercy and Ziel sleep, recovering from spiritual wounds and having been healed by Little Blue. Mercy may need attention from Malice to recover, but they hope not to have to request it. Ziel is largely fine and just needs rest due to the Pure Storm Baptism Eithan gave him earlier. Orthos is recovering well, though stuck at his giant size until he gathers more soulfire. Yerin is largely fine.
\nLondon is physically fine. But… He is grieving Dross. Eithan notes that being like Dross don’t usually die except under truly extraordinary circumstances. He keeps to himself that they may well change drastically, with entirely different personalities. nothing is a guarantee, but Eithan has high hopes that Dross will come back as he was before. Eithan encourages Yerin to give Lindon some space.
\nJai Chen finds herself leading several hundred sacred artists. Mercy gave her a pill to heal Jai Long, but he hasn’t woken yet though he is healing. She’s met by some of the Jai clan, and she doesn’t tell them their real identity. She tells them instead that they were sent by the Sage of Twin Stars. The Jai clan gasp, asking if they are the honorable Twin Star sect. Jai Chen agrees that they are. Sometimes during the conversation, Eithan has appeared behind Jai Chen. He says he’s another representative of the Twin Star sect and unveils their banner: a blank, gray banner. Some of the Jai clan believes him to be an Underlord and bows. He says they’re close enough. The others are unhappy, knowing who he is. He says he’s no longer with the Arelius and is now a personal acolyte to the Sage of Twin Stars and a fojndin member of the Twin Star sect.
\nThe Jai clan reluctantly agrees to allow them a place to rest, though they cannot share good. Eithan, however, tells Jai Chen he intends to prepare them better accomodations than this. His new sect can’t die out in the cold after all. He DID just commission an entire flying farmland of her and spirit fruits to support a small sect, after all, and it was very kind of Jai Chen to found one for him like this.
\nNS is conferring with Malice along the coastline. The Bleeding Phoenix is flying into the Trackless Sea – not fleeing, but with a goal. They’re unsure what it is doing. They know it’s Reigan Shen’s doing.
\nReigan Shen has unearthed the entrance to the place Subject One is held, a Dreadgod and the origin of their bloodline. He opens the door, the Nethergate, to the western labyrinth. He enters, carrying the key, and strides in to get his new weapon.
\nLondon faces the Ancestors Tomb. He’s learned much from the Titan’s memories. The Titan sensed the source of hunger madra here. London believes it to be locked away and buried here – and given that his arm has been strained and cracked form Consuming the Titan, he needs more hunger madra weapons to rebuild it. Just as he moves towards the door, he notices a bump in space. He wishes he had Dross in case he needs to call for help.
\nHe can still feel Dross a little at the base of his skull. he’s diffuse, unformed. Lindon knows he may or may not be himself even if he returns. He still has some advantages, though.
\nHe investigates the bump. He tells it too open and discovers that this was the void key of the Sword Sage, Yerin’s old master. He’s shocked – this should have degraded by now. Unless someone kept it open. He speaks over his shoulder, saying “I’m talking to you,” and Elder Whisper makes his appearance. Lindon notes that Whisper has gone quite far down his Path. Whisper reveals he had no way to open the void key even if he was able to maintain it. He says that the Sword Sage was asking forbidden questions when he was here last. In the corner, there is a cylinder with a purple and white flame above it wrapped in scripts. He opens it. Inside, there is a cube the size of a head pulsing with hunger madra. The Arelius moon crest is on top of it. Inside is a chalk white, mummified left hand. It is a key to the depths of the labyrinth. London slams the box shut, fearing he’ll drawn the Dreadgods back. Elder Whisper asks if he’d like to know how to kill the Dreadgods.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"brisingr-paolini","title":"Brisingr","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":3,"pages":748,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Alfred A. Knopf","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2248573.Brisingr","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"420712","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780375826726","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"brisingr-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.75,"url":"/books/brisingr-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"8/16/2021","dateFinished":"8/22/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"11/2/2023","dateFinished":"11/20/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"build-a-better-life-by-stealing-office-supplies-adams","title":"Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies","author":"Scott Adams","series":"Dilbert","seriesNumber":2,"pages":112,"yearPublished":1991,"publisher":"Andrews McMeel Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/456567.Build_a_Better_Life_by_Stealing_Office_Supplies?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_26","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"702","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9780836217575","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"build-a-better-life-by-stealing-office-supplies-adams-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/build-a-better-life-by-stealing-office-supplies-adams/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/2/2022","dateFinished":"7/7/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I started reading books with collections of comics as I go to sleep since a) they are like 50 cents each at work and b) they are entertaining but don’t keep me hooked so I stay up overly late reading. I like Dilbert.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"bury-my-heart-at-fun-fun-mountain-amend","title":"Bury My Heart at Fun-Fun Mountain","author":"Bill Amend","series":"FoxTrot","seriesNumber":5,"pages":130,"yearPublished":1993,"publisher":"Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/520990.Bury_My_Heart_at_Fun_Fun_Mountain?ref=nav_sb_ss_3_14","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"1109","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9780836217063","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"bury-my-heart-at-fun-fun-mountain-amend-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/bury-my-heart-at-fun-fun-mountain-amend/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/8/2022","dateFinished":"7/13/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A comic collection for Foxtrot. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t have any where Jason plays D&D which was a bit sad since those are always good ones.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"caliban-s-war-corey","title":"Caliban's War","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":2,"pages":624,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Orbit/Little, Brown Book Group","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12591698-caliban-s-war","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"180755","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781841499901","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"caliban-s-war-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/caliban-s-war-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"12/15/2025","dateFinished":"12/25/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A bit better than the first one. Finished it on Christmas while sick. Enjoyed seeing more of the political movement happenings.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Caliban’s War
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #2
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Caliban%27s_War#Plot
\nOn Ganymede, a Jovian moon sporting crops for the outer planets, where many Belter women go to give birth, a young girl named Mei, who has Myers-Skelton Premature Immunosenescence, thus requiring daily medication, is taken out of class by her doctor, Dr. Strickland, and a lady posing as her mother. They take her to a lab containing a glass case housing someone infected by the protomolecule.
\nMartian marine Roberta “Bobbie” Draper witnesses six UN soldiers fleeing from someone infected with the protomolecule. Shooting the monster doesn't seem to damage it, and it proceeds to rip the marines apart with its bare hands. It's just about to kill Bobbie when it grows another arm, then promptly explodes in a ball of fire. Bobbie wakes up days later in a hospital. Her superiors don't believe her story about the monster until they watch the video from her gun cam.
\nSpace battles around Ganymede between the UNN and the MCRN causes one of the gigantic orbital mirrors, used to direct sunlight to crops, to crash into the moon, destroying the lab where Praxidike Meng, botanical engineer, worked. He evacuates and goes to daycare to retrieve his daughter Mei, only to find she's been taken by a lady the computer system mistook for her mother, a suspicious case of fraud and kidnapping. At this point, it is not apparent that Dr. Strickland is involved so there's immense fear of tragedy from lack of proper medical attention. Prax searches everyday amongst all the casualties for his daughter, but she never turns up.
\nBasia Merton, whose youngest son Katoa is also missing, leaves without that son. Although, this is not without a physical confrontation between the two distraught fathers. There's an exchange which Basia's eldest child, his young daughter Felcia, intercedes and terminates. Basia takes passage with his remaining family aboard Barbapiccola.
\nHolden and the crew of the Rocinante (Naomi, Amos, and Alex) are doing mundane work for Fred Johnson, hunting down space pirates, when Fred calls them back because of the Ganymede situation. They take an inconspicuous ship, the Somnambulist, to Ganymede to check out the situation.
\nChrisjen Avasarala, assistant to the Undersecretary of Executive Administration on Earth, is trying to stave off the coming war between Earth and Mars. She notices there's a spike in activity around Venus, where the protomolecule-infected Eros station crashed after the Eros incident, during the Ganymede attack; she interviews Jules-Pierre Mao, thinking perhaps the infected Julie might have contacted him from Venus. He won't admit to anything, but she thinks he knows much more than he's letting on. She also gets intelligence reports saying Holden is on Ganymede, and that Admiral Nguyễn has secretly been deploying Earth ships there as well. She pulls some strings and pulls all the ships back, averting war.
\nPrax gives up his food to a hacker in exchange for videos from Mei's daycare. He finds the videos of the mystery woman and the doctor, but the hacker leverages Prax's desperation to extort more and won't show him more unless Prax gets him additional chicken. Prax recognizes Holden from his previous broadcasts, and asks Holden to help him find Mei. The hacker gets Prax the videos he wants after they bring him a case of chicken and Amos roughs him up. The videos show Mei's abductors taking her into an old, unused corridor just before the attacks started.
\nOn the way to the abandoned corridor, they encounter a stay-behind network of Pinkwater security operatives in MCRN armor, but Holden proposes to get them off Ganymede if they join forces, and they accept the deal. They breach the corridor and find a lab; inside they find the body of Basia's son, who has apparently been infected with the protomolecule. In the next room over, they encounter a room full of armed people having a pizza party; Holden tries to be politic, but Prax goes off half-cocked about his daughter and takes out his gun, causing a firefight to immediately break out. Holden's squad is much quicker and manage to shoot everyone first.
\nThey encounter more resistance the farther into the complex they go, and many of the Pinkwater people are killed; it seems the unknown players were evacuating through a secret docking port, while simultaneously fighting against an unknown third party. In the lab equipment wreckage, they find fine, black filaments. Holden is horrified and calls for immediate withdrawal and extraction.
\nJust outside their ship, they're captured by a UN security force sent by Avasarala, but manage to escape; however, Ganymede is then attacked by nukes and/or gauss rounds. They try to backtrack to the secret landing pad, but find it blocked from all the damage, and are forced to go outside the dome in the vacuum of space. Alex comes in hot in the Roci and they manage to escape after avoiding torpedoes fired from seemingly all the ships in orbit.
\nAvasarala's immediate superior, Sadavir Errinwright (UN Undersecretary of Executive Administration), puts her on the Venus project and gives her a blank check. She quickly realizes this is merely politicking to get her off the Mars conflict, presumably by Adm. Nguyễn, since he somehow got even more ships to send to Ganymede.
\nAvasarala hires Bobbie to help her look into Venus, and hands over all her intel. An hour before the fighting on Ganymede, the warship Arboghast around Venus is blown up – stripped apart in layers and disassembled.
\nOn the Roci, they find that during their escape, a monster pulled open the cargo bay door with its bare hands and has been stowing away in there, in the vacuum, for days. Holden and Amos try to attack it, but it attacks them; it flings a mag-locked pallet at Holden and traps him there. They shoot it a few times and it goes back to hibernating. Prax notices that the protomolecule seems to be constrained to its host, instead of reallocating its bits around like on Eros, and that it's feeding off a radiation leak in the corner. Prax goes EVA and throws radioactive bait past the monster; it follows after the bait out into space, but leaves a bomb in the cargo bay. Alex does a full burn with the Roci’, killing the monster; however, this causes the bomb in the cargo bay to go off, sending the ship into a spin and killing the reactor and thrusters.
\nBobbie notices Avasarala's assistant, Soren, taking a data chip somewhere he shouldn't be going, so she follows him to a bar. He gives the data to someone militaristic looking, clearly disguised as a civilian. Soren tries to exculpate himself by telling Avasarala that Bobbie is actually a Martian Intelligence operative, but she instantly realizes he is lying. Avasarala is not surprised when Bobbie reveals the truth and understands the connection that Soren was leaking/withholding info for Nguyễn. She further deduces that Errinwright must be responsible for the monster(s) on Ganymede, working with Mao-Kwikowski to weaponize the protomolecule. She calls to question Errinwright, and he realizes that she made the connection, so he tells her she'll soon be flying to Ganymede on a Mao-Kwik yacht. She has no choice but to acquiesce, otherwise she'll lose her political power. Chrisjen Avasarala tells Bobbie she's the only remaining fully trustworthy person in her team and tells her she's coming along.
\nBobbie and Avasarala get on Mao's yacht, the Guanshiyin. Mao is supposed to be going along too, but he abruptly excuses himself at which point Avasarala realizes she is compromised and to a great extent trapped and shackled.
\nThe Roci arrives at Tycho. Naomi, who has been fed up with Holden acting like Detective Miller, heatedly leaves him and the ship. Holden demands Fred to tell him if he was involved with Ganymede; Fred fires him for his constant insubordination and tells him "no" on the way out. Surprisingly, Holden feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest now that he's free to take whatever jobs he wants.
\nPrax tries to raise money to search for Mei but can't afford to hire anyone; Amos is taken aback and assures him they're already going to do it. Holden broadcast a message about Mei's situation, Dr. Strickland, and the protomolecule. Within hours, the plea garners hundreds of thousands in donations. Holden apologizes to Naomi and she accepts to rejoin the crew, but their relationship status still separated. Prax gets a message from, Dr. Moynahan, a former colleague of Strickland who reveals "Strickland" is merely an alias of the man he recognizes as Carlos Merrian. He was a former peer at CMTU biosciences lab, on biological development constraint systems, but Merrian quit over ethical differences choosing to work for Protogen.
\nPrax puts observations and data together to hypothesize that Strickland (or Merrian) abducted Mei because of her compromised immune system, since it wouldn't fight back against the protomolecule, the way the previous monsters have; they've been engineered with a bomb as a failsafe, so if they get out of control they can be destroyed; however, the protomolecule eventually adapts and ejects the bomb.
\nThey realize that there must have been two monsters on Ganymede: the one they accidentally let out when they stormed the lab, and another that was presumably let loose just to see what would happen. Prax reasons that the monsters must have been shipped in from somewhere close, otherwise they would've adapted and ejected their bombs. He follows the money trail through tariff records and concludes they must be on Jupiter's moon, Io.
\nInexplicably, Prax starts getting death threats instead of donations; his ex-wife Nicola is seen in a broadcast making a statement which impugns Prax with allegations of spousal assault and of abusing Mei. Avasarala becomes alerted to the message and concludes that Errinwright's cabal compelled Nicola in order to stop Holden's growing threat, suggesting he's getting too close to the truth. She gets more intel about Venus, and her consultant, Michael-Jon de Uturbé, thinks that the spikes look like neuronal(?) synapses, implying that it is sentient. Admiral Souther contacts her and says Nguyễn sent six destroyers after Holden; she wants to send a message out to warn him, but Mao's crew blocks her with claims of radio access errors. Thus demonstrating that she's being held captive, Avasarala declares authority to commandeer the ship. Bobbie puts on her mechanized combat armor and fights her way to the bridge. The captain surrenders, but the yacht is too slow to make it to Holden in time. Luckily, the Razorback racing pinnace is on board.
\nHolden gathers the crew together to figure out who they are as a group unit and what they want to do in the future. They take a vote and decide to keep him the captain; Holden says they're going to incorporate, and each of them will own part of the Roci. Naomi is glad to see the old Holden back.
\nAvasarala tells Holden to meet her, and comes aboard; she explains the dire situation they're in. They produce a video explaining she's there on behalf of the UN to meet with Holden and a Mars representative (Bobbie) as a multilateral investigation of Ganymede. She also denounces media exploitation of Prax's mentally ill ex-wife. In so doing, she exonerates Prax. She shows the Roci crew Bobbie's suit video, which reaffirms Prax's hypothesis about the protomolecule ejecting its failsafe. She shows them the Venus data and Prax further realizes that Venus is communicating with the monsters in real time – one learns what the other learns.
\nAvasarala puts all this info into a video and sends it to Errinwright; however, instead of pulling back, he sends the warships toward them even faster. Avasarala sends the info to Admirals Souther and Leniki, who she trusts. Bobbie suggests they make a plea to the Martians for backup; Avasarala tells them she's being attacked by a rogue element of the UN Navy while on a peacekeeping mission to Jupiter, and to requires their help.
\nThe Martian cruiser fires torpedoes first, and when the UN ships turn to fire at Martians, Bobbie fires the torpedoes that take out the first UN ship, turning the tide of battle in their favor. Some torpedoes were fired at the Roci, but PDCs took them out; however, three stray PDC shots go through Prax's quarters and need repairs. The MCRN ships resupply them, and Holden gets Bobbie an arm cannon for her suit with incendiary rounds.
\nAvasarala tells the Secretary-General, Esteban Sorrento-Gillis, what the situation is; he forms an investigative committee. After he subsequently is forced to condemn Nguyễn's actions she concludes Errinwright has struck a bargain exposing the admiral but is finished. The Secretary-General himself must have also effectively lost all political influence and become a lame duck until someone else takes the office.
\nBobbie studies her armor-cam video repeatedly to develop a combat strategy; she determines that the monster's failsafe might kick in when it receives too much damage, and that it's only good at attacking straight on.
\nAdmiral Souther joins his fleet with the Martian and they head to Io. Nguyễn has dozens of ships in orbit, making this the largest fleet action in history. From aboard the UNN Agatha King, Nguyễn threatens to send protomolecule weapons at Mars; Mars threatens to glass the moon in return. The Secretary-General recalls Nguyễn to Earth. Nguyễn launches hundreds of protomolecule monsters from the surface of Io, targeting Mars, then tries to fastburn away. The monster transports cut thrust entering ballistic trajectory and Nguyễn shuts off their transponders, so they can't be tracked. One of the monster makes it onto the King, and Nguyễn immediately surrenders, but Avasarala says there's no way in hell anyone is going on that ship. Even though he's a dead man walking, Nguyễn refuses to turn the transponders back on, so no one knows how many monsters made it past the fleet to Mars. Holden sends Bobbie, Amos, and Prax down to Io; he's going over to the King to turn transponders on.
\nThe monster breached the reactor on the King, so Holden has to wear a radiation suit instead of proper armor. He takes the Razorback to Agatha King and is attacked by a UN sailor, Larson, hiding in a storage locker; luckily, he thinks Holden's an admiral and helps him get to the CIC (Combat Information Center). The infected are all congregated in the galley, and they're all the new version of the vomit zombies with the glowing blue eyes. They run through and just barely make it up the elevator to the CIC, where they find Nguyễn still alive. He still won't give up the transponder codes, so Holden shoots him in the throat, mid-sentence. Having reactivated the transponders, he finds the ships's self destruct button, but there's no time. Since his suit was ripped while running from the "vomit zombies", Larson agrees to remain behind to trigger the sequence. Holden leaves out an airlock and after allowing enough time, Larson blows the Agatha King, Admiral Augustus Nguyễn's ship.
\nIo is tectonically unstable and highly radioactive. Amos and Prax go into the base while Bobbie stays outside to fight one of the monsters. Her incendiary rounds stop it from healing itself, but don't take it out. She adopts a tactic of evasion at 90° perpendicular fallback vectors, and her theory about the monsters not being good at corners is effective. The monster can't catch her, so it starts tearing up big chunks of rocks and throwing them at her. She continues to dodge and shoot, but instead of the bomb going off and destroying it, it rips it off and throws it at her. It goes off near her feet, sending her flying and greatly damaging her suit. The monster sidles up and pukes on her, but seems curious about why she's not becoming infected. A tube comes out of its midsection and sprays goo all over her, probing her suit for entry points. Fortunately, Bobbie's gun comes back online and she blows its head off.
\nPrax and Amos find Strickland accompanied with the mystery woman, who turns out to be his handler, in the lab. She tries to convince Strickland to flee with her, but he sees the writing on the wall and shoots her. Amos and Prax confront him and he says he was the one who kept the children safe, that they would've been infected without him, but they call him out on being a sociopath and Amos blows him apart with his auto shotgun. After a heartfelt reunion with Mei, they get her and the other kids back to the Roci’’, and Bobbie too.
\nErrinwright is "retired" and Avasarala gets his job as Undersecretary of Executive Administration. She tells Bobbie that anything she wants to do, Avasarala will make it happen. Holden tells his family to come to Luna and meet Naomi; turns out they're racist against Belters but they'll come anyway. Avasarala brings in Jules-Pierre Mao to humiliate him, while Holden unofficially observes; she tells him he's going to be locked up and forced to watch her disassemble everything he's built – the ultimate punishment for a man like him. She puts Prax in charge of rebuilding Ganymede, much to his pleasure.
\nFred Johnson, in a demonstration of his nuclear capabilities, nukes the protomolecule missile monsters when they get near Tycho station. This causes Venus to violently react by shooting black filaments thousands of kilometers long, bigger than Ceres Station or Ganymede, off of the surface and into space, swatting starships out of the way like gnats.
\nDetective Miller, covered in blue specks, appears to Holden and says "we gotta talk."
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"carl-s-doomsday-scenario-dinniman","title":"Carl's Doomsday Scenario","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":2,"pages":364,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Dandy House","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57768380-carl-s-doomsday-scenario","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"235720","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798588333764","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"carl-s-doomsday-scenario-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/carl-s-doomsday-scenario-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"10/10/2024","dateFinished":"10/18/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"About the same as the first one. It’s pretty good but nothing crazy. I think this is a lot people's first experience with LitRPG which is why it is so wildly popular.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"cataclysm-hunter","title":"Cataclysm","author":"J. A. Hunter","series":"Viridian Gate Online","seriesNumber":1,"pages":306,"yearPublished":2042,"publisher":"CreateSpace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33844368-cataclysm","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"6129","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781541073876","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"cataclysm-hunter-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/cataclysm-hunter/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"10/11/2021","dateFinished":"10/17/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"children-of-time-tchaikovsky","title":"Children of Time","author":"Adrian Tchaikovsky","series":"Children of Time","seriesNumber":1,"pages":608,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"PanMacmillan","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"163736","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781447273288","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"children-of-time-tchaikovsky-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/children-of-time-tchaikovsky/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/12/2025","dateFinished":"9/22/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A good book. I love the concept. Feel like the middle third was a bit weak but the overall concept is super interesting. Want to read the whole series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Children of Time
\nAdrian Tchaikovsky
\nThe Children of Time #1
In the far future, Dr. Avrana Kern is the head of a science team orbiting a terraformed, previously uninhabitable exoplanet that she hopes will be named "Kern's World." The team is preparing to release a genetically designed nanovirus onto the new world to accelerate the evolution of a group of monkeys. There is talk of war stirring back home between authorities and multiple anti-technology factions opposed to this kind of genetic engineering, including a terrorist group or radical movement known as "non ultra natura" (lit. 'nothing greater than nature').
\nDr. Kern learns there is an agent of an anti-technology group aboard the ship about to overload the reactor, and she flees aboard an escape pod before anyone else can. The payload of monkeys is jettisoned from the ship in a landing craft, yet it burns up in atmospheric entry. With no monkeys on Kern's World, and its ecosystems originally seeded with a minimum of possible competitor species for Kern's experiment, the nanovirus spends its time infecting and altering a multitude of living creatures, a notable example being jumping spiders (Portia labiata)—referred to in the book as Portiids. Dr. Kern is left stranded in orbit awaiting rescue, periodically waking from stasis, and she is troubled by the sudden cessation of radio signals bleeding out from humanity's home.
\nMany millennia pass, and civilization reemerges on Earth from the hunter-gathering descendants of survivors, eventually salvaging machinery left over from Kern's time that is known only as 'the Old Empire'. Faced with the slow collapse of Earth's biosphere due to the long-delayed consequences of the ancient war, the last remnants of humanity are en route to Kern's World aboard the starship Gilgamesh, hoping for a paradisiacal planet and ignorant of the uplifted Portiid spiders. Confronting Dr. Kern, who is powerful and rendered crazed and xenophobic by the millennia in orbit, the Gilgamesh takes a centuries-long detour to a neighboring system that proves uninhabitable. The novel plays off the contrast between the rapid advancement of the spiders' societies and the descent of the crew of last humans into strife and barbarism, primarily seen through the eyes of the Gilgamesh's chief classicist, Holsten Mason.
\nAfter the Gilgamesh returns to Kern's World, the two narratives collide, seemingly dooming one or both sides to extinction (prisoner's dilemma). The Portiids, on the other hand, devise a strategy that saves both their world and the invaders, uniting with and inviting the last humans to live with them on Kern's World, drawing on past genetic memories, known as "Understandings" that showed that collaboration was the better option in the end.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"chosen-breene","title":"Chosen","author":"K. F. Breene","series":"The Warrior Chronicles","seriesNumber":1,"pages":411,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22668541-chosen?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"21830","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781508923022","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"chosen-breene-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/chosen-breene/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/6/2022","dateFinished":"6/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Another free book on Audible, and this time I can actually say the only good thing is that it is short. Take 1 part bad Hunger Games main character, 1 part bad Throne of Glass, 1 part bad world building and chronology, and lastly 1 part stupid magic.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"cibola-burn-corey","title":"Cibola Burn","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":4,"pages":581,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23197305-cibola-burn","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"127780","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780316334686","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"cibola-burn-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/cibola-burn-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/22/2026","dateFinished":"1/27/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Havelock was almost racist but then decided at the last second to be a decent human. Murtry started out as a good antagonist, his reasoning did have some rationale behind it, but by the end he was just fully insane and evil which did not seem super believable. The title for this one is good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Cibola Burn
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #4
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Cibola_Burn#Plot
\nColony ships have been going through the wormhole gates and colonizing the worlds within, expanding humanity's frontiers beyond the Sol system at a furious pace. Basia Merton, who previously lived on Ganymede until his son, Katoa, was used in the protomolecule experiment, was one of the first colonists on Ilus, christened “New Terra” by the United Nations. They created a colony on First Landing where the lithium reserves were closest to the planet's surface. Basia builds some makeshift IEDs and destroys the landing pad built so that the massive Royal Charter Energy (RCE) colony ship, the Edward Israel, would not be able to land and begin their mining operation; however, a shuttle from the ship arrives much sooner than expected, and is downed in the explosion.
\nElvi Okoye, an exozoologist, is injured in the shuttle crash, but she survives; many of her crewmates, including the Governor, are killed. Fayez Sarkis, geohydraulics, survives and pairs up with Elvi. Dimitri Havelock, Miller's old partner, works on the security force aboard the Edward Israel.
\nThe Rocinante has been taking jobs escorting ships through the Sol Ring to Medina Station, formerly the Nauvoo and the Behemoth. After they dock, Fred Johnson, leader of the OPA, tells Holden that he's received a video from Chrisjen Avasarala; she wants him to mediate the situation on New Terra, since he's mostly impartial to the UN and the OPA. The OPA has fundamental disagreements with the UN being in charge of handing out contracts for thousands of worlds, so Fred and Avasarala are back-channeling things to keep it from getting out of control. Holden ultimately agrees to take the job, partly because they'll be setting the template for everything that follows, and partly because the money is really good.
\nThe Roci heads through the Ring, but it will still take 73 days to get to New Terra. In the meantime, Holden gets continual demands from both sides demanding that he force the other to concede; the captain of the Barbapiccola insists that they be able to sell their ore, while the captain of the Edward Israel continues their blockade, insisting the independents are selling the lithium illegally. Holden thinks his mission is intended to fail, that both sides are using him as a scapegoat.
\nMiller continues to appear. Holden asks Miller how he manages to follow him around, and Miller tells him the protomolecule put a local node on his ship during the Ganymede incident, when the monster was in the cargo bay.
\nBasia's daughter, Felcia, wants to leave Ilus to attend University; she befriends Elvi and asks her to write a letter of recommendation. After a sandstorm, Elvi sees a light in the ruins and investigates; she discovers explosives and reports her findings to the RCE security force.
\nCoop, the leader of the OPA resistance, tells Basia that the RCE found the explosives and they need to go set them off or they'll be traced back to them. This is just a ruse to get Basia to come along, however. They all show up with weapons and have a shoot-out, killing all the RCE security there.
\nChief Adolphus Murtry, head of RCE security on the Edward Israel, takes a light shuttle down to extract the lone surviving security personnel and to stop the insurgents, leaving Havelock in charge of security on the ship.
\nHolden and Amos land on the planet to absolutely no fanfare; Alex and Naomi, who can't withstand the gravity due to her Belter physiology, head back into orbit. They walk to the town square, where the two opposing sides, headed by the major/coordinator Carol Chiwewe and Murtry, are facing off in a shouting match. Both sides ask Holden to take their side, but he wants to be impartial. Coop threatens Murtry, who in turn shoots Coop right in the eye; he's declared Martial Law on the town. Holden tells Murtry he fully intends to prosecute him for murder, later; Amos tells Holden he knows Murtry gets off on killing, and that he'll probably have to shoot him before long.
\nAt a meeting with other insurgents, Basia convinces them that they need Holden on their side, and that if they escalate things, it will make matters much worse. The group recommends he talk to Holden, since Holden found his son on Ganymede.
\nElvi meets with Holden and is a bit smitten by him. She tells him that while humans have evolved for longer than the life on this planet, eventually something here will learn to exploit them, not like a virus, which evolved with humans, but it will learn to "mine" them unless they can build antibodies to fight them off. It's already a problem, however, because they didn't set up a bio-sphere when they landed. Holden tells her they'll get to that as soon as the other crisis is resolved.
\nHolden holds the first joint meeting between Murtry and Chiwewe in an effort to establish the laws on Ilus. They come to a compromise where the OPA can send ore up to the Barbapiccola, but they have to sign out the mining explosives from the RCE.
\nWhile out walking, Miller appears to Holden and explains that the previous inhabitants of Ilus were powerful enough that they remodeled the whole planet, and had an orbital defense system that could've vaporized Ceres, but they were still extinguished by the protomolecule's parent race's killers. Holden runs into Basia on his way back; Basia tells Holden who he is, and tells him they can't make him leave. Holden can tell from his nervous demeanor that he's either in the resistance or knows who is. Naomi calls and warns him that there are massive energy spikes coming from his location.
\nHavelock reports to Murtry that he's converted their light shuttle into a makeshift fusion bomb, flyable only by him or Murtry. Murtry also wants Havelock to train the scientists to form a militia. Later, Captain Marwick tells Havelock that what happens on the ground could have major consequences for him and his ship when they go back through the Ring with the OPA on the other side.
\nThe Roci picks up something large moving on the surface during the energy spikes; Holden, Elvi, Fayez, and Wei hop in a cart and check it out. They find a large, insect-like being that Holden recognizes as one of the security drones from the Ring Station that was so adept at killing things. It is consuming the grasses and fungus on the ground to repair itself. Holden says they need to retreat as soon as possible, but Wei opens fire on it, and kills it; they burn it to make sure it doesn't resurrect.
\nBasia goes to another OPA meeting. their new plan is to take out all of the security forces and Holden, in an effort to make it economically inviable to occupy them. Basia doesn't want any part of it and leaves. At home, he tells his wife he's going to talk to Holden about it; she tells him that their daughter is leaving on a shuttle now to go to University and he runs to stop her. When he gets to the shuttle, he realizes she'll be much happier and safer if she goes, so he simply gives her a proper goodbye. He tracks down Holden and warns him about what's going to happen; Holden isn't all that surprised, but says it's irrelevant because they're all leaving the planet anyway, in lieu of the waking alien technology.
\nHolden gets Murtry and Chiwewe together and tells them they're all leaving, but neither agrees to his plan. Holden ultimately has to threaten to shoot Murtry, but Murtry gets a call from his team, revealing that they all knew about the uprising because he's bugged the entire town, and he already has his people in position. He orders his strike team to attack; they kill everyone inside a nearby house that Murtry dubbed a "terrorist cell". Murtry orders Basia be taken as a prisoner for conspiring with the terrorist, but Holden declares custody of him on behalf of the UN, saying he will be kept as a prisoner on the Roci.
\nIn addition to the energy spikes, there have been twenty heat upwellings on the planet.
\nThe Roci lands and picks up Basia. Naomi gives him free reign of the ship; she doesn't see him as a prisoner since he saved the captain's life. She and Alex have noticed that the RCE has turned its second shuttle into a bomb. They could shoot it with a gauss round, but Naomi opts for the non-violent route and EVAs over to attach a remote cut-off on the engine.
\nWhile doing EVA training exercises, someone on Havelock's squad notices Naomi welding on the shuttle. They thrust over to her and she flees, but they use their grapnels to ensnare her; they throw her in the brig.
\nHolden gets a visit from Miller; Miller admits that the protomolecule has been activating the alien robots on the surface, but also that there's a big empty spot in the global network and he needs Holden to check it out; it may be a remnant of the thing that killed the Investigator's creators. Holden says he'll check it out as soon as they free Naomi.
\nUp in the sky, one of the moons melts. Elvi goes to warn Holden about it, and also tells him that she thinks they've only encountered the alien organisms on the planet so far that are trying to wake up from hibernation and failing, but it's usually only a small percentage of organisms that fail when awaking, and there are probably plenty more that won't fail.
\nWhile in the field, Elvi analyses a butterfly-like animal; it turns out that it's not an animal at all, but another sort of alien machine. Basia's wife, Lucia, the town doctor, asks Elvi to stop by. In her office, she has a boy whose eye has turned green; she thinks it's possibly the organisms that live in the clouds, feeding off the moisture. She tells Lucia she'll talk to her people and Holden, and hopefully they can find a cure.
\nOver the center of Ilus' largest island, on the opposite side of the planet from First Landing, an enormous eruption occurs, creating tidal waves hundreds of feet high, flattening half the planet, and lighting up the dark side of the planet like a second sun has appeared. The shockwave will soon spread to the other side of the planet. Alex calls Holden and warns him that he's got about 6 hours before the shockwaves hit, which is too soon to bring the Roci down for evacuation or for them to take the RCE shuttle off the planet. They decide the best course of action is to get everyone into the alien ruins.
\nThe storm front hits for 16 long hours. Afterwards, there's nothing left outside but mud, no remnants showing that humans were ever even there. Slimy slugs begin emerging from the ground; someone touches one and immediately dies. Everyone chips in to block all the access points of the ruins from the invasion of the toxic slugs, hanging sheets of plastic on the windows, digging trenches, etc.
\nHolden tells Murtry they need to get everyone off the planet. he agrees, but he plans on coming back later. Havelock tries to send supplies down in one of the light shuttles, but the planetary defense system comes online and shoots the shuttle down, seemingly from some sort of cannon on one of the moons. The aliens also have some sort of dampening field that stops nuclear fusion from occurring, so all the ships' reactors go offline, forcing them to run on battery power only. Without their drives, the ships' orbits all begin to decay.
\nMiller appears and tells Holden he needs to use the material transfer network to get to the blind spot he's seeking out; Holden tells him “later”, after he saves everyone. Miller suggests that maybe airdrops of supplies are probably innocuous enough that the defense grid won't take them out, so Havelock begins dropping supplies that way, successfully.
\nTo make matters even worse on Ilus, the organisms that lived in the clouds infect everyone via the rain, and they all start going blind, except Holden. Elvi and the other scientists desperately try to find a cure, and eventually Elvi realizes that Holden's anti-cancer meds are what's stopping the parasites from blinding him.
\nSince Havelock still refuses to release Naomi, Basia EVA's over to the Edward Israel and begins cutting through the hull. Murtry tells Havelock to get his ad hoc assault team together to stop the invaders using extreme prejudice. Havelock doesn't want things to escalate any more than they already have, and since Naomi is possibly be the best engineer to solve the fusion situation, he springs her from the brig. He takes out a few of his own team along the way with tasers and non-lethal rounds, and eventually they find Basia. They manage to get out an airlock and make it to the Roci intact.
\nHolden gets into a fight with Murtry, but doesn't kill him. Elvi tells Holden his anti-cancer meds are curing the blindness, and that they should all be able to see within a few hours, maybe days. After a quick nap, he finally agrees to help Miller and joins him on the material transfer system.
\nBasia goes EVA again and attaches tethers to the Barbapiccola so the Roci can tow her to a more stable orbit. They manage to boost it quite a ways when the Israel launches their shuttle-turned-torpedo at the Roci. Alex fires the PDCs and shreds the shuttle, but the shrapnel penetrates the Rocinante's hull, cutting multiple small holes through it, and injuring Havelock's arm. Naomi and Baz patch up all the holes, but the maneuvering thrusters on one side are all shot; Alex informs them that they're going to lose the Barb and there's nothing they can do about it. They plan to evacuate some of the crew of the Barb to the Roci, but ultimately decide to try using the railgun as a thruster. All goes according to plan and they again briefly stop the Barbs orbit from decaying; however, the Israel launches their security team EVA toward the Roci.
\nOn Ilus, Murtry and Wei take off in the one working cart after Holden. Amos and Elvi get the other cart working and, along with Elvi's new boyfriend, Fayez, follow in their tracks. Holden passes out for about 20 hours, and when he wakes up, Miller tells him they'll have to go the rest of the way on foot. Miller takes control of one of the giant alien maintenance mechanisms and uses them to cut the door off the transit car, clearing the wreckage blocking the track. Holden climbs on its back and rides it to their destination.
\nThey reach the processing station and Miller explains that the whole planet contains materials rare in the galaxy; it is basically an interstellar gas station.
\nWith the Rocis PDCs down, Havelock goes EVA and tries to shoot down the attacking team and their makeshift missiles. One of the missiles finds its mark; it does only superficial damage to the Roci, but knocks Havelock off the ship and hurls shrapnel into his leg. Basia goes out and retrieves him using a grapnel. The attackers from the Israel launch some missiles at the Barb and knock it off course, also irreparably damaging the tether to the Roci. Basia heads towards the Barb and Havelock covers him.
\nElvi and Amos eventually come to the enormous alien structure where Holden's at; they find Murtry's cart abandoned, the engine burned up. Inside the structure, Wei tells them they're not authorized to go any further; Amos shoots and kills her, Murtry shoots Amos in the back multiple times, but it doesn't penetrate his armor, though he does blow off some of his fingers. Amos shoots Murtry in the chest, but his armor saves him. Fayez tells Murtry this is his fault, that Amos was trying to save everyone, and punches Murtry on the nose. Elvi runs to find Holden as Murtry shoots Fayez.
\nWhile Havelock fires at the impending attackers, attempting to only disable their EVA packs instead of killing them, the chief engineer in charge of the militia continues to goad and insult Havelock and the crew of the Roci. Basia then comes up with the idea of attaching multiple inflatable airdocks together to get the people from the Barb to the Roci. The captain of the Israel agrees to give some spares so everyone on the Barb will be able to be saved before the ship breaks up in the atmosphere. The chief engineer starts yelling at the Israel's captain, saying he will use lethal force to prevent any aid being given to the "enemy". Suddenly, the chief's complaints are cut off mid-sentence and Alex admits to shooting him with the rail gun, saying he had the shot and sheepishly asking if he is in trouble. Using tethers, they successfully get all the portable docks onto the Israel; a short while later, the Barbapiccola explodes in the atmosphere. Basia is overcome with grief when he realizes the people on the Israel, the ones saving his people, were the ones he killed when he bombed the RCE shuttle.
\nElvi runs through the complex and practically stumbles right into Holden and that hulking insect-like machine with him. She warns him about Murtry and tells him she thinks Amos is dead. Holden nonchalantly introduces Elvi to the alien mechanism controlled by proto-Miller and tells her and Miller to go save the planet; he goes after Murtry. They come to a chamber with a swirling vortex of darkness upon darkness that Elvi describes as "the eye of an angry God," but Miller can't see it.
\nHolden meets Murtry at opposite sides of a bridge; Murtry says he has to stop him from shutting down the technology because the RCE can learn from it, and even if it means he and all his people have to die, so be it. He also tells Holden that Amos and Fayez are still alive, but barely. They both prepare for a wild-west style shootout, but while Murtry is busy grandstanding, Holden shoots him multiple times in the chest, arm, and leg. Holden patches him up and saves him, then tells him that he's got powerful friends back home that owe him favors, which he plans to cash in by humiliating Murtry.
\nSuddenly, the machinery around them starts coming to life. Miller activates all the equipment he can, wanting to throw it all at the black thing in the center of his room. The aliens aren't happy about this and attack Miller and Elvi. She manages to avoid them by hiding behind the black hole, since they can't see it, and they kill themselves chasing after her. Miller is damaged irreparably though, so he asks Elvi to take the blue, almond-shaped unit inside him out and walk it into the dead spot. Just as the robots are about to overtake her, she slips into the dead spot. Inside, she feels herself torn apart and put back together again, then passes through the other side. Everything is dark and all the machines are off again, the dark spot remains. Miller takes control of everything, becomes the entire world. Proto-Miller stops reaching out.
\nHolden lets the Roci know the planet's defense system is down and Alex fires up the engines; everyone else follows suit. The Roci lands on Ilus to drop off supplies. About half the colonists on the Barb decided to stay with the scientists on the planet, and the other half opt to go back with the Israel and the Roci. Video of the rescue of the crew from the Barb onto the Israel hits the feeds back home, and Havelock and Captain Marwick are portrayed as RCE heroes who saved the colonists. Everyone on the planet is working together finally, and they might actually stand a chance at surviving. Holden and the Roci crew take off; he lets Basia stay behind with his family.
\nHolden takes an EVA suit and a blowtorch into the Roci's cargo bay and tears it apart until he finds the remaining bit of protomolecule. He loads it into a probe and shoots the probe into Ilus' parent star. Murtry is locked up in the medical bay, and will be tried by the UN on Luna.
\nOn Mars, Avasarala meets with Bobbie Draper and explains that the MCR is compromised. She had planned on Holden failing, but since he didn't, the population of Mars will be leaving the inhospitable planet in droves to the new worlds. The only thing Mars will have left to sell are its 15,000 nuclear warheads.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"city-of-light-wight","title":"City of Light","author":"Will Wight","series":"Traveler's Gate","seriesNumber":3,"pages":394,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22881816-city-of-light","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"12394","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780989671712","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"city-of-light-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/city-of-light-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/26/2022","dateFinished":"7/31/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This trilogy should have ended with the first book. This is super uneventful, forgetful, and boring. I really didn’t want to finish but just busted it out. Dumb ending for a dumb plot. No consequences for dumb actions by characters and stupid deus ex machina ending. dumb.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"click-here-to-start-markell","title":"Click Here to Start","author":"Denis Markell","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":320,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Delacorte Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27272299-click-here-to-start?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"1578","genre":"Mystery","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781101931875","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"click-here-to-start-markell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/click-here-to-start-markell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/3/2022","dateFinished":"11/8/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Children’s book. Pretty average and intended for children, which I am most definitely not. Supporting Japanese-American heritage is a cool idea though and it did fit well into the book. I learned a couple of facts which I enjoy. Could tell it was the author’s first novel though.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"court-of-assassins-quaintrell","title":"Court of Assassins","author":"Philip C. Quaintrell","series":"The Ranger Archives","seriesNumber":1,"pages":525,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Quaintrell Publishings","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/237087061-court-of-assassins","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.98","numGoodreadsRatings":"3744","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781916610408","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"court-of-assassins-quaintrell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/court-of-assassins-quaintrell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"10/9/2023","dateFinished":"10/16/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Not terrible, I am realizing I really don’t like when authors struggle to not repeat names or words. Like calling him “Asher”, then “Assassin”, then “Ranger”, then “Smaller man” and so on is annoying.
\n2026: This does in fact still bother me.
Almost DNF’ed about a quarter through. Had a really rocky start, confusing, and incest isn’t fun to read about. But the middle was ok, once you really understand what is going in and the last third was solid I guess. Overall an impressive work for it’s time that does not hold up great to modern standards. Also failed the Bechtel test like no ones business.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Daggerspell
\nDeverry #1
\nKatherine Kerr
We start out with an interesting story following people we know and then it jumps somewhere completely else but you realize it is the same “souls” just in a past incarnation explaining why they are intertwined now. Fairly interesting for the 80’s I guess but pretty boring honestly.
\nYear 1045
\nThe sorcerer Nevyn sees an omen indicating that a person whose destiny is intertwined with his own has been reborn, and sees the infant Jill in a vision.
Year 1052
\nJill, a seven-year-old girl who sometimes has precognitive dreams, loses her mother Seryan to a fever. Because her father, Cullyn, is a mercenary soldier – known as a "silver dagger" for the weapon he carries – and visits irregularly, Jill is taken in by a local tavern owner. Cullyn arrives in Jill's village a month later. Finding Seryan dead, he decides to take Jill with him on his wanderings, which he calls "the long road.”
For seven years, Nevyn has been searching for Jill, with nothing more than luck and intuition to guide him. He finds a clue when he meets the ten-year-old lord Rhodry Maelwaedd, and sees that the boy's destiny is linked with his and Jill's.
\nYear 643
\nGalrion, a prince of Deverry, has secretly begun studying sorcery. He begins to fall in love with its power, and out of love with his betrothed, Brangwen of the Falcon clan. Galrion considers breaking his betrothal so that he will have more time to devote to the study of sorcery. Galrion's father, King Adoryc, is infuriated when he discovers that his son has been studying sorcery, and puts Galrion under house arrest, though the prince escapes by a ruse.
Adoryc soon finds his son and sends him into exile, taking from him all his rank, titles, and property. He even takes Galrion's name from him, and gives him a new name, Nevyn, meaning "no one." Adoryc also breaks Nevyn's betrothal to Brangwen, who then falls into an incestuous relationship with her brother Gerraent, and the two promise to end their lives together when autumn comes.
\nWhen Gerraent's sworn friend, Blaen of the Boar clan, discovers the incestuous relationship, Gerraent kills him. Gerraent is in turn killed by Blaen's brother. Nevyn takes Brangwen away from the Falcon lands, but the distraught girl drowns herself. Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, Nevyn rashly swears an oath that he will not rest until he sets things right. Thunder booms from a clear sky – a sign that his oath has been accepted by the Great Ones (transcendent spiritual beings similar to Bodhisattvas).
\nYear 1058
\nWhen Jill turns thirteen, Cullyn, who has been teaching his daughter swordcraft, buys Jill a silver dagger like his own for a birthday present. Otho, the smith who made the dagger, notices that Jill can see spirits called Wildfolk, and tells her a riddle. "If you ever find no one (nev yn), ask him what craft to take." Some time later, Otho tells Nevyn about Jill. Unable to find her, Nevyn returns to his home province of Eldidd, where he saves the life of Rhodry Maelwaedd, earning the gratitude of his mother Lovyan, the local feudal lord. Nevyn receives a prophecy about the boy – Rhodry's destiny is somehow bound to that of the entire province.
Year 696
\nNevyn comes to Deverry province to banish an unnatural drought. Here he finds the bard Gweran (Blaen reborn), his wife Lyssa (Brangwen reborn), and a soldier called Tanyc (Gerraent reborn). When Tanyc angers Gweran by his behavior towards Lyssa, Gweran takes his revenge by subterfuge. He provokes Tanyc into attacking him – but as a bard, Gweran's life is sacrosanct. Tanyc is hanged for his crime.
While this is happening, Nevyn meets Lyssa's elder son, Aderyn. He teaches the boy a little herbcraft, and eventually takes him as apprentice in sorcery.
\nYear 1062
\nLovyan discovers that Rhodry has fathered a bastard child on a low-born girl, and decides to put the child into fosterage with one of her noble servitors when it is born. In the meantime, Lovyan is having trouble with some of her vassals. A number of minor lords are sitting on the edge of rebellion over matters of succession and taxes. Lovyan's own liege lord, Rhys, the Gwerbret of Aberwyn (who is also her eldest son), makes it very clear that he won't intervene unless she disinherits Rhodry.
Cullyn, meanwhile has taken a hire guarding a caravan heading toward the kingdom's western border to trade with the mysterious Westfolk. On the way, Jill sees the eerie Loddlaen, a councilor to Lord Corbyn of Bruddlyn. At the trading camp, Jill meets Aderyn, an old Deverrian man who lives with the Westfolk. She also learns that Loddlaen is a fugitive murderer. At the conclusion of the trading, Aderyn and several of the Westfolk accompany the caravan back to the city of Cannobaen, to begin legal proceedings against Loddlaen in Lovyan's court.
\nOn the way to Cannobaen, the caravan is attacked by bandits, and flees to an abandoned fort to make their stand. Aderyn transforms himself into an owl to spy on the bandits. He discovers that they aren't bandits at all, but warriors from several different lords, including Corbyn. Cullyn sends Jill to beg the Lovyan for aid. By a stroke of luck, Jill comes across Rhodry and his entire warband on the road, in the midst of a day-long training exercise.
\nMeanwhile, the attacking army has reached the fort. The defense is thin: two swordsmen, two archers, and six stavemen. Albaral, a man of the Westfolk, is slain, but the attackers are defeated when Rhodry and his warband arrive.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"daughter-of-the-empire-wurts","title":"Daughter of the Empire","author":"Raymond E. Feist, Janny Wurts","series":"The Empire Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":421,"yearPublished":1987,"publisher":"Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/589979.Daughter_of_the_Empire?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_22","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"42225","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Political","isbn":"9780553272116","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"daughter-of-the-empire-wurts-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/daughter-of-the-empire-wurts/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/7/2023","dateFinished":"3/17/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"The best “court-intrigue” fantasy I have ever read. Very impressive considering it was written in the 80’s, and it has me very excited to read more into the riftwar cycle. I hadn’t actually realized that this trilogy and the Magician trilogy are set in the same universe. It is true that it is a little too classic fantasy in that Mara is a bit too clever and all her plans seem to work out perfectly, but it was a good book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dawn-butler","title":"Dawn","author":"Octavia E. Butler","series":"Xenogenesis","seriesNumber":1,"pages":248,"yearPublished":1987,"publisher":"Warner Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60929.Dawn","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"65302","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9780446603775","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"dawn-butler-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/dawn-butler/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/14/2026","dateFinished":"4/17/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"There were points I almost stopped reading this. Incredibly brutal sections throughout that genuinely made it hard to continue. Despite that the story Butler tells is so vivid and real that by the end I discovered I loved the book. A story featuring aliens but really delves into the human condition. The anger you feel at almost every character in this story is astounding. I think this book is best to go into with little background on, but make sure you are ready for a hard, violent book at times.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Dawn
\nOctavia E. Butler
\nXenogenesis #1
Dawn Summary
\nLilith Iyapo awakens in a small room. She has been a prisoner for some time now but is unsure why or how she got here. She is forced to live with indignities like no clothes, no bathroom, and nothing to do. She is interrogated about her life in depth by unseen people.
\nWe learn that humanity nearly destroyed itself in a nuclear war. Lilith was married to her husband Sam and their son Ayre, but they both died in a car accident before “The War”. Eventually, after a very long period of isolation and boredom, one of her captors comes to meet Lilith. Jdahya, at first appears to be a man, but Lilith realizes he is an alien. She freaks out and can’t interact with him, but slowly she adjusts to his presence.
\nHe tells her is an Oankali, and they are an alien race who saved the remaining humans on Earth and now are on a huge ship in Earth’s orbit. Oankali have three genders, male, female, and Ooloi. Lilith was kept in isolation for 2.5 years while they questioned her, and in total it has been 250 years since Earth “died”, with Lilith and most humans kept in a suspended animation sleep during that time. Jdahya stays with Lilith until she can function around the Oankali, then takes her out to meet others and see more of the ship.
\nThe ship is a massive living structure that the Oankali can manipulate with their bodies. We meet Jdahya’s family. He is in a marriage type thing with himself, a female, and an Ooloi named Kahguyat. They also have a child ooloi Nikanj, who begins to bond with Lilith. She learns that the ooloi can do some weird body altering dna gene editing stuff. Kahguyat already removed a cancerous tumor from her while she slept and then edited her genes so she would never get cancer again. Lilith learns that the Oankali travel the universe “trading” with other species. They saved the remnants of humanity and will take them back to a healed Earth, in exchange for humans genetic material. They basically forcibly interbreed and mess with other species DNA.
\nThis is disturbing to Lilith who hates the idea, but she is pretty powerless. Nikanj is now her personal overseer/”friend”, and wants to learn from her and teach her in a culture swap. Lilith is planned to lead a group of humans to be the first settlers back on Earth, so goes through many lessons to learn how to do this. Eventually after a long time of asking she is allowed to see another human. She is brought to meet Titus, who was woken up as a 14 year old boy but is now 28. He decided to stay on the ship and live with the Oankali since he does not want to put in the effort to help build a new human society on Earth. Him and Lilith talk for a bit and she learns he has fathered 70 children via Oankali sperm transfusion type process, since they needed more human “subjects”. She makes it clear she will not sleep with him so he tries to rape her, and she is only able to make him stop by asking him to think about if he may have fathered a child with his sister or mother during the Oankali process. He gets angry and beats her unconscious.
\nLilith gets healed by Nikanj, since the ooloi can do that also. She accepts his offer to gene edit her so she has an eidetic memory and also can control parts of the living ship they are on. She begins to prepare to awaken and teach other humans in preparation of going to Earth. Lilith does not like the Oankali but figures the best way to escape is work with them and go home. She begins the long process of selecting people and having to wake them up and teach them about both the Oankali and their mission to restart on Earth.
\nLilith starts with multiple women to try to prevent violence (does not work), but awakens Tate, Lea, Celene first, then Curt and Joseph as the first men. This first group is somewhat receptive but no one truly believes in the aliens or that they are on a ship, since the Oankali won’t show themselves. Lilith and Joseph begin a relationship, and it seems most of the humans pair off quickly. Lilith faces harsh criticism and arguments from some of the people, especially Peter and Jean. It comes to a head when they awaken Allison, and Peter and another man try to rape her. Lilith is forced to hurt them using her Oankali enhances strength. Nikanj reveals himself to Joseph and it sleeps with Lilith and Joseph, doing some weird alien mind drug sex thing.
\nEventually all of the humans are shown that the aliens exist and are taken to a pseudo-Earth room on the ship to practice for the real thing. Most of the people dislike or distrust Lilith by now. After a while many of the group leave to try to run away, still not believing this is a ship with closed walls. Lilith goes with them to try to keep them safe, but Curt sees her and knocks her out. She wakes up to find Joseph was killed by Curt, and all of the Oankali ooloi are here. They track down the group and the ooloi are forced to subdue most of them, but Curt almost kills Nikanj with his axe. Lilith helps heal him but this earns her even more distrust from the humans.
\nLilith is made to stay on the ship and train more humans, instead of getting to return to Earth. Then Nikanj reveals it impregnated her with Joseph’s baby. She is horrified and does not know what to do but makes it her goal to figure out how to save humanity. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"dawnshard-sanderson","title":"Dawnshard","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":3.5,"pages":171,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58740026-dawnshard","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"140602","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","isbn":"9781250850553","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dawnshard-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/dawnshard-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/30/2022","dateFinished":"8/4/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A short novella companion novel for the stormlight archive, is a must read if you are a fan of the series but otherwise nothing super special. More impressive in what it reveals about the world of Roshar and its inhabitants than anything else.
\n2026: "novella companion novel"
Better than the first book. Took me a long time to finish due to friends coming over and other stuff, but I read the last 100 pages in a single night. So far this series has been so incredible, I am very excited to continue on.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"demon-in-white-ruocchio","title":"Demon in White","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":3,"pages":784,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"goodreads.com/book/show/48982144-demon-in-white","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"9927","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780756413064","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"demon-in-white-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/demon-in-white-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/28/2025","dateFinished":"3/17/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book in the series by far. Really, really good entry.The gaps in time between each book are really interesting.
\n2026: Just feels better and better the more time that passes. Incredible story.
A strong return to form, second best book in the series. Started a little slow but then quickly built back into what I wanted. Lots of stuff and people and stuff.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dissonance-gonnella","title":"Dissonance","author":"Nicoli Gonnella","series":"Unbound","seriesNumber":1,"pages":778,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Mountaindale","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60824343-dissonance","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"7866","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781637660904","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dissonance-gonnella-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/dissonance-gonnella/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/9/2025","dateFinished":"5/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A pretty typical LitRPG. Not the best writing, a couple really annoying conversation things, the stat increases don’t always make sense, incredibly lucky and powerful protagonist. But still a pretty fun and engaging read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"downtown-druid-titus","title":"Downtown Druid","author":"C.B. Titus","series":"Downtown Druid","seriesNumber":1,"pages":452,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Aethon Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/220948517-downtown-druid","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.68","numGoodreadsRatings":"1062","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798280873827","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"downtown-druid-titus-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":true,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/downtown-druid-titus/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"7/2/2026","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dragon-forged-holmberg","title":"Dragon Forged","author":"Dan Michaelson, D. K. Holmberg","series":"Blood of the Ancients","seriesNumber":1,"pages":286,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"ASH","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61783155-dragon-forged","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"2084","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798807080011","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dragon-forged-holmberg-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/dragon-forged-holmberg/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/21/2025","dateFinished":"6/22/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not great. Feels like a worse version of Unsouled from cradle (which I didn’t really like) except had no editor and the authors didn’t even proofread.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dreadgod-wight","title":"Dreadgod","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":11,"pages":464,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/124926653-dreadgod","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"24965","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001089","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"dreadgod-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/dreadgod-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/22/2025","dateFinished":"9/30/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not much of a gap between books anymore, not bad but kind of drags in places.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Dreadgod
\nWill Wight
\nCradle #11
Eithan gets arrested for being a protagonist by the fun police who are very upset that he wasn't protagging for THEM. They all expect him to use his OP main character powers to blow them up or cast shadow judgement deathstrike but instead he says "uwu I'm sowwy, I did a fucky wucky." This freaks everyone else more than threats. Makiel, having been a villian for some time, knows character dvevelopment when he sees it and tries to shut that shit down and blame him for everything. Eithan counters with a legendary "No U". This is a very strong point, and Makiel is not happy about it. They all agree to put Eithan in magic handcuffs and give him time out. They are all aware that he could break out of time out by yawning. No one is happy. Except Eithan. He gets to hang out with his buddy again.
\nBack on Babybox, because of shens fuckery, all of the dreadgods have gone super saiyan, all at the same time, and are being extra toxic. Especially the silent king, who just got unbanned on every psychic platform and is just hacking into everyones accounts now that parental controls are off. He tells lindon that he is gonna beat his ass. He's killed billions of protagonist. Lindon says "Uh....No U?" and then DC's before immediately freaking out.
\nEveryone is freaking out because it turned out that the wacky mentor figure was actually a wise mentor figure all along. Shen, having been a villian for some time, knows a protagonist when he sees one and warns everyone that if they dont kill them soon, they are begging to be BBEG fodder. Northstrider and Malice are too busy being homeless and a terrible parent to be genre savvy. No one is happy about All of the monarchs turn to team protagonist and say, "Stop being cool right now. None of that. Slow down." They all nod and when the monarchs turn around, lindon sneers, "Just because they said that we are going to advance EVEN HARDER!"
\nLindon activates his oceans 11 display with dross and starts picking out crazy digivolve spaces for the whole team to digivolve. Yerin will go to bloodfucker hall, where the bloodfuckers live, who she hates. Unforunately, they are really good at blood stuff, especially the sage of red research, who is very eager to take her on as a student in a completely non-creepy way, he swears. Featuring little blue.
\nZiel and Orthos have to go to time stop castle to learn how to stop time and also eat dragon gods. This seems wildly out of both of their leagues but lindon has faith in them, which means they get plot power.
\nLindon is going to go be a sage, because turns out, he's a pretty strong one, and also try to talk to mercy is a 1000% platonic way to help her level up, because he really loves his team and had a commitment to them as a group. Malice, being the most toxic parent, thinks that he is coming for a bootycall in the middle of war, and also that its time to Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss her daughter into submission. Its either that, or uncle shens naughty nono box of sadness, that apparently he puts his children in because he is the worst.
\nThe wandering titan is about to attack Akura land, and lindon and team are getting ready to fight it. And then it runs up and says "LMAO PSYCH" and sacrifices itself to summon the silent king in attack mode. When summoned, the silent king can cast dominate person on anyone withing a 13 mile radius who does not have the "Willpower" attribute, and can summon anyone they've dominated into battle. They have 0 attack at base, but add the a ttack scores of any card they dominate to their attack and defense. So they are a pain. All the monarchs try to fight them while lindon wants to nom. Silent king says NO its is I who will nom YOU. Then a tree appears and the silent king says "God fucking damnit" and the tree says "Aye lmao, who turned child lock off??"
\nLindon has dross ask very politely if he could commit a small treason and slurp the dreadgod. The tree, having been murdered by the last monarchs for trying to be a protagonist, says absolutely you can and I will help you treason. So they do that and all of the monarchs are really angry as Lindon creates a new form of advancement and somehow becomes a dreadgod. The monarchs look to emriss and say "This is problem!" and emiriss, having been a hero for some time, shrugs, "Is it?" They all think she's being cryptic and weird and fuck off, except Larian, who is genre savvy, and excited for the next arc.
\nElsewhere, Now an Arclord Yerin adopts redmoon hall after giving red research a crisis of faith that lead to his death, his bloodshadows death, and the death of half the hall due to a weird fight between blood exes. Ziel learns god sigils, Orthos learns about historical revisionism, and Mercy is gaslit by her mom again.
\nHaving literally stolen the power of the gods, Lindon and Dross collect the crew to do Ocean's 12: Monarch Heist. This is the part where they basically jump into the labyrinth and pop out wherever is most inconvient and just fucking rob the monarchs. this includes mercy, who is alerted that their mom was not only gaslighting her, but the entire population????? So they steal everyones shit and then dip and its the best.
\nThe monarchs are furious because these fucking protagonists are being protagonists. Shen shakes his head, "This is why you have to tpk BEFORE they get character development. EVERY TIME." Together they devise a devious plan: beat these kids asses.
\nThe protagonists, having gotten all the things they need, create their greatest weapon: The Hyperbolic Training Montage Chamber. With this, they plan to become truly OP protags.
Still improving bit by bit
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-born-krout","title":"Dungeon Born","author":"Dakota Krout","series":"The Divine Dungeon","seriesNumber":1,"pages":404,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Mountaindale","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45712252-dungeon-born","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"14245","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781950914005","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-born-krout-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-born-krout/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/23/2024","dateFinished":"3/23/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"DNF. Probably the first book I have given up on in almost a year, but it was reminding me too much of The Dungeon World series from this time last year (that also got a 0). Just sucks so much, I would prefer sharp implements being jabbed in me instead of this.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-crawler-carl-dinniman","title":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":1,"pages":446,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Independently Published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57964597-dungeon-crawler-carl","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"357866","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798707228315","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-crawler-carl-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.25,"url":"/books/dungeon-crawler-carl-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/31/2023","dateFinished":"8/5/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/2/2024","dateFinished":"5/6/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Giving this one another try on audiobook, because I really think I should like it. I did enjoy it a lot more than last time, still nothing incredible but after about 1/3 of the way through it started speeding up. A lot of people say it is funny and I still don’t think there has been a single part I have found funny. I think a lot of people just have not read any LitRPG so this is there only experience with it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-mauling-ugland","title":"Dungeon Mauling","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Good Guys","seriesNumber":3,"pages":309,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61100299-dungeon-mauling","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"4973","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346101","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-mauling-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/dungeon-mauling-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/24/2023","dateFinished":"6/25/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Series is starting to pick up more and more, I am hoping the improvement continues.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-world-2-brooks","title":"Dungeon World 2","author":"Jonathan Brooks","series":"Dungeon World","seriesNumber":2,"pages":461,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Independently Published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50029725-dungeon-world-2","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.36","numGoodreadsRatings":"1894","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781099433689","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-world-2-brooks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-world-2-brooks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/23/2023","dateFinished":"4/8/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I have all 5 books in a single audiobook. This sucks sucky sucks sucks. It is a somewhat interesting premise, and the set up in the first book isn’t bad, but wow does this just suck. The dialogue between characters makes me want to cut my ears off. Every few minutes the narrator stops and reads through the entire stat block even though there was only one change (and reading through it takes like 5 minutes). Somehow the books kept getting worse as the series went on. You think you hit rock bottom but then all of a sudden they keep falling. I hate this. I wish I had it in my heart to DNF stuff. 50 hours of my life I will never get back. Truly heartbreaking.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-world-3-brooks","title":"Dungeon World 3","author":"Jonathan Brooks","series":"Dungeon World","seriesNumber":3,"pages":480,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49794703-dungeon-world-3","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"1524","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781686593819","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-world-3-brooks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-world-3-brooks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/8/2023","dateFinished":"4/29/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I have all 5 books in a single audiobook. This sucks sucky sucks sucks. It is a somewhat interesting premise, and the set up in the first book isn’t bad, but wow does this just suck. The dialogue between characters makes me want to cut my ears off. Every few minutes the narrator stops and reads through the entire stat block even though there was only one change (and reading through it takes like 5 minutes). Somehow the books kept getting worse as the series went on. You think you hit rock bottom but then all of a sudden they keep falling. I hate this. I wish I had it in my heart to DNF stuff. 50 hours of my life I will never get back. Truly heartbreaking.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-world-4-brooks","title":"Dungeon World 4","author":"Jonathan Brooks","series":"Dungeon World","seriesNumber":4,"pages":522,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53059683-dungeon-world-4","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"1288","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781710568196","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-world-4-brooks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-world-4-brooks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/29/2023","dateFinished":"5/18/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I have all 5 books in a single audiobook. This sucks sucky sucks sucks. It is a somewhat interesting premise, and the set up in the first book isn’t bad, but wow does this just suck. The dialogue between characters makes me want to cut my ears off. Every few minutes the narrator stops and reads through the entire stat block even though there was only one change (and reading through it takes like 5 minutes). Somehow the books kept getting worse as the series went on. You think you hit rock bottom but then all of a sudden they keep falling. I hate this. I wish I had it in my heart to DNF stuff. 50 hours of my life I will never get back. Truly heartbreaking.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-world-5-brooks","title":"Dungeon World 5","author":"Jonathan Brooks","series":"Dungeon World","seriesNumber":5,"pages":514,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53181568-dungeon-world-5","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"749","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798630695543","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-world-5-brooks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-world-5-brooks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/18/2023","dateFinished":"6/19/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I have all 5 books in a single audiobook. This sucks sucky sucks sucks. It is a somewhat interesting premise, and the set up in the first book isn’t bad, but wow does this just suck. The dialogue between characters makes me want to cut my ears off. Every few minutes the narrator stops and reads through the entire stat block even though there was only one change (and reading through it takes like 5 minutes). Somehow the books kept getting worse as the series went on. You think you hit rock bottom but then all of a sudden they keep falling. I hate this. I wish I had it in my heart to DNF stuff. 50 hours of my life I will never get back. Truly heartbreaking.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dungeon-world-brooks","title":"Dungeon World","author":"Jonathan Brooks","series":"Dungeon World","seriesNumber":1,"pages":319,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44279344-dungeon-world","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"2523","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781798039977","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dungeon-world-brooks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/dungeon-world-brooks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/12/2023","dateFinished":"3/23/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I have all 5 books in a single audiobook. This sucks sucky sucks sucks. It is a somewhat interesting premise, and the set up in the first book isn’t bad, but wow does this just suck. The dialogue between characters makes me want to cut my ears off. Every few minutes the narrator stops and reads through the entire stat block even though there was only one change (and reading through it takes like 5 minutes). Somehow the books kept getting worse as the series went on. You think you hit rock bottom but then all of a sudden they keep falling. I hate this. I wish I had it in my heart to DNF stuff. 50 hours of my life I will never get back. Truly heartbreaking.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"dust-of-dreams-erikson","title":"Dust of Dreams","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":9,"pages":1280,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Tom Doherty","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703427-dust-of-dreams","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"31470","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765316554","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"dust-of-dreams-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/dust-of-dreams-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/26/2025","dateFinished":"3/19/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Great setup for the final book. Big battle.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"elantris-sanderson","title":"Elantris","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Elantris","seriesNumber":1,"pages":638,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Tor Fantasy","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68427.Elantris?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_8","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"359446","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765350374","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"elantris-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/elantris-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/19/2022","dateFinished":"5/24/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Brandon Sanderson’s first published novel, a fun read about morally good people helping others. This is the second time I’ve read it and I enjoyed reading it both times.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"eldest-paolini","title":"Eldest","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":2,"pages":704,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Knopf Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45978.Eldest","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"497974","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780375840401","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"eldest-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/eldest-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"8/9/2021","dateFinished":"8/15/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"10/28/2023","dateFinished":"11/2/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Listened while driving to new Colorado
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"elevation-of-mana-a-progression-fantasy-agent","title":"Elevation of Mana: A Progression Fantasy","author":"Wandering Agent","series":"Elevation of Mana","seriesNumber":9,"pages":303,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Podium Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210619319-elevation-of-mana","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"177","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781039466500","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"elevation-of-mana-a-progression-fantasy-agent-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2.5,"url":"/books/elevation-of-mana-a-progression-fantasy-agent/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/22/2026","dateFinished":"3/26/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Mostly just a pretty boring story. There were definitely a few places around the middle to end of the book where the progression aspect intrigued me and I was curious how far Justin would go, but overall just felt like so little happened. I hated the beginning section where we got the POV of a cognizant baby. It just felt super weird as well as, being a baby, literally nothing could happen so it just tried to shoehorn in worldbuilding and other characters' relationships. Overall, despite decent writing and a couple interesting ideas this was just slow, awkward pacing for an already fairly dull story.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Elevation of Mana
\nWandering Agent
\nElevation of Mana #1
\nElevation of Mana Summary
Justin is a college student studying some science tech stuff. While walking home one day he gets trapped in a mysterious forest glade and spends about a month there, trying not to eat or drink the water and fruit, but eventually caves and gives in. He suffers immense pain then is reborn as an elven baby in a elf world, but retains all his young adult memories from Earth.
\nAs a baby he studies the world around him, and tries to learn about the various forms of magic and the elven language. He grows up in a small village led by the village elder, Alea, and the village is called Alea-toll. The world seems to be operating in the hunting-gathering stone age. Justin, now renamed Elian by his elf family, has strong magic, called “Light” by the elves. He has magic like Alea, they can affect the elements and world around them, but nothing living. His father has a music based magic, where he can sing and affect the world. He is especially good at shaping stone. His mother is like a druid, and can make plants grow.
\nAs he grows up he plans to bring this world into the “modern” age. He starts by introducing pottery to his Aunt and she takes up the practice. He trains in his magic and learns how to hunt and fish with the other boys of the village. Elves don’t have children often. When Elian is eight or so a big bear attacks the village and he helps them kills it. One of the only other magically powerful people in the village besides his parents and Alea is a hunter named Lorus, who can do like body enhancement magic. Not much happens besides him getting to know the villagers and continue to master his magic.
\nAlea is summoned to Ah-tol, the biggest city in the area led by the ancient Ah. As elves age they get more and more powerful, and each elder leads a village, like Alea. She returns and tells them a cold season is coming. They only get winter every 10-30 years on this world. Some Twilight monsters attack the villagers and destroy a lot of their supplies. Elian had tried to introduce meat storage by digging a hole and conjuring ice on the walls. They survive the winter and move on.
\nElian finds copper being sold by a wandering merchant and introduces metal working to the world, becoming the premier blacksmith through much trial and error. By this point he is 14ish. Teenager. Him and his father go to a neighboring village to a known copper deposit. On the way their he sees the “valley” he grew up in is a actually a crater, and right at the center of it is a cave he knows that has power emanating from it. A girl in the tribe, Isha is his friend, but he keeps rebuffing her advances because he feels weird since his mental age feels 20 years older. Him, Isha, Rendall (another boy in the village who does not like Elian), and Rendall’s girlfriend go to a cave where they sheltered during the twilight beast attack. They delve deeper, and find an underground forest area, much like the one Justin was trapped in on Earth. They also find Dragon bones. Rendall drinks from the water and almost dies so they rush him home.
\nAlea and Elian get into a fight, since Alea knew the water was dangerous but told no one. Elian’s mom, who already did not like Alea, tells him that her and his father are both close to being considered elders, and when they do they will leave the village to start their own.
\nRendall gained magic from drinking the water and is very strong, but Alea says he only has a few years to live and using the magic will rush that death. He ignores her and keeps using it frivolously. Eventually, Rendall takes a group of children and his lady back to the pool to drink from it and gain power. Elian chases them down and tries to talk Rendall out of this idea, but Rendall attacks him and Elian ends up killing him, but starts a forest fire in the process.
\nThey have a tribe meeting, and Alea banishes Elian, as well as Rendall’s bereaved girlfriend. His mom is furious, and promises him that as soon as possible they will be leaving and he is welcome back then. He agrees, but decides to head to Ah-tol and see what the world has to offer. His trek to the big city is uneventful.
\nHe buys a house for a single copper knife, and sets up a workshop. He hires a young street rat to spread new tech like pottery and woodworking techniques. We get a side scene of the man who sold him the house meeting with Ah, the elder/ancient, and we see that Ah just wants new weaponry. He is violent. Elian also wants to abolish the slave trade in the city. Nothing else really happens. The end.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"eleventh-cycle-ardalan","title":"Eleventh Cycle","author":"Kian N. Ardalan","series":"Mistland","seriesNumber":1,"pages":779,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59425056-eleventh-cycle","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"863","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9783200086739","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"eleventh-cycle-ardalan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/eleventh-cycle-ardalan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"12/24/2024","dateFinished":"1/10/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Solid book, but incredibly dark. Had to stop reading at points because I felt so disturbed. A lot of cool ideas and seems like it could have a very high ceiling.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"elric-of-melnibone-moorcock","title":"Elric of Melniboné","author":"Michael Moorcock","series":"The Elric Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":181,"yearPublished":1972,"publisher":"Ace Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30036.Elric_of_Melnibon_?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_5","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"31635","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780441203987","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"elric-of-melnibone-moorcock-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/elric-of-melnibone-moorcock/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/11/2023","dateFinished":"6/16/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Elric is a classic fantasy character, with many short stories beginning in the 1960’s. Although the actual albino emperor, strongest sorcerer and descendant of dragons is an awesomely cool character, the writing lacks the pull of more modern works. I am impressed by what Moorcock accomplished for the time, especially while purposefully striving to stay out of Tolkien’s shadow, but despite the complex and interesting world, philosophical and deep characters, and interesting plot lines, the first official Elric novel just isn’t that fun to read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"empire-of-silence-ruocchio","title":"Empire of Silence","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":1,"pages":753,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36454667-empire-of-silence?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"57568","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780756413026","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"empire-of-silence-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/empire-of-silence-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"12/22/2023","dateFinished":"1/20/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I got this in June. This was amazing. I bought the book a while ago, but kept hearing more and more about it as time went on and so I read it. It took me a while to get really hooked, but once I was I flew through it. Narrative style is the main character telling his life story, giving us clues about the present and future (like Name of the Wind), but done perfectly. The only way this could be better is if a little bit more went right for Hadrian, like he is always a little sad.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"empire-of-storms-maas","title":"Empire of Storms","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"Throne of Glass","seriesNumber":5,"pages":693,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76713323-empire-of-storms","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"1304490","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781639731022","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"empire-of-storms-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/empire-of-storms-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"4/26/2021","dateFinished":"5/2/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"empire-of-the-damned-kristoff","title":"Empire of the Damned","author":"Jay Kristoff","series":"Empire of the Vampire","seriesNumber":2,"pages":709,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"St. Martin's Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126918599-empire-of-the-damned","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"33987","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781250245335","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"empire-of-the-damned-kristoff-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/empire-of-the-damned-kristoff/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/9/2026","dateFinished":"3/21/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Incredible book, story is even more engaging than the first one. A lot of things to nitpick, the language (while better than the first one, feels much more natural), is still overly vulgar and kind of silly at times. Certain turns of phrase are used far too often, and I would greatly prefer either a steep reduction in the sex scenes or else make them far less explicit, I did not sign up to read Fourth Wing. But none of that takes away from a fantastic adventure, the character relationships, (outside of Lachlan who I am mixed on) are fantastic, Phoebe is a great character, and a bunch of stuff I thought would be in the third book happened in this one, setting up what should be a super exciting conclusion I can not wait to read. I will have to consider reading the Nevernight trilogy by Jay Kristoff since I have enjoyed these so much.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Empire of the Damned
\nJay Kristoff
\nEmpire of the Vampire #2
\nEmpire of the Damned Summary
Characters:
\nGabriel de Leon - The Last Silversaint
\nDior Lachance - The Holy Grail
\nPhoebe - Skindancer Lioness
\nCelene Castia - Gabriel’s sister, vampire, Esani, the Last Liathe
\nJean-Francois - Chastain vampire scribe of the story
\nAaron de Coste - Exiled Silversaint
\nBaptiste Sa-Ismael - Exiled Blackthumb (blacksmith) from San Michon
Jean-Francois, our vampire scribe, wakes up from sleeping during the past day and after feeding is summoned to see Margot Chastain, his “mother” and ruler of the Chastain vampires. The Priori (Vampire leaders), from the others houses (Voss, Ilon, and Dyvok) are coming to meet with her, and she wants him to finish recording the story of the grail. Jean-Francois keeps attractive, young humans for feeding, pleasure, and chores. The two we meet are Dario and Jasmine. He goes to meet Gabriel, who has been kept locked in a dungeon for a week as punishment for attacking jean-Francois. Gabe’s thirst for blood is getting worse but he sticks with smoking and wine. Gabe resumes the story.
\nGabriel de Leon has just slain a ton of silversaints and Sister Chloe at San Michon since they were about to sacrifice Dior in an effort to end Daysdeath. He and Dior gather supplies and head down, where Celene (Who saved Gabe from dying at the end of the last book), attacks them to try to kill Gabe and travel alone with Dior. Using her sanguimancy she is able to get the upper hand but Dior stops the fight, and they agree to travel as a group.
\nThey are headed to meet another Master Jenoah, another Esani teacher, since Wulfric (Celenes teacher) is dead. Along the way Gabe is teaching Dior how to fight and use a sword and about vampires in general. A ways out from San Michon they run into a lone injured silversaint being chased by a pack of wretched (Weak vampires). They help him and it turns out his is Lachlan, Gabe’s only apprentice from when he was in the silver order. Lachlan was heading back to San Michon since all saints were recalled, but he got attacked. He is of blood Dyvok (strong). They learn that Avelene (Aaron and Baptiste’s keep) was attacked and go to check it out. Celene has been in hiding since Lachlan would have many questions.
\nAvalene is smoking, and when they sneak in they find a wagon of prisoners and many wretched and Thrallswords (humans who fight for the vampires, if you drink their blood 3 separate nights you become a thrall / slave). They are led by 3 highblood Dyvok. Gabe knows one of them, Kiara, the Wolfmother. They begin fighting, but the Dyvok drink from little golden vials they keep on necklaces and seem stronger than they should be. Dior tries to free the wagon of prisoners. As they fight Celene appears and drinks one of the Dyvoks to death, something not done by Vampires to other vampires. Kiara cracks the ice on the frozen river and her and the other Dyvok (Kane, the headsmun) flee.
\nGabe almost drowns when a Lioness pulls him from the freezing river, who turns out to be Phoebe, Saorise’s lioness companion in the first book. Except she can turn into a human and is a duskdancer/fleshwitch/shapeshifter. They save the children from the prisoner wagon and head as a group to find shelter. Lachlan is made at gabe for travelling with a vampire and duskdancer. Also they assumed Baptiste and Aaron were dead. They rest and Lachlan and Gabe fight. Lachlan did not like Astrid and insults her. Lachlan leaves to take the children to San Michon, and Phoebe swears herself to the service of Dior and travels with them. They soon find a wretched being controlled by a Voss highblood and have to run.
\nThe group (gabe, Dior, Celene, and Phoebe) travel high into the mountains through storms. They found they are being chased by “The Terrors”, the eldest daughters of Fabien Voss (The Forever King). They barely arrive at the huge mountain castle of Master Jenoah, but inside find everyone is dead and jenoah had killed them and himself out of weakness, and destroyed the prophecy scripture. Celene is furious. Gabe and Dior have grown closer throughout their travels. Celene says the only other person they can go to is Mother Maryn, at Dun Margaen. But Phoebe wants to take Dior to her highlander people, although Gabe and Celene would be unable to go since they hate vampires and silversaints.
\nThe Terrors catch up and they prepare to defend themselves. Gabe is mad at Dior because she wants to fight and he wants her to stay safe inside. He hits her as they argue and is distraught. The battle happens and Celene and Gabe kills a ton of wretched, but when the terrors show up and phoebe pounces on them, the Dyvok from earlier show up and Kiara shatters the bridge, dropping the terrors away and trying to claim Dior for herself. Dior falls but Gabe catches her and Celene catches him, but once Dior is up Celene drops Gabe. Phoebe was also thrown off the bridge.
\nJean-Francois stands up and Gabe is confused, but Jean-Francois says this story is about Dior, and since Gabe fell and was not with Dior he would go somewhere else. He descends into the depths of the palace, where they have a small prison with a flowing river around it. Celene is imprisoned on the rock patch wearing a silver mask. Jean-Francois begins to interview her and she insults Gabe, saying he is a drunkard and a liar, making him an even more unreliable narrator. Celene also gives a different view of their family, their mother only loved Gabe and was mean to everyone else, but their father raised her to be a Castia, a mountain, and she loved him a lot.
\nCelene tells how Kiara almost killed her, and she was forced to flee to her blood moth form, but she left one moth with Dior to travel with her. Kiara captured her since the Voss seem to want her. Dior is taken prisoner and brought back to the main Dyvok camp, after a failed escape attempt. She is packed in a wagon and finds the children from earlier, who say Lachlan left them, Baptiste, who is still alive, and Aaron, who was killed but rose again as a vampire. SInce he is a vampire his silver tattoos are agony to him and he screams every day. During Dior’s escape attempt she used her blood to save a young hound boy, Joaquin Marenn, so now Kiara knows what she can do. They travel to the Dyvok’s new capital, Dun Margaen. They have somehow managed to capture all of Ossway in two years and no one knows how.
\nDior is presented to the highblood court, led by Priori Nikiti Blackheart, and his elder sister Lilidh, the Heartless. They are the eldest Dyvok since Gabe killed their father Tolyev. Nikita claims Aaron as his prize and makes him drink his blood. Lilidh claims Dior. Their is much unrest among the violent Dyvok, and they are brutal and keep many humans around to drink from. Kiara also claims to have killed Gabriel. Lilidh keeps a giant white wolf named Prince, and has some maidservants, one called worm. She makes worm stab herself to see how Dior’s blood works. Dior is taken down to a dungeon after being forced to drink Lilidh’s blood.
\nCelene knows Mother Maryn is somewhere in/beneath the city, so spends her time healing and flying around trying to find her, but with no luck. Dior gets dressed up by Worm, and Lilidh makes her drink more blood. Dior makes another escape attempt with a hairpin, and runs into Joaquin but he does not report her. She then tries to bring Baptiste with her, since it has not been three nights yet he should not be a thrall, but he goes and gets Kiara. She bound him weeks ago when they first captured him.
\nAaron has been thralled by Nikita and Nikita makes him butcher the human prisoners and keeps him as his closest lover. Dior is forced to drink from Lilidh a third time, and Celene can still do nothing. Lilidh commands Dior and the other maids to beat Worm and Dior complies, seeming to be fully a thrall. Celene wonders where gabe is and feels she messed up. The Voss and The Terrors show up asking for Dior in exchange for a bunch of humans, and Lilidh and Nikita argue about it. Nikita and Fabien used to be lovers. The Voss wait a ways outside the city for an answer.
\nJean-Francois leaves her to go hear from Gabe again. Upon learning Celene is a prisoner Gabe also insults her a bunch and says she is a faithless liar. After he fell from the bridge Phoebe, who is very sturdy and hard to kill, nursed him back to health and together they set off after Dior (who has a vial of gabe’s blood so he can track her). On the way they become closer, and stop in Redwatch for supplies, where Gabe rebuffs Phoebe, and she leaves alone to get Dior. Gabe is then captured by Lachlan and two other silversaints a few nights later, along with the inquisitor lady from the first book. They are taking him to Augustine to hang him. He tries to explain but no one will listen. They enter one of the blighted woods, despite Gabe warning them, and people start disappearing. Eventually they all go to look, leaving only two guards on Gabe, and Phoebe appears and frees him, althoug he tells her not to kill the Silversaint apprentice. They steal horses and fleas, but after a few days a storm forced them to hide in Ravenswatch. They grow even closer and are about to engage in sex, when the three silversaints show up again and attack them. They incapacitate two, with Gabe seeming stronger than he should be, but Lachlan shoots Phoebe with silvershot. Gabe tackles him and finally is able to explain what happened and Lachlan lets him leave. He has to take Phoebe to the Highlands since her aunt is a great healer and she is dying.
\nHe reaches the edge of the Highlands and is attacked by a giant bear he can’t kill, so he bites her and drinks her blood, then is able to overpower the bear, who turns out to be a duskdancer. He is taken prisoner but Phoebe is saved and all the highlanders gather for a discussion. They have made a pact with Lilidh Dyvok to have peace though so they most likely will not help attack Dun Margaen. Gabe and Phoebe have sexy time and she asks him to bite her, he does and gets carried away and almost drains her dry, so Brynna, the bear duskdancer, shows up and attacks him. Gabe is able to fight off a ton of duskdancers and Phoebe stops everyone. They realize that duskdancer blood, which is blighted since daysdeath, give both palebloods and coldbloods(vampires) super strength skills, and that is what is in the vials the Dyvoks have around their necks, this angers them and they agree to attack.
\nJean-Francois goes back to Celene, who still watches Dior. Dior seems to be fully Lilidh’s thrall, they lie together in sleep. Lilidh leaves and Worm (the handmaid) enters through a secret door with a knife, but her and Dior discuss. Dior is not a thrall, her blood makes her immune, and anyone she has healed has their bonds broken. They realize they need to fight back from inside somehow. Dior knew because Joaquin is also free from Kiara. Worm’s real name is Princess Reyne, daughter of the slain ruler of this land. She takes some of Dior’s blood and frees the other handmaids of Lilidh, and their men. Joaquin asks Dior to free Isla (One of the girls from the prison wagon in Avalene who was brought here and is now a servant to Nikita, and Dior agrees). They use the secret tunnels to meet in a chapel. They have like 8 people freed but that is not enough and they need a plan. While trying to get silver swords from a statue they open a secret tunnel with the Esani symbol, Celene can’t enter since it is holy ground but Dior and Reyne come back up looking horrorstruck and go into a plan to kill Nikita and Lilidh. Dior tells Celene to go in person to Gabe and ask him to wait a day to attack.
\nGabriel is brought into Celene ‘s dungeon and after insulting each other they tell the story in tandem. Gabe and Phoebe have brought an army of duskdancers to the wall and wait to attack. Nikita orders all of the thrallswords and humans to the walls so they will die first, but Dior is trying to make a plan to free them. Nikita suddenly summons everyone to his throneroom, and once their starts to single out members of their freed conspiracy, seemingly by chance, but then makes them stab each other and does not let Dior heal them. He reveals to Lilidh they are free and Isla comes forward. She has always served him, she is the one who let him into Avalene and now has betrayed the conspiracy. Their is much violence from both sides, Dior uses her blood to save Reyne but everyone else is pretty much killed. Dior and Reyne are taken to the dungeons for the battle.
\nCelene is in a tent with gabe and tells him of her past, how she was killed by Laure Voss, how when they were young, Gabe almost died of sickness so his mom summoned his vampire father, but Celene followed in secret so learned what gabe was young. His father gave some of his blood to save Gabe. When Celene was killed she went to find him since he was the only vampire she knew, Wulfric, her now dead teacher. Celene tells them what is happening in the throneroom and they launch the attack now. But as soon as they reach the first wall, they find many of the thralls free and making others drink. Joaquin introduces himself to Gabe and says how him and Dior planned to put her blood in the liquor. Baptiste is also freed now and wants to help Aaron. They attack and there is a huge battle, many things destroyed and side characters killed, but suddenly Lachlan and a ton of silversaints and silversisters show up and swing the tide, forcing the Dyvok to retreat to the keep.
\nBut when all seemed good the Voss came from behind, so they are fighting on two sides. Gabe and Celene go after the Terrors to break their control. During the fight they say that Celene killed Wulfric, that is how she has so much power. Gabe is furious and Fabien speaks to him from a wretched, saying not to kill his daughters or he will regret it but Celene and Gabe each kill one.
\nBack in the keep Nikita tells Kiara to go get Dior to give to Fabien for help. Kiara descends into the dungeon but then kills Isla and the gaurds, she hates Nikita now and is going to free Dior and Reyne to spite him and especially Lilidh, but Lilidh and Kane (The Headsmun) catch up and they trade in the battle, Lilidh is hurt but kills Kiara but Kiara kills Kane, and Prince is almost killed but bites Dior. Dior and Reyne are both hurt but flee to the hidden underground chamber since it is holy ground.
\nNikita and Aaron are fighting outside, Lachlan is battling Nikita, who is actually his half-brother. Gabe freed him from the Dyvok when he was young, and Baptiste has spent this whole time trying to appeal to Aaron’s love of him. They all fall from a wall and Lachlan is almost dead and Nikita has Baptiste, and because he is cruel he tells Aaron to kill baptiste. Aaron takes Nikita’s sword but resists his bond enough to throw the sword away and Baptiste gets a hit on Nikita with a silver hammer, then Lachlan grabs Nikita’s legs so he can’t flee and Baptiste kills him, freeing Aaron from his bond.
\nGabe and Celene have been sprinting for Dior. Lilidh is outside the holy ground, but reads, written on the wall some scripture saying “Enter here …”, which counts as an invitation so she steps in. Dior and Reyne flee into the deeper secret tunnel from earlier. It is dark and dank and this is clearly the resting place of Mother Maryn. In the dim light Reyne gets a cut on Lilidh with a blade soaked in Dior’s blood, but since there is water on the ground it is quickly extinguished. Lilidh gets burned more, but manages to almost kill Reyne, then pins Dior’s hand to a statue with a dagger. Dior spits blood in her face then rips her hand free, severing all but her thumb and index finger, then Prince shows up and attacks Lilidh, distracting her so Dior can stab her with a bloody blade and she begins to burn. Dior tries to heal Reyne but she seems to be dead, but then she breathes, barely alive. Gabe and Celene show up, and Dior calls Gabe father and he calls her daughter and Phoebe runs in and Prince turns out to be her husband Connor, who she thought dead. Sad for her and gabe but happy overall.
\nThey look at the statues in the room, of five priests and the redeemer, mortal son of God. They recognize one of the priests as Fabien and realize when the redeemer told his betrayers to have eternal life, it was a curse. He made the first five vampires of the five bloodlines. Gabe is distraught and since Celene knew, all of her lies compounded and he attacked her. As they fought and Phoebe tried to break them up, Lilidh rose from the water. She was not dead since she had not heart (The heartless), and she grabbed Dior and broke her neck. Connor/Prince lunged on her and killed her, but she killed him in the process, he got brought back just to hurt Phoebe more.
\nModern time, Gabe is so filled with rage he lunges across the river and attacks Celene, breaking her silver mask. They brawl and Jean-Francois makes the guards go separate them and send gabe away. Celene tells how they had a state funeral for Dior, named her San Dior, or the Saint of the grail, or other names, but Gabe had already fled before the funeral to somewhere. All the silversaints but Lachlan died in the fighting.
\nBack in his tower Gabe succumbs to his sangire (blood thirst) and asks for Dario to be left with him. After the Vampire leaves Dario is revealed to be Joaquin, and they have a plan brewing. Back in her prison, Celene recounts to a mouse how she went to meet Mother Maryn, who turned out be a young girl in vampire form, and then in Dior’s tomb, Dior opened her eyes. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"empire-of-the-dawn-kristoff","title":"Empire of the Dawn","author":"Jay Kristoff","series":"Empire of the Vampire","seriesNumber":3,"pages":800,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"St. Martin's Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222376766-empire-of-the-dawn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"13657","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781250245373","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"empire-of-the-dawn-kristoff-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/empire-of-the-dawn-kristoff/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/24/2026","dateFinished":"4/2/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Hard to say much about this one without spoilers for it and the first two books, but even though part of me expected the ending to happen the way it did, I kept expecting that we were being intentionally misled. The elements of mystery incorporated into this were perfect, where once you figure something out you can see more and more clues pointing to it. I really enjoyed this trilogy, and the ending explains a few of the more questionable writing decisions. If you won’t be offended by very crude language and explicit scenes and childish jokes, this is a fantastic story. Probably the biggest example of an unreliable narrator I have ever read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Empire of the Dawn
\nJay Kristoff
\nEmpire of the Vampire #3
\nEmpire of the Dawn Summary
Jean-Francois goes to see his empress, Margot Chastain. The Draigann, now priori of the Dyvok, has just arrived to Sul Adair. The Dyvok are very excited for Gabriel’s execution, but Margot still wants to hear the rest of the story of the grail first, hoping to learn why Fabien Voss wanted Dior alive. Jean-Francois warns her he thinks both Gabriel and Celene are lying, but she tells him to continue in gathering the tale. When he returns to Gabe’s tower he finds “Dario” (Joaquin Maren) lying on the ground, almost drained of blood. Him and Gabe return to the story.
\nGabe left Dun Maergenn before Dior’s funeral, but not before draining three vials of her blood. He sets out with his horse Argent to hunt down and kill the Forever King, Fabien Voss. His Sangire (Blood lust) is growing stronger by the day, and Ashdrinker seems to be getting more crazy, forgetting who he is at times. He gets jumped by some wretched but Lachlan, Aaron, and Baptiste show up to save him and say they are coming with him on the hunt. Baptiste warns Gabriel that Ashdrinker’s core is cracked, meaning she is close to breaking completely. She can’t be fixed, but in order to patch her temporarily they head to Leon, the city/baronny where Gabe’s mother grew up and was kicked out of when she got pregnant with him.
\nOn the trip things between Baptiste and Aaron degenerate. Baptiste wants Aaron to drink his blood, both for the feeling of the kiss and because Aaron needs it. Aaron refuses because he does not want to feel like a monster. Lachlan also hates Aaron for being a vampire. They get close to the city of Leon, and see a group of wretched chasing a young woman. Lachlan and Gabe ride to help her, but she screams at them to stay away (they ignore her). Lachlan falls in a pit trap full of spikes meant for the vampires, and a group of soldiers with flaming crossbows pops up and slaughter the wretched vampires. The woman is Charlotte de Leon, The ashen lion, and Gabriel’s cousin. She seems to hate Gabe and especially Aaron but takes them as prisoners to Leon to meet the Baron (Gabe’s Grandfather). They arrive in a city that seems untouched by the war Fabien Voss is leading on humans. They go to a grand feast with wine (Expensive) and the baron, Gerrard, says they are welcome to his home and invites them to eat and drink.
\nIn the following days, Aaron is forced to stay in a stable, and they go and meet the forgemaster Cortez, who says he can do some welding on Ashdrinker. Going to church is mandatory and there is holy water in every door. We learn a few years ago vampires had infested the city, and Charlotte burned down half of it to eradicate them, hence her nickname, lion cendree. The baron says he sent many letters begging his daughter to return but she was stubborn and never came back, then he asks gabe to take over as Baron after he dies. Fabien Voss is going to march on Augustine, capital of the empire, soon, but they have not gone to help since the emperor died recently from sickness, only Isabella sits the throne now. Gabe feels something is off about this city.
\nGabe finds Baptiste cheating on Aaron with forgemaster Cortez, and Lachlan seems to be falling in love with Charlotte despite his vows to the silver order. Gabe is distracted though with his bloodlust, being tempted by the young serving maid each night in his room. Eventually he breaks and forces her to leave, in the process shattering on of Dior’s blood vials, drinking a few drops, and seeing a strange vision. He floats above the empire, and sees the symbols of vampire over each part of it (ravens where the Voss are, Snake over the are he is in, and a giant hand rising from Charbourg (city where the redeemer died 1,000 years ago) grabbing the black sun).
\nAaron seems to freak out after learning about Baptiste and not having blood, and flees the city. The next day Gabe goes to look for everyone and finds them in church, bowed before a vampire. Ilon, the oldest of his bloodline, one of the five priests who betrayed the redeemer and killed him. He has been controlling this city for generations, using his bloodline powers to manipulate and thrall everyone here. Gabe is immune to being thralled because of Dior’s blood, but Ilon does not know this and thinks he will be able to control him. They fight, and Aaron flies in to help at the perfect moment and another vial of Dior’s blood shatters, freeing Charlotte who stabs Ilon, then the Baron ignites the blade, burning Ilon but being killed in the process. Charlotte is now acting baroness of Leon and agrees to march with the silversaints. Gabe retrieves a journal of his mothers from the barons coat, but it is partly soaked in blood so will be hard to read. They patch Ashdrinker and set out. Before leaving Gabe insinuates that he drank and killed the serving girl from his room.
\nJean-Francois is notified that Kestrel Voss, priori of her line since Gabe killed Fabien, is nearly here, ahead of schedule. He moves back to Celene to learn more of Dior since Celene said Dior opened her eyes after the funeral. He first drenches her small prison island in oil and says any words or actions he dislikes he will burn her.
\nMother Maryn is awake, but still sleepy and almost killed Celene upon waking. They hear thumping and go and free Dior from her coffin. Calling her resurrection a miracle the people are amazed and even more want to follow her. Dior wants to wait for Gabe and Maryn sends out a moth to find him but says they must leave soon. Mother Maryn fully explains the prophecy: Dior must be crowned empress on the throne in Augustin on a certain day (like a month out), with the redeemers sword. Another Esani vampire has been sleeping beneath Augustin guardian the sword, so they must head there and retrieve it. Phoebe can not convince the duskdancer army of the Moonsthrone to stay and help, they retreat to their homeland to discuss things. Joaquin now leads “The Unbound”, those soldiers Dior’s blood freed who are now super loyal to her. They plan to board the last ship in harbor and sail to Augustine.
\nOne the voyage, Dior and Reyne become closer, but Reyne is still hesitant to do anything with Dior due to her religious upbringing. Phoebe deduces that Reyne’s father was likely Connor, her now dead husband, the wolf who killed Lilildh and saved Reyne. Phoebe and Reyne keep training Dior in the sword during the day, and at night Celene trains Dior in sanguimancy. They make a trade where every time Dior accomplishes something Celene will share more about her past. We learn how Celene awoke as a vampire to find her village slaughtered, when some bandits showed up she drank one of them and fled, vowing never to drink from a human again. Living on rodents, she made her way to San Yves, where she knew Wulfric (Gabe’s vampire father) lived.
\nCelene found Wulfric, who was living in secret under the city and training two Liathes, Aleks and Percival. Celene was taught the basics of their faith and eventually brought out to drink and kill sinners. Once she had more free time she fell in love watching the son of the towns baron, Laurent. He is blind, and she would listen to him play piano then they would talk. Celene was eventually given her first chance at “Communion”, when the Esani drink another vampire and absorb their powers and some memories. It was at a ball at the Barons house, and Celene disobeyed Wulfric’s orders to save Laurent from another vampire.
\nThe ship Dior and Celene are on gets attacked by Voss vampire ships, and Mother Maryn shows her strength and singlehandedly kills an entire ships crew. They fight off the others and head to the river leading to Augustine, fearing they may be too late. Celene and Maryn have to be put in coffins since they are traveling over a fresh water river and vampires die if they do that unprotected. As they near, they see Augustin is attacked by Fabien Voss’ army, thousands and thousands of vampires. Their boat gets sunk and Joaquin saves the coffins of both Celene and Maryn. They all wade into battle.
\nDior uses her blood to heal everyone they come across, and they are starting to make a real dent in the army, especially with Maryn and Celene. Then Kestrel Voss shows up, one of the princes of forever. She almost kills Reyne, and in a rage Dior turns into a giant wolf and bites off her hand. Voss orders a retreat, despite still seeming to have the advantage. Dior’s blood is able to save Reyne again though, but she is clearly a duskdancer. Since duskdancer children don’t gain the power until their parent is dead, they realize sometime between Dior hurting her hand (she only has a thumb and forefinger on her left hand), and lilidh snapping her neck, her parent died. This means that Connor was Dior’s father, making her and Reyne half-sisters.
\nDior, Reyne, and Phoebe are led by Prince Philip to meet the empress Isabella. Dior keeps using her blood to help people in the city and they love her. Isabella is sceptical upon hearing Dior is the holy grail, and many in court call it heresy. Isabella then tells them they found and killed the vampire under Augustin a while ago, and gave the sword he kept to gabriel. Ashdrinker is the sword they need to complete the prophecy and end Dayseath.
\nJean-Francois goes back to Gabe.
\nGabe, Lachlan, Aaron, Baptiste, Charlotte, and 20,000 soldiers of Leon head toward San Maximille, the last place Fabien was confirmed to be. On the way they are joined by a few more silversaints who agree to help. Gabriel reads his mothers journal and learns about his father, but also that Wulfric seemed to want to “end the blackened veil” before daysdeath began, which causes him to question what the Esani vampires really want. On the march Gabe drank and killed a soldier of the army. As they near San Maximille they find and free a large group of humans being marched to feed Voss vampire soldiers. They find Fabien Voss has taken and camped in San Maximille after retreating from Augustin and set up camp to attack him the next day, when Phoebe shows up. She tells Gabe Dior is alive and that they need Ashdrinker for the prophecy and asks him to come to Augustin. He says he will come once he kills Voss.They sleep together and Phoebe steals Ashdrinker and flees in the night, but Gabe decides to attack anyway.
\nThey make it to the keep, but Fabien had kept wretched in reserve and flanked them, killing the other silver saints and ordering Kestrel and another prince, Etienne, to stand down instead of killing Aaron and Lachlan. Fabien wants to talk, and then shows Gabriel Patience, his daughter had been brought back as a vampire and living with the Voss this whole time. Gabe is heartbroken and agrees. Fabien promising to tell him the Esani’s true goal. He enters the keep to discuss.
\nIn the tower of Sul Adair with Jean-Francois, Gabe seems to be losing it and asks to drink blood from the servant Meline. With the vampire and servant distracted Gabe steals her silver blade and stabs the historian, burning him almost to death but then killing all the thrall swords and leaving.
\nJean-Francois waits, gravely injured but alive, with Margot as Kestrel Voss arrives. She asks where the Draigann is and figures out that Gabriel has escaped and goes to chase and kill him. Margot is pissed, and orders Jean-Francois to go learn more from Celene, then turns into a wolf and takes off to hunt Gabe.
\nCelene tells how after the battle at Augustin, Maryn’s moth found Gabe and the army from Leon, so they sent Phoebe to meet him. Dior has spent the time helping the city. At a banquet one night she reveals to Isabella that she will need to be crowned empress for the prophecy. Reyne suggests she wed Prince Philip to accomplish this, which the empress and court can accept. Dior is angry and her and Reyne fight. They have mixed feelings because they love each other but are sisters and that is weird.
\nCelene comes to comfort Dior and tells her the end of her story. After she saved Laurent in San Yves, her and her Esani companions (Wulfric, Aleks, and Percival) had to flee since Aleks was caught and burned badly. But they are followed and Aleks and Percival get killed. Celene helps Wulfric flee, then hides in the city before returning to say goodbye to Laurent, but Wulfric shows up. He followed her and blames her for the others deaths. They fight and she ends up drinking him to death, without learning much the Esani have to teach. Laurent feels her true face and screams and she runs away. Dior feels bad for her.
\nMaryn brings Celene out of the city and they meet Phoebe, where we learn Maryn thralled her and forced her to steal ashdrinker. Celene breaks Ash even more since they can’t let her tell Dior what happened, then they go meet the court and Maryn/Phoebe tells the court that Gabe has joined the forever king since they have his daughter patience. Dior is confused and distraught but Maryn says they must proceed with the wedding. Philip and Dior are not happy, but understand it is necessary.
\nDior is living on holy ground now, so Celene can not spy on her. She follows Reyne as she goes to talk to her sister who arrived recently. Reyne learns her and Dior are not sisters, Reyne’s father was someone else. She is super excited and runs to find Dior, but spies Gabe sneaking through the palace. She goes to talk to him but Maryn shows up and Gabe fights her, trying to tell Reyne what the Esani want. Some guards show up and Maryn kills all of them then kills Reyne, and blames it all on gabe.
\nGabe gets caught and locked in a tower for torture. Dior is very very angry about Reyne and threatens to kill him, but Phoebe stops her. They decide they must go on with the wedding and coronation. Celene dives into her own mind during the wedding ceremony and asks Wulfric’s spirit what the Esani prophecy actually does, and learns it does not end Daysdeath, but ends the entire world. The Esani hoped to avoid being damned this way.
\nJean-Francois is summoned to the throneroom, and finds Margot, with a burned face, and a bloody, barely alive Gabriel de Leon on the floor. He lost an eye but Margot did not kill him. The Draigann is furious and wants to kill him, as does Kestrel, but Kariim Ilon, Ilon Priori, shows up and convinces them to wait for tomorrow so it can be a spectacle. Jean-Francois is given charge of Gabe and told to get the story no matter what. Jean-Francois brings Gabe to Celene’s prison so they can all continue the story together.
\nGabe, Charlotte, Lachlan, Aaron, and Baptiste meet with the Forever king and he tells them the Esani want to end the world. He also hints that he caused Daysdeath, then reveals Charlotte is pregnant with Lachlan’s child. Gabe goes to sing Patience to sleep then agrees to march to Augustin with Fabien to stop Celene and Maryn. Lachlan and Charlotte take the Leon troops and return home.
\nMaryn threatens Celene to hold her tongue, but during the reception Celene tells Dior. Dior reveals the knife pressed to Celene’s heart and says by confessing she saved herself, then a knight in armor cuts off Maryn’s head, and is revealed to be Gabe. Dior and Gabe hug and Phoebe is freed of Maryn’s control. They all reveal the truth to the court of what the Esani really wanted. Gabe and Dior had talked in secret the night before and figured out Phoebe was a thrall and set up the trap.
\nFabien Voss then attacked Augustin. They humans marshalled their defenses, but since he can read minds he dodged a lot of them. A big battle ensues, where Gabe kills Etienne Voss, but Kestrel beheads Phoebe. Gabe almost dies but Lachland and Charlotte show up with the Leon troops and save him and help the battle, but then Kestrel kills Charlotte and Lachlan, and is about to get Gabe when Dior’s plan works and the air is filled with holy water mist, killing almost all the wretched and only a few highbloods escape.
\nMeanwhile in Fabien’s camp, Aaron and Baptiste learn that Fabien plans to use Dior’s blood to manually change humans into high blood vampires, and he leaves to capture her. Aaron is able to escape but Baptiste remains and wants to become a vampire to live with Aaron.
\nDespite it seeming like a victory in Augustin, Fabien shows up, kills Prince Philip, and kidnaps Dior. Gabriel goes to see Empress Isabella but she is sad and angry and tells him to go, so with few supplies him and Aaron set off to Charbourg in pursuit of Voss. Joaquin comes with them. Celene is chasing after them also.
\nGabe’s sangire is getting really bad, and Aaron promises to kill him when this is all over. One night Joaquin cuts himself and Gabe attacks and starts drinking him but Aaron stops him, they force Joaquin to leave. They arrive to Charbourg and find huge rents in the ground, emitting black smoke and presumably causing Daysdeath. In a shattered cathedral they find Dior bound to a wheel and bleeding. They attack Fabien but he is strong and despite taking a few injuries burns both Baptiste and Aaron to death, then forces gabe to drink Dior’s blood which will turn him into a vampire. But it does not work. Voss was betrayed by the devil, and his daughter Morgane tells him he is stupid and mentally sends Gabe a message right before Fabiens kills her. Gabe and Celene then work together and attack Fabien, managing to kill him, with Celene drinking his power, but when he dies Patience is thrown into Dior’s blood and dies, and Gabe is trapped under rubble, slowly dying. Dior runs up and makes him drink her blood, and in his bloodlust Gabe kills Dior.
\nJean-Francois is shocked. Nicolette, the Chastain ambassador, trapped both Gabe and Celene right after the fight when they were weak and brought them back here. Gabe and Celene both seem defeated and sad, and are bound before being brought to the throne room to be killed soon. Jean-Francois beings the account to Margot who reads it and is pleased. When returning to his room, Jean-Francois runs into Kestrel Voss and asks about Patience, but is confused when Kestrel said she died 4 years ago at Fabien’s hand. Him and Dario return to his room and he puts everything together. A white moth he has been seeing must be someone using Sanguimancy, and “Dario”, who Nicolette just happened to find must be Joaquin. They fight and Joaquin stalls him a while but ends up dying. Jean-Francois races to his empress, but there are so many vampires watching Celene and Gabe fight it is hard.
\nSuddenly, thousands of white moths flood into the room as highland war drums are heard outside. The moth forms a massive white wolf and Gabe unlocks himself and Celene. Dior wolf sprays her blood around the room, burning vampires, then jumps up and kills Margot Chastain, and all the other Priori die as well. Jean-Francois flees, and out a window sees Phoebe, Aaron, and Lachlan leading the attack. He realizes everything has been a lie and goes to hide in Celene’s cell. Gabe and Celene are led to him by Nicolette, who is Celene’s thrall. They reveal that much of the story was a lie, meant to stall until Dior could train with the highlanders and lead an army here. Morgane, before dying, told Gabe that Voss started Daysdeath with the blood of all 5 priori’s, and by killing them it may end. Gabe throws Jean-Francois into the prison island Celene was on and they leave him. It is a happy reunion with most of our cast still alive and happy. Dior’s blood can cure sickness and helped heal Gabe’s bloodlust. As they all stand outside they notice the sun is starting to get brighter. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"empire-of-the-vampire-kristoff","title":"Empire of the Vampire","author":"Jay Kristoff","series":"Empire of the Vampire","seriesNumber":1,"pages":739,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"St. Martin's Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56269205","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"83630","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781250245281","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"empire-of-the-vampire-kristoff-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.75,"url":"/books/empire-of-the-vampire-kristoff/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/15/2024","dateFinished":"4/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A phenomenal book. Something about it just wasn’t perfect for me but I still really enjoyed it because the writing and world and characters are amazing. Probably the only good retelling and use of vampires that are super strong and fast I have read. I was very glad we got some reveals before the end of the book but there is still a lot I want to find out, will have to finish the series at some point.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/9/2026","dateFinished":"2/18/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I can’t remember what I scored this last time, but I think I enjoyed it more on the reread. The language can still feel a bit forced at times, especially with certain characters (Talon), but the story itself outshines any writing decisions made. I am also very excited to read the trilogy, since it was not complete the last time I read the book. I know some people don’t like gentlemen bastards because of the language and I imagine those people would very much dislike this book, but it just doesn’t seem important when the actual plot is so intriguing. I am assuming the second book will have less of the 2 stories/times to jump between and just follow one timeline of the story.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Empire of the Vampire
\nJay Kristoff
\nEmpire of the Vampire #1
Characters:
\nGabriel de León
\nAmélie - Sister
\nCelene - Sister
\nAuriél de León - Mother
\nRaphael Castia - stepfather
Julieta
\nIsla
\nPère Louis
Frère Greyhand
\nArcher
\nWinter
\nAaron De Coste
\nAstrid Rennier
\nAbbot Khalid
\nSeraph Talon De Montfort
\nJustice
\nChloe Sauvage
\nBaptiste Sa-Ismael
Saoirse
\nPhoebe - Lioness
\nPère Rafa
\nBellamy Bouchette
\nDior Lachance
Vampires:
\nIronhearts - Blood Voss
\nShepherds - Blood Chastain
\nUntamed - Dyvok
\nWhispers - Ilon
\nFaithless - Esani
Fabién Voss, the Forever King
\nDanton Voss
\nMarquis Jean-François (Blood Chastain)
\nLiathe
Places:
\nEmpire of Elidaen
\nLorson, in the Nordlund - Gabriel’s hometown
\nSan Michon
\nSan Guillaume
\nAvelene
We start with Gabriel De Leon imprisoned in a tower room, he has apparently killed someone called the forever king. It is night and vampires roam the outside world. Someone comes to his cell, a vampire called jean-Francois, and his thrall woman. He tells gabriel that the queen Margaret Chastain has decided she wants his story. At first Gabriel says no but he is going through withdrawal and they offer him some sanctus to smoke so he agrees. The story Gabriel tells follows two different timelines, his childhood, and a more recent one where he worked to find the holy grail of San Michon.
\nHe was born in a small town called Lorson. His father was a drunk and abusive at times, but also an ex-soldier and blacksmith so he taught him useful skills. His mother, an exiled Noble De Leon, loved him deeply and taught him to be brave and proud. His sisters Amelie and Celene he also liked.
\nSomething called “Daysdeath” happened when he was like 7-8, and the sun stoped being as bright and powerful, limiting what crops they could grow and making winter longer, but also opening the door for other horrors. One day Amelie and a local friend Julieta (Gabe’s first kiss), went out into the woods and did not come back. Eventually they returned as “Wretched”, vampires more like zombies, strong and fast but only craving blood. Gabe was forced to help kill his own sister. He hated the local priest, Louis, for not burying her. Eventually he is older and sleeps with a girl named Ilsa, but ends up biting her and drinking her blood. It makes him fast and strong and heal quickly and he is confused and a mob attacks him. But then 2 figures show up, Greyhound and Aaron De Coste. They take Gabriel away and tell him he is Paleblood. Half-Vampire. Now that the sun does not work Vampires can move during the day, although they are still strongest at night. They teach him about the Ordo Argent, the silver order, a group of palebloods who fight evil in the name of the Lord and Mothermaid. They take him to San Michon, in a valley are 7 stone pillars with flat tops kind of and they build a monastery and stuff up there. It is still being repaired since the EMpress Isabella recently gave them patronage. Gabe meets Abbot Khalid, and he also hates Aaron since aaron judges him a peasant and is rude. A group of Nuns, the silver sisters, also live and work at the monastery. Gabe meets a blacksmith, Baptiste, who gives him a silversteel sword he names Lionclaw. Later he goes to pick out a Sosya horse, and meets a girl named Astrid Rennier who says it is her horse Justice, so he keeps the name. Members of the silver order are called Silversaints, and get silver tattoos all over their body that glow when they fight. Astrid inks his first tattoo, a sevenstar, on his left palm.
\nCut to other story, Gabe is brought Wine by the thrall in real time. Gabriel is traveling at night, riding Justice, when some wretched start chasing him. Justice hits a rabbit hole and breaks his leg so Gabe has to kill him and run. He comes upon some inquisitors, and shoots one and steals her horse, fleeing to a nearby town. He names the new horse Jezebel and goes and gets drunk. Suddenly Chloe Sauvage, a Silver Sister from San Michon, shows up with a priest, bard, Irish-Clan warrior and her lion, and a small street rat boy. We learn Gabriel has left Astrid, his wife, and their daughter patience at home to come north for something. She is excited to see him but he is sad and drunk and goes to bed. In the night someone knocks on his window and he invites her in. In the morning Chloe has already left but Danton Voss, a highblood vampire, highbloods are much more powerful and have bloodline abilities, is at the town gate so Gabriels smokes Sanctus (Distilled vampire blood that makes palebloods faster and stronger), and fights him. He kills his “daughter” and cuts off his arm so Danton retreats. He does learn the Danton was chasing the boy with Chloe, so he decides to follow them.
\nJean-Francois asks how we went from him just meeting Astrid to her being his wife so the story goes back. Gabriel is learning to be a silversaint. Seraph Talon tests him for a bloodline ability. Dyvok - Superstrength, Voss - Iron skin and better mind powers, Ilon - Emotional and mind control, Chastain - Animal Control. Gabe is none of them, a frailblood, and is mocked a lot for it, so he focuses on training and bladework. Him, Aaron, and Greyhand set out on a hunt. They come to a rich town called Skyefall, and discover a vampire highblood came through and turned some people. When a vampire kills someone they have a chance to come back to life as a vampire, but it is not 100%, and some come back as highbloods some as wretched based on who killed them. They go to the catacombs and Gabriel disobeys orders, allowing a fledgling Highblood to escape. Greyhound almost kills him but sends him back to the manor to watch the lady, who a vampire has been feeding on. The local priest comes and poisons Gabe, then a vampire boy (son of the lady) comes in and Gabe has top fight and kill all of them. The lady is a thrall to the boy (If you drink a vampire blood 3 times you become their slave), and she kills her husband in the fight. Gabriel eventually gets his hand around the vampire boys arm and burns his arm off somehow. No one knows what happened, but they return to San Michon with 2 vampire prisoners.
\nGabe overhears Talon and Greyhand talking about a supposed “fifth bloodline” and that they may kill him for it, so he wants to learn more. That night he sneaks out to the library to peruse the forbidden section, since any library in a fantasy series has one. He meets Astrid Rennier also sneaking out there, and they talk and he learns she is the bastard daughter of the emperor alexander, and was sent here in exile when he married isabella. She is angry and smokes dreamweed, but agrees to help him look for this fifth bloodline. She is searching for a way to end Daysdeath. They slowly become friends and evcentually Astrid brings another nun in training Chloe. Chloe wants to learn to use a sword and Gabe agrees so she also helps them search. Gabe is in the stables one morning (his punishment for disobedience on the hunt was cleaning the stables each morn), and is attacked by a vampire he kills with Justice’s help. That morning he had seen both Aaron sneaking out of the Armory (where the vampire was chained up), and Sister Aoife (Talon’s aide) crying in the cathedral. He learns the vampire killed Aoife on her way to him. His already bad animosity with Aaron become murderous, since he thinks Aaron tried to kill him.
\nJump back to modern time, Gabriel catches up to Chloe’s party fighting some Wretched and helps kill them, but a mysterious highblood called Liathe also shows up, helps, then asks for the boy to come with her. She shows some weird blood powers. They say no and she leaves for now. Gabriel learns the priest is Pere Rafa, the bard/soothsinger Bellamy from Isabella’s own court in Avignon or wherever. The irish slayer lady is Saoirse and her lioness Phoebe, and the boy Dior Lachance, who is a teenage city thief. They say dior knows where the Holy Grail is, which a prophecy says can end Daysdeath and save the empire. Gabe agrees to travel with them until the Volta, then continue on his business. They are still chased by both Danton Voss and the Inquisition for some reason. They come to an old abandoned town in winter, and are forced to defend a group of wretched. Rafa and bellamy are about to die, but Dior’s blood on their wounds heals and saves them. Chloe explains Dior IS the holy grail, and San Michon had the redeemers child, and the line of Esan has continued to Dior, a direct descendant of their savior.
\nCut. Time to leave San Michon for another hunt. This time Seraph Talon joins Aaron, gabe, and Greyhand since they know they are hunting a highblood vampire. They travel long and Aaron and Gabe still hate each other, and Talon is also cruel, but trains them well. They arrive in Aaron’s hometown of Coste, where the vampire is, and it is a feast day so they pose as servants and such. They spot the vampire, and Greyhand says to let her take a victim so they can follow and wait for morning, when she will be weaker, but Gabe steps in and saves the victim (Aaron’s cousin), allowing the vampire to escape. Greyhound is furious and almost killes Gabe but Aaron stands up for him, later thanking him for saving his cousin. They track the vampires to a house where some people have been drank from, and confront her on a bridge (Vampires can’t cross running water without a bridge and can’t enter a home without being invited). The battle is brutal, but they kill her highblood son, then learn this is Laure Voss, daughter of the forever king Fabien Voss (leader of a vampire army), and a prince of forever. She rips of Greyhands arm and eye, guts gabe and Aaron, and starts to say some secrets about Talon when he rushes her and she impales him also. Gabe is able to shove a silverbomb down her throat and pull his compatriots to the safety of a cathedral. Voss is not dead but she vows vengeance and flees. They return to San Michon, and Aaron and Gabe seem to have grown to tolerate each other after that battle. Not friends yet but they don’t hate each other.
\nCut. Gabe, CHloe, and the party are out of horses and food besides Jezebel after having to jump a river to avoid Danton again, so they head to San Guillame, another monastery that Rafa is from. They need to resupply. They arrive there and find the place has been butchered by the inquisition. There is some food but no horses, and Danton is closing in on them with a lot of wretched at his command. They prepare their defenses and have to battle off Liathe again, when she comes to collect Dior. They battle Danton and are doing alright but then Danton kills Saoirse and Phoebe, then Bellamy as they retreat to the cathedral. They manage to burn a ton of wretched through Gabriels trickery, but Danton still kils Rafa and Gabe, Chloe, and Dior have to jump into the VOlta from very high, but Danton catches Dior so chloe falls intentionally to free gabes other arm. He saves Dior and they are alone huddled in a cave with no supplies, Jezebel fled San Guillame in the battle. Gabe also has no pipe or sanctus so his addiction will grow stronger.
\nCut. Gabriel has been punished for disobedience on another hunt, and greyhound said he will never hunt with him again. But Astrid and Chloe found something on the fifth bloodline. Esani, the faithless, who can use sanguimancy. Even other vampires hate them. Oh also when they fought laure voss, greyhound, who is of blood chastain, used his hawk archer to kill a messenger dove and they learn Fabien Voss is planning to invade in winter, so the kings army is marching north due to the battle plans they obtained. Isabella herself comes to San Michon to prepare. Greyhound speaks his concern the note was a trick, and Gabriels suggests he take the initiates to the southern broder city to defend. He agrees bu then later says he will not take gabe. Astrid and Gabe start getting very close, and have sexy time but are interuppted by alarm bells.Seraph Talon has discovered Aaron and Baptiste being gay in the armory, which is a crime according the bible. Gabe found out about his a while ago but kept their secret. Which earned him Aaron’s trust. They are going to be exiled but after the battle, so they are imprisoned.. Once everyone else has left gabe gets blood on the note they took from the vampire and finds a secret message saying Fabien Voss is taking his army through a different mountain pass, inaccessible to mortals but the dead will be fine. Him, Astrid, and Chlose gather those left behind, the nuns, Gabe, blackthumbs (blacksmiths), and Aaron and Baptiste. They send runners to let the other groups know what is happening and ascend into the freezing cold and snow. They finally reach the pass and see a huge army of wretched. Gabe plans to set off an avalanche with black ignis poweder to bury them, but when they are setting it Laure Voss attacks their backline of sisters and he goes to save Astrid. Prioress Charlotte dies but Gabe is able to get his hand around Laure’s neck and sanguimances her to burn her to death. Fabien is enraged and enters his head and Gabe sees him, but then they set off the avalanche and bury the army and block the pass. Before killing Laure she revealed she went to Lorson and butchered everyone in revenge. The other silversaints arrive and everyone returns home, but Gabe stops at Lorson first and finds his whole family dead, Celene burned to a crisp in the church. He is devestated and returns to San Michon, where he is named a full member of the silver order, and Empress Isabella herself knights him a chevalier and sword of the realm. Aaron and Baptiste are still exiled, and Gabe lays a trap for Seraph Talon in the library, where he exposes him as having been drinking Aoifes blood and sleeping with her. He has given into his vampire ways and craves blood. Talon attacks but greyhand was waiting in the wings and saves Gabe and kills Talon. When Palebloods get old and their blood thirst “Sangire” gets too strong they are supposed to perform the Red Rite, let the abbot kill them. Greyhand takes Gabe to the infirmary where Astrid finds him and they copulate. They love each other, but have to keep it a secret.
\nCut. Gabe and Dior are struggling along. Oh also Gabriel is famous, he did a ton of stuff was called the Black Lion, he is a hero and helped a ton in the war. He wields Ashdrinker, a sword forged of starmetal that can destroy vampires. But him and Astrid got expelled from San Michon when she got pregnant with their daughter patience. So no one has seen him in a decade. Dior and gabe find a barge and make their way to a town. On the barge Dior uses her power to save a dying man in secret. They need to find Sanctus, Gabe is barely able to move anymore. Dior steals supplies from a merchant but before he can smoke guards appear, informed by the daughters of the man Dior saved, and the inquisition takes them captive. Gabe is being tortured by the same inquisitor he shot a long time ago, when Dior shows up and saves him. They grab their supplies and are able to flee on a rowboat. They have become friends despite initial animosity (Trend). They cross wintery land, and then Jezebel finds them, and they cross frozen rivers which is bad because that means vampires can also cross. Eventually while fleeing some dark magic Jezebel, renamed Fortuna by Dior, falls off a cliff and dies, but they shelter in her warm death to avoid dying themselves. They struggle along to Avalene, a small stronghold run by Aaron de Coste and Baptiste. This is where Gabriel and Astrid got married and Patience was born. They are all happy to see each other. Yippee. But Dior finally gets Gabe to tell why he came north. He had been living in the south on a small island Lighthouse with Patience and Astrid when after 11 years Fabien Voss and all his children showed up and killed Patience and turned Astrid. Gabe broke the tip off ashdrinker striking voss’ neck. He was then forced to kill Astrid himself to stop her from being a vampire. They have been dead all along and that is why he drinks and is sad. He only wants revenge. Also his silverclad tattoos have not been glowing because he no longer has any faith in the lord. Then Danton shows up outside and says if they do not give him Dior he will butcher everyone here. Dior flees in the night to save the good people their, but Gabe gets a dogsled from Aaron and chases after her. Dior does a trick blowing up the ice and kills a ton of wretched, but Danton and 10 other highbloods still are there. Dior’s blood also burns vampires. She uses this to reach Gabe and they prepare to fight. Aaron told Gabe he had to have faith in something, and he does have faith in Dior. His tattoos glow crimson, hurting the vampires. Liathe also shows up and helps. Gabe and Dior take on Danton, a prince of forever, while Liathe holds off 10 highbloods alone. Gabe is fighting Danton but Danton is wearing him down, when Dior rubs her blood on Ashdrinker and stabs him from behind, burning him to death. Liathe kills a few highbloods and the rest flee. Liathe again pleads that Dior come with her, since she knows nothing but Gabe and Dior say No. A group of Silversaints Gabe knows from being initiates arrives, including Greyhand who is now Abbot, and they all return to San Michon. Everything is happy at first, but then Greyhand lets slip that the ritual to end Daysdeath involves sacrificing Dior at dawn. Gabe protests and fights back but Greyhand and 5 silversaints subdue him and force the red rite on him, slitting his throat and throwing him from the plateau to the river below. Gabe wakes up with Liathe standing over him. He has drank her blood and she saved him from death. He is furious at first, but then realizes Liathe is a title, the vampire is his sister Celene. He is confused and shocked and she says she hates him and he has a lot to learn. Gabe climbs back up and kills most of the silversaints there and Chloe to save Dior, and they flee together. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"empress-of-beasts-aba","title":"Empress of Beasts","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":13,"pages":1119,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215345163-the-empress-of-beasts?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"1299","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108059","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"empress-of-beasts-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/empress-of-beasts-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/3/2025","dateFinished":"7/22/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Good story. Most enjoyable King section yet. Much better than the emperor section in the last one. Fetohep is cool, Wistram sucks.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ender-s-game-card","title":"Ender's Game","author":"Orson Scott Card","series":"Ender's Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":324,"yearPublished":1985,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/375802.Ender_s_Game?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"1487338","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780812550702","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ender-s-game-card-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/ender-s-game-card/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/11/2024","dateFinished":"1/15/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I had not read this since 7th grade and forgot how awesome it is. Bean is cool, and the whole premise of the enderverse is awesome, I’m tempted to read the book from Beans POV and the speaker of the dead. I wish I had finished the series when I was younger. Great example of a childrens book that holds up at any age you read it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"endurance-shackleton-s-incredible-voyage-lansing","title":"Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage","author":"Alfred Lansing","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":282,"yearPublished":1959,"publisher":"Carroll & Graf Publishers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/139069.Endurance?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"171659","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"History","isbn":"9780465058785","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"endurance-shackleton-s-incredible-voyage-lansing-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/endurance-shackleton-s-incredible-voyage-lansing/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/23/2026","dateFinished":"4/28/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I went into this one not expecting to enjoy it a ton since it is very outside my genre and older writing can be tedious, but it was so much better than expected. There were admittedly some very slow and dull sections, especially in the first third of the book, but the further we progressed along the journey the crew of the Endurance took the better it got. The last 100ish pages flew past and made it hard to believe this is not fiction. The story stands as a testament to the power of human spirit. It is awesome. I am very impressed by how Lansing was able to take his many interviews and diaries and turn it into a cohesive and enjoyable story. For anyone with an interest in adventure, exploration, and early 20th century history this is a must read. If the first half of the book wasn’t as slow this would be rated higher.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Endurance
\nAlfred Lansing
Endurance Summary
\nShackleton’s Incredible Voyage. Ernest Shackleton had done a couple of antarctic explorations before, but after losing out being the first to reach the North and South Poles, he decided he wanted to be the first to cross the continent of Antarctica through the pole. He won a lot of funding from various backers, and bought the Endurance from a Norwegian shipyard. It was originally intended to be an arctic vessel, which is slightly different but they planned to make it work. Him and his crew left Europe right after the UK entered World War 1 with permission from Churchill.
\nAfter stopping in Buenos Aires they headed south to South Georgia. After a short stay they set out for Antarctica on December 5, 1914. The plan was to reach the mainland, drop off a small team of humans and dog sleds, and they would sledge across, meeting up with another boat. Before they could reach the drop off point, the Endurance became stuck in ice floes. The men lived on the boat through the pitch black antarctic winter, but eventually they could tell it would break and disembarked.
\nThe group lived on several camps on the ice for a long time, with the hope of the wind pushing them towards land. They faced many issues with cold, food, and light. Shackleton ordered the dogs all killed to reduce food consumption. They lived mostly on killed seals and penguins which gave blubber for burning and meat. They had 3 small boats they had brought with them, and as the ice broke up more were forced to sail. After a harrowing boat journey where they changed destinations several times, they managed to reach Elephant Island. By this point it had been over a year of living as castaways. Almost all of them had some sort of problems and almost died several times.
\nShackleton, his captain Worsely, and a few others took the best boat and planned to sail to South Georgia and retrieve help. The path there goes through the Drake Passage, considered to be some of the worst conditions anywhere in the world for sailing. The men left behind had to deal with cold, wind, water, and dwindling supplies. One man lost a foot to frostbite. Shackleton and his smaller crew barely reached the safety of South Georgia, but on the wrong side. After regaining some strength him, Worsley, and one other crossed the island overland, dealing with crazy mountains, slopes, and ice but managed to make it back to the port town where whalers lived and worked. It had been 544 days since they last took off. After several tries they found a good boat and got lucky with weather and rescued everyone on Elephant Island. No one was lost on the voyage. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"eragon-paolini","title":"Eragon","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":1,"pages":503,"yearPublished":2002,"publisher":"Alfred A. Knopf","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113436.Eragon?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_6","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"1961431","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780375826696","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"eragon-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/eragon-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"8/2/2021","dateFinished":"8/8/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"10/16/2023","dateFinished":"10/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Already pre-ordered Murtagh. Can’t wait.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"erak-s-ransom-flanagan","title":"Erak's Ransom","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":7,"pages":441,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49124094-erak-s-ransom","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"71294","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142415252","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"erak-s-ransom-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/erak-s-ransom-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/3/2022","dateFinished":"3/8/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"escaping-peril-sutherland","title":"Escaping Peril","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":8,"pages":260,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25711360-escaping-peril","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"30768","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545685467","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"escaping-peril-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/escaping-peril-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/5/2024","dateFinished":"2/6/2024","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"exile-salvatore","title":"Exile","author":"R. A. Salvatore","series":"The Legend of Drizzt","seriesNumber":2,"pages":353,"yearPublished":1990,"publisher":"Wizards of the Coast","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66694.Exile","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"73713","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9780880389204","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"exile-salvatore-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/exile-salvatore/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/22/2023","dateFinished":"3/31/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Even better than the last one, Belwar is the best dwarf ever. I really liked pretty much everything about it. A good mix of internal struggle and still a ton of action.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"fablehaven-mull","title":"Fablehaven","author":"Brandon Mull","series":"Fablehaven","seriesNumber":1,"pages":351,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Shadow Mountain","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44652.Fablehaven?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"179686","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781590385814","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"fablehaven-mull-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/fablehaven-mull/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/11/2022","dateFinished":"8/16/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Going back to a childhood classic this reminds me of middle school. I think it took me like 3.5 hours to read and it was fun. Makes you hate children a little also
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"fae-and-fare-aba","title":"Fae and Fare","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":2,"pages":1718,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41180829-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"9278","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"fae-and-fare-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/fae-and-fare-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/29/2024","dateFinished":"8/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Kept me engaged the entire way through. The chapters are getting consistently longer, and I Iooked ahead and some of them can get up to 40k words. This one expanded the world a ton, and I think some of the best parts are flashing to our non-protagonist characters. Seeing the world from continents away adds so much. Then coming back to just seeing Erin develop and expand the inn just feels so easy and satisfying, it is a really good balance.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"flowers-of-esthelm-aba","title":"Flowers of Esthelm","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":3,"pages":974,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55924416-the-wandering-inn?ref=nav_sb_ss_5_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"8471","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"flowers-of-esthelm-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/flowers-of-esthelm-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"9/3/2024","dateFinished":"9/25/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Almost perfect. Can’t really say what is wrong with it, it just was missing a tiny bit. I think Erin being away from the inn for so long, while exciting, got old quickly. We had already seen Celum a bunch so it wasn’t really expanding the world. The Goblin chapters were phenomenal however.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"fool-moon-butcher","title":"Fool Moon","author":"Jim Butcher","series":"The Dresden Files","seriesNumber":2,"pages":401,"yearPublished":2001,"publisher":"Roc","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91477.Fool_Moon?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"214790","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780451458124","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"fool-moon-butcher-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/fool-moon-butcher/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/21/2022","dateFinished":"8/26/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This was definitely a step up from the first Dresden book and made me want to keep going with the series, magic gets explored and used way more.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"for-we-are-many-taylor","title":"For We Are Many","author":"Dennis E. Taylor","series":"Bobiverse","seriesNumber":2,"pages":350,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Worldbuilders","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34878094-for-we-are-many","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"77577","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781680680591","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"for-we-are-many-taylor-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/for-we-are-many-taylor/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/20/2024","dateFinished":"6/24/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Similar to the first one. Quick, interesting, some cool science concepts fantasized in interesting ways. Will definitely finish the series at some point. Good books to listen to between heavy stuff.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"foundryside-bennett","title":"Foundryside","author":"Robert Jackson Bennett","series":"The Founders Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":501,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Crown","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37173847-foundryside?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_7","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"57076","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781524760373","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"foundryside-bennett-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/foundryside-bennett/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/12/2023","dateFinished":"8/21/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"This book had a super cool premise and a lot of promise, but one major issue. Towards the end of the book characters who had only known each other for like a week were acting like they had these super deep emotional connections, which felt weird.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"four-the-loot-ugland","title":"Four: the Loot","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Good Guys","seriesNumber":4,"pages":276,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64565598-four","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"4632","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346118","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"four-the-loot-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/four-the-loot-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/25/2023","dateFinished":"6/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Eh. still getting better i guess.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"free-the-darkness-kade","title":"Free the Darkness","author":"Kel Kade","series":"King's Dark Tidings","seriesNumber":1,"pages":483,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Dark Rover Publishing, LLC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61460991-free-the-darkness","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"25534","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781952687013","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"free-the-darkness-kade-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/free-the-darkness-kade/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/27/2022","dateFinished":"10/17/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I think i am just way to old to read this series. The main character has the same problem as Superman, he is too powerful. It isn’t interesting when he just succeeds constantly with 0 issue. This just felt really slow and uninteresting.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"furies-of-calderon-butcher","title":"Furies of Calderon","author":"Jim Butcher","series":"Codex Alera","seriesNumber":1,"pages":688,"yearPublished":2004,"publisher":"Ace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29396.Furies_of_Calderon?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"114429","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780441012688","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"furies-of-calderon-butcher-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/furies-of-calderon-butcher/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/16/2022","dateFinished":"7/21/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Another reread, but this time I plan on finishing the series. Very action heavy which is classic Jimmy B, but it would be nice to get slightly more meaningful dialogue.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"garden-of-sanctuary-aba","title":"Garden of Sanctuary","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":15,"pages":1215,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222679474-garden-of-sanctuary?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"905","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108073","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"garden-of-sanctuary-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/garden-of-sanctuary-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/11/2025","dateFinished":"8/28/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Nothing bad just didn’t feel like a ton happened. The first chapter in the next book already had more plot it feels like.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Garden of Sanctuary
\nThe Wandering Inn #15
\nPirate Aba
People:
\nTeriarch, Erin, Palt, Maughin, Saliss, Lyonette, Klbchm, Jelaqua, Relc, Rufelt, Lasica, Grimalkin, Chaldion, Noass and Sir Relz, Numbtongue, Free Queen, Ilvriss, Rafaema, Laken, Pebblesnatch, Uvama, Fals, OCtavia, Mrsha, Krshia, Elirr, bearclaw,
Places:
\nLiscor, Pallass, Tails & Scales, Salaszar, Manus, Riverfarm, Celum
Things:
\nThe Wings of Pallass, The Half-Seekers, Garden of Sanctuary
Story:
\nTeriarch battles a group of wyverns. He scares them off and they fly past Liscor before attacking Pallass. Erin took a vacation to Pallass while her inn was rebuilt, and explores her new skills. She sees Palt, the dwarven blacksmith and Maughin, the big Dullahan blacksmith dating Jelaqua. Then she gets arrested and meets Saliss of lights, named adventurer.
Meanwhile The Wandering Inn was reopened by Lyonette Du Marquin. Klbch(ekezeim the slayer) and Relc Grasstongue bring the magic door back.
\nErin hides in Tails & Scales with Rufelt and Lasica. Grimalkin, Chaldion (Grand Strategist), and Saliss lead the effort to repel the Frost Wyvern Attack. The Wings of Pallass and Halfseekers also help. The 2 drake commentators, Noass and Sir Relz continue to bring TV to the world by announcing and sharing the attack. The attack is partly ended by Bird walking through and killing a ton with his bow. Frost Wyverns retreat, but then everyone freaks out because an Antinium is in Pallass. This causes The Free Queen to receive many messages and raises her standing, and Erin punishes Bird but Numbtongue hangs out with him.
\nWall Lord Ilvriss of Salaszar uses the Bird incident to start his secret Necromancy plan, covered by the antinium. We learn that Manus has an actual dragon in it, Rafaema.
\nWe jump over to Pebblesnatch and the Goblin colony in Riverfarm. Emperor Laken is trying to make the Goblins have society and pebblesnatch leads it by introducing good cooking and food.Uvama the shaman makes friends with her kind of.
\nFals informs many in Celum that the inn is back. Celum has been getting angier and angrier with Erin being better than them, and Octavia making baking powder upsets bakers. Taking The Players of Celum also upsets them and they want to take the door. Mrsha, is with Krshia and Elirr, and her friends when she meets the criminal gnoll Bearclaw on accident. Then after ruining a cake discovers erin’s Garden of Sanctuary
\nWailant Strongheart, Garia’s father, finds Numbtongue in Celum and gets kicked out with him, they travel back to his farm.
\nCelum wants to take Erin’s door, then realize they need her, but she is angry so takes the players and Octavia. We learn Bearclaw is planning to steal the door, mrsha, and Erin.
\nLots of King chapters. The Empress of Sands has lots of heads. King raelt of Jelcrass is trying to handle the chaos of the world. He meets Flos Reimarch, King of Destruction on his borders. Flos has many people coming to him, newly Gnolls and Lizardfold, along with Half-Giants.
\nWe see Trey Atwood, Travel with The Quarass, and Gazi Pathfinder to another Shield Kingdom, A’ctelios Salash. It is called the Carven city and is made in some sort of dead Eldritch horror that is massive. You can’t eat their food or something bad happens. The leaders of the shield kingdoms meet and Gazi gets her eye fixed. Then Trey realizes that the “Pack Animals” are actually transformed humans who ate the food, and many are from Earth. He attacks and then Gazi kills the leader of the city, Baosar. His son Athal and many others attack the 3. They barely escape but obviously the city is angry and declares war.
\nTV is being more and more introduced to the world. Flos meets with his new subjects but feel like something is missing. Teresa Atwood talks to Nawalishifra, the Nouhousin Blacksmith, and Zamea, leader of the half-giants. Jecaina, raelts daughter, challenges Mars the Illusionist to a duel and loses badly. Rustängmarder, are an elite unit of death soldiers. Flos rides into Belchan to search for his missing people.
\nWistram Academy is always looking to be rude to Flos and after the A’ctelios incident plan to show how he broke his oath, but when they TV over to him he just found his dead subjects, a group of gnolls slaughtered and the children killed and enslaved. Flos goes ferally angry and vows war against Belchan. Since it was televised the world all saw the massacred and Gnolls and Belchan’s people admit they did it, so many side with Flos and attack Belchan.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"gardens-of-the-moon-erikson","title":"Gardens of the Moon","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":1,"pages":666,"yearPublished":1999,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55399.Gardens_of_the_Moon?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=vJ6wqU9mCv&rank=1","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"140810","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765348784","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gardens-of-the-moon-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.75,"url":"/books/gardens-of-the-moon-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/17/2022","dateFinished":"1/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"This took quite a while to finish, but I was hooked as soon as I finished the first chapter. Super complex and you get to follow likes 10 different plot lines at once all across the world and neither you nor any of the characters know who all the players are or what their goals are until the very end. The fact that this is one of the shortest books in a 10 book series scares me because I know I have to read all of it but it sounds daunting. Would strongly recommend only to people who have read a lot of fantasy.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/4/2024","dateFinished":"4/14/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Loved it way more than the first time. And I already liked it the first time. The world and people are amazing. I get the criticism that “If everyone is powerful and awesome no one is” but that is a stupid thing dumb people say. Incredible writing, incredible character work, perfect complex fantasy book. Feels like a final boss in a good way.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ghostwater-wight","title":"Ghostwater","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":5,"pages":310,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127409108-ghostwater","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"32440","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001027","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ghostwater-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/ghostwater-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/2/2025","dateFinished":"7/7/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Continues to get better, both writing and story. My only concern is how fast Lindon is going which has felt like an issue the whole time, makes me assume more time will be spent with him in the upper echelons of power, which makes it seem weird how they don’t have more people past underlord introduced.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gideon-the-ninth-ninth","title":"Gideon The Ninth","author":"Gideon The Ninth","series":"The Locked Tomb","seriesNumber":1,"pages":448,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42036538-gideon-the-ninth?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.36","numGoodreadsRatings":"189556","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Science Fiction","isbn":"9781250313195","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gideon-the-ninth-ninth-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/gideon-the-ninth-ninth/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/28/2022","dateFinished":"11/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Kept getting better the further on it went. The worldbuilding isn’t great, and I think is intentionally left a little mysterious, but it makes it harder to fully understand the story. The first third was pretty slow but it kept getting faster and faster paced until the end is moving super quick. Went from like a 5 to an 8 throughout the book. Would recommend doing physical not audio.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gild-kennedy","title":"Gild","author":"Raven Kennedy","series":"The Plated Prisoner","seriesNumber":1,"pages":402,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Bloom Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199420132-gild","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"395626","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781464224416","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gild-kennedy-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":0.5,"url":"/books/gild-kennedy/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":0.5,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/14/2022","dateFinished":"6/19/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I am on a streak of terrible fantasy books that I can get for free while waiting for my employee card at work. Imagine Percy Jackson but it is really really really dumb and bad, now combine that with 50 Shades of Grey but only the stupid sex scenes. This book had more butts described than enjoyable pages.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gilded-ghost-kirrin","title":"Gilded Ghost","author":"Kyle Kirrin","series":"The Ripple System","seriesNumber":3,"pages":862,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Portal Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62645486-gilded-ghost","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"2508","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781913695453","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gilded-ghost-kirrin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/gilded-ghost-kirrin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/12/2022","dateFinished":"10/23/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book in the series so far, I really liked the development of House, getting to see an AI not achieve humanity, but simply fake it is a fun concept. I thought this was the end of a trilogy but there is still more books so he needs to keep writing. Honestly I am surprised this is actually starting to feel like a well written series, definitely the best LitRPG I’ve read. If the action/battle scenes get better that would be nice.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"good-omens-the-nice-and-accurate-prophecies-of-agnes-nutter-witch-gaiman","title":"Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch","author":"Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":384,"yearPublished":1990,"publisher":"William Morrow / Harper","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12070.Good_Omens?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"833352","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780060853976","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"good-omens-the-nice-and-accurate-prophecies-of-agnes-nutter-witch-gaiman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/good-omens-the-nice-and-accurate-prophecies-of-agnes-nutter-witch-gaiman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/27/2023","dateFinished":"5/4/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A really fun book. Crowley and Aziraphale are funny. I’m really busy with school so I don’t have much time.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"greek-mythology-explained-ramenah","title":"Greek Mythology Explained","author":"Marios Christou, David Ramenah","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":352,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"TMA Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42682571-greek-mythology-explained","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"560","genre":"Mythology","subgenre":"Fantasy","isbn":"9781633538962","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"greek-mythology-explained-ramenah-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/greek-mythology-explained-ramenah/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"9/28/2023","dateFinished":"10/7/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Obviously not classic fiction but well done and enjoyable even for people who aren’t into mythology I suspect.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gregor-and-the-code-of-claw-collins","title":"Gregor and the Code of Claw","author":"Suzanne Collins","series":"Underland Chronicles","seriesNumber":5,"pages":412,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/537070.Gregor_and_the_Code_of_Claw?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"51661","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439791434","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gregor-and-the-code-of-claw-collins-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/gregor-and-the-code-of-claw-collins/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/13/2024","dateFinished":"3/16/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I’m really glad I got to read these growing up as the same age as Gregor. This was the first book I ever cried while reading. It made me very sad.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gregor-and-the-curse-of-the-warmbloods-collins","title":"Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods","author":"Suzanne Collins","series":"Underland Chronicles","seriesNumber":3,"pages":358,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385706.Gregor_and_the_Curse_of_the_Warmbloods","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"52753","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439656245","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gregor-and-the-curse-of-the-warmbloods-collins-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/gregor-and-the-curse-of-the-warmbloods-collins/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/3/2024","dateFinished":"3/5/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Once again the pacing at certain points is kind of crazy, but I suppose you need to have action and can’t focus as much on character development with children. Still shocks me how much death she put in these books, guess that carries over to the hunger games.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gregor-and-the-marks-of-secret-collins","title":"Gregor and the Marks of Secret","author":"Suzanne Collins","series":"Underland Chronicles","seriesNumber":4,"pages":343,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319644.Gregor_and_the_Marks_of_Secret?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"41947","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439791465","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gregor-and-the-marks-of-secret-collins-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/gregor-and-the-marks-of-secret-collins/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/6/2024","dateFinished":"3/12/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"You can still feel the audience and characters aging, and this one it starts to get much more. Bringing in far darker topics and emotions that young characters have to handle. Mostly reasonable reactions and actions.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gregor-and-the-prophecy-of-bane-collins","title":"Gregor and The Prophecy of Bane","author":"Suzanne Collins","series":"Underland Chronicles","seriesNumber":2,"pages":312,"yearPublished":2004,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385742.Gregor_and_the_Prophecy_of_Bane?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.42","numGoodreadsRatings":"52871","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439650762","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gregor-and-the-prophecy-of-bane-collins-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/gregor-and-the-prophecy-of-bane-collins/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/2/2024","dateFinished":"3/3/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Doesn’t have quite the same magic as the first one, but handles the concept of death and dealing with loss in a way I think is good for young children. I think this is probably the weakest entry in the series, but still solid.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"gregor-the-overlander-collins","title":"Gregor the Overlander","author":"Suzanne Collins","series":"Underland Chronicles","seriesNumber":1,"pages":326,"yearPublished":2003,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/262430.Gregor_the_Overlander?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=zZtFStQ04l&rank=1","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"115506","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439771344","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"gregor-the-overlander-collins-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/gregor-the-overlander-collins/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/26/2024","dateFinished":"3/1/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"You can’t read Shakespeare every night, my brain gets tired. Considering this is a children’s book, it is amazing. Obviously the writing isn’t high level and there are a couple small plot holes and the pacing can be kind of random, but it still tells a captivating story with real emotional consequences in a fashion kids can understand and connect with. I’m definitely biased because these were some of the books I grew up reading and loving, but I think they hold up.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"guards-guards-pratchett","title":"Guards! Guards!","author":"Terry Pratchett","series":"Discworld","seriesNumber":8,"pages":376,"yearPublished":1989,"publisher":"Victor Gollancz Ltd","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64216.Guards_Guards_?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_6","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.68","numGoodreadsRatings":"240060","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780061020643","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"guards-guards-pratchett-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/guards-guards-pratchett/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/12/2023","dateFinished":"12/29/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"My first discworld book. It was really good
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"half-a-king-abercrombie","title":"Half a King","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"Shattered Sea","seriesNumber":1,"pages":416,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18666047-half-a-king","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"75774","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780804178327","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"half-a-king-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/half-a-king-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/28/2022","dateFinished":"1/1/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I really liked this. It is pretty much the perfect premise for me to enjoy in a fantasy series and it was fun to read. I want to finish the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"half-a-war-abercrombie","title":"Half a War","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"Shattered Sea","seriesNumber":3,"pages":513,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23278586-half-a-war","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"38271","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780804178457","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"half-a-war-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/half-a-war-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/23/2023","dateFinished":"3/1/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A great finish to what will probably be one of my top series of the year (even though technically I started the first book last year). I really love how the POV characters from the previous book in the series become mentors/leaders in the next book. It reminds me of The Giver series in that regard. This was my favorite book out of the trilogy, and it was cool to see Yarvi complete his character arc.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"half-the-world-abercrombie","title":"Half the World","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"Shattered Sea","seriesNumber":2,"pages":366,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22055283-half-the-world","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"46355","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780804178426","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"half-the-world-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/half-the-world-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/14/2023","dateFinished":"2/19/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Continued the same things that made me love the first book. Reminded a lot of some of the later books in The Thief series. Had a romance between young people that didn’t physically hurt to read so that was nice. Always impressed by the amount of character development in such a short story, even for non-POV characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"halt-s-peril-flanagan","title":"Halt's Peril","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":9,"pages":440,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Puffin Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39952016-halt-s-peril","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"65166","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142418581","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"halt-s-peril-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/halt-s-peril-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/27/2022","dateFinished":"9/1/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Rangers apprentice classic series the first few are really good but towards the end they start to taper off
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":2,"pages":352,"yearPublished":1998,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4.Harry_Potter_and_the_Chamber_of_Secrets","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"4572078","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439554893","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.17,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"2/15/2021","dateFinished":"2/21/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":5,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/5/2022","dateFinished":"5/10/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This is one of my least favorite books in the series
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/11/2025","dateFinished":"4/21/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Wanted something to listen to while I played video games.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":7,"pages":759,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Scholastic Inc.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58613224-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"4164118","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545010221","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.33,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"3/22/2021","dateFinished":"3/28/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/15/2022","dateFinished":"5/20/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I finally finished Harry Potter after finishing book 6 two months ago. Yeah
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/12/2025","dateFinished":"10/13/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"The epilogue is so so bad.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Mad eye moody dies getting Harry from #4 to the burrow. Fleur and Bill get married, the ministry falls during the wedding and everyone flees. Death Eaters show up shortly after Hermione, Ron, and Harry aparate away. They flee again to #12 grimwald place. Kreature gets Mundungus fletcher and they learn the real locket is with Umbridge. They break into the ministry and steal it. Home is compromised. Now have to camp in woods. Locket makes them angry, can’t destroy it. Ron leaves. Harry and Hermione go to Godric’s hollow. See the deathly hallows mark. Bagshot was nagini, flee Voldemort. Harry wand break. Harry sees doe patronus, follows to icy lake. Jumps in. Locket tries to drown. Ron saved him. Followed Deluminator back. Hermione mad. Use sword from pool to break Locket. Get captured. Malfoy manor. Luna, griphook, olivander. Dobby saves, get wands. Dobby dies. Griphook helps break into gringots. Get hufflepuff cup. Griphook takes sword. Escape on dragon. Go to hogwarts. Abaforth in hogsmead helps. Neville leading hogwarts resistance. Get basilisk fangs to break cup. Find diadem of raven claw in room of req. Crab summons evil fire and dies. Harry saves draco and goyle. Fred dies. Remus and Tonks die. Colin creaveey dies. Snape dies. HArry watches snapes memories. Good guy. Harry goes to forest to die. Curse doesn’t work. BAttle for hogwarts. Mrs. Weasley kills bellatrix, neville cuts of nagini head. Harry kills Voldemort. Stupid epilpgue.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":4,"pages":734,"yearPublished":2000,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6.Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"4265305","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439139595","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.83,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-goblet-of-fire-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"3/1/2021","dateFinished":"3/7/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":6,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/9/2022","dateFinished":"5/14/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This book is way too long for the lack of stuff that happens. Like Harry spends a quarter of the book just stressing about Dragons it gets pretty boring.
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/8/2025","dateFinished":"6/13/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Second worst
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":6,"pages":652,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Arthur A. Levine Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49852.Harry_Potter_and_the_Half_Blood_Prince","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"3710143","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439784542","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.17,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"3/15/2021","dateFinished":"3/21/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/13/2022","dateFinished":"5/18/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Over the years as I have reread Harry Potter this has slowly cemented itself as my favorite book in the series. It has good pacing without constantly being full of noise like some of the earlier ones, and as the characters start to grow up the story starts to feel more real (as much as a book about magic can) and impactful.
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/6/2025","dateFinished":"8/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Still the best book in the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Lord Voldemort has returned to power, and his wrath has been felt in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Severus Snape, long considered an enemy of Voldemort and a member of Dumbledore’s anti-Voldemort coalition, the Order of the Phoenix, meets with Narcissa Malfoy, mother of Draco and wife of Lucius, an imprisoned Death Eater. Snape makes an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa, promising to protect her son, Draco.
\nDumbledore heads to 4 Privet Drive to collect Harry from his aunt and uncle. On their way to the Burrow, Harry and Dumbledore stop to recruit Horace Slughorn to return to teaching at Hogwarts. Harry is reunited with his best friends, Ron and Hermione. When shopping for schoolbooks, Harry runs into Draco and follows him to Borgin and Burkes, where he overhears Draco threatening Borgin and insisting that he fix an unknown object. Harry is instantly suspicious of Draco, whom he believes to be a Death Eater, just like his father. The students return to school, and Dumbledore announces that Snape will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, much to Harry’s surprise.
\nHarry receives a used Potions textbook that once belonged to someone named “The Half-Blood Prince.” Spells and amendments are written in the margins of the book, and Harry uses the Prince’s notes to excel at Potions. Dumbledore schedules regular meetings with Harry in which they use Dumbledore’s pensieve to look at memories of those who have had direct contact with Voldemort. Dumbledore believes that if Harry can learn enough about Voldemort’s history, it will help him when they finally fight face to face, as the prophecy concerning Harry foretells. Harry learns about Voldemort’s family, including his grandfather Marvolo, his uncle Morfin, and his mother Merope, who fed a Muggle (Tom Riddle Sr.) a love potion and was abandoned by him when it wore off. Voldemort was left at an orphanage and grew to be an unpleasant and aggressive boy. Harry also learns that Voldemort has divided his soul into seven Horcruxes, by coercing Slughorn to give him an old memory. Two of these, Tom Riddle’s diary and Marvolo’s ring, have already been destroyed. One resides in Voldemort, one resides in a snake, one is Merope’s locket, and the other two are suspected to be hidden in objects belonging to Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor.
\nRon acquires a new girlfriend, Lavender, of whom Hermione is extremely jealous. Harry feels stuck in the middle of his friends’ bickering. Eventually, Harry falls in love with Ginny, Ron’s sister, and Ron and Lavender break up, making Hermione quite happy. Harry spends much of his time keeping up with his duties as Quidditch captain and following Draco Malfoy. Harry uses his Marauder’s Map to keep track of Draco, but often cannot find him on the map. Eventually, Harry realizes that when Draco is not on the map, he is using the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, which transforms into whatever its user needs, thanks to Dobby helping him and ordering Kreature to follow Draco. Harry tries his best to get in to see what Draco is up to, but until he knows exactly what Draco is using the room for, he cannot gain access. Eventually Harry and Dumbledore leave Hogwarts together to fetch and destroy Merope’s locket, thus making Voldemort one step closer to mortal. They must overcome a variety of traps and challenges before reaching the basin where the locket is hidden under a poisonous potion. Dumbledore drinks the potion and Dumbledore fights off Voldemort’s Inferi. They take the locket and return to Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Dumbledore is quite weak, and when they reach Hogsmeade they can see that the Dark Mark is visible above the astronomy tower.
\nHarry and Dumbledore rush toward the tower. When they arrive, Dumbledore uses his magic to freeze Harry in place, while Harry remains hidden by his cloak of invisibility. Draco Malfoy sprints into the room, threatening Dumbledore’s life. Weak and with his wand disarmed by Draco, Dumbledore stalls Draco, telling him that he is not a killer and that the Order of the Phoenix could protect him and his mother from Voldemort. Draco lowers his wand, and Snape pushes into the tower. Harry cannot move or speak, but he hears members of the Order fighting Death Eaters below. Snape raises his wand and kills Dumbledore, sending him flying over the edge of the tower. When Dumbledore dies, his spell on Harry is broken, and Harry rushes after Snape, determined to avenge the death of his friend and headmaster. Snape escapes, and Harry is devastated. He looks at the locket he and Dumbledore retrieved and realizes that it is not a Horcrux. Inside the locket is a note from someone named “R. A. B.” Harry tells his friends he will not be returning to Hogwarts next year and will instead search out and kill Voldemort by destroying all of the Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione vow to join him.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":5,"pages":912,"yearPublished":2003,"publisher":"Scholastic Inc.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58613451-harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix","avgGoodreadsRating":"9","numGoodreadsRatings":"3855079","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439358064","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.17,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"3/8/2021","dateFinished":"3/14/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":6,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/11/2022","dateFinished":"5/16/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This is a pretty solid Harry Potter book, however the reason it gets a lower score than the others is that Dolores Umbridge and Snape are both so mean and horrible it makes the book actually unpleasant to read at points. I get overly frustrated which I guess means they are well written to be bad.
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/13/2025","dateFinished":"8/5/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Still middle of the series. Umbridge is still infuriating.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":3,"pages":435,"yearPublished":1999,"publisher":"Scholastic Inc.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5.Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"4933752","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439655484","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"2/22/2021","dateFinished":"2/28/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/7/2022","dateFinished":"5/12/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A much more enjoyable read than the last book, the characters finally start feeling like they are actual people
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/22/2025","dateFinished":"5/8/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Another video game / sleeping book
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"harry-potter-and-the-sorcerer-s-stone-rowling","title":"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone","author":"J. K. Rowling","series":"Harry Potter","seriesNumber":1,"pages":333,"yearPublished":1997,"publisher":"Scholastic Inc","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3.Harry_Potter_and_the_Sorcerer_s_Stone","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"11589853","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780439554930","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"harry-potter-and-the-sorcerer-s-stone-rowling-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.17,"url":"/books/harry-potter-and-the-sorcerer-s-stone-rowling/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"2/10/2021","dateFinished":"2/15/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/1/2022","dateFinished":"5/6/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I mean it’s Harry Potter everyone likes book. I got a job at a used book store so I should be able to get more books soon.
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/23/2025","dateFinished":"1/28/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Every time I read it it seems a little worse but it’s still Harry Potter
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"he-who-fights-with-monsters-shirtaloon","title":"He Who Fights with Monsters","author":"Shirtaloon","series":"He Who Fights with Monsters","seriesNumber":1,"pages":680,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57599993-he-who-fights-with-monsters","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"43734","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798712811786","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"he-who-fights-with-monsters-shirtaloon-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/he-who-fights-with-monsters-shirtaloon/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/23/2022","dateFinished":"5/28/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Another LitRPG novel, but this one had some of the best reviews for any book in the genre besides Ready Player One so I was interested. It started out pretty rough but the writing got better as it went along. Not the best world building and a horrible magic system but had a lot of action so it stayed interesting. My biggest qualm is the beginning, I don’t want to spoil it but the beginning sucks.
\n2026: I will be rereading this sometime. Don't trust me from 4 years ago.
Even shorter than the first book, just continues the plot.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"hell-s-wardens-aba","title":"Hell's Wardens","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":14,"pages":1007,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216967891-hell-s-wardens","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"1231","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108066","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"hell-s-wardens-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/hell-s-wardens-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/23/2025","dateFinished":"8/7/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"One of the best arcs in the series. Great mix of serious, world development, character work, and diving into leveling and classes.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"home-siege-home-ugland","title":"Home, Siege Home","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Good Guys","seriesNumber":6,"pages":370,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70890972-home-siege-home","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"4337","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346132","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"home-siege-home-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/home-siege-home-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/11/2023","dateFinished":"7/12/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"homeland-salvatore","title":"Homeland","author":"R. A. Salvatore","series":"The Legend of Drizzt","seriesNumber":1,"pages":343,"yearPublished":1990,"publisher":"Wizards of the Coast","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/317547.Homeland","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"100322","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9780880389051","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"homeland-salvatore-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/homeland-salvatore/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/21/2023","dateFinished":"3/10/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"It took me a while to read, but most of that time was getting through the first 1/3 of the book. Once I got into it I started flying through it. Drizzt is pretty cool.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"house-of-blades-wight","title":"House of Blades","author":"Will Wight","series":"Traveler's Gate","seriesNumber":1,"pages":294,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18428608-house-of-blades","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"18451","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780989671705","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"house-of-blades-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/house-of-blades-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/22/2022","dateFinished":"7/27/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Back to the trend of free books on Audible while I wait for my credits to refresh in like a week, and these are by Will Wight who is known for the Cradle series. This book was pretty good, the main character we follow isn’t the “Chosen one” but instead just someone who knows him which is a interesting perspective to explore, and everyone loves a well written training montage.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"house-of-chains-erikson","title":"House of Chains","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":4,"pages":1015,"yearPublished":2002,"publisher":"Tom Doherty","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55398.House_of_Chains","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.68","numGoodreadsRatings":"56430","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765348814","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"house-of-chains-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/house-of-chains-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/29/2024","dateFinished":"8/17/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Every book in the series continues to get better. At least this one had the least depressing end by far. Karsa is pretty awesome despite being pretty terrible. Also Kalam is cooler than anyone else.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"how-to-be-a-farmer-in-a-fantasy-world-wyatt","title":"How To Be a Farmer in a Fantasy World","author":"Shawn Wyatt","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":298,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61767023-how-to-be-a-farmer-in-a-fantasy-world","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"287","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Cozy","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"how-to-be-a-farmer-in-a-fantasy-world-wyatt-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/how-to-be-a-farmer-in-a-fantasy-world-wyatt/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/16/2026","dateFinished":"1/20/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Not terrible and very easy to read, but doesn’t really have anything going for it. Glad it is short.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"How to be a Farmer in a Fantasy World
\nShawn Wyatt
Some guy named Drake something leaves Calderon City because he caught some noble embezlling money, and moves out to Arcadia Village, where he is given a free farm but has to make it profitable within a single year. They want people to move to the village because a dungeon just appeared by it so adventurers are showing up. He plants his first crops then explores the basement and fins a magic book that gives him the farmer class. He also has a magic river pool on his land that heals him and mana flowers that make everything grow faster and better. He has to go into to to repair his tools and meet Landry the sheriff, Arvil the blacksmith, Finley the merchant, and Hazel a local taverngirl who likes him. HE continues to plant crops and get better at farming, but oh no there is a 1,000 coin bounty for him posted by the noble from the start. He meets an adventurer named Melody and they start dating. He is about to make the farm profitable when the bounty gets raised to 50,000 coins and another adventurer who likes Hazel comes to collec t it. Melody stops him but he burns down Drakes crops, so he will not meet the profit deadline. Luckily magic sprites deus ex machina everything adn the bounty goes away and happy ever after.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"how-to-rule-an-empire-and-get-away-with-it-holt","title":"How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It","author":"K. J. Parker (Tom Holt)","series":"The Siege","seriesNumber":2,"pages":354,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49088677-how-to-rule-an-empire-and-get-away-with-it?ref=nav_sb_ss_3_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"4235","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780316498678","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"how-to-rule-an-empire-and-get-away-with-it-holt-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/how-to-rule-an-empire-and-get-away-with-it-holt/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/23/2024","dateFinished":"3/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I liked the first one little bit more but this still had all of the same drawing points. I’m impressed by how much it felt like the book just carried on despite a large change in narrator and position and time. I think my biggest qualm would be Notker is a bit too smart, it doesn’t really fit. Also Ogus seemed dumber.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"howl-s-moving-castle-jones","title":"Howl's Moving Castle","author":"Diana Wynne Jones","series":"Howl's Moving Castle","seriesNumber":1,"pages":329,"yearPublished":1986,"publisher":"Harper Trophy","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6294.Howl_s_Moving_Castle?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_20","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"458610","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064410342","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"howl-s-moving-castle-jones-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/howl-s-moving-castle-jones/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/22/2022","dateFinished":"10/25/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I am very excited to watch the movie. This was a pretty quick read and definitely intended for a younger audience, but I enjoyed it. I always love stuff that takes classic fairy tale tropes and plays with them. The idea that since Sophie is the oldest she must be boring and the youngest sister is the one destined to have adventure is fun. We are watching the movie tomorrow night. Also doors are powerful.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"howling-dark-ruocchio","title":"Howling Dark","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":2,"pages":688,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42298449-howling-dark","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"12488","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780756413057","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"howling-dark-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/howling-dark-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/28/2025","dateFinished":"2/10/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Feels like we got past the backstory / setup and started the actual journey. Was hoping for a bit more but still good
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"hunted-breene","title":"Hunted","author":"K. F. Breene","series":"The Warrior Chronicles","seriesNumber":2,"pages":381,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27677279-hunted","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"13852","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781511778077","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"hunted-breene-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/hunted-breene/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/8/2022","dateFinished":"6/13/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I don’t know why I listened to the second one it was only like 8 hours i’m sorry
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"hyperion-simmons","title":"Hyperion","author":"Dan Simmons","series":"Hyperion Cantos","seriesNumber":1,"pages":496,"yearPublished":1989,"publisher":"Crown","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2093816.Hyperion","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"307565","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780385263481","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"hyperion-simmons-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/hyperion-simmons/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"5/7/2026","dateFinished":"5/17/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I already went and bought the next book. This was great. I am always hesitant going into classic sci-fi, but this feels more like a genre mashup than anything. All of the different stories have their own emotions and storytelling style associated with them. The only downsides are the slow start (Was entirely uninterested until about halfway through the priest’s tale), and the detective story was not the best. On a reread I would probably not do the audiobook, not terrible but not the best performance ever. I almost always love any “Story within a story”, and this had plenty of that. Learning more about the state of affairs in the world, and about how each of the pilgrims' stories connected to each other or the Shrike was great. The story of Sol Weintraub and his family is my favorite. Very excited to continue the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Hyperion
\nDan Simmons
\nHyperion Cantos #1
Hyperion Summary
\nWe start with the Consul, a member of the Hegemony, being ordered by the Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone to go to the planet Hyperion and go on a pilgrimage to see the Shrike. She also warns him that one of the pilgrims may be a spy. The Ousters are beginning a large scale attack and the future is uncertain. The Consul wakes up on the tree-ship Yggradsil, and meets the other pilgrims. They are: the Consul, Het Masteen (Templar of the tree-ship), Father Hoyt (A catholic priest), Martin Silenus (An old, famous poet), Colonel Kassad (Butcher of Bressia), Brawne Lamia (Private Investigator), and Sol Weintraub (Scholar) with his infant daughter Rachel.
\nThey are going to be forced to land in Keats and travel to the Time Tombs, since there is a field around the tombs that ships can not enter. The group argues and are all very different, but agree they should all tell their stories of how they came to be here. They draw numbers for the order, and the Consul pulls number 7. Father Hoyt tells his story first, while they are still on the tree-ship.
\nMost of Hoyt’s story is actually the diaries of another priest, Father Paul Dure. Dure went to Hyperion to meet with a remote tribe called the Bikura and study them. It is a dangerous journey, having to navigate “tesla trees” that generate a ton of electricity. His guide is murdered when he nears the tribe, and he suspects the Bikura. When he eventually finds and meets him Dure describes them as a bunch of children with down syndrome. They seem relatively simple, and refer to themselves as a group (The three score and ten), without having individual names. They have a strict schedule and several strong taboos, one of which is no nudity. Every day they all descend into a canyon but refuse to let Dure come with. He investigates by himself while they are foraging and discovers an ancient, beautiful church with a cross in it. Later, one of the Bikura spots him bathing (without his catholic cross necklace on), and they almost kill him for “not being of the cruciform”, but instead take him down into the labyrinth of Hyperion. They find a cave full of glowing crosses on the walls, and they take one out and make Dure wear it as a necklace. The Shrike appears and Dure is terrified, but it leaves without anything happening. Dure returns to the camp, and when he awakes the cross he was wearing has fused into his body. He can not remove it, and medical scans show it is touching his brain. He tries to leave, but when he gets a certain distance away he becomes wracked with pain. He witnesses one of the Bikura die, and then be reborn by the cruciform. The crosses make the Bikura immortal but also trap them in this small area. We now return to Father Hoyt, who came searching for Dure, and found that he stabbed himself to a tesla tree in an attempt to kill himself. When Hoyt found him he was still alive, although Hoyt was able to remove the cruciform from him and he died a true death. Hoyt now is afflicted with the cruciform and must take drugs to manage the pain he feels.
\nThey land in Keats, and the Consul is greeted by his old aide who now runs the planet. Most people are being evacuated since the Shrike has been going on a killing spree and is not constrained in area like he used to be. They find an old tavern familiar to both Silenus and the Consul, and Colonel Kassad tells his story.
\nKassad was raised on the streets before joining the FORCE (military). During his training he kept meeting a woman in simulations that he fell in love with and had sex with a lot. He distinguished himself in combat by defeating some religious extremists, then was sent to Bressia to fight the Ousters. He broke many conventional rules of war and became known as the Butcher of Bressia but he won the planet. On his trip home his ship is attacked by Ousters and he is forced to fight for his life but manages to steal one of their ships and crash onto Hyperion. His mysterious woman is there when he wakes up. Her name is Moneta and she is from the ruins of the City of Poets. She explains how the Time Tombs move backwards through time, and she is doing the same. She gives him power armor suit and together with the shrike they massacre a large number of Ousters camped on the planet. Right after, in a blood-sex craze him and Moneta start to have sex, but then she turns into a thorn monster like the Shrike and Kassad thinks he is about to die. He passes out and wakes up back in Hegemony care. Nothing much happens for a while then he was invited on this pilgrimage.
\nKassad says his only goal is to kill the Shrike. Time is confusing since some parts of it seem to be moving the wrong direction. They are being escorted by an android down a barge on a river. The next story to tell is Martin Silenus.
\nSilenus was born to a noble family on Old Earth, he was around for the creation of the World Web with the introduction of Farcasters. He was given an extensive classical education and knows a lot of Earth literature and stuff. Earth is dying due to an accidental black hole someone made, and eventually Martin is forced to leave. He is put in long-term cryogenic sleep while his mother stays behind and dies with the Earth. When he wakes up he suffered a stroke and his language is severely hindered, with him only having a 7 word vocabulary. He is forced into slave labor on Heaven’s Gate to pay off debts, and writes poetry in his free time. A rich woman reads his Cantos and gets it published and marries him. He is now rich and famous again, but struggles to sell more of his work. He eventually quits on his publisher and travels with Sad King Billy to start the City of Poets on Hyperion. He still struggles to write, but eventually is struck with inspiration. At the same time many people start being killed by the Shrike. The Shrike is his muse and he needs it to write. Billy stuns him and prepares to burn his work since he thinks it is causing the shrike attacks. The Shrike appears and takes King Billy away. Silenus only desires to finish his Hyperion Cantos.
\nThe pilgrims arrive at the Sea of Grass, where a windwagon is supposed to be to take them across. They have to wait a while for it to show up. Windwagons look like classic earth sailing ships. They discuss their luggage, and Het Masteen has a mobius cube he thinks contains a weapon that can beat the Shrike. They board the ship and Sol Weintraub tells his story.
\nSol and his wife Sarai seem to have a perfect life. They are happy together and he enjoys his job teaching at the local college. Then they have their daughter Rachel who is perfect in every way. Rachel grows up and becomes interested in alien artifacts and old ruins, and basically becomes a space archaeologist. She travels to Hyperion to investigate the Time Tombs with her partner. One night while investigating the tombs all her equipment and lights shut off, and the Shrike touches her. When Rachel wakes up she has lost part of her recent memory and doctors discover she has “Merlin’s Sickness”, she is going backwards in time. Every day she ages in reverse and can only remember what she knew at that point when growing older, not younger. Sol had recently begun having a dream where some voice tells him to take his daughter Rachel and offer her as a sacrifice on Hyperion, which he obviously refused. Rachel tries to live a normal-ish life but is eventually forced to return to living with her parents. They try to make things easy for her but every day she has to wake up and be told about her disease and condition anew. Eventually she asks her parents just to pretend he life is normal as a 16ish year old and not tell her about the disease. Sol is Jewish and struggles greatly with God about what is happening to his daughter. He also debates the Abraham Problem, because his dreams are very similar to what God asked Abraham to do with his son. The media eventually learns of Rachel's sickness and harasses her and the family whenever they are in public. Teams go back to the time tombs but learn nothing, and eventually they get closed as being too dangerous. Sol’s wife Sarai takes a short trip to see her family when Rachel is back to being very young, and is killed in a car crash. Sol is devastated and goes on TV with Rachel to plead for help, which allowed him to come on this pilgrimage to try to save his daughter.
\nBefore they go to sleep they see a space battle happening in the sky, presumably an Ouster attack. The tree-ship ygdrassill is destroyed. Kassad and the Consul each take a watch during the night to make sure nothing happens. But in the morning Het Masteen has vanished, and they find his room full of blood. His mobius cube is unopened and they deduce it must have an Erg inside (A forcefield alien thing). They reach the base of a mountain range and prepare to take the cable cars across. Kassad has to activate them and then make a mad sprint and jump to get on the car. Masteen was supposed to tell his story next but is gone, so it is Brawne Lamia’s turn.
\nBrawne is from Lusus, a high gravity planet so people are short and strong. She works as a private investigator and the story begins with her getting a new client named Johnny, a Cybrid (AI human), who was “killed” and wants her help figuring out why. Someone tried to infect him with AIDS 2, which caused him to go unconscious and lose a chunk of memory. She learns that he is an AI recreation of the poet John Keats, and is a bit of an oddity for the Technocore (The separate AI body). She meets with her friend BB who tells her more about AI’s and Cybrids. She also learns Johnny was at a bar with a Templar and a short man with a ponytail. Johnny then calls her and she comes to find he was attacked, by the ponytail man. Brawne tracks down the ponytail man but when she catches him he turns out to also be a cybrid and blows himself up. She has to go into hiding so her and Johnny travel to an Earth recreation world the AI’s made. They have begun to fall in love and have sex. They are attacked by a group of men but they fight them off and learn they were sent by the Lusus Shrike temple. They meet with the Shrike Bishop and learn Johnny was supposed to go on this pilgrimage to Hyperion but had forgotten and they were going to make him go. The man with the ponytail was supposed to have been his bodyguard. In order to go to Hyperion Johnny needs to fully put his AI brain inside the cybrid body, but the AI do not seem to want that to happen. Brawne is friends with Meina Gladstone, CEO of the Hegemony and asks her some questions and learns that the AI seem scared of the Time Tombs since they can not predict them. They return to BB for help, and break into the datumplane to learn info and get Johnny entirely into his body. It works but BB is killed in the process. Johnny tells Brawne that there are 3 AI factions: the Stables who like humans, the Volatiles who hate humans, and the Ultimates, who want to perfect the Ultimate Intelligence (UI) model so they can know everything. The Shrike seems to represent two possible futures, either the AI sent it back in time to hunt humans, or humans sent it back in time to fight AI. But war seems to be coming between the two groups. Brawne and Johnny gear up and get in a huge battle trying to reach the Shrike temple, Johnny dies but manages to transfer all his memory into Brawne’s computer appendage thing before he does. She is also pregnant.
\nThe next day they reach the church near the time tombs, and find a lot of dead bodies. There are more ships fighting in space. They spot a man that looks like Het Masteen ahead of them headed for the tombs. The Consul does not want to share his story but does anyway.
\nHis story is also primarily someone else's. Merin Aspic was a shipworker installing a farcaster for the world of Maui Covenant. The farcaster is about to be opened but he is visiting the tomb of his beloved Siri. The story flashes between this moment and memories of how Merin and Siri fell in love and their lives. The work on a farcaster involves a lot of time debt, the universe progressing while you stay the same age, so everyone he knows will be dead when he finishes the project. Merin and his friend Mike visit the planet on some time off, and Mike brought an illegal Hawking Mat (Flying carpet). They use it to visit the main islands of the world, where Merin meets Siri. She is 16 to his 19 but they fall in love. Merin learns many on the world do not want to be members of the hegemony and World Web. Mike is killed by Siri’s cousin and Merin kills him in return. Him and Siri run away and he leaves her. We see flashes of the different times Merin was able to visit the planet, with Siri aging more each time. He visits when she is late 20’s and he is only 20. They travel the oceans and speak to the dolphins. Merin sees the beauty of this world. He meets their children, who age faster than him also. On his last trip before this one Siri was 70 and they went fishing together. Siri was very famous during her life, serving in high roles within the hegemony. She still worries that introducing her beloved world to the World Web will destroy it. When Merin reaches her tomb he finds several video recordings of Siri expressing her love for him and her hate for the Hegemony. Merin planted a bomb on the farcaster that detonates when it is activated, saving the world for a time. The Consul is Merin and Siri’s grandson. Maui Covenant was industrialized and ruined when the hegemony came in. The Consul has spent his time moving up the ranks of the Hegemony while hating them all along. He is selected to go to Hyperion and meet with the Ousters, but decides to work with the Ousters against the Hegemony instead. He is in awe of their society, and they tell him the black hole that destroyed earth was not an accident, but an intentional move by the AI and Hegemony. He returns and reports almost everything to the hegemony and is made Consul of Hyperion. He waits for years before meeting with the Ousters again, and killing their agents to take a device that could free the shrike. He activates it.
\nThe others on the pilgrimage debate killing the Consul as a spy, but decide against it. The Consuls says something is not right, with the destruction of the tree-ship and Het Masteen’s reaction but is not sure what is going on. The next morning they all set off for the Time Tombs together, with Sol singing “We’re off to see the Wizard”. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"i-m-not-anti-business-i-m-anti-idiot-adams","title":"I'm Not Anti-Business, I'm Anti-Idiot","author":"Scott Adams","series":"Dilbert","seriesNumber":11,"pages":128,"yearPublished":1998,"publisher":"Andrews McMeel Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85585.I_m_Not_Anti_Business_I_m_Anti_Idiot?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8","numGoodreadsRatings":"764","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9780836251821","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"i-m-not-anti-business-i-m-anti-idiot-adams-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/i-m-not-anti-business-i-m-anti-idiot-adams/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/4/2022","dateFinished":"7/9/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"i-m-not-the-hero-kerper","title":"I'm Not the Hero","author":"Tommy Kerper","series":"I'm Not the Hero","seriesNumber":1,"pages":644,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Podium Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202370352-i-m-not-the-hero","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"1677","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781039425378","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"i-m-not-the-hero-kerper-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/i-m-not-the-hero-kerper/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"12/7/2025","dateFinished":"12/18/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A bit better than I expected but still not great
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"I'm Not The Hero
\nTommy Kerper
\nI'm Not The Hero #1
Orrin and his popular, athletic best friend Daniel are walking home when a truck hits them and they get sent to a fantasy video game world, except Orrin gets error messages and goes through a class creation screen. Daniel is just assigned “Hero”. They are both level 1 in the woods. They have quests. They head to the city of Day, and on the way meet Lady Madeleine and her guard. Her noble family helps them out and stuff. Orrin has a broken mana glitch from his class, Hero’es are really rare etc. They level stupidly fast, kill lots of stuff, make some friends, expose some corruption.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"inheritance-paolini","title":"Inheritance","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":4,"pages":849,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Alfred A. Knopf","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7664041-inheritance","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"315656","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780375856112","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"inheritance-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/inheritance-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"8/23/2021","dateFinished":"8/29/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"11/21/2023","dateFinished":"12/6/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A good conclusion.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"into-the-labyrinth-bierce","title":"Into the Labyrinth","author":"James Bierce","series":"Mage Errant","seriesNumber":1,"pages":216,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42267952-into-the-labyrinth?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"12998","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781731550941","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"into-the-labyrinth-bierce-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/into-the-labyrinth-bierce/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"9/7/2023","dateFinished":"9/7/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Not terrible but the progression feels off.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"invasion-breene","title":"Invasion","author":"K. F. Breene","series":"The Warrior Chronicles","seriesNumber":4,"pages":366,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28154870-invasion","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"11300","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781518687938","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"invasion-breene-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/invasion-breene/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/12/2022","dateFinished":"6/17/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I finished the free books it gave me only because I was sad I had finished Warbreaker and wanted to grind out some content.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"jade-city-lee","title":"Jade City","author":"Fonda Lee","series":"The Green Bone Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":540,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43587154-jade-city","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"117895","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Low","isbn":"9780316440882","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"jade-city-lee-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/jade-city-lee/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/10/2024","dateFinished":"7/22/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Had ups and downs but was very well written. Good character work. I am really excited for the second book. Also makes me want to watch the Godfather.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"jane-eyre-bronte","title":"Jane Eyre","author":"Charlotte Bronte","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":532,"yearPublished":1847,"publisher":"Penguin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10210.Jane_Eyre?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ABDksDDMAg&rank=1","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"2364656","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9780142437209","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"jane-eyre-bronte-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/jane-eyre-bronte/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/19/2024","dateFinished":"3/23/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I was very surprised with how much I enjoyed this. Regardless of when it was released and genre it is a super solid book, with those things considered it is incredible. The writing feels so much more modern than I would have expected and the romance is prevalent without being annoying. Compared to most older works the information and pacing feel normal and the conversations flow well to a modern ear.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"kill-the-farm-boy-hearne","title":"Kill the Farm Boy","author":"Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne","series":"The Tales of Pell","seriesNumber":1,"pages":384,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34431692-kill-the-farm-boy","avgGoodreadsRating":"6.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"11326","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9781524797751","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"kill-the-farm-boy-hearne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/kill-the-farm-boy-hearne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/13/2024","dateFinished":"7/22/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Got better the further in I got, but still nothing amazing. Try to force way too much humor.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"king-of-duels-aba","title":"King of Duels","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":16,"pages":1304,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231765213-king-of-duels","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"425","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108080","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"king-of-duels-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/king-of-duels-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/28/2025","dateFinished":"9/17/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"First 3/4 was incredible. Feel like it should have ended after the Klbch chapters, but counter-leveling is awesome.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Everyone declares war on Belchan for killing gnolls going to the king of destruction. Erin’s Inn can put lots of stuff in the garden. Garia Stronghearts parents have the new celum connection and they plant sages grass in the garden to charge the door more. Chocolate, weights, earth stuff. Goblins living in High Passes doing well, rags, snaptooth, sniper.
\nKing of Destruction rushes through Belchan easily, no challenge. When he gets their the King of Jelcrass has already claimed the city, adn agrees to give up the prime minister but noone else. King of destruction challenges him. Close fight but King of Destru tion. The Jelcrass Nobles are inspired and break the honor of the duel, but King of Jelcess levels up like 10 times and class consolidates his fencer and King classes to become the king of duels. Forces King of Destruction to retreat.
\nToren is with the necromancer, who has learned how to level constructs. Offers to free Cognita. Human Izrillian nobles have drama, couriers get involved. Assassin’s guild no longher under Magnolia. Players of Celums are MEGA celebrities in Invrissil and the north.The ladies of the north make Belavierr flee.
Another really solid entry. Pretty dark, but the ending is nice.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"kings-of-paradise-nell","title":"Kings of Paradise","author":"Richard Nell","series":"Ash and Sand","seriesNumber":1,"pages":608,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Richard Nell","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35994830-kings-of-paradise","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"4382","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781721140084","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"kings-of-paradise-nell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":1,"currentRead":true,"averageScore":0,"url":"/books/kings-of-paradise-nell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"7/3/2026","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"kings-of-the-wyld-eames","title":"Kings of the Wyld","author":"Nicholas Eames","series":"The Band","seriesNumber":1,"pages":502,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30841984-kings-of-the-wyld?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"68678","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9780316362474","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"kings-of-the-wyld-eames-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/kings-of-the-wyld-eames/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/31/2022","dateFinished":"9/5/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This was fun
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"lady-of-fire-aba","title":"Lady of Fire","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":17,"pages":1781,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240029407-lady-of-fire","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"19","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108097","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"lady-of-fire-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/lady-of-fire-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/18/2025","dateFinished":"10/29/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Middle tier
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Doctor cancels her trip to Elvallian, Niers tells Foliana about the plague.
\nThe students are bored, and the 6th site is a bust.
\nBack-up plans are made, messages sent and silent threats follow.
\nMerik gets shot down by Feshi, calls out Peki for a spar and ends up in a challenge with Capt. Lasc.
\nLasc knocks out Venaz without being touched.
\nTensions broken, everyone talks strategy and fighting style after Venaz wakes up.
\nWill talks to Inky about the sea, the ship is attacked.
\nThe 7th wreck is mobile, and has artillery but is intact.
\nOn the way to the 8th wreck the students commiserate, then Will speaks up and starts sparing.
\nA Nelgaunt and Dolphins warn the ship of Kraken's pass.
\nCaught in a fog, the crew encounters a Ghost fleet. The Illuminary comes to their aid.
\nRasea follows as The Emerald Signet leaves Kraken's Pass for the 8th wreck.
\nEveryone stops and salutes, a living Treant walks.
\nTreasure, Fetohep.. WHAT?
\nInterlude – Strategists at Sea (Pt. 2)\t
\nFetohep offers Will a deal, and gives him 24hrs to decide.
\nPeki knocks Will out, the crew throws a party.
\nWill, still drunk, accepts Fetohep's offer, with a catch.
\nThe two Drowned crews fight, Therrium wins, the hunt continues and word spreads.
\nWill talks with his friends about the division of loot and their course, then learns about the Sailor's Ration.
\nAfter a quick trade at sea they are back on course.
\nWNN is broadcasting The Emerald Signet, as Will and the Captain find out, a mutiny kicks off.
\nMutiny squashed and only 1/3 of their number left, Therrium surfaces to steal the chest, Fetohep intervenes.
\nTIME ATTACK: Bloodtear on one side Therrium on the other. What do you do? Oh yea, Failure = Death.
\nCheckpoint reached - House of Minos, was that an axe?
\nSeagrass, Rasea, Bloodtear, Therrium, and more all fall on the Students for the final battle.
\nPrince Khedal solo's Therriums crew, above AND below the water.
\n30 ships turn against Seagrass's Armada, led by The Illuminary.
\nVenaz - The Windblade of Serpisel
\nWill - Threefold Mirrorblade
\nFeshi - The Sarcophagus Dagger of Devi
\nTearwhales and Lasc's Skill scare all but 2 ships off.
\nZeres ahead, Therrium retreats but leaves one last parting gift.
\nChapter 7.19\t
\nErin hides from Xrn, then renegotiates the inns contract with the Antinium, and learns a little more about The Small Queen.
\nAntinium move into the inn, no booze but more kitchen shenanigans ensue.
\nErin has a special delivery for Pelt, who is setting up a fancy new forge. She plants a seed in Pelt about moving, then asks him about the Strange Coin and leaves it with him.
\nNumbtongue, board, annoyed and jealous at Octavia being in Pallass, until he finds the care package she left him, and a bored Mrsha to rescue.
\nNumbtongue, Mrsha and Apista find a way to help the trapped Ashfire Hive in their fight against the Dungeon.
\nXrn arms the Individual Antinium, and aids the Free Hive, even if the other Hives object.
\nThe foreign Prognugator's present their gifts to the Free Queen, Gary gets a couple of apprentices.
\nEarlia and Nailren's teams are hunted by Snatcher, an expedition led by Xrn saves them.
\nXrn tells Pawn and the others with them why they matter.
\nThe Horns and Maviola make it to Invrisil, just in time for the gates to lock for the night.[1]
\nChapter 7.20\t
\nYvlon notices Maviola as they set up camp, who later joins them for dinner, drinks and conversation for the evening.
\nLyonette is late to breakfast, sword training with Pawn, and the door feels weird to Erin again as they start the morning service. Grimalkin comes through to see Erin, and Emessa rushes through to see Liscor and Esthelm.
\nErin and Grimalkin talk about the offer she made Pelt, Grimalkin sees the invites from Oteslia and Manus, then the door calls to Erin again.
\nThe Horns get stopped at the Gates but Maviola get in and properly begins her adventure.
\nThe Horns enter and split up, word spreads, Griffon Hunt and Grev race to catch them first.
\nCeria and Pisces enter the Guild and argue with Todi, earn Elia's ear and meet Griffon Hunt, before racing to beat Yvlon and Ksmvr to Hedault's.
\nYvlon and Ksmvr get in a scuff with a Watch Sgt. and win, Hedault emerges angry, Griffon Hunt arrives and BOTH teams get an appointment the next morning.
\nThen the Horns of Hammerad show Invrisil's Gold Ranker's who they are when, The Players ambush the Horns.
\nMaviola falters, as all of times changes hit her, Magnolia stops and aids Maviola on her way to an appointment with 2 of her Ladies.
\nOn her way to meet the Horns, Maviola runs across some starving children on their way to Liscor who she decides to help.
\nEveryone prepares for the door to open on both sides, when it does Magnolia, Pryde and Wuvren are the first to walk through in full effect.
\nNalthal meets Mrsha, Magnolia sweeps through to Liscor with her Ladies, the Council and Zavara. Erin learns how it feels to be on the receiving end of the Solstice Effect.
\nMagnolia chats with Chaldion in Pallass, Onieva and Mirn admire Magnolia's new fashion.
\nThe three Ladies return to the Inn deeming everything a success, Erin confronts Magnolia, and Wuvren talks to her about what they have done.
\nThe Horns, Griffon Hunt, Players and the children all come through to see Erin, Maviola takes notice of Erin and Liscor, finding her mission, until Bethal steals her horse back and Thomast steals her money pouch.
\nInterlude – A Night in the Inn\t
\nXrn meets with the Antinium Queens while the Walled Cities do the same, subject: Magnolia Reinhart.
\nPisces pops Erin out of her funk, then the Earthers surprise Pisces.
\nErin's hatred of Magnolia stews as she helps the horns with food, Kevin recognizes a calzone and Erin, before they order a lot of food with Ishkr, and realizes Maviola is gone.
\nVeeid and Erin talk shop about the door and their inns until Lyonette takes over, they set terms for the doors profits for the night, then Veeid remarks how he didn't believe the rumors about Erin till he seen her.
\nAs a rhythm slowly starts with the door, Reynold delivers a missive for Erin and her Magical Door as well as Yvlon and her Team.
\nThe Halfseekers show up, Grev and Cade get Mrsha's help to find Briganda and get tour of the [Garden of Sanctuary] on the way. While having lunch with Pyrite and Reiss Numbtongue scares Cade, Briganda's response makes everyone laugh.
\nMaviola has to shout at Ceria through the Magical Door in order to get let through, and offers to kiss Selphids and Goblins in exchange for drinks.
\nKevin gets shot down by Drassi but makes friends with Bird.
\nWilovan and Ratici show up to The Wandering Inn, they stop Typhenous to get his side of the story and assess the debt.
\nErin comes down and her foul mood infects any that touch her, until Maviola "spills" whiskey to show she was BLAZING, she then goes for a walk in Pallass.
\nEveryone but Yvlon and Ksmvr leave to get Erin, Olesm and the Council show up. Olesm sits alone waiting for Erin.
\nHexel introduces himself to the Council as they are discussing the Antinium, also noticing Olesm off to the side.
\nAfter learning what happened to Hexel's team, Olesm is embarrassed again looking for Ceria or Erin again, before drinking away his sorrows.
\nAs Erin walks being consumed by her Flames of Hatred, she finds Pelt lying unresponsive, and her Coin restored but for one word.
\nPelt wakes back up and everyone wants to know what happened, Erin invites everyone back to the bar offering Pelt and Saliss drinks on the house, and a round for the others.
\nThe Players of Celum perform an encore for Erin in the Inn after they return from Invrisil. Erin walks around talking to everyone before settling in for a conversation with Saliss.
\nHexel meets some fellow Balerosians, Maviola brings Olesm out of his funk and quickly puts him in check playing chess.
\nJoseph gets punched by Relc but Erin stops the rest as she recognizes the Earthers and welcomes them to The Wandering Inn.
\nChapter 7.21 KQ\t
\nTeres is flagging while retreating after a hard fought battle with Jecrass. Trey disobeys and goes to Khelt.
\nTrey flees the Commander chasing him until Khelts undead shelter him at the boarder, while staring at an open backpack until an escort arrives.
\nTrey confides his trip to Fetohep who is deeply disturbed buy it, the King then fills in the gaps of the city's history, before bringing Trey up to speed on current events.
\nTrey shows Fetohep the video's on the camera that Davi took before becoming a Pakheil, he swears vengence and to raze the city but Fetohep will not agree to destroy the city. Trey leaves to meet Venith and go on a mission.
\nTeres helps hold the South wall in Sadomere, as it is breached Flos uses a new Skill, Drevish appears, rebuilds the City, grumbling at floss the whole time, then disappears.
\nThe Order of Seasons led by Knight-Commander Calirn await the arrival of Sir Raim, along with 6 other Orders. Unusually barren streets alert a couple Knights to a concert going on in town by the Queen of Pop.
\nSer Dalimont, Dame Hevcla and Knight-Commander Calirn meet to discuss possible war. The Singer emerges to a huge fanfare.
\nCara talks to her team in preparation for the performance, giving both a sharp tongue and kind encouragement.
\nThe show starts and is a hit, then Abebi signals Cara that the ship has arrived so she changes it up and goes on the march.
\nCara marchs into the harbor and kneels with the knights to welcome Raim home, then holds a 4 hour concert that Calirn stays for.
\nCara and Abebi talk after the show, Elena sends a letter but NOT the all clear. They talk of traps, plans and protections, while Cara wishes Batman was there to help.
\nKing Itorin orders a village and farms in the grasslands of Kaliv sacked, The Griffin Prince and his escort land to defend the people, among them is Lillian Woods.
\nChapter 7.22 D\t
\nDaly and the Rangers meet with Mexisa, and Adventurer, to collect the remains of an Earther from the Dyed Lands.
\nThe Titan sends 4 teams to find information on The Last Light, he also receives a message that the Gentlemen Callers are in place.
\nDaly leaves with Eldima, Siri and the rest go back to the Company. They find out Luan is being attacked more because of the bounty, give Kirana the journal and tell what they know. Tensions are at an all time high.
\nThe company is split, Paige and Daly's side, and Geneva's side. Paige & Siri have diner and talk about money, powder, the bounty and Geneva.
\nOkasha is having her time outside while Geneva studies in her head. However Geneva cannot control her body at all in this state.
\nGeneva breaks the seal on Paige's clean-room, Kirana tells Luan about who and what Dev seen, it scares and relieves him.
\nPaige brings Geneva some samples from Dev's belongings and tries to talk, Geneva exhausted, snaps and storms off not listening.
\nGeneva checks on the patients and Nurses before making her nightly house calls around the city that infected and not paying attention.
\nOkasha levels up Paige joins them for the meeting with Fezimet, Geneva is still ignoring Okasha completely.
\nThe meeting goes about as expected, even though Paige and Okasha tried to help, but was productive-ish.
\nAfter a compromise speach in the Town square, Geneva has a tense discussion with the healers. More people note how exhausted and fatigued she looks.
\nWhile Geneva and Okasha are fighting over how exhausted her body is, a argument erupts out front resulting in Aiko getting trampled and her PPE compromised.
\nGeneva treats Aiko who is showing symptoms then argues with Daly, who is trying to guard the clinic. She is completely ignoring Okasha now.
\nPage and Okasha stage a revolt to get Geneva to sleep, Okasha forces her into the box and takes control. When they wake up Okasha is a lot more dominant.
\nOkasha levels up and gets more and more pushy, it finally erupts in her office, Umina watch's before running off at Marian's call.
\nCalectus arrives with a detachment of Selphids to help Geneva with the Plague just in time to catch Okasha's mutiny. When Geneva comes back out of the box she meets Idis her new Selphid.
\nChapter 7.23 LM\t
\nJust your normal morning run on the Inn roof to start your day, Gnoll chase for motivation.
\nOlesm wakes to protests outside his window, then go out on a hunt for breakfast not sure what he can do.
\nAfter training and talking about their auras Lyonette takes care of the Teams and guests while Erin talks to the Earthers.
\nLyonette adapts on the fly, Drassi finds a huge crowd waiting in Invrisil, Mrsha dose not like the new Earthers.
\nHexel meets with the Counsel and goes over detailed blueprints before going over new plans based on the new threat level.
\nOlesm's funk continues as he gets dismissed from the counsels meeting early, not needed, hes looking for breakfast still and almost to rock bottom.
\nOlesm runs into Maviola in a dispute with a Gnoll shopkeeper, after several failed attempts he finally gets it right. After Olesm offer breakfast, Maviola flirt's and feeds him amentus fruit in reply.
\nErin and Pryde get into and Aura fight, Lyonette takes over then right after finishing with the Lady has to use it on Grimalkin. She then introduces the Drake and Lady before passing out and leveling.
\nAs Olesm and Maviola walk around Liscor they discuss his job, self-esteem, and ideas to fix what he can.
\nThe Inn regulars find out about Imani's creler attack, start to realize how new they are, and make their apologies.
\nOlesm and Maviola have lunch at the Inn as he starts his first plan.
\nOlesm meets with the Counsel and and stands up to the Walled Cities.
\nChapter 7.24\t
\nRie and Ieka meet with the Circle of Thorns, then Rie points out that Ieka's Maid Sidel is a spy for Wistram.
\nTyrion teaches Hethon about jousting, when the young Lord rides he hits 6 out of 10 on his first time out. Tyrion is proud but has absolutely no idea how to show it.
\nAfter calling for ice cream and new book from the next merchant, Sammial arrives in a terror as, Tyrion is calling for new dummy's to be set up.
\nIts Mrsha's Birthday the Inn and all her friends and family are celebrating.
\nCake, ice cream and shenanigans are had before Erin rushes all the sugar inundated kids to the park in hyper frenzy.
\nAfter being banned a second time Erin and the kids head back to the Inn for presents.
\nMrsha's pile of presents incites feelings in all the kids, Pirates and Theives present, after tantrums are thrown Erin changes plans to try and save the party.
\nRyoka plays with the town kids, while chatting with Fierre, on the way to their inn, they run into Alber and spar.
\nRyoka meets up with the Pithfire Hounds to catch up before leaving on a run.
\nFirst stop is Lupp, she stays and catches up with him over dinner talking about Witches, life and a failed farmer turned Named Rank Adventurer.
\nRyoka gets ambushed by the Bloodfeast Raiders.
\nChapter 7.25
The Bloodfeast Raiders take Ryoka's iPhone. Ryoka runs to Celum to warn them about the raiders, and Celum is attacked. Ryoka runs to Teriarch's cave to bargain for Teriarch's aid with the Earther's electronics. Teriarch eventually agrees to give her a potion to cure Fierre's symptoms, and give her information on how meet Ivolethe again, but refuses to destroy the Bloodfeast Raiders. They watch "The Hobbit" together.
\nErin, Zevara, Olsem, and Maviola coordinate aid from Liscor and Esthelm to the destroyed Celum. Erin and Ryoka reunite briefly, and Teriarch leaves his cave in the guise of a half-Elf [Mage].
\nChapter 7.26\t
\nTom, a guest of Lord Hayvon's, finds himself a celebrity while the Blighted King see's him as a erratic if useful tool.
\nErin refuses to let go of Ryoka until they reach the Inn, going as far as picking her up and carrying her when they run into Teriarch.
\nMrsha wakes up, much to her surprise and annoyance, and goes to help the inn realizing her Mother hasn't slept yet. Lyonette brakes up a fight between Mrsha and the new Guests before sitting for breakfast.
\nAs Mrsha trys to push Lyonette to bed, with everyone trying to help get her to rest, Erin and Ryoka walk through the Door. Lyonette slowly walks over and with a Flawless Attempt slaps Ryoka hard enough to spin her.
\nTeriarch while inspecting the Door runs into Grimalkin, who is at first awestruck before asking for a lecture.
\nMrsha jumps off the roof and escapes Moores grip running away, before Ryoka catches her and floats her back with the wind While everyone watches, awestruck.
\nAs Erin and the Horns try to catch Ryoka up, Ceria slips in Calruz's status, Ryoka runs out the front door with Mrsha clinging to her head.
\nWhile Zevara is healing Calruz after a moth eater nest, Ryoka barges her way into the Jail.
\nBack at the Inn Teriarch and Ryoka finally get time to talk again, but all the Mages are now aware and trying to get a piece of him. Erin lets him into the Garden where he tells her who created it and how it should not be taken lightly, Ryoka sees Gerial on the hill.
\nTeriarch agrees to tell Ryoka how to see Ivolethe on the condition she watches Shrek with him and "explains this abomination."
\nSaliss meets Ryoka and Teriarch. Teriarch breaks Saliss with one sincere non judgmental question: Why are you wearing a disguise?
\nWhile Mrsha steals a Dragons snacks, Ekirra and Visma are bored in the common room and Lyonette snaps on the Earthers outside. Maviola stops and gives her a pep talk about the earthers, reminding her being kind is not the same as being gentle.
\nKevin and Lyonette chatting, almost run over the Gentlemen Callers, as they and Joseph unload a cart of goods for the Inn. Kevin notices the baseball equipment.
\nAfter seeing Ekirra's ball and talking to him Joseph goes into Liscor, to see a Gnoll about a ball. With Lyonette's approval, and supervision, Joseph and Ekirra start the worlds first Soccer game outside Celum.
\nRyoka and Erin take a brake and learn Josephs game has turned to a full blown tournament, Drassi hijacks Noass and Sir Relz broadcast.
\nThe United Nations Company, Hero's of Rier, and Earthers anywhere with a Scrying Orb witness the game. Palt sends the worlds first advertisement to save the day, as Erin smokes his puffer he asked her to hold.
\nChapter 7.27\t
\nJecrass wins one of Belchan's passes and fells a single 20 foot tall half-giant, but at a heavy cost.
\nLael is forced to retreat at Drevish's Madness in a costly gambit to kill Flos.
\nWhile on WNN Flos sends a message to Joseph, Typh helps him reply. Joseph then yells for Erins help, interrupting her begging Ryoka for information on "Grand-Magus Eldavin." Erin sneaks a message in for Floss, Orthenon reads it to the world.
\nEkirra's mom aproches Joseph to take Ekirra as a student and teach him how to level as a Kicker or Player. She also tells him Liscor, Celum, Esthelm and Pallass are putting together teams and want him.
\nThe Council discusses the influx of Humans, Soccer with all the profits it could bring if they terra-form the Floodplains, Pelt and then all the costs.
\nHectval sends a formal letter to Liscor via the new road asking for a formal trade meeting. Olesm is feeling like his life is turning around, feeling great really.
\nKlbkch departs the Free Hive with a delegation for the other Queens.
\nKevin teaches Numbtongue more music over a spliff, Galina finds her place with Temile and the Players of Liscor.
\nWhile sharing secrets in the Garden, Mrsha and Ryoka explain that Palt likes Erin before Mrsha opens a door, interrupting Lyonette and Pawn, for Ryoka and Erin to see.
\nLyonette finds an unlikely ally, Mrsha sighs and grumps away.
\nErin meet Teriarch at the door after hearing him talk to Magnolia, she asks him about safety, he tells her to strive for the courage to face whatever adversity come at her. Later he finds Numbtongue in the Garden trees and calls out his Ghosts, Reiss calls him out as a Dragon.
\nThe Dragon and Wind Runner plan a party fit for the Summer Court, on a time crunch.
\nInterlude – The Gecko of Illusions\t
\nWistram is in a deeply political debate over the Aliendamus blockade in Terandria. Viltach is sided with Itorian II, Feor and Naili are not. In the end Viltach and Naili side together for written censure, over Feor's taking sides.
\nOne Elusive Lot sees all this as bad for business, they make it out of Wistram, to the blockade, without notice.
\nThey pose as Itorians Pride and General Yerzhen respectively, convincing Admiral Dakelos to sail into Nadel.
\nLord Belchaus attacks for real, and Dakelos realizes to late he's been had, the Elusive Lot laugh and talk as they watch the battle finish before heading back to Wistram.
\nOn the way they have a serious discussion about the Golden Triangle. The vote is cast; secret and off the books, underworld favors called in. All top donors & officials disappear, AND, the secret of the scam is leaked to Pallass.
\nRelc wakes up before dawn, snacks then practices the spear before sitting in the dark solving Blacksmith Puzzles. Realizing no one is coming to see him, he heads out to his second job - pitching the Golden Triangle.
\nPalt shares a joint with Lyon and Pawn as he talks with his Master. After the call seeing Pawn cant really smoke, he offers them some edibles in the form of toffee.
\nHe leaves to go to Pallass but gets stopped by Erin and Ryoka about Dreamleaf.
\nRelc buys some new puzzles after a successful sales pitch, then heads to the Inn.
\nPalt tracks down the first member in Pallass to a Dullahan.
\nBearclaw is getting angry, and wants to start the plan early, after Soot receives a message she adds Relc to her list.
\nRelc gets to the Inn excited to see Erin, as he starts to make his pitch he realizes Erin knows, and has that look...
\nRelc find himself in a familiar spot when Erin and Ryoka explain the scam. He heads out the door vowing to make things right.
\nPalt stays with Chaldion after Grimalkin goes to address the Assembly of Crafts. Before the meeting is over a message comes in that the contributors of Pallass are dead or missing.
\nRelc walks right into and ambush, as the Gangs reach Mrsha a Thug in a Hat speaks, and a Thief disarms the gang at the Inn.
\nRelc impales Bearclaw and sticks her to a wall, but takes a savage beating from behind trying to finish her. When Zevara arrives 9 are dead, Relc is alive, but heavily wounded, and Bearclaw got away.
\nBearclaw arrives back to an ambush of her own, Nokha welcomes and gives Bearclaw to a pack-sister, save for her skin and head that she claims as her own. When the watch arrives only Soot's corpse remains.
\nNow healed Relc is laying alone in his dark apartment, expecting only silence and solitude, Ryoka knocks and comes in to check on him. Three hours later they leave for the Inn Relc smiling again with a handful of puzzles.
\nChapter 7.28\t
\nThis page is incomplete! Please help us finish this by adding information from the chapters. In quadruplicate!
\nRyoka sleeps with Relc, and is caught the morning after by Mrsha, who reveals that fact to Erin, Lyonette, and Embria. Ryoka, the Horns of Hammerad, and Griffon Hunt leave the inn. Ryoka accepts a dangerous runner job from Lady Ieka Imarris to bring a message to a secluded Archmage. Erin experiments with her [Wondrous Fare] Skill, accidentally engulfing the inn in a cloud of darkness. Mrsha sneaks away to meet with the Defenders of the Cave, and rescues the besieged Fortress Beavers. Belavierr visits Az'kerash to negotiate an alliance.
Really good conclusion, brought a lot more depth to the characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"legends-lattes-baldree","title":"Legends & Lattes","author":"Travis Baldree","series":"Legends & Lattes","seriesNumber":1,"pages":296,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60314494-legends-lattes","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"344103","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Cozy","isbn":"9798985663211","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"legends-lattes-baldree-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/legends-lattes-baldree/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"12/20/2024","dateFinished":"12/22/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Just really enjoyable. Feels like slightly more grown up children’s literature. I understand why it gets a lot of attention
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"level-up-or-die-thorne","title":"Level Up or Die!","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":1,"pages":204,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50410231-level-up-or-die","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"4289","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781733664417","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"level-up-or-die-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/level-up-or-die-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/13/2022","dateFinished":"3/18/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/1/2022","dateFinished":"12/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Super short LitRPG. Not great writing but for some reason it just is so exciting to hear about imaginary numbers get bigger for imaginary characters. Nothing bad ever happens and it is just a perfect little world so it makes me happy even if the literature is pretty bad.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"leviathan-falls-corey","title":"Leviathan Falls","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":9,"pages":528,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28335699-leviathan-falls","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.08","numGoodreadsRatings":"72423","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780356510392","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"leviathan-falls-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/leviathan-falls-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/16/2026","dateFinished":"4/22/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"The end of The Expanse. The ending was exactly what you could expect for our main character, even as early as the first book. It was very open (Not necessarily a bad thing), very abrupt, and felt a tad rushed. Maybe I am just used to fantasy epics where the final book is twice the length of many others and the final chapter is 200 pages, but it felt like the ending of the series didn’t get any more screen time than any other important event. Especially considering that a chunk of the first half of the book did not feel necessary or all that important to me. I am sure some people will be bothered by the amount of loose ends and unknowns floating about, but I don’t have an issue with that. Leaving the future up to the reader’s imagination can be great (Don’t do what Harry Potter did ever in anything). Overall, a solid space opera series. I doubt I will ever revisit it but I enjoyed most of the books and the character growth between the Rocinante’s crew is great.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Leviathan Falls
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #9
Leviathan Falls Summary
\nhttps://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Leviathan_Falls#Plot
\nOn Laconia, Winston Duarte is slowly recovering from his conscious mind being turned off from a time skip event. He overcomes the effects through his sheer will to protect his daughter Teresa Duarte. After his recovery, he projects himself into Trejo's mind, who is in the Sol system reconquering it for the Laconian Empire. Duarte thanks Trejo for holding the Empire together but tells him they were thinking too small with their attentions. Duarte then vanishes from Trejo perspective and orders his ship to do a hard burn back to the Laconia system.
\nBy the time Trejo returns, Duarte had already then left the state building on Laconia. Trejo dispatches Colonel Aliana Tanaka to find him, giving her the highest level of clearance, second only to his own. She investigates the area on Laconia where Teresa took her walks, and tracks Duarte to the cave Amos Burton lived in. She goes further into the cave network and discovers a place where the repair drones bring things to pools of some sort where they are repaired. Tanaka determines that Duarte left in some sort of small ship; he could be anywhere in any of the systems in the Ring network. She decides the best way to find him is to use Teresa as a lure, so she sets out to find her. Her investigation turns up a relative of Duarte who runs a girls' boarding school on one of the colony worlds, and decides to investigate it as a likely location for Teresa to be sent.
\nElvi is investigating the Adro Diamond aboard the Falcon with a full science team, Xan, and Cara. They use The Catalyst to trigger interactions between Cara and the Jupiter-sized diamond to dive into The Library, putting Xan in the Catalyst containment chamber during the 'dives' to isolate him so he and Cara don't have any interactions and also so he can act as a control subject. Some of Cara's experiences during the dives bleed over into Amos, on the Roci.
\nThe Rocinante and its crew (Jim, Naomi, Alex, Amos and Teresa, who has become a sort of apprentice to Amos) are just trying to avoid Laconian ships as Naomi continues to run the underground with her bottles. Alex receives a message from his son, Kit, who is now married, has a son, and will shortly be moving to the Nieuwestad system and its colony world. As they are exiting the Sol gate to send a message from Alex to Kit, they see a small ship enter the ring space at high speed from Laconia. After sending their message, they transit the ring space to New Egypt to take Teresa to the boarding school, something she reluctantly agrees to. On their way down the well, they see a Laconian ship a little way behind them, and decide to land on New Egypt when it's on the other side of the planet just to be safe.
\nJim and Amos accompany Teresa on the walk from the Roci landing site to the school. They've arrived a few weeks before term so other students haven't arrived yet. Approaching the school, they are met by Tanaka, who says she just wants the girl and the others can leave. Amos spots a Marine fire team hiding on the roof of the building and covertly opens a comm link to Alex who recognises the trouble and gets the Roci ready to assist. After some back and forth, the Roci can be heard approaching and Tanaka tells the ship hiding on the other side of the planet that the Roci is not to be allowed to leave the system with Teresa, gets tired of talking and tells the Marines to bring her the girl. This does not go well for them.
\nAs they approach the trio, the Roci is able to kill them all with PDC fire, an extremely reckless move that shocks Tanaka. Tanaka hides in the building as Jim, Amos and Teresa run to the Roci. Tanaka runs around them, hiding in the tall grass, and arrives in front of Jim and Teresa. Just as she is about to kill Jim, Amos reveals that he is behind her, and attacks. Combat ensues. Jim shoots Tanaka in the chest, and she goes down. The trio make their way to the Roci. Tanaka had armour under he clothes and is mostly ok; she shoots Amos in the back and his chest explodes. Jim manages to shoot her in the face (she survives); he and Teresa get what's left of Amos into the Roci and they take off.
\nIn orbit, the Roci is at a standoff with a Laconian frigate, the Sparrowhawk. The frigate stalls, then fires torpedoes to take out the Roci's drive cone, and the Roci returns fire with their railgun and are able to damage the enemy ship enough to escape, after shooting down the torpedoes. After the engagement, Amos walks onto the command deck, having healed from his seemingly fatal injuries. They decide to go to Freehold and Draper Station, for resupply. Unfortunately, a Pulsar-class destroyer, the Rising Derecho, is in the system, orbiting the main planet, trying to coax the underground to surrender the Gathering Storm by means of threats to the Freehold populace. Tanaka has sent word to all Laconian ships to report sightings of the Roci, and the Derecho is able to identify the Roci's silhouette and drive signature, so she will be on her way soon, having had her face somewhat repaired by the medic at the school.
\nThe Roci covertly makes its way to Draper station when it is hidden from the Derecho's view by a planet, and gets resupplied. The Sparrowhawk arrives in the system and transmits a message from Trejo to Naomi: it is an offer of alliance between the Laconian Empire and the underground, whereby Naomi's protocols for gate travel would be used to ensure no Dutchmans would be caused by the Laconian Imperial Navy with her oversight. He also requires that Teresa be returned to them but says the agreement would allow him to pull back his ship and threats from Freehold.
\nThe crew agree that Trejo's requests are unreasonable. Unfortunately, Jillian Houston has taken things into her own hands, locking the Roci crew into their quarters and evacuating the atmosphere from the surrounding rooms. She invites an envoy from the Sparrowhawk to come collect the girl. Tanaka comes, in some very fancy armor, with no real intention to honor Trejo's deal. She meets Jillian and four guards. Jillian realises that she screwed up. After some conversing, Tanaka has her suit kill the four guards. Jillian runs, and Tanaka begins her rampage through the station.
\nJillian releases the Roci crew and tells them to get out, and also instructs the crew on the Storm to prepare for departure. The forces on the station are able to slow Tanaka's advance slightly with an improvised missile (a heavy canister propelled with compressed gas). This leads her to declare to everyone in the area that whoever brings her the girl will be the one person she allows to leave the station alive. She finds Jillian and chases her, sort of playing with her by not killing her even though she almost certainly could. Jillian makes it inside the Storm and closes the airlock door just in time, as a grenade from Tanaka explodes against the outer door. She has the ship take off immediately. The Roci follows shortly. The Sparrowhawk is close and the Derecho is on the way. She decides that there's only one thing left to do.
\nCaptain Noel Mugabo of the Sparrowhawk offers Jillian the opportunity to surrender, telling her that even if she destroys his ship, the Derecho will destroy hers. She declines, telling him: "We have a few minutes still, you can send a message, I would let your superiors know that when Colonel Tanaka opened fire without provocation on Draper Station, she didn't just kill us, she killed you, too. I hope it was worth it." The Storm destroys the Sparrowhawk before engaging, and being destroyed by the Derecho.
\nThe Roci is running for the gate, with the Derecho in pursuit, quite far behind having had to pick up Tanaka and possibly being limited in speed due to damage sustained against the Storm. Amos says they need to see Elvi, so the crew decide to go to her in the Adro system. Tanaka has the Derecho hold back on its burn towards the gate, hoping to make the Roci crew relax, planning to push the ship to the point of killing some of its crew after the Roci passes into the ring space with the aim of arriving in time to see the remnants of the drive plume pointing to where the Roci went.
\nThe Derecho arrives in the ring space and begins scouring the area for remnants of a drive plume. A large ship recentlly transited to the Bara Gaon system and the Derecho crew/computer identify the remnants of this plume as that of the Roci plume. At the same time, a large ship is transiting into the ring space from the Sol system. It's the colony ship that Kit and his family are aboard and it begins to go Dutchman. However, partway through the process, it goes back to normal, somehow surviving. Those inside the ring space and aboard that ship at the time also go through something strange. They experience things from others' memories for a short time. This is deeply distressing for Tanaka as her secrets are important to her. As this happens, the rings begin glowing, inside and out. The Roci crew see this as they make their way from the gate to where the Falcon is stationed.
\nThe Ring Entities have been attempting to kill humans by various means. Some of these manifest as the cognitive events people have been experiencing, but Laconian science teams are also able to identify that some of these events resulted in the speed of light —the speed of causality— changing for a short period of time within some systems. Most of these don't have too much effect on humans, other than causing unconsciousness for a few minutes sometimes. However, one event in the San Esteban system did have a drastically more significant effect: all but the most basic life in the system was wiped out. The change made resulted in ionic bonds to change for a very, very short time, but enough to prevent most affected life from functioning properly by shutting down neurons, and killing every person and complex life. Elvi surmises that the reason the Ring Entities haven't realized that they have the solution to their problem is that they can't observe our universe any more than humans can the Ring Entities', and so the entities are relying on traffic through the gates to indicate success. Even after all the life in the system was wiped out, humans continued using the gate to the system, so the Ring Entities do not know that their tactics have worked.
\nThe Roci reaches the Falcon and the two ships dock. Elvi and Fayes hope no one aboard kills them for treason. After some discussion, they decide to do a dual dive involving both Cara and Amos. Through this, those in the room with the divers (or "Dreamers") are able to see Winston Duarte. He tells them that humanity must become more like the him. He wants to create a hive mind encompassing all humanity. He's already taken the first steps and is now able to prevent the Ring Entities from attacking this universe or making ships go . The entities' attacks have also stopped.
\nOn Bara Gaon 5, Tanaka realizes she's followed the wrong ship. The Derecho docks at a station to resupply and repair and Tanaka begins having more of other peoples' experiences. She decides to go see a doctor about it, but, at the last moment, says it's about her face. She gets a more complete repair done on her face and, after waking up, overreacts and attacks the doctor over something small. She decides she's needs psychological help and goes to the receptionist to arrange a psychological evaluation.
\nFollowing multiple dives by Cara into the Library in Adro Diamond, Cara sees the origins of the Ring builders. She with the help of Elvi, learns that they originated and evolved as a very alien, aquatic, parasitic hive-mind species on the oceans an ice moon of a gas giant. However after the duel dive test Amos and Cara did, Amos goes to Elvi and tells her the dives with Cara need to stop. After some back and forth, she agrees. Cara later finds out about this and is not happy. She's been developing a sort of dependence on the dives as they've become additive, and Elvi has seen this in her neural activity.
\nThe psychiatrist/psychologist provides Tanaka with some medication that might help to block the spontaneous neural activity involved in the experiences she's been having, along with many others who were in the ring space when the ship didn't go Dutchman. The medication helps, but the problem is spreading to those who weren't in the ring space at the time as well. She receives word that Laconian scientists think they've found the egg ship Duarte took: it's on the Ring Station.
\nElvi and the Roci crew also learn that Duarte is most likely on the Ring Station, and make preparations to go there. Naomi also sends Trejo a message, accepting his previous offer and providing the data relating to the dual dive experiment, as well as transmitting all the data in Trejo's original message to everyone else in the underground, and she has the underground send as many ships as possible to the Ring Space.
\nTrejo orders Tanaka to figure out what Duarte is doing, and either get him back or take control. Tanaka has the Derecho prepare to leave as soon as possible, and does some shopping: she collects all the medications she was prescribed as well as any others that could have similar effects available on the station, as well as the materials to make more on the ship after they've left, and the ship proceeds to the Ring Space.
\nThe Roci and Falcon arrive and begin conducting scans of the station, as more ships, Laconian and underground, arrive, using Naomi's transit protocols which are working well. Afterwards, Tanaka and the Derecho arrive. Tanaka provides the medication she's brought, and tells them they'll need it if they want to stay themselves. They all discuss their next steps: they decide that Tanaka will go in with Teresa to try to get Duarte to stop what he's doing; they just need to figure out how to get inside. They try a dive, with Amos, against Cara's protestations. Cara and Xan are in the Catalyst containment chamber to keep them isolated. The dive does not go well, and the science team are unable to bring Amos out of it. Elvi runs to the Catalyst room and brings Cara out, asking her to help him. She does, and Amos returns. He says Duarte is pissed with them.
\nJim realises that there's only one thing to do. He has an emotional scene with Naomi where she tells him to wait until she's asleep before he does whatever he's going to do. He does. After she's asleep, he goes to the Falcon, to the Catalyst room, where he opens the Catalyst chamber and extracts some protomolecule from her/it, which he then injects into himself, allowing him to see and speak to Miller again.
\nAfter some discussion, it is decided that Jim, Tanaka and Teresa will go into the ring station, with Jim using the newly reactivated Miller inside him to gain access. This new Miller has some upgrades: because Jim now has actual protomolecule inside him, Miller no longer disappears whenever someone is around; Jim gets to see and hear him at all times. However, because he is only in Jim's head, he doesn't have quite as much access to information as the original proto-Miller did.
\nMiller is able to open the Ring Station for Jim, Tanaka and Teresa, and they head inside. As they go deeper, they find the station has a breathable atmosphere, and surmise that Duarte must have had it created since he didn't bring a vacuum suit with him. Tanaka attempts to use the sensors of her suit to track Duarte's scent, based on readings she took of his clothes before she first left for the cave. Unfortunately, it proves less than effective. Jim begins deteriorating, appearing distant at times, and Tanaka tells Teresa that she needs to be prepared for her to handle him. Jim suggests that Tanaka look for a heat source, as that's how the original Miller was able to find Julie Mao on Eros all those years ago. This proves more useful.
\nMeanwhile, in the Ring Space, more ships continue to arrive. However, some of the incoming ships break contact; it seems Duarte has gained control over their crews, and is now bringing them to the Ring Space to stop those who would oppose him. Distressingly, the Voice Of the Whirlwind, the last of the Laconian Magnetar-class battleships, is among those silent ships on their way. Naomi begins preparations to coordinate her fleet against the incoming onslaught, at least until the Whirlwind arrives.
\nThe team inside the station come across some sentries which, while not immediately attacking them, seem unwilling to allow them to pass. Tanaka's first tactic is to shoot them, but Jim stops her from trying this. Miller is able to interface with the sentries and they allow the trio to pass. Eventually, they find Duarte, who is in some sort of web, connecting himself to the Ring Station. Teresa tries talking to him, but he seems uninterested in turning away from his plans to become the God-Emperor of a human hive mind. As the first enemy ships begin arriving in the Ring Space, Naomi does her best to coordinate her forces against them, and has some success. Unfortunately, some within her group act independently and get themselves separated from the rest of the formation, making themselves easy pickings for the attackers.
\nTeresa lashes out at the web, doing some damage to it, to which Duarte reacts with extreme pain. Unfortunately, the sentries also react, a lot of them. Jim gets Teresa away from Duarte, and Miller is able to provide some aid by turning the sentries off, but Duarte keeps turning them back on. They are all over Tanaka, but she triggers the emergency release on her suit, blowing it apart and allowing her some freedom from the sentries, at least until they catch her. She runs for Duarte and breaks his neck. Naomi's forces continue to be whittled down slowly but surely. And then, the Whirlwind arrives and begins making its way towards the Ring Station.
\nJim tells Tanaka that Duarte isn't dead, and indeed he isn't. She starts ripping him apart with her bare hands, breaking into him and trying to destroy whatever is left inside. At the same time, the sentries are trying to stop her, mortally wounding her, but she is able to do enough to what used to be Duarte that he doesn't survive either. Tanaka dies knowing Jim is still alive, something that she does not enjoy after he shot her in the face. Teresa is distraught and Jim does his best to comfort her.
\nIn the Ring Space, the attacking ships stop their march, and the commander of the Whirlwind sends a message asking what the is going on. Elvi responds and then things begin to worsen again. With Duarte gone, there's nothing holding the Ring Entities at bay, and they begin pulling ships inside the Ring Space apart again.
\nInside the station, Miller informs Jim that, without Duarte, everyone outside the Ring Station is back in danger. Jim puts the pieces together and takes Duarte's place connected to the station. He is able to halt the attacks with a little guidance from Miller. However, he doesn't want to be a God-Emperor like Duarte; he didn't come here to stop Duarte from creating a hive mind of all humanity with him at the center, just to become the center himself. He decides the Ring Builders did it wrong: they only turned off the ring gates, but they kept the ring station, using a bandage without removing the splinter first. He reaches out to Amos and tells him to tell Naomi to evacuate the ring space: "Get everybody out, and wherever you go, be ready to stay there." He adds that Amos should wait for Teresa. He modifies the Ring Station to make a path for Teresa to get out, and tells her to run.
\nNaomi sends the message that everyone must leave and be ready to stay in the system they go to. Elvi decides the Falcon will go to Sol, as she probably wouldn't be welcomed on Laconia given her treason, and Naomi says they're going there, as well. Alex mentions that his son is in a different system and that he'd like to go there. Naomi decides that Alex should take the Roci and she, Amos, Muskrat and Teresa (when she arrives) will go on the Falcon. They say goodbye and Alex makes way for the ring to the system his son went to. Once Teresa arrives, the Falcon makes way for the Sol gate.
\nAs the ships leave the Ring Space Holden's ability to hold off the Ring entities gradually weakens as he feels them still pushing into the Ring space. However after the last ship leaves and the Ring Space is left completely empty, Holden converses with Miller over the decision he is about to make. Miller tells him he would be consigning millions of people to a slow death on all those hundreds of worlds that are not self sufficient and asks if he is making the right choice. Holden response with him telling Miller he has no clue and then destroys the Ring Station with an explosion only second to that of the big bang. With the Ring space destroyed, the Ring Entities loose their ability to interact with the human universe. The Ring gates then all shut off, collapse, and begin falling towards their local stars, no longer able to hold themselves in place without the energy supplied from the Ring Space and Station. The 1,300 colony systems are now on their own and will have to find their own way to the stars.
\nA thousand years later, a linguist named Marrel Imvic is onboard the Musafir in Dobridomov system, which is a member of the Thirty Worlds. Marrel and his team travel from Dobridomov to the Sol system, 3,800 light years away, in just 31 days. This is possible with Musafir's superluminal propulsion, which is capable of entering the space in-between our universe and that of the Ring entities. When they emerge from this subspace and arrive, Marrel notices how the space around Earth is empty. There are still structures in the system, including some disguised weapon emplacements and hidden ships, but fewer than there had been in other contacted worlds. They then land on Earth, near an ancient city. He is met by a man who turns out to be Amos. Marrel introduces himself in ancient Chinese. Amos asks if he speaks English, Marrel says he does. Amos explains how it's been a rough millennium on Earth and with only recently getting things back together with his help. After Marrel eases Amos that he and his party of diplomats are not here to cause trouble, Amos tells them to follow him to "grab a few beers and get reacquainted."
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"leviathan-wakes-corey","title":"Leviathan Wakes","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":1,"pages":561,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8855321-leviathan-wakes","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"312513","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781841499888","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"leviathan-wakes-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/leviathan-wakes-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"11/6/2025","dateFinished":"11/24/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"I enjoyed this. Parts of it were slow and harder to get through but pretty good. Started reading the Expanse because one of my friends is.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Leviathan Wakes
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #1
\nhttps://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Leviathan_Wakes#Plot
\nJuliette Andromeda Mao has been abducted from her ship, the Scopuli, and left in a storage locker for 8 days. She breaks out only to find the crew gone and the ship's reactor shut down and covered by a flesh-like biologically active substance. The head of one of her crewmates pokes out from the accumulated biomass and asks her for help.
The Pure 'n' Kleen ice hauler Canterbury intercepts a distress signal from the Scopuli. An away team consisting of the ship's XO (Executive Officer) James Holden, engineers Naomi Nagata and Amos Burton, medical technician Shed Garvey, and pilot Alex Kamal intercept it on the shuttle Knight. They find the Scopuli powerless, with the distress signal emanating from a beacon with a Mars Congressional Republic Navy (MCRN) battery in it. The away team suspect pirates and head back to the Canterbury; however, the vessel is attacked and destroyed by a number of unidentified stealth ships before they make it back.
\nHolden, now captain of the Knight, broadcasts a message detailing the Cant's destruction, implicating the MCRN in the attack. Pure 'n' Kleen instructs them to meet up with the MCRN flagship, the Donnager, to assist with the investigation. While en route, Holden receives a message from Fred Johnson – the de facto leader of the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), nicknamed the "butcher of Anderson Station" – on Tycho Station, declaring his support for the former, should the situation worsen. Six stealth ships begin following them.
\nOn Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, Star Helix Detective Josephus Miller, a Belter born on Ceres, but working for the Earth security force there, is given a case to track down Julie Mao and send her back home to her parents on Luna. Riots break out after Holden's transmission about the Cant's destruction at the presumed hands of the MCRN, and it turns out all the station's riot gear is missing. With things getting hairy, Miller's partner Havelock, an Earther, resigns and gets a new job working for Protogen Security.
\nOn the Donnager, Holden is debriefed and Captain Yao insists that the MCRN had nothing to do with the Cant's destruction. The stealth ships attack; the Donnager is ultimately no match and the ship is boarded. Shed is killed when a gauss round (railgun) decapitates him. Since Holden and his crew are the only ones that can exculpate the MCRN, Yao orders Lt. Kelly to get them off the ship; they escape on the light frigate Tachi just before Yao self-destructs the Donnager.
\nLt. Kelly, wounded during the escape, dies. Unsure of where to go next, Holden decides to take Fred Johnson up on his offer, so they head to Tycho Station. Fred gives them a new transponder code and Holden renames their ship the Rocinante.
\nWhile going through Julie's files, Detective Miller finds a message from Julie's parents warning her of an impending attack, sent two weeks before the Canterbury was destroyed. Anderson Dawes, leader of the Ceres branch of the OPA, tells Miller that Julie was on the Scopuli, and that Miller should lay off the Mao case, with the reasoning that Julie was an OPA member and that they should handle it. He presents his findings to Captain Shaddid and she tells him to drop the case, too.
\nMiller has become obsessed with Julie, however, and keeps digging. Captain Shaddid, in collusion with the OPA, fires Miller; she gave him the case only because she didn't think he would actually solve it. Miller's replacement partner, Octavia Muss, tells him he's the station's joke, sending him into a deep depression. Even so, he still won't let the Mao case go.
\nOn Tycho, Fred wants the Roci crew's depositions, so he can act as a mediator between Earth and Mars. After a few days of R&R, Holden concludes that he's bored and wants to take work. He receives a job from Fred tracking down Lionel Polanski, an assumed name for an OPA operative, on Eros Station. Holden claims the Roci as salvage, but since the MCRN probably wouldn't buy that, Fred helps him disguise the ship as a gas hauler.
\nBefore he was fired, Detective Miller requested the docking logs for ships that could have come from the Donnager, as Dawes had dropped that Holden was still alive, and since Holden was the one that first investigated Julie's ship, Miller wants to know how this all ties together. Miller narrows the entries down to the Rocinante and heads off to Eros, where it's about due to dock.
\nOn Eros, Holden and his crew go to the hotel where Polanski checked in and are promptly ambushed by gun-wielding assailants. Miller shows up and save the day, then joins their party. In Polanski's room, they find Julie Mao, dead, covered in some sort of infectious-looking brown rapidly spreading bacteria and black tendrils. Miller finds a log on her phone detailing the stages of her sickness, and notes that radiation seems to accelerate growth. They find coordinates for an asteroid where the ship that destroyed the Scopuli is docked.
\nA radiation attack is declared and station security begins herding people into radiation shelters. Miller recognizes some of the security as criminals from Ceres wearing the missing riot gear and knows something is up. Holden tells his crew to head back to the Rocinante while he and Miller investigate. They find that everyone in the radiation shelters has been gassed and dosed with a lethal amount of radiation, after which they get irradiated as well. On the way back to the Roci, riots break out between the crowds and the security, and Miller and Holden start bleeding from every orifice due to radiation sickness. The irradiated people have been infected with the same virus as Julie and start spilling out from the subway tubes.
\nHolden and Miller make it back to the Roci just in time; luckily, the advanced medical facilities flush the cancer from their bodies, though they are requested to take anti-cancer meds for the rest of their lives. While Naomi takes care of him, Holden confesses his love to her; she shoots him down because back on the Cant he fell in love with half the young women, and now he solely wants her because she's the only young woman around.
\nFred contacts Holden and sends along data from a chip that Lt. Kelly had on him, detailing that the EM signatures of the ships that destroyed the Donnager were made on Earth at the Bush Shipyards. Holden broadcasts this information publicly, causing Earth to preemptively attack Mars. Mars recalls its entire fleet from the Belt and forms a blockade against Earth.
\nThe crew of the Roci, with Miller in tow, head to the asteroid Julie mentioned in her logs. There, they find the stealth ship that destroyed the Scopuli – the Anubis – deserted. The reactor is shut down and is covered in the flesh and body parts from the crews of both the stealth ship and the Scopuli. They find a video from the Protogen Corporation about the Phoebe bug, scientifically dubbed the "protomolecule"; Protogen had discovered that the Saturnian moon wasn't naturally formed, but was actually an alien weapon designed to attack Earth 2.3 billion years ago, when life was just forming, to reprogram humanity into something else. The whole war was simply a distraction, in order for Protogen to run their human experiments. The crew hoofs it before they get infected, but not before taking a souvenir safe; they nuke the stealth ship in their wake.
\nHolden and co. return to Tycho and tell Fred what they found. Realizing that Eros is beaming data to a hidden Protogen base, Miller contacts his old partner Havelock at Protogen security; Havelock says there's a secret base out there called Thoth and sends Miller the coordinates. Holden tells Miller that he is officially a member of the Roci crew. Miller is extremely happy to finally belong somewhere again that he subsequently weeps.
\nThe Roci kicks off the attack on Thoth by taking out the two stealth ships docked there; then, Fred, Miller, and a group of OPA volunteers storm the station. They're met with only mild resistance; the security only has riot gear with plastic bullets. In the command center, they meet the head of Protogen bio research, Antony Dresden, who is very nonchalant about the whole thing. He explains that all the researchers there were turned into non-empathic psychopaths, and that Eros was simply a test to see what the protomolecule would do when introduced into human test subjects. Dresden explains how important this research is, since there is a clear alien threat trying to wipe out humanity. Before he can convince Holden and the others, Miller shoots him in the head. Holden is furious and kicks Miller out of his crew.
\nNo one will hire Miller anywhere, so he begs Fred for a job; they come up with a plan to destroy Eros by flying the Nauvoo, a generational ship Fred was building for the Mormons, into it and crashing it into Sol.
\nFred sends five ships full of fusion bombs to blow up Eros' docking ports, while the Rocinante acts as muscle to stop a UNN science vessel, accompanied by a corvette-class military ship, from docking. After the bomb ships are docked, Miller decides to remain on the station, so he can die when the bombs go off.
\nFred launches the Nauvoo, but Eros manages to dodge the vessel. Eros blocks RADAR and LADAR, and begins accelerating towards Earth, faster than any ship can keep up with.
\nHolden contacts Miller to get the detonation codes for the fusion bombs, only to find he's still on the asteroid, which actually works out for the best: Miller hauls one of the bombs into the station on a cart, hoping to destroy the propelling capacities of protomolecule. Earth launches all of its nukes, targeting the transponders of the docked ships, because it cannot get a target lock any other way.
\nMiller, after listening closely to the voices coming from the communication system, realizes that it is actually Julie flying the station, while she is under the impression that she is driving her racing pinnace, the Razorback. Miller tells Holden to buy him some time, so Fred diverts the nukes off course, so they'll take longer to get there. Miller finds Julie, wakes her up, and convinces her to wrestle control away from the protomolecule. Julie successfully manages to divert the asteroid's trajectory away from Earth and crash it into Venus.
\nIn the epilogue, Holden affirms that there are two kilometer-high crystal towers growing on the surface of Venus, implying that the protomolecule has survived.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"life-reset-kuznits","title":"Life Reset","author":"Shemer Kuznits","series":"New Era Online","seriesNumber":1,"pages":718,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37889102-life-reset","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"8969","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781974495221","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"life-reset-kuznits-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/life-reset-kuznits/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/27/2024","dateFinished":"3/4/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"More free audible LitRPG. Fits the stereotype of having bad writing and horrible character work but numbers getting bigger is so satisfying. The genre is like the cookie clicker of books. If he didn’t add in the weird goblin romance at the end it would have been a lot better. Decently satisfying settlement development however.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"love-s-labour-s-lost-shakespeare","title":"Love's Labour's Lost","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":392,"yearPublished":1598,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1383325.Love_s_Labour_s_Lost","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"16266","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780192838803","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"love-s-labour-s-lost-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/love-s-labour-s-lost-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/29/2024","dateFinished":"3/2/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I actually enjoyed this one. The entire premise of banning women from an entire province just to study philosophy then changing your mind because women pretty is funny.
\nA
This was a solid book. The series has a lot of hype around it so maybe my expectations were too high but I didn’t think it was that special. I liked the characters and the world so I want to continue the series, but it just feels a bit better than average fantasy. I may just not be the biggest John Gwynne fan.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mark-of-the-fool-2-clarke","title":"Mark of the Fool 2","author":"J.M. Clarke","series":"Mark of the Fool","seriesNumber":2,"pages":795,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Aethon Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62834271-mark-of-the-fool-2","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.84","numGoodreadsRatings":"7755","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798372692855","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"mark-of-the-fool-2-clarke-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/mark-of-the-fool-2-clarke/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"12/25/2025","dateFinished":"1/2/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Continued the good stuff from the first book. Progression still felt reasonable, relationships developed naturally. Still excited to read more.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Mark of the Fool 2
\nJ. M. Clarke
\nMark of the Fool #2
Starts with Alex continuing to take classes and grow as a wizard, has trouble with combat spells because of the mark. Alex tests out of first year mana manipulation, and then does well in all his other midterms. He has Selina talk to one of his combat peers (shiana) about fire magic to feel better, and Selina eventually decides to pursue magic. Him, Isolde, Khalik and Thundar eventually form a Cabal to work better together. Alex runs some tests on the dungeon core material and learns it is highly mana conductive, perfect for a golem core. He gets the job at Shale’s workshop, but so does Minervus. Eventually Minervus dies from the mana vampire that has been lingering around and Alex freaks out and tells Baelin about the mark and everything else. He already told Khalik. He later tells his Cabal members. Isolde is royalty ish so they visit her country lord cousin in the country side and meet some Dryads and get invited back for a ball later. The combat class kills a Xyrthank, a really big magic bird monster. Grimloch, the shark man, helps the group more and more. A feast of the dead happens (Halloween) and everyone has fun. When going to a dinner the mana vampire attacks Najyah (Khaliks eagle familiar). They corner it but it almost kills Thundar and promises to hunt Alex. They quickly track it down again and Theresa and Grimloch beat it to a pulp. Alex has a plan. Him and Selina have built a golem body and in his private lab with Baelin he made the core from the dungeon core, but he can’t power it. So he takes the vampire to a mana vent in the Barrens, overloads it, then uses a mana vacuum to drain it and store the mana and kill it. Claygon the golem is born and everyone is ok. They go to that party at Count Palazios house. The hunters the Ravener sent (end of book 1) attack the party and injure many and Alex has to use all his skill to survive. Claygon saves the day and they kill all 3 hunters. Go team. Everyone then does well on finals. We finished year 1 at Generasi.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"mark-of-the-fool-clarke","title":"Mark of the Fool","author":"J. M. Clarke","series":"Mark of the Fool","seriesNumber":1,"pages":722,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Independently published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62631889-mark-of-the-fool","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"10442","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798353183174","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"mark-of-the-fool-clarke-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.75,"url":"/books/mark-of-the-fool-clarke/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"11/7/2023","dateFinished":"11/24/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Surprisingly fun and enjoyable. Might have to finish the series at some point. Really well paced progression, just enough to keep you invested but still making each step forward feel earned and worthwhile.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/17/2025","dateFinished":"11/6/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Needed to read something happy. Very enjoyable
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Mark of the Fool
\nJ. M. Clarke
\n#1
Alex Roth and his Sister Selina live in Aleric in Thameland, And their parents died when they were young. They grew up with the Lu family, and Alex has a crush on Theresa. She has a cerberus dog named Brutus. Alex gets the mark of the fool, a heroes mark from Uldar meant to fight the Ravener. It messes with magic but he wants to be a wizard. They leave through the cave of the traveller and Alex learns he can control Dungeon Cores made by the Revener. He goes to Generasi to steady at wizard school and makes friends with Khalik, Isolde, and TRhundar and gets better at everything. The Mark fo the fool helps you practice but messes with combat and magic. HE improves a lot.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"mark-of-the-thief-nielsen","title":"Mark of the Thief","author":"Jennifer A. Nielsen","series":"Mark of the Thief","seriesNumber":1,"pages":352,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22749522-mark-of-the-thief","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"13641","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545561549","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mark-of-the-thief-nielsen-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1.5,"url":"/books/mark-of-the-thief-nielsen/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/23/2025","dateFinished":"4/29/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This sucks. Even considering it is for children this sucks. Wow. This sucks.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"master-of-sorrows-call","title":"Master of Sorrows","author":"Justin Call","series":"The Silent Gods","seriesNumber":1,"pages":448,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Blackstone Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52905319-master-of-sorrows","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.7","numGoodreadsRatings":"3976","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781982591786","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"master-of-sorrows-call-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/master-of-sorrows-call/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/24/2022","dateFinished":"6/29/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Guess what, another free book on Audible! I mean this was a story and had both a beginning and an end. It progressed well and read well. Solidly average good fantasy novel.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"measure-for-measure-shakespeare","title":"Measure for Measure","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":278,"yearPublished":1604,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91571.Measure_for_Measure?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"31837","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743484909","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"measure-for-measure-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/measure-for-measure-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/19/2024","dateFinished":"2/21/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Very average play.
\nC
Maybe the best book I have ever read. So awesome and so sad. Certain points feel like the avengers meeting up and it is so exciting to see characters meet and interact, the first two books feel like a lead up to this one, but there are still 7 more. I think the 10th book may kill me.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mere-christianity-lewis","title":"Mere Christianity","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":191,"yearPublished":1952,"publisher":"Touchstone Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11138.Mere_Christianity?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_8","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"464759","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Religion","isbn":"9780684823782","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mere-christianity-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/mere-christianity-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/29/2022","dateFinished":"10/9/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I would strongly recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about Christianity or just faith/theism in general. Lewis is a master of metaphors and this book did a fantastic job explaining challenging concepts in simple, easy to understand ways. I liked it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"midnight-tides-erikson","title":"Midnight Tides","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":5,"pages":960,"yearPublished":2004,"publisher":"Bantam","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/345299.Midnight_Tides","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.84","numGoodreadsRatings":"48948","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780553813142","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"midnight-tides-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/midnight-tides-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"9/1/2024","dateFinished":"10/8/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Clearly took me a very long time to get through. Mostly on me for being tired and busy but also one of the slower books. We got a whole new world and characters so had to get used to those. Loved the Tehol sections so much, reminded me of 16 ways to defend a walled city. And the ending was incredible as usual.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mistborn-secret-history-sanderson","title":"Mistborn: Secret History","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Cosmere","seriesNumber":null,"pages":160,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Orion Group Ltd","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42028213-mistborn","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"104283","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781473225046","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mistborn-secret-history-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/mistborn-secret-history-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/1/2022","dateFinished":"12/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"It just teaches and shows so much and is so awesome and fun. While reading this I had out my original trilogy and was following events in those books to see the connections, which was cool. Stuff like this is what makes the Cosmere so exciting.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"moira-s-pen-turner","title":"Moira's Pen","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":null,"pages":224,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Greenwillow","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60395737-moira-s-pen","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.08","numGoodreadsRatings":"1556","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Collection","isbn":"9780062885609","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"moira-s-pen-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/moira-s-pen-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/18/2025","dateFinished":"1/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A good collection. The last story is sad.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"moon-rising-sutherland","title":"Moon Rising","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":6,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22323659-moon-rising","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"34957","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545685344","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"moon-rising-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/moon-rising-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/31/2024","dateFinished":"2/2/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Not as good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mort-pratchett","title":"Mort","author":"Terry Pratchett","series":"Discworld","seriesNumber":4,"pages":243,"yearPublished":1987,"publisher":"Harpertorch","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386372.Mort","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"275816","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780061020681","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"mort-pratchett-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/mort-pratchett/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/27/2026","dateFinished":"6/4/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Took a long time since I read it with other people. Enjoyed it, but not as good as Guards Guards. Always fun to explore changing reality / fate, predetermination, etc. Also got to see Rincewind and the monkey.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Mort
\nTerry Pratchett
\nDiscworld
Mort Summary
\nMort and his father go to a hiring fair to try to get Mort apprenticed to someone. He is an awkward and gangly teenage boy and his Father needs someone to hire him. No one picks Mort until a strange individual shows up right at the end. Mort finds himself apprenticed to Death, and together they ride Death’s horse Binky back to his home.
\nDeath’s place is weird, located outside time and reality of the Discworld. Mort meets the enigmatic Albert and Death’s sassy adopted daughter Ysabell. In the house there is a room with books being written about everyone alive, as well as another room containing a draining hourglass of sand for every person alive. Death soon takes Mort on his first job.
\nMort gets to witness Death kind of kill / escort people to the afterlife. They go to the kingdom of Sto Lat and Mort gets a crush on the princess Kali. After a while Mort takes some time off and has become a bit ethereal, able to walk through walls in stuff. He goes to the wizard Cutwell to ask for advice, but Cutwell does not know that much.
\nMort is sent on his first solo mission, and in the process decides to go against the rules and saves princess Keli. This causes strange ripples since everyone thinks she is dead but she is still alive. Keli appoints Cutwell as royal recognizer since as a wizard he sees her and remembers she is alive. Mort is very worried about being punished for this, but Death has gone off. Mort returns to the Discworld and finds that there is a wall of reality moving towards Kali, enforcing the world where she is dead. Mort goes to Cutwell for help and in the process learns that Albert is actually the founder of the wizarding school the Unseen University, Alberto Malich.
\nDeath is off trying to explore what makes mortals happy. He tries fishing, dancing, gambling, and drinking but still feels off. He finally finds his joy working in a kitchen and feeding cats. Mort confronts Albert and asks for help with Keli, but Albert refuses, so Mort and Ysabell (They have begun bonding) head off to do his death duties and try to save her. Albert decides to return to Discworld and teleports back to the university, where he makes a young assistant Rincewind help him gather all the head mages and they perform the rite of AshkEnte. This summons death, which at first tries to bring Mort but Ysabell saves him, then it summons actual Death who is angry but is reminded who he is. He brings Albert back to his home and prepares to punish Mort.
\nMort and Ysabell arrive at Keli’s coronation right before the wall of reality reaches them and will make her dead. Mort and Ysabell brings Cutwell and Keli back to Death’s house to escape the new reality and save her life. When they get there Death is very angry and him and Mort duel. Death is about to kill mort but Ysabell stans up for him and death turns Mort’s hourglass upside down.
\nMort and Ysabell get married and Keli is now ruling peacefully. She makes Mort and Ysabell a duke and duchess, and Death comes to their wedding to wish them well. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-1-kurmaic","title":"Mother of Learning: ARC 1","author":"Domagoj Kurmaic","series":"Mother of Learning","seriesNumber":1,"pages":644,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Wraithmarked Creative, LLC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59661342-mother-of-learning?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"14128","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781955252096","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-1-kurmaic-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/mother-of-learning-arc-1-kurmaic/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/17/2023","dateFinished":"6/20/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I listened to 15 hours of this in a single day. Not because it was good but because I had already planned to. Time-loop progression fantasy, which is a fun concept. The book was not paced at all how I thought it would, but it was well done. There were definitely some slower patches, but overall it had satisfying progression and an interesting story line. Overall a fun read, good progression.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/6/2024","dateFinished":"5/14/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Read on Royal Road. The writing gets better even throughout the course of this first book, but still not great. For an online read though it is better than 95% of the other stuff you will find in terms of grammar and dialogue. The real winner is the plot is just super entertaining and progression fantasy with a time loop works very very well. Super fun to read but nothing super serious.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-2-kurmaic","title":"Mother of Learning: ARC 2","author":"Domagoj Kurmaić","series":"Mother of Learning","seriesNumber":2,"pages":664,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Wraithmarked","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60236906-mother-of-learning","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"9360","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781955252225","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-2-kurmaic-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/mother-of-learning-arc-2-kurmaic/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/15/2024","dateFinished":"5/29/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A step up from the first book in terms of excitement and plot development. The first half was different since we explored outside Cyoria a lot and I went a little slower through that section, but the back half is super exciting and full of new information.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-3-kurmaic","title":"Mother of Learning: ARC 3","author":"Domagoj Kurmaić","series":"Mother of Learning","seriesNumber":3,"pages":743,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Wraithmarked","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62314351-mother-of-learning?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_24","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.08","numGoodreadsRatings":"7775","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781955252294","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-3-kurmaic-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/mother-of-learning-arc-3-kurmaic/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/3/2024","dateFinished":"6/11/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"By far my favorite arc so far. Story keeps getting better and more interesting, stakes keep getting higher. Balancing keep the story interesting and a reasonable power / learning curve is really impressive and I saw a comment that said it isn’t just Checkhov’s gun it is an entire armory and that is a good description.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-4-kurmaic","title":"Mother of Learning: ARC 4","author":"Domagoj Kurmaić","series":"Mother of Learning","seriesNumber":4,"pages":601,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Wraithmarked","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123179712-mother-of-learning","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"6744","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781955252393","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"mother-of-learning-arc-4-kurmaic-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/mother-of-learning-arc-4-kurmaic/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/12/2024","dateFinished":"6/20/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Still really good but not a perfect ending, I think I am partly just sad it is over. The tension was super high throughout most of this one, lots of big climaxes. Moving on to Rereading the Wandering Inn next. For being published freely online this is an amazing series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"much-ado-about-nothing-shakespeare","title":"Much Ado About Nothing","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":246,"yearPublished":1598,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12957.Much_Ado_About_Nothing?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"260869","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9781853262548","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"much-ado-about-nothing-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/much-ado-about-nothing-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/27/2024","dateFinished":"2/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"So boring. The title is accurate because genuinely nothing happens in the entire thing. This one should probably just be thrown away.
\nF
An interesting story, especially for being a century old. I am assuming I must have been told the answer a long time ago and it was sitting in my subconscious because about 1/3 through the book I decided what I thought had happened and it turned out to be right. Short mystery novels just aren’t my type of book. Overly relying on the “whodunit” without a super substantial story outside of that. I want to watch the movie though.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Murder on the Orient Express
\nAgatha Christie
\nHercule Poirot #10
\nMurder on the Orient Express Summary
Hercule Poirot has just done some favor for the French army in Syria, and now is headed back home. He boards the Taurus express to Istanbul, where the only other passengers in his car are two English people, Mary Debenham and Colonel Arbuthnot. He overhears some strange conversations between the two of them on the journey. He had planned to spend a few days in Istanbul before boarding his next train but gets a telegram that means he has to hurry home.
\nHe runs into an old friend, Monsieur Bouc (An executive of the Wagons-Lits train company), who is also headed west and helps him get a second-class room on the surprisingly full Orient Express. Hercule is sharing a room with a young American named Hector McQueen.
\nThroughout the first day Poirot observes the various passengers, who include Mary and the Colonel from the Taurus express. McQueen works for a man named Ratchet, who has an evil face and Poirot dislikes. Ratchet approaches Poirot to ask for protection since he feels in danger, and Poirot refuses him.
\nBefore bed, M. Bouc moves to a different car and gives Hercule his old first-class berth so he has his own room, right next to Ratchet’s. In the night he wakes up at 1:23 am when he hears a gasp from next door. He opens his door and the conductor, Pierre Michel, checks on Ratchet, who responds in French he is fine. The man then tells Hercule they are stopped due to a snow drift, and brings him a mineral water. A while later there is frantic buzzing from the room 2 down and an american lady, Mrs. Hubbard, is screaming there is a man in her room but when the conductor comes no one is there. Later Hercule awakens to a thump at his door and when he checks sees a woman in a red kimono fleeing down the hall.
\nThe following morning M. Bouc summons Hercule and he meets a Dr. Constantine and learns Ratchet is dead and was stabbed twelve times, seemingly at different times with different hands and different amounts of force. The window was left open, but the train is still stopped and there are no footprints in the snow, so they know the murderer is still on the train. Hercule finds a couple of clues in Ratchet’s compartment. A pipecleaner, a handkerchief with the letter “H”, and a mostly burned note with the words “Armstrong” and “Girl” on them. Poirot connects this to the Armstrong kidnapping in America, the daughter of a famous actress and her husband, a Colonel Armstrong, had their young girl kidnapped and held ransom, then found dead when they paid. The mother had a miscarriage and died from grief, the Colonel was a broken man, and the maid killed herself after intensive police questioning. The man “Ratchet” was actually Cosetti, who carried out the kidnapping but escaped justice due to legal technicalities.
\nPoirot, Bouc, and the Doctor now interview everyone in the train car, since it has to have been one of them.
\nPierre Michel - The car conductor, confirms what Hercule saw last night. Sat in a bench at the end of the car most of the night.
\nHector McQueen - Secretary to Ratchet, father was the DA in the Armstrong case, speaks multiple languages since Ratchet only spoke english. He was with Colonel Arbuthnot the time the murdered occured (12-2am according to the doctor, and a broken watch found saying 1:15).
\nMasterman - The valet to Ratchet, was awake all night with a toothache. Vouches for his Italian bunkmate. Says he gave ratchet a sleeping draft since he always takes on on a train.
\nDetective Hardman - An american who was pretending to be a typewriter salesman, is actually a detective from New York. Says Ratchet hired him to watch for an attacker, a small man with a womanish voice. He had an end compartment and confirms no one entered or left, so the murderer had to be in this train car.
\nMrs. Hubbard - A flighty, dramatic american woman who found a conductor uniform button in her room, probably from the man she heard in the night. Her room and Ratchets had a connecting door, which she claims a swedish lady says was locked before bed but was unlocked in the morning.
\nGreta Ohlson - The Swedish lady. She confirms Hubbards story, and since she shares a room with Mary Debonham, says neither left their compartment last night
\nAntonio - The Italian, confirms what Masterman said.
\nPrincess Dragomirov - An old lady without the strength to stab a man, however she was the god-mother to Mrs. Armstrong, the woman from the kidnapping.
\nHildegard Schmidt - The handmaid to the princess, says around midnight she was bringing something to her lady, when she ran into a small man with a womanish voice in a conductor’s uniform leaving Ratchet’s compartment. But when shown all the conductors says it is none of them.
\nCount and Countess Andrenyi - Recently wed travelling dignitaries.
\nHercule performs various tests to see if the pipe cleaner and handkerchief belong to anyone, and what hand is dominant, etc. After interviewing everyone he goes and searches luggage and finds nothing, except a rolled up conductors uniform in Hildegard’s baggage, which she claims is not hers, and the red kimono in his own luggage at the end.
\nHercule, Dr. Constantine, and M. Bouc do some thinking, and Hercule solves it. He explains a few things to the others and begins to call people back in, and ask them why they lied and explain their connection to the armstrong case. Mary Debonham was a nurse to the girl Daisy Armstrong, and is in love with Colonel Arbuthnot. Antonio was their Chauffeur. Masterman was Col. Armstrong’s valet. McQueen was their secretary. Hildegaard was their maid, etc.
\nThey gather all of the passengers in the dining car and Hercule Poirot says he has two theories for this murder. Theory 1: A man snuck onto a train when they stopped at a station at midnight and stabbed Ratchet and left unseen. Dr. Constantine is upset and says this is not possible, but Poirot says to wait. Theory 2: Every single passenger in the train was connected to the Armstrong case. This is not coincidence, it is intentional. They all stabbed Ratchet/Cossetti since he should never have been free. Mrs. Hubbard, the mother of Mrs. Armstrong in disguise, basically confirms and it and says she will take the blame. But instead they all agree the second theory is wrong and everyone will tell the police the first theory. Hercule Poirot solved it. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"murtagh-paolini","title":"Murtagh","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":5,"pages":688,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Penguin Teen Canada","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123206298-murtagh","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"50691","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781774882993","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"murtagh-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/murtagh-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/8/2023","dateFinished":"12/19/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I think it is slightly better than the books in the main series in terms of writing, but the story is a bit more chaotic and jumbled.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass-douglass","title":"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass","author":"Frederick Douglass","series":"The Autobiographies","seriesNumber":1,"pages":158,"yearPublished":1845,"publisher":"Prestwick","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36529.Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"137032","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Biography","isbn":"9781580495769","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass-douglass-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass-douglass/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/27/2024","dateFinished":"3/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Some of the goodreads reviews on this are crazy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"nemesis-games-corey","title":"Nemesis Games","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":5,"pages":536,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22886612-nemesis-games","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"115441","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780316217590","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"nemesis-games-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/nemesis-games-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/19/2026","dateFinished":"2/23/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book in the series by a good bit. We got to focus on the stories of each member of the Rocinante.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Nemesis Games
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #5
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Nemesis_Games#Plot
\nA 15 year-old Belter operative named Filip and a small team infiltrate the twin Earth/Mars shipyards on Callisto to steal canisters of high-density resonance coating, stealth tech used on Martian military ships. They have a ship in orbit called the Pella that released tungsten slugs in adavance of the raid. The infiltrators target the Martian ships in orbit, as well as the Martian marines in power armor on the surface and the tungsten slugs are activated to strike and destroy the targets. The team suffers a few casualties, but manages to escape with their loot, just as their ship launches a rock into the moon.
\nA year after the Callisto attack and six days after they got back from Ilus, the crew of the Rocinante arrive at Tycho Station for repairs. Tycho's new chief engineer, William Sakai, estimates they will take around six months. Alex doesn't like how he left things with his ex-wife and plans to visit her on Mars. Amos needs to head back to Earth because a woman he knows, Lydia Allen, has died. Naomi wants to hire more crew, in case anything happens to any of them. She gets a call from someone in the OPA telling her that Filip is in trouble.
\nFred Johnson tells Holden that he is headed to Medina Station, as that is where all the power is. He and Avasarala are back-channeling a lot of the dealings, but Fred is concerned about all the offshoot branches of the OPA, with interstellar travel now feasible, life on space stations is going to die out, but the Belters aren't all physically capable of living on the planets. Apart from Callisto, they made an attempt at attacking Earth as well.
\nNaomi tells Jim that she needs to go to Ceres, alone, and that he needs to let her go or they will have to break up. She leaves, and Holden is completely alone for the first time in years. Later, he gets a call from journalist Monica Stuart, who is also on Tycho, and she asks to meet up. Over dinner, she shows him a video of a freighter that went through one of the wormholes and disappeared.
\nAlex visits his wife, Talissa, when he gets to Mars, but she angrily tells him to go. He gives Bobbie Draper a ring to see if she wants to meet up, and she agrees.
\nUpon arriving in New York, Amos is promptly arrested and taken to an interrogation room at the police station. Chrisjen Avasarala greets him via TV monitor and asks him what his intention is on Earth, if Holden sent his "hired killer" to take out Murtry or something of the sort. Once he assures her he's there on a personal errand, he's free to go. Amos looks up Lydia's obituary and finds that her husband, Charles, was the last to see her alive. Amos goes to meet him.
\nMonica informs Holden that the Rabia Balkhi is only one of thirteen ships that have disappeared after going through one of the Rings, and no one is talking about it. She knows about Fred's sample of protomolecule and wants to use it to consult proto-Miller; Holden rejects her demand and thinks the OPA may be involved in the disappearances. He broaches his theory with Fred, who promptly invalidates it.
\nOn Ceres, Naomi meets up with an old friend, a massive Belter called Cyn, who takes her to see Filip, Naomi's son to Marco Inaros. It is then revealed that Naomi left Marco after he had used a program she wrote to sabotage the fusion reactor on the ship Augustin Gamarra, killing 234 people; this was the initial OPA rebellion, after the UN shut down the proposed Belter homeworld, Terryon Lock, in the Jovian system. Afterwards, she tried to kill herself. Marco told her to leave and not to come looking for him or Filip.
\nFilip wanted her to bring the Roci to take to the Hungaria group of asteroids where they have a ship called the Pella. With the Roci still being repaired, she purchases a ship covertly through Outer Fringe Exports.
\nAmos heads to Philly and meets up with Lydia's widowed husband, Charles. He knows Amos as Timothy, and is aware of the fact that Lydia was Timothy's surrogate mother after his biological mother died. Charles says that with Lydia gone, he can no longer afford the house, which was being floated by a gangster named Erich.
\nAmos goes to visit Erich in Baltimore, who used to be a small time hacker. He had one tiny little arm and one regular one, and is now running the streets that he and Amos used to work. Erich says he treated Lydia very well, but Amos insists he take care of Charles, too. Erich agrees, so Amos refrains from killing him. Erich is grateful, but tells him there was a flechette turret hidden in the ceiling. Before Amos leaves Earth, he calls Avasarala and asks her to let him see Clarissa Mao, who he became fond of when they escorted her as a prisoner.
\nAlex goes to visit Bobbie. She'd been investigating the sources of black market military equipment leaving Mars for Avasarala, and she asks Alex if he would help her by talking to some of his buddies in the MCRN. The second time he visits her, he finds a small group of men that have broken into Bobbie's house and tied her up. He calls for emergency services, then rushes in to save her. He gets stabbed and she gets shot, but they survive. Bobbie tells him the men were there looking for him. He says he'll stay and help her.
\nHolden pays a "data wonk" called Paula Gutierrez to write him a program to find any ships that may be suspicious. When he tells Monica, she's upset that he's brought Fred, Sakai, and Paula in on the investigation, especially since they're all OPA. The next day, he gets a hit on a ship called the Pau Kant located in the Hungaria asteroid group that is relatively close to Earth and Mars. He calls Alex and asks him to check it out before he comes back, then tries to track down Monica again, but her room on Tycho has been ransacked and she's missing. He warns Fred that he's got OPA radicals on the station.
\nAlex and Bobbie make it to the hospital and survive their respective surgeries. Bobbie reasons she was attacked because, via the Roci, Alex is involved with Mars, Fred (OPA), and Avasarala (UN). Bobbie says that while the Donnager-class warships are well tracked, the corvettes they carried were less so, and with all the battles lately, they were turning up and disappearing quite a bit. Someone high up in the Navy would have to be involved for the level of clearance required in overwriting the records; that's what she wants Alex to look in to, while she looks into who hired their attackers. Alex gets Holden's message about checking on the ship in the Hungarian cluster; Bobbie says Avasarala gave her Julie Mao's ship, the Razorback, and that he can use it.
\nHolden and Fred check the security footage and see two guys in jumpsuits and caps go into Monica's room and leave with a shipping crate. They go to the dock and find the crate, but it is revealed to be empty, thus someone must've edited the security footage. Fred puts the station on lockdown. Back in Monica's quarters, Holden finds that her phone seems to be receiving a signal from the hidden camera she wears for interviews. They track her to a sealed cargo crate and find her inside, drugged and tied-up, but mostly unharmed.
\nAlex meets with one of his MCRN friends at a restaurant who arranges an appointment with Commander Duarte. He has noticed the missing ships, too, even the same one Alex is tracking, the Apalala. Duarte tells him that the tracking of supplies, ships, and material collapses, and they have no idea what they are missing. He tells Alex to meet up with a programmer named Kaarlo that first noticed the discrepancies in the database. Alex goes to his place only to find him dead. Alex asks Bobbie to go check out the asteroid Holden told him about, and she agrees to come with him.
\nFred gets in touch with Anderson Dawes, another OPA bigwig, who points him towards chief engineer Sakai. Fred interrogates Sakai, who spills that he was involved. He skirted around Fred because he is racist against Earthers, even if Fred is loyal to the OPA. Fred punches him out and throws him in the brig.
\nThe ship Naomi purchased is called the Chetzemoka. When it is ready to board, she pulls Filip aside and tells him she is not able to come along on their mission but, that she wants him to have the ship, and that afterwards, there will be a spot for him on the Roci if he wants to come with her. The giant guy, her friend, Cyn, puts Naomi in a bearhug, while Karal sticks her with a needle full of sedatives.
\nWhen they get near the Hungaria cluster, Alex realizes that they were being painted with a targeting laser. He makes some scans himself and gets ping after ping of Martian corvette class ships running dark. The ships let loose a couple of missiles, and Alex takes off at 10 g towards Luna, where the Martian Prime Minister has a convoy, hoping they can make it in time for the Prime Minister's ships' PDC cannons to take out the missiles. Alex ups the acceleration to 15 g, and it rips the wound open in his stomach. Before he passes out, he jettisons the core and it crashes into the first of the missiles. The Martian PDCs take out the other.
\nNaomi is taken to the Martian corvette where Marco Inaros is. He tells her he brought her there to keep her safe, because she is one of them, but she is pretty sure he just wanted the Roci for himself. Ostensibly, the attack they are planning is because the Earthers are abandoning their entire race to die, since Belters cannot survive in planetary gravity. A racing ship arrives at their location, the Razorback, and Marco orders its destruction. Naomi is locked up and forced to watch the newsfeed of Marco's assault on Earth.
\nWhile Amos is in the waiting room to see Clarissa Mao, the news reports that an asteroid hit somewhere in North Africa, causing tremendous damage. Guards take Amos to Clarissa's underground cell, and he tells her about all that has happened with the Roci since they dropped her off. In the middle of his story, the place goes on lockdown. A guard tells them that multiple other accelerated rocks have impacted around the globe, causing massive destruction worldwide. The rocks were undetected because they were hidden with stealth coating.
\nOn Tycho, Fred and Holden are watching the news when three people enter the office and start shooting. Fred is hit, but he and Holden manage to kill/fend off their attackers; however, the station's defense grid is disabled and someone fires torpedoes at them. One torpedo hits and cracks the drive cone. Fred and Drummer coordinate an attack on the intruders in engineering and regain control of the station. A second torpedo with a salvage mechanism on the end impacts Fred's office and escapes with the protomolecule sample.
\nAmos convinces the guards they need to get out of the prison before the building collapses, and they reluctantly agree. With the help of a prisoner called Konecheck, who has enhanced strength like Clarissa's, they manage to crawl up the elevator shaft to the surface. Konecheck kills a few of the guards and injures Amos before Mao shoots him and Amos kicks him down the elevator shaft. The surface is totally devastated and the sky is so dark with debris that Clarissa mistakes the Sun for the Moon. Amos suggests they walk to Baltimore because he knows some people that can get him to Luna.
\nNaomi tells Filip that after Marco made her kill, she wanted to kill herself; she tells him to come find her when the remorse of killing a quarter billion people sets in. He tells her she is merde to him.
\nAlex and Bobbie meet with the Martian Prime Minister Smith while they convalesce. They debrief for hours. The Martians are glad Alex and Bobbie intercepted the hidden fleet, or matters could've been even worse. Seven relief ships are en route; one of them is the Chetzemoka, however, the ship Naomi gave Filip.
\nFred Johnson asks Holden to take him to a meeting on Luna with the Martian Prime Minister and Avasarala, who was appointed the interim Secretary-General of the UN. Fred plays Holden a message he got from Anderson Dawes, asking Fred to join with the new faction of the OPA. Holden is appalled, but Johnson is actually considering it. Medina Station goes dark, and Drummer reports twenty-five Martian ships are en route to it.
\nNaomi asks Marco if he brought her aboard just to show off; he reiterates that he brought her there to save her and to get closure. She insists it is because he is jealous of Holden, which infuriates him. She pieces things together and realizes Sakai must've used her old program to sabotage the reactor driver on the Roci.
\nAmos and "Peaches" (AKA Clarissa Mao) kill some doomsday prepper and load up on weapons, supplies, and a couple of bicycles. They ride to Baltimore and meet up with Erich, then proposition him to go to Luna with them, by way of a private launch pad on Lake Winnipesaukee. At first, he's incredulous that they would ask him to abandon his territory but, when Peaches breaks his wall of denial and he realizes he has got nothing left, he agrees.
\nAlex, Bobbie, and the Martian Prime Minister are forced to flee their Martian convoy in the Razorback when the relief ships turn out to be OPA-controlled. They attack and board the Martian ships without much resistance. The Razorback, accompanied by about 100 Martian missiles flying in tandem alongside them, makes for Luna, with the OPA ships in pursuit.
\nDuring the battle with the MCRN convoy, Naomi breaks into an access panel and broadcasts a message to Holden warning him that the Roci's fusion driver has been sabotaged with bad code. Marco tells her that since she sabotaged his plan, which was only to shut the Roci down, not destroy it, she has forced his hand. He plays her a faked distress call in her voice, asking Holden to come save her. On the way back to her cell, she stops at the med bay and starts a kerfuffle there, during which she manages to pocket an emergency decompression kit, which could cycle the airlock on the Chetzemoka.
\nHolden receives Naomi's message just in time. They shut down the drive at 60% and reload a new driver. His hired programmer, Paula, finds the bad lines of code in the sabotaged driver and tells him that when the reactor hit 95%, it would have lost containment and taken most of Tycho Station with it. She realizes this could have been what happened during all the reactor accidents in the past, meaning they were all murders. Holden, Fred, and a crew of Tycho workers depart in the Roci, leaving Drummer in charge of Tycho.
\nMarco issues a statement from the Pella, declaring himself the commander of the Free Navy and saying that the MCR and the UN no longer control anything outside their respective planets. He calls for everyone from the Belt and the outer planets to rise up and follow them.
\nAmos, Erich, and Peaches make their way to the Lake where the shuttles are. They find one named the Zhang Guo, but it needs repairing, and there is a tribe of people trying to shake them down. Amos beats one of them, then they start repairing the shuttle. Just as they are doing final testing on it, the tribe returns with many more people and many more guns. Amos' group manages to stave them off long enough to launch the shuttle. They successfully make it past Luna's patrol defenses after Amos name-drops Avasarala. Erich offers to let him run the crew but, Amos just wants to get back to the Roci. Clarissa is afraid they are going to send her back to jail, but he assures her that there is no jail to go back to.
\nOn the Pella, Naomi escapes from her handler and makes it to an airlock, intending to escape to the Chetzemoka without an EVA suit. Her buddy, Cyn, comes after her, thinking she is going to space herself, but she sorrowfully blows the airlock anyway, killing him. She barely makes it to the other ship in time and opens the airlock with the emergency decompression kit she stole earlier. She finds that the ship has been mostly stripped bare, all access panels are locked, it is broadcasting a faked message saying she is aboard and needs help, and it is set to blow if anyone gets close to it. She starts pulling wires and turns one of the thrusters off, making her go in circles; she also short circuits the faked message.
\nAlex receives Naomi's message and takes the Razorback to cautiously investigate. With no way to communicate, Naomi exits the ship through the airlock in a suit with only five minutes of air. She uses Belter hand signals, so they know not to get close to the ship. Bobbie uses the magnetic boots on her power armor to ride one of the Razorback's missiles like a surf board and successfully rescues Naomi. Once safely aboard, Naomi tells them to blow up the vessel.
\nHolden makes a rendezvous with the Razorback and immediately gets Naomi to the med-bay, since she has suffering from space exposure and plenty of other traumas. They all make it back to Luna and meet up with Amos, who smuggles Clarissa Mao onto the Roci in a cargo container.
\nAvasarala calls them all together for an announcement: she is going to start a policing task force against the Free Navy, with joint support from the UN, the MCR, and the OPA. Naomi is brought in as a prisoner, and agrees to cooperate and tell everything about Marco if she and the crew of the Roci are given immunity for past events not related to the attack on Earth. Avasarala agrees, and they all go for chow. Naomi and Holden head back to their room, and she opens up to him about everything. They exchange their pieces of the story in almost casual, conversational tones, then fall asleep together.
\nWhen Naomi wakes up, she watches the video of the ship that disappeared entering one of the Rings, the Rabia Balkhi, and wonders what happened to all the civilian ships, since Marco had only acquired MCRN ships.
\nLater, the Free Navy is confirmed to have control of Medina Station and affiliates are commandeering civilian ships. Admiral Duarte of the MCRN has taken control of the remaining Martian military ships in an independent initiative of the fleet, ostensibly working with the Free Navy, but planning to attack them from the rearguard later. Duarte appears to have the protomolecule sample and another much larger alien artifact. A Donnager-class ship called the Barkeith goes through the Laconia gate. The crew members become aware of all the granular detail of their immediate universe, down to individual particles and what is described as "a more profound space between them... a vacuum that penetrated them all". A solid, fog-like alien presence that is implied to be composed of something other than matter appears on the ship and kills the crew.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"never-die-hayes","title":"Never Die","author":"Rob J. Hayes","series":"Mortal Techniques","seriesNumber":1,"pages":331,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43069198-never-die","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"4721","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780957666832","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"never-die-hayes-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/never-die-hayes/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/12/2024","dateFinished":"6/18/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Better than average but nothing special. Some cool concepts but the power scaling is too wild and individual limits seem to change are confusing. Plus the big “reveal” at the end could be seen from the second chapter. A fine self-pub book but nothing I would recommend. Also read it on a plane. I enjoy reading on planes.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"neverwhere-gaiman","title":"Neverwhere","author":"Neil Gaiman","series":"London Below","seriesNumber":1,"pages":370,"yearPublished":1996,"publisher":"William Morrow Paperbacks","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14497.Neverwhere?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"565148","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780060557812","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"neverwhere-gaiman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/neverwhere-gaiman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/19/2022","dateFinished":"8/24/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Very “Fantastical” fantasy. Like it feels like he takes ideas a 5 year old would think like “If its called Kings Crossing, where are the kings?” but then he makes an entire world out of that that is well developed and fun to read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"nomad-mather","title":"Nomad","author":"Mather Mather","series":"Nomad","seriesNumber":1,"pages":342,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Matthew Mather ULC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26091512-nomad","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"8678","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9781987942040","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"nomad-mather-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/nomad-mather/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/29/2022","dateFinished":"6/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"The only good thing I can say about this book is that it was short. The other good thing I can say is that the author actually worked with scientists to figure out the astrological impacts of a black hole passing nearby our solar system so cool concept poor execution.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"norse-mythology-gaiman","title":"Norse Mythology","author":"Neil Gaiman","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":301,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"W. W. Norton","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30809689-norse-mythology","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"345738","genre":"Mythology","subgenre":"Fantasy","isbn":"9780393609097","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"norse-mythology-gaiman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/norse-mythology-gaiman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/25/2024","dateFinished":"2/27/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A short collection of Norse mythology. I’m always surprised how well Rick Riordan stayed true to original myths in his books. This was fun and Norse myths are cool.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"oathbringer-sanderson","title":"Oathbringer","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":3,"pages":1243,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37534833-oathbringer","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"372812","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781250297143","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"oathbringer-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/oathbringer-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"7/12/2021","dateFinished":"7/18/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"9/20/2024","dateFinished":"10/10/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Shallan is goofy, Dalinar backstory is still cool but the “climax” wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered it. The first time I got through this book felt like a spiritual experience, maybe just nostalgia boosting the memories.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"occultist-mayes","title":"Occultist","author":"Oliver Mayes","series":"Saga Online","seriesNumber":1,"pages":471,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Magic Dome Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55861239-der-okkultist-saga-online-i","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.54","numGoodreadsRatings":"2204","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9788076192324","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"occultist-mayes-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/occultist-mayes/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"9/20/2023","dateFinished":"9/24/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"of-blood-and-fire-cahill","title":"Of Blood and Fire","author":"Ryan Cahill","series":"The Bound and the Broken","seriesNumber":1,"pages":541,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57465589-of-blood-and-fire","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"17453","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781838381806","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"of-blood-and-fire-cahill-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/of-blood-and-fire-cahill/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/21/2025","dateFinished":"5/29/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Very pleasant surprise. I have heard that the books get better also so excited to continue the series. Feels a lot like Eragon intended for an older audience. Finished it sitting on a used couch in new house basement one morning.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"of-darkness-and-light-cahill","title":"Of Darkness and Light","author":"Ryan Cahill","series":"The Bound and the Broken","seriesNumber":2,"pages":828,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60066687-of-darkness-and-light","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"10380","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781838381851","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"of-darkness-and-light-cahill-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/of-darkness-and-light-cahill/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/10/2025","dateFinished":"6/29/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Started off weaker than the first book but picked up as it went along and by the end the writing felt much better. Excited for the next, the world is expanding a lot.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"of-war-and-ruin-cahill","title":"Of War and Ruin","author":"Ryan Cahill","series":"The Bound and the Broken","seriesNumber":3,"pages":1483,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123248442-of-war-and-ruin","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"8147","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781739620936","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"of-war-and-ruin-cahill-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/of-war-and-ruin-cahill/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/29/2025","dateFinished":"9/11/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Took a while, Stopped listening to it for a month or 2. Still improving and a really solid epic fantasy. My biggest complaint is just how much it feels like adult Eragon or really any other classic fantasy. There haven’t really been any new ideas, just a well written fantasy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Of War and Ruin
\nRyan Cahill
\nThe Bound and The Broken #3
People:
\nFane Mortem, Calen Bryer, Ella Bryer/Fjorn, Tanner Fjorn, Yerra, Rist Havel, Dan Pym, Eric, Dahlen, and Aeson Virandr, Dayne Ateres, Alina Ateres, Belina Louhna, Mara, Haim/Ardynm, Damon, Kyra, Brother Gerimund, Nira,
Places:
\nEpheria, Loria, Berona, Kingspass, the darkwood, the burnt lands, Lodhar Mountains, Dwarven Freehold, Belduar, Aravel, Al’Nasla,
Things:
\nFaenir, Valerys, Lorian Empire, Knights of Achyron, Uraks,
Story:
\nWorld of Epheria, the Lorian Empire, led by Fane Mortem, who destroyed the order of Draleid 400 years ago, is facing rebellion. Calen Bryer, our hero, and soulkin of Valerys, has just helped defend the city of Kingspass from a Urak invasion. There, the Knights of Akyron came to help and Calen saw his dead brother Haim, who is now Ardyn. This messes with him. He, Eric, Talman, and Veryl all decide to cross the burnt lands to rescue Rist. Since the old Grandmaster of the knights died, Kallinvar has to take up the mantle.
Meanwhile, Farda Kairana escorted Ella and Faenir to Berona, where she met with Tanner Fjorn (Rhett’s uncle and commander of the Berona city guard). Tanner turns out to be a rebel and they escape the people Farda sent after them. Ella discovers she is a druid. Tanner is injured.
\nIn the Dwarven kingdoms, Dahlen and Ivan try to keep the new, young, stupid king Damon alive. Belina is an ex-assassin who helps Dahlen in this venture. Eventually Damon and Ivan are killed in the midst of Dwarven infighting. The dwarven queen, Kyra, helps the human Belduaran refugees and names the fat ambassador as their new ruler. Dahlen and Belina escort a ton of refugees to Aravel, the elf kingdom.
\nRist is making good progress under Brother Gerimund’s tutelage in Al’Nasla. He begins dating Nira, a fellow battlemage, and they are eventually sent out into battle for the first time against different elves who also have dragons.
\nValtara: city in the south, home to Wyvern riders. Now that Dayne has come home, he convince his sister and leader of the house Alina to begin a rebellion. Many of the local squabbling nobles are against it so they have to waste a ton of time fighting their own people instead of the empire.
\nCalen makes it across the burnt lands, kills Inquuisitor Rendel, who killed his dad, and frees Rist’s Parents and the elf Galeron, but NO RIST. Then they go back across the burnt lands to join with Aeson and Therin and Dan and go to the elven city of Aravel to train.
\nElla Joins more rebels and they plan to attack the Lorian army (They Rist is now a part of) while they are distracted by the elves. Ella and Faenir are captured and tortured a bit, before Rist and Farda set her free and Farda flees with her and Tanner to Aravel.
\nAfter all of our characters have gathered at Aravel and done the training montage (we also learn Vars Bryer was apparently one of the worlds most famous heroes of all time), they are attacked! By Lorian’s and part of the dragon guard. Big battle, no one super important dies, the ”broken” Dragons and riders serperated from their soulkin finally join in and help save Calen, Ella also overextends her Druid powers to save Calen and is now broken ish.
\nThe blood moon rises. Fane’s grand plot to bring Efialtir’s chosen into the world is a go. Urak, Knights of Achyron, and Lorian’s battle.
\nTImelines:
\nA Civil War in Valtara
\nThis storybeat/plotline takes place in three parts.
\nInitial unity in opposition to the Loren Empire
\nThe hints of dissent against House Ateres
\nOpen revolt against House Ateres
\nThe Temptation of Rist
\nAct 1 for Rist begins with his captivity in Mage School. He makes friends with fellow students and teachers. He does NOT believe blood magic is ethical.
\nAct 2 begins when Emperor Fane himself shows that 'blood magic is ethical, actually.' Act 2 ends when Rist becomes a Loren battlemage and performs blood magic on a dying elf.
\nAct 3 is the final battle of the war, where Rist participates in a ritual to summon the blood magic god.
\nDahlen Tries to Stop War in the Dwarven Realms
\nAct 1: the humans are taking refuge with the dwarves.
\nAct 2: assassination attempt! The humans try to leave, but the dwarves won't let them. Army on army combat.
\nAct 3: humans + dwarves fight other dwarves. The good guys prevail.
\nAct 4: This happens at the end of the book. During the peace process, a man everyone thought dead returns and kills everyone, claiming the throne.
\nCalen Crosses the Desert
\nAct 1: Calen + Friends meets druid, who gives them a compass.
\nAct 2: Calen and crew enter the Evil Desert. Using the magic compass, they travel north.
\nAct 3: Fight against weird eldritch horror cat things.
\nAct 4: People go insane due to evil desert magic.
\nAct 5: Successfully cross the desert.
\nCalen Rallies the Alliance of Elves and Men
\nAct 0: Protagonist saves Loren Soldiers and becomes the Warden of Valtyr.
\nAct 1: Calen returns from the desert
\nAct 2: Calen meets the Rakina. Some choose to help him, other choose to ignore him.
\nAct 3: Calen unites the elven kingdoms. He trains.
\nAct 4: Ella returns. Calen discovers that Aeson lied to him. Calen leaves.
\nAct 5: Calen leaves. He goes to the dragon temple, learns about the past from TIvar.
\nAct 6: Blood moon rises. Fight scene. The Rakina who ignored him earlier now help him.
\nElla Becomes a Druid
\nAct 1: Fight scenes, with hints that Ella's a druid.
\nAct 2: Ella is nearly killed in battle. To survive, she takes control of an owl and attacks the Dragonguard who's killing her. She survives, but is captured.
\nAct 3: Ella escapes captivity with Rist/Justicar help. She flees to Claen, helps in the final battle.
\nDissent amongst the Dragonguard
\nAct 1: Pelenor helps Calen escape the dungeons. Introduce Tivar.
\nAct 2: Helios and Eltoar try to spare enemy elf draelid.
\nAct 3: Tivar helps save the day
\nListening to Ascheron
\nAct 1: The Grandmaster hears voices in his head. The voice says it's his patron god Asheron, however the only god who's known to speak to people is Efialtir. Grandmaster uncertain of self.
\nAct 2: Asheron (or maybe Efialtir?) convinces Grandmaster he really is Asheron
Quick, fun read. Written to be more humorous than serious, and there aren't really any action scenes, but it was decently funny and a good debut novel.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"on-lavender-tides-riddle","title":"On Lavender Tides","author":"Travis M. Riddle","series":"Jekua","seriesNumber":1,"pages":398,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60548126-on-lavender-tides","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"479","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798409061401","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"on-lavender-tides-riddle-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/on-lavender-tides-riddle/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/2/2024","dateFinished":"7/7/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A pretty short novel set in a world kind of like Pokemon. Not a ton of character depth but a cool concept and some fun world building. Won’t read the rest of the series though.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"on-the-shoulders-of-titans-rowe","title":"On the Shoulders of Titans","author":"Andrew Rowe","series":"Arcane Ascension","seriesNumber":2,"pages":742,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40187583-on-the-shoulders-of-titans","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"14432","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781982931421","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"on-the-shoulders-of-titans-rowe-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/on-the-shoulders-of-titans-rowe/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/8/2025","dateFinished":"1/15/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Step down from the first one. A progression fantasy without much progression gets boring. The balancing feels terrible in certain sections, students should not be able to keep up with some of the foes they do.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"one-more-last-time-ugland","title":"One More Last Time","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Good Guys","seriesNumber":1,"pages":300,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57328823-one-more-last-time","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.54","numGoodreadsRatings":"6781","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346088","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"one-more-last-time-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/one-more-last-time-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/21/2023","dateFinished":"6/22/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Short LitRPG book, nothing that special but enjoyable to read. Writing and dialogue and MC could definitely use some work.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"orconomics-pike","title":"Orconomics","author":"J. Zachary Pike","series":"The Dark Profit Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":340,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Riyria Enterprises LLC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214489061-orconomics","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"10470","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9781943363650","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"orconomics-pike-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/orconomics-pike/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/3/2023","dateFinished":"12/11/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A really fun and kind of depressing satire on capitalism and how we would treat fantasy if it was real
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"out-of-the-silent-planet-lewis","title":"Out of the Silent Planet","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Space Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":160,"yearPublished":1984,"publisher":"Macmillan Publishing Company","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206961.Out_of_the_Silent_Planet","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"109331","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Fantasy","isbn":"9780020869108","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"out-of-the-silent-planet-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/out-of-the-silent-planet-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/3/2023","dateFinished":"2/8/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I haven’t read these books in a very long time, but they are still solid fiction and sci-fi. You can definitely tell that they are written both by C.S. Lewis and almost 90 years ago, but despite some of the misconceptions about space (it is fiction, so i can forgive those), they are fun to read and spread a good message about humanity.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"parzival-eschenbach","title":"Parzival","author":"Wolfram von Eschenbach","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":448,"yearPublished":1215,"publisher":"Penguin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/560089.Parzival?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_8","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"3737","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Medieval","isbn":"9780140443615","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"parzival-eschenbach-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/parzival-eschenbach/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/23/2025","dateFinished":"1/30/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Old
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"pearls-sells-out-pastis","title":"Pearls Sells Out","author":"Stephen Pastis","series":"Pearls Before Swine","seriesNumber":7,"pages":261,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Andrews McMeel Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6500640-pearls-sells-out?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.9","numGoodreadsRatings":"830","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9780740773969","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"pearls-sells-out-pastis-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/pearls-sells-out-pastis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/10/2022","dateFinished":"7/15/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A Pearls Before Swine comic collection and this one was certified insane-o style. It was very long and had lots of funnies (Haha things). I relate most to the Crocodiles.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"persepolis-rising-corey","title":"Persepolis Rising","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":7,"pages":608,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Orbit Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28335696-persepolis-rising","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"88044","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780316332828","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"persepolis-rising-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/persepolis-rising-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/1/2026","dateFinished":"3/6/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A return to form from the last book. Almost feels like the start of a new trilogy, where we had books 1-6 together, and now we have the final ones in a group. I really enjoyed the Laconia focused chapters, Winston Duarte is a great character. I hope we get more POV’s from him or people close to him. This one probably would have been more enjoyable if I had taken a break after the last Expanse book, they need buffer stuff between them or they start to drag on. I am hopeful the last two books will be able to pull off a good conclusion.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Persepolis Rising Summary
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #7
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Persepolis_Rising#Plot
\nThe story continues three decades after the Free Navy Conflict. Terra is part of the reformed Earth-Mars Coalition however the Belt is the superpower. Camina Drummer is the fifth and newest president of the Transport Union and she prepares to launch the Transit Station at Lagrange #5 as a first part of the larger network.
\nThe Rocinante and her aging crew are commissioned by President Drummer to the Freehold system to address their repeated violations of Union guidelines.
\nOnce the crew of the Rocinante lands on Freehold, Holden and Bobbie meet with the township's council. Holden's instruction was to inform the citizens of Freehold that they would be cut off from trade with the Gate Network for three years. Unable to conscionably abide with these cruel terms, Holden changes the plan by allowing the Freehold to turn in their governor, Payne Houston, in exchange for not being cut off from the Gate Network. Though the Freehold people are upset, they relinquish Houston to the Rocinante. On the way back to to the Freehold system ring gate, Houston breaks free from containment but is soon recaptured. Continuing their route back to Medina Station, Holden and Naomi discuss retiring from the Rocinante and settling on Luna or Titan. When they approach the rest of the crew about this, it is reluctantly agreed that they will purchase Holden and Naomi's share in the Rocinante, with Bobbie to become the new captain.
\nA week after the Rocinante returns, the Laconian System announces that it will be taking over Medina Station and the rest of the worlds connected to the Gate Network. The invading Laconian fleet comprises only two ships, the pulsar-class ship Gathering Storm and the Magnetar-class battleship Heart of the Tempest. However, their firepower is sufficient to quickly overwhelm defenses within the slow zone, as they destroy several ships during the Third Battle of Medina Station. They promptly occupy Medina Station, instating their rule. The station is now lead by Santiago Singh. While trying to set up a new government, Singh is witness to a shooting by a terrorist group in which his assistant is violently killed. Shaken by the experience, Singh becomes increasingly paranoid, leading him to make impulsive and poor decisions regarding security on the station that alienates him from his subordinates. During this time, the Tempest quickens its schedule and begins its slow approach/invasion of Sol system.
\nResistance to Singh's rule among the people of Medina Station grows as an Underground of OPA members, old guard and new, unite with the crew of the now reunited Rocinante family to coordinate attacks. The underground receives news that the Eye of the Typhoon, another Magnetar-class ship like the Tempest, is on its way to reinforce the Laconians in Medina. They decide on a 40-day time table to do the best they can to escape the station before the Typhoon arrives.
\nDuring this time, the Sol system is summarily defeated by the single Laconian Magnetar-class battleship Tempest, in the Tempest Jovian battle. Pallas Station, and the void city Independence are both destroyed as the ship slowly advances towards Mars and Earth. Coalition ships throw everything they have at The Tempest in a last ditch defense effort, but the ship is virtually unaffected. Drummer, the president of the Transport Union, surrenders, wanting no more needless deaths.
\nThe Underground on Medina Station begins an organized revolt against Singh's rule through a series of strategic strikes. The group's first plan is to get into the air gap security room which connects to the Gathering Storm. This plan nearly does not begin because the guards at the Air Gap room have a dead switch. Holden saves the day by setting off as many security alerts in the area as he can to form a smokescreen for the real attack, sacrificing himself to the detainment of security in the process. The group then attacks a Laconian soldier and steals a set of Laconian Power armor. It is understood that the armor can be remotely de-activated, and the underground reverse-engineers a deactivation signal for all the powered armor units on the station. While Singh is discussing the attack on the Laconian Power Armored soldier, the final underground plan begins on multiple fronts. The prisoners being held by the Laconians are freed by Saba, Drummer's husband, in a mass break out. Naomi, Clarissa and a Voltaire Collective operative named Jordao are tasked with sabotaging Medina Station's sensor system. Bobbie and Amos are tasked with sabotaging the Storm in a mission to destroy it, disable it, or at least prevent it from picking off fleeing ships.
\nAlex escapes the dock in the Rocinante, leading the Gathering Storm to follow undermanned. Soon, Amos makes his way into the Storm, cutting through its self-repairing skin using his cutting torch. Before they enter, they deactivate all Laconian Marine power armor on Medina Station, locking soldiers in place. Amos heads to the machine shop and Bobbie heads to the command deck. Amos is unable to scuttle the ship due to the confusingly alien technology. Bobbie however manages to take control of The Gathering Storm, forcing its crew out the airlock in vacuum suits.
\nNaomi and Clarissa begin their plan to deactivate the sensor array, only to realize that the operative Jordao has betrayed them. With the power armored soldiers disabled, five unarmored Laconian security team officers surround Naomi and Clarissa. As the pair are bound with zip ties, their mission objective seems doomed to failure, resulting in a failure of the combined operation. Clarissa, having grown increasingly sick due to her aging and leaking implants, activates her artificial glands for the last time. In the quick melee, Clarissa kills all five Laconians, along with the traitor. She then crashes in Naomi's arms, seeing Ren, before she dies.
\nWith the Gathering Storm subdued, the twenty ships involved with the underground make a mass rush out of Medina, co-ordinating passage through the gates under Naomi's guidance.
\nIn the aftermath of the mass uprising by the underground on Medina Station, Singh forms a plan to cull one third of Medina Station's population to set an example and make it safe. Major Overstreet, Singh's Head of Security, having received Singh's orders to kill Laconian citizens, has the appointed governor of Medina clarify those orders, then explains that he himself has standing orders he must follow. He must make an example of Singh if he violates the Laconian code in such a manner as ordering the genocide of its citizens. Overstreet promptly shoots Singh.
\nThe crew of the Rocinante, now just Naomi and Alex, escapes to a secluded location on the surface of Freehold within a couple of miles of the township. The pair hide out and build a relationship with the locals who they trade with occasionally. The Gathering Storm is hidden in the cave of a moon orbiting another planet in the system. Aboard that alien ship, trying to make sense of it, are Bobbie, Amos, and the Belter crew that helped capture it.
\nHolden, having been captured, is sent aboard the Lightbreaker to Laconia. It is made known to him that the species that took a shot at the Protomolecule on Ilus IV just took a shot at the Tempest when it used its gravity weapons on Pallas/Tycho Station. It is known that Holden has experience with the species that destroys Protomolecule. Winston Duarte, who has been taking modifying agents with Protomolecule technology developed by Cortazár, no longer sleeps, and has the ability to read others' thought patterns. Duarte ends the book by interviewing Holden, for his experiences and knowledge, saying he will be needed in the fight to come with the Protomolecule destroyers.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"physics-aristotle","title":"Physics","author":"Aristotle","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":382,"yearPublished":341,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/366330.Physics?ref=nav_sb_ss_3_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"4371","genre":"Philosophy","subgenre":"Science","isbn":"9780192823106","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"physics-aristotle-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/physics-aristotle/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/1/2025","dateFinished":"8/19/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"An interesting read. A lot of Aristotle’s claims feel like common sense when read from a modern viewpoint, however he was clearly exploring ideas and concepts that not many had tackled before. And despite having some points that are laughably false, in general I think he made good solid arguments and approached his ideas in an appropriately scientific manner.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"piranesi-clarke","title":"Piranesi","author":"Susanna Clarke","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":272,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Bloomsbury","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"404429","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Magical Realism","isbn":"9781635575637","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"piranesi-clarke-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/piranesi-clarke/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/21/2025","dateFinished":"7/27/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Weird, fun, fantasy mystery. Gets interesting on page 77. A very unique and whimsical story with a good mystery element, but the biggest problem for me was the book feeling very overhyped. The reviews I had heard made me expect a masterpiece but outside of cool concepts and good writing it did not blow me away.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"plague-of-shadows-wisehart","title":"Plague of Shadows","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"The Aldoran Chronicles","seriesNumber":2,"pages":723,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Easthaven Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49682048-plague-of-shadows","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"3328","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780998150550","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"plague-of-shadows-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/plague-of-shadows-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/16/2023","dateFinished":"1/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Good continuation of the first book. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Aryion’s arc and storyline, it just didn’t seem very important to the bigger story. Still read’s just like a super basic modern fantasy but is interesting and fun.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"prince-caspian-lewis","title":"Prince Caspian","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":3,"pages":240,"yearPublished":1951,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/836898.Prince_Caspian","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"492029","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471053","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"prince-caspian-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/prince-caspian-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/11/2022","dateFinished":"10/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"One of the weaker entries, one of my favorite points is I feel we can really see Edmund’s character progression from the first book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"project-hail-mary-weir","title":"Project Hail Mary","author":"Andy Weir","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":496,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Ballantine","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493401-project-hail-mary","avgGoodreadsRating":"9","numGoodreadsRatings":"981787","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Adventure","isbn":"9780593135204","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"project-hail-mary-weir-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/project-hail-mary-weir/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/18/2025","dateFinished":"10/25/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Fun book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Project Hail Mary
\nAndy Weir
Man wakes up from coma in a small medical looking room with amnesia. Hard for him to walk / move much, robot was taking care of him. 2 dead people in bunks nearby. Slowly explores small area, trying to figure out what is going on and remember life. Memories start coming back, he is Dr. Ryland Grace, a Jr. high science teacher who likes space. He realizes via some tests in a lab that gravity is not correct. Concludes he must not be on Earth. More memories come back. Earth’s sun Sol was dying from some mysterious light stealing it’s energy. He gets called in to investigate the sample taken because of what he wrote his doctorate thesis on. Discovers a single celled alien life form. Astrophage.
\nIn the present, he is in a space ship. He realizes he is by the star Tau Ceti, which for some reason is unaffected by Astrophage. He needs to figure out why.
\nAfter experimenting with Astrophage on Earth he learns how to duplicate them. Very important so that more people can test them. He is now important. Dr. Stratt is the lady basically in charge of the world since she is the lead for “Project Hail Mary”. They want to send a team to Tau Ceti to investigate and send back the results via small beetle ships. It is a suicide mission. The entire world is working on this.
\nSuddenly Grace sees another spaceship super close to his. It seems friendly. It sends over a container with little diagrams of their ships, then after confirmation makes a tunnel to connect them.
\nProject Hail Mary recruits the best minds on Earth. The biggest problem is they need to put the crew into coma’s and only 1/7000 are able to not die in a coma. The ship will be powered by Astrophage, so they pave the Sahara to breed them. It takes 13 years to get to Tau ceti (+ 13 back) so Earth needs to live for that long. But it isn’t supposed to so they nuke Antartica to create more greenhouse gasses.
\nGrace meets and Alien rock-spider like creature through a wall. Via numbers and elements they begin to learn to communicate. The aliens speak via musical notes. Alien is dubbed Rocky. Rocky and Grace begin to exchange more and more information about themselves, their species, worlds, and science. Rocky is also here to try to save his planet from Astrophage.
\nEventually they can speak fluently and Rocky (an incredible engineer with an eidetic memory) moves into the Hail Mary after creating Xenonite walls since his atmosphere is 29x, hot, and ammonia. They figure out their must be a predator of Astrophage on the nearby planet. They jerryrig a solution and both almost die and hurt the ship, but they get it. They have to do selective breeding to make it immune to nitrogen so that it can save their planets. Also because Rocky ship has extra Astrophage no longer a suicide mission for Grace.
\nFlashback: 9 days before launch an explosion happens and the 2 scientists who were supposed to go on this mission die. Grace has to be the one. He says no. Stratt imprisons him and says she will feed him an amnesia medicine so he don’t remember this when he wakes up. It worked.
\nRocky and Grace successfully have the “Taumeba” predator they need to save Earth and Arid. They part ways. Grace realizes Taumeba also evolved to escape Xenonite, so he is fune but Rocky will be in trouble. He sends the beetles and goes to save Rocky, his friend. Together they return to Arid where a Earth-dome is constructed and Grace lives happily, teaching young Iridians science.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"promise-of-blood-mcclellan","title":"Promise of Blood","author":"Brian McClellan","series":"Powder Mage","seriesNumber":1,"pages":545,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15790883-promise-of-blood","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"65245","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9780316219037","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"promise-of-blood-mcclellan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/promise-of-blood-mcclellan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/4/2026","dateFinished":"6/12/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this a decade ago and don’t remember much about it. This is a super cool, action packed story with an interesting plot but fairly boring characters and plain writing. Some stuff (like the powder addiction) is shoved down your throat instead of just letting the reader realize what is happening, plus there basically aren’t any female characters (Nila does nothing). The whole thing when Taniel realizes how old Ka-Poel is is really really weird, did not like that. I also wish we got some more explanations of how the non-powder magic works, but maybe that will come later. But the plot was still fun enough to make me want to continue with the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Promise of Blood
\nBrian McClellan
\nPowder Mage #1
Promise of Blood Summary
\nAdamat is summoned to the Skyline Palace, the seat of the king in Adopest, the capital city of Adro. He finds that Field Marshall Tamas (military leader) has staged a coup and captured King Manhouch XII and killed his royal cabal of privileged (Sorcerers with elemental powers). All across the city nobles are being rounded up and being imprisoned or killed. Tamas wants Adamat to investigate why, as they were dying, all of the privileged kept saying “Don’t break Kresimir’s Promise”. Adamat returns to his home and sends his family away to a safe house since he knows the city will probably be crazy for a while following the coup.
\nTamas is taken by one of his men, Sabon, to see a dying man. Tamas and his crew are all “Powder Mages”, able to consume gunpowder to increase their physical attributes, as well as detonate it at a distance or direct its force. One powerful privileged escaped their cull, killing several of his men in the process, so he assembles a team to hunt her down. Julene, a powerful mercenary privileged he has hired in the past, a mage-breaker (someone who can nullify magic in a small area), and his son Taniel, a powder mage who recently gained fame in a war in Fatrasta as Taniel Two-Shot. Taniel brings along a new friend Ka-Poel, a savage he saved with some magic who can track privileged.
\nAdamat is visited by Palagyi?, a gangster he owes money to. Adamat used to be a police officer so many members of the criminal world do not like him. Adamat has a big debt coming due soon so he is worried about that, and Palagyi threatens his family. Adamat starts his investigation by going to the college to read books about Kresimir, a god who founded The Nine (The nine kingdoms in this land). Adamat is a Knacked, a magic user with a specific ability, and he can remember everything perfectly, but he has never heard of Kresimir’s Promise aside from one street gang who named themselves that then were all butchered shortly after. In the college library all the books about Kresimir have been defaced and have pages ripped out, so he needs to look elsewhere.
\nNila is a laundress in a noble house. The night of the coup she is working when Jakob, the son of the noble family (A sickly boy of 5) comes down and she gives him milk. When she hears soldiers breaking in she hides him in a laundry basket. Soldiers arrest the rest of his family and look for him but she hides him then escapes with Jakob when given the chance.
\nTamas meets with his co-conspirators for the coup: Lady Winceslas (Owner of the mercenary company Adom’s Wings), Ricard Tumblar (Leader of the workers union: The Noble Warriors of Labor), Charlemund (An Arch-Diocel of the Church of Kresimir), Ondraus (An accountant), Prime Lektor (Chancellor of the university), and the Eunuch (A representative of The Proprietor, leader of the underworld in Adopest). Together they will form the new ruling council. Ondraus discovers the old king spent all the country's money so they need to change some plans and figure out how to fund themselves. A large part of the motivation for the coup was the upcoming signing of accords with the neighboring nation Kez, that would make them little more than a vassal state. Tamas hates Kez because they killed his wife.
\nTamas meets his new bodyguard, Olem. Olem is a Knacked who does not need sleep. Tamas orders the executions to begin and the King and Queen are beheaded, followed by all the other nobles. Riots begin to break out in the streets, and the few remaining royalists, loyal to the old king, shore up a defensive area in the center of the city. Taniel comes back to report that while chasing the Privileged, they learned that general Westeven is in the city leading the royalist defenses. Westeven is a great general and friend of Tamas so they plan to meet in an effort to not destroy the city. Tamas eventually decides to hire a street gang, the Black Street Barbers, to assassinate a lot of the royalists to prevent extra bloodshed.
\nAdamat hires an old boxer friend of his, SouSmith, to serve as a bodyguard while he investigates everything. Together they sneak into the royalist controlled central section of the city, and find the privileged Taniel has been chasing, reading the same books Adamat wants. They have also been redacted and defaced. She tells Adamat to go to the Mountainwatch to meet with a privileged there, and also to give him the message “She is trying to summon Kresimir”. Tamas meets a fat man named Mihali who claims to be Adom (god/saint, brother of Kresimir) reborn, and also that he is a great chef and will now be cooking for the army. Taniel and crew trap the privileged they are chasing (Rozalia) at the university and attack her, but her and Julene get into a big sorcerous battle and destroy a bunch of stuff before Rozalia escapes. Tamas meets with General Westeven but then people start attacking and Westeven is killed and Tamas pushes to take the royalist area. Nila tries to protect Jakob but he is captured, so she plans to kill Tamas in revenge for his presumed death.
\nAdamat travels to the Mountainwatch, a city/fort at South Pike guarding one of the only passes between Kez and Adro. He is going to meet Privileged Borbador (Bo), an ex-royal cabal member and friend of Taniel. Bo tells him that Kresimir’s promise is an old myth that when Kresimir started the nine family lines that would rule their kingdoms, he said that if any fully died out he would return and destroy whichever country that was. When Adamat tells Bo the message about someone summoning Kresimir, he freaks out and leaves without sharing anything else. Adamat travels back to Adopest and reports to Tamas, who says good job. An ambassador from Kez arrives shortly thereafter but it turns out to be Duke Nicklaus, the man who killed Tamas’ wife, so he throws him in the water and they both declare war. Adamat also learned that any living royal cabal member has a geas on them to avenge the king, so Bo will eventually have to kill Tamas or die himself. Tamas sends Taniel to kill his best friend Bo.
\nWhen Adamat arrives home he finds a Lord Vetas waiting for him with Palagyi. Vetas kills Palagyi and says he is buying Adamat’ loan, and he wants any information he has on Tamas or he will kill his family. Adamat refuses at first, but later he is sent his sons finger so he tells Adamat what he knows. Tamas is relaxing in a secret room known only to his council when he is attacked by a Warden. Warden’s are humans turned into weird muscly monster people by the Kez privileged. Tamas manages to kill it but his dog Pitlaug dies in the process. He now knows he has been betrayed by a member of his council and rehires Adamat to find out who.
\nTaniel, Ka-Poel, and Julene have arrived at the mountain watch to hunt Bo. Taniel does not like Julene so orders her to wait here in case Bo gets past them, and hires Gavril, a big drunk, to lead them up the mountain to a cave where Bo waits. They find him and Taniel has a shot, but does not take it, instead choosing to go talk to his friend, but before he gets there a massive cave lion runs at Bo and tries to kill him. It takes the combined forces of Bo, Taniel, Gavril, and Ka-Poel newly unveiled power to fling it off the mountain, and as it falls it is revealed to be Julene. Bo says she is a Predeii, ancient privileged (Like Rozalia) who were so powerful they made themselves basically immortal. She is the one planning to summon Kresimir and they need to prevent this. As they return to the Mountainwatch they see a Kez army invading, and Gavril, who turns out to be the commander, takes charge and they prepare their defenses.
\nAdamat goes and investigates each member of the council, and the most likely traitor seems to be Ricard Tumblar, the union boss. Some other stuff: Vlora is another powder mage who returns to work with Tamas. She was engaged to Taniel but he caught her cheating on him so they broke it off. Ka-Pole (Pole) can not talk, and Taniel assumes she is a teenager (15ish). Taniel is addicted to snorting gunpowder, which seems to be something dangerous to a lot of powder mages. Nila now works for Tamas, doing his laundry, and Olem flirts with her a bit and asks her on some dates.
\nTamas goes on an annual hunt to start a festival season with his other council members, while there a man they trust leads them aside and then Brigadier Ryze, a member of the Wings of Adom mercenary company, kidnaps Tamas. He quickly warns Tamas that he is not the traitor but he needs to share something with him, before Duke Nicklaus blasts him with magic and Tamas is knocked out. Tamas wakes up with his leg shattered and trapped in a room. Nicklaus tells him when his leg was being repaired he inserted a nugget of gold in before sealing it. Gold negates a powder mage's ability to use his powers. Tamas is furious, but then the carriage they are in is attacked and Nicklaus flees, letting Olem save Tamas. Apparently Sabon trained Tamas’ other dog, Hrusch, to track him long ago so Hrusch led them to him. Nicklaus escapes but Tamas is now free. Tamas undergoes another dangerous surgery to remove the gold from his leg.
\nTamas lets everyone know what Ryze revealed, that Brigadier Barat is the real traitor within the Wings of Adom and another member of their company, Brigadier Sebastenien, shoots Barat. Adamat and SouSmith get attacked by the Black Street Barbers in Adamat’s home (not supposed to happen), but they kill them. Tamas is furious and Sabon and Adamat go to their headquarters and kill most but question one enough to learn that a young priest, Siemone, who works for Arch-Diocel Charlemund hired them for it. This means Charlemund is the traitor. The barbers were also hired to kill Mihali, who is hosting the festival. Tamas has begun to believe Mihali is something special, since his food seems to be slightly magical and he can create food from nothing.
\nOlem takes Nila to see that Jakob is alive, just being kept in hiding until he can be sent to live in the country. She still does not forgive Tamas but some of her anger is gone. Tamas is observing everyone enjoying the festival food when the barbers attack, and Mihali seems in danger. Prime Lektor reveals he is a privileged, one of the predeii, and after Mihali vaporizes all his attackers, everyone believes he is actually the god Adom. He is working on some big spell to protect his country in case Kresimir returns. Adamat tells Tamas that Charlemund is the traitor and they plan to go arrest him.
\nMeanwhile, a bunch of battles have happened in defense of the mountainwatch and Taniel has killed a lot of Kez privileged, but they worry what Julene is doing. Bo is looking more and more spent and he is their only magical defense. They go to investigate one night and find there are tunnels leading behind the mountain watch and up the mountain. Bo, Taniel, Ka-Poel, and some others head after them. They find the monastery burned and many monks killed. They recruit one to guide them and continue to the ancient city of Kresim Kembra? on South Pike’s Peak. It is said this is where Kresimir lived when on earth 1,400 years ago, and is where Julene plans to resummon him. They get there and Taniel has the monk lead him to high ground so he can get a shot, but once there it is revealed the monk is a Kez privileged in disguise and Julene was ready for him. But Ka-Poel uses a ton of magic and her and Taniel fight back, killing a lot of the enemy, but then a man starts to descend from the sky. Before Kresimir can do anything, Taniel sights and fires two special bullets at him using a ton of gunpowder and hits him in the eye and heart, causing a massive earthquake and seeming to kill the god.
\nAdamat returns home to find that Lord Vetas is there with his youngest daughter held hostage, forcing Adamat to reveal Tamas’ plans. SouSmith and Adamat fight off the goons once Vetas leaves, and Adamat rushes to warn Tamas. Tamas enters Charlemund’s villa with some troops, but then Sabon gets shot in the head. They were prepared for him and Duke Nicklaus is there as well. Charlemund asks for Parlay so Olem and Tamas head inside trying to stall for backup. Once in they kill the guards and Charlemund flees. Tamas beats Nicklaus in a duel and severs his fingers and breaks his hands, making it so he can never use magic again. Adamat shows up around the back of the house and stalls long enough for Olem to duel Charlemund, but Olem gets injured as well. Tamas arrives in time to kill Charlemund but Nicklaus uses this chance to escape.
\nTamas rides to the Mountainwatch and talks to Bo (Who is tied up so he can’t kill Tamas), and they learn what happened. Taniel and Ka-Poel are both in comas and no one knows if they will live. It ends with a discussion where Bo says that you can not kill a god, so who knows what will happen with Kresimir. Nila is about to kidnap Jakob when she finds someone beat her to it, and she agrees to go with them to watch over him. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"proving-grounds-thorne","title":"Proving Grounds","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":4,"pages":222,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50731407-proving-grounds","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"1937","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"proving-grounds-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/proving-grounds-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/28/2022","dateFinished":"4/2/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/23/2022","dateFinished":"12/28/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I wish they never introduced a love interest the middle school romance makes me a little sick.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"quantum-theory-planck","title":"Quantum Theory","author":"Niels Bohr, Max Planck","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":192,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Flame Tree","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44331577-quantum-theory","avgGoodreadsRating":"6.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"23","genre":"Science","subgenre":"Physics","isbn":"9781787556829","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"quantum-theory-planck-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/quantum-theory-planck/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/3/2025","dateFinished":"9/11/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Quantum Theory
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"queen-of-shadows-maas","title":"Queen of Shadows","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"Throne of Glass","seriesNumber":4,"pages":648,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76707900-queen-of-shadows","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"1488811","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781639731008","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"queen-of-shadows-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/queen-of-shadows-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"4/19/2021","dateFinished":"4/25/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ready-player-one-cline","title":"Ready Player One","author":"Ernest Cline","series":"Ready Player One","seriesNumber":1,"pages":374,"yearPublished":2044,"publisher":"Crown Publishers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9969571-ready-player-one?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"1320913","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9780307887436","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ready-player-one-cline-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":3,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.83,"url":"/books/ready-player-one-cline/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"7/26/2021","dateFinished":"8/1/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/24/2022","dateFinished":"11/26/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I got in a car accident and have a concussion so I listened to a comfort read that I basically have memorized. This book gets bonus points for nostalgia, but is still fun to read anyway, more so when you understand more of the references
\n"},{"readNumber":3,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/18/2025","dateFinished":"1/19/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Always gets Nostalgia points. Wil Wheaton is not my favorite narrator however.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ready-player-two-cline","title":"Ready Player Two","author":"Ernest Cline","series":"Ready Player One","seriesNumber":2,"pages":370,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Ballantine Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26082916-ready-player-two?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"6.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"190210","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781524761332","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ready-player-two-cline-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/ready-player-two-cline/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"1/1/2022","dateFinished":"1/6/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"reaper-s-gale-erikson","title":"Reaper's Gale","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":7,"pages":1280,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Bantam Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/459064.Reaper_s_Gale","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"36911","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780593046319","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"reaper-s-gale-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/reaper-s-gale-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/21/2025","dateFinished":"2/11/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Another good book. Kind of slow for the first half but one of the most exciting endings yet.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"reaper-wight","title":"Reaper","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":10,"pages":465,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123381879-reaper","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"27823","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001065","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"reaper-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/reaper-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/13/2025","dateFinished":"9/21/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"I wish they had sped up the “reveal” a little, since it felt obvious for a while. Can feel the end coming.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Lindon got a lot of people safely out of Sacred Valley, met Elder Whisper outside the labyrinth entrance, and the fox says he can teach him how to kill the Dreadgods. Reigan Shen has spent the year inside the Labyrinth, moving around the dreadgod cores to disable the suppression field, while Lindon and co have been building up the Twin Stars sect. Kelsa, Jai Long, and Jai Chen keep training together.
\nThe whole team goes into the labyrinth. Meanwhile, the blackflame empire and the Akura clan recruit all golds (including Jai and Kelsa) to fight the dreadgods cults and 8-man empire who have all showed up, at Reigna Shen’s behest.
\nLindon uses the hand from the sword sages space to guide them, they fight stuff, and learn stuff. Eithan really wants to find Ozmanthus Aurelius’ (Ozriel’s) stuff. Mercy levels up to overlady because they need her to. Eithan gives Lindon the ultimate soulforge, he makes a hammer. They fight a weakened Reigna Shen, who toys with them, only Eithan can push him. They steal a spear from him and Lindon uses it to craft a good weapon.
\nThe ABidan are becoming engrossed in all out war.
\nMercy and Ziel and orthos and little blue leave after using their power up. Yerin kills a ton of stuff and angers the labyrinth then leaves. Shen kills Subject one, the sleeping wraith, the dreadgod of hunger at the center of the labyrinth. The labyrinth splits up Eithan and Lindon so Eithan has to leave, Lindon continues. Finds the corpse of subject one and Reigan shen makes him a deal, tells him how the dreadgods exist because of the monarchs. They fight. Lindon accends to overlord. Lindon kind of bonds with the labyrinth and takes control over it, ejecting Reigan shen and all of his allies from sacred valley. He attaches the arm of the dead dreadgod to his missing arm. The mad king has fled the Abidan and is destroying Cradle. They all know it is the end of the world. Eithan is crying and apologizes, then sheds his veil and Ozriel ascends again. He fights off the mad king, and the Abidan come and imprison him for trial.
Still really good but probably my least favorite of the 3 standalones by a small amount. Fun to see logen again but felt the same. Shy and Temple are good characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"red-rising-brown","title":"Red Rising","author":"Pierce Brown","series":"Red Rising Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":382,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15839976-red-rising?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.54","numGoodreadsRatings":"863568","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9780345539786","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"red-rising-brown-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/red-rising-brown/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/4/2022","dateFinished":"9/9/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This book is actually really good, but feels like it’s disguised as a YA book. Think Ender game, Hunger Games, but better. Like Darrow feels sort of like a stereotypical character at first but the world just has so much more depth than “District 13 doesn’t exist and the rich people wear MAKEUP”
\n2026: Don't know why I was hating on Hunger Games. Big fan of that series. Planning to read all of Red Rising soon. Also I had never read Ender's Game when I wrote this.
Pirates yeah go.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"return-of-the-runebound-professor-actus","title":"Return of the Runebound Professor","author":"Actus","series":"The Return of the Runebound Professor","seriesNumber":1,"pages":752,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Aethon Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210157328-return-of-the-runebound-professor","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"3236","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9798883124913","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"return-of-the-runebound-professor-actus-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/return-of-the-runebound-professor-actus/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/1/2026","dateFinished":"2/9/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Three may even be generous. The writing was slightly better than some web serial litRPG, but there were dumb mistakes like just calling a character the wrong name. Not technically a litRPG, just progression, but the author wrote like it was a video game, including stuff like enemies having set attack patterns, being able to teleport to differently themed areas, boss monsters, etc. The world, characters, and most importantly magic system just were not interesting, which is the most important part of a progression book. But the Seahawks won the superbowl so everything is ok.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Return of the Runebound Professor
\nActus
\nReturn of the Runebound Professor #1
Noah Vines was a college music professor on Earth who died of disease. The afterlife was him waiting in a super long time for a unspecified very, very long period (important). He reaches the front of the line and meets the goddess Renewal, who says he will be reborn in a higher plane with no memories from his Earth life. He is upset, but then a shadow being attacks the lines of people and renewal, and Noah falls into the well of life or something. He is about to lose his memories and be reborn when the shadow dude does something to him or he gets hit by an attack or something and instead he keeps his memories and his soul is sent floating about. He eventually is floating by an injured dude he sees die and then is sucked into his body. The body belonged to someone named Magus Vermil, but Noah knows nothing about his new past or where he is, but he instinctively can do magic.
\nNoah gets killed by a monkey. Then is reborn in a fresh version of Magus Vermils body. This happens a few times. He learns how to fight. He is wandering around in the woods, and figures out this gourd / potion thing Vermil was carrying is where he will “respawn”. He gets rescued and brought to the school Armitage, where he is a teacher. A bad, scummy, low rank teacher. Their are ranks based on how powerful your runes are and he is rank 1, the bottom. But since he was a good boy on Earth he wants to teach his students, Isabel and Todd, how magic works and learn from them. Somehow he teaches them stuff despite knowing genuinely nothing, then he discovers a teleporter that can shoot him anywhere and recall his body in 24 hours. SO he goes back to the forest to kill more monkeys.
\nHe starts to befriend a fellow teacher, Magus Moxie, who hated the old version of him. But he needs help figuring out how life works here. He eventually takes Isabel and Todd to fight monkeys, since there final exam is fighting a monkey. They meet a skinwalker who absorbed one of Noah’s old bodies. This is tricky, but he pretends it is his clone he knew about. He befriends the skinwalker who takes on the form of a young woman named Lee, and offers to help him teach his students hand to hand combat.
\nNoah has won Moxie over by now, and her and her student Emily start to tag along as they learn and go fight monkeys. Moxie has learned that Noah is not the original Vermil in spirit but he never tells her everything, and Lee knows he can not die since again she ate his body. Things are going well, but important fact: Noah is a member of the Linwick noble family, very powerful people. His twin brother Braeden, a 7 foot behemoth shows up and tries to talk about family business. Noah is also under suspicion since he killed the Hellreaver Ape, a big boss monster and is in trouble because it was not supposed to die. He gets Braeden drunk and learns he (Vermil) was supposed to summon a demon. He then realizes Lee is a demon, but Lee tells him she is a normal one, and the one that Vermil summoned is stronger and escaped somewhere. Noah decides to go to the Linwick estate to learn more. He decides his students and Moxie and Emily and Lee will all come so they go on a merry adventure across dangerous countryside, with Edward and Alan, an annoying rich snobby student and teacher they beat in the exam. Ends the book with them reaching the estate.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"return-of-the-thief-turner","title":"Return of the Thief","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":6,"pages":464,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Greenwillow Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11503920-return-of-the-thief","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"12454","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780062874474","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"return-of-the-thief-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/return-of-the-thief-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"10/4/2021","dateFinished":"10/10/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/17/2023","dateFinished":"4/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Pheris POV. Probably my second favorite in the series. Pheris is a fantastic narrator and an interesting switch from all of the other characters we follow. Great series. I would probably order them 3-6-2-4-1-5
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"rhythm-of-war-sanderson","title":"Rhythm of War","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":4,"pages":1219,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49021976-rhythm-of-war?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"251646","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765326386","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"rhythm-of-war-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/rhythm-of-war-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/17/2022","dateFinished":"5/22/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I am a big Brandon Sanderson fan and this is one of the only books where I would have been willing to spend 60 hours listening to it. It is long. But the Stormlight Archive is a super good series with superb world-building and character development.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"10/19/2024","dateFinished":"11/30/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Book. I think Steven Erikson’s endings are just so good it makes these ones feel worse.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"rise-of-gods-ashton","title":"Rise of Gods","author":"Dyrk Ashton","series":"Paternus Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":504,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Paternus Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35621572-rise-of-gods","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"2633","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780997173710","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"rise-of-gods-ashton-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/rise-of-gods-ashton/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/10/2025","dateFinished":"1/18/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A cool concept, I like bringing mythology and religious figures into fantasy, but the author is not very good. That hinders most books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ritualist-krout","title":"Ritualist","author":"Dakota Krout","series":"The Completionist Chronicles","seriesNumber":1,"pages":392,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Mountindale","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38739408-ritualist?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=TrF4k3Crs2&rank=1","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"15986","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781950914135","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"ritualist-krout-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/ritualist-krout/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/7/2024","dateFinished":"3/11/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A much better LitRPG than the last one. Enjoyable. Solid progression aspects, pretty solid character building and dialogue. Not a strict plot, sort of meanders but stays interesting and engaging.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"rogue-ascension-mythos","title":"Rogue Ascension","author":"Hunter Mythos","series":"Rogue Ascension","seriesNumber":1,"pages":485,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199702146-rogue-ascension-book-1","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"2827","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798864295731","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"rogue-ascension-mythos-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/rogue-ascension-mythos/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/22/2024","dateFinished":"7/25/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Sucky sucked.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"royal-assassin-hobb","title":"Royal Assassin","author":"Robin Hobb","series":"The Farseer Trilogy","seriesNumber":2,"pages":675,"yearPublished":1996,"publisher":"Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22016387-royal-assassin","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"224912","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780007562268","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"royal-assassin-hobb-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/royal-assassin-hobb/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/7/2025","dateFinished":"7/21/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Robin Hobb is the best character writer of all time. This really only took me 2 weeks to finish, just had a lot of stuff in the middle (wedding + honeymoon). The pace is also incredibly slow for sections in the middle, and just having everything seem to be against Fitz makes it tougher to read, but the final 200 pages are electric. It is crazy to see the difference between this and the Five Warrior Angels, which is also really good character work, but these are more people than characters. They feel so real, with flaws and dreams.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"sabriel-nix","title":"Sabriel","author":"Garth Nix","series":"The Old Kingdom","seriesNumber":1,"pages":491,"yearPublished":1995,"publisher":"Harper Collins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518848.Sabriel?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_7","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"219871","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471831","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"sabriel-nix-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/sabriel-nix/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"10/9/2023","dateFinished":"11/30/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Kind of got pushed back because of the whole “moving” process, but I thought it was a well written story. I wish I had read the series when I was younger because I think I would have loved it way more.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"sanctuary-thorne","title":"Sanctuary","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":3,"pages":549,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50410226-sanctuary","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"2272","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781733664448","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"sanctuary-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/sanctuary-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/23/2022","dateFinished":"3/28/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/8/2022","dateFinished":"12/22/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Better than the last one but still painful writing, power creep starts to go wild.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"scamps-scoundrels-ugland","title":"Scamps & Scoundrels","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Bad Guys","seriesNumber":1,"pages":446,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58642548-scamps-scoundrels","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.8","numGoodreadsRatings":"3850","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346170","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"scamps-scoundrels-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/scamps-scoundrels-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/19/2023","dateFinished":"2/23/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Pretty typical mediocre LitRPG. Had some fun moments but not great writing and really only cared about the action scenes. I wish the author had chosen to focus a bit more on the progression aspect, since that is what I tend to enjoy in these books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"scorching-sun-thorne","title":"Scorching Sun","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":6,"pages":358,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56966228-scorching-sun","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"1631","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"scorching-sun-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.25,"url":"/books/scorching-sun-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/3/2022","dateFinished":"5/8/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This is a series I got for free on Audible, it is a LitRPG book which normally suck and this one wasn’t written very well but it was a fun story where good guy always wins and had good power leveling so I enjoyed listening to the series.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/2/2023","dateFinished":"2/11/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Everyone time there is a dialogue between characters I want to cry, not good in fact quite bad
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"seaborn-livingston","title":"Seaborn","author":"Michael Livingston","series":"The Seaborn Cycle","seriesNumber":1,"pages":300,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Independently Published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61082852-seaborn","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"698","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9798472191456","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"seaborn-livingston-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/seaborn-livingston/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/15/2023","dateFinished":"7/20/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"seeing-redd-beddor","title":"Seeing Redd","author":"Frank Beddor","series":"The Looking Glass Wars","seriesNumber":2,"pages":371,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Dial Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/289695.Seeing_Redd","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"18817","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780803731554","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"seeing-redd-beddor-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/seeing-redd-beddor/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/3/2026","dateFinished":"4/7/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A pretty big step down from the first book. The world is not as engaging, and feels more weird and pointless rather than whimsical and fun. Lots of violence. Feels like the cool ideas that formed the basis for the first book are gone and this is reaching to try to maintain the same atmosphere and world but falls short.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Seeing Redd
\nFrank Beddor
\nThe Looking Glass Wars #2
\nSeeing Redd Summary
Queen Alyss Heart is back in control of Wonderland. The kingdom has spent the last several months cleaning up and rebuilding from Redd’s tyranny, but are still watchful since they don’t know what happened to Redd after jumping into the Heart Crystal. Alyss and Bibwit hold a party at the newly rebuilt Heart Palace to say thank you to the citizens and spread kindness. She has officially made Dodge Anders the captain of her palace guard, and Homburg Molly is her new bodyguard since Hatter Maddigan asked for personal time off to mourn. During the party Alyss receives a visit from King Arch who shows off his new bodyguards, Blister and Ripkins, who can burn and cut respectively. He also tries to make her feel uninformed and questions her advisors, as he leaves he finds a button belonging to Homburg Molly.
\nA bunch of outer outposts manned by Wonderland card soldiers get attacked. Initial reports show that the aggressors are Glass Eyes (Redd’s inventions). Alyss and Dodge both lie to each other to try to make the other one stay in the palace, then both go to defend the city. Alyss lures a bunch of Glass Eyes to a big building then kills them all with her imagination. Dodge thinks this means Redd is back and wants to hunt The Cat, but Alyss persuades him to stay here for now. In the chaos Jack of Diamonds was freed from the crystal mines where he was being kept.
\nKing Arch actually planned the attack on Wonderland. He also freed Jack of Diamonds and meets with the Diamond family. He gives the Lady of Diamonds a box and says do not open it but make sure it gets to Homburg Molly. Molly is training at the reestablished Millinery, and completes the hardest simulation level they have. Lady of Diamonds shows up and gives her the box and says it is only for Alyss, no one else. Molly is suspicious and opens the box in the Crystal Continuum on the way home, causing a big explosion that kicks everyone out of the continuum and knocks her unconscious. Arch used the button to scent some seeker birds and Ripkins and Blister kidnap Molly.
\nHatter is mourning at the top of Talon Point, the tallest mountain in Wonderland. It is where he used to meet his lover, Weaver. She was a civilian who worked for the Millinery. He finds her diary and learns she was pregnant, and their daughter’s name is Molly. He assumes Weaver is dead. Hatter returns to Wonderland to find Molly. Meanwhile, Molly wakes up in Boarderland (ruled by King Arch), wearing a straightjacket-esque suit. Arch introduces her to Weaver, who is still alive.
\nIn Paris, a painter is having trouble painted what he was commissioned for. He keeps drawing blurs that form into two people. Eventually he paints life size renditions of Redd and The Cat, and they break out of the painting and are free in Paris. They explore, and find Vollrath, a member of the Tutor species, like Bibwit, who fled Wonderland long ago. He agrees to help them form an army on Earth using exiled Wonderlanders and cruel Earth people.
\nKing Arch calls Alyss and tells her that Homburg Molly was kidnapped by a neighboring kingdom, but asked him to serve as a mediator. He says Hatter should come to Boarderland to negotiate for her release. Alyss says no after learning Molly is Hatter’s daughter, worried his emotions may get in the way. Alyss and Dodge are having a romantic meal, when they learn Hatter left anyway. Hatter meets with King Arch, who knows he is Molly’s father and reunites him with Weaver, subtly threatening Molly’s life, so Hatter is forced to work with him. Weaver does not believe Arch is the one who kidnapped Molly.
\nRedd learns from Vollrath that she can still go through her Looking Glass maze and gain it’s powers. They just need to learn from the caterpillars where it is. Arch tells Alyss that the Diamonds are hiding in his country and gives her permission to arrest them. They capture the Lord and Lady but Jack escapes and runs into the Whispering Woods.
\nArch gives Hatter a mission to activate a bomb called WILMA. Seems like a nuke made of caterpillar thread. Hatter has to tie a green thread in a specific pattern over Heart Palace. Hatter agrees but then doubles back to hunt for Molly. Redd is ready to enter Wonderland. She and a few of her select elites use Earth puddles to get back to the Pool of Tears and kill the outpost of soldiers there. They meet Jack of Diamonds who avails them of the political situation and says Redd should let him unite the nomadic tribes of Boarderland against King Arch. Redd agrees and goes to the valley of mushrooms to find where her maze is. Only the green caterpillar helps her. It is in her memory. Redd finds it, retrieves her scepter, and is now more powerful than ever.
\nHatter finds Molly and him and Weaver work together to free her. They battle their way free and hideout. Jack convinced all the tribes to work together and when Redd shows up to meet with Arch, she shows him his people now support her. Arch submits, and Redd lets him kill Jack of Diamonds. Then they go to attack Wonderland.
\nAlyss got a mysterious visit from the blue caterpillar saying she must court defeat to win victory or something. Dodge runs off to find and kill The Cat. Redd summons all of her Earth forces, and the Wonderland troops are losing all over. Redd seems to be stronger than Alyss. Dodge is getting distracted by a decoy cat.
\nHatter and Molly start doing damage to the rear of the Boarderland forces. They are killing a ton of them, when a bomb rolls near Molly, and Weaver sacrifices herself to save Molly. She actually dies this time.
\nAlyss orders all the troops to retreat, but make it look like they are still fighting. When they are almost to Heart Palace she tells Hatter to go tie the green thread, but over Talon Point instead of Heart Palace. He does and huge explosion rocks the world. Imagination powers no longer seem to work, and Redd, thinking that Alyss did this and is not affected, retreats to rebuild her forces. Arch senses weakness and plans to overthrow her.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"sense-and-sensibility-austen","title":"Sense and Sensibility","author":"Jane Austen","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":409,"yearPublished":1811,"publisher":"Penguin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14935.Sense_and_Sensibility","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"1314246","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9780141439662","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"sense-and-sensibility-austen-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/sense-and-sensibility-austen/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/4/2024","dateFinished":"4/6/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I think I let Jane Eyre raise my hopes for this. It was old, and a romance, and boring. I do like the social critique and commentary aspect but it definitely would have held more weight if I still lived in a world like the one depicted. Not bad writing just nothing for me to enjoy. Good stuff to know for Jeopardy though.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shackled-wisehart","title":"Shackled","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"The Aldoran Chronicles","seriesNumber":0.5,"pages":184,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Michael Wisehart","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38469951-shackled","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"630","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shackled-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/shackled-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/27/2023","dateFinished":"1/27/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A good prequel. Pretty short but gave a good accounting of Ferrin’s life up until we see him in the books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shadeslinger-kirrin","title":"Shadeslinger","author":"Kyle Kirrin","series":"The Ripple System","seriesNumber":1,"pages":646,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Portal Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57584583-shadeslinger","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"4728","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781913695088","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shadeslinger-kirrin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/shadeslinger-kirrin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/26/2022","dateFinished":"10/1/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"LitRPG is my official guilty pleasure. I think the genre as a whole is pretty weak, but this one wasn’t terrible. The writing is mediocre but Travis Baldree does a great narration and it’s a fun, easy story. One annoying thing that a lot of litRPG authors do is try to use “gamer lingo” which always comes off horribly and is super off putting, but that didn’t happen here at all. I remember there was one thing early on that annoyed me but i forget what it was so it must have not been super egregious.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shadow-lands-breene","title":"Shadow Lands","author":"K. F. Breene","series":"The Warrior Chronicles","seriesNumber":3,"pages":326,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25589581-shadow-lands","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"12556","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781514629772","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shadow-lands-breene-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/shadow-lands-breene/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/10/2022","dateFinished":"6/15/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Bad
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shadow-s-edge-weeks","title":"Shadow's Edge","author":"Brent Weeks","series":"Night Angel","seriesNumber":2,"pages":636,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3754016-shadow-s-edge","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"109968","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316033657","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shadow-s-edge-weeks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/shadow-s-edge-weeks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/16/2022","dateFinished":"10/28/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"It took me a very long time to finish this. It started getting better in the last 150 pages, and the action scenes were enjoyable but it just felt super slow and boring for most of it. Left a lot of unclosed plot lines so I probably will end up finishing the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shadows-of-self-sanderson","title":"Shadows of Self","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn: Wax and Wayne","seriesNumber":2,"pages":383,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22887640-shadows-of-self","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"216193","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9781473208223","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shadows-of-self-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/shadows-of-self-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/5/2022","dateFinished":"9/8/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This one was a big step up from the first book, felt much more intentional and focused. Wayne is also much less annoying and given more attention in this one, and Steris also became a real character and not just an object. The plot also expanded way more so I understand how there is going to be a fourth book now. Almost done with the Cosmere.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"shadows-upon-time-ruocchio","title":"Shadows Upon Time","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":7,"pages":928,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222685709-shadows-upon-time","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"3006","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780756420000","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"shadows-upon-time-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/shadows-upon-time-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"12/18/2025","dateFinished":"1/16/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Great Conclusion to a great series. Second best book in the series behind Demon in White. The very very end felt a bit rushed but I think that was intentional. The build up to certain scenes was done incredibly, feels good to have a modern series conclude so well.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Shadows Upon Time
\nChristopher Ruocchio
\nSun Eater #7
Opens with Hadrian trying to teach Cassandra to hear The Quiet. Then he is notified the Jadians have arrived and meets with Prince Kime Eloran (his friend from Emesh who is actually their biggest prince). Explains how he took the Demiurge, was betrayed by the empire, learned the Chantry employ demons secretly built on Earth, and was forced to kill the Empire men after they ruined the alliance with the Lothrians. The Prince takes some convincing but believes him, and is scared of the Mericanii weapons stored on the Demiurge. Hadrian asks him to escort him to Forum so he can talk to the emperor. They go and people hate Hadrian but he is not attacked, only called a homonculus because they have not yet seen his reborn body.
\nHe talks with William over the telegram and William seems like he is dying. They plan to meet at Goddodan and launch one final assault to kill all the Cielcen. Alexander is acting as emperor when Hadrian gets there since his father is sick and in fugue, but Strategos Basander Lin is also there and they reconnect. Hadrian is planning to sacrifice himself to lure Doreaka to a planet and kill him. But Princess Seline and Cassandra keep coming with him anad foiling his plans. They go to save some refugees from Duna (Switch’s home planet from forever ago), but when they are there Hadrian fights the prince of princes and they stalemate and then Ushara the watcher takes control of a bunch of his men and make Holden and Captain Goshal all kill each other. She takes control of Cassanra and both her and Hadrian almost die.
\nThey go to the Goddoden system to meet the emperor and prepare for a Cielcin attack, since Hadrian told them where the fleet was. At first only Alexander greets them and he is still a spiteful little bully who wants to claim Demiurge, but the emperor summons them to himself. He is dying of the Rot, the disease released by the Minoans. He is half in fugue to slow the spread and speaks through a computer. He named Hadrian Ochter of the empire, meaning he is basically the emperor himself. He begins the evacuation of Goddoden, but keeps hitting issues and it is taking too long. After a number of years the Cielcin still have not showed up and support for Hadrian is dying. Alexander is backed by the Chantry and they hate him. Selene donates a bunch of food to the people of Goddodan who are trapped in refugee/evacutation camps. When her and Hadrian and Cassandra go to visit the planet there is a riot and they are almost killed. A young boy named Kit helps them escape and the Irk-tani fly them to safety. THey know Alexander and the chantry are behind this but can’t prove it. Eventually public opinion turns against Hadrian so bad he retreats to Demiurge. A prophecy from Orphan makes him know the Cielcin are still coming. Alexander and the Chantry then burn/bomb most of the planet and blame Hadrian for it. Oh hadrian also destroyed an empty outlying planet on his way into system as a show of force, Iden.
\nHadrian is forced to flee/hide. Goes to the emperor. He then magic-travels to Doreaka’s moon ( can;t remember the name) and kills his physical body with help, but that births a new watcher. HE flees and the Cielcin invade and attack the Solan fleet. Big battle happens, Hadrian thinks The jaddians and Lin are dead, but no they lived. Ushara makes him live through Cassandra dying and Lorians betrayal thousands of time to torture him, until orphan scares her away with a darak light weapon. Hadrian goes to see William. William and Nicephorous witness Hadrian named emperor of the SOlan empire, althoug he does not want it, and is secretly wed to Selene. He also learns that the palatine genetic codes are tied to his blood. HAdrian leaves the emperor, who does not have long to live, and is ambushed by Martians, Alexander, and the Chantry. They say he committed regicide and stole the throne, and that he is stealing Selene by force. They try to take Cassandra from him and they have to fight their way out with help from the JAddians. They get back to Demiurge and activate the Sun Eater. They think Lorian, Alexander, and most people die except Basander Lin and Jadd. But Lorian is awesome and escaped. They meet to discuss next moves. They need to avoid war and convince people Hadrian is rightful emperor. Hadrian thinks this is impossible and plans to die and give himself up. Lorian is upset, but leaves to go explore the galaxy. Everyone else goes to Avalon, when it turns out Alexander lives and has named himself emperor and killed his father. HAdrian sends Albe A2 awai with the Danu refugees and Cassandra, and him, Selene, and Basander lin go to the planet. They take Hadrian prisoner, although many see that he was the rightful emperor. Lin is demoted and Selene is never seen again. THey hang Hadrian althoug hwe know he is revived because he is writing this account. The end.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"sharp-ends-abercrombie","title":"Sharp Ends","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"First Law World","seriesNumber":7,"pages":304,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26030742-sharp-ends","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"26735","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316390811","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"sharp-ends-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/sharp-ends-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/3/2026","dateFinished":"1/8/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Started off slow but once I started to remember the characters and story more it was very enjoyable. The last two short stories were fantastic, and good looks into the background of many characters we know.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Sharp Ends
\nJoe Abercrombie
\nFirst Law World #7
A collection of short stories from around the circle of the world.
\nA Beautiful Bastard - Kadir, 566 - A glimpse in Colonel San Dan Glokta back when he was the handsome, popular fencing champion. Adam West is there and the merchant he tortures at the start of the first book. We even hear him volunteer to stop the Gurkish on the bridge where he will get captured.
\nSmall Kindnesses - Westport, Autumn 573 - Shevedieh, or Shev, an ex thief who know owns a small smoke shop with her assistant Severard. Her friend/occasional lover/work acquaintance Carcolf stops by and offers her a job, but Shev wants to leave that life. She and Severard help a big woman who is beat up off their porch and into bed. Later Shev is forced into a job by the son of Horald the Finger, the biggest crimeboss in Westport. She steals what she thinks is the item but then turns out it was not there and Carcolf already stole it or something. The son is going to kill her but Javre, Lioness of Hopka wakes up and kills all of the men. Shev and Javre run off together.
\nThe Fool Jobs - East of the Crinna, Autumn 574 - Curnden Craw, with his gang of Wonderful, Brack-i-Dayn, and some other Northmen, and a new guy Whirren of Bligh, are supposed to steal a glowing stick from a nearby village. They dash in, everything is going mostly to plan, and they find the stick, Craw tells his guy Yon to grab it. They all flee, Whirrun solo’ed a bunch of people with the father of swords. They escape and are happy, but Yon grabbed the wrong thing and the town burned down behind them.
\nSkipping Town - The Near Country, Summer 575 - Shev and Javre have been having misadventures and Javre wants to leave, but Shev wants to pay back their debts to an innkeeper first, so they go to the inn but are ambushed by people hunting Javre. Javre unveils her sword which blinds people and they kill everyone. Javre used to be a preistess, and the others are trying to kill her. SHev leaves a gem for the innkeeper and they leave.
\nHell - Dagoska, Spring 576 - We see the turkish invasion of Dagoska from a priest. The eaters come and people are terrified. The lead priest sacrifices himself to save his people.
\nTwo’s Company, Somewhere in the North, Summer 576 - Shev and Javre are wandering the north and cross a bridge. While crossing a certain Whirrun of Bligh is crossing back the other way. Javre and Whirrun argue about who should get to go first. They decide to fight. Then they argue about which side of the bridge to fight on. They cross and Whirrun and Javre do fisticuffs. Then Bethod’s men who were chasing Whirrun show up and the three of them team up to kill them. Then Whirrun and Javre have sex. While that is happening three more priestesses hunting Javre show up, and the three of them kill them. They decide to travel together for a while to help each other.
\nWrong Place, Wrong Time - Styria, 580 - We see innocent people who got caught up in Monza Murcattos revenge story. The first is a banker in Westport who dies because they wanted to kill his boss. The second is a prostitue at Cardotti’s house of leisure who dies when they burn it down. The third is a soldier in Grand Duke Orso’s army who sees his whole squad die and swaps sides.
\nSome Desperado, The Near Country, Summer 584 - Back when Shy was a thief. She is running from her 3 ex co-conspirators and her horse just died at a small empty town. She hides in second story tavern. She throws the first one off the balcony, then stabs and kills the second, and shoots the third with a bow. But all the money falls down a well and is lost. So she takes their horses and leaves to go home.
\nYesterday, Near a Village Called Barden… - Near Barden, Autumn 584 - Tinder is a northman trying to start a farm for his two children. The union is marching on Bethod and tramples all his crops. Gorst walks up and asks for a glass of milk. Nearby, pale-as-snow is planning a raid on the union camp. But it gets bungled when someone has to poop and warns the union. Gorst kills a couple of people, the northmen burn wagons and kill horses and flee. Gorst leaves Tinder a big coin to say sorry.
\nThree’s A Crowd - Talins, Autumn 587 - Shev is hanging out with Shilo Vitari watching Monza crown her son King of Styria. She has officially been pardoned by Harold the Finger and is finally free. She goes back to the place she is sharing with Carcolf, and finds it trashed and note from Harold saying he has Carcolf and wants Shev to come. Shev goes and finds a drunken Javre who is playing cards with Tunny. Together they go to save CArcolf and Shev ends up kills / incapaciting 5 men because Javre is slow and drunk. She find s Carcolf drinking wine with Harold, and Harold does not seem that mad. He forgives her for killing his son. But he has debts and the priestess Javre has been fleeing is here, who is actually her mother. Javre has to steal something from a wizard for them. Shev and Carcolf go home, but Shev finds a note saying Carcolf went to Harold on purpose to help trap Javre. Shev walks out.
\nFreedom! - Averstock, Summer 590 - An edited history of Nicomo Costa by the historian Spillion Sworbreck. Makes him and his company ot to be like angels on Earth. And obviously he never drinks. The notes were found on a dead Sworbreck.
\nTough Times All Over - Sipani, Spring 592 - Carcolf is making a getaway with a package and some coin. She is a courier now. She gets mugged and the package and coin get stolen. The mugger goes home to find Friendly waiting to collect his debts. Friendly takes the package to the Quarryman. The quarryman has her own debts so she gives it to Deep and Shallow, who Carcolf thought would be attacking her double further away. They are supposed to dump the package in a well for “The Bald Boss”. But it gets stolen by a young thief who gets away and Deep and Shallow fight each other. The thief puts iti n a violinists pocket, who lets a young man at a dinner take it, who hands it off to a young boy, who brings it to the Green Man, an old lady who runs the children in town. She gives it to a guy who then gets mugged by Javre. Javre gives the package to Pombrine, who is who Carcolf took it from in the first place. Pombrine is excited and Javre takes some of his prostitutes to bed. Pombrine locks himself in his office and grabs a bottle of wine, when he turns back around The package is being pulled up through the ceiling by a certain Shevedieh, best thief in Styria. Shev is running with it when she sees Javre through the window, they say hi and Shev runs. She disguises herself as a priest and returns to her home, where Carcolf is waiting to take the package. Carcolf leaves with it.
\nMade A Monster - Carleon, Summer 570 - Bethod is teaching his sons Scale and Calder that peace is good and he wants to build a road through the North. But Logen, the bloody-nine, has been getting crazier and has a rival chief, rattlesnakes, son. Bethod goes to ask for the prisoner so he can make peace. Rattlesnake agrees, he just wants his son, but Bethod goes down and finds that Logen killed the son and is playing with the gore. Bethod feels he made a monster from his old friend.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"shattersoul-kirrin","title":"Shattersoul","author":"Kyle Kirrin","series":"The Ripple System","seriesNumber":4,"pages":877,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Portal Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/171670888-shattersoul","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"1764","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781913695538","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"shattersoul-kirrin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/shattersoul-kirrin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/30/2023","dateFinished":"7/9/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I was disappointed at the beginning because I wasn’t really feeling the book and I had thoroughly enjoyed the first 3 in the series, however around halfway it really started heating up, and I was super upset when it ended because I wanted to keep reading. I like the transition to a new antagonist in this one, a good change of pace.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"ship-of-magic-hobb","title":"Ship of Magic","author":"Robin Hobb","series":"Liveship Traders","seriesNumber":1,"pages":880,"yearPublished":1998,"publisher":"Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45100.Ship_of_Magic","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"104882","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780006498858","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"ship-of-magic-hobb-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/ship-of-magic-hobb/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/20/2026","dateFinished":"2/2/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Very slow, but the character work is incredible. Kyle is so incredibly frustrating, while still feeling real. I thought the Malta chapters were some of the best character work I have ever read. Loved the Captain Kinnit chapters, added a fun change of pace and eventually tied into the other characters.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Ship of Magic
\nRobin Hobb
\nThe Liveship Traders #1
Prologue sees a group of sea serpents waking up, and one of them who has strange memories / visions saying it is time for them to move.
\nMIDSUMMER
\nChapter 1:
\nCaptain Kennit, of the Marietta, a pirate ship, is on the “Others” island. Had to land in a tricky cove called deception cove, and him and one of his crew, Gankis, are now walking the treasure beach, finding pristine trinkets that are undamaged by the sea and more masterfully crafted than any man could make. He then takes them to the Other, a strange ocean/amphibious creature. Kennit gives him some of his treasures but keeps a couple for himself (Which you are not supposed to do). The Other augurs and confirms that Kennit's aspiration to become the pirate king will come true. Kennit and Gankis barely escape the island as the tide leaves. Kennit was able to break the enchantment the Other put on him due to a small charm carved of Wizard wood. The charm comes alive and can talk to him.
We also are introduced to Wintrow, a young priest of Sa in Jamaillia City (south of Bingtown), being mentored by Berandol. Wintrow has been called home because his grandfather is dying. He seems to have something similar to Autism that makes him very uncomfortable in large crowds.
\nChapter 2:
\nBrashen is a sailor on the Vivacia, a Liveship soon to be quickened (awakened). He used to be first mate under captain Ephron Vestrit, but Ephron is sick and dying so he made his son-in-law Kyle Haven captain, who replaced Brashen and clearly dislikes him.
Althea, Ephron’s daughter, has grown up on the Vivacia, and loves the ship and sailing, but Kyle dislikes her also and confines her to her quarters and says after this voyage she will no longer be permitted to sail. But Althea believes her father will get better and when he does die, he will give her the ship. Althea has seen Kyle is not a great captain and makes mistakes, plus he does not know much about how a liveship works. It is an extremely expensive ship commissioned by Althea’s great grandmother carved of Wizard wood (they are still in debt due to this), and after 3 generations of the family die on it’s deck then it Quickens and becomes alive holding the knowledge of those who have died on it.
\nParagon is an old beached lliveship said to bring bad luck. A trader standing by it talking says he wants to buy it to chop it up and sell the wizard wood.
\nChapter 3:
\nRonica Vestrit is Ephron’s wife. She has tried to manage their family holdings but they are falling more and more into debt, and it is clear Ephron is going to die soon. Another of the original trader families (those who settled this land generations ago and were gifted many acres by the Satrap), Davad Restart, comes to visit but is gross and rude and does not respect women that much. We learn that a mysterious something is affecting Bingtown, and half of all children born are monsters of some sort. Ronica does not like that Althea spends all her time on a ship and wishes her to marry.
Chapter 4:
\nKennit makes port in Divvytown, a dirty, crime laden home for pirates. His first mate Sorcor is very good at his job. Kennit dislikes the habit and ignorance of many of his crew, but lets them go about life since pirates are hard to control. He heads to a brothel and spends the night with his favorite whore, Etta. Etta proposes that he basically buy her and let her keep a small home for him whenever he is here but he refuses her.
Chapter 5:
\nKeffria, Kyle’s wife, Althea’s sister, and Wintrow’s mother, has all her children at the family home in Bingtown. They can see Ephron is dying and the Vivacia is almost back, so he needs to die on her deck. Althea has been having visions/dreams/memories from the ship even though it is not quickened yet, causing her to lose weight and become frail. The Vivacia arrives back at Bingtown
Chapter 6:
\nEphron is rushed to the ship,and Althea and Brashen go to get the figurehead peg, a slightly more important piece of wizard wood. They get it for him and Althea and Ephron clutch it, althea expecting the ship to be named hers. Then Ephron, at Ronica’s prodding, says the ship will go to Keffria by right of birth order. Althea is devastated. Kyle has been showing his anger and lack of knowledge about liveships, giving Ronica some discomfort. Kyle tells Wintrow to place the figurehead peg in the figurehead and awaken the ship, since a blood relative must do it, but Wintrow says it is not his place despite his fathers threats and Althea and Brashen do it. Vivacia awakens and recognizes Althea, and likes her. Then Kyle kicks Althea and Brashen off his ship. Brashen leaves to try to find work elsewhere
Chapter 7:
\nWintrow goes with his family as they sail into the harbor and sink Ephron’s body. His father sends him to the second-mate Torg, an oafish man, to do busy work to punish him for standing up for himself. Vivacia is sad they are all leaving her, so Wintrow volunteers to sleep on the ship which also upsets Kyle. Wintrow berates the night watch for drinking, recalling some of his grandfathers memories, and asks Torg for a clean blanket but Torg is a gross, dirty, cruel dog-man.
\nAlthea has been getting very drunk about town, and Brashen honors his promise to Ephron and watches over her then offers to walk her home.
Chapter 8:
\nKeffria and the family go home. Her and Kyle argue lightly about the best way to handle Althea, but Keffria, as always, accedes to Kyle’s will. Kyle gets up to go check if Althea is back.
\nBrashen walks Althea through town, avoiding crowded areas so she won’t be seen in the state she is in, despite her being rude to him. They pass by Amber’s shop. A rain wilds trader who makes wooden jewelry. He had just gotten Althea home when Kyle opens the front door and accosts them. Kyle is loud and accuses Brashen of trying to sleep with a drunk Althea. He then grabs Althea harshly and when she tries to go inside and tells him to stop he goes to punch Braashen, who is more nimble and dodges. Ronica shows up and tells them all to shut up and stop. She asks Brashen to leave and tells Kyle to calm down.
Maulkin and his sea serpents continue their travels.
\nChapter 9:
\nBrashen goes to sleep on the Paragon, the beached ship. They are old friends.
Kennit and Sorcor have a meal aboard the Marietta in Divvytown. Kennit still needs to convince people to make him pirate king, but starts by telling Sorcor he wants to start an “escort” business (pay us or we attack you). But he also wants to take a liveship for himself. Sorcor makes him agree that for every liveship they chase they take down 1 slaver (Sorcor is an ex slave). Kennit reluctantly agrees.
\nWintrow uses good logic and arguments to try to convince his family to let him go back to the monastery and be a priest, but Kyle wants him on the Vivacia since he is the oldest male blood vestrit. As Wintrow pleads his case, he suggests letting Althea take his place and Kyle punches him and knocks him out.
\nChapter 10:
\nAlthea wakes up and is listening to Ronica, Keffria, and Kyle argue while Ronica cares for Wintrow’s unconscious body. Kyle starts insulting Althea, so she enters the room and confronts him. They continue arguing. As Althea and Kyle get more angry (Kyle saying she is a spoiled little girl who can’t sail and should be married off, and Althea saying he is a greedy, control hungry man), Kyle swears “By Sa”, that if a single captain says Althea is a good sailor he would give her the Vivacia. Wintrow wakes up and says why not let Althea on the Vivacia and him return to the monastery so everyone can be happy. Kyle is enraged and blasphemes that he does not care if the boy was given to Sa, by Bingtown law until Wintrow is 15 his labor belongs to his father. He again resorts to violence and grabs Wintrow roughly. Kyle makes Wintrow leave and begins berating Althea again. She says all he wants is control of the Vestrit family, and Kyle says he wants to provide for his children and make them profitable again and that Althea is a drunk whore.Ronica intervenes and makes them be quiet. She explains to Althea how she persuaded her father to change the will since it seemed best, and that she included that Keffria must care for her sister until she is married. Ronica feels bad, but after seeing how drunk Althea was last night she agrees with Kyle to not let her back on the ship. Althea pleads with her mother but both her and Kyle say she has no place on the Vivacia. Althea says if that is so she has no place in this family and walks away.
Kyle continues saying stupid, idiot stuff and Ronica finally tells him to shut up. Ronica is beginning to she she made a terrible mistake and Kyle is a mean dumb stupid idiot. She beseeches Keffria that she did not make her heir to all their holdings with the intent of controlling her sister, but Kyle keeps intervening, talking about their children. She realizes Keffria has become a puppet for Kyle, and will not stand up for herself. And due to legal technicalities Kyle is the head of the family. Kyle turns to how he will save the family. He wants to take slaves and sell them using the Vivacia, they talk him out of that so then he wants the family charts for the rain wilds river, which Ephron refused to trade on. Ronica will not give him the charts so he says he will trade slaves. Torg knows slave merchants. Ronica realizes she must be stealthy and try to fix the mistake she has made by giving Kyle power.
\nImportant chapter.
\nChapter 11:
\nAlthea goes to Curtil, the family advisor who made her fathers will. Nothing can be done about them, but Kyle’s oath by Sa to give her the ship could be made into a claim with the Bingtown Council. She simply must work for a captain and get a recommendation. She briefly speaks with Vivacia, comforting the ship and herself. She runs into Amber on the docks and feels weird, so she hurries off. She worries for her family, and fears Kyle will harm Vivacia mentally. She does not want Vivacia to end up like Paragon, who was quickened by a father and son dying on his decks at the same time due to a storm or some other mysterious reason. Then the next two captains also both suffered tragedy sailing him. Althea heads down to the paragon to seek refuge.
Chapter 12:
\nParagon and Althea talk briefly, she used to visit him as a child. She is startled to learn Brashen is also staying here. When Brashen returns they talk for a while. Brashen Trell can relate to her since he also is the son of a trader family who left them. He tells her she should go back and seek forgiveness. She says she wants to sail and he warns her of the dangers of being a women aboard a bad ship of men.
Kennit and Sorcor spot a slave ship and go take it. The attack goes very well and the men are excited. There is no loot to be had, only slaves, and Kennit knows they will not see much profit from this. But Sorcor is happy and Kennit fears he may have to remove him.
\nChapter 13:
\nBrashen awakes and Althea is already gone, he talks with Paragon and paragon says that he wishes he could die, and that is always an option for Brashen.
Althea sells earrings her father gave her then goes to see Amber’s shop. Amber and Althea talk, then AMber offers her a gift. Althea chooses a serpents egg bobble. Amber says she wants to help Althea thwart fate, and they kind of become friends.
\nWintrow is forced to learn everything about a ship rapidly. They force him into any and all chores and he is sore and exhausted. Finally he is invited to his fathers cabin and they share a meal. Kyle is kind of proud of him, and offers him a Vivacia earring to mark him as a member of the crew. Wintrow refuses since a priest can never mark their body. This sends Kyle into a rage and he again states how ALthea can’t be on the ship because she is a woman and Wintrow must be a man (Kyle seems to hate women). Wintrow rebuts his father saying he speaks like a Chalcedean, where they hold slaves so long eventually women start be little better than slaves. Kyle gets even more irate and throws Wintrow out of his cabin, giving him into Torgs keeping. Wintrow is distraught.
\nDue to a note from ALthea, Ronica briefly talks to Vivacia and asks that she invite Althea home if they speak again. Vivacia tells her how much Ephron trusted her and trusted her to care for their holdings in Bingtown while he sailed.
\nChapter 14:
\nKennit takes the captured ship, the Fortune, to Askew, a small island town home to freed slaves. He has the ship flying his Raven emblem and will take cheap offers on it. Kennit searches the new ship once the slaves are off-loaded, and finds the captains charts. He realizes how valuable they are. Kennit finally goes ashore, and is worried by how people are acting. But then the townsfolk come up and practically worship him, the slaves he brought them were from their same home village and they are reunited. Everyone is overjoyed and Kennit realizes he needs to trust his luck more. He leaves them the ship and some of his seasoned crew to teach them, and tells them to be pirates under his Raven flag, and that he will take half of their profits. They eagerly accept. He sees a new path to power.
Kyle and Keffria are discussing things. Keffria wants to see Wintrow before he leaves but Kyle says no. He tells her that Trog tried to go scare Althea off when she was talking to the Vivacia but she pushed him off the dock (Awesome). Malta (their eldest daughter) asks if she may speak to them and Kyle brushes her off, but she speaks anyway. She wants to go to the Harvest Offering, and wear a gown like a woman. Keffria and Ronica had not been planning to go due to mourning. Keffria says she will of course not be wearing a woman’s dress, for she is still a girl. Keffria and Malta argue, but Keffria won’t budge. But Kyle is just laughing and then overrules Keffria and says Malta may wear a gown. Keffria is shocked. Malta leaves and Keffria explains to a laughing Kyle that this will mark Malta as a woman able to be courted, and she has not been taught how to dance or deal with pushy men. Kyle is uncomfortable, but then gets angry and tries to storm off which makes Keffria feel bad and beg his forgiveness. Kyle leaves, but not before insulting Keffria and their time courting. Keffria has so many fond memories but he ruins them all and says she was to slow and he had to teach her everything. Ronica tries to comfort Keffria but they are both realizing that Kyle, it turns out, is a stupid pig.
\nChapter 15:
\nThe Vivacia is leaving. Wintrow has been struggling to learn the ways of the ship, and has kind of befriended the old ships boy Mild. Vivacia herself also helps keep Wintrow sane and happy.
Althea sneaks up to Vivacia and asks her to summon Wintrow. Althea wants to make sure he will vouch that he heard Kyle swear by Sa to give her the ship. Wintrow says of course he will tell the truth. They both wish they could swap places.
\nRonica Vestrit meets with her rain wild counterparts, the family that sold them the wizard wood for Vivacia. Caolwn Festrew is about Ronica’s age. Her daughter recently died, the rain wilds are harsh and disease not uncommon. They go through the many traditions of how trading between their families has always been done, but now Ronica must ask a favor since she is lightly short on the gold she owes. Caolwn reminds her it is “Gold or Blood”, but Ronica convinces her not to take a member of her family, and she will pay extra next time. Caolwn agrees, but reassures Ronica that a life in the rain wilds is not bad. They would care well for a Vestrit family member.
\nKyle leaves soon, and Keffria once more brings up the issue of Malta. She really wants to raise Malta the way she sees is right, but Kyle just insults her and her family some more and Keffria once again realizes that she may have made a mistake.
\nAlthea comes to see Ronica at night, and extract her promise that she would speak of her hearing Kyle’s oath to give her the ship before the trader council.
\nSessurea supports Maulkin as the serpents continue their journey, despite some in their tangle doubting him.
\nAUTUMN
\nChapter 16:
\nAlthea is posing a ship’s boy aboard a slaughter ship called The Reaper. They go and hunt animals and stuff, gross, dangerous, overcrowded work. Reller, another sailor, is kind to her. The weather is very stormy, and she is tasked with taking the kettle back to the galley. On her return trip, she is almost washed overboard, but an angry sailor pulls her up the ropes. But it is Brashen, who is also aboard this ship, since slaughter ships are the easiest to get on to. ALthea has learned the hard truth that before she was not a sailor. She knew how to do many of the tasks but had never been forced to do them until exhausted and in any weather. It is a hard reality to accept. Althea had lived with Amber through the end of summer, where they made mans clothes and Amber taught Althea how to pretend to be a boy.
Brashen has climbed through the ships ranks quickly due to his skill and effort, and now has his own small private cabin and controls the ships medicine since he can read. He had not known Althea was on board until a ways into their voyage when he recognized her. He thinks Althea is a capable sailor, she just does not have the muscle many of the men have. Reller shows up asking for medicine and we learn Brashen has asked the man to keep an eye on “His Cousin’s boy”.
\nWintrow is talking with Mild in the crows nest and is finally starting to learn what it is to be a sailor and maybe even fit in with the crew some.
\nThe Reaper arrives at the Barrens, and the hunters are going ashore. ALthea thinks this means rest but is sent to help row a boat in. She helps out with various tasks on shore, and is disgusted by all the blood, death, gore, and viscera. This goes on for days and she still finds it repulsive, but eventually they are trying to beat the weather and she is forced into helping skin the animal carcasses. She finds she is very good at it and flies through the work. She brags to Brashen when they are alone and he reminds her what would happen if they knew she was a woman. Reller tells her about when he say a host of dragons off the six duchies coast a few years back.
\nThe Vivacia parks at Cress, and Wintrow talks with Vivacia and she shows him Ephron’s memories of the place. He is given shore leave and wants to visit all the sites his grandfather loved. The sailors try to convince him to come with them but he does not like drinking and gambling and whoring. As he explores the town the locals don’t seem very inviting, and eventually a couple of guardsmen tell him to stop staring and get back to the docks. He tries to take a different path to see a wall his grandfather loved but the guards spot him and threaten him until he leaves. Back at the docks, he finds his crew about to fall for a scam. A beast-tamer has a trained bear and lets people pay to fight it, and the whole crew is betting on Comfrey. Wintrow tries to talk them out of it but Comfrey goes in and loses to the bear, losing the crew all of their money. They accuse the beat-tamer of cheating them, and he says someone else may fight the bear for free to earn all their money. Torg tries to make Wintrow do it but he says no so Mild volunteers, who is high on something. The Bear savages mild and everyone is upset, despite Wintrow trying to warn them the whole time they are mad at him and he fears he has lost any chance to be part of the crew.
\nChapter 17:
\nKennit arrives back in DIvvytown with everything going his way. He now has seven ships in his “Armada”. People are starting to hear of his power and fame, and he is pleased. He goes into port with Sorcor to meet a merchant to sell their goods, Sincure Faldin. Faldin proposes a partnership, where he gets first dibs to sell all goods Kennit brings in, in return for favorable prices. He also raises Kennit becoming king, but says he needs ties to Divvytown, and offers his own young daughters as brides for Kennit and Sorcor. Sorcor is entranced. Kennit agrees to nothing but sells his wares and heads to Bettel’s Bagnio to see Etta. When he enters he can tell something is wrong. Smoke fills the air and their are more men than usual. Bettel also acts strangely and offers him a different girl. He heads up the stairs to his usual room, but then waits in ambush. Three men from below follow him and he kills them all. He then continues up and finds three more men in his room. He kills one quickly but is then on the defensive as the other 2 work together. One taunts his goal to be pirate king and throws insults, and Etta is lying on the bed with blood on her. Kennit is upset, but can’t get to the men, when Etta ambushes them from behind with blankets so they get tangled up and Kennit kills them. Sorcor and his men run up, and are impressed that Kennit killed 6. They killed 4 men outside to get to him. He has them do some tasks but says all his crew should sleep on the Marietta tonight, and has one of his men take Etta to his cabin and care for her.
Chapter 18:
\nMalta goes against her mothers wishes and attends the Harvest Offering. Before leaving, Kyle left her money and a note saying she should buy a green dress. She goes behind her mother’s back and uses her free time to get fitted for a dress. She steals the silks from Althea’s room that were originally intended as a gift for her. The first dressmaker tells her her colors are not green, and then tries to make a girls dress, so Malta leaves and picks a new seamstress she does not know. This one has cousins/friends that sell perfume, makeup, and jewelry so Malta buys it from all of them based on their recommendations. The night of the harvest ball comes, and Malta sneaks out to go. While she is waiting outside, her friend Dello Trell, arrives but is wearing a girls frock, not a womens gown and Malta is mad. Her brother Cerwin eyes Malta lecherously (She is 12 almost 13, I think he is like 17-18). Her outfit is getting strange looks and reactions. Then Davad Restart arrives and thinks she is a prostitute Cerwin brought. When he recognizes her he hides her behind him so the Rainwilds Traders won’t see her and rushes her back to her house. Malta still does not see what the problem is and thinks she looks great. She, Kephria, and Ronica all argue but Malta does not think she did anything wrong. She has feelings for Cerwin.
Chapter 19:
\nWintrow is very sad, and talks to Vivacia. He recently hurt his finger terribly when a rope Mild was holding slipped. Wintrow is trying to reconcile his priestly beliefs with how the sailors all act. Wintrow realizes his finger must be cut off to prevent the spread of infection and disease, and Vivacia tells him to do on her deck, by her. He goes to his father and Kyle is clearly distressed and does not want to cut it off. Wintrow asks him to but he makes the mate Gantry do it. Gantry does it on the deck with all watching and Wintrow does not scream or faint. And tells the crew he is not a coward.
Minglsey brings Amber to meet Paragon, he wants her carve up his wizard wood into jewelry. But she refuses and instead comes back to meet paragon and they begin to form a friendship.
\nWINTER
\nChapter 20:
\nThe Reaper makes port in Nook. “Athel” the ships boy has been more accepted by the crew since her success skinning. The crew is celebrating in a tavern before the ship heads back home the following day. Brashen is using cindin, a habit he never indulged on the vivacia but can give in to now. A pretty barmaid invites him back to her room, and he accepts.
Althea / Athel is celebrating with Reller and some other sailors. They hear rumors of Crimpers in the area. People who steal sailors for ships. They all head back to the ship, but Althea notices Brashen is gone and goes to look for him. She finds his unconscious body in the maids room, with the half naked barmaid nearby, she senses something is wrong and dodges the first hit to her head from behind, she manages to scream for help before she is knocked unconscious.
\nA couple of nearby sailors overheard and come to help. The only person they think is at fault is the man who hit Althea, despite the barmaid clearly being in on it. She put something in Brashens beer to make him pass out. Althea helps Brashen back to the Reaper. Brashen is still struggling under the effects of the drugged beer.
Brashen finally starts to feel alive, and realizes his shoulder is covered in blood from Althea’s head wound, so he calls her back to his cabin to stitch her up. He gives her a small piece of cindin to help with the pain, and after he stitches her they kiss and end up sleeping together. Althea, under the influence of the cindin, tells him more of her history, and we learn that when she was 14 she was basically raped by a member of her fathers crew at some port, right after her father kicked the man off the Vivacia. Despite their closeness, Althea tells Brashen this can never happen again.
\nChapter 21:
\nI forgot to mention that at the start of the book Davad Restart gave Ronica an “Indentured Servant” named Rache. Ronica grew to like the women and knows Davad would sell her into slavery so she keeps her around. Rache informs her that Delo and Cerwin Trell are in the sitting room. Keffria and Ronica go to meet them. Malta had invited them to their house, and had clearly wanted to meet with them without her mother interfering. Ronica can see that Malta wanted to get alone with Cerwin. She sees that Malta has grown viscous with her wants and feels she is entitled to everything. With Keffria their to supervise Malta is stimied and upset. Ronica has plans for Rache to take care of Malta.
The Vivacia arrives in Jamaillia. Wintrow and Vivacia talk about Sa and his father’s loans. Vivacia senses serpents in the harbor and smells slaves.
\nKeffria tells Ronica that she feels forgotten, that because she followed the rules and did what was expected people only cared about Althea. Keffria has decided to be her own woman, and tells Ronica she will be taking over running parts of the estate and organizing their ledger books. Ronica is happy. Ronica warns Keffria that is they can not pay the debt to the Festrew family for Vivacia, Malta will most likely have to go to them.
\nChapter 22:
\nKennit still has been unable to capture a liveship. He is unsure how to feel about having Etta aboard ship and plans to find her someplace to stay. She tells him she thought that maybe if they could figure out what path a liveship was going to take ahead of time, they could wait to ambush it, and use other ships in a fleet to trap it.
Paragon listens ad Mingsley brings another potential buyer to see him. Paragon starts talking and throwing off the tradedeal, speaking of curses and such. When Mingsley starts saying only Live ships can trade up the rain wild river, Paragon becomes distressed. He becomes more frustrated and sullen.
\nAlthea spots a serpent following the Reaper. The serpent attacks the ship and they fight back. Althea saves the mate from following overboard. They manage to kill it but the crew and ship take damage.
\nWintrow comes to see Vivacia. He is planning to flee the ship in the night, swim to shore and make his way back to his monastery. Vivacia is devastated. He is her only true family aboard. But Wintrow leaves and swims ashore.
\nKennit and Etta are asleep in their bed. Kennit tells Etta very nice things that make her happy, but it was actually his wooden charm talking while he slept.
\nChapter 23:
\nWintrow is free in Jamaillia city. He plans how to avoid his father.
Vivacia is being berated by Kyle. He is very cruel to her. She warns Gantry he should probably find another ship.
\nKennit and Sorcor spot a slave ship and ready to attack it.
\nThey attack the Sicerna, and the captain, instead of fighting back, aggravates a serpent following the ship. As the ships battle, Kennit’s leg is bitten by the serpent. The serpent is about to pull Kennit over into the water, but Etta leaps over and severs his leg above the bite. Kennit is distraught and places anger on Etta.
\nWintrow is wandering in the slave market and is disgusted. A slave recognizes him as priest somehow, and asks for final rites for a dying woman. Wintrow comes and tries to help, but shes she is going to die so he blesses her and she gives up and dies. The owner of the slave is enraged and blames Wintrow, says that by right he should claim Wintrow as a slave to replace her. The reason the woman is dead is because she was pregnant so the man gave her poisons to kill the child. Wintrow tries to flee but is hit in the head by a guard.
\nChapter 24:
\nThe Bingtown and Rainwilds traders are meeting to discuss stuff, and Malta is being brought as Keffria has decided she should learn more of the family business. Malta is very upset they are riding with Trader Restart to town. Malta complains about most things. They arrive at the Trader Concourse, and are introduced to Jani of the Rain Wild’s Khuprus family. One of the most wealthy and influential Rain Wild’s families. Malta complains and tries to leave the whole meeting, and eventually pretends she has to use the bathroom to go outside. The meeting was to discuss what to do about the new Satrap and the problems he is causing. Outside Malta meets a young Rain Wild’s man, who gives her a scarf for the cold and some flame jewels as a gift. He holds her glass for her. Malta tries to leave with his scarf so he will have to come visit later to ask for it back.
Maulkin and Sessurea’s serpent Tangle continue their journey, although the memories seem to be becoming less clear. But it is clear something will happen soon.
\nChapter 25:
\nThe Reaper lands at Candletown and Brashen invites Althea to dinner with him. She tries to say no but he thinks she means yes. Athel goes to get his ships ticket from the captain, but she needs it in the name of Althea Vestrit if she wants to take back the Vivacia. When the captain realizes she is in fact a girl, he kicks her off the ship and refuses to give her the ticket.
Brashen feels like his luck has turned. He is happy and gets clean and has a quiet room waiting for him that night and is excited for dinner with Althea.
\nAlthea feel devastated and lost. She does not want to encourage Brashen so does not go to find him and hides alone in a tavern. Brashen comes to find her, upset, and she explains what happened and her plan to take back Vivacia from kyle. Now they are both sad and upset
\nChapter 26:
\nAmber and Paragon have become close friends. She brings him a necklace as a gift and is trying to learn more about him and about wizard wood and liveships.
Ronica and Keffria have had to cut down on all expenses. They are getting dangerously poor. Then they receive a dream box from an unknown visitor. A dream box is a way of initiating courtship in the Rain Wilds, and if opened will mean they accept. They are mad at Malta for not telling them of the young man and plan to return it.
\nKeffria steals the box from her mothers room and convinces herself it was actually from Cerwin and is not that big of a deal so she opens it and falls asleep. Malta shares a dream with the young Rain Wilds man.
\nChapter 27:
\nWintrow is being kept in a large shed, and if he is not claimed in 4 days he will be made and marked via tattooing as a slave. It is his last day to be claimed. Luckily Trog finds him, but because Trog is a cruel vindictive little pig man he leaves Wintrow.
Kennit is in pain and his leg is infected. Doctors have told him he needs to get a clean cut higher up but he refuses. He is mad at the world, but needs to maintain of his ship. Luckily Sorcor and Etta are unfailingly loyal to him and promise to help him. Etta tortured the ships captain that caused his injury and learns that a liveship, the Vivacia, will be coming this way soon.
\nChapter 28:
\nWintrow gets marked a slave of the satrap via a tattoo on his forehead.
Vivacia is disconsolate and lonely and scared in the harbor. She senses the serpents but no one believes her.
\nAlthea goes to Captain Tenira of the liveship Ophelia and asks to serve as ships boy back to Bingtown (again disguised as Athel). He is a fair man and agrees.
\nBrashen signs on to be first mate on the Springeve, a merchant ship, but seems to be getting addicted to cindin.
\nWintrow is for sale, and luckily his father is in the crowd and despite his anger buys his son. Trog pretends he did not know Wintrow was a slave, then takes him to instead of being marked as free, gets him tattooed as a slave directly of the Vivacia.
\nChapter 29:
\nMalta is confronted about the dream box and lies. She does slightly realize her actions are wrong but that just makes her lash out even more. She is cruel and mean to everyone and hates that they are poor.
Amber continues to tell Paragon of the world, and says she wanted to buy him and he freaks out.
\nKennit is getting worse. The leg is very infected but he refuses to do anything about it. His heart and mind are set on a liveship and he makes plans to capture one.
\nChapter 30:
\nWintrow is back on the Vivacia but this does not help her. Slaves are being loaded on and she feels their despair, plus Wintrow is kept locked up like a prisoner, and she is still mad at him for leaving her.
Keffria and Ronica are visited by Caolwn Festrew and Jani Khuprus. They learn the dream box was from Jani’s youngest son Reyn, and that it was opened by Malta. They also learn that the Festrew’s sold their debt to the Khuprus’. They have a positive discussion and eventually decide that Reyn may begin to see Malta as long as they are chaperoned and can not begin seriously until Malta is a bit older. If they do get married then the wedding gift will be forgiving the debt of the VIvacia, which would practically save the Vestrit family.
\nChapter 31:
\nWintrow and Viviacia try to reconnect but are still at odds with one another. Vivacia still senses serpents following them.
Kyle is more and more angry at Wintrow, partly because he sees he has made mistakes. He eventually hits Wintrow, and as a white serpent rears over the ship, Kyle prepares to throw Wintrow to the beast. It seems Kyle is under a spell or something kind of.
\nMaulkin’s tangle are following under Vivacia, but something is wrong. She is supposed to be able to share knowledge with them but can’t.
\nVivacia is freaking out as Kyle is about to kill Wintrow. Gantry hits Kyle and saves Wintrow and asks his captain what is going on. Kyle seems confused and unsure. Vivacia was touched by the white serpent and it gave her strange memories and feelings. She talks about being one and other weirdness.
\nWintrow and Vivacia are still at odds, partly blaming each other for their situations. Wintrow begins to care for the slaves, trying to be a priest in any way he can.
\nOphelia learns who Althea really is and tells her she should have come to the liveships to protest Kyle’s actions. They would back her up.
\nChapter 32:
\nWintrow keeps trying to help the slaves. One is dying of fever and wants to die on the deck, so Wintrow goes to get Gantry. Gantry is busy listening to Vivacia talk oddly about what happened when the white serpent touched her. He eventually agrees to help Wintrow to stop the spread of fever. When they go down, the slaves, led by former priest Sa’Adar, attack Gantry and free themselves, planning to take over the ship. Wintrow is horrified but one slave kills Gantry.
Despite a brewing storm Kennit is determined and says they will chase the Vivacia, even as she heads into potentially dangerous waters.
\nChapter 33:
\nThe slaves overrun the ship, but Wintrow realizes all the death and violence is awful for Vivacia, and tries to get them all to stop and help her. He ends up needing to take the wheel to keep them from hitting rocks. Torg is captured and brought out but Wintrow says he does not trust the man and he is thrown overboard to the serpents. Kyle is alive but beat up but Wintrow says he needs help to get them through this channel. Only 2 other sailors are alive. They work to save the ship.
Malta is furious and blames her mother for “Selling her”, despite being the idiot who opened the box. She thinks Reyn will be ugly and deformed like many from the Rain Wilds and feels betrayed. She consoles herself with thinking this will make Cerwin jealous.
\nKennit closes on the Vivacia and says he will take her himself. Both Etta and Sorcor are concerned, but it seems apparent he will die from disease regardless so they honor his wishes and say they will go with him.
\nChapter 34:
\nAlthea is summoned, and realizes Ophelia has betrayed her and told the captain about who she is. She is upset, but then learns that the captain plans to let her come back aboard as herself, a woman and a Vestrit, and act as first mate when his son Greg Tenira will have a “tooth ache”. She is ecstatic and Greg walks her into port. They danced together at a Bingtown ball many years ago and seem to have a connection.
Brashen is in port with a current shipmate who is also an ex-shipmate. We learn Brashen used to be a pirate called Weasel as a boy. He gets the sailor, Tarlock, so drunk he will miss leaving with the ship.
\nChapter 35:
\nSa’Adar recognizes Kinnit’s raven flag and welcomes him aboard, due to his reputation with slave ships. They all talk and come to an argument. Wintrow will do his best to heal Kinnit. If he fails they all die since Etta kills Wintrow then Vivacia kills all aboard her. In return, Wintrow says Kyle gets to live and he can care for his wounds also. Kinnit ingratiates himself with Vivacia and she really likes him. Everything seems to be an equilibrium, and Kinnit may survive. The pirates are good sailors and deckhands and Vivacia feels a bit of hope.
Chapter 36:
\nShe Who Remembers. Something is wrong in the Serpent’s world. Maulkin is not sure what. It seems like maybe wizard wood is dead serpents? Not sure entirely.
Awesome. This is really fun to read. Would recommend to people. Excited to read the rest. Lots of numbers of people and really cool characters. The epilogue framing it as a historical narrative is also really interesting. A good combination of humor with solid worldbuilding and plot.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"skysworn-wight","title":"Skysworn","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":4,"pages":292,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123289362-skysworn","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"33293","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001010","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"skysworn-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/skysworn-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/28/2025","dateFinished":"7/2/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"It has been a long time since I read blackflame but this one seemed like another step up. Enjoyable, short. Nothing special progression fantasy is just nice. Started reading it the morning I got married.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"snow-crash-stephenson","title":"Snow Crash","author":"Neal Stephenson","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":470,"yearPublished":1992,"publisher":"Bantam Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/603262.Snow_Crash","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"300641","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9780553562613","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"snow-crash-stephenson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/snow-crash-stephenson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"5/17/2026","dateFinished":"5/26/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"My 500th tracked book! Pretty disappointing. It had a lot of aspects I found interesting or enjoyable, but overall just became boring. I loved the breakdown of religion and the history of Sumer, but it was counterbalanced with fairly dull characters and a weird, funky plot. On top of that the oversexualization of a 15 year old girl was not my favorite thing in the world. Partly I think I have just been doing too much sci-fi this year and am burnt out a little, but nothing in this book would make me want to read it again or continue if it was a series. The ending was strange and abrupt, and I can’t decide if naming the main character Protagonist is funny or stupid. The best part outside of the religious theorizing is probably the satire of an overly corporate future which seems to slowly be coming true.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Snow Crash
\nNeal Stephenson
Snow Crash Summary
\nSet in a dystopian future that has become ultra capitalist, most of the world is broken up into different corporations and franchises. Hiro Protagonist is a pizza deliverator for the mafia, run by Uncle Enzo. During one failed pizza delivery Hiro is forced to rely on a courier (Mail by skateboard) to deliver his pizza and he becomes friends with the courier, YT (Yours Truly). YT is a 15 year old girl going through a rebellious teenage punk phase.
\nHiro lives in LA with a grunge/rock/loud noise musician named Vertali Chernobyl (Spelling). For work he is a hacker, concert promoter, ex-pizza delivery driver, and information gatherer. He collects info and gives it to the CIC Library, a massive collection of information that people pay to access parts of. He spends most of his free time within the Metaverse, a simulated reality only those with enough wealth to buy nice computers can access. Hiro is a talented hacker and self-proclaimed best sword fighter in the world, for both Earth and the Metaverse.
\nIn the metaverse Hiro is somewhat famous, and goes to his friend David’s bar, the Black Sun. This is full of famous people and was coded by David, Hiro, and Juanita, who dated Hiro then married David but now is with neither. Hiro sees Juanita and David arguing, then Juanita gives Hiro the vague warning to avoid “Snow Crash” and logs off. Hiro was just offered some of what he assumed was a drug by a large man outside the bar. David tries some Snow Crash which shows him a bitmap. Shortly after this his computer crashes, and Hiro later learns David was sent into a coma and has been hospitalized.
\nJuanita got Hiro two expensive pieces of software, one is a real-time model of the Earth, and the other is a Daemon called The Librarian, able to access the Library information. Juanita was looking at information gathered by someone named Lagos, who was investigating a television / internet magnate L. Bob Rife. Rife donated a bunch of money to the Reverend Wayne Pearly Gates foundation, and claims to be able to speak in tongues. Rife also bought an aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, and now lets millions of people string boats off of it as it drifts between asia and america, this is called “The Raft”.
\nHiro hosts a concert for Vitaly, which YT attends with a lot of other punk teenagers. During the concert Hiro meets Lagos, who is collecting information, and warns Hiro about a man named Raven (Who Hiro realizes is the big guy who offered him Snow Crash in the Metaverse). Shortly after that Hiro sees Raven driving a motorcycle with a sidecar. Raven has a deal with the Crips which soon escalates into violence. Hiro calls YT and tells her to tail Raven. Hiro then finds Lagos sliced cleanly in half by something super sharp. YT calls him and Hiro catches up to where Raven and the crips are fighting. Raven kills a lot of them and escapes. We learn that Raven keeps a nuke in his motorcycle sidecar and is incredibly dangerous.
\nHiro dives deeper into Lagos’ research and with the help of the Librarian learns that Snow Crash is a modern version of a virus that has existed for millenia. The Sumerian myths about Enki and Asherah are somewhat real, and Rife is bringing back this ancient virus in an attempt to control people. The Tower of Babel was actually a good thing, since it stopped people speaking Sumerian which is like a base level language and stopped the virus spread. Juanita tells him she is going to Oregon to get on the Raft (Bob Rife’s big caravan thing).
\nMeanwhile, YT meets Uncle Enzo of the Mafia and he likes her (as a friend), so he gives her his old dogtags and says she is a friend of the family. Soon after she gets pulled in by the mafia to help them learn about a snow crash delivery she is making to a church owned by Reverend Wayne. Next she meets with a man named Ing (spelling) who works security for the company Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong. Together they steal snowcrash from some drug dealers. It is very dangerous. YT’s mom works for the Federal Government, which in this time is a relatively small and not super powerful group, but they are incredibly controlling. Hiro and YT share information about Snow Crash and YT breaks her mom’s computer to make sure she can’t get infected. The next day when her mom goes to work they interrogate her and plan to capture YT. YT almost escapes the trap but ends up caught by some of Rife’s people, who take her to the Raft.
\nHiro has learned pretty much everything about Snow Crash. It is a neuro-linguistic virus that can program the human brain. It has existed forever, and multiple groups have tried to fight it but it keeps coming back. There is a specific code that could simulate the tower of babel event and break the virus, but Hiro does not know that yet. He plans to go save Juanita and YT form the Raft. He fights his way north from LA to Oregon, killing a few people with swords along the way. When he gets to the dock he teams up with a man named Fisheye from the mafia. They reach the raft but then Fisheye and the rest of the mafia get killed (in part by Raven) so Hiro is alone.
\nOn the raft, YT is on a date with Raven. She kind of likes him because he is so dangerous. They do inappropriate stuff, and Raven falls asleep due to a drug defense mechanism YT has, so she sneaks out to communicate with Hiro via the metaverse. Hiro makes it to the center of the Raft, the carrier Enterprise, and logs into the metaverse. Him and Raven have a motorcycle chase trying to stop Raven from infecting all the hackers in the metaverse, and learn that Hiro’s father and Raven’s father were both POW’s in WW2 together and it kind of brought both of their lives to the points they are now. Hiro saves the day and the hackers don’t get infected.
\nBob Rife himself captures YT and they leave in a helicopter, but YT kicks out the anti-virus snow crash babel saving tablet for Hiro. Juanita saves Hiro (She has now mastered the virus and can control people). They figure out the code and say they are going to get back together.
\nYT gets saved by a bunch of other Couriers who pull the chopper down, and her mom picks her up and takes her home. Uncle Enzo planned to kill Rife, but Raven ambushes them and Enzo manages to kill Raven. Ending is super weird. That’s about it. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"sojourn-salvatore","title":"Sojourn","author":"R. A. Salvatore","series":"The Legend of Drizzt","seriesNumber":3,"pages":320,"yearPublished":1991,"publisher":"Wizards of the Coast","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66695.Sojourn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_7","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"74322","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781560760474","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"sojourn-salvatore-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/sojourn-salvatore/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/1/2023","dateFinished":"4/18/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"My favorite book in the series was the second one, but this was right behind it. Several good plot arcs in such a short book. Did a great job explaining Drizzt’s adaptation and setting up his future adventures. Solid series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"son-of-the-black-sword-correia","title":"Son of the Black Sword","author":"Larry Correia","series":"Saga of the Forgotten Warrior","seriesNumber":1,"pages":432,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Baen","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276240-son-of-the-black-sword","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"10593","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781476781570","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"son-of-the-black-sword-correia-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/son-of-the-black-sword-correia/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/23/2023","dateFinished":"5/28/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Feels pretty stereotypical fantasy, but very well executed and few clever concepts. Ancestor blades are awesome, but the caste system and house dynamics are very basic. The flashbacks and different POV’s keep it interesting though, and it was paced well and good read overall. Fun but nothing special, probably won’t bother finishing the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"soulsmith-wight","title":"Soulsmith","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":2,"pages":284,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36274086-soulsmith","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"43013","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780989671774","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"soulsmith-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/soulsmith-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/4/2023","dateFinished":"3/10/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A big improvement from the first book. The first chunk was still pretty boring but it kept getting better and better the further in I got. This made me believe the rest of the series could actually have some promise. The characters got a lot better and the conflict felt more real and meaningful compared to the first book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"spinning-silver-novik","title":"Spinning Silver","author":"Naomi Novik","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":465,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36896898-spinning-silver","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"156841","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780399180989","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"spinning-silver-novik-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/spinning-silver-novik/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/23/2026","dateFinished":"6/28/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A russian inspired retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. Normally I enjoy concepts like this but I just got absolutely nothing out of this. Just a boring story, despite having a lot of elements that feel like they could have been really interesting. The different faeries and magics should have created really engaging scenes and human interaction, but all the parts that would have been cool just got brushed over or ignored. Most of the characters were annoying in one way or another. This is a book I really can not understand why so many people like.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Spinning Silver
\nNaomi Novik
Spinning Silver Summary
\nMiryem Mandelstam is the daughter of the moneylender in a small village. Her father is too kind hearted to force people to pay their debts to him so her family is poor and struggling in a harsh winter. Eventually Miryem decides to just do it herself and makes people pay her what is owed with interest or she will report them to the authorities. She makes her family quite wealthy, but this angers the village and her parents seem upset with her attitude. Her mother is the daughter of a wealthy moneylender who lives in the nearby city of Vysnia. Miryem and her mother visit him and he congratulates her on her success and gives her advice to keep advancing her business.
\nWanda is the daughter of a farmer near the village Miryem lives in. Her father borrowed money a while back so Miryem comes to collect, but they can’t pay, so Wanda goes to work off the debt acting as a servant for Miryem and her family. She learns to read and do math, and eventually Miryem starts to pay her and gets her young brother Stepon to come watch the goats and pays him also. They hide this money from their father, who is an abusive alcoholic. Their mother died a while ago and is buried under a white tree in their yard, and they feel they can speak to her still near the tree.
\nOne day while coming back from Vysnia, Miryem brags she can turn silver to gold, and shortly thereafter a Staryk (Faerie winter creature), shows up and gives her a bag of 6 silver coins to turn to gold. She goes to Vysnia and has a local jeweler, Isaac turn the Staryk silver (different from regular silver) into a ring and sells it for 10 gold to the Duke of Vysnia. Later the Staryk comes with 60 silver which they turn into a necklace and sell to the Duke. He plans to use them as adornments for his daughter, Irina, in an attempt to marry her to the Tsar. He makes them promise to make her a crown next and sell it to him, which they do with Staryk’s next delivery of silver.
\nMiryam has turned silver to gold three times so the Staryk (Who turns out to be their king), takes her and forces her to be his bride in the Staryk land. You can only travel between the lands by magic, and it is always cold winter in Staryk lands. Miryam does not want to go and is treated poorly by everyone, but she can now actually turn silver to gold via magic so she is useful. She makes the king promise to answer 3 questions each night.
\nIrina, the daughter of the duke, feels a connection to the Staryk silver jewelry that she is given. She does not want to marry the Tsar but everyone she meets when wearing her jewelry thinks she is the most beautiful woman ever, so her father invites the Tsar over. He is known to be a sorcerer by some people, but when he meets Irina he agrees to marry her instantly, even without all her jewelry which is odd. The night after they are wed, Irina is scared and discovers she can travel via mirrors into the Staryk realm while wearing her jewelry, and hides from the Tsar. She sees that he has a demon inside him and it wants to eat her, but it can only come out at night, so she must hide each night in mirrors.
\nWanda has continued to care for Miryam’s parents even with her gone to the Staryk, but one day she returns home to find her father has promised her hand in marriage to the son of the local vodka maker guy, in exchange for regular shipments of liquor. She says no and he is about to beat her badly with a poker when her older brother Sergey comes home and hits their father. He falls into the fire and dies. The vodka guy saw this and runs back to the village, and due to the rules of the time Wanda and Sergey will be executed for killing their father so they are forced to flee. They send Stepon to stay with the Mandelstam’s where he will be safe, but before he leaves he takes an acorn from the white tree where their mother is buried.. They flee and find a small cottage in the woods with some food around it, although it seems to be magic/haunted or something so they try to be respectful and repair stuff around it and make extra food.
\nMeanwhile, Irina and now her old maid are hiding from the Tsar one night in the Staryk realm, when Miryam sees them while on a sleigh ride. She takes them to a nearby cottage (The same one Wanda and Sergey are in, just in the Staryk realm instead of the mortal), and they stay awhile. Miryam and Irina make a plan to get the Demon in the Tsar and the Staryk king in the same room and hopefully have them kill each other. In three days they will meet at Isaac the jeweler’s wedding. This is simple for Irina since she is Tsarina and can make people do stuff, but Miryam must make a bargain with her king. He says if she can turn all the silver in three storerooms to gold he will go. There is too much so she makes some servants empty one of the storerooms of all its silver, and in exchange she will give them gold. It works and she barely pulls it off so they head to the wedding.
\nMeanwhile, Miryam’s parents and Stepon are heading to Vysnia for the wedding since Isaac is marrying their niece, and on the way they get lost and meet up with Wanda and Sergey who join them. They all stay in Miryam’s grandpa's nice house and experience wealth and luxury. Then the wedding happens and the demon and Staryk show up and do battle. We learn the demon's name is Chernobog. The Staryk king seems to win but then Wanda wraps him in a chain and the demon lights a ring of candles around him, and the humans use the power of love to bind the king. The demon will slowly feast on him every day (Instead of Irina), but this will kill the Staryk kingdom and Miryam cares about them now, so she hatches a new plan.
\nHer family and Wanda’s leave (They got a note from the tsar pardoning them for the father incident), and pretend to take Miryam with them but actually she sneaks out and frees the Staryk King in exchange for him not hurting mortals as much. He is stabbed in the escape and they all stop at the cottage where Wanda and Sergey stayed earlier to recover. When the Chernobog learns of this he makes Irina take him into the Staryk lands so he can attack them directly. Stepon gives Miryam his white acorn and she passes into the Staryk realm where Irina is, and Irina plants it, growing a new tree that heals the king and allows him to return to his lands and fight Chernobog.
\nChernobog has gained a lot of power but Miryam throws a bunch of silver on him then turns it to gold which is bad for him because of sunlight or something and he is forced to retreat to the mortal realm. Irina meets him there but he can’t hurt anyone because they are under her protection as tsarina and she makes him leave the Tsar’s body so everyone is happy. Back in the Staryk lands they rebuild and Miryam now loves them, so when she is brought home next winter the king asks her parents for her hand in marriage and she agrees and everything is perfect. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"stardust-gaiman","title":"Stardust","author":"Neil Gaiman","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":248,"yearPublished":1999,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3629286-stardust","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"484778","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780061689246","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"stardust-gaiman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/stardust-gaiman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/9/2022","dateFinished":"8/14/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Neil Gaiman writes book. I read book it be fanciful and fantastic he good author guy.
\n2026: Yikes. good author maybe. Definitely not good guy.
This is a hard one for me to give a score to. The book has strong militaristic and political themes throughout, and the story itself doesn’t have a ton of content outside of Heinlein expressing those themes. Johnny is one of the most bland narrators ever, which I assume is intentional. The book explicitly calls out many practices of 20th century democracy and military and Heinlein seems to be very critical of them. In this world, only those who serve are citizens with the right to vote. Overall, a short, interesting read, without a ton of “book content” to enjoy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Starship Troopers
\nRobert A. Heinlein
\nStarship Troopers Summary
Johnny Rico is a member of the Mobile Infantry in a futuristic military. He and his squad, Ratjack’s Roughnecks, are aboard the boat (space ship) the Roger Young. They get dropped in capsules onto the planet below, inhabited by “Skinnies”, an alien race. Every member of the team is in powered armor suits, capable of unleashing devastating weaponry (multiple atomic bombs, etc.), and covering vast distances rapidly. He has recently been promoted to a command position. Their lieutenant, Ratjack, died (“bought it”) on their last mission and the sergeant Jelly is taking over. Johnny helps another squad leader, Ace, carry a wounded man, Dizzy< to the ship for pickup, despite Ace telling him not to. Jelly comes to help and they all make it out, although Dizzy dies on the way up.
\nWe go back in time to his childhood, where Johnny grew up wealthy and his best friend Carl is a smart electrician kid. Carl says he is going to join the military, and Johnny decides to do it also although they both know his rich father won’t let him, and plans to send him to Harvard and take over the company business. Shortly after they graduate and turn 18, a female friend Carmen sees them and says she is going to join up, and Johnny makes the snap decision to do it also. His parents are enraged and is mostly cut off from them. He gets assigned to the Mobile Infantry (MI), and quickly begins to associate with them, as “The real army”.
\nJohnny gets sent to camp Arthur Curry in the North Pole (I think) for boot camp training. It is incredibly intense, with students dying and many more dropping out. Sergeant Zim is their instructor and he seems a cruel man at first. One trainee is given 10 lashes and dishonorably discharged for striking Zim. Johnny overhears the camp captain and Zim talking and learns Zim considers it his fault for not being fast enough and letting the boy hit him. Johnny starts to feel connection to them, but decides he is going to resign. This is not for him. However before he can they are sent on a long march, and he receives a letter from an old high school teacher and veteran who served in the MI, Dubois. Dubois was a high ranked officer, and his encouragement, despite them not being close in high school, helps Johnny continue on. He receives a letter from his mother but his father still hates him, and they see a deserter hanged for killing a baby girl.
\nJohnny makes a few friends and graduates with less than 200 of the 2,000 that started. Quickly, a war begins with an alien race called Bugs (large arachnid hivemind). The bugs bomb and destroy Buenos Aires, and Johnny later learns his mother was there and was killed. He and the MI are dropped onto the bugs home planet but suffer a major defeat. Since most of his unit died, he is assigned to the Roughnecks and we catch back up to the present after a few more combat drops. While on R&R (rest and recuperation) on Sanctuary (A secret paradise planet), Ace ends up telling Johnny he should go to officer school. Johnny enrolls in Officer Candidate School (OCS) and begins to train to be an officer. Right before he starts, he runs into his father at a shipyard. They are both happy to see each other. His father joined up after the Buenos Aires bombing, and they are friends now.
\nJohnny learns about being an officer. He has dinner with Carmen, who is now a Navy pilot, and we learn that Carl died in an attack on Pluto. During his training Johnny is given a temporary command post under Captain Blackstone, and they attack a bug outpost with the goal of capturing some of the hivemind brains. They succeed despite heavy losses, and Johnny getting hit by a falling rock and sent to the hospital ward for a month. We find out Zim was his sergeant for this operation and helped it go smoothly.
\nBlackstone sends him back to school with good comments and he graduates. Johnny ends up back on the Roger Young as lieutenant, with his dad as his second in command, leading a platoon called Rico’s Roughnecks, about to do a combat drop. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"storm-front-butcher","title":"Storm Front","author":"Jim Butcher","series":"The Dresden Files","seriesNumber":1,"pages":355,"yearPublished":2000,"publisher":"Penguin ROC","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47212.Storm_Front?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"384890","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780451457813","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"storm-front-butcher-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/storm-front-butcher/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/3/2022","dateFinished":"8/8/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"The first Dresden Files book, which I have been wanting to read for a long time. I think I hyped it up a little too much in my head since I was disappointed by it, even though it was still good. A wizard set in a noir detective role is a super clever idea and Jim Butcher manages to make it feel natural. I definitely still want to finish the series I think I’m just not the biggest detective novel person.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"sufficiently-advanced-magic-rowe","title":"Sufficiently Advanced Magic","author":"Andrew Rowe","series":"Arcane Ascension","seriesNumber":1,"pages":625,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Independently Published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35610002-sufficiently-advanced-magic","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"27366","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781521118764","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"sufficiently-advanced-magic-rowe-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.25,"url":"/books/sufficiently-advanced-magic-rowe/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/31/2022","dateFinished":"6/5/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This one was pretty basic but enjoyable
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/25/2024","dateFinished":"8/2/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I had completely forgotten most of this book from the first time, which helped me enjoy it more. Not something I would ever reread if I remembered it and it probably got a score boost because it came after a piece of garbage turned into a book, but it is written well, good pacing, and solid character work. My biggest qualm is that in progression fantasy we want to see the main character progress, but Corrin honestly doesn’t ever feel like he gets that much more powerful.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"surprised-by-joy-lewis","title":"Surprised by Joy","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":185,"yearPublished":1913,"publisher":"Geoffrey Bles","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121732.Surprised_by_Joy?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"70238","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Religion","isbn":"9780006280835","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"surprised-by-joy-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/surprised-by-joy-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/15/2022","dateFinished":"9/18/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Had to read this for class but it was good. It almost felt like a work of fiction since so much cool stuff happened in his life. Like he just casually talks about meeting and befriending J. R. R. Tolkien. I think this man was a genius, he also only spent one chapter on serving in WW1, like that seems like it would have more than a 1 chapter impact. Out of the 15 chapters I think he turned 20 in like chapter 14, so it is very focused on his young life.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"tears-of-liscor-aba","title":"Tears of Liscor","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":9,"pages":1651,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83738056-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"1814","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108004","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"tears-of-liscor-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/tears-of-liscor-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/19/2025","dateFinished":"3/18/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A little bit of a let down at the end. Most of it was really good and the cooking battle was fun, but the last couple chapters weren’t what I wanted.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi-chakraborty","title":"The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi","author":"S.A. Chakraborty","series":"Amina al-Sirafi","seriesNumber":1,"pages":496,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Harper Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61319728-the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"80943","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Historical","isbn":"9780062963529","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi-chakraborty-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-adventures-of-amina-al-sirafi-chakraborty/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/7/2026","dateFinished":"3/17/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Nothing in particular stands out in either a good or bad way. Overall just a mostly uninteresting story with a few cool ideas and characters. The stakes never really felt that high, despite the supposed dangers and threats, and the villain was like a comical disney bad guy just designed to have his power stolen and be killed. I don’t think I am the target audience for this book, but probably the last book I read by her. There was also only one instance in the entire book where Amina and her crew felt even vaguely “pirate-y”, which is disappointing for a book about pirates. Way too much time was spent trying to describe them all as actually good people who just do pirating in a nice way on the side.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
\nS. A. Chakraborty (Shannon Chakraborty)
\nAmina al-Sirafi #1
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi Summary
\nAudiobook spelling
\nWe start with the story being presented by Jamal, a scribe, and then Amina takes over the telling of the story with occasional interjections to Jamal and Jamal occasionally giving more background info.
Amina al-Sirafi is a retired pirate nahouda (captain) of some infamy. She has been trying to live a quiet life in Oman with her mother and daughter, fishing to support them. One day she agrees to take some young men out in a boat for what she assumes is a bogus supernatural ritual thing, but then it actually works and she has to reveal who she is to save them. She is hard to hide since she is very very tall and strong and has a gold tooth.
\nShortly after this, when she is at home with her daughter, Marjana, an old rich noble lady shows up with some servants and guards and presses Amina until she reveals who she is. The lady wants to hire her to rescue her granddaughter who has been kidnapped. Amina is planning to say no but the lady turns out to be the mother of Asif, an old crewmate who died in some bad manner that is unexplained, and the granddaughter, Dunya, is Asif’s daughter. Plus she offers a million dinars if Amina succeeds. She also threatens to let the world know who and where Amina is if she refuses so she is kind of forced into accepting. Dunya was kidnapped by a Frank, who was interested in the families magical artifacts and history.
\nNow they have to get the gang back together. First Amina goes and gets Dalilah, a poisoner and assassin. Together they go to reclaim her old ship, the Marawati. When they get to Aden, they arrive just in time to see the Marawati get seized by the governors new warships on account of smuggling, and their friend Thimphu who has been running the ship, arrested. Pirates are always killed so he is on death row and they need to save him. They find an old Jewish merchant arguing on Thimphu’s behalf, so they approach him for help. He is dating Thimphu so agrees. Amina intentionally gets arrested and then when at the police station they just drug and hit people, then go free Thimphu and the crew.
\nThey all swim back out to the Marawati (Thimphu leaves his boyfriend behind but promises to come back) and secure the ship, but the way out of the harbor is still guarded by the warships, however Thimphu has some Naft (Greek fire). They hurry to try to escape and set on of the enemy ships aflame, then threaten loudly to ram the other so it backs off and they are free.
\nThey go somewhere to meet with the Kidnappers assistant who left his service. He reveals the man actually does have some magic and wanted to find more treasures. Importantly, he says Dunya was not kidnapped but came to them willingly, offering them the location of the Moon of Sabaa, a mythic pearl said to contain one face of the moon and it’s power. He tells them about an island but before he can say more, he starts choking. He chokes to death on the purse of coins Amina gave him, transported out of the bag somehow for breaking his magical contract with the Frankish man.
\nAmina goes back to the old lady, Dunya’s grandmother, to question her about Dunya leaving. The woman is very hostile and says she doesn’t care go get her, then threatens to have people kill Marjana (Amina’s daughter) unless she succeeds, so Amina has no choice. They go to their old friend Mahjeb, a navigator, in Mogadishu since they need to figure out what island the man meant.
\nMahjeb has a happy family but agrees to help, then when he figures out where the island is he decides he wants to come. They are headed to Socotra, a pirate island. Very dangerous place. They get unreasonably good weather and wind and make good time. When they reach the island they find a recently half destroyed boat, which they assumed belong to the people they are chasing. Amina, Dalilah, and Thimphu go onto the island alone to scout.
\nThey find a butchered village, with three elders stabbed into trees by spears. They bury the people and feel they are being watched. When they are about to leave Ruksh appears. He is Amina’s husband, who they had tried to kill before, since he is a demon. Amina has had many husbands but a number of years ago she got drunk and married Ruksh. He gave the ship good luck but ended up being responsible for something with Asif’s death, so they tried to kill and abandon him. Turns out he now was working for the Frank. He agrees to help them if they help him off this island, so they form an uneasy truce.
\nHe leads them to a back entrance of the cave where the Frank is hiding out. They sneak in and find more of the villagers from before, all but four have been butchered so they try to free those four. To buy the others time Amina gives herself over to the Frank, who is clearly crazy and craves power. He shows her his men’s enhanced abilities, strength, speed, etc. and offers to make a deal with Amina but she refuses. He says Dunya stole a long boat and ran off a few days ago. He then has his men hold her down and forces her to drink a gross magic soup.
\nAmina wakes from unconsciousness and they are camped outside, the Frank shows her he has enslaved a Marid, a giant water beast thing. Then a poison / smoke cloud arrow is shot into the fire (Dalilah + Thimphu), and Amina is saved and they run. Ruksh cuts open her stomach and extracts whatever soup she was forced to drink. They all flee back to the Marawati, taking Ruksh because he is the only one who can find Dunya. They retrieve her and help nurse her back to health.
\nAmina goes to talk to Dunya. She learns first that the Moon of Sabaa is not a pearl, but a washbasin that when looked into gives you all sorts of power, but she stole the only tablets that say how to retrieve it. Then the reason Dunya ran away is she was going to be forced to marry the governor, but she does not feel like a woman, she connects more with men and the thought of marrying a man scared her. Amina does not want to force the girl but cares more for her own daughter, so still plans to return her.
\nFalco (That’s his name I remember now), the Frankish kidnapper, shows up riding the Marid with his men and they secure the Marawati. Ruksh fled on the only longboat. Dunya breaks the tablets and says now her head is the only place where the knowledge is kept, and he will not kill Amina’s crew if he wants her help. He agrees, then stabs and throws Amina overboard since she is not apart of her crew.
\nAmina floats for 2 weeks on the sea on a piece of driftwood and eventually floats to magic island, where she suddenly feels stronger and faster. She finds Ruskh, who she bears up, but he agrees to help again. This island is rules by Peri’s so they go and present themselves. The peris decide Amina is a transgression (Humans are not supposed to be here or have magic or stuff), so they drop her very far so she will die. But Khayzur (From City of Brass), saves her and takes her back up. Her and Ruksh convince them that Falco having the moon of sabaa is bad and they will go destroy it for the Peri. Amina strikes a pact that she will find and destroy five transgressions for the Peri council in exchange for her life.
\nKhayzur flies her and Ruksh to Socotra, then leaves them. They approach the local pirates and one egyptian captain agrees to help them. They sneak up to Falco’s camp and kill a lot of his men. Amina can now see the bond between the Marid and the men, giving them their power, and can sever that bond with a magic star dagger the Egyptian captain gave her. She climbs up the Marid, cutting the bonds and freeing it from Falco’s control, but it forms a small bond with her in the process. They kill all the mercenaries then Amina goes to chase Falco and Dunya into the cave.
\nShe encounters lots of magic nonsense, she sees Asif die again and we learn he made a deal with Ruksh for his soul, then died and arose as a zombie and ate and attacked people so they burned him at the stake. She gets past more monsters, and arrives just in time for Falco to get the magic washbasin, the Moon of Sabaa. But Dunya had a plan, since it is the eclipse, instead the power swaps and the moon deity trapped gains control of Falco’s body. They reason with it and fight it and Amina calls on her bond with Marid and it breaks open the cave so the moon can go back to the moon. Falco is half trapped under rubble and Amina kills him and they all flee.
\nAmina returns to the grandmother and gives her a note from Dunya, saying she has been left somewhere secret and Amina is not responsible, and the grandmother just decides that is fine and does not carry out her threats to Amina. Then they return to Oman and Amina gets to see Marjana and family time on the boat and everyone made it out ok. We then get a epilogue from Jamal. Dunya was welcomed by the crew, and after haircuts and clothes changes, we are introduced to Jamal, who is getting used to this new change but he is excited and feels welcomed by the crew for who he is.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-alloy-of-law-sanderson","title":"The Alloy of Law","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn: Wax and Wayne","seriesNumber":1,"pages":332,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12065807-the-alloy-of-law","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"299689","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9780575105836","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-alloy-of-law-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-alloy-of-law-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/2/2022","dateFinished":"9/7/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I like Brandon Sanderson.
\n2026: This should not have gotten a 9. I don't edit scores but this one should be dropped to like a 7. I even say that the next book is better, despite me giving it a lower score??
A lot of the stuff in this one I though happened in different books later on so I am excited to see what the rest of the books hold since I seem to have forgotten.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-art-of-war-tzu","title":"The Art of War","author":"Sun Tzu","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":273,"yearPublished":1910,"publisher":"AmazonClassics","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35608147-the-art-of-war","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"583427","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Philosophy","isbn":"9781542097529","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-art-of-war-tzu-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-art-of-war-tzu/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"9/20/2023","dateFinished":"9/21/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-assassin-s-blade-maas","title":"The Assassin's Blade","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"Throne of Glass","seriesNumber":0.5,"pages":451,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Children’s Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126062562-the-assassin-s-blade","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"1257320","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781619632219","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-assassin-s-blade-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-assassin-s-blade-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"5/17/2021","dateFinished":"5/23/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-atlantis-complex-colfer","title":"The Atlantis Complex","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":7,"pages":357,"yearPublished":2010,"publisher":"Hyperion","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7005865-the-atlantis-complex","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"62050","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781423128199","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-atlantis-complex-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/the-atlantis-complex-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/3/2025","dateFinished":"4/6/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Worst book in the series, feels like no real idea or plot inspiration but publisher said they needed another book
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-awakening-peckham","title":"The Awakening","author":"Caroline Peckham","series":"Zodiac Academy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":436,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"King's Hollow","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211662690-the-awakening","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"456271","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781916926257","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-awakening-peckham-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/the-awakening-peckham/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/12/2022","dateFinished":"7/17/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Oh boy. Wow. This “book” is literally everything wrong with modern fantasy shoved into 400 pages. Every. Single. Overdone. Overused. Stupid. Trope. “Strong, independent teen with rough childhood who didn’t know parents finds out MAGIC IS REALLL OMG!!! Then gets taken to a crazy new world, turns out they are royalty (who could see that coming) and they are really powerful but don’t know how to handle this newfound power/fame/attention because they are used to being the outcast bad boy. Plus there are sexy antagonists slowly turning into friends and lovers. Plus turns out they are actually elves. And these Fae can change into werewolves unicorns vampires and every other basic magic thing.” God I hate this book. I might read the entire series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-bands-of-mourning-sanderson","title":"The Bands of Mourning","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn: Wax and Wayne","seriesNumber":3,"pages":448,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26541448-the-bands-of-mourning","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.8","numGoodreadsRatings":"197457","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9781473208278","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-bands-of-mourning-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-bands-of-mourning-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/8/2022","dateFinished":"9/14/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Good book but it made too many questions. I am very curious now and the fourth book has not been released yet so I don’t get my answers. I got food poisoning while reading this one so it took a while to finish because i couldn’t function for two days
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-bare-hunt-ugland","title":"The Bare Hunt","author":"Eric Ugland","series":"The Good Guys","seriesNumber":7,"pages":386,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Air Quotes Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65137119-the-bare-hunt","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"4074","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781945346149","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-bare-hunt-ugland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-bare-hunt-ugland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/13/2023","dateFinished":"7/18/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-battle-for-skandia-flanagan","title":"The Battle for Skandia","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":4,"pages":294,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Puffin Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3815319-the-battle-for-skandia","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"108448","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142413401","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-battle-for-skandia-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-battle-for-skandia-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"2/16/2022","dateFinished":"2/21/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-battlemage-matharu","title":"The Battlemage","author":"Taran Matharu","series":"Summoner","seriesNumber":3,"pages":385,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Hatchette Children's Group","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30335482-the-battlemage","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"19635","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781444924275","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-battlemage-matharu-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-battlemage-matharu/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"10/14/2023","dateFinished":"11/5/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"This one kind of sucked. I would stop after the first book
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-black-prism-weeks","title":"The Black Prism","author":"Brent Weeks","series":"Lightbringer","seriesNumber":1,"pages":629,"yearPublished":2010,"publisher":"Orbit Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16131107-the-black-prism","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"133122","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316246279","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-black-prism-weeks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-black-prism-weeks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/14/2022","dateFinished":"7/19/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I have read this before but it is a solid book. The series as a whole has an awesome plot and development but this book has to spend a lot of time setting up the world and characters so it can feel a little slow at times.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-blackest-heart-durfee","title":"The Blackest Heart","author":"Brian Lee Durfee","series":"The Five Warrior Angels","seriesNumber":2,"pages":960,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Saga Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38205011-the-blackest-heart","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"1856","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9781481465274","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-blackest-heart-durfee-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-blackest-heart-durfee/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/18/2025","dateFinished":"7/30/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"I have 17 days to finish this. I am listening on 1.25 speed so the audiobook will take just over 29 hours. That’s pretty easy honestly. 2 hours a day. Slight work. Very good again. Fast pace, engaging. Biggest complaint would be maybe a bit too much overexplaining.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Story:
\nWe begin learning that Crystalwood/Chrysta Aulbrek (Gault’s adopted daughter who thinks he is her actual dad) are twins probably. But we don’t know who the actual twins of the prophecy are. Could be Linholf and Lorie. Could be Mancellor Allen and his sister Braylon Allen. Or Nail and Chrysta.
More weapons are found. Roguemoor dies in a glacier collapse that breaks up the company of 9. Liz Hen Nevel, Dokie Little, Roguemoor, Culpa Bara, Nail, Val-Draken, Stefan Waylan, Satyr, and Nail.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-blacksmith-s-son-manning","title":"The Blacksmith's Son","author":"Michael G. Manning","series":"Mageborn","seriesNumber":1,"pages":386,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12558539-the-blacksmith-s-son","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"13787","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781463684341","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-blacksmith-s-son-manning-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/the-blacksmith-s-son-manning/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/16/2024","dateFinished":"1/18/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I don’t think a book that seems to written for kids/middle grade should have rape scenes.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-blacktongue-thief-buehlman","title":"The Blacktongue Thief","author":"Christopher Buehlman","series":"Blacktongue","seriesNumber":1,"pages":416,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55077697-the-blacktongue-thief?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"48100","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781250621191","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-blacktongue-thief-buehlman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-blacktongue-thief-buehlman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/15/2022","dateFinished":"8/20/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This audiobook was actually read by the author which is pretty cool, I also like books that follow thieves. Cool world and funny accent. People don’t always mention how utterly important the narrator is for an audiobook. Like the best book with a bad narrator can be completely ruined but I think what happens more often is a phenomonal voice actor can take an average book and make it really good. But oh my gosh I hate it when the mispronounce words. Like one time in a book i forget they kept pronouncing “Dais” like “Dye-us” and I hated it. It may be technically correct but it is not how I say it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-blade-itself-abercrombie","title":"The Blade Itself","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The First Law","seriesNumber":1,"pages":515,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944073.The_Blade_Itself?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"322874","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780575079793","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-blade-itself-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/the-blade-itself-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/13/2022","dateFinished":"8/18/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"The best GrimDark fantasy I have ever read, and I don't really like that subgenre but this book is still awesome. Takes a little while to heat up and get you engrossed in the world but by the end I think I understand the politics and intrigue of this world more than I ever will about our own. This book is a counter example to the one where I complained about multiple POV’s. Glokta is going to have a redemption arc in books 2 and 3 I have faith in him.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/24/2023","dateFinished":"8/3/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-bonehunters-erikson","title":"The Bonehunters","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":6,"pages":1203,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Bantam","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/478951.The_Bonehunters","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"46474","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780553813159","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-bonehunters-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-bonehunters-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"10/14/2024","dateFinished":"12/5/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Amazing book
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-book-that-broke-the-world-lawrence","title":"The Book That Broke the World","author":"Mark Lawrence","series":"The Library Trilogy","seriesNumber":2,"pages":384,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"HarperVoyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157031755-the-book-that-broke-the-world","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"13364","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9780008456764","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-book-that-broke-the-world-lawrence-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/the-book-that-broke-the-world-lawrence/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/9/2025","dateFinished":"10/17/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Bad
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Book That Broke the World
\nMark Lawrence
\nThe Library Trilogy #2
Livira was the assistant that raised Evar. Assistant dies. Evar, Clovis, and Carol leave the library. Skeer are in charge of the city, hate everyone. Arpix is living with refugees out in the dust, meet up with Evar and co. For some reason the skeer can’t come onto their hill. Livira gets sent back out of this time, has to retreat to the past. Uses her book in Evars possession to break out. Endsup in correct time (300 years in future from first book, Evar’s time). Meets king and Lord Algar. They are cannibals living in the library, they killed Clovis family. Clovis injured, her and Arpix dating. Need to get her to center ring. Run to library from dust. Meet Ute and other friends who fled fire. Learn Livira is nearby. Meet the creators of the library (gods). Ute makes mistakes. FIGHT. Book over. sucked.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-book-that-wouldn-t-burn-lawrence","title":"The Book That Wouldn't Burn","author":"Mark Lawrence","series":"The Library Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":559,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Ace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61612864-the-book-that-wouldn-t-burn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"37812","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780593437919","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-book-that-wouldn-t-burn-lawrence-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-book-that-wouldn-t-burn-lawrence/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/22/2025","dateFinished":"10/9/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not very good. The Narnia allegory is more of just a plagiarised concept. The twist wasn’t super duper obvious but still saw it coming. I have to read the second book though since I already have it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Book That Wouldn’t Burn
\nMark Lawrence
\nThe Library Trilogy #1
Livira (named after a weed), is raised with her aunt in the dust. They have a small village where water and food are scarce, and almost no interaction with the outside world. Then one day, a tall, dog-like humanoid known as a “Sabaa”, a word that translates just to enemy, arrives. It kills many of the adults and takes the children captive. While escorting them a group of soldiers from “The City” show up and scare them off and save the children. Livira annoys, saves the life of, and bonds with a grumpy soldier named Mela. When they get to the city the children get “Allocated” a test where you walk into 1 of 5 doors based on your rank and standing and they quiz you and give you a job. Most of the other children go into the first door since dusters suck and are stupid. But Mela tries to help Livira but she scorns him and walks into the 5th door, where she is let in by an albino named Ute. She can’t read or write so she embarrasses herself, but Ute decides to take her under his wing.
\nLivira becomes an acolyte in the library, a massive, infinite, world-spanning library with no good catalog and mysterious guides and assistants wandering around inside. Also she has a perfect eidetic memory. Livira learns, explores, breaks rules, and discovers a place between worlds called “The Exchange” where she meets her handsome prince Evar Evantari. Livira keeps getting sucked back to her world and Evar explores others, where he is just a ghost. But every time she makes her way back, no matter how many years have passed, it is still the same day for Evar.
\nEventually they get to hang out (This is a girl he met as a 12 year old less than 24 hours ago) and they kiss. Then back in the exchange Evar’s adopted sister Clovis shows up. She is a Sabaa! She tries to attack Livira, saying she is a Sabaa! See the twist. Evar realizes the truth and Livira flees Clovis. She is distraught, but quickly realizes racism and speceism is bad. The Sabaa’s (Dog people) are invading Crath City! Everyone flees into the library, where Livira has to save Mela and they become ghosts, invading the bodies of the assisstant and soldier who raised Evar and his kin.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-brightest-night-sutherland","title":"The Brightest Night","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":5,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18527497-the-brightest-night","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"38794","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545349222","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-brightest-night-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/the-brightest-night-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/27/2024","dateFinished":"1/30/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Finishes the main story arc, very uneventful could have done something way cooler.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-bullet-that-missed-osman","title":"The Bullet That Missed","author":"Richard Osman","series":"Thursday Murder Club","seriesNumber":3,"pages":413,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Viking","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58957615-the-bullet-that-missed?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_22","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.7","numGoodreadsRatings":"278617","genre":"Mystery","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780241512425","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-bullet-that-missed-osman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-bullet-that-missed-osman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/25/2026","dateFinished":"3/8/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Still reading this with my wife. The characters are fun to read and the plot is generally interesting. This one really seemed to embrace the absurd nature of having your protagonists be in their late 70’s.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Bullet That Missed Summary
\nRichard Osman
\nThe Thursday Murder Club #1
The Thursday Murder Club is looking into the decade old murder of Bethany Waites, a local journalist and reporter. They invite another local TV guy, Mike Waghorn, up to do an interview with Ron so they can ask him about Bethany. Ron gets to talking with the makeup artist Pauline. Mike cared a lot about Bethany and agrees to help them.
\nElizabeth has been getting strange text messages, then when on a walk with Stephen, they are knocked unconscious and abducted to a strange house. They meet a huge swedish man who says Elizabeth will kill Victor Illyich, an ex KGB criminal money launderer, or he will kill Joyce. Elizabeth keeps this secret from Joyce and tries to figure it out.
\nBogdan and Donna have started dating but are keeping it a secret. Bogdan is spending more time with Stephen and keeps helping them out. He picks them up in staffordshire after the swedish man lets them go. They refer to him as The Viking.
\nJoyce adopted a dog named Alan. Bethany was investigating a 10 million pound VAT fraud case when she died, and the people they know where involved are Jack Mason, who is still free, and Heather Garbutt, who got 10 years in prison. The same prison Connie Johnson is in. Ibrahim goes to meet Connie, to ask for help with Heather and convince her not to kill Ron when she gets out and to be her therapist. Connie agrees to help. Due to her money she can mostly do what she wants in the prison. But when she talks to Heather, Heather is clearly worried about what will happen if she talks.
\nRon goes to play snooker with Jack Mason, and learns that he knows who killed Bethany but won’t say any more except that it was not him. Ron has a good time. Mike asks the Kent chief of police, Andrew Everton, for any help on the case. Andrew goes to Coopers Chase supposedly to read from his detective novels he publishes, but in reality wants to meet Ibrahim. Shortly after he want to prison to see Connie Johnson, Heather Garbutt was found dead. Ibrahim says he can’t talk about it since Connie is his patient now. Her death looks kind of like a suicide by knitting needles but they found a note saying “Only Connie Johnson can help now” on her body.
\nElizabeth takes Joyce and goes to kill Victor Illyich, since she has no other plan. They meet him at his pent house apartment since he likes Elizabeth a lot. Then Elizabeth takes him into the bathroom and shoots him while Joyce destroys her phone. Except she just shot the ceiling and they are going to fake his death. Elizabeth figured out the viking was listening through her phone. They take Victor back to Coopers Chase and he is staying with Joyce.
\nElizabeth and Joyce go to interview Fiona Clemence, someone who used to work with Bethany but now is quite famous.
\nChris Hudson is trying out for a small TV role after Mike told him he could be good at it, but when about to film a short news sequence Mike takes Donna instead and she kills it. Victor is helping trying to track the money back through the VAT fraud to see if they can figure out who it went to or where it is. They find a couple names but they don’t seem to mean anything.
\nThe viking goes to Victor’s apartment and finds a bullet hole in the ceiling, meaning he knows Elizabeth did not shoot him. The bullet that missed. So now he has to kill Joyce. He goes to Coopers Chase and is waiting in her room when she arrives. She talks him down and says he shoot wait for Victor, and offers him tea and talks about Cryptocurrency when he passes out. Joyce drugged him with sleeping pills and dog medicine. The whole gang ties him up and talk sense into him. They know who he is since Stephen recognized some unique books in his library when they were kidnapped. He talks it out with Victor, who he was against since he uses cryptocurrency and Victor preaches against it because it is risky. The viking agrees to help them and be their friend. Pauline, who is now Ron’s girlfriend, has also been helping them with stuff.
Ron and Victor hang out with Jack Mason who tells them that whoever killed Bethany buried her body somewhere, but covered it with Jack’s and Heather’s DNA so they could never turn him in. They go dig at Heather’s old house and find guns and stuff but no body.
\nThey realize the note wrote before she died is different than her actual handwriting. The viking and Victor work together and they find a few more names of interest in the VAT fraud trail. They hatch a plan. Chris and Donna go to talk to Jack Mason and find him dead in his house.
\nChris and Donna are getting awards for arresting Connie Johnson. Donna is upset since Bogdan said he could not come. Andrew Everton gives them the awards.
\nAndrew Everton drives up to a house in Staffordshire to meet with the viking. He has 10 million dollars in various accounts he needs help getting. The gang has set up a video livestream of this on Fiona’s instagram with many followers so a ton of people see Andrew confess to the stealing of money and eventually killing bethany, Heather, and Jack. Bogdan ties up Andrew, when Donna sees this she forgives him. Mike comes in and gives an impassioned speech to the viewers and kind of an eulogy for Bethany.
\nIn prison Andrew knows he will get off lightly since the only murder he actually did was Jack, but that one is unprovable. Except Chris realizes the award he was given may have DNA on it and they analyze it and find Jack Mason’s blood.
\nConnie Johnson is actually a psychopath, despite what she pretends to Ibrahim. She ripped up Heather’s suicide note, wrote the new one, and had the gaurd destroy the camera footage.
\nBethany is actually alive. She stole the 10 million from the original thieves and now lives in Dubai.
\nElizabeth and Victor feel something is off and say they should visit Dubai.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-burning-bridge-flanagan","title":"The Burning Bridge","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":2,"pages":262,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144349.The_Burning_Bridge","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"138057","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780399244551","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-burning-bridge-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-burning-bridge-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"2/6/2022","dateFinished":"2/11/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-butcher-s-masquerade-dinniman","title":"The Butcher's Masquerade","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":5,"pages":732,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Dandy House","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60547837-the-butcher-s-masquerade","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"66869","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798418566102","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-butcher-s-masquerade-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-butcher-s-masquerade-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/27/2025","dateFinished":"12/3/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"As much as I enjoy Carl trying to change the broader universe the stuff in the dungeon is just dumb. Parts of it can be enjoyable but doesn’t feel very progression any more, just weirder plans that get incredibly lucky.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Butcher's Masquerade
\nMatt Dinniman
\nDungeon Crawler Carl #5
They do some dumb stuff and get lucky.
\nThe team enters the sixth floor, "the Hunting Grounds." Carl meets with Orren, who tells him that Borant wants him to voluntarily give up the Gate of the Feral Gods until level 9. Carl asks for a lawyer. Donut's new class on this floor is Legendary Diva. Carl picks the Agent Provocateur class upgrade.
\n2\tCarl joins Donut and Katia in a dryad settlement. Mordecai is now an adorable pocket kuma.
\n3\tCarl's new lawyer, Quasar, arrives. Quasar bargains for Carl to give up the Gate temporarily in exchange for four free mercenaries (Bomo, the Sledge, Clay-ton, and Very Sullen) and two spells given to Bomo and the Sledge to replicate two of the gate's abilities: teleport to stairwell and zerzura.
\n4\tDonut is a terrible singer, so her spells are useless. The team prepares for the release of the hunters. Bomo teleports Carl and Donut to the stairwell in Zockau.
\n5\tCarl attacks the hunters in Zockau and uses his Ring of Divine Suffering to mark hunters, kill them, and gain stats. His explosives cause massive destruction and trap many hunters in the Desperado Club. Carl is injured as the party escapes, and is rescued by Miriam Dom and Prepotente.
\n6\tMiriam Dom is a vampire now. Mordecai warns against using the Ring of Divine Suffering, saying it is addictive. Zev reminds Carl that his contract with the Vengeance of the Daughter program is still in effect.
\n7\tThe team reaches a small bugbear settlement and says goodbye to Miriam and Prepotente. Mordecai reprimands Carl for blowing up Zockau.
\n8\tCarl opens his boxes and receives a claw from each hunter killed, which can be exchanged for prizes later. He also receives a new tattoo: The Night Wyrm's Nasty Little Web of Suffering. The team watches the recap episode and learns that the guild system will be going live, allowing them to form larger alliances without being in the same party. There will be a party at the end of this floor called the Butcher's Masquerade, with invites for the top 50 crawlers.
\n9\tThe team heads south, away from Zockau, and Carl asks Katia to organize knocking down various bridges. Carl plans to have Bomo carry a large bomb out of the safe room into Zockau to cause further destruction. Donut convinces him to let her try to use a clockwork Bomo instead.
\n10\tCarl and Donut continue traveling towards the river and approach a settlement across a bridge. The settlement has many rules and won't let Mongo in, so Donut kills the mayor and becomes Mayor herself. Carl tries to send Bomo into Zockau with the bomb, but stops when he finds a note on the door from Vrah which tells him that the hunters in Zockau are now protected from explosives and that the Hive is hunting him. The hunters are released.
\n11\tKatia and Carl discuss starting a guild. The team receives the Recital quest to look into the dinosaur attacks on the town, newly named Point Mongo by Donut. Mongo suddenly runs off with Donut on his back and finds a pack of dinosaurs. He mates with Kiwi, the head of the all-female mongoliensis pack.
\n12\tCarl confronts Donut about her risky behavior (following Mongo into danger) and she reveals that she is afraid everyone will leave her. Zev interrupts their conversation and gives them a schedule update for their next appearance on Odette's show. Carl promises Donut that he will include her in his plans in the future and that nothing is going to break up their team.
\n13\tQuasar continues negotiations with Borant for two additional items in the exchange for Carl giving up the Gate, one of which is to extend a secondary program license to Vengeance of the Daughter. Tsarina Signet and her team show up, including some were-kin allies led by Clint Smashgrab.
\n14\tDonut notices that Signet repels water. Signet says it is not a spell but a curse. Carl and Donut follow Signet to meet up with additional allies including Miss Nadine, a bearded sage Caterpillar. Signet explains to the group that her father, the high elf king, is dead and her half-sister Queen Imogen rules the high elves now, and that her Naiad mother was killed by the Confederacy, a group of Naiad dissenters. She has gathered allies together to defeat the Confederacy and the High Elves.
\n15\tThe group kills a hunter from The Dream and Carl loots an Arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea from his body, as well as a crude map of the hunting grounds with territories claimed by each hunting group. Carl and Donut had been claimed by The Hive and Skull Empire.
\n16\tClint tells Carl and Donut about Scolopendra's attack and says the high elves were protected by something they had stolen. The group heads back to Point Mongo. Carl and Donut receive their third and final sponsor, The Apothecary.
\n17\tCarl and Donut return to the saferoom. Samantha is screaming because she wants to be taken to Signet, who she claims can help her get her body back. Carl tells her they will bring her if she shuts up. Carl and Donut are transferred for their appearance on Odette's show. Before the show, Zev and Odette reveal that Bea is alive.
\n18\tOdette explains that Bea survived the initial collection and that Odette had her taken away to prevent Borant from using her in the crawl as a country boss. She wasn't going to tell Carl and Donut, but another program found out and planned to ambush them with the information. She says that Carl might understand her motivation better if he asks Mordecai for the story about what Odette did to him. Carl and Donut agree to talk to Bea on Odette's show.
\n19\tOdette shares the cover story that pirates tried to sell Bea to Borant and they turned the pirates over to the authorities. Bea answers some questions but has clearly been drugged and is confused. Donut confronts Bea about her plan to abandon Donut, and shares additional choice words with Bea once they are off the air. Suddenly, a planet-wide message plays, stating that the Borant Corporation has been declared an independent entity from the Borant government, and that the Valtay Corporation was granted 51% ownership of the Borant Corporation. Donut, Zev, and Odette seem to have had a hand in this turn of events, but Carl is out of the loop.
\n20\tCarl starts to ask Donut about her involvement, but stops because it is too risky to discuss. Lexus, speaking for Odette, tells Carl and Donut that Queen Imogen will likely be a repurposed human, but she is not sure who now that Bea is out of the picture, and that she will be a country boss meant to zero out the top crawlers at the Butcher's Masquerade. Donut mentions that she "smuggled all those Valtay secret agent guys to Zev and the Borant Emancipation Front." Carl and Donut are transferred back to the personal space. Imani agrees to be the guildmaster for the group.
\n21\tAn announcement says that hunters can no longer communicate with the outside. Carl finds out he has received a fan booth at CrawlCon. Katia finally leaves the party. The party joins the Safehome Yolanda guild.
\n22\tElves attack. Carl uses Samantha to deliver missiles. Carl gives a bad guy soliloquy and kills another hunter from The Dream.
\n23\tCarl's ring levels up. Donut gets a bracelet that gives her the fireball spell. Samantha is getting stronger and more capable.
\n24\tCarl, Donut and Samantha head out to meet Signet to attack Fort Freedom, the former naiad palace.
\n25\tSamantha asks Signet to give her her body. Signet declines but offers to help Samantha recover her body after the naiads and elves are dealt with. Signet's forces gather on both shores around the submerged castle. Katia messages the team to say that Langley's team has fallen to Vrah. Carl sends Samantha into the castle as a distraction to draw all the guards to the front door.
\n26\tWith Samantha distracting the guards, Signet and her team enter through the backdoor via the river to attack the Confederacy in the throne room. Carl and Donut wait on the shore. They learn from Areson that Signet's dispel-water curse was cast on her by the high elves who helped dissenters kill the Naiad Tsar. Naiad bodies start to float up in the river and Carl asks Samantha what is going on in the throne room. He calls Samantha back right as she says "I've almost got him."
\n27\tClaude the river monster (borough boss!) appears in front of Carl and Donut, having just swallowed Samantha. He had taken over the throne room from the Confederacy. Fighting ensues, and the team kills Claude. Miss Nadine is killed in the battle.
\n28\tThe team experiences premature questjaculation. Carl sends Samantha to the opposite shore to do some recon. She reports that the team from that side is all dead, having been killed by Big Tina. The Recital quest is updated, revealing that Big Tina the dinosaur is responsible for the attacks on Point Mongo. Signet and team return. Carl and Donut achieve completion of the Vengeance of the Daughter Part 1 and receive Part 2: kill Signet's half-sister, Queen Imogen of the high elves. She will be present at the Butcher's Masquerade party at the end of this floor. The reward allows the party to loot the high elf castle, which may contain an item that can protect one from Scolopendra's attacks.
\n29\tEdgar the tortoise gives Signet a new tattoo of Miss Nadine using her dead body. Miss Nadine's connection to Clint causes her to bring him with her and he also appears as a tattoo. Carl and team split from Signet and travel to the next village, Alucarda, grinding along the way, aiming to reach the safe room before his appointment at CrawlCon. Zev sends them a few messages urging them to reach the saferoom quickly. As they arrive in the village, they learn that the mayor is none other than Lucia Mar, who appears behind them just outside the safe room as Carl is transported away.
\n30\tCarl talks to Zev in the production trailer and finds out he won't be sent back to Donut until after his second event. Zev tells him that others may be waiting for him when he is transferred back.
\n31\tCarl judges a children's drawing contest. He finds out his panel discussion will be moderated by the mother of one of the hunters he killed.
\n32\tZev tells Carl about Circe Took, a mantis and mother of Xindy (killed by Carl) and Vrah. Zev says Donut is ok but can't give any more details. Carl gets access to the Ultimate Training Room for the next four hours. Carl is taken to the panel discussion.
\n33\tCarl meets Uptown Hal, Sydnee, and Drick. Carl and Circe argue, and Carl gets more and more aggressive. Circe tries to cut Carl off, but a mysterious cloaked woman in the back corner stops her. Carl realizes he has been drugged by his guards, making him lose his inhibitions. The robed woman reveals that she is one of Carl's sponsors and leaves. Circe storms out. Carl crowd sources a plan to kill Vrah.
\n34\tCarl prepares to be transported. The team tells him that Lucia Mar is waiting in the safe room with teleport traps, Donut is in the guild hall, a bunch of hunters are waiting outside, and Samantha was taken by Vrah and attached to her back with her collection of heads.
\n35\tFighting ensues. Carl reveals that he had his own plan, and the one discussed at the panel was a decoy since he knew some hunters were still communicating with the outside. The team avoids Lucia's teleportation traps and Carl kills a bunch of hunters, gaining stats via his ring. Carl and Vrah face off, and Carl gives Vrah double gonorreah before escaping into the saferoom.
\n36\tBack in the saferoom, Carl and Donut are joined by Katia and her crew. Katia and Bautista appear to be in a relationship. Donut gets a vocal coach. Carl gets a new Enemy of the Church tattoo for defiling the shrine of Diwata and is advised to steer clear of driads and Diwata herself. Carl also gets new patches and discovers that Donut's Earth hobby skill is knowledge about patches. Carl gets the "swole" upgrade.
\n37\tThe team watches the recap episode, which shows Donut's battle with Lucia Mar. Mid-fight, Lucia Mar calls it a draw. She appears to be talking to someone who isn't there, who she says is named Alexandro and is her youth assistant, and rapidly changes between personalities. One of Lucia's dogs, Cici, returns and attacks Donut, but Donut escapes and kills Cici. Back in real time, Bomo arrives with the male mantis Carl had offered to protect from Vrah, who likely sought to pass the gonorrhea on to him as the only remaining mantis.
\n38\tThe male mantis is named Edict, and he explains that he is screwed no matter what, then attacks inside the saferoom, getting himself teleported to the nearest mob nest and killed.
\n39\tCarl and Donut grind and take control of two additional towns. They arrive at a third town, Prepotente Town #4, to find it ravaged by Big Tina and head into the saferoom for Carl's final CrawlCon event.
\n40\tCarl joins the Popov brothers at the production facility before the autograph event. Zev tells Carl that his replacement sponsor (Valtay sponsor lost when they gained 51% ownership of Borant Corp.) will be revealed during the event.
\n41\tCarl and the Popov brothers sign autographs and take photos with fans. Carl meets a chapter president of the Princess Posse who advocates for eradication of cocker spaniels and has a head tentacle named Maggie. Carl's new sponsor is The Plenty. Nihit confronts Carl about Odette doing the Bea reveal before he could, and Carl stabs him with a sharpie.
\n42\tZev informs Carl that Nihit wants to press charges, and that if he survives the crawl he could receive a warrant, which would allow him to be sold as a pseudo-slave.
\n43\tThe Plenty and The Apothecary send Carl and Donut items that protect them from vampirism. Miriam Dom messages Carl saying she is trapped and needs help.
\n44\tMiriam is trapped in the aftermath of an elite quest, with Prepotente paralyzed and fragile with his arm around her waist. The party sets out to save her, but finds that Big Tina has returned to the town. They learn that the dinosaurs were originally ursine who were transformed by Scolopendra's attack, and that Big Tina wants to dance at a recital since she never got her chance. Big Tina has also become a vampire and is creating undead minions.
\n45\tMiriam confirms that she spread vampirism to Big Tina and the other dinosaurs. Carl and Donut reach the next town, and Donut draws Mongo's blood for the charm animal potion.
\n46\tDonut kills the mayor and takes the town. They approach Miriam's location only to encounter a boss battle with Sierra, the now-vampiric mount of the elite Viscount Fog. They defeat her and move onward.
\n47\tCarl and Donut find Miriam, and she reveals that in the chaos of their last battle, Prepotente's Ring of Divine Suffering had marked her, meaning he cannot heal while she lives. She also reveals that killing the head vampire (herself) will cure everyone afflicted with vampirism. She asks Carl to kill her before Prepotente's paralysis wears off, and he refuses but waits with her for sunrise instead.
\n48\tMiriam dies and everyone is cured of vampirism. The Creeping Apocalypse world quest is announced. Carl and Donut wake Prepotente and he is distraught, and also eats his Ring of Divine Suffering.
\n49\tKiwi and her dinosaur posse arrive, and Donut charms her using a potion. Carl realizes that The Plenty set up this chain of events and likely wanted Miriam to die. Prepotente sets out to kill odious creepers and Carl, Donut, and the dino squad head back to the saferoom.
\n50\tOdious creepers start to fall to crawlers. The party catches up with Mordecai and Katia's team, and then heads out to hunt creepers themselves.
\n51\tDonut gets credit for a creeper kill. The party encounters the high elves and the familiar of Queen Imogen, who turns out to be Ferdinand. He attacks Mongo and Donut leaps in front of the blast, only surviving because of her cockroach ability.
\n52\tCarl wants to go down the stairs early to protect Donut, but she convinces him she is okay. Katia tells Carl she needs to talk to him about something important in person. The dinosaur squad returns to Carl and Donut with Big Tina in tow, but Kiwi stops Tina from attacking. The AI announces that they failed the world quest and now all saferoom access is limited by a blood bar which is filled by killing enemies, and the spell Gehenna Bramble will spread outward from the location of the remaining creepers. A hunter with blood bar at zero is immediately teleported to the party's location.
\n53\tCarl talks to hunter Iota, who tells them that the AI is starting to go primal, disobeying court orders. He says it is rumored that the Mantises sold Borant a used AI for this crawl under the table. Carl kills him.
\n54\tCarl and Katia chat and determine that the brambles will cover the entire floor by the last day, ending at the high elf castle. Both parties move in that direction.
\n55\tSignet warns Carl that the dryads may summon Diwata to fight the spreading brambles. Carl gets a potion and cryptic note in his benefactor box from The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network telling him that Circe had sponsored Diwata and instructing him to give Donut the potion. Carl and Donut get nipple piercings.
\n56\tA flashback reveals that Carl and Quasar planned for him to use the Zerzura spell to transport a full city containing the changelings down to the ninth floor. Back in current events, the countdown to the Butcher's Masquerade begins. Donut's applications for the pet beauty contest and the talent show are accepted. The team goes over the map of the high elf castle together. Prepotente says he want to bring something to Donut.
\n57\tCarl tells Bautista he approves of his relationship with Katia and he seems relieved. Prepotente arrives and gives Donut an "I Take It All Back" potion from his benefactor box.
\n58\tCarl and Donut go to the Desperado Club to try to make contact with the changelings. They blackmail their way onto the hunter floor of the club and tell the changelings that they need to get to the high elf palace during the party for their plan to succeed.
\n59\tCarl and Donut are taken to Orren following their trespassing incident. Orren tells them that he is leaving after the collapse of this floor and won't return until the ninth floor. Donut realizes that Orren is trying to warn them of something. Quasar joins the group along with the woman from Donut's fan club.
\n60\tBack in the saferoom, Carl starts planning to kill as many hunters as possible to reduce their numbers before the party. Zev tells the party that the Syndicate Council ruled that no more lawsuits could be filed naming the AI as defendant, showing its deterioration. The party and their guild allies head out to kill hunters.
\n61\tAs the group executes a raid on a church, Carl gets a notification that Diwata has entered the realm, and that he has been marked for death.
\n62\tDiwata runs out of the church and away from the group, surprising them. Samantha tells the group that Diwata is known to give birth to new forest creatures and that the other gods don't like it. They realize she is likely heading to Vrah to cure her of her gonorrhea and potentially give birth to her own grandchildren.
\n63\tThe group heads to the next town and find Signet there. Carl speaks to her privately and tells her that her plan to kill Queen Imogen won't work because it is the climax of the main story and that he has an alternative plan. No one in the group can figure out what all the items given to Donut from various other Crawlers' benefactor boxes are for. The team heads out to the party.
\n64\tCarl documents his plan in the cookbook. We see a few pages from the secret bathroom notepad the team has been using to communicate. Their primary goal is to survive the Butcher's Masquerade, with secondary goals to complete the Tina quest, kill Eva, save the changelings, take the castle, kill Lucia Mar, and kill every hunter. Carl, Donut and crew are escorted to the party. They have Britney with them, as well as a changeling disguised as Signet. Suddenly, Queen Imogen appears in their carriage.
\n65\tQueen Imogen is revealed to be Ifechi's twin sister. She confronts Carl about bringing Signet along, and tells him that as host, it is her duty to ensure there is no violence this evening and if she succeeds, she receives a boon from Apito. She says that the party is under a celestial peace seal, and anyone who breaks the peace will be fed into the Nothing.
\n66\tCarl messages the group with a new plan, saying that they can't be the ones to make the first move. A guard tells the changeling Signet that she is unwelcome, and she leaves, presumably as part of the plan. The rest of the party goes through security and enters Ballroom A. Chaco is manning the prize counter, and Princess (now Empress) D'Nadia is judging the talent show and pet contest. Donut heads backstage to prepare, and D'Nadia tells Carl that he and his attorney almost ruined her buy-in bid. Vrah enters the party.
\n67\tVrah tells Carl that she has a present for him. Lucia Mar and Eva arrive, and various crawlers have to be held back from attacking them. Florin and Carl agree that something is off with Lucia. Prepotente tells Carl he needs to join their party for the remainder of this floor so that they travel together to the next floor but Carl is hesitant. The official party activities begin, and Carl's allies outside the castle start to move. Signet enters the room, which was not a part of the plan.
\n68\tApito invited Signet to the party to test Imogen. Signet says no one has ever gotten the boon from Apito.
\n69\tCarl asks Chaco why Mordecai hates him, but he isn't allowed to say what happened. Carl browses the prizes and talks to Mordecai about them via the chat. Mordecai asks about the memorial crystal, which costs 100 hands, and Chaco says it is the Queen's most prized possession. Carl picks his prizes: a shrink wand, the 8th floor lore book, a music sheet of skedaddle, featherfall potions, and healing potions.
\n70\tThe group watches Mongo's performance in the pet show. Bomo and the Sledge report that baby mantises are everywhere outside the castle. Mordecai says that Diwata's birthing is a spell, and she will stay on the floor until it is done casting regardless of the 5 minute limit.
\n71\tFlorin comforts Lucia and tells the group that there are multiple in Lucia's head, including other children, and that the dog is key to whatever is going on. Ferdinand shows up.
\n72\tDonut uses her enhanced charisma to charm Ferdinand, and he decides to go through the ducts to be physically in the crawlers' ballroom. Samantha also travels the ducts to reach the control room and finds that the guards are already dead. Queen Imogen appears in the ballroom, sealing everyone in the party inside.
\n73\tImogen was previously outside fighting, and killed some of Carl's allies. She confronts Carl and Signet, but cannot do anything to harm them. The talent show proceeds. A group of hunters including Vrah has surrounded Lucia and it looks like they are trying to get her to break the seal of nonviolence. Samantha turns off the limitations (no spells, no inventory access) on the crawlers, and turns them back on for the hunters. Carl realizes that Vrah and her mother are filling the castle with mantises and tells Samantha that Diwata will likely be heading her way. Carl's plan is falling apart and the groups outside the castle are struggling, and he decides that he needs to break the seal himself to give his friends a chance to survive. Signet tells Carl that she now understands what he was trying to tell her - that they are part of a show with outside forces calling the shots. She also says that what Tina wants isn't to dance, she wants her mother back. The Sledge and the changelings miraculously make it into the castle.
\n74\tDonut begins her talent performance. She uses a charm potion to make Ferdinand her minion, and Tina dances on stage. Signet uses herself as the blood sacrifice to bring her tattoos to life, breaking the seal and being pulled into the Nothing. The seal is broken and the protections around the castle cease.
\n75\tAll out battle ensues. Mongo and Kiwi kill Vrah. Signet's tattoos have been given life permanently, and an incomplete flesh golem of her mother was also created. Carl takes it into his inventory to use later to give Samantha a body. Donut uses the "I take it all back" potion on Kiwi to turn her back into an Ursine, and Tina realizes it is her mother, completing the Recital quest. The Sledge finishes casting Zerzura and the castle and NPCs are teleported away.
\n76\tThe AI announces a boss battle between crawlers, hunters, Queen Imogen, and Diwata. Chaos ensues. Donut uses Carl's potion to get her Laundry Day spell to level 15, allowing her to remove the god-armor from Circe Took, who is killed by her own mantis children. The final hunter is eliminated, as are the high elves. Gwendolyn Duet and Cleiton are both killed, and Tran loses his legs. Imogen's spell causes an explosion and Carl passes out as Prepotente attacks Imogen. Imogen is defeated and the Vengeance of the Daughter quest is completed.
\n77\tDonut wakes Carl and tells him that Firas and the Popovs are dead, and that Britney's face is badly burned. Someone named Osvaldo took the memorial crystal off of Imogen, and Prepotente tries to get it from him. Katia kills Eva. Carl finds the Popovs reborn as babies and they are transported to safety since children aren't allowed in the crawl. Carl and Donut are notified that their team, The Princess Posse, is officially part of Faction Wars, and it is revealed that they worked with Donut's fans and Princess D'Nadia to secure two spots. Carl speaks to the audience, telling them that the teams can vote to turn off the safety protocols on the 9th floor and encouraging those who can vote on their government's actions to do so. The feed is cut off.
\nEpilogue\tCarl, Donut and Prepotente arrive on the 7th floor. Donut chooses the Viper Queen class. Prepotente uses the mysterious items from their sponsors to break the 7th floor level, and everyone proceeds to the 8th floor. It is revealed that in her last moments, Eva placed the Crown of the Sepsis Whore on Katia's head and that only one of her and Donut will be able to proceed past the 9th floor.
Another cool idea, like progression fantasy but starting out powerful, but ended up just not feeling very satisfying. Got boring after the first half which is impressive for such a short book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-city-of-brass-chakraborty","title":"The City of Brass","author":"S.A. Chakraborty","series":"The Daevabad Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":532,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Harper Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32718027-the-city-of-brass","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"154944","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Historical","isbn":"9780062678102","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-city-of-brass-chakraborty-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/the-city-of-brass-chakraborty/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/28/2026","dateFinished":"2/5/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I think if I was 13 and a girl I would have enjoyed this book a lot more. Nothing in particular was terrible about it, just kind of boring for most of it, then when they tried to shove in actions a lot of the characters decisions felt unrealistic. The egyptian/persian/muslim influence is cool, just needs a better plot and character development and dialogue.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"City of Brass
\nS. A. Chakraborty
\nThe Daevabad Trilogy #1
Nahri is an orphan living in Cairo, around 1800 I think. She has magical abilities to sense what is wrong with people and heal some things. She uses these abilities to con others and burgal them. Her only friend is a nearby apothecary named Yaqub. She hopes to go to a university in Istanbul and learn to be a doctor one day. She is performing a ritual to scam some local poor people out of their money to help their daughter, but seems to accidentally do actual magic. The young girl is actually possessed by something and chases her into a cemetery. Nahri is about to be killed when a warrior appears from the sky and saves her. He tells her the girl is possessed by an Ifrit, his name is Dara and he is a Daeva, not a djinn, saying that he is a djinn upsets him and that Nahri is a Shafit, a half-djinn half-human mutt, who pureblooded Daeva like him look down upon. But healing magic is rare and means she is part Nahid, the old ruling family of Daevabad.
\nThey flee together for the Djinn city of Daevabad, meeting his bird Peri air-being friend Kahzul along the way. They get attacked various times by various beings like Rukhs and then more Ifrit who say Nahri’s mother Menziheh wants her alive. She also learns Dara is like a classic slave genie and has killed a lot of people.
\nWe also get POV chapters from Ali, Prince Alizahyr Al Qahtani of Daevabad, who secretly funded and helped the Tanzeem, a rebel group in the city fighting for Shafit rights. Their are different “tribes” of Djinn, with the Daeva being the most stuck up and racist and cruel to shafit. Ali is training to become the Qaid, basically the guard commander / military authority in the city.
\nDara and Nahri arrive and are treated well. 1400 years ago their was a war and the Qahtani family took Daevabad from the Daeva / Nahid. Dara fought in that war, and still holds a grudge. Suleiman took their powers or some nonsense. Dara is an Afhsin warrior so his service is dedicated to the Nahid (Nahri is one). They both get used to the city and Ali and Nahri slowly become friends. The Daeva are racist but very nice to Nahri since she is one technically. Lots of dumb stuff happens and then Nahri loves Dara but also kind of Ali but is promised to Ali’s older brother Mundhatir, who does not like her at all. Eventually Dara tries to flee the city with Nahri but Ali intercedes so they kidnap him also. Ambush, lots of people die. Ali seems dead but then gets possessed by a Marid (water entity) and kills Dara. Nahri is sad. Ali is exiled by his father to hide his water possession nonsense, and his brother lies to make Nahri seem guilty. She is forced to submit ti king man. We learn that the Daeva are hiding some big secret and that Nahri may be able to revive Dara.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-comedy-of-errors-shakespeare","title":"The Comedy of Errors","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":112,"yearPublished":1594,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82356.The_Comedy_of_Errors?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_20","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"35093","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9781853262432","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-comedy-of-errors-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-comedy-of-errors-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/22/2024","dateFinished":"2/23/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Classic twin mixup. Bet it was hysterical in the stone age.
\nA
The same as first book but just less fun, starts to feel repetitive and lacks any character growth. The plot sort of just trudges along without anything meaningful seeming to happen, and Simon gets more annoying.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-crippled-god-erikson","title":"The Crippled God","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":10,"pages":1198,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Bantam Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8447255-the-crippled-god","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"32095","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780593046357","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-crippled-god-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-crippled-god-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"3/20/2025","dateFinished":"4/3/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"I finished this book exactly a year after starting the first one. One of if not the best epic fantasy series of all time. The ending was surprisingly happy, I was shocked by how many people survived. I already want to go back through and reread the series to see how much I missed the first time. Awesome.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-crown-conspiracy-sullivan","title":"The Crown Conspiracy","author":"Michael J. Sullivan","series":"The Riyria Revelations","seriesNumber":1,"pages":296,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Aspirations Media Inc","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4345290-the-crown-conspiracy","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.36","numGoodreadsRatings":"27097","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780980003437","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-crown-conspiracy-sullivan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-crown-conspiracy-sullivan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/18/2026","dateFinished":"4/22/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this as a part of the Theft of Swords, but due to series numbering broke it up into the two smaller books. A fun, classic fantasy story. Nothing done especially well but no glaring weaknesses. The dialogue can be a bit rough at times and some of the character arcs feel rushed, but that feels ok within the world. It is a fast-paced, big stakes but small encounters adventure. I would recommend this is a great introductory book to what fantasy can feel like, an adventure story with a bit of elves and magic tossed in. Royce and Hadrian are both cleverer and better than the people around them, which can bother a lot of people but if you can ignore that and just enjoy the story and world this is a great book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Crown Conspiracy
\nMichael J. Sullivan
\nThe Riyria Revelations #1
The Crown Conspiracy Summary
\nRoyalist - Monarchy, ruled by single family
\nImperialist - Support the church and want to find the Heir of Novron
\nNationalist - Commoners wanted democracy
Two riders get stopped in the woods by a group of outlaws and we learn the riders are Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn, a pair of thieves known as Ryiria. When the outlaws learn who they are they let them know since they are fairly notorious. They just completed a mission of stealing letters from a very tall tower owned by the noble Archibald Balantine. They return to their base in Melford (capital city of the royalist kingdom of Melengar), the Rose and Thorn, a dingy tavern owned by Gwen DeLancy. Gwen is kind of the big prostitute boss in the city and owns a lot of stuff. They share their earnings with their small crew of helpers.
\nHadrian gets approached by a man offering them a lot of money for a relatively easy job of stealing the sword of Count Pickering from the castle chapel, where the man hid it. Royce does not like to jump into jobs without background research but Hadrian talks him into it. They sneak into the castle and get to the chapel safely where they find the dead body of King Amrath. They immediately try to run but a dwarf sounds the alarm and they are caught by castle guards and locked in the dungeon.
\nPrince Alric is awoken by the noise and upset his father is dead. He orders that in the morning Royce and Hadrian will be executed in public. His sister, Princess Arista, comes and tell them she knows they are innocent, since she was already aware someone within the castle wanted their line dead. She helps them escape on the condition they kidnap Alric to keep him safe, and they are forced to agree. They successfully get out of the castle with their gear and Alrich unconscious.
\nThey travel by boat for a while, before talking to Alric and realizing that most likely Arista organized the murder of the king and now knows where they will end up on the river. They exit the boat and set up decoys, which get shot full of arrows a bit later. Royce steals the horses from the group and they ride to the nearby Winds Abbey, and discover it was burned down by Imperialist troops recently. The only one left is a noble’s third son Myron, a monk with an eidetic memory who has never left the abbey before. Myron tells them there used to be an empire united by Novron, the mortal son of the god Nephron, but he died and now the church looks to find his heir.
\nThey take Myron with them and continue to the prison Arista told them to go to since they have no better plan. They find a magic ancient prison almost 1,000 years old that almost no one knows about, with apparently immortal guards for a single prisoner. They ask to meet Esrahaddon, a wizard, and are allowed to since Alric is technically king. They learn that he was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, murdering the emperor of an ancient empire. This has founded a religion about finding the Heir of Novron, who will reunite the land under a single banner of the church. Esrahaddon helps them escape the prison using powerful magic after Alric frees them, then helps them out by using logic to show that the dwarf, Magnus, killed the king with the help of Alric’s uncle Percy Braga. The group begins to return to the castle to expose the Archduke Braga.
\nMeanwhile, Arista stole the blade used to kill her father and uses magic to figure out who orchestrated the plan. While she is waiting her uncle Percy shows up and they talk and she also figures out he planned this. He locks her in her tower and says he will be executing her for witchcraft tomorrow after a trial.
\nRiyria, Alric, and Myron arrive at an inn and Alric announces who he is and joins a group of his soldiers headed for the castle, with Myron in tow since he has no where else to go. Shortly after they leave the inn the soldiers reveal they are loyal to Percy Braga and are about to kill Alric when Royce and Hadrian show up with some locals and save the day. The group ride to Drondil Fields where Count Pickering lives with his sons, who are good friends of the royal family and Alric. Pickering is upset and agrees to help Alric. He organizes the local nobles to prepare to march on Melford and save Arista. Hadrian is also very, very good with a sword. Royce and Hadrian take off early to save Arista in case the nobles are too slow.
\nPercy Braga meets with Bishop Saldur, his conspirator, and they have a plan to make all kingdoms Imperialist and reunite the empire with Braga at its head. Archibald Balantine shows up and agrees to help them however he can (he is from the neighboring Imperialist nation). They begin Arista’s trial and the evidence seems to prove she is guilty of killing the king and helping Royce and Hadrian kill Alric. Braga captures two people he think are Riyria in the sewers, but then receives a note saying Arista is free and goes to investigate. He realizes that the two guards going with the dwarf Magnus up to the tower are Royce and Hadrian and him and Hadrian begin to duel. Royce rushes to save Arista, but Magnus has been trapping the tower, and its steps begin to fall as Royce walks on them. He uses a rope and him and Arista manage to barely get to the locked door at the bottom of the tower when Hadrian saves them.
\nMeanwhile, Alric and Pickering attack the castle walls, and Royce and Hadrian’s friends organized the common folk to riot in the city. Alric reveals himself and is able to stop most of the fighting because people are loyal to him, and him and Pickering rush to the castle. Braga screams that he was just trying to save the world, and that Alric and Arista are not human. Pickering duels Braga and beheads him, but all the other conspirators of the crime are either unknown or escape. Alric is crowned king and begins to rebuild the kingdom. Myron is given money and workers to rebuild the abbey, and Archibald Balantine wakes up one day with Percy Braga’s head in his lap and a note saying don’t mess with Melengar. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-cruel-prince-black","title":"The Cruel Prince","author":"Holly Black","series":"The Folk of the Air","seriesNumber":1,"pages":370,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Little, Brown Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26032825-the-cruel-prince?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8","numGoodreadsRatings":"1792816","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9780316310277","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-cruel-prince-black-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-cruel-prince-black/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"11/1/2021","dateFinished":"11/7/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-dark-secret-sutherland","title":"The Dark Secret","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":4,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17675467-the-dark-secret","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"40909","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545349215","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-dark-secret-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-dark-secret-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/24/2024","dateFinished":"1/27/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Book. Children probably eat this up.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-death-cure-dashner","title":"The Death Cure","author":"James Dashner","series":"The Maze Runner","seriesNumber":3,"pages":325,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Delacorte","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7864437-the-death-cure","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"492795","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780385738774","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-death-cure-dashner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-death-cure-dashner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/13/2025","dateFinished":"10/15/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not the worst ending in the world, still just so much action and random stuff.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Death Cure
\nJames Dashner
\nThe Maze Runner #3
After the events in The Scorch Trials, Thomas is locked up in solitary confinement for four weeks. He is then released, and Assistant Director Janson, known as Rat Man, reveals to him and the other subjects (including Group B) that there is no cure for the Flare but that most of the Gladers and Group B are immune. Janson then announces that Newt, Jackson, and an unnamed Female Glader are not immune to the Flare. He also warns them that many people in the outside world hate them because of their unnatural resistance to the Flare and that if they escape, they will most likely be in more danger.
\nJanson gives the Gladers a chance to get their memories back and everyone, except for Newt, Minho, and Thomas, agree to get their memories restored, especially Teresa, who still believes "WICKED is good". As a result, while everyone gets their memories back, Newt, Minho, and Thomas are kept in confinement under the watch of guards and more cameras. Even though Minho, Newt, and Thomas say no to it, they are eventually forced to get their memories back the next day, as Janson (or Rat Man) thinks that they would be of no help to finding the cure without their memories. Luckily, Brenda, who manages to convince him to let her help sedate Thomas, helps them escape before they are given their memories back.
\nThey discover the test subjects who received their memories were also able to escape, thinking that the other Gladers had abandoned them (it is revealed later on that the other Gladers had instead thought that they had already escaped before them). The gang raids the armoury and gather guns and ammunition. Newt is unusually short-tempered. He had attacked Rat Man before, and, in the weapons depot, starts a petty argument with Minho, resulting in a brawl. Before leaving, Newt gives Thomas a note, telling him that he must not read it until the time is right. Shortly after that, Thomas, Minho, Newt, and Brenda escape onto a Berg, a massive airship; while under fire from WICKED guards. Jorge reveals himself to be a skilled pilot, and that Teresa, Aris, Frypan, and the other test subjects had knocked him out and have escaped on one of the other 3 Bergs.
\nSome guards break into the hangar, wielding Launchers (which fire electrical stun grenades), and pistols. Jorge manages to get all of them into the air, but both Thomas and Brenda are struck by Launcher grenades. After their escape, Brenda tells Thomas, after his realization that she is a WICKED employee, (He had learned this upon first seeing her in the facility and was dismayed to learn this) However, she says only joined WICKED for survival reasons, as she agrees with Janson that the alternative is a literal death sentence with more cranks popping up all the time. Thomas tells her about Chuck's death and Teresa's betrayal against him and uses them as the two main reasons why he hates WICKED; they used them, they constantly lied to them, and they never bear the consequences, instead always claiming it's for the greater good. Although Brenda empathizes with Thomas, she reasons that Teresa's reason behind her betrayal was that she did it because they threatened to kill him if she didn't do what they wanted, and by doing so, she saved his life.
\nThey fly to Denver, where Teresa and the others have escaped to. They pretend to be people looking for a job when they are there to see Hans, a former WICKED neurologist who has escaped, to get him to help them remove the Swipe in Minho and Thomas' brains. The Swipe allows WICKED to control them, therefore they have to remove them as soon as possible.
\nUpon arriving at Denver, Newt is left behind in the Berg as he is the only one who is not immune to the Flare. While they are on their trip, a mysterious man hands them a note which reveals an address where they meet up with Gally, a previous Glader who tried to kill Thomas, but killed Chuck instead, and also a member of the Right Arm, an underground organization dedicated to destroying WICKED.
\nAfter which, at Hans', WICKED finds a way to control Thomas with the implant still in his brain, to kill Hans and prevent him from removing the implant in Thomas's brain. As Thomas is held down by the others, Hans manages to perform an operation on Thomas, removing the implant in his brain that allows him to telepathically talk with Teresa and Aris and that lets WICKED monitor where he is. When the operation is completed, Brenda, Jorge, Minho, and Thomas go into a coffee shop to eat. There, Brenda points out a man who is infected with the Flare but taking the Bliss. When the infected man is discovered in the coffee shop, Thomas stupidly decides to stay and watch what is happening, accidentally revealing himself to the guards that he is immune to the Flare and that he already knew that the man was infected but still did not do anything. The man is revealed to be a WICKED bounty hunter who captures immunes, he captures Thomas and intends to take him back to WICKED for a huge payment.
\nWhen Thomas is about to get in the Red Shirt's car, a flying law enforcement vehicle (known as a cop machine) shoots the man down. A video feed appears on its screen displaying a video image of Janson, who tells Thomas to come back to WICKED for the Phase 3 of the Trials. Thomas who needs to escape from him, lies and tells Janson that he would consider, even though he intends to never go back to WICKED and help them. Janson tries to enforce Thomas's lie further by saying that Newt is succumbing to the disease a lot faster than the average person can. Upon hearing about this, Thomas agrees and tells his friends that they should help him quickly, but the city does not allow for its current population to exit, forcing the group to wait until the next day.
\nWhen the group arrive back at their Berg the next day, they discover that Newt is missing. They find a note from Newt which states that some people found him and took him to a Crank Palace, where Cranks live before they go crazy. Brenda knows of the place, which is called the Crank Palace, and all of them fly there immediately, in an attempt to bring Newt back. They manage to bribe the guards with money from WICKED (Jorge has access to this from a stolen card that once belonged to the Rat Man) and find Newt in a deserted bowling alley. Along the way, they see that the living conditions of the Crank Palace are not good, though they see a Crank couple that looks somewhat normal. Minho, extremely adamant to not give up on Newt, considering their past, attempts to persuade Newt to come back but is forced to leave at gunpoint. They also find out that a group of the Cranks at the palace plan to break out and head to Denver and Newt intends to join them. During the entire visit, Newt claims that Thomas failed him and openly insults him, though Thomas is confused.
\nA riot breaks out and a massive Crank escape occurs, with Thomas, Brenda, Jorge, and the others narrowly getting away in the berg. After the berg lands back at the airport, Thomas reads the letter that Newt gave him while they were escaping from the WICKED complex.
\nThe note states, "Kill me. If you've ever been my friend, kill me." Thomas realizes that Newt had been angry at him because Thomas had not followed the note's directions - he had wanted Thomas to kill him upon seeing him in his crank state.
\nOnce they open the Berg's bay door, the group is captured by four people wielding Launchers and pistols. Thomas and the others assume that they're bounty hunters. Bags are put over their faces and they are driven to an unknown complex. There, the group overpower the guards, and at gunpoint, the bounty hunters say that they work for the Right Arm. There, they also meet Teresa and the other subjects who were also captured by the same bounty hunters. Thomas talks to Teresa and almost immediately berates for alerting the Right Arm to them and for abandoning them back at WICKED; she fires back, saying that Thomas is too caught up in his anger over people 'betraying' him, which keeps him from realizing these 'betrayals', while hurtful, have ultimately saved his life; She also says she's still his Teresa and always has been and that she escaped WICKED because her memories helped her realize WICKED's true agenda; they believe their first search for a cure has failed and want to restart the trials, all of which went against her reasons for staying with them. Thomas is glad that she is on his side but remains quiet on whether or not he wants to forget the past and move on in terms of their past relationship.
\nThe Female bounty hunter says they took them because a group of Cranks (the ones Newt has joined with) have overrun Denver and are killing anything that moves. Minho demands that they take Thomas and Brenda to their headquarters, where they want to speak to the leader of the Right Arm. A bounty hunter named Lawrence drives them there in a van. Along the way, they bump into a large crowd of Cranks, who are desperate for food. The Cranks attempt to get Lawrence, Brenda and Thomas out of the van by constantly pounding on it and attempting to smash the windows. Finally, however, they get away after Thomas shoots a few Cranks with a pistol.
\nAt the Right Arm's headquarters, they meet Vince, the leader of the Right Arm, and a friend of Gally. The Right Arm has, for a long time, been planning to take down WICKED and use its resources and money to save as many of the infected and disinfected as they can; something that they believe WICKED should've done instead of Hoarding resources, money and people for finding a cure. Thomas agrees to help them, and they plan an infiltration plan to get the Right Arm into WICKED's base. They plan to plant a device in WICKED's headquarters, which are just outside Denver, which will disable their soldiers' weapons (Pistols and Launchers), allowing the Right Arm, trained heavily in CQC with traditional weapons (knives, swords, etc.) to gain the upper hand. Thomas volunteers to plant the device because WICKED wants him back for Phase 3 of the Trials, and he could take advantage of that to enter WICKED's facilities.
\nThey agree on the plan and Thomas gets into a vehicle with Lawrence and the pilot (who would pilot the Berg), with Lawrence driving to the hangar, where their Berg awaits them. At one point while driving, Thomas sees Newt among a group of Cranks. He forces Lawrence at gunpoint to stop the van so he can go talk to Newt and see how he is. Newt is angry because he didn't follow the note's orders, yelling at him and saying that Thomas couldn't do the one thing he'd ever asked him to do. He furthermore blames Thomas for the maze and everything he went through; he also reveals that he got his limp after Alby stopped him from committing suicide via the maze walls. After Newt jumps him and forces the pistol to his forehead, begging for death, Thomas ends up shooting him in the head. They continue until they reach the base. They get into the Berg where Thomas rests for a couple of hours. Thomas is dropped off a few miles away from the base at the planned location. He hikes to it and is greeted by Janson. Thomas plants the device immediately when he made an excuse to use the bathroom and has to wait for one hour for the device to finish working.
\nDuring this time, Janson brings Thomas to his office, in which are Two WICKED employees, Dr. Lane, the lead Psychologist, and the Head Physician, Dr. Christensen. Janson tells Thomas that he is the Final Candidate and that WICKED needs to perform a fatal brain operation on him to finish the blueprint of the brain, ultimately leading to a vaccine and/or a cure for the Flare. It had originally come down to him and Teresa, but Teresa's sense of obedience and lack of independence led them to choose Thomas, who is also angered to learn that Janson had planned for Thomas's escape and used it to gather more data. Janson reveals that that is the reason for the trials' existence: Their existence is so that they can narrow down the immune candidates and determine which one holds the key to finding a cure. Thomas tries to put off the operation for as long as possible, but it is too late. Thomas is eventually saved by Chancellor Paige, head of WICKED, who calls off the operation in favour of a different plan involving getting the Immunes to safety, to preserve the human race. Chancellor Paige also gives Thomas a map to escape from the Maze to the place she wants him to go to via a Flat Trans. Thomas discovers that the couple hundred Immunes that WICKED has gathered, courtesy of the Right Arm, are being hidden inside the Maze. On the way, however, he runs into Janson and a colleague of his. Already desperate as time is ticking, Thomas manages to escape them by throwing a knife and stabbing Janson's colleague in the neck, but with Janson on his tail. While running away, Thomas notices Newt's insane anger on Janson's face and realizing that the Rat Man has the Flare. he discovers that Janson has contracted the Flare and that he is planning to do anything to complete the brain blueprint and counteract the disease. He finds two Right Arm soldiers who inform him that the complex will be coming down with the use of explosives. He runs off to find Vince.
\nVince informs Thomas that the explosives have been planted in WICKED already and that if Thomas planned to try and go inside of WICKED once more just to save the Immunes, he would consider that as Thomas going against the Right Arm. Thomas still decides to go back to save the Immunes and complete the mission Chancellor Paige issued him. He asks Gally to come and help him, and while Vince informs Gally the same thing (if they were to go back to WICKED it would be considered as betrayal), Gally agrees to help Thomas. The two soon find the others (Teresa, Brenda, Minho, Harriet and Jorge) and they all set off to save the Immunes.
\nThey make it to the Maze and find about four hundred to five hundred Immunes of all ages in the Glade. They all split into groups, in an attempt to have a mix of ages and strengths in each group. Before they can escape the Maze, however, it starts to collapse from the explosives that the Right Arm had planted. On the way, they encounter more Grievers. Thomas manages to deactivate them by pulling on the handles at the back of their bodies, as Teresa told him to do. At one point, Teresa sacrificed herself to the last Griever in an attempt to let the others escape, but Thomas manages to save her.
\nThey make it to the maintenance room with the Flat Trans that Paige mapped out, where they meet the Flare-infected Janson and 6 other WICKED security guards. The Gladers manage to overpower the guards and Thomas strangles Janson to death. When the maintenance room starts to collapse, a large piece of stone from the ceiling is about to crush Thomas but Teresa tackles him and gets crushed instead. Thomas knows that Teresa cannot survive the massive internal organ damage and is forced to go through the Flat Trans without her before the whole WICKED complex is destroyed.
\nThe Immunes are transported to "Paradise". The only original Gladers confirmed to survive besides Thomas are Frypan, Minho, and Gally. Brenda later finds Thomas resting alone and tells him that "Paradise" would be a good new start, then Brenda leans in and kisses Thomas, who responds by kissing her back and pulling her close to him. Minho is seen taking responsibility and giving groups of people jobs to get the place up and running. It is suggested that once the Flare kills off the rest of humanity, the Immunes will re-join the world and repopulate it with their immune genes.
\nIn the final WICKED memorandum by Chancellor Paige, she reveals that their "predecessors in government" (revealed in other books to be the Post-Flares Coalition) released the Flare from a quarantine zone as an attempt to control world population after the sun flare catastrophe and that WICKED tried to correct the PFC's wrongdoings by trying to create a cure and a vaccine. She admits that the majority of WICKED strayed from the original goal of saving the human race and their activities of attempting to repeat the Trials were threatening the last resort left to mankind. In leaving the Immunes to rebuild civilization, she reinforces the idea that had been attempted to have been planted in all of the subjects of the experiments: WICKED is good.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-devils-abercrombie","title":"The Devils","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The Devils","seriesNumber":1,"pages":525,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Broken Binding","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233800039-the-devils","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"3981","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9781250880055","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-devils-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-devils-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/24/2025","dateFinished":"6/10/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Felt kind of like slightly watered down first law. Still means it is really good, and the characters were fun and memorable, but was a bit too similar and not quite as good as First Law, but listened to it while moving into our new house which was awesome. Books associated with positive memories will always be better.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-dragonbone-chair-williams","title":"The Dragonbone Chair","author":"Tad Williams","series":"Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn","seriesNumber":1,"pages":672,"yearPublished":1988,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91981.The_Dragonbone_Chair","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"79050","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780756402693","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-dragonbone-chair-williams-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-dragonbone-chair-williams/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"5/22/2026","dateFinished":"6/3/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Awesome classic fantasy. I think this got a boost because I have been reading a lot of sci-fi and other stuff lately, but this rocked. Hit all the classic tropes but the writing was great and I felt really invested in all the characters. Simon isn’t that much of an idiot and was a great protagonist. I am very excited to continue the series. The world building was phenomenal, felt very real and the tension between the different nationalities worked well. I went into this one not really knowing anything about it and I am very glad. Loved learning about the history of the world along with Simon.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Dragonbone Chair
\nTad Williams
\nMemory, Sorrow, and Thorn
The Dragonbone Chair Summary
\nSimon “Mooncalf” is an orphan living in Hayholt, the castle where King Prester John rules over Osten Ard. Simon is called mooncalf by Rachel (called The Dragon, head chambermaid), because he often gets distracted and wanders off instead of working. Simon becomes the apprentice to the old Doctor Morgenes, hoping to learn magic. Simon is disappointed since it mostly involves cleaning, learning to read and write, and lots of history.
\nPrester John is dying, he is very old, so he summons his sons Elias and Josua to the castle. John became king by killing the dragon Shurakai and then conquering a bunch of other lands and was well regarded as a great king. Elias is eldest and will inherit, but has a bit of a temper. Elias’ wife is dead and he has only one daughter, and Josua is missing his right hand. One day Simon overhears the brothers arguing while sneaking about in the chapel, and sees that someone else was spying on them also, a boy named Malachias. Josua tries to warn Elias against his advisor Pryrates, saying he seems to be involved in some dark stuff, but Elias won’t listen.
\nKing John dies, and many people from all over comes to Hayholt for his funeral. Despite him requesting that Elias take his sword, Bright-Nail, it is buried with him (we learn a bit later that when Elias tried to hold the sword he felt great discomfort). Elias is crowned king and shifts which nobles are favored by the crown. Duke Isgrimnur of Rimmersgard, one of John’s oldest friends and knights, is kicked out of favor for Skali sly nose. Soon a drought starts and it does not rain for a long time, people are starving but Elias only seems to drink and party at the castle, and raises taxes to do so. Many older nobles complain but the king forces them to stay and attend him. While in town one day Simon meets a friendly monk named Cadrach who he spends the day with.
\nJosua disappears one night, Simon is awakened by Isgrimnur to find Towser, King John’s fool and friend to discuss this. Morgenes does not like Pryrates and says he is a foolish mage. Simon learns much about the history of King John and the castle. Hayholt was built by the Sithi, an ancient race from before man. One day, Simon is trying to avoid chores and stumbles upon Pryrates hidden in a basement. He follows where he came from and finds Prince Josua captive below Hayholt. He gets Doctor Morgenes and together they save Josua, who plans to go north to Naglimund where he has men loyal to him. Morgenes shows him a secret exit through the labyrinth under the castle. Pryrates shows up and threatens them. Morgenes sends out a few messenger birds, gives Simon a manuscript of the life of King John he had been writing, and sends Simon away through the labyrinth. Before leaving Simon sees Morgenes and Pryrates have a magic battle and the doctor dies in a fire.
\nSimon wanders for many hours in darkness and dirt and suffers many hallucinations and spider bites but eventually makes it out into open air. He comes upon a secret ritual, where Pryrates meets with a black cart being pulled by white fox men (There have been bad rumors about this cart circulating). It is revealed Josua was supposed to be sacrificed but they kill a different man, and in exchange receive an evil sword (Sorrow) for Elias. From this point on Simon starts to have strange, seemingly prophetic or important dreams, as well as maintaining a strange connection to Pryrates.
\nSimon continues his escape. He travels alone for a while, stealing to survive but struggling. He meets with Brother Cadrach, but soon realizes Cadrach is a thief and Simon is forced to flee for Cadrach’s crimes. Eventually he finds a hut in the forest, but just outside it a Sithi is caught in a trap. A woodsman comes to kill the trapped Sithi (who are slightly smaller than men and have some animalistic features). Simon kills the woodsman and saves the Sithi, who gives him a white arrow as a sign of debt. Then a small troll named Binabik shows up with his pet wolf Qantaqa, and says Simon can travel with them for a while. Binabik is a talented survivalist and helps Simon learn and eat more and stuff.
\nBack in Hayholt many of Elias’ advisors seem concerned for him. He only listens to Pryrates and seems to be sick. Duke Isgrimnur is angry he has not been allowed to leave but eventually talks his way out. Elias’ daughter, Miriamele, leaves the castle to return home, which greatly angers the man her father promised her hand in marriage, Earl Fengbald.
\nBinabik and Simon head for an Abbey, but discover it burned down and many men murdered around it. They find a couple monks still alive, and learn that an unknown group of men was waiting to ambush another group and killed all the monks. Simon gets captured by a group of Rimmersgard men, led by Duke Isgrimnur. They trust Simon and say he can travel with them, but that night all are attacked by skeleton like things crawling from the ground and Binabik whisks Simon away, revealing to Simon that he was sent by Doctor Morgenes to watch over him. Binabik was travelling with his master, who died on the journey, when Binabik received one of the messenger birds Morgenes sent out. Both Morgenes and Binabik’s master were members of the 7 person League of the Scroll, a group of scholars.
\nBinabik and Simon realize they are being chased and are forced to fight off a group of hounds. Once they defeat them Binabik recognizes they have the mark of the Stormspike on them, a massive mountain in the north where a people called the Norns live. They hear shouting nearby and go to investigate and save a couple kids from a dog. Simon recognizes the older boy as Malachias, from Hayholt. Malachias says the young injured girl with him is his sister. They all hide and overhear their hunters, one of whom is a Black Rimmergard man Ingen Jegger.
\nThey make it Geloe’s cottage by a lake. She is a witch woman of some power. While there it is revealed Malachias is actually a young girl of 15 (Simon’s age) named Marya, and the other girls is a maidservant of Princess Miriamelle. They stay with Geloe a short time, and “Dreamwalk” to try to learn of the world. The hunters catch up soon though and they flee on a boat. Simon and Marya begin to become friends. They reach an ancient Sithi ruined city, Da'ai Chikiza, but Ingen Jegger has caught up on the other side of the river and shoots arrows at them, forcing them to flee. Binabik is struck by an arrow and Simon must carry him. They run for a long time before hiding in a clearing when they hear nearby horsemen. Suddenly a literal giant breaks into the clearing and Simon tries to fight it off before they are saved by the horsemen. Simon recognizes Prince Josua before passing out.
\nSimon wakes up in Naglimund, meeting a strange scholar named Strangyeard. He goes to check on Binabik who is recovering well. Simon also meets Sanfugol, a harper he met at Hayholt. They also begin to become friends. Binabik and Simon got to a meeting of nobles led by prince Josua. Duke Isgrimnur returns and says that Skali Stink nose has been given the dukes lands by King Elias, and Isgrimnur’s son is being held captive. The Rimmersmen are furious. Then Princess Miriamele comes in, who is revealed to have been Marya. Simon is distraught and flees the room in tears. The princess comes and apologizes and they make up a bit.
\nThen a wise man, a member of the League of Scrolls, Jarnauga arrives at Naglimund and shares a story. Way in the past, a Sithi named Ineluki was a prince of his people, but when the Rimmersmen invaded, he turned to dark arts to defeat them and forged a sword called Sorrow, before fleeing north to the Stormspike and fathering the race of Norns. He is now known as the Storm King and is planning his return. Simon remembers his night on the hill in the graveyard when Elias was given the sword Sorrow and shares this with the team.
\nJosua has a consort named Lady Vorzevha. Vorzevha gives Princess Miriamele gold and hires a priest to travel with her, the princess wants to go to Nabban to ask for help. Sanfugol realizes the priest hired was Cadrach the thief Simon had met before, so Josua sends Duke Isgrimnur after the princess disguised as a monk. Jarnauga meets with Scholar Strangeyeard, Joshua, and Binabik and they go over an old legend of three mystical swords. One is Sorrow, which Elias has, one is Memory, which they don’t know where it is (But it is implied to be Bright-Nail), and the last is Thorn, which they learn is somewhere in the northern mountains. An expedition is organized to find it, with Simon, Binabik, and some others. They head out, but Ingen Jegger spots them.
\nKing Elias brings an army to siege Naglimund. He wants his brother to surrender his daughter Miriamele, and when Josua tells him she is not there, he freaks out. Prince Josua’s Nabban allies arrive but are betrayed and routed, so they are forced to survive the siege alone.
\nSimon, Binabik, and company head north and find a burned out village, and are accosted by Ingen Jegger and his men. We learn that the dog-masked knight who burned the abbey a while back is Jegger. Simon is saved by a group of Sithi who appear, and see his White Arrow. The group travels to a Sithi house and meet Lord Jiriki, the Sithi Simon saved. He agrees to help them. They discover they are looking for the Uduntree, a great tree of ice, where Thorn’s last bearer went. They reach it and find the sword, which is too heavy for the other men but Simon can wield easily. Ingen Jegger catches up and ambushes them, but mid fight a dragon claws out of the earth. It is charging Jiriki, so Simon steps in front with Thorn and stabs its eye, causing it to fall off a cliff.
\nBack at Naglimund, after much hard fighting, Elias seems to be retreating. Josua is confused and worried, and a storm is starting in the north. The storm moves south and Jarnauga realizes it is a Norn army. The Norns arrive and overwhelm Naglimund, killing and burning many. Josua, Strangyeard, Jarnauga, and a few others make for a secret exit. Jarnauga stays behind to hold the door, giving his league of the scroll necklace to Strangyeard. Joshua vows revenge and says he will be king, fearing his brother has doomed mankind.
\nSimon wakes up in the care of Binabiks people. While unconscious he saw many things. Duke Isgrumnur missed the princess and she already left in a boat, the Hernystiri have lost their king and prince in battle with Skali Sharp-Nose, and King Elias seems to be getting sicker and stranger. There is also a small strange man who knew Doctor Morgenes and has some old texts, probably a member of the League of the Scroll, coming to help. Simon is called Simon Snowlock by his companions and discovers he has been scarred by the dragon, and now has a lock of white hair. Binabik is being held prisoner for some unknown crime. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-dragonet-prophecy-sutherland","title":"The Dragonet Prophecy","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":1,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13228487-the-dragonet-prophecy?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_22","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"84796","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545349185","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-dragonet-prophecy-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-dragonet-prophecy-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"12/30/2023","dateFinished":"1/4/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Box set at costco. These books aren’t terrible for being for children, but definitely very basic. They help me fall asleep.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-dregs-of-empire-ruocchio","title":"The Dregs of Empire","author":"Christopher Ruocchio","series":"The Sun Eater","seriesNumber":5.6,"pages":332,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202102422-the-dregs-of-empire","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"1445","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9798862470079","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-dregs-of-empire-ruocchio-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-dregs-of-empire-ruocchio/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/16/2025","dateFinished":"4/23/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Fun novella following the best character in the series being awesome. Wish we’d gotten to see a bit more of Lorian’s time with the outborn raiders but enjoyed it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-druid-wheeler","title":"The Druid","author":"Jeff Wheeler","series":"The Dawning of Muirwood","seriesNumber":1,"pages":333,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"47North","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59028267-the-druid?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_17","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"14222","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781542034746","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-druid-wheeler-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/the-druid-wheeler/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/18/2022","dateFinished":"6/23/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I finally broke the streak of terrible free books. Has some pretty classic fantasy tropes but still added its own flavor. Pretty quick read and a fun one. (I also got my employee card the next day at work so books began to be bought)
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-dungeon-anarchist-s-cookbook-dinniman","title":"The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":3,"pages":534,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Dandy House","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57809856-the-dungeon-anarchist-s-cookbook","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"3547","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798724495066","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-dungeon-anarchist-s-cookbook-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-dungeon-anarchist-s-cookbook-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/16/2025","dateFinished":"5/23/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Better than the second one I think
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-ember-blade-wooding","title":"The Ember Blade","author":"Chris Wooding","series":"The Darkwater Legacy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":824,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34673711-the-ember-blade?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"6659","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781473214866","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-ember-blade-wooding-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-ember-blade-wooding/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"9/8/2022","dateFinished":"9/26/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Mid. This book was new enough it had the new Audible guy say “This is Audible” (since the old one died). Not that good. I think the biggest element was the complete lack of character development. The last 2 hours of this were probably the only part I actually enjoyed and they did actually make the rest of the series sound interesting. I feel that this book would work better written as a prologue to the rest of the series meant to read halfway through or something.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-emperor-of-nihon-ja-flanagan","title":"The Emperor of Nihon-Ja","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":10,"pages":487,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75178822-the-emperor-of-nihon-ja","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"59989","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142418598","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-emperor-of-nihon-ja-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-emperor-of-nihon-ja-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/29/2022","dateFinished":"9/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Good book 10 Horace Will Halt solve problems? Never heard of that before.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-emperor-s-soul-sanderson","title":"The Emperor's Soul","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Elantris","seriesNumber":null,"pages":192,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Tachyon Publications","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13578175-the-emperor-s-soul","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"135624","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","isbn":"9781616960926","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-emperor-s-soul-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-emperor-s-soul-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/25/2022","dateFinished":"5/30/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A super good Novella set in the same world as Elantris (although it has zero crossover), one of the best short, intro-fantasy things ever. Manages to introduce a super well designed magic system very quickly without feeling forced and creates a great political world to work with. Only takes a few hours and is awesome.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-eternity-code-colfer","title":"The Eternity Code","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":3,"pages":329,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Puffin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227865.The_Eternity_Code","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"141584","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780141321318","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-eternity-code-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-eternity-code-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/23/2024","dateFinished":"7/28/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"The best one yet in the series
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-eye-of-the-bedlam-bride-dinniman","title":"The Eye of the Bedlam Bride","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":6,"pages":832,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Ace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220772912-the-eye-of-the-bedlam-bride","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"130968","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9780593956014","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-eye-of-the-bedlam-bride-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/the-eye-of-the-bedlam-bride-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/4/2026","dateFinished":"6/22/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I’m not sure I’m going to keep reading the series. I still like the plot focused on the greater universe and Carl trying to change that, but I am getting more and more bored with the nonsense going on in the dungeon. It doesn’t feel like there are any real stakes yet (in terms of people we care about dying), although I’m sure that will change in later books. Part of me is curious enough about how the story ends (and I have already read 6 books that keep getting longer) to want to finish, but I just don’t really enjoy large chunks of the story anymore. I get bored of the same thing with slightly different enemies and characters over and over again and Carl getting angry and Donut saying something funny. We’ll if I read any more books.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
\nMatt Dinniman
\nDungeon Crawler Carl #6
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride Summary
\nStarts with Donut giving a recap of the last book. Prologue where we go back in time to when Odette was Mordecai’s manager. She manipulated his team to make Chaco (The dude Mordecai now hates), kill Mordecai’s brother. She did this to ensure her crawler (Mordecai) made it down a floor and she could get out of her deal and make a bunch of money.
\nCarl and Donut start the 8th floor in Havana, Cuba. It is a “memory recording” so it shows what real people were doing right before Christmas in this spot on Earth, except no one can interact with them since they are just recordings. The theme for this floor is card battles, like pokemon or magic. They open loot boxes and Carl gets a patch for his jacket that gives him the ability to store up power and then release it all in a single punch, but is warned he needs to use this ability whenever he fills up the power bar or bad stuff will happen.
\nCarl and Donut explore and fight some mobs before meeting Paz, Anton, and Sister Ines. They all used to be at a prison in this area. Donut insults Sister Ines a bunch because she is a cat girl havan brown, which are multiple things Donut does not like. They end up working together to “flag” mobs, allowing them to become cards for the card game. Samantha messages to say she was eaten by a massive spider, Shi Maria. Carl is able to learn about her from the book about Bahamas mythology, and learns she is a demi-god also known as the Bedlam Bride and is able to drive people insane.
\nThe group enters a town and is locked in and forced to fight a bunch of Ghommids, undead ghost things. They meet a boss named Asojano who talks to them cordially, and asks them to rebuild his shrine to cure the entire village of Ghommids and make them normal people again. Carl and Donut do some practice card battles to learn how the system works. You must have 6 “totem” (Creature) cards in your deck, and there are other types of cards that can buff and debuff creatures and opposing card masters. They go on a show hosted by a former owner of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, Rosetta. We learn some dark parts of Carl’s past. His mother tried to poison his father when he was a teenager then hung herself, but Carl’s father lived and abandoned him. He eventually got found by authorities living alone and was sent to an orphanage then a troubled kids camp until he turned 18 and joined the coast guard.
\nRosetta shows an image that Carl knows is fake and says stuff to give him clues about how to use information in the Cookbook, but the interview gets shut down by Harbinger, one of the Caprid goat people. They all go to fix the shrine for Asojano, but then a whole host of other gods show up and things go wrong. Anton and Paz worship a god named Ogun who demands they fix his. Katia messages saying they have to fix Yemaya’s shrine to save her from the Crown of the Sepsis Whore (The thing that means only her or Donut can live through the next floor). Carl has Bomo do that while another god charms Anton. Bomo succeeds and Carl flags Asojano for the card deck. Ogun shows up and kills Anton and does something that means Paz will die soon. Paz reveals to Carl the Sister Ines was the prisoner, they were guards. She killed her whole convent of nuns and her class allows her to charm people so they want to help her. Paz is at peace with dying but then Sister Ines flags him and adds him to her deck, horrifying Carl.
\nTwo more goddesses show up, Yemaya and Eileithyia. Eileithyia is sponsored by Huanxin Jinx, a rich person who always plays in the ascendancy games of the crawl, and also happens to hate Audette (Due to the stuff that happened in the prologue). She gives Carl a quest so she can talk to him and secret and tells him make Audette their adjutant for the ninth floor and she will help Katya skip the ninth floor and make sure the crawlers are actually able to kill people in faction wars.
\nCarl enters Club Vanquisher to heal a slugpox debuff he received, and meets with the system AI in secret, who talks candidly to him. Later, Katia tells everyone about her Orchid of Eileithyia's Grace, which is why Carl had to rebuild that shrine. It will allow her to skip to the 12th floor and act as a servant of Eileithyia in the meantime. To use it she has to complete an assassination for the Guild of Suffering and kill Astrid, the assistant manager of the Desperado Club. Carl is the only one who can help her since he is also part of the Guild.
\nCarl and Donut go to a faction wars meeting, which is interrupted by Juicebox (the changeling NPC) killing some of the attendees. They can’t actually die but it stops the voting. Carl tries to get a tenth faction added consisting of Juicebox and the NPC’s he teleported there with the Gate of the Feral Gods. Back in the dungeon Carl and Katia plan the Astrid assassination, and add Uzi Jesus and crab named Raul to their deck. They finally catch up to Samantha but before they attack Shi Maria she talks openly to Carl and tells him her plan. She knows they are allowed to bring a single card with them to the next floor and will allow them to flag her if they take her. She is very cunning and Carl is worried but she is powerful and will be useful so he agrees.
\nKatia ends up in a drug stupor and Carl learns she is addicted to several of the dungeon’s drugs and needs time to heal, but they have to proceed with their assassination plan anyway. It works and they kill Astrid but a bunch of stuff goes wrong in the process with demons being released and Samantha causing chaos, causing the Desperado Club to be closed. Before she dies Carl learns Astrid is an aware NPC and was almost done with her contract. Her husband is the Night Wyrm, leader of the Guild of Suffering (the one who gave Katia the assassination target). Carl also talks to Damascus Steel and Anaconda, two strippers who were part of Astrid’s family and they go to get revenge. Carl hires the rest of the strippers as mercenaries to fight in faction wars.
\nCarl and Donut go on Odette’s show but she can not be their adjutant because she is sponsoring a deity, they get an adjutant that should be fair. Odette tells Carl in private that she wants to shut the crawl down. Carl and Donut get sent to Miami for phase 2, except it glitches and grabs a big chunk of Ohio and drops it on Miami.
\nIn this section they have to fight 10 card battles to get tokens and unlock the final boss, who will give a key to open the exit stairwell to the next floor. Their deck consists of Shi Maria, Raul, Geraldo (A monk seal), Lazarus-a-bang-bang (Combo of uzi Jesus and Asojano), Skyler Spinach (A ghommid that can split in two when it dies), and Jola (A big cat thing given by Katia). They win the fights, but Carl accidentally starts a world wide spread of zombies. The final fight features a memory where Carl sees a step-mom he never knew he had finally killed his father with an intentional overdose. He also learns he had a half-brother named Asher he never knew about. They have a hard fight against a Hydra consisting of people they used to know but end up winning and receive a key. Donut tells Carl that Beatrice knew about his half-brother but never told him.
\nThey receive two new totems, Alpha Male Carl and Leveled-Up Frank. The whole gang throws a christmas party and during the recap episode they learn that the System AI has gone rogue and can do what it wants now, although the showrunners pretend everything is normal. Carl goes off on his own based on a sponsor box and meets someone who predicted the memory recording and recites a speech. This is a Residual, but before he shares anything sensitive Orren the Liaison teleports Carl away to prevent anything from happening.
\nIt is now phase 3 of the floor, and many crawlers did not get keys to the stairwell. They are able to battle each other for keys though, creating a lot of crawler vs. crawler combat. Quan Ch, Imani, and Tserendolgor are all in Cuba now also. The crabs and monk seals had a big war and a bunch of them died. Carl’s zombie plague has spread to Cuba and there are a ton of zombies. Because of all the death it starts a demon invasion event, and demons are able to inhabit zombies or low health bodies and need to grab a living soul to return to their home. This causes a whole lot of chaos. Also if you teleport a demon inhabiting a body, it frees the demon into its true form.
\nSister Ines is charming a city boss and a bunch of zombies and normal mobs around her. Carl uses Samantha to try to teleport her away and kill her for her key, but Samantha teleports the city boss and all the mobs around also, right when Quan shows up. Chaotic battle and Quan uses a strategy of deck swapping, force plays, and flee cards to get both keys from Carl and Sister Ines. Carl warns Ren that Quan is coming and then uses Samantha and teleporters to do some hijinx. Donut stays far away but Carl teleports in some of their totems and they kill Quan, but he kills a member of Ren’s team first. Ren and her remaining teammate don’t have a key and decide to blow themselves up instead. They give Carl all their loot, plus he gets the celestial cloak and a ton of weapons and cash from Quan.
\nThe damage from the fight rendered the stairway unusable and destroyed the corresponding key. This happens elsewhere meaning not many Crawlers will be able to leave. Then a massive demon, Amayon, inhabits the city boss from earlier. Carl and Prepotente come up with a plan to get people out. The demon lord will try to suck everyone upwards, if they get all the crawlers directly under the stair ways they should be able to sneak through without keys.
\nWe get a flashback and learn that in Club Vanquisher Carl did not actually get a healer for his slugpox but instead got a ring that stopped it. He then trapped his mercenaries in a room where they can not die and infected them all, generating hundreds of slug npc’s. He lets them all out to distract the demons.Donut tries to cast a spell to make a bunch of demons fight each other but a bunch of slugs do a Leroy Jenkins and Elle uses a huge war spell, killing a ton of demons and getting levels.
\nThey then head to a building by the big demon Amayon (They need to free him from the city boss for Carl’s stair plan to work). They find and kill Sister Ines, but this summons her bard patron, the god Ysalte. They have to do a weird card fight against the demon and Ysalte, and during the fight Ysalte summons the Paz card, who uses Katia’s arrow to kill Ysalte. Once they free the demon from her control Carl is forced to make Raul the crab ejaculate into the ocean to increase the npc count to power Amayon’s spell, then uses a spell he got from his got Emerus to summon fire under Amayon to make him more powerful. Everything barely works and the demon cooperates and none of their party die. However right before the card battle ended Donut used a combo spell on Shi Maria and the totem card Alpha Male Carl, but Shi Maria killed Alpha Male Carl right then, forcing her to be combined with actual Carl. She controls his body and inventory, hurts some of his friends, then does a magic tattoo to put herself into his body via an eye tattoo on his chest.
\nEveryone is ok and Carl does an emergency faction wars proposal to let the fans vote on everything, which the AI approves. The fans vote to remove protections, meaning crawlers can actually kill the other participants. They use the demon trick and head through the stairs to the ninth floor and faction wars.
\nEpilogue is set in space around Earth. Agatha is more than she seems. Princess Formidable wants to pull the “failsafe” (blowing up the sun), but gets outvoted because all the rich and powerful people in the universe are trapped here. Donut earlier got a new sponsor, Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions, and they are here. But it turns out to be a retrofitted ship now holding 50,000 former crawlers ready to help Carl and Donut kill everyone. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-fall-of-hyperion-simmons","title":"The Fall of Hyperion","author":"Dan Simmons","series":"Hyperion Cantos","seriesNumber":2,"pages":517,"yearPublished":1990,"publisher":"Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77565.The_Fall_of_Hyperion","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"152852","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780553288209","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-fall-of-hyperion-simmons-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-fall-of-hyperion-simmons/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"5/26/2026","dateFinished":"6/3/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A step down from the first book. The broader conflict was super interesting but I was not nearly as invested in most of the characters outside of the pilgrims from the last book. The plot was more intricate, and maybe I am just dumb but the many time jumps got confusing at points. Rachel and Saul really carried the emotional pull of the story for me, staying in the same vein as their story in the first book. Several parts of this reminded me very strongly of Sun Eater (I know that is backwards), but was cool to see some concepts I assume Ruocchio drew inspiration from. I would still recommend reading for anyone who liked Hyperion, but I am not sure if I will continue the series from here.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Fall of Hyperion
\nDan Simmons
\nHyperion Cantos #2
The Fall of Hyperion #2
\nOur new main POV is Joseph Severn, an AI cybrid who is the recreation of the previous cybrid incarnation of John Keats (Brawne Lamia’s lover from book 1). He is summoned by Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone to a war council to provide “an artists view”. In reality Gladstone keeps him around because he has a strange connection to Lamia and the other pilgrims due to the old Keat’s persona having an implant in Lamia’s head. When he dreams he gets visions and glimpses into what is happening on Hyperion.
\nThe pilgrims on Hyperion (Brawne Lamia, Sol Weintraub + Rachel, the Consul, Martin Silenus, Father Hoyt, and Colonel Kassad) have had no luck finding the Shrike. They have been wandering around the time tombs for several days without anything happening except them running out of food and drink. Hoyt disappears during the night, and Lamia and Kassad go looking for him in the tombs. Lamia finds him in immense pain, seeming to be bleeding a lot, then she sees something she thinks is the Shrike. Lamia unloads her pistol clip into it, but when Kassad shows up right after nothing is there. They take the dying Hoyt back to camp, and try to call the Consul’s ship to save him and maybe baby Rachel (Who is like 2 days from anti-birth due to the backwards aging Merlin Sickness). They discover CEO Gladstone put the ship in lockdown since she is dependent on the pilgrims success. Hoyt dies and they are not sure how his double cruciform (His and Father Paul Dure’s) will work. Kassad disappears.
\nGladstone is trying to prepare the Hegemony for attack from the Ousters, and it seems like some of the generals are fairly incompetent. As the story goes on we see more and more that Gladstone wants a war of some sort, in order to confuse the AI prediction models. Brawne Lamia’s father and Gladstone worked together in the past to try to get humans and the hegemony out from under the AI/Technocore thumb. Hyperion seems to be the only way since no one can predict what happens there due to time not working. Joseph Severns is against most of the actions and decisions made by the Hegemony council and goes to get drunk. He ends up sleeping with a rich woman, who then kidnaps him and puts truth telling ring thing on him. Her and some compatriots interrogate him about Gladstone and the council’s decisions, but since he is being tracked by the Hegemony security (in the form of Gladstones aide Leigh Hunt), show up and save him.
\nSevern and Hunt meet many people, including Theo Lane on Hyperion. Severn also meets with Rachel’s ex-boyfriend, Dr. Melio Arundez, who asks Severn to convince Lane to lets him return to the tombs for research. Many people are afraid of an Ouster invasion. Severn goes to a rich famous person dinner, which includes Councilor Albedo, a simulated person representing the Technocore. Albedo does manipulating stuff.
\nWe see Kassad’s POV. He got shot at and went to confront his attacker and found Moneta, his lover from the first book. They fight then make love and he learns she is travelling back in time with the Shrike. She also says she can give him the opportunity to fight the Shrike, which is what he wants. She lets him jump around through time and he sees a soon to happen Ouster full invasion of Hyperion.
\nGladstone goes on a trip to visit the homeworlds of all the pilgrims on Hyperion. When she returns to the senate she learns that the Ousters are fulling invading, and are way more prepared, closer, and numerous than anyone thought. They most likely will trounce the Hegemony in the coming war. She asks the AI for help and they say they are preparing a “death bomb” that will kills everyone. Normal people everywhere are unhappy and mobs and riots begin breaking out. Gladstone keeps asking Severn for any updates he has on progress on Hyperion.
\nLamia and Silenus leave to get extra supplies for the group. Shortly after they leave Father Hoyt resurrects as Father Paul Dure. Dure gets along well with the Consul and Sol, but is very weak. Soon they find Het Masteen, the templar, staggering into the valley. They learn from him he was supposed to make the Shrike’s famed Tree of Thorns/Pain into a ship and fly it but he refused. He dies shortly after. Meanwhile, Martin Silenus splits off from Lamia to visit the ruins of the City of Poets, where he once lived. While there he almost finished his Cantos, but then the Shrike shows up and puts him on the Tree of Thorns. Lamia retrieves the supplies but when returning to the group gets knocked out by the Shrike. The Consul and Sol find her with a tube sticking out of her head leading into the tombs. They try to care for her as best they can. The Consul leaves on a flying carpet to go retrieve his ship and try to save the others.
\nThe time tombs begin to open. Severn is wandering the rioting worlds when he is chased by a mob and ends up in a museum, talking to a John Keats scholar. He dreams more of Hyperion. He sees Brawne and the AI version of her lover Johnny enter the datasphere. They meet an old AI, Ummon. Ummon is a Stable, an AI who wants to coexist with man. Ummon explains how in one version of the future both the AI and humans make an Ultimate Intelligence, and those two have been battling for a long time. Eventually, part of the human UI, Empathy, broke off and retreated backwards in time. Ummon then crushes Johnny and forces Brawne out of the datasphere.
\nJoseph Severn leaves the museum and meets with Father Dure, who somehow wandered off the planet and time does not make sense. They discuss what happened and the other pilgrims, but when Severn tries to leave with Hunt, the farcaster does not work and they end up on a recreation of old Earth. The Technocore basically kidnapped them to prevent them warning Gladstone about the AI. Hunt freaks out and Severn starts dying from consumption, just like the real life John Keats.
\nThe Consul crashed his flying carpet but is saved by Theo Lane, who helps bring him back to the capital. They run into Dr. Melio, who helps them reach the Consuls ship. Gladstone has asked the Consul to meet with the Ousters and negotiate. She and several others have realized it is not actually the Ousters attacking most places, it is the Technocore in disguise. The only planet the Ousters care about is Hyperion because of the time stuff and Shrike. Meanwhile, Brawne wakes up without the cable in her head and is totally fine. Sol gives Rachel to the Shrike right before she would have died and waits outside the tombs. Lamia goes to find the others, and sees Silenus and many others prisoners in a sort of lab setup.
\nKassad goes into the future with Moneta and fights a bunch of Shrikes, he kills them but dies in the process. Moneta takes his body back in time to a tomb. Lamia barely frees Silenus from being connected to the Tree of Thorns, and then somehow flies up and breaks the Shrike into glass. She carries Silenus down into the valley and sees Moneta at Kassad’s tomb. The Consul meanwhile has finished negotiating with the Ousters, they are all on the same side now. He lands his ship with himself, Theo, and Dr. Melio in the valley at the same time. Father Dure met with the leaders of the Shrike Church and the Templars. The AI broke their word to both of them and he barely makes it back out a farcaster before a bomb kills him but is injured.
\nJoseph Severn dies, and Hunt is very sad. But this allows Severn (really Keats) to enter the datasphere in a new way. He learns he is the one who will prepare the path for the human UI component Empathy to enter the world. He goes to a lot of the pilgrims in dreams and speaks to them. Brawne’s child (She is pregnant from the first Keats cybrid), will be the host for Empathy. Severn learns that the Technocore resides between the Farcaster portals, and they use the human neurons for brainpower. He helps spread this knowledge. Gladstone organizes the military and they destroy all the farcaster portals at once, in the process destroying the “Death Bomb” the AI had made. Severn goes to Hyperion and sees the Shrike carrying infant Rachel. He releases the Erg that Masteen had brought to the planet and is able to save the baby, but the Shrike gets sucked forward in time.
\nAll of the worlds of the web are now separate again, and must be traversed manually through space. Many people are angry about this and a mob kills Gladstone. Back on Hyperion, a 26 year old Rachel (Who is the same person as Moneta), carries out the infant Rachel to Sol, and says she must leave. Sol takes the infant and goes through the time portal to the future.
\n5 months later we see Brawne very pregnant, and her the Consul, Theo, Dr. Melio, and Martin Silenus are all friends on Hyperion, but the Consul is about to leave for a while. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-false-prince-nielsen","title":"The False Prince","author":"Jennifer A. Nielsen","series":"Ascendance","seriesNumber":1,"pages":342,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12432220-the-false-prince","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"111668","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545284134","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-false-prince-nielsen-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-false-prince-nielsen/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/17/2024","dateFinished":"4/19/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Comfort read. I used to love this trilogy. Definitely very YA and predictable but it still feels so good. Makes me happy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-fever-code-dashner","title":"The Fever Code","author":"James Dashner","series":"The Maze Runner","seriesNumber":5,"pages":347,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Delacorte Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23267628-the-fever-code","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"81720","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780553513097","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-fever-code-dashner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-fever-code-dashner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"11/24/2025","dateFinished":"11/26/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This is the best book in the series. All the good stuff I thought the last one would have was actually in this one. The backstory is more interesting, the writing is better, the pacing makes more sense. Still has its errors and the timeline feels kind of slippy but it works.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Fever Code
\nJames Dashner
\nThe Maze Runner #0.6
The book starts with Newt and his younger sister Lizzy, who were living in a basement with their parents. It snowed that morning, which was unexpected but welcome, and Newt, Lizzy, and their mother watched from the window. Suddenly, WICKED agents forced their way in and demanded the girl, Lizzy, as they knew she was Immune. The parents refused to hand her over. Newt's dad shot one of the men in the leg in an attempt to protect his daughter, but a woman pulled out her own weapon and shot Newt's father and mother dead. Someone said that they should also take Newt as a control subject, and both he and Lizzy were taken away. It is never revealed what Newt's original name was.
\nThe point of view switches to Stephen, who was nearly five years old and had just been taken by WICKED. WICKED had tried to force the name Thomas upon him, but had proven resistant. A man named Randall Spilker injected him with a pain stimulator, and after terrible bouts of pain, asked Stephen what his name was. Finally, Stephen admitted that his name was Thomas. He was emotionally scarred after this experience.
\nThomas attended advanced classes with various tutors for several years. During this time, he became acquainted with Dr. Ava Paige, whom he liked most out of all the WICKED staff. After three years, Thomas was finally allowed to meet Teresa, a girl about his age who had a room next door. Very soon, after a few conversations with her, the two were promoted to building the Maze. But right after that, Thomas and Teresa met a few of the “others”, who were kept away from them in a different part of the WICKED facility. Newt, Minho, and Alby quickly became good friends with Thomas and Teresa, and they sneaked around the facility together, having fun every night for nearly a week. But the friends brought some trouble. The three (Newt, Minho, and Alby) took Thomas and Teresa into the outside world, only to be caught by WICKED. With the exception of Newt, who was not immune, the four of them were forced to venture into the Crank pits. John Michael, the Flare-ravaged founder of WICKED, appeared with a small chalkboard and wrote "WICKED is good" on it. He begged the kids to find a Cure, and then, at his request, Randall Spilker shot him.
\nThe experience really got through to the kids. They did not have any more secret meetings in the maintenance room for quite a while, but then Teresa managed to hack WICKED’s security systems and allowed the friends to meet. On one of their meetings, Thomas and Teresa stumbled upon a younger kid named Charles, whom Thomas immediately nicknamed Chuck. He became the little brother they never had. Pretty soon, the secret meetings were back in business. But Minho was planning something big - escaping WICKED. Hating the fact that he was treated like a lab rat, Minho allied with Gally to form a plan, though none of the others agreed to leave with them.
\nThe day after WICKED found out that Minho tried to escape, they unleashed a Griever on Minho and forced Thomas to watch from a screen, demonstrating to both of them that anyone who tried to escape would be harshly punished. They were also still working on the Griever itself and used this as a chance to test its mechanics, as well as study the reactions of both Thomas and Minho. While they did stop the Griever right before it actually hurt Minho, they repeated the experience several times, having Teresa, Aris, and Rachel watch each subsequent time, leaving Minho traumatized. After the horrifying experience, Thomas went back and directed all his attention to building the Maze. Some time later, the Maze was complete.
\nRight before they were sent in, Thomas went to say his goodbyes. His friends, who had been tolerating the idea of being sent in up until then, suddenly realized that Thomas and Teresa were not going in with them, and they felt betrayed. When Thomas was not able to answer truthfully about the Maze being his project, it only made his friends hate him more.
\nAfter the initial group of forty or so were sent to the Maze, Thomas went to the observation room to check in on his friends; to his horror, he realized that they had all had their memories wiped, which had never been mentioned to him. Day after day, he watched them from the observation room. Sometimes Chuck or Teresa joined him.
\nAbout a year after the beginning of the Maze Trials, Dr. Paige told him and Teresa that she suspected there was an outbreak of the Flare among some of the staff. They went to Chancellor Kevin Anderson's quarters, where they found that the chancellor was past the Gone, though not violent. Paige looked through some files on the chancellor's computer, and she deduced that he was covering up the Flare outbreak. She then went and got Rachel and Aris, along with four backpacks full of weapons and syringes of poison that would kill quickly. Paige told them that, being the few Immune available for the job, it was up to them to kill the chancellor and all nineteen other Flare-infected. Thomas and Rachel were horrified, but Teresa and Aris seemed resigned to doing it for the common good. All four of them euthanized the Cranks; Thomas and Teresa each nearly died when a fight broke out with some Cranks and were forced to shoot two of them dead.
\nAfter the Purge, Thomas did not go to the observation room for some time. When he finally did, the first thing he saw on the screen was Newt limping along with Alby helping him. He looked at footage from the day before and pieced it all together, realizing that Newt had climbed up a wall in the Maze and tried to kill himself by jumping off, succeeding only in injuring his right leg.
\nNearly a year later, he met Jorge and Brenda, two Immunes who were going to be sent to the Scorch along with a team to conduct research. As the new chancellor, Paige sent Thomas along with them to test the long-range efficacy of his brain implant. On the Berg flight there, Brenda and Thomas had a conversation, with Brenda saying that she could tell that Thomas and Teresa were clearly more than friends and that Thomas should make a move.
\nIn the Scorch, Brenda and Jorge headed together toward the Crank city, while Thomas headed with the team to an underground tunnel, which someone explained was originally made by inmates escaping from a prison, and that WICKED had claimed it for their own purposes. They headed deep into the tunnel and activated a Flat Trans, stepping through to find themselves back in a brick building that was part of the WICKED facilities. Dr. Paige and Teresa were there to greet Thomas, and Teresa hugged him. Instead of riding the few miles back to the main facility with them, Thomas elected to walk there himself, even though it was at night; Paige assigned two guards to escort him. On the way there, they were ambushed by a Flare-crazed Randall Spilker, whom Thomas had not seen for some time. He killed both guards and sneaked through the trees, stalking Thomas. Thomas picked up a fallen guard's Launcher and contacted Teresa telepathically. Spilker charged him, and Thomas incapacitated him with a Launcher grenade. Then, he smashed his head in with the butt end of the Launcher. When Teresa and some others came to help him, they found him sitting there, horrified at what he had done.
\nDay after day of seeing the horrors of the Maze made Thomas determined to do something about it. He concocted a plan and got Teresa's approval. They planned to get Paige to allow them to go into the Maze with their memories intact; once there, however, they secretly intended to lead the Gladers to freedom outside of WICKED. Paige seemed to agree to their plan.
\nThe night before Thomas went up into the Maze, Teresa and Thomas had a heartfelt conversation, in which Teresa pinkie-promised that they would soon be together in the Maze, both memories intact. She also told Thomas that he meant the world to her. They hugged and lay together in Thomas's bed all night long.
\nHowever, the next morning Paige drugged Thomas with a cup of tea. As he slipped into unconsciousness, Paige told him that he was too trusting. She also admitted to him that it was she who had unleashed the Flare on the former chancellor and the nineteen others, all because they had disagreed with her vision for the Trials.
\nThomas's memory was wiped and he was placed in the Maze. At the very end of the book, there was an email from Teresa to the WICKED staff, saying that she thought the plan for her to keep her memories and coordinate things telepathically with Aris was a good one. She stated that she appreciated everything WICKED had done for her over the years and that, before going up in the Box, she would write "WICKED is good" on her arm, hoping that it would plant a seed in the minds of the Gladers who saw it.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-fifth-season-jemisin","title":"The Fifth Season","author":"N. K. Jemisin","series":"The Broken Earth","seriesNumber":1,"pages":468,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34314712-the-fifth-season","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"343421","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9780316229296","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-fifth-season-jemisin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-fifth-season-jemisin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/16/2022","dateFinished":"6/21/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Starts off slow but I got really invested in the characters after a short while. I’m not sure if it was good enough to warrant finishing the series, but that is only because it was a bit slow for me, the writing was actually quite good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-final-empire-sanderson","title":"The Final Empire","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn","seriesNumber":1,"pages":541,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/68428.Mistborn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.98","numGoodreadsRatings":"1023153","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9780765311788","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-final-empire-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-final-empire-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/27/2022","dateFinished":"6/1/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This is now my new go-to book to recommend to new fantasy readers. Fast paced, Great magic system, fun. I really don’t have any negatives to say about this, just an all around great book.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/27/2022","dateFinished":"12/1/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I am still concussed so am doing the same thing as before. Also I am giving away my era 1 trilogy for Christmas so this is the last time I will read this copy. Really fun to read while listening to the Lost Metal, a lot of connections I missed before but was able to see on reread. I like this book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-first-binding-virdi","title":"The First Binding","author":"R. R. Virdi","series":"Tales of Tremaine","seriesNumber":1,"pages":832,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57693381-the-first-binding?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=l7mqwsFWuq&rank=2","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"3087","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9781250796172","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-first-binding-virdi-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-first-binding-virdi/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/25/2022","dateFinished":"12/13/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Long book. Very derivative of The Name of the Wind, and certain parts were so similar I found myself waiting for a certain character or event that I knew would be coming. However it is still a very well written story and has some interesting and important differences. The narrator’s female voices took a good bit of getting used to and along with the already slow start to the book it took me a long time to get invested in it, but around the halfway mark I really started enjoying it.
\n2026: Still not sure if this is just plagiarism
I have wanted to listen to these for a while since they were free on audible but they are going away soon so trying to listen to one first to know if I like the series. This has been really good so far, I am going to try to finish all of them before august 5. It was quite good. Vivid characterwork, got me all upset.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Forgetting Moon*
\nAudio book so spelling is guesswork
Characters:
\nShorecroft, Hawkwood, Spiderwood, Nail, Stefon Waylan, Dokie Little, Zayn Nevil, Aeros rajel, Ava Shay, Jenko Brook, Jondralyn Bronachel, Tala Bronachel, Bourdan Bronachel, Roguemoor, Glade Chaperal, Lindhold Legraven, Lorie Legraven
Places:
\nBloodwood Forest, Gallow’s Haven, Gul Kana, Sor Sevier, Amyidon
Things:
\nLaijon, Raijel, Brethren of Mir, Ethic Shroud, Forgetting Moon, Blackest Heart, Lonesome Crown, Afflicted Fire, Angel Stones
Story:
\nPrologue with man named Shorecroft rescuing a small infant boy from two Bloodwood assassins, Hawk and Spider
Cut to a 17 year old boy Nail who lives with Shorecroft in the town of Gallow’s Haven. Small town where many people make a living hunting blue whale-esque beasts called Greakan’s. He is friends with Stefon Waylan, Dokie Little, and Zayn Nevil. They, like all young men, are required to enroll in 2 years of mandatory military training. Made clear early on that the church (In this country, Gul Kana, the last kingdom in The Five Isles not yet conquered by The White Prince, Aeros Rajel, of Sør Sevier) is very important and influential. They believe in Laijon as opposed to the “other side” who believe in Raijel who is Laijon’s earthly son or something like that (he has living descendants supposedly). Nail is a bastard who doesn’t know who his parents are, is in love with Ava Shay and bullied by Jenko Brook, son of the local baron. He feels like a bit of an outcast.
\nOur second story line is in the castle at the heart of Gul Kana, Amyidon, where we follow the POV’s of Princesses Jondralyn and Tala Bronachel, their father, Bourdan, was killed a number of years ago leaving their eldest brother Giovan king. He is unprepared and begins to fall under the influence of the Quorum of 5 archbishops, basically being a pawn to the church and taking out his anger and stress on those around him. Jondralyn wants to become a warrior, and also gets inducted to a secret organization The Brethren of Mir. Her, a dwarf Roguemoor, and an-ex assassin Hawkwood are co-conspirators.
\nMeanwhile Tala is pursued by a Bloodwood assassin somewhere in the walls of the castle while sneaking about the secret ways. Her, her “betrothed” Glade Chaperal, and her cousin Lindholf Legraven all flitz about.
\nOn the other team, we see Gault Ailbrek stray away from his prince Aeros Raijel. Both sides are hunting for the weapons of the Five warrior angels. Ethic Shroud (Shield), Forgetting Moon (Battleaxe), Blackest Heart (Crossbow), Lonesome Crown (Helmet), Afflicted Fire (Sword), and the Angel Stones with them.
\nThe armies of Sor Sevier invade Gul Kana, hitting Gallow’s Haven first. Shorecroft dies saving Nail and his buds.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-fork-the-witch-and-the-worm-paolini","title":"The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm","author":"Christopher Paolini","series":"The Inheritance Cycle","seriesNumber":4.5,"pages":288,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Knopf Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26152839-the-fork-the-witch-and-the-worm","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"39881","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Collection","isbn":"9781984894885","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-fork-the-witch-and-the-worm-paolini-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-fork-the-witch-and-the-worm-paolini/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/6/2023","dateFinished":"12/8/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Collection of short stories.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-four-part-key-wisehart","title":"The Four-Part Key","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"The Aldoran Chronicles","seriesNumber":3,"pages":1136,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Easthaven Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59659815-the-four-part-key","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"2535","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780998150574","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-four-part-key-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-four-part-key-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/27/2023","dateFinished":"2/13/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Probably the best book in the series so far.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-gate-of-the-feral-gods-dinniman","title":"The Gate of the Feral Gods","author":"Matt Dinniman","series":"Dungeon Crawler Carl","seriesNumber":4,"pages":586,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Dandy House","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58477587-the-gate-of-the-feral-gods","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"74885","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9798520410171","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-gate-of-the-feral-gods-dinniman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-gate-of-the-feral-gods-dinniman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/18/2025","dateFinished":"10/27/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Very middle of the road good. Nothing that special about it. Audiobook narration is still great though.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Gate of the Farl Gods
\nMatt DInniman
\nDCC #4
Essentially the main thing that happened at the end that has the biggest influence on the next book was Kati’s discussed leaving the party. Then Carl opened the gate and flooded the city of larracos on the 9th floor which made a lot of people mad. They teased the bea and Ferdinand would be brought into the game.
\nMaggie Mai is dead, Rock Man Chris has joined the party temporarily. They have hired a Demigod/Feral God imprisoned in the head of a sex doll as their new trainer. Carl is using the Anarchist Cookbook as a guide to attack the MudSkippers. Carl has killed 1 admin and gotten away with it. Carl's second sponsor is REALLY wealthy and investing big on him. There was a epilogue conversation within this group implying that thier real purpose is in line with Carl's. The next floor is the first with outsiders coming en masse to hunt crawlers, and Carl finished the book taunting them all.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-general-of-izril-aba","title":"The General of Izril","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":6,"pages":1080,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60525437-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"2211","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-general-of-izril-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-general-of-izril-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"12/2/2024","dateFinished":"1/9/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"A bit of a step down from the others. Felt more like a plot-advancement section where we just saw events in the world progress, didn’t feel as personal or enjoyable. My least favorite so far but still good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-goblin-emperor-addison","title":"The Goblin Emperor","author":"Katherine Addison","series":"The Chronicles of Osreth","seriesNumber":1,"pages":446,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17910048-the-goblin-emperor","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"56090","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Political","isbn":"9780765326997","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-goblin-emperor-addison-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/the-goblin-emperor-addison/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"7/1/2024","dateFinished":"7/2/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Really really boring. I got about a quarter of the way in and DNF’ed it. Felt like I was reading a history book about fake history but not fantastical or interesting at all.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-great-divorce-lewis","title":"The Great Divorce","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":146,"yearPublished":1946,"publisher":"Scribner","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1387600.The_Great_Divorce","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"188561","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Religion","isbn":"9780020868903","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-great-divorce-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-great-divorce-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/13/2022","dateFinished":"11/13/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"An interesting topic but I don’t really believe in purgatory and the whole thing is just kinda weird.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-gunslinger-king","title":"The Gunslinger","author":"Stephen King","series":"The Dark Tower","seriesNumber":1,"pages":231,"yearPublished":1982,"publisher":"Plume","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43615.The_Gunslinger","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"675594","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Horror","isbn":"9781501143519","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-gunslinger-king-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-gunslinger-king/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/29/2026","dateFinished":"7/3/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. My last (And only other) King book was It, which I read when I was 11 (mistake). From what I had heard about the dark tower I expected the first book to be fairly weak, but I was engaged and loved it the whole time. First book since the Dragonbone Chair that I wanted to stay up late reading. I need to get the rest of the dark tower and finish the series. This reminded me of Cormac McCarthy if he cared about making stuff seem cool and awesome with a fantasy and mystery twist to it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Gunslinger
\nStephen King
\nThe Dark Tower #1
The Gunslinger Summary
\nThe Gunslinger travels southeast across the desert, chasing the man in black. He stops at a small house where a man named Brown is growing corn. They share a meal and night together, along with Brown’s raven Zoltan. The gunslinger tells Brown of what happened in the nearby town of Tull.
\nThe gunslinger arrived in Tull with his mule, and went to a local saloon. There were several people having a good time, and one man who appears to be dead. The gunslinger sleeps with the proprietor, Allie, in exchange for information. She tells him the man in black, known to them as Walter O’Dim, came through a few weeks back and when Nort died, he brought him back to life as a zombie. The gunslinger stays for a while (but time is weird), until the local priest, a large woman named Sylvia Pittson, enrages the the town into attacking him. He kills everyone (with his guns) and leaves. We do learn through flashbacks that the gunslingers name is Roland Deschain.
\nThe gunslinger leaves Brown and continues southeast, following the path the man in black took. After a while he has run out of water and is nearing death, when he spots buildings in the distance. He makes it to them and sees a boy but then passes out. He wakes up to find the boy has given him some water and food. After he recovers a bit and refreshes his supplies (there is an electric water well/purifier machine from long ago that still works), Roland goes into the basement to find food but a demon shows up. He stops it and takes the old skull it had been using.
\nRoland and Jake continue traveling after the man in black, and come to the end of the desert. Here there are big mountains. Roland uses the Howken to hypnotize Jake and we learn Jake comes from a time much like our modern times. He got hit by a car and was about to die when the man in black spoke to him and brought him here. Jake does not know how long he has been here since time is weird. Roland fears the boy is a trap of some sort, but still begins to love him.
\nWhile camping at the base of the mountains, Jake gets pulled to an avaricious oracle spirit, but Roland saves him using the skull he took earlier. He later takes Mescaline and intentionally returns to the oracle to learn about the future and is given a vague prophecy of the number 3. They continue on. Jake asks Roland to tell him about his own life, and his coming of age.
\nRoland Deschain grew up in Gilead, being trained to take his fathers mantle of gunslinger. He was trained with several other boys, Alain, Cuthbert, Jamie, and Thomas by the brutal Cort. As young boys they are exposed to political strife, violence, and death. When Roland is 14 and his father is away, he walks in on his mother and Marten (A representation of the man in black) who seem to have just slept together. Marten is insolent and Roland gets angry, so goes and challenges Cort for “his test”. If he beats Cort he basically becomes a man, but 14 is very young for this challenge. He chooses for his weapon his trained hawk David, who he uses to win the fight at the expense of David’s life.
\nJake and Roland continue on, and get super close to the man in black on the mountains, but Roland can not kill him. Roland and Jake both seem to know that for some reason Jake will get left behind or die on this journey. They enter caves in the mountain pass and find an old handcar which they use to travel along train tracks. They find an old shopping center and some slow mutants that attack them. When they near the end of the track they have to cross the last rails on foot, and at the end the man in black appears at the mouth of the cave and seems to cause the tracks to begin to fall. Jake falls and is barely hanging on but Roland leaves him to fall to chase the man in black.
\nThey meet outside and again Roland can not kill him. They talk long into the night of how the man in black is merely a servant of the king who rules the Tower. How size is relative and there may be many, many universes within one another. Roland sees a vision of the world being created and a single purple blade of grass. At the end of the night Roland sleeps and wakes up 10 years older, with a skeleton that may belong to the man in black next to him. After taking the skull from the skeleton, Roland does what the man in black said and heads west to a beach, where he waits. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-hanging-city-holmberg","title":"The Hanging City","author":"Charlie N. Holmberg","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":344,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"47North","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63127235-the-hanging-city?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.9","numGoodreadsRatings":"14940","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781662508714","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hanging-city-holmberg-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/the-hanging-city-holmberg/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"6/22/2025","dateFinished":"6/27/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This one really sucked. Again a couple cool ideas but also some stupid plot points thrown in that didn’t make sense, a bad magic system, weird fixations, and then transitioned into a bad romance.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-healer-s-way-kovtunov","title":"The Healer's Way","author":"Oleg Sapphire, Alexey Kovtunov","series":"The Healer's Way","seriesNumber":1,"pages":497,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Magic Dome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199114221-the-healer-s-way-1","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"1871","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9788076932227","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-healer-s-way-kovtunov-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/the-healer-s-way-kovtunov/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/2/2025","dateFinished":"4/4/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This sucks. Everything about it is bad. There really isn’t any progression even, he starts off already knowing everything and never faces anything that can challenge him and is annoying and sucks.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-hero-of-ages-sanderson","title":"The Hero of Ages","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn","seriesNumber":3,"pages":556,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Tor Fantasy","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3362870-the-hero-of-ages","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"620196","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765356147","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hero-of-ages-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/the-hero-of-ages-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/28/2022","dateFinished":"8/2/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"An absolutely stunning finish to Era 1 of Mistborn. This managed to close off all the different plot lines and answer all the questions, and even if you guess correctly what will happen at the end it still manages to shock and amaze you. Dope book great trilogy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-heroes-abercrombie","title":"The Heroes","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"First Law World","seriesNumber":5,"pages":581,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9300768","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"78804","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316123358","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-heroes-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-heroes-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"4/21/2024","dateFinished":"4/26/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"The Heroes are a group of rocks. More Shivers and big change in perception of Calder. It is really cool to see Bayaz from outside perspectives now that we know who he really is. I’m excited for the age of madness trilogy. Started listening to this while climbing Manitou Incline.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-hidden-kingdom-sutherland","title":"The Hidden Kingdom","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":3,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16100976-the-hidden-kingdom","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"45265","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545349208","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hidden-kingdom-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-hidden-kingdom-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/21/2024","dateFinished":"1/24/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Slightly better as they go on
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-the-galaxy-adams","title":"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy","author":"Douglas Adams","series":"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":142,"yearPublished":1979,"publisher":"Crown","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14.The_Hitchhiker_s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.44","numGoodreadsRatings":"2042837","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9781400052929","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-the-galaxy-adams-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-the-galaxy-adams/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/2/2023","dateFinished":"4/12/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"My first time reading the series. This was really fun and pretty short. Douglas Adams seems like a fun person, and it is nice to finally understand references to this book. It is so absurdly nonsensical that I think anyone could enjoy it no matter their genre preference.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-hobbit-tolkien","title":"The Hobbit","author":"J.R.R. Tolkien","series":"The Lord of the Rings","seriesNumber":0,"pages":366,"yearPublished":1937,"publisher":"Houghton Mifflin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16053513-the-hobbit","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"4530679","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780547951966","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hobbit-tolkien-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-hobbit-tolkien/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/10/2024","dateFinished":"2/13/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Shakespeare break! I need to write quiz questions for my girlfriend's class. But this was my favorite book in middle school and I was so right. Awesome children’s literature. Tolkien was a smart smart man. Maybe the best standalone novel of all time
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-hope-of-elantris-sanderson","title":"The Hope of Elantris","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Elantris","seriesNumber":1.5,"pages":25,"yearPublished":2000,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41970314-the-hope-of-elantris","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"36523","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-hope-of-elantris-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-hope-of-elantris-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"E-book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"5/21/2022","dateFinished":"5/26/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Just a short story to go with Elantris and fill in an area that was super threshed out, nothing special
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-horse-and-his-boy-lewis","title":"The Horse and His Boy","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":2,"pages":224,"yearPublished":1954,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/587315.The_Horse_and_His_Boy","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"398364","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471060","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-horse-and-his-boy-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-horse-and-his-boy-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/9/2022","dateFinished":"10/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"My favorite book in the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-icebound-land-flanagan","title":"The Icebound Land","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":3,"pages":266,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127823.The_Icebound_Land","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"98349","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780399244568","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-icebound-land-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-icebound-land-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"2/11/2022","dateFinished":"2/16/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-inquisition-matharu","title":"The Inquisition","author":"Taran Matharu","series":"Summoner","seriesNumber":2,"pages":368,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Feiwel & Friends","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25689056-the-inquisition?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"23660","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781250076311","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-inquisition-matharu-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-inquisition-matharu/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/11/2023","dateFinished":"8/15/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-interpretation-of-dreams-freud","title":"The Interpretation of Dreams","author":"Sigmund Freud","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":630,"yearPublished":1899,"publisher":"Macmillan","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93981.The_Interpretation_of_Dreams","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.68","numGoodreadsRatings":"79854","genre":"Psychology","subgenre":"N/A","isbn":"9781566195768","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-interpretation-of-dreams-freud-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-interpretation-of-dreams-freud/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/19/2025","dateFinished":"8/31/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"He really is that weird
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-iron-trial-clare","title":"The Iron Trial","author":"Holly Black, Cassandra Clare","series":"Magisterium","seriesNumber":1,"pages":295,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20578940-the-iron-trial?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"82420","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545522250","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-iron-trial-clare-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-iron-trial-clare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/24/2024","dateFinished":"3/27/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"It’s middle grade, very average in terms of writing and character work but stays entertaining and well-paced.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-jade-lord-hunter","title":"The Jade Lord","author":"J. A. Hunter","series":"Viridian Gate Online","seriesNumber":3,"pages":274,"yearPublished":2042,"publisher":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39279599-the-jade-lord","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"3908","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781547222186","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-jade-lord-hunter-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-jade-lord-hunter/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"10/25/2021","dateFinished":"10/31/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-kill-order-dashner","title":"The Kill Order","author":"James Dashner","series":"The Maze Runner","seriesNumber":4,"pages":327,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Delacorte","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13089710-the-kill-order","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.42","numGoodreadsRatings":"257601","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780385742887","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-kill-order-dashner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-kill-order-dashner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/16/2025","dateFinished":"11/1/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not as good as I remembered but still very dramatic and fast paced. Still have very good memories from the first time I read it.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Kill Order
\nJames Dashner
\nThe Maze Runner #0.5
Mark and Trina are dating and living in the woods with Alec and Lana (retired soldiers), as well as Misty, The Toad, and Darnell. This is a post sun-flares world where they are starting to figure out how to survive. Then a big Berg flys in and people shoot darts at them. Those hit either die or go crazy. Mark and Alec hijack the berg and crash it, but learn that the darts had a dangerous disease in them. They march back and all of their friends are sick and dying except Lana and Trina. They explore towards where they think the berg came from. Find a burned out village with a 5 year old girl named DeeDee in it who seems to be immune to the disease. Mark and Alec stumble upon her old village having a bonfire and are captured. These people are crazy, think the sickness is demons. They escape but big fire starts and they can’t find their friends. Go to where the Berg came from and hear them say the disease was released intentionally to cull the population. Then they have to run because the people at this facility are starting to go crazy from the sickness. They steal a berg and leave. Those crazy people think that Asheviulle (nearby) has a Flat-Trans (teleporter) to Alaska, where the PFC (post-F;ares Coalition) is headed up.
\nThey find weapons called transvices on board. They are like ray guns, dissolve whoever they hit. Mark feels like he has the disease and is starting to go crazy. They hunt down their friends who were captured by DeeDee crazy villagers in an old rich neighborhood. They use the guns to work their way though, when they eventually see LAna being dragged out of a house and beaten. They fight and kill the attackers but she is so hurt and damaged Alex kills her out of mercy. In the house they find Lana and Trina but their are too many crazies (Cranks). Mark loses his transvice and they all jump out a window and run back to the berg. Trina does not recognize Mark and is clearly far gone with the disease.
\nOh meanwhile we have gotten periodic flashbacks. Mark and Trina were childhood neighbors, Mark always had ac rush on her. They were in a subway so survived the sun flares. Alec saved them in the tunnels and took them to the rest of the gang. They escaped a flood and survived in the Lincoln buiding for a but., Then some bad guys on a boat showed up and killed a young kid, Baxter, that had been with theme. Alec kills the bad guy and they steal the boat and leave. Survive and caves and stuffi n the Appalachians until they find the settlement where the story starte, and Mark and Trina fell in love over that time.
\nAlec wakes up Mark and is clearly about to lose it. He wants to die. Mark has a plan. He Writes a not saying deedee is immune and they fly into Asheville to use the flat trans. They see Bruce and the facility disease people breaking in. They fly to the middle and get off, Mark is losing it more and more. They send DeeDee through the teleporter and then as Bruce and thec razues all close in, Alec crashes the berg into the building. Killing everyone and destroying the flat trans. Right before the end Trina recognizes Mark and they kiss.
\nWe get a post-credits of Theres (DeeDee) and Thomas meeting at the Wicked facility in Alsaka.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-king-of-attolia-turner","title":"The King of Attolia","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":3,"pages":387,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Greenwillow Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30363361-the-king-of-attolia","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"43616","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780062642981","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-king-of-attolia-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/the-king-of-attolia-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"9/13/2021","dateFinished":"9/19/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/10/2023","dateFinished":"4/12/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Another solid entry. It is fun to start switching up POV characters more with the introduction of Costos. Probably the best book in the series by a hair.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-kings-of-clonmel-flanagan","title":"The Kings of Clonmel","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":8,"pages":320,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20213572-the-kings-of-clonmel","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"65491","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781101187722","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-kings-of-clonmel-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-kings-of-clonmel-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/8/2022","dateFinished":"3/13/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-last-battle-lewis","title":"The Last Battle","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":7,"pages":288,"yearPublished":1956,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/587318.The_Last_Battle","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"310229","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471084","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-last-battle-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-last-battle-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/8/2022","dateFinished":"12/8/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-last-devil-to-die-osman","title":"The Last Devil to Die","author":"Richard Osman","series":"Thursday Murder Club","seriesNumber":4,"pages":421,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Viking","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62226126-the-last-devil-to-die","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"239376","genre":"Mystery","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780241512449","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-last-devil-to-die-osman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-last-devil-to-die-osman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/28/2026","dateFinished":"4/5/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"The best writing in the series so far.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Last Devil to Die
\nRichard Osman
\nThursday Murder Club #4
\nThe Last Devil to Die Summary
Kuldesh, an antique shop owner, was killed just after Christmas. He had been given 100,00 pounds worth of Heroine in a terracotta box that he just needed to leave in his shop and someone would pick up the following day, but instead he hid it.
\nThe Thursday Murder Club are trying to get to know Mervyn, a new resident at Cooper’s Chase and learn that he is falling for an online money scam, by someone pretending to be a young woman in love with him that needs cash for various reasons. Mervyn does not believe them, but does allow Ibrahim and their friend Bob to use his computer and try and catch the guy.
\nChris and Donna get pulled off of Kuldesh’ murder case very early by the national drug agency, but Donna found Kuldesh’ phone and kept it. They are able to learn that Kuldesh called Nina Mishra, a professor at a university, and a blocked 777 number they can’t trace. Joyce and Elizabeth go to meet Nina and learn that she knew Kuldesh was occasionally involved in sketchy scenarios but she did not know why he was killed or where the heroine is.
\nThe drug dealers, Mitch Maxwell and his subordinate Dominic Holt, are also both very anxious to find the drugs. Mitch got beat up by another drug dealer, Luca Butaci, who was supposed to end up with the Heroine. The gang goes to meet Dom Holt and he says to leave him alone and smashes Ron’s car a bit.
\nJoyce and Ibrahim track down Samantha, a local art forger and con artist. She and her husband Garth, a large, Canadian man, own an antique store also. They say they don’t know anything but seem to be lying.
\nElizabeth is sidetracked taking care of Stephen, whose dementia is getting worse. They go to meet her friend Viktor in London and explore their possibilities. Bogdan and Donna do some off the grid police work and meet Dom Holt, who threatens them. Later, Chris and Patrice are also doing some undercover work and Chris finds Dom Holt dead in his office. Joyce takes pictures of a bunch of the files and they call the cops.
\nElizabeth invites Luca, Mitch, Samantha, Garth, and Nina to a lunch at Cooper’s Chase. Kuldesh had a rental garage to store stuff, and they want to see who will go investigate it. Mitch is being threatened by the Afghans who produce Heroine and is still very desperate to find the Heroine.
\nSamantha gets hit on the back of the head and dies falling down a staircase, Garth has not been seen lately. Stephen uses drugs he got from Viktor and euthanizes himself, everyone is very sad. They hold a funeral.
\nElizabeth realizes where the heroine is. Kuldesh brought it to Cooper’s Chase and buried it with Stephen in a garden. Garth meets with Luca and Mitch, then kills Luca for killing Samantha. Mitch and Garth head to Cooper’s Chase when they hear they have the heroine (Ibrahim told Connie Johnson in prison and she told other people).
\nIbrahim also gets the online guy stealing money from Mervyn to come and he gets arrested, then Garth shows up and we learn the terracotta box the drugs were kept in was the valuable thing, worth 5-6 million. We also learn Nina killed Kuldesh when she learned about the box.
\nTHE END.
Disappointing finish, Soft magic system went crazy with inventing new stuff. Only part I like is phrasing the entire series as Holly telling the story.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-last-light-aba","title":"The Last Light","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":5,"pages":1791,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58960282-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"4548","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-last-light-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-last-light-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"10/21/2024","dateFinished":"11/27/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Sad. best book yet.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-left-hand-of-darkness-guin","title":"The Left Hand of Darkness","author":"Ursula K. Le Guin","series":"The Hainish Cycle","seriesNumber":4,"pages":304,"yearPublished":1969,"publisher":"Ace","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18423.The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"231270","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Fantasy","isbn":"9780441478125","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-left-hand-of-darkness-guin-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-left-hand-of-darkness-guin/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/20/2026","dateFinished":"6/29/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A book I had to take my time with. Despite having a structure and plot, it still felt a bit abnormal reading through, and I like the description of this being a guidebook to the planet. It’s always shocking to remember that Le Guin was putting out books like this in the 1960’s, seeing as how some of the topics and discussions are still controversial today. Overall I was mostly impressed just by how deep of a world she is able to craft with such a relatively short book. Each scene feels so intentional and written with purpose, no filler anywhere. Not a fun, lighthearted book but still well worth reading.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Left Hand of Darkness
\nUrsula K. Le Guin
\nThe Hainish Cycle #4
The Left Hand of Darkness Summary
\nThis is a hard book to summarize.
\nGenly Ai is an Envoy from the Ekumen, a society of worlds spread out in the universe united under the goal of sharing learning and culture. He has come to Winter (known also as Gethen) to learn about the people and invite the nations of Gethen to join the Ekumen. The planet is called Winter because it is very cold, still seeming to be in an ice age. He is currently in the kingdom of Karhide, in the capital of Erhenrang. The prime minister Therem Harth rem ir Estraven (Estraven), has managed to arrange a meeting with King Argaven XV. The people of Gethen are confusing to Genly, as they do not have gender but once a month enter “Kemmer”, and will assume the role of either male or female to have children. They also have something called “Shifgrethor”, which is like an unspoken code or standing.
\nMany people believe King Argaven to be mad. Genly meets with him and it is unproductive. Then Estraven is declared a traitor and forced to flee Karhide for the neighboring nation of Orgoreyn. Genly also leaves Erhenrang since he was close to Estraven and the new regent Tibe does not like him. He travels and meets various people, eventually stopping with some Foretellers (people who can actually predict the future), led by the weaver Faxe. Genly asks them if in 5 years Gethen will be a member of the Ekumen and they say yes. He travels on.
\nEstraven has a harrowing journey and almost dies, but reaches Orgoreyn and lives among the working class before being pulled back into the political world when he is recognized. The ruling class of Orgoreyn acts more as a bureaucracy with 33 commosals sharing power. Genly travels into Orgoreyn but their is an attack (Foray) by Karhide forces and he gets lumped in with other victims, before officials learn who he is and spirit him away to meet some of the Commosals. Genly tells them about his alien nature and his mission and seems to be well received, but is never show to the public and seems to be kept hidden. He meets again with Estraven, who warns him to be careful.
\nGenly wakes up one night and is taken prisoner. He is transported inhumanely in a cold truck with many others to Pulefen Farm, a labor camp. There he is forced to work and is drugged and interrogated several times, but the drugs have a harsh effect on his alien body and he nearly dies. Estraven learns where Genly is and breaks him out of prison after gathering supplies. He uses a trance like state of increased strength called Dothe, but this requires him to be weak for a while after. Together Genly and Estraven recover and plan their next move. They must travel north in an arctic ski trip to evade Orgoreyn soldiers and reach Karhide, but then Genly must find a way to make the king unbanish Estraven.
\nThey embark on a long, difficult snow journey covering over 800 miles in harsh weather with limited rations. Over this journey they grow much closer and learn about each other and their respective cultures. They finally make it to civilization and are welcomed by the people of a small village. They make a plan and Genly contacts his starship and asks the 11 others aboard to come land and help him. Shortly after they are trying to reach Karhide and Estraven sacrifices himself and gets shot by border guards to allow Genly to be taken back to Erhenrang. The governments of both countries change because of this, and Genly’s people come down and Gethen joins the Ekumen. Genly struggles greatly with his grief over Estraven’s death and goes to visit his family, where he meets his son and agrees to share his story of their travels over the ice. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-lies-of-locke-lamora-lynch","title":"The Lies of Locke Lamora","author":"Scott Lynch","series":"Gentleman Bastard","seriesNumber":1,"pages":752,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Bantam Spectra","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127455.The_Lies_of_Locke_Lamora","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"349855","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9780553804676","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lies-of-locke-lamora-lynch-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-lies-of-locke-lamora-lynch/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/7/2022","dateFinished":"8/12/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Top 5 books all time for me. Scott Lynch goes stupid hard for no reason. Following the story of a likable thief is so much more interesting than normal good guys. Jean is the best friend anyone could hope for. Almost cried at certain parts and forced myself to read slow most of the time because I wanted to savor the book. Reading this and Name of the Wind at the same time was like my own little slice of heaven. What a good book to be number 50. This will be at the top of the tier list no doubt.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/4/2023","dateFinished":"4/25/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I like this book even more on the second read. Camorr is a fantastic setting, and the pacing is probably the best I have ever read. The transition from flashbacks to current times are done incredibly well.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-lightning-thief-riordan","title":"The Lightning Thief","author":"Rick Riordan","series":"Percy Jackson and the Olympians","seriesNumber":1,"pages":377,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Disney Hyperion Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28187.The_Lightning_Thief","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"3494829","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780786838653","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-lightning-thief-riordan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-lightning-thief-riordan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/12/2023","dateFinished":"6/12/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I mostly am reading these to refresh my greek mythology before trivia night, but I mean Percy Jackson is pretty cool. I like Magnus Chase more.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/6/2026","dateFinished":"3/8/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Rick Riordan and Suzanne Collins are probably the two most foundational authors for me growing up. Listening to Gregor the Overland on books on tape and reading all the new Percy Jackson books as they came out are part of why I love reading. These books definitely read better a kid, but despite the writing and character relationship being pretty juvenile, the story itself remains interesting and the weaving of mythology into the world will always be fun for me to read. A couple big qualms I have are the numbers in camp Half-Blood never seem to add up. He says about 100 campers, but then looking at the individual cabin numbers that does not make sense. Another thing is why do people never just explain the situation to young protagonists. They are always faced with people withholding information for no reason.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Lightning Thief Summary
\nRich Riordan
\nPercy Jackson and the Olympians #1
Percy Jackson is a 12 year old 6th grader at Yancy Academy in upstate New York. He has been kicked out or expelled from school every year, and is now at a school for “troubled” kids. His only friend is a scrawny kid with a limp named Grover, and they get picked on by Nancy Bobofit who the teachers like. They are going on a field trip to a local museum to see ancient Greek stuff. The latin teacher, Mr. Brenner (uses a wheelchair), always pushes Percy hard and says he can do great things. At one point Nancy is harassing Grover and Percy “pushes” (he is not sure what happened) her into the fountain. The mean math teacher, Mrs. Dodds, takes him away for a talk, but then transforms into a leathery vulture monster in private and attacks him. Mr. Brenner appears and throws him a pen which becomes a sword and percy kills her. He seems to pass out for a second and when he regains consciousness everything is normal again. No one remembers a teacher named Mrs. Dodds, but Percy thinks Grover is lying when he says that.
\nBack at school one evening, Percy overhears Grover and Mr. Brenner talking about strange things and that he may be in danger. At the end of the year he confronts Grover about it and Grover tells him he is his protector, and Percy should wait for him and be careful, but Percy ditches him and heads home. His mom, Sally Jackson, was forced to drop out of school young and works in a candy shop. His step-dad, Gabe Ugliano (Smelly Gabe), is a gross vile man who is rude to both Percy and his mom. When percy gets home his mom says they are going to go to a cabin in Montauk for a short vacation. When they get there Grover shows up as a storm is brewing and tells them they all need to run. Except Grover is not crippled anymore, he has goat legs and is a Satyr. Sally drives the three of them somewhere, demanding explanations from Percy as they go. They are close to their destination, a hill with a tall pine tree, when lightning hits the car and they crash. Grover is unconscious and they are pulling him towards the hill when a Minotaur shows up and chases them. Sally tries to distract it but is grabbed and being crushed when she turns into golden light and disappears. Percy is angry (he has temper control problems) and kills the minotaur with it’s own horn, then passes out.
\nHe wakes up in Camp Half-Blood, a safe haven for children the Greek Gods have with mortals (of course no one bothers explaining this to Percy really). A girl named Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, helps nurse him back to health with Ambrosia and Nectar, food and drink of the gods. His latin teacher, Mr. Brenner, is actually the centaur Chiron, famed teacher of heroes from myth. And the camp is run by Mr. D, the god Dionysus here on punishment detail. Percy is temporarily put in Cabin 11 with all the Hermes kids and kids whose godly parentage is unknown. The cabin leader, Luke, is about 19 and kind to Percy. Annabeth has a crush on him. He does not excel at any skills until sword fighting, where he is a natural and able to disarm Luke, who is a very good swordsman. Water seems to make him stronger. He makes an enemy of Clarisse, a daughter of Ares.
\nThey play capture the flag and Percy beats a whole group of Ares kids while standing in a creek, and his team wins. But suddenly a hellhound shows up and before Chiron kills it, it savages Percy a bit. But the creek heals him almost instantly, and Poseidon claims him via a floating trident hologram symbol.
\nPercy learns the “Big Three” (the gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, not a basketball term) are not supposed to have children since their kids started WWII, but first Zeus and now Poseidon have broken the rules. There is some big prophecy no one will tell Percy about, but their is a little prophecy and he gets to go on a quest since someone stole Zeus’ master lightning bolt. He goes and talks to the Oracle of Delphi in the attic of the Big House, and him, Annabeth, and Grover set out. Percy learns over time the pine tree on the hill is Zeus’ daughter Thalia, who he turned into a tree when she was about to die fighting monsters to defend Annabeth, Luke, and Grover. Before they leave, Luke gives Percy a pair of flying shoes (which Percy gives to Grover because son of Poseidon would not be flying), and Chiron gives him a pen that turns into a sword, Riptide (anaklusmos or something in greek). They need to return Zeus’ master bolt by the summer solstice (10 days) or their will probably be a war. They assume Hades stole it so they head to Los Angeles, entrance to the underworld.
\nArgus drives them a bus station. It turns out Percy is a wanted criminal for the destruction of Gabe’s car and his mom’s disappearance. On the bus they shortly get attacked by the three furies, one of whom is Mrs. Dodds, servants of Hades who say they want something. They manage to escape and flee the crashed bus to Aunty Em’s Garden Emporium. A nearby waystation with lots of odd statues around. Aunty Em is very kind and gives them food but something seems off and Grover recognizes one of the statues as his Uncle Ferdinand and this is Medusa’s lair and Percy cuts off her head. In a fit of anger he mails it to Mount Olympus, which is on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building.
\nThey are able to buy train tickets heading to Denver. They take a stop at St. Louis, and while in the gateway arch, Percy is attacked by Echidna and a Chimera, forced to jump into the river below, where he learns he can breath underwater. A voice tells him to go to the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles. They all get back to the train and head to Denver. They are out of money and supplies, but then when at a local diner the god Ares shows up, buys them food, and says if they retrieve his shield from a local abandoned waterpark he will help them on their quest and share info about Percy’s mom. They retrieve the shield, which was in a trap by Hephaestus for Ares and Aphrodite. Very dangerous, almost die and Annabeth has a deadly fear of spiders but they escape. They return the shield, Ares says Sally is alive, and tells them to get in the back of a semi headed to LA. He also gives Percy a backpack with some supplies to help them.
\nThe semi is a shady animal transport business, and the animals are miserable. grover , being a Satyr, can talk to animals and do minor nature magic. Percy can talk to the zebra because Poseidon is lord of horses. They free the animals when the truck stops in Las Vegas and are forced to run. They end up in the Lotus Casino, where they are given free money and room and decide to stay and play some games. Percy realizes something is off when a dude who thinks it is 1977 is playing next to him. He gets Annabeth and Grover and they get out, and realize 5 days have passed while they were in there. They use the casino card to get a taxi to LA.
\nThey arrive at the Santa Monica pier and a niaid gives Percy three pearls that can help them. They are looking for the under world entrance, a DOA recording studios, when they enter Procrustes waterbed shop, where he stretches and chops customers to fit beds exactly six feet. Percy kills him and saves Annabeth and Grover and the find DOA studios. Charon, the receptionist, agrees to take them for a bunch of gold Drachmas they took from Crusty. They cross a polluted river Styx and use a red ball to distract Cerberus, who just seems sad. As they wander Grover’s flying shoes activate and start pulling him away, he is almost sucked into a big pit when one falls off and they save him and run from the pit, Percy’s backpack starting to feel heavy. Percy has been having dreams of this pit, a voice coming from it and Annabeth has suspicions about what it is.
\nThey arrive at Hades palace and he accuses them of stealing his helm of darkness. They say No, and percy opens his backpack to reveal the master bolt. He does not know how it got there. Hades offers Sally back (he has her frozen in time) in exchange for his helm, but they don’t have it so use the pearls to flee. Back on shore they meet Ares, who they realize must have tricked them. Ares has the helm of darkness, and Percy challenges him to a fight for it. They duel in the see and Percy is able to land a strike to his heel.A bunch of cops and people are watching (percy is still wanted). Ares says he got lucky and he should be careful, as he will never help him in battle or something. Ares wanted a war to start between gods (god of war), but they know someone else came up with the plan. They return the helm to a fury who flies over, and then go talk to people. The Mist, a strange substance which keeps mortals from seeing the supernatural world, convinces people percy was actually held captive by the strange man (Ares) and he is now a hero. Despite him being warned not to, it is the day of the solstice and the only way to reach NYC and Mt. Olympus is to fly on a plane. They make it and Percy sends Annabeth and Grover to camp to tell Chiron while he goes to the Empire State building. He meets the gods, and returns the bolt and explains everything. Zeus decides not to kill him, and he meets his dad, who says he is proud of him and Percy is a true son of the sea god.
\nHe returns home to find his mom returned by Hades, and the head of Medusa on his bed. He offers to use it on Gabe, since he realized that gabe has abused his mom before. Sally says no, I’ll handle it. A week later, he gets a note saying Gabe disappeared and his mom sold a lifelike stone statue for a lot of money so she could go back to college. Back at camp, Percy is a hero. He talks to Chiron and Annabeth and they all decide Kronos, titan and father of Zeus, imprisoned in Tartarus, is behind these thefts. But Percy is angry because Zeus won’t do anything about it. At the end of the summer Percy needs to decide if he stays at camp or goes back to school. Annabeth has decided to reconnect with her family, and leaves with her mortal dad. Percy goes to train and think and finds Luke. They go to talk in the woods and Luke summons a pit scorpion to threaten Percy, then tells him how he is the one who stole the bolt and helm and serves Kronos. He is resentful towards the gods of Olympus. He vanishes and the scorpion stings Percy, but he manages to reach Chiron and is saved. Then decides to go be with his mom and go to school for the year. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-lewis","title":"The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":1,"pages":206,"yearPublished":1950,"publisher":"Mi rigs dpe skrun khan","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132080146-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"3186618","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780060764890","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/4/2022","dateFinished":"10/4/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Finished it in 90 minutes. This one is the standard for the rest of the Narnia series, some are better some are worse but this one is a great representation of the series as a whole.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-lonesome-crown-durfee","title":"The Lonesome Crown","author":"Brian Lee Durfee","series":"The Five Warrior Angels","seriesNumber":3,"pages":1052,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Saga Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60320363-the-lonesome-crown","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"1157","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9781481465281","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-lonesome-crown-durfee-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-lonesome-crown-durfee/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/5/2025","dateFinished":"8/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Still good but the worst book in the series, a lot of meaningless walking around the countryside. Felt like it could have been a lot shorter. The climax started with 10 hours left though so exciting ending. I did climb a mountain while listening to it though so that is cool.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"A lot of wandering around the country side with our different groups almost meeting or mixing and matching a bit before finally all of the armies gather at the Atonement tree outside Amydon. Val-Draken reveals himself to be “The Dragon” and leads the Urgals and Vale armies. Aeros Raijel still thinks he is the Angel Prince, even after revealing him and Val-Draken both studied as Bloodwoods under Black Dougal’s tutelage. He is killed easily and tortured, then the 5 dragons arrive, Lindholf and Lorie are named as Laijon Returned and given the weapons and stones, and a ton of people die. All of our heroes live but are separated, and eventually fight back to each other and kill some dragons and dragon riders. Gault Dies, Big Hammer guy dies, Tala killes Lindholf and Lorie dies of infection but they get resurrected as a demon thing and then killed again. Tala ends up as ruler of the five isles and works to integrate all the different species.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-looking-glass-wars-beddor","title":"The Looking Glass Wars","author":"Frank Beddor","series":"The Looking Glass Wars","seriesNumber":1,"pages":384,"yearPublished":2004,"publisher":"Dial Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44170.The_Looking_Glass_Wars","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.84","numGoodreadsRatings":"47048","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780803731530","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-looking-glass-wars-beddor-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-looking-glass-wars-beddor/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/22/2026","dateFinished":"3/23/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Big nostalgia book for me. Not incredible on a reread, but I love fairy tale retellings and think this one still does a great job in that regard. Tying in the history of the real life Alice Liddell is something I did not know about until I researched it just now. I also know the trivia questions of Lewis Carroll’s real name and what a milliner is. Very fast paced, probably too much so, but a good book for middle school age. Arguably the softest magic system of all time just based on the nature of imagination which is interesting. I can’t remember what happens in the second and third book since there doesn’t really seem to be any plot left after the first one, so I will probably finish the series.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Looking Glass Wars
\nFrank Beddor
\nThe Looking Glass Wars #1
\nThe Looking Glass Wars Summary
Alyss Heart, Princess of Wonderland, is having her 7th birthday party. She and her mother, Queen Genevieve, are watching the inventors parade. Wonderlanders invent stuff and, if it is interesting, the Queen can send it into the Heart Crystal, and it will inspire people in other worlds. When Alyss gets bored she uses her imagination to affect the real world. It is a power of the royal family and Alyss has a very strong imagination. They are waiting for King Nolan to get back from meeting with King Arch of the neighboring kingdom of Boarderland.
\nAlyss is being trained to be responsible, since Wonderland is a Queendom and she will be it’s next ruler. The tutor Bibwit Harte, a large albino man, has trained the queens for generations. Alyss and her best friend, Dodge Anders, son of the captain of the guard, are often getting into trouble. While playing together Jack of Diamonds, a ten year old boy and heir to the Jack family, interrupts them and they run. They flee the city to the Pool of Tears, a magic pond/lake that anyone who jumps in is teleported somewhere else. No one has ever returned from it.
\nWhile King Nolan is coming home, he is ambushed by Redd, Genevieve’s vicious older sister who started a civil war 13 years ago and is now returned. Her and her card soldiers kill the king and advance on Wonderland. Queen Genevieve has retreated to her sitting room with her only guard, Hatter Maddigan, a member of the Millinery (elite special forces with a hat that can turn into blades). They meet the Blue Caterpillar, smoking oracles. He warns her something is wrong but it is confusing.
\nIn a tea room, all the nobles are gathered when Redd attacks. Her best assassin, The Cat, who can transform between small normal cat and giant cat humanoid, attacks and distracts Hatter and kills Dodge’s father, Justice Anders. Alyss hides under the table and sees the cat scratch Dodge, leaving 4 scars on his face. The Queen, Alyss, and Hatter flee. The suit families immediately submit to Redd. Hatter kills The Cat, then him and Alyss jump into the Crystal Continuum, a portal transport system connecting most mirrors. Genevieve smashes the mirror behind them. Redd shows up, they fight with their imaginations but Redd is stronger and beheads Genevieve. The Cat comes back to life since he has nine lives.
\nHatter and Alyss flee to the Pool of Tears and jump in, with The Cat right behind them. The Cat returns and tells Redd he killed them. Very few people escaped, those loyal to “White Imagination” vs. Redd’s “Black Imagination”, and they gather under general DoppelGanger (Who can split in 2 then 4), and some chess piece soldiers. They call themselves Alyssians in memory of Alyss.
\nHatter and Alyss get separated in the water and Alyss pops out of a puddle in London and Hatter in Paris. Hatter begins a worldwide journey to find Alyss, learning how to use puddles to reenter wonderland via the pool of tears. Alyss befriends a local orphan named Quigly Gaffer and his gang, and makes money by using her imagination to make a flower sing. But the longer she is on Earth the less she can do and eventually they are forced to steal food. Alyss is caught and sent to an orphanage before being adopted by the Liddells. Mr. Liddell is dean of Christchurch college, and her adopted sisters make fun of her stories of Wonderland.
\nDodge, General Doppelganger, and chessmen such as the White Rook continue to be an underground guerilla resistance, but Redd mostly controls Wonderland. She has turned it into a bit of a slum and forces Bibwit Harte to replace ancient books. Dodge is only set on vengeance against The Cat and has no regard for his own life.
\nAlyss meets Reverend Charles Dodgson, who seems to believe her story, but then publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as Lewis Carroll, and she is so angry and distraught she vows never to think of Wonderland again. She becomes a standup young lady of England and makes her new family proud. Eventually catching the eye of and agreeing to marry Prince Leopold, youngest son of Queen Victoria. Hatter sees the book about Alice and now knows where to find her, but when he gets close a soldier shoots him, and he retreats to Wonderland to heal.
\nDodge finds Hatter coming out of the Pool of Tears and helps him to the Alyssians base. Jack of Diamonds is trying to convince them to agree to a meeting with Redd. He has been a self serving double agent for both sides for years. The rebels are overjoyed to see Hatter and learn of Alyss. Jack hurries off to tell Redd. Since Hatter is hurt Dodge goes to retrieve Alyss. When Redd learns Alyss is alive she kills The Cat in anger and sends him and soldiers to finish the job.
\nOn her wedding day to Leopold, The Cat and a group of robotic card soldiers called The Cut attack. Dodge rushes Alice to safety, and they flee to the Pool of Tears. They are pursued by The Cat but make it safely back to the Alyssian camp. Alyss is overwhelmed by everything. She had almost convinced herself Wonderland was not real, and her imagination does not work. Bibwit Harte also defects back to their side. Alyss and Dodge go to see the old Heart Palace, which is in disrepair. Redd senses them and destroys the palace.
\nWhile Dodge and Alyss are out, Jack of Diamonds leads The Cat and soldiers to the camp and they attack. Alyss and Dodge return, and them, Hatter, general Doppelganger, Bibwit Harte, the White Rook, and few others escape into the Crystal Continuum. Redd orders all mirrors smashed and the continuum begans to shrink, they barely escape out a mirror in the volcanic fire lands, where they are attacked by a Jabberwocky and forced to flee. They are headed to the Valley of Mushrooms to see the Caterpillar oracles.
\nThe Blue Caterpillar tells Alyss where the Looking Glass Maze is in a riddle. It is the hereditary test of queens to make them ready to rule. Alyss has slowly been regaining her imagination powers. They head to Wonderland city and meet a young girl, Homburg Molly. Hatter dislikes her because she is a “Halfer”, half Milliner half civilian. They flee to a puzzle shop with soldiers on their tales and Alyss enters the Looking Glass maze.
\nShe encounters visions of herself, her parents, and her worst memories. She is forced to fight and be a good person and eventually reaches a white scepter and is ejected from the maze. She is now mega powerful and kills all of the attacking soldiers at once. Her group plans an attack on Mt. isolation, where Redd rules.
\nAlyss summons a ton of tiny fake soldiers as a distraction and they all sneak in the back. Dodge races off to find The Cat and the others split up. Dodge ends up in a battle with The Cat and takes more of his lives. Alyss finds Redd and they begin to battle. It is fairly even but Redd is on the offensive. The Cat is about to kill Dodge, so Alyss summons an AR52 (card assault rifle) into his hands, but gets knocked out in the process. She wakes up back in London, her family saying she was dreaming, but Dodge makes her realize it is a trick. She snaps out and fights Redd, dominating her this time. Alyss’ team seems to have almost won, and they break Redds scepter. She jumps into the Heart Crystal, and The Cat, on his last life, follows. No one knows what exactly this means.
\nAlyss creates a duplicate of herself to go back to Earth and appease her family. And her and her group begin to try to rebuild Wonderland. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-lost-colony-colfer","title":"The Lost Colony","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":5,"pages":385,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Miramax","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613898.The_Lost_Colony","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.02","numGoodreadsRatings":"160641","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780786849598","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lost-colony-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-lost-colony-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"10/9/2024","dateFinished":"10/13/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book in the series quality wise. Number One is fun to read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-lost-heir-sutherland","title":"The Lost Heir","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":2,"pages":321,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15809617-the-lost-heir","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.88","numGoodreadsRatings":"50824","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545349192","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lost-heir-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/the-lost-heir-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/6/2024","dateFinished":"1/9/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"This one was mildly more interesting that the first because mystery.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-lost-metal-sanderson","title":"The Lost Metal","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn: Wax and Wayne","seriesNumber":4,"pages":507,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59797676-the-lost-metal","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"126335","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9781473215290","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lost-metal-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-lost-metal-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/15/2022","dateFinished":"12/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Release day. Conclusion to era 2. Left a lot of plot points open that I had assumed would be closed but did end the major arc. Less violent of an ending than I expected but still satisfying. Not as good as era 1 ending but that will be hard to beat with anything. Super fun cosmere connections and a lot more open discussion of it. Fun read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-lost-stories-flanagan","title":"The Lost Stories","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":11,"pages":422,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Philomel","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11309018-the-lost-stories","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"38510","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780399256189","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-lost-stories-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-lost-stories-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/17/2023","dateFinished":"2/21/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"The last “main” Ranger’s Apprentice book I hadn’t read. It was ok but it did feel more like something written just to quickly satisfy some fan questions. I didn’t like making it seem like these were recorded stories found 1000 years later, it just felt weird.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-mad-ship-hobb","title":"The Mad Ship","author":"Robin Hobb","series":"Liveship Traders","seriesNumber":2,"pages":906,"yearPublished":1999,"publisher":"Harper Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45101.The_Mad_Ship","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.68","numGoodreadsRatings":"87609","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780006498865","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-mad-ship-hobb-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/the-mad-ship-hobb/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"5/9/2026","dateFinished":"5/21/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Had everything great about the first book but I found the plot way more engaging. Malta remains one of the best characters. The section with Serilla was brutal. Certain sections remained very slow, but this book felt a lot more balanced where between Kennit, Paragon, or Reyn/Malta something was happening to keep the plot advancing. This story takes place in a time with a lot of change happening, and my opinion keeps getting changed on if it is positive or negative. I am excited and worried for the last book in the trilogy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Mad Ship
\nRobin Hobb
\nLiveship Traders
Mad Ship Summary
\nMaulkin, Shreever, and Sessurea are the last serpents searching to reclaim their memories, the others have drifted away. They are beginning to lose hope in their quest. Amber is living on Paragon and still wants to save him from being sold and cut up for his wood. Kennit’s leg is getting worse and will need to be amputated soon, but Wintrow is nervous, plus Kyle hates Wintrow even more now.
\nIn Trehaug, the city up the Rain WIld River, there is an ancient elderling city buried under the earth. Reyn is a scholar and loves exploring and finding new stuff. There is one more massive Wizard wood log that his mother Jani Khuprus wants to cut up and sell, but Reyn can talk to it and has learned there is a dragon inside. The log needs to be exposed to sun for the dragons to hatch, but because all the Wizard wood was buried none of them could.
\nKennit orders Wintrow to cut off his leg today. Wintrow is hesitant but Etta makes him do it. It is a bloody process but WIntrow successfully removes the bad part of the leg and stitches the skin closed. Afterwards Kennit stops breathing and seems to die, but Wintrow does something where he pulls Kennit’s soul back into his body. Kennit begins to feel a closeness and connection to Wintrow. Brashen has been serving on the Springeve and is accepting that he is basically a pirate, selling stolen merchandise. While buying items from a trader, he sees a picture of Vivacia and deduces that pirates must have taken her, then later sees her tied up in DIvvytown’s harbor and decides to return to Bingtown to let Althea and the Vestrit’s know.
\nAlthea returns to Bingtown aboard Ophelia. Her and Grag Tenira have been growing closer, and he clearly likes her. As they near Bingtown they are accosted by a Chalcedean vessel, which was hired by the Satrap to patrol for pirates. They fight them off and run back to Bingtown harbor, but when they stop at the Tariff dock the fees are so exorbitant that Captain Tenira refuses to pay. He plans to rouse the other old trader families and make a stand against the Satrap. Althea sneaks off to return home.
\nIn Jamaillia City, Serilla (A companion of the heart to the Satrap), tries to convince the young Satrap Cosgo that he needs to change his policies regarding Bingtown. Bingtown has been her field of study for many years and she longs to visit it. She tries to convince Cosgo to let her act as his ambassador (which will allow her to fix the problems he has caused), but the Satrap decides he will visit Bingtown himself (Along with his girls and drugs and nobles).
\nThe Khuprus family is coming to visit the Vestrit’s to continue Reyn’s suit of Malta. Malta is continuing to try to control those around her and emotionally manipulating Reyn and especially Cerwyn Trell. Ronica still can tell this and hates Malta, but Malta thinks she is very smart. Davad Restart (Another old trader), continuously inserts himself gracelessly into many social situations.
\nAlthea returns home to meet with Ronica and Keffria. She argues with Malta who as usual feels sullen and left out and judges everyone. Althea asks her family to support the Tenira’s in fighting back against the Satrap’s taxes and policies. Meanwhile, Kennit is making a full recovery and likes Wintrow now. Etta is also starting to bond with Wintrow. Kennit has an idea the maybe Etta and Wintrow should have a child so he will still have someone of Vestrit blood on board the Vivacia in case Wintrow ever leaves.
\nMaulkin manages to make another wild serpent remember who he is. By force they slowly grow their tangle again and bring back wild serpents to their memories and thoughts. The Satrap is travelling by ship to Bingtown, with a host of Chalcedean vessels for defense and to raid pirate settlements. Serilla is frustrated because he still refuses to discuss the problems in his territories, all he does is drugs. She confronts him and he says she must sleep with him. Serilla refuses so he gives her up to the captain to be used as a slave / prostitute.
\nGrag Tenira basically offers to marry Althea but she is hesitant. She does not want to stay at home raising children, she wants to sail (plus she still has feelings for Brashen). Brashen returns to Bingtown and brings the news of Vivacia’s capture by pirates to the Vestrits. They are obviously distraught and must plan what to do. It has the sharpest affect on Malta who seems to gain perspective now that her father has been captured, and begins to actually grow up. Brashen and Amber (Althea’s friend the bead-maker) come up with a plan. They should buy Paragon from the Ludlucks, make him ship-shape again, and sail him to free Vivacia. Many people argue against it since liveships are not supposed to be sold from their families, but eventually Althea and her family agree this is the best plan. Brashen is also trying to quit Cindin (drug).
\nMalta has a midnight meeting with Cerwyn Trell, but then realizes he is not a man like Reyn. She returns home and uses the dream box given to her by Reyn. Unknowingly to both, this connects Malta to the imprisoned Dragon in the Elderling city. It begins to torment both of their dreams, trying to force them to help it. It offers to save Kyle Haven and free the Vivacia if Malta can free it.
\nKennit takes some of the freed slaves and Kyle Haven to a small, hidden island in the pirate isles. This used to be his family home, there is a big manor house and some small cottages with farms. Kennit’s mother lives here with her tongue cut out. This is where Kennit grew up before another pirate, Igrot, burned it, killed his father, and took Kennit as a captive. He imprisons Kyle in a cellar and asks the other slaves to make sure he does not die. He leaves them to live hopefully happily with his mother. Sa’Adar (The slave who started the slave revolt on Vivacia in the last book), refuses so Kennit kills him.
\nBingtown holds a trader council and Althea and Captain Tenira speak out against the Satrap, and for help retrieving Vivacia. The old traders seem very split on what actions to take, as some are now profiting from slavery (Such as Davad Restart). No definitive action is decided upon, so Althea drives Davad home (someone vandalized his carriage). She also forces him to free a slave boy whom she gives to Brashen as a ship's boy. Davad negotiates the sale with the Ludlucks and Amber trades everything she owns for Paragon. They begin the hard work of getting the ship ready. Paragon’s mood swings make it difficult. Grag Tenira also led many men in burning down the Satrap’s tariff dock and free Ophelia, so he must go into hiding.
\nVivacia is beginning to like being a pirate. She enjoys the chase and hunting down other ships. Wintrow is worried for her, but Kennit is happy. Malta is preparing for the summer ball where she will be presented as a woman. Reyn really wants to free the dragon but his family refuses, and his mother makes a contract with him to forget the dragon in exchange for being allowed to visit and marry Malta, and he agrees. Brashen has trouble finding men to work on Paragon since many still think he is cursed and Paragon himself acts out and makes the process difficult.
\nSerilla has been raped and abused by the Chalcedean captain. She feels broken, but the Satrap asks for her return. She seizes this opportunity and makes him think he has a bad illness and uses his weakness to negotiate more power for herself.
\nMaulkin and his now very large tangle drown a liveship and make it remember that it used to be a dragon. They eat it to gain it’s memories which help more of the tangle remember. They are now set in their purpose and know they need to return up the rain wild river to their cocoon grounds to become dragons. Apparently when the last batch of dragons was cocooned volcanoes or earthquakes happened which buried them so they never hatched.
\nKennit is visiting his various pirate settlements where he is paid tribute. Wintrow teaches Etta to read and she teaches him knife fighting. Kennit realizes Etta would never cheat on him and they seem to be forming a small, strange family. When they reach Divvytown they find it has been burned and butchered by the Satrap’s Chalcedean ships. Kennit goes ashore and some of the men blame him. His people defend him and Wintrow kills a man. After the small skirmish those left accept Kennit as king and he draws up plans for a new, more defensible city here, and gives money and supplies to help facilitate that.
\nParagon is refitted and ready to sail. Brashen will be captain, with a brute named Lavoy as first mate, Althea as second, and Amber as ship carpenter. Before they are set to leave the Vestrit’s come to see the ship and Malta faints (due to her contact with the dragon in her dreams and now touching wizard wood presumably). We also learned from the Khuprus family that Paragon is actually made with wizard wood from separate logs (Two dragons), so that is part of why he is erratic and crazy. The Paragon sets sail on its quest.
\nThe Satrap and his Escort reach Bingtown. The people are alarmed at seeing many Chalcedean ships and set up a blockade. Unfortunately for Serilla Cosgo has regained his health, but she, him, and another companion Kekki, are allowed to go to shore and stay with Davad Restart. Meanwhile, Reyn and Grag (in disguise) are coming to Bingtown for the summer festival thing where Malta will be presented as a woman.
\nSerilla realizes that there is a plot to kill the Satrap in Bingtown, which will let the nobles in Jamaillia take power and Chalced will be given Bingtown. She needs to find a way to stop it. Althea is forced to fight some of the sailors when they question her, and then ends up either killing or injuring a serpent to defend the ship, but the serpent’s toxins make Paragon remember some of who he is (Dragon). Malta gets all dressed up and they head to town in a hired carriage.
\nDavad plans to make the Satrap fall in love with Malta to gain power. He introduces them and Malta and the Satrap dance. He insinuates he will send ships to help save Kyle Haven for a cost. Malta returns to Reyn and they half argue but then dance and Malta realizes she loves him. Reyn gets pulled away by Grag and Serilla to discuss the Satrap and how to save him and stop Bingtown from falling. Malta thinks he is just leaving her and is mad, but he manages to convince her family to leave. Davad offers his carriage but the Satrap forces his way in with Kekki. While riding away they are attacked by men on horses, all the Vestrits are hurt, Davad is killed, and the Satrap taken prisoner. Riots and fires break out in Bingtown.
\nReyn shows up and takes Keffria, Malta, and Selden back up the Rain Wild river to Trehaug to keep them safe. Ronica remains to try to help Bingtown. Malta wakes up and confronts Reyn since it was kind of his troops that attacked the carriage to get the Satrap, but he did not know she would be there. He cries and apologizes, and Malta realizes forgiveness is possible (She has never had good male role models in her life because Kyle sucks). She forgives Reyn. Later Selden (her brother) comes by and they go to explore the hidden city alone.
\nKennit takes Wintrow to the Others island (The oracles from the start of book 1), with Etta to help. Wintrow goes ahead and instead of finding treasurer and the Others he finds an imprisoned serpent. He sacrifices his body to free her. The Others appear and attack Wintrow, Kennit, Etta, and the Serpent but the serpent help fight them off. She is She Who Remembers, and she needs to share her memories with others. Vivacia somehow knows they are in trouble and comes around the island. Kennit seems to perform a miracle and gets all of them back to Vivacia and Wintrow barely lives.
\nMalta leaves Selden and goes deeper, finding the last wizardwood log / dragon. She absorbs a ton of ancient Elderling memories and tries to open a door to expose the log to sun but is not strong enough. A big earthquake happens and she frees Cosgo and Kekki from where they are trapped and leads them out, but they are way up river and have to boat back to Trehaug. Reyn is distraught the next morning and assumes Malta must be trapped in the city, he finds Selden and together they finish trying to open the door Malta started, but the entire city is falling apart. They do just enough and manage to let sunlight hatch the Dragon Tintaglia. At first she is going to leave them but then decides to help Reyn and Malta.
\nMaulkin and his tangle begin to head to the Rain Wild river to reach the cocooning grounds. She Who Remembers is crippled but stays with the Vivacia and also heads for the river. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-magician-s-nephew-lewis","title":"The Magician's Nephew","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":6,"pages":221,"yearPublished":1955,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/509797.The_Magician_s_Nephew","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"617122","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471107","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-magician-s-nephew-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-magician-s-nephew-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/18/2022","dateFinished":"10/18/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Second favorite Narnia book, I do think it works better to read this later in the series, not as the first book. I do wish we knew how the tree Digory planted eventually failed and let the Witch back into Narnia.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-magicians-grossman","title":"The Magicians","author":"Lev Grossman","series":"The Magicians","seriesNumber":1,"pages":402,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Viking","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6101718-the-magicians?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"280544","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9780670020553","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-magicians-grossman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-magicians-grossman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/23/2022","dateFinished":"8/28/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this Freshman year of College during calculus classes but stopped at like 2/3 through, and almost did this time also. I don’t know how there is a whole series here the book gets boring after halfway. The first half is pretty good though
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-malevolent-seven-castell","title":"The Malevolent Seven","author":"Sebastien de Castell","series":"The Malevolent Seven","seriesNumber":1,"pages":384,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Jo Fletcher Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61124074-the-malevolent-seven","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"4919","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781529422771","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-malevolent-seven-castell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/the-malevolent-seven-castell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/19/2025","dateFinished":"1/23/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not a good book. Dumb in many ways.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-man-who-died-twice-osman","title":"The Man Who Died Twice","author":"Richard Osman","series":"Thursday Murder Club","seriesNumber":2,"pages":422,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Penguin","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55457493-the-man-who-died-twice?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.7","numGoodreadsRatings":"351211","genre":"Mystery","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780241425428","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-man-who-died-twice-osman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-man-who-died-twice-osman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/29/2026","dateFinished":"2/18/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Still a fun, easy little mystery. Nothing crazy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Man Who Died Twice
\nRichard Osman
\nThursday Murder Club #2
Elizabeth gets a note from a Michael Carmichael or something which is odd since he never existed and was an alias she used to pass information then killed. So she decides to go visit whoever sent her the note. Meanwhile Chris Hudson and Donna De Freitas are staking out a local drug kingpin (Queenpin?) Connie Johnson. It is a situation where they know she knows they are watching her. Joyce wants to adopt a rescue dog. Elizabeth goes to meet the stranger and it turns out to be her ex-husband, Douglas Middlemarch, and his watcher/bodyguard Poppy. They go on a walk and Elizabeth learns that Martin Lomax, a middleman for criminals, had 20 million pounds of diamonds stolen from his house recently, and he suspects Douglas / MI5 (who douglas still works for), of taking them. Which he did. So he and poppy are hiding out to avoid death by gun or bullet. MArtin Lomax is upset because the diamonds belong to the US Mafia and if he does notget them back he will be killed by gun or strangulation or some other method of dying.
\nChris is also dating Donna’s mom Patrice, who is helping him get healthier and they like each other. Ibrahim goes to town and gets pushed over, assaulted, and robbed by some teenagers. They learn it is a kid named Ryan Baird but have no way to prove it currently. Douglas almost gets killed but instead Poppy shoots his assassin and is very distraught. Elizabeth and Jiyce come over and they meet Sue Reardon or something and Lance something who are MI5 agents working this case. Joyce comforts poppy and they decide Douglas has to be moved. Joyce finds a note in her pocket saying Call my Mum and a phone number presumably from Poppy. So she calls and meets Siobhan, a nice woman.
\nBogdan helps out. They buy cocaine from COnnie Johnson and plant it in Ryan BAirds bathroom and call the police, so he awaiting trial. Ibrahim returns from hospital to coopers chase, and Ron’s grandson Kenrick is coming over.
\nDouglas calls Elizabeth and says she needs to come over, he has something he needs to tell her, so Elizabeth and Joyce set out. They arrive at the safe house to find Poppy and Douglas shooted in the faces and barely recognizable but very clearly dead. They call Sue and Lance over after Elizabeth takes some photos and have a debrief. They assume MArtin Lomax did it. Ron, Joyce, and ELizabeth go talk to Martin and don’t think he did it but he is still a bad person.
\nDonna is also feeling sad this book and goes and talks to Ibrahim about being lonely. Connie Johnson threatens Chris, and his girlfriend Patrice, making him mad. Elizabeth finds a note from Douglas saying the diamonds are in a train locker and the key, so her and Joyce go but all there is is a chips bag, empty, but they go see Donna and find a secret message saying Elizabeth should know where the diamonds are and get the security footage of the lockers.
\nIbrahim and Kendrick go over the footage and we find out Siobhan, Poppies mom,. Checked out the locker a few days ago but found nothing. They suspect either Poppy or Douglas faked their death and killed the other to cover up the diamonds.
\nRyan Baird does not show up for trial so Joyce finds him in Scotland using Instagram. They begin concocting and hatching a plan. Elizabeth finds the diamonds with Joyce, back at the train lockers just flip the numbers. They take them back to Cooper’s Chase in secret and this is the plan: Bogdan (who Connie Johnson has a crush on) takes Ron, dressed as mafia guy, to COnnie to give her some diamonds and say she is helping mediate a meeting between drug people. She says yes. Bogdan tells her to make Ryan Baird her driver and gives her his hiding out address. Elizabeth and Joyce pick up the new york mafia guy from the airport and bring him to the meeting, while Sue stakes out and looks for Poppy/Siobhan in the area, and Lance drives Martin Lomax down. They meet up and things get choppy when only 2 diamonds are there, so Mafia guy (andre drummond jr or something), shoots Martin, so Connie shoots Andre, and Lance turns of the camera, pockets the 2 diamonds, Bogdan tells COnnie to run, and Bogdan and Lance clean up. Connie arrives to her car to find Chris and Donnie there arresting her and Ryan. yippee. Sue drives Elizabeth and Joyce away, but then Elizabeth confronts her (because she solved it), and says Sue killed Poppy and Douglas, and wants the diamonds, so Sue pulls agun on them and they go to Coopers chase, where Sue has people waiting to takae the diamonds from Joyces microwave. They get there and once inside Bogdan shoots sue in the shoulder and they capture her. Bogdan has already killed The 3 men and “Siobhan” is tied up. She is actually another of DOuglas’ exes. They tried to force the diamond location from Stephen (elizabeth dementia husband), but Bogdan is spiderman? Happy ending for most. Joyce gets a tattoo of a poppy. Bogdan is going to ask out Donna. Elizabeth sells the diamonds and donates the money to a dementia charity. Ibrahim helps Joyce adopt a dog Alan.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-maze-runner-dashner","title":"The Maze Runner","author":"James Dashner","series":"The Maze Runner","seriesNumber":1,"pages":384,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Delacorte","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6186357-the-maze-runner","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"1652395","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780385737944","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-maze-runner-dashner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-maze-runner-dashner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/6/2025","dateFinished":"10/9/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"I like these books, nostalgic for the time in high school I was reading the prequel and playing a dark room and then went indoor skydiving in the dark in the fall.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Maze Runner
\nJames Dashner
\nThe Mazer Runner #1
Thomas wakes up in a box. Remembering no proper nouns but his name. The box opens to a nice meadow forest farm place and lots of teenage boys. Alby and Newt are in charge and no one can give him straight answers, because they don’t really know.
\nThomas learns they are inside a big maze. He befriends the young Chuck. Gally hates him. Thomas learns that grievers are big fleshball monsters that roll around the maze and can sting people, causing something called “The Changing” where you get some memories back. Ben, who just went through the changing, tried to kill Thomas in the woods and Alby shoots him with a bow and arrow. He doesn’t die so they “Banish” him, throw him out in the maze at night to be horrifically killed by the grievers.
\nSuddenly another person shows up, not supposed to happen for a month. And a girl! She has a note saying everything is going to change and says she is the last one, but she is in a coma so no help. Thomas feels like he recognizes her.
\nMinho and Alby are trying to get out of the maze, Alby is hurt, so Thomas runs in to help right as the doors close. He saves Alby by tying him high up with ivy. Him and Minho do some ninja stuff and end up making the grievers fall down “The Cliff”, a seemingly endless expanse where stuff falls forever.
\nThomas is now Mr. Popular. Some hate him for no reason. He is made a runner after serving one day in prison for breaking the rules. Gally has vanished. Thomas and Minho explore the maze together but find nothing.
\nThe next morning they wake up to the sky being gray. This combined with the fact that it never rains makes them think that the sky is fake. Teresa (the girl) wakes up and her and Thomas can communicate telepathically. WICKED are the people who sent them here. Teresa wrote “WICKED is good” on her arm before losing her memories, and she gave Thomas the hint that the maze is a code.
\nThe doors don’t close that night, and Gally shows up again. He says the grievers will kill one a night. They take him and leave. Thomas and Minho go explore the cliff, and discover a spot where rocks vanish. It is an illusion and the secret hole the grievers come from. “Someone” burns the maps of the maze in the map room (it was Alby). But luckily Minho and Newt hid them! Them, Thomas, and Teresa go examine them and discover you need to overlay all sections of the maze each day to get a letter. How they did not realize this in 2 years is beyond me. They spell out some random words.
\nThomas intentionally goes through the changing to remember what to do. He learns they have to go through the griever hole to escape, and the code words will shutdown everything. Argument. Most come. They fight a ton of grievers, Alby sacrifices himself. Teresa, Chuck, and Thomas get the words in and the grievers shut down. 21 out of 4ish survive, including Newt and Minho. They walk further and find a ton of scientists observing them behind glass, it is all an experiment to find brave young men. Gally and the lead science lady walk in. She is pleased. Gally throws a knife at Thomas but Chuck jumps to intercept it. Chuck dies. Thomas “kills” Gally. Suddenly armed militants break in and shoot every scientist and usher the children out. They get on a bus and see a crazy lady. Someone tells them she has “The Flare” a virus they are supposedly immune to and why they were tested. They are taken to a facility and given pizza so they know they are safe. Go to bed. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-meaning-of-truth-james","title":"The Meaning of Truth","author":"William James","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":330,"yearPublished":1909,"publisher":"Prometheus","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/980387.The_Meaning_of_Truth","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"310","genre":"Psychology","subgenre":"Philosophy","isbn":"9781573921381","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-meaning-of-truth-james-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-meaning-of-truth-james/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/19/2025","dateFinished":"12/5/2025","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-merchant-of-venice-shakespeare","title":"The Merchant of Venice","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":247,"yearPublished":1596,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24128.The_Merchant_of_Venice?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"204998","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743477567","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-merchant-of-venice-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-merchant-of-venice-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/7/2024","dateFinished":"3/10/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Kind of crazy how we still got antisemitism going. Like shakespeare was doing it 500 years ago and Kanye does it today.
\nA
Pretty funny. Good english.
\nB
Some of the best prose I have read all summer. I now understand why fans are upset at Patrick Rothfuss for not finishing the series for 10 years. This is an incredible book and has a perfect mix of character to action to dialogue to drama. Love it awesome you go book. Kvothe is a 11/10 main character (or mary sue depending on how you look at it)
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/21/2024","dateFinished":"1/30/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"I think I enjoyed it even more the second time. Knowing when the bad stuff would happen I could feel my whole body tense up in anticipation because the books just sucks you in. I love the narrative style and obviously the prose is outstanding. I really hope the last book comes out before I die.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-narrow-road-between-desires-rothfuss","title":"The Narrow Road Between Desires","author":"Patrick Rothfuss","series":"The Kingkiller Chronicle","seriesNumber":2.6,"pages":240,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"DAW","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157265081-the-narrow-road-between-desires?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_21","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"35536","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","isbn":"9780756419189","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-narrow-road-between-desires-rothfuss-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-narrow-road-between-desires-rothfuss/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/14/2024","dateFinished":"2/17/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Awesome Novella. Whole new side to Bast and get to explore the town a lot more. Really packed a lot of emotion into such a short book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-ninth-rain-williams","title":"The Ninth Rain","author":"Jen Williams","series":"The Winnowing Flame Trilogy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":544,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Headline","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29758013-the-ninth-rain","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"10471","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781472235176","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-ninth-rain-williams-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-ninth-rain-williams/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/24/2024","dateFinished":"7/10/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Really disappointing. Heard the book was good, interesting world, interesting races, magic, and characters. But it kind of sucked. Just kept getting worse as it went along, then maybe got slightly ok again then got a lot worse. And reading the prompt for the second book makes me think it will be even worse.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-novice-matharu","title":"The Novice","author":"Taran Matharu","series":"Summoner","seriesNumber":1,"pages":398,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Feiwel and Friends","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22297138-the-novice?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"36735","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9781250067135","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-novice-matharu-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-novice-matharu/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"2/6/2023","dateFinished":"2/16/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I went into this with very low expectations because the cover says “He can summon demons, but can he win a war?” which sounds stupid. It started out pretty normal but then turned into more of a Harry Potter-esque academy fantasy which I wasn’t expecting at all. It had some really good discussions about race through the context of humans, elves, and dwarves. Honestly a really good book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-opal-deception-colfer","title":"The Opal Deception","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":4,"pages":528,"yearPublished":2005,"publisher":"Miramax","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/114954.The_Opal_Deception","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"143627","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781423103998","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-opal-deception-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-opal-deception-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"8/18/2024","dateFinished":"8/21/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Someone actually died. I wasn’t expecting that. I promise I have read these before. The character interaction and plot keeps getting better. I still think the first book has the most intriguing plot concept but these ones are still better.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-palace-job-weekes","title":"The Palace Job","author":"Patrick Weekes","series":"Rogues of the Republic","seriesNumber":1,"pages":438,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"47North","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18318648-the-palace-job?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=xnVL0E3Sp6&rank=1","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"8813","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9781477848203","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-palace-job-weekes-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":2,"currentRead":true,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/the-palace-job-weekes/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/6/2023","dateFinished":"9/10/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I forgot this one somehow. Seaside. Enjoyed it a lot.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":null,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"7/10/2026","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-pariah-ryan","title":"The Pariah","author":"Anthony Ryan","series":"Covenant of Steel","seriesNumber":1,"pages":600,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56229688","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"18435","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316430777","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-pariah-ryan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/the-pariah-ryan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/6/2024","dateFinished":"5/15/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Started off strong then consistently got worse throughout the book. Author tried to make too much happen without putting enough time into worldbuilding or side character development. People kept dying before we became invested in them, a couple of plot holes or highly unlikely events. Will not be continuing the series, but the prose was good so I am still excited for the other Anthony Ryan book (Blood Song?)
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-phantom-tollbooth-juster","title":"The Phantom Tollbooth","author":"Norton Juster","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":248,"yearPublished":1961,"publisher":"Random House","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/378.The_Phantom_Tollbooth","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"309865","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780394820378","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-phantom-tollbooth-juster-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-phantom-tollbooth-juster/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/18/2024","dateFinished":"1/20/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"An undeniable classic. The wordplay and new ideas are so clever and are even more impressive considering a debut author in the 60’s.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-poppy-war-kuang","title":"The Poppy War","author":"R. F. Kuang","series":"The Poppy War","seriesNumber":1,"pages":545,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Harper Voyager","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068705-the-poppy-war?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"514286","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Dark","isbn":"9780062662590","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-poppy-war-kuang-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-poppy-war-kuang/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/4/2023","dateFinished":"5/23/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"There were parts of this book I really enjoyed, I like it started out fairly mundane but slowly brought in more and more fantastical elements. I wish they had spent more time focusing on Rin in school. And the setting and worldbuilding are quite interesting. But then there were sections that were either too rushed and boring, and the sections about Golyn Niis were honestly so disgusting and vile it solely dropped the book down a lot. "The Poopy War" if you are feeling vulgar.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-principia-newton","title":"The Principia","author":"Isaac Newton","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":974,"yearPublished":1687,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231083.The_Principia_","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"4788","genre":"Science","subgenre":"Math","isbn":"9780520088177","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-principia-newton-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-principia-newton/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"9/12/2025","dateFinished":"9/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Math
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-priory-of-the-orange-tree-shannon","title":"The Priory of the Orange Tree","author":"Samantha Shannon","series":"The Roots of Chaos","seriesNumber":1,"pages":848,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Bloomsbury","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40275288-the-priory-of-the-orange-tree","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.4","numGoodreadsRatings":"288492","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781408883457","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-priory-of-the-orange-tree-shannon-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree-shannon/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"12/19/2023","dateFinished":"1/11/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Not a bad book, but a lot longer than it needed to be I think. A lot of interesting ideas but none were explored super in depth. I could probably write a one page summary of the book explaining everything important you need to know.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-problem-of-pain-lewis","title":"The Problem of Pain","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":162,"yearPublished":1940,"publisher":"Collins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13650513-the-problem-of-pain?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.26","numGoodreadsRatings":"75161","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Religion","isbn":"9780007461264","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-problem-of-pain-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-problem-of-pain-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"11/6/2022","dateFinished":"11/13/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A big question for Christianity and all religions. Obviously Lewis does not solve the problem of pain; he merely summarizes all the points and arguments well.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-queen-of-attolia-turner","title":"The Queen of Attolia","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":2,"pages":362,"yearPublished":2000,"publisher":"Greenwillow Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30363360-the-queen-of-attolia","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"50421","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780062642974","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-queen-of-attolia-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/the-queen-of-attolia-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"9/6/2021","dateFinished":"9/12/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/9/2023","dateFinished":"4/10/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Series also gets better as it goes along. I feel like the plans get smarter and smarter and are fun.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-rage-of-dragons-winter","title":"The Rage of Dragons","author":"Evan Winter","series":"The Burning","seriesNumber":1,"pages":535,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41952489-the-rage-of-dragons?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"48650","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316489768","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-rage-of-dragons-winter-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-rage-of-dragons-winter/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/30/2026","dateFinished":"5/5/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Very much lived up to the hype. Fast pacing throughout but still felt reasonable character growth. A small criticism is it felt like the timeline went by a bit too quickly, although I guess I don’t actually know how long a cycle is so maybe it is longer than a year. It just didn’t feel like there was a single word of filler in the entire book, everything felt like it was leading to a single point and with a single POV (for almost the whole thing), we stay focused on that. The conflict hinges around a rigid caste system that forces much of society into a lower standing, and those on top who would do anything to make sure that hierarchy stays the way it is now. One of the best Caste type books I have ever read, with physical differences enforcing the separation between Nobles and Commons. The magic was also super unique and interesting. I think it also helped that this was offset by the audiobook I was listening to that had some similar aspects but was very bad. Strongly recommend for anyone looking for a combat-heavy, training arc story.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Rage of Dragons
\nEvan Winter
\nThe Burning #1
The Rage of Dragons Summary
\nQueen Taifa lands her people, The Chosen, on foreign shores fleeing their homeland of Osonte due to a mysterious enemy called The Cull. Her forces, led by her champion/lover Tsiory, attack the hostile natives. The Chosen have multiple magical abilities among their women, they can knock enemies unconscious, “enrage” certain men (making them bigger, stronger, etc.), and they can call dragons (called Guardians). They are hesitant to call dragons at first because that may summon the Cull, but after Tsiory is killed Queen Taifa unleashes dragon fire on the people.
\n200 years later, the Chosen have established themselves in the land, but there is still an ongoing war with the Hedeni, who were forced back into The Curse. Tau Tafari, a high Common, practices sparring with his friend Jabari Onai, a Petty Noble. They are taught by Aren Solarin, Tau’s father and captain of the local guard. Jabari is bigger and stronger than Tau due to his Noble blood.
\nThey hear about a Hedeni raid on a nearby village, Daba, and go to help. Tau kills a Hedeni woman and is upset and does not want to be a soldier. Jabari’s older brother, Lekan, (Set to inherit the rule of their fief), tries to force himself on a young woman and when caught, Aren is forced to exile the Common girl and her family because of privilege. Tau and Jabari are training for their testing, where the fates of young men are decided. The best become soldiers, and the commons who fail become Drudge, basically slaves to the Nobles. Nobles test to join the Indlovu, an elite fighting force that will train for 3 cycles before seeing combat, whereas Commons join the Ihashe, who only train for a single cycle and are the expendable front line fighters. Tau also begins a relationship with Zuri, a young girl in the village he likes.
\nThe testing arrives and Lekan forces Tau to warm up with a young Noble from another family. As they spar, the Noble swings his sharpened sword for Tau’s neck, so Tau knocks him to the ground. Abasi Odili, leader of the Guardian Council (Basically the highest ranking Royal Noble, just under the Queen), sees this and decides all Nobles here must not be worthy and decides to cancel the test and leave. Laken blames Tau, and Tau gets angry and insults Laken. Odili takes offense to a Common speaking up to a Noble and tells one of his Indlovu, Kellan Okar, to kill Tau. Tau’s father Aren takes his place. Kelland cuts off his hand to try to spare his life but Abasi Odili just tells his bodyguard, Dejen, to finish it. Aren is dead and Tau is anguished. The testing is still cancelled as Odili makes all the judges leave. Jabari is able to save Tau from Lekan’s wrath by exiling him from their town, and the soldiers (loyal to his father), make sure Tau does not do anything stupid.
\nBack in Kerem, Tau finds Zuri and learns she tested as a Gifted, the women who can use magic. This elevates her to just about as high in the caste system as you can get. Zuri is horrified when hearing what happens but still cares for Tau. Tau sneaks into the keep and kills Lekan, although Lekan gives him a long scar on his cheek before Tau kills him. Jabari plans to head for the Northern Testing, and Tau heads to Kigambe to test to join the Ihashe there. His plan is to get into the Ihashe, kill Kellan Okar in training, then as a member of the military he can challenge anyone to a blood duel, so he will challenge Abasi Odili and kill his bodyguard and him. All he wants is revenge.
\nAt the testing, he barely wins his first fight via disqualification, and then wins a few more. He is exhausted and gets matched up against a huge man, Uduak. To make the Ihashe you have to survive until day 3 or win 10 fights. It is only day 2 and Tau is not close to 10 wins yet. Uduak beats him over and over, but Tau refuses to yield. He manages to tie the point score by getting a touch on Uduak right before the time is called. Uduak is furious and breaks Tau’s wrist then knocks him unconscious with a kick. Tau wakes up in an infirmary tent and learns he was accepted into the Ihashe, a member of scale Jayyed. Jayyed is famous for being the only Common ever to be on the Guardian Council.
\nTau begins to train with his left hand since his right wrist is still badly broken. Some notable members of Scale Jayyed are Aren, second in command to Jayyed who trains them most days, and then Uduak and Hadith. Tau is the smallest member of the scale but trains incredibly hard for longer than anyone else and slowly improves to become one of their best swordsmen. They fight training battles against some other scales and crush them. Tau’s wrist eventually heals and he discovers in a practice fight he can use two swords. As he develops this skill he becomes a dominant fighter, besting even Uduak with ease.
\nThe Ihashe scales will fight Indlovu scales a few times a year. The goal is to train the Indlovu to be prepared for the superior numbers of the Hedeni on the battlefield, and the Ihashe never win the engagements, but Tau and Jayyed are determined to change that. In their first match, the 54 members of the scale are fighting 18 Indlovu initiates and one Enervator, a magic user who can send out a wave that knocks everyone it hits unconscious. In the fight Tau gets blasted, and those hit are sent to Isihogo, the demon plains. While there they are attacked by demons, and while the wounds are not real, the mental anguish and pain felt carry back over, leaving everyone disoriented and easy to kill. Tau distracts some demons in Isihogo to save one of his squad, and when he gets out of Isihogo he gets close enough to the Enervator to kick her out of the scrimmage. Scale Jayyed ends up winning, which is very exciting for them. While celebrating in the city Tau sees Zuri and goes to talk to her. She teaches him how to enter Isihogo on his own, and he learns the demons can only hurt you if you draw energy from there. That is how magic is done, the people who can use magic actually have the ability to hide themselves from the demons while they draw power.
\nTau continues training, Scale Jayyed wins another skirmish against some Indlovu, and Nobles are starting to get upset, seeing a group of Commons win. Tau meets with Zuri again but this time some Nobles threaten Tau for talking to a gifted and he is already angry so he attacks them and knocks them out. Then Kellan Okar shows up and Tau loses it, attacking him. But Kellan is better and easily holds him off. Jayyed grabs him and they flee the city while tempers cool. Tau realizes he need to get better. A fact about being in Isihogo is that 50 breaths pass there for every 1 in Uhmlaba (The real world). Since Tau needs more time to train he decides to fight in Isihogo every night. He is repeatedly killed by demons and at first fears and hates it but grows to love and feel he deserves the pain and torture. This extra time turns him from a great fighter into someone untouchable, but it takes a toll. He begins to see demons everywhere and clearly has PTSD. Zuri shows up at their training place and she and Tau kiss and do even more stuff. He feels at peace with her.
\nAbasi Odili briefly shows up and summons Jayyed to a meeting. Tau follows hoping to kill him, but instead stumbles on a meeting with the Hedeni. The Chosen are trying to pursue peace. A warlord of the Hedeni (Xideen, they call themselves), gives his son to marry the new, young Queen, Tsiora. In exchange Jayyed’s daughter, a powerful mage, is given to the Hedeni to train them. Tau is horrified and keeps this meeting a secret.
\nScale Jayyed qualifies for the Queen’s Melee, the biggest marshall event of the year and they are the first Ihashe to qualify in a long time. This is Tau’s goal, since he may get a chance to fight and kill Kellan Okar. They win round 1, and in round 2 Tau duels the opponents leader and wins. Round 3 they fight Kellan’s squad and Tau loses it for his team to get a chance to fight Kellan. He is better and almost kills him but more of Kellan’s Indlovu show up and defend him. Scale Jayyed is hiding out to avoid the Nobles' anger at their success, when alarms start going. The Hedeni are attacking. Scale Jayyed goes to fight, and they see the Hedeni are here in force and greatly outnumber them. Tau goes to save Zuri, who is fighting with Kellan’s squad. They save her and Kellan, but Jayyed dies.
\nBack at Citadel City, they all figure out that Abasi Odili is leading a coup by the Nobles. He does not want to make peace since that would break up the caste system. He plans to kill Queen Tsiora and make her younger sister a puppet. The rest of Kellan and Tau’s scales with Zuri go to save the queen. They reach her rooms and Tau kills Dejen (Odili’s bodyguard). He has a chance to chase down Odili but chooses to save Jabari instead. The Queen gathers everyone and takes them to the walls to muster her forces. Zuri had been working to summon a dragon and uses it to kill most of Odili’s men, but he escapes in the chaos. Zuri had to use too much power in Isihogo, and is going to die so Tau tries to save her, but a demon attacks him. Queen Tsiora is secretly powerful at hiding herself, and saves Zuri and Tau, but the dragon is now free. It burns most of Tau’s remaining scale and Jabari is badly hurt, then it incinerates Zuri while Tau can do nothing. He is heartbroken. The Hedeni army shows up. The Queen offers them the warlord's son, Kana, in exchange for 30 days of peace. They agree.
\nQueen Tsiora asks Tau to be her new Champion. Abasi Odili has taken many Royal Nobles and is camped in Palm City with the queen’s sister. She needs to first stop him then figure out how to handle the vengeful Hedeni. Jamillah, the magic woman they sent to “train them”, instead summoned a dragon that killed a huge number of them. Tsiora give Tau 2 dragon scale swords, and he takes them and agrees to help.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-rains-of-liscor-aba","title":"The Rains of Liscor","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":7,"pages":1163,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60851520-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"2013","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-rains-of-liscor-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-rains-of-liscor-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"1/9/2025","dateFinished":"1/28/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Huge jump back up from the last book. One of my favorites so far. Great mix of fun and good storytelling.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-red-fox-clan-flanagan","title":"The Red Fox Clan","author":"John Flanagan","series":"The Royal Ranger","seriesNumber":2,"pages":352,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Viking Books for Young Readers","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38888254-the-red-fox-clan","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"12692","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781524741389","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-red-fox-clan-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4.5,"url":"/books/the-red-fox-clan-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/2/2023","dateFinished":"3/11/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Just not very good. Tries to tie into the brotherband books, but it feels forced. Characters make stupid choices and the main conflict just feels overtly sexist. I doubt I will read any more of these.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-republic-of-thieves-lynch","title":"The Republic of Thieves","author":"Scott Lynch","series":"Gentleman Bastard","seriesNumber":3,"pages":650,"yearPublished":2013,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2890090-the-republic-of-thieves","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.42","numGoodreadsRatings":"123121","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9780553804690","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-republic-of-thieves-lynch-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-republic-of-thieves-lynch/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/18/2023","dateFinished":"6/9/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Fantastic Series, I really hope he finishes Thorn at some point before I die. The second book is awesome but is definitely the weakest in the series in my opinion. I love the time cuts between past and present in the first and third books, learning about Locke’s upbringing and past trials. I honestly can’t say whether I like this book or LoLL more, but both are fantastic 10/10 reads. This is one of my favorite series of all time, even without it being finished. Also the epilogue oh my goodness gracious.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-republic-plato","title":"The Republic","author":"Plato","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":416,"yearPublished":401,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30289.The_Republic","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.94","numGoodreadsRatings":"222223","genre":"Philosophy","subgenre":"History","isbn":"9780140449143","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-republic-plato-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-republic-plato/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/1/2025","dateFinished":"10/18/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Boring
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-revenge-of-the-baby-sat-watterson","title":"The Revenge of the Baby-Sat","author":"Bill Watterson","series":"Calvin and Hobbes","seriesNumber":5,"pages":128,"yearPublished":1991,"publisher":"Turtleback Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121792.The_Revenge_of_the_Baby_Sat?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_23","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"17075","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9781417642120","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-revenge-of-the-baby-sat-watterson-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-revenge-of-the-baby-sat-watterson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/6/2022","dateFinished":"7/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Anyone that says they don’t like calvin and hobbes is a stinky dirty liar.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-road-mccathy","title":"The Road","author":"Cormac McCathy","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":241,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Alfred A. Knopf","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_8","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.98","numGoodreadsRatings":"1059966","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Dystopian","isbn":"9780307265432","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-road-mccathy-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-road-mccathy/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/4/2024","dateFinished":"3/7/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"This is tough. I can honestly understand both the people who say this is a perfect book and the people who give it 1 star. Certain things seem like it is a short, poorly written dump but other parts do really capture emotion and imagination, it definitely is not middle of “the road” (funniest sentient being). It is missing many things most people look for in a good book, no plot, simplistic prose, the characters don’t even have names. The conversations are repetitive, we get the occasional flashback about the start of the apocalypse (which is never clearly defined). It’s not necessarily fun to read, and it didn’t connect to me on the deep emotional level I think it is supposed to (I don’t have kids). I am intentionally giving this the exact same rating as Gregor the Overlander, since they each have everything the other is lacking and none of it’s positives.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-ruins-of-gorlan-flanagan","title":"The Ruins of Gorlan","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":1,"pages":249,"yearPublished":2004,"publisher":"Puffin Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60400.The_Ruins_of_Gorlan","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"177915","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142406632","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-ruins-of-gorlan-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-ruins-of-gorlan-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"2/1/2022","dateFinished":"2/6/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-scorch-trials-dashner","title":"The Scorch Trials","author":"James Dashner","series":"The Maze Runner","seriesNumber":2,"pages":362,"yearPublished":2010,"publisher":"Delacorte","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7631105-the-scorch-trials","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"633266","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780385738750","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-scorch-trials-dashner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6,"url":"/books/the-scorch-trials-dashner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/10/2025","dateFinished":"10/12/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Starts to get weirder. Plot is worse. Characters make dumber decisions.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Scorch Trials
\nJames Dashner
\nThe Maze Runner #2
They thought they were safe, but they wake up to screaming cranks outside the windows and Thomas can’t contact Theresa via his mind. They are locked in. The common room is full of the hanging, dead bodies of their “rescuers”, Theresa is gone and replaced with a boy named Aris who doesn’t know how he got here but went through the exact same maze trials with a group of girls called Group B. Everyone has tattoos lalebling them WICKED property. No food. Hungry for 3 days. Rat looking guy shows up and says more trials await. Next morning they teleport via a flat trans to a tunnell pitch black underground. As they walk a couple kids die from silver balls that eat you. Find the exit, sun is scorching hot, UV like 50. They are in “The Scorch” the old part of earth near the equator that burned when the solar flares happened.
\nThey start crossing the scorch, eventually come to a hut where Thomas finds Theresa, they kiss and she tells him to run. They run, a storm starts and lightning super strong kills some and Minho burnt. Get to abandoned city to sleep. 11 left. Wake up to Jorge, leader of a group of cranks. He talks to Thomas and wants the cure they have been promised (all the gladers have the flare apparently). Him and a teenage girl named Brenda come with team. They get food, but then an explosion separates Brenda and Thomas from everyone else. Instead of contacting Aris via telepathy Thomas run around in the dark hiding from Cranks with Brenda, who seems to like him a lot. Learn WICKED is a coalition of remaining world governments after the world fell apart when the flares hit. They get captured by some sane-ish cranks with a gun and taken to this weird dance party and forced to take drugs. Wake up tied down in a basement. Lots of signs around city saying “Thomas, you are the real leader” so these people want to know who he is. Deus ex minho. The gladers come and save Brenda and Thomas. While drugged thomas basically shut down Brenda and said Theresa was better. Gun guy someone is a ninja and shoots Thomas in the shoulder. They flee the city. Infection.
\n“Someone” (brenda) calls down WICKED to save Thomas, they didn’t think a gun would have been there so it doesn’t count. He overhears some more random information on top of the dreams he keeps having. Reunited with Gladers + Jorge and Brenda and Aris. Keep going to the north, where a “Safe Zone” waits and they will get the cure. Group of girls with weapons shows up and Theresa acts like she doesn’t know Thomas. Beats him, captures him.
\nThomas befriends other girls and they realize Theresa is crazy. Even though WICKED said to kill him they aren’t going to. Theresa leaves. The next day Theresa tells thomas to follow her and he is stupid so he does by himself. Theresa and Aris capture and tell Thomas he will die, they kiss. He feels betrayed. They put him in a death chamber where he doesn’t die, Theresa apologizes she just did what she was told. Thomas obviously hates her now because she was awful and dumb. Both groups of kids find a pole in the ground marked safe zone. Suddenly crates holding griver-esque monsters show up. They fight, many die. A big plane called a berg shows up with more monsters, they barely manage to get on the plane.
\nA soldier threatens to kill either Brenda or Jorge because they aren’t supposed to be here. Thomas chooses Branda with some wicked reverse psychology. The dude goes to kill Brenda by throwing her out of the plane. Thomas tackles him and takes his gun, but then the dude apologizes so everything is fine I guess. Then they all choose to fall asleep on the plane instead of doing anything rational and Thomas wakes up in a padded cell alone with Theresa saying he has been gone for a week.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-sea-of-monsters-riordan","title":"The Sea of Monsters","author":"Rick Riordan","series":"Percy Jackson and the Olympians","seriesNumber":2,"pages":279,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Disney-Hyperion","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40727118-the-sea-of-monsters","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.48","numGoodreadsRatings":"1396315","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780120000319","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-sea-of-monsters-riordan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-sea-of-monsters-riordan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/12/2023","dateFinished":"6/13/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night-broadbent","title":"The Serpent and the Wings of Night","author":"Clarissa Broadbent","series":"Crowns of Nyaxia","seriesNumber":1,"pages":504,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62066366-the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"680602","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781957779027","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night-broadbent-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/the-serpent-and-the-wings-of-night-broadbent/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/29/2025","dateFinished":"9/6/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Honestly better than I expected it to be. Not a ton of romance, but still a needless smut scene written in near the end. Obviously copies a lot from other books in this vein but not the worst writing ever. Still bad but better than expected.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Serpent and the Wings of Night
\nClarissa Broadbent
\nCrowns of Nyaxia #1
Set in the world of Obidae, Oraya, a young human is found by Vincent the Vampire Hiaj King of the House of Night. He raises her in his castle, one of few humans around in a world of Vampires, in the city Sivrinaj. Oraya enters a once a century tournament, the Keraji, in order to share in Vincent’s power and be able to fit in in the world of vampires. Her only human friend, Ilana, is killed right at the start of the Keraji, which has 5 rounds named after moon phases (the goddess Nyaxia is big on the moon I guess). Oraya is injured in the first trial and forced to accept the help of fellow contestants Rhain and Mische. They are both friendly and different from the other vampires she has met before. They know they will have to team up for the next trial so they begin practicing together, and Rhain and Oraya develop a weird tension chemistry. Outside of this tournament, the Rishan vampires (another faction with feathered wings vs. Hiaj bat wings) begin to rebel since Vincent has been in control for al ong time (Rhain is Rishan). In this rebellion Mische gets wounded while Rhain and Oraya are off flirting, so she has to leave the tournament. Rhain and Oraya still win easily since apparently Oraya now is the most powerful magic user in history (she just cant control it well?) and continue to do well and fall in love, while Vincent is more distracted when meeting Oraya since he is actively fighting a war. Oraya and Rhain sleep together right before the final round where they know they will have to kill each other. They get to the final 2, Oraya kills him, then Nyaxia grants her wish of Rhain winning the tournament (which should mean she dies but I guess not), then he wishes to get his full bloodline heir mark powers back which Vincent had restrained when he won the Keraji 2 centuries ago. For some reason he is more powerful than vincent by a mile and easily kills him, but Oraya still loves her adopted father. Then when he dies she get the heir mark, meaning she is a half vamp and his real daughter. Rhain says he will force her to marry him and abuse her to get the other RIshan to not kill her. Oraya meets secretly with her fathers old general to plan how to fight back. Also there is this third group the House of Blood that does not matter at all.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-shadow-of-the-gods-gwynne","title":"The Shadow of the Gods","author":"John Gwynne","series":"Bloodsworn Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":480,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52694527-the-shadow-of-the-gods?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"104550","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780356514185","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-shadow-of-the-gods-gwynne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":4,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":4,"url":"/books/the-shadow-of-the-gods-gwynne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/20/2022","dateFinished":"7/25/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Instead of using the word “Mind” or “Brain” or “Head” the author thought they would be creative, clever, and witty and call it a Thought Cage. I hate this I hate this I hate this. Outside this book, tt seems like some fiction authors want to make their world seem different, so they make new words for stuff we already have, but many of them are either too lazy or untalented to actually make a new word and describe its meaning to the reader, so they just change the existing word a little. The example that comes to mind is instead of the profession “Engineer”, they call them “Gineers”. The only context where this actually makes since is a story set on earth in post-apocalyptic times. If your world is not that, you can’t just change a few letters in an english word. It does not make your world seem more immersive since it has unique things it makes you sound lazy and dumb
\n2026: Sorry John Gwynne. I will reread this, physical book. Not audio.
Probably my least favorite Narnia book. Pretty boring and Jill is dumb. Also no explanation for the witch or anything, Puddleglum is the only reason it is worth reading.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-silverblood-promise-logan","title":"The Silverblood Promise","author":"James Logan","series":"The Last Legacy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":528,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195790755-the-silverblood-promise","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.96","numGoodreadsRatings":"3641","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9781250345806","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-silverblood-promise-logan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/the-silverblood-promise-logan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/19/2025","dateFinished":"2/28/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not good. Feels like someone skimmed Scott Lynch and tried to copy it. Dialogue feels like Skyrim NPC’s talking and racial sterotypes are even worse. Sucks. Hard to read at points, incredibly annoying protagonist.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-rothfuss","title":"The Slow Regard of Silent Things","author":"Patrick Rothfuss","series":"The Kingkiller Chronicle","seriesNumber":2.5,"pages":159,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"DAW Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21535271-the-slow-regard-of-silent-things?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_21","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"162169","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Novella","isbn":"9780756410438","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-rothfuss-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-rothfuss/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/14/2022","dateFinished":"12/25/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I thought this was an amazing insight into Patrick Rothfuss’ world. It was honestly really heartbreaking and sad to see the fragility of Auri’s mind and how distressed she can get, but there is a beauty to knowing the way of things that somehow I connected with a lot. I think all broken people should read this and reflect.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-song-of-achilles-miller","title":"The Song of Achilles","author":"Madeline Miller","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":408,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"Ecco","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11887641-the-song-of-achilles","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.6","numGoodreadsRatings":"2072408","genre":"Mythology","subgenre":"Fantasy","isbn":"9780062060617","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-song-of-achilles-miller-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-song-of-achilles-miller/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"8/16/2023","dateFinished":"8/25/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"It’s a lot better after learning she is a fluent speaker of latin and greek, so she is better able to translate.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-sorcerer-in-the-north-flanagan","title":"The Sorcerer in the North","author":"John Flanagan","series":"Ranger's Apprentice","seriesNumber":5,"pages":304,"yearPublished":2006,"publisher":"Puffin Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6089263-the-sorcerer-of-the-north","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"84429","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780142414293","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-sorcerer-in-the-north-flanagan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-sorcerer-in-the-north-flanagan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"2/21/2022","dateFinished":"2/26/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-sound-of-change-wall","title":"The Sound of Change","author":"Steve D. Wall","series":"The Bards and Dragons Saga","seriesNumber":2,"pages":674,"yearPublished":2025,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233207007-the-sound-of-change","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.66","numGoodreadsRatings":"78","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9798280214002","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-sound-of-change-wall-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-sound-of-change-wall/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/21/2026","dateFinished":"3/6/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A bit of a step down from the first book, but still solid. Really enjoyed the Lyrrun chapters in particular, he is still a standout character. The pacing just felt a bit more random compared to how tight the first one was. Did not think we would end at the point we did, not sure what direction the third book is going to go. Talua also was incredibly frustrating at times. I hope we get more Dellioph and Devo together.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Sound of Change Summary
\nSteve D. Wall
\nThe Bards and Dragon Saga #2
Audiobook spelling
\nLyrrun of Dwi is still in Quinport after Ulrich and Dellioph’s slightly botched escape plan, trying to figure out what happened and put stuff back together. He sells some of his holdings to acquaintance/ally Chancellor Bellisov to avoid him and Jack being sent to prison by Chancellor Aramea. But the Mastus’ are being held captive. While checking out the damage Lyrrun find Edwell Mastus, who has been hiding out to avoid capture and they team up.
\nTalua, Androstos, Dellioph, and Gali are heading to the Altar of the Sky, the place where the Teo Monks (sorcerers) all live to resupply before going to find Ulric. They pass near another Teo tribe and see their village has also been destroyed by Dragons (the big lizards). Dellioph offers to sing a eulogy and despite Talua threatening him constantly he uses a bit of magic to make Gali feel better. They then see a pack of dragons and Melviar leading them. He sends the dragons after them and they flee rapidly, coming to the base of the Altar of the Sky and stopping to make a stand. As they fight with their limited guns and bullets, Talua makes Dellioph just reload for them since his curse means he can’t harm any living creature. He was forced to tell them about his curse from the Magnate (can’t remember if that was book one or early this one). As the dragons close in and Androstos is burning up his energy using his physical speed sorcery, Dellioph decides he will empower them all despite Talua’s warnings. He has just started to strum the lute and empower them when “winged” forms fall from the sky and kill the dragons and save them. It is the Teo Monks, who have big stitched cloaks they can use in combination with wind magic to fly. Talua beats Dellioph up (Who can not defend himself because curse) then is about to shoot him for using his magic, despite him just trying to save their lives when things seemed hopeless. Andy talks her down and they ascend to the Altar.
\nUlrich wakes up on a raft with some Teo, Dewstu among them. One of them, Chalka, can speak a little bit of Unnish so they can communicate a bit. The Teo also found all of their guns and bullets that fell in the river. Ulric is in bad shape but the Teo are helping him. They are fleeing to the great lake to avoid the dragons killing them all. Ulrich begins to teach Chalka and Dewstu Unnish and how to use the guns, since he fears their will be a big battle with the dragons.
\nLyrrun tries to get Chancellor Bellisov to free Rodwell and Delruba Mastus, but Bellisov makes him do a job first, so Lyren and Edwell go to break into a warehouse owned by Chancellor Aramea one night. They have to kill some guards and we learn more about Lyrrun’s past since he can forge papers, pick locks, and disguise himself. They find plans for a new cannon model, a good bit of gold, and a strange stone. Bellisov seems enthralled by the stone when he gets it, but he frees the Mastus’ who come to the Captain’s Mast to stay.
\nUlric meets up with another tribe, the Coney (he was rescued by the Idiwi). They are all preparing for a big battle with the dragons, and so Ulric assumes the roles of commander and teacher. He is also suffering nicotine withdrawal on top of his injuries. Him and Chaska smoke a weed variant on occasion.
\nAt the altar of the Sky, Talua hates Dellioph more than ever. She has referred to his enchantment sorcery as rape. The elder of the Monks talks to the spirits and sees the coney preparing to fight and the Ulric is with them, so they offer to loan cloaks to Gali, Dellioph, Talua, and Androstos to fly ahead and beat the dragons to the battlesite. They take the offer and get to fly. At the end of the flight Dellioph is dumb and tried to copy the monk accompanying them, and almost crashes. The monk is forced to burn his sorcery out saving them all, and is incapacitated. They find another tribe from the plains with horses, and Gali talks to them as chief of the Odegna and manages to convince them not to kill the “durians” and go with them to aid the Coney in the coming battle. The chief of this tribe is antagonistic towards Gali and the outsiders.
\nLyrrun is trying to figure out what Aramea is up to still, and gets invited to a gala, which is odd, but he goes to do some recon work. Edwell sneaks out to join him despite his parents insisting against it. Lyrrun starts to teach Ed some of the “tricks of the trade” (spy stuff) but they don’t learn anything real, so he sends Ed home and causes a distraction before sneaking into Aramea’s office. He steals a notebook and is forced to make a hasty retreat after seeing that Aramea is planning a coup and is sending men to attack the Captains Mast this evening. On the way out he is accosted by Aramea right hand man Reddo? Daro? (Can’t remember his name), and is about to be captured when Edwell shows up again to save him. They flee, but find the Mast already under attack. Gustav, a local mercenary who got kicked out for accosting the serving girl a while back, and some local toughs are breaking stuff and attacking Jack the innkeep. Jack breaks free and Ed shoots one of the men, and it seems to be in control when gustav comes out from the back having killed the cook, and then attacks and stabs Jack in the chest. He is about to kill Edwell when Delruba comes downstairs and uses her until now secret fire sorcery to burn the mercenaries to death. Too late to save Jack however. They all flee to the home of Chymic, the Teo living in Quinport, since Lyrrun sponsors his work.
\nGali, Dellioph, Talua, and Andorstos have grouped up with the Coney. They also meet Aari and Devo. Everyone is back together, preparing to battle Malviar and the dragons. Coll, the Earth spirit, says she can only use her power once more so is saving up for Melviar, but Aari is learning to control it on her own. Dellioph empowers her and they build a ton of earthworks and traps for the battle using earth sorcery. Ulric keeps training Teo to shoot. Now they just wait a few more days for the battle.
\nLyrrun is planning to flee the city with the Mastus’, but needs a plan. He receives a coded note from Chancellor Bellisov’s son. They meet him in secret at Madam Hewsteil’s Brothel. She is an old “friend” of Lyrrun. Chancellor Bellisov seems to be in a coma of some sort caused by the mysterious stone from the warehouse. They are trying to figure out what to do when soldiers come to the area searching every building. They try to flee but Aramea’s right hand man from earlier (Reddo I think) kills Bellisov’s son and then knocks Edwell unconscious. Lyrrun tries to stall but then gets shot and falls unconscious.
\nThe night before the big battle Ulric smokes with Chaska, then another Teo comes and tells him Aari wants him. They wander away and once out of sight Ulric realizes something is wrong but then gets hit and tied up. They say they are from the Kingdom of Bahir, his old enemies when he served Helestria. (old world kingdoms). Before the fight starts everyone else realizes something is wrong and Aari uses earth magic to find Ulric and says he is prisoner and being taken away. Andy and Talua leave Gali to go save Ulric. Dellioph had decided not to participate in the battle despite Ulric asking him to empower people, so he already at the edge of town, and spots Ulric being abducted and tries to help. He attempts to enchant the 3 men, one a shapechanger who pretended to be the Teo to lure Ulric away, one a strength physic, and the other seems to have some sort of sense enhancing ability. Dellioph almost convinces them the arch mages sent him when their leader shows up, a blade dancer (like Galandon, who’s sword Dellioph carries). They tie Dellioph up and when they see he has a blade of Bahir, they take him prisoner with Ulric.
\nThe battle starts, Melviar is at the field and has a small army of dragons. Some of the Teo break but many fight. Coll is forced to use a lot of her magic making earth walls to block the fireballs Malviar is creating. He wields a bone / tooth of a dragon (an ancient real fire breathing dragon, not a lizard) as a weapon and magical conduit. Gali tries to rally the remaining Teo to keep fighting, but things don’t look good.
\nSuddenly a hatchet kills the strength physic captor, then Androstos is zooming around fighting everyone. He kills 2 of the enemy, but then is forced into battle with the blade dancer. Blade dancers are basically impossible to kill 1v1 but Andy is keeping it close with his hatchets. Dellioph sings to empower Androstos (not as strong as using Urelio’s lute), and it seems like he may win, but the blade dancer launches wind blades at ulrich and Dellioph distracting them. Androstos is forced to use Galandon’s sword after his hatchet breaks, but he is not trained with it. He threw his second hatchet to allow Ulrich to cut his bonds, and Ulrich is trying to load his rifle. The blade dancer forces Androstos to the ground then gives him a big cut across the chest. He then rushes Ulric but Ulrich shoots him just in time. Talua shows up and is devastated that her husband is dying. Ulric is so mad he uses the blade dancers sword to brutalize the remaining enemy trying to flee. Dellioph wakes up from unconsciousness and they all watch Androstos die.
\nBack at the battle things aren’t going great. Devo and Aari/coll attack Melviar but he is too strong. He throws Devo away and grabs Aari about to stab her with the dragon fang, when Balaam (spirit of the hunt, Coll’s younger spirit brother), shows up with an army of animals and attacks. He distracts Melviar and his animals attack the lizards.
\nDellioph, Talua, and Ulric run back to the battle. Ulric asked Dellioph to empower them. Dellioph was worried he would lose control but Ulric says he will stop him. They make a big impact and shoot all their bullets, but dellioph starts getting carried away, so Ulrich punches him. Talua again looks like she wants to kill him and like everything is his fault, so him and Ulrich leave her and go find Gali to help. They all regroup and Dellioph empowers Devo despite his broken ankle and Devo fights Malviar. He almost kills him, but Ulric again stops Dellioph because he is losing control and his magic is making Devo be brutal. Without it Malviar again throws Devo away and then grabs Dellioph while Ulric is looking for more ammo.Malviar is attacking Dellioph with the fang, who is forced to block with Urelio’s lute, which eventually shatters and breaks. Their is a strange gold light that the fang is absorbing. Dellioph jumps on Malviar and grabs the fang, but then seems to be paralyzed with pain. Gali has already shot Malviar once but now she lines up another shot and fires again, hitting him in the chest. Devo wakes up enough and with Aari’s help stabs Malviar with the fang. He turns to ash and is absorbed. Good guys win.
\nAfter a week Delioph wakes up. Aari tells everyone Coll has died/passed on. They try to rebuild the village and hold a pyre for Androstos. The Teo meet to decide what to do and Gali and Dewstu dream of their old home, but their are no real plans for the future. Devo and Dellioph talk and Devo uses the fang to remove Dellioph’s curse tattoo, so he can hurt people again.
\nLyren wakes up. He is in a safe house Madam Hewsteil brought him too. His flask saved him by being in his jacket pocket when he was shot, like a Nokia. He learns Edwell is prisoner but Rodwell and Delruba are here and they plan how to save him. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-strength-of-the-few-islington","title":"The Strength of the Few","author":"James Islington","series":"Hierarchy","seriesNumber":2,"pages":720,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Text Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231308549-the-strength-of-the-few","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"576","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9783985852482","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-strength-of-the-few-islington-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-strength-of-the-few-islington/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"11/12/2025","dateFinished":"11/30/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not quite as good as the first book, but considering how different of a story it was it did a good job keeping the same tone and pace. Excited for what I assume will be the final book in the trilogy.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Strength of the Few
\nJames Islington
\nThe Hierarchy #2
This book jumps between following the three different Vis Telimus’ / Diago’s. One (from the last book) on Res, the world we know from the first book that has Caten and Roman themes. This Vis lost his arm after the udequiem. The second on is on Obiteum, where Vis meets with Caeror and is given a scarab amulet vitirium to keep him alive, plus it provides him with will (This world is egyptian themed). The third one is on Luceum, where Vis does not even realize he is on a different world for most of the book (This one is Norse themed and he also lost his arm here).
\nVis is synchronous, which seems to give him some unique powers such as the ability to take others will out of objects, as well as sense when his other selves are hurt. But Ka and many others do not want anyone to be synchronous, so they keep try8ing to kill him.
\nOn Res, Vis learns from veridius that he is trying to prevent another cataclysm since they happen every 300 ish years. He says he wants to work for the censor (Callidus’ father) in Governance, causing a stir. He needs to be tested and touch an aurora columni to use will.
\nIn Obiteum, Caeror also tells Vis about him and Veridius trying to stop a cataclysm, and warns him that someone named Ka is also synchronous and wants to kill him. He has bird humans called gleaners that patrol outside of his city (with a big pyramid). He takes vis to a group of rebelish people living outside the city.
\nIn Luceum, Vis is taken on a boat by strange people who have bad intentions, a druid (called Dree) talks to him in Ancient Vitusian and says he will help him escape. They are on a boat.
\nIn Res, when Vis goes with Ulsicor (apparently that is how you spell it) and Lanistea (the girls name) to the Aurora, she freaks out and tries to kill Vis, saying the phrase “Complete the journey warrior” over and over. She clearly has some compulsion to stop him being synchronous. The Aurora Columni are also getting brighter, probably has to do with the impending cataclysm. Lanistea gets imprisoned for killing guards and Vis is taken away. Next he has to be tested for aptitude, but first is visited by the man with a scar from the first book who seems to be working with the ANguis. He teaches Vis about the ability of Adoption, how he can take and use others will in objects. Vis uses this and his natural talent to do very well in his trials despite only having one arm. After his trials are done Tercius Decamus (Iro’s father and a member of religion) says that Vis should relinquish the title of Domitor to Indoll, since he is no longer the best. Vis says no so he gets talked into doing a chariot race with Aequa against Indoll and Iro, winner take all. This threatens the peace between religion and governance, Military is basically already hostile to them. Vis and Aequa barely win, and Iro is sent into a coma in the loss. Aequa’s father talks everyone into making her a quintus and Vis a Sextus.
\nObiteum: Vis and Caeror experiment with his abilities while hiding out from Ka in this underground town. Their are dead bodies called Unqutee who can be controlled with obsidian blades. Since Vis is Synchronous he can override Ka’s control of these bodies (like half the population is actually dead people infused with will in this world). Not much happens here for a while, Caeror is super nice and friendly and they train
\nLuceum: Vis and the Dree run away, get to a village, but the people hunting them are right behind. The dree is confident he won’t be harmed (they are viewed as like messengers of god) and gives Vis his staff. He then gets beheaded. The father of a family dies saving Vis and he runs away with the mother and 2 children to the mother’s father house on a farm. He lives happily working with his new family and they all have a splendid time, until eventually another druid named keir or something finds Vis and says he needs to take him away. They go meet King Rourdon or something and Vis is told he will go to warrior school but many are mad he picked up a Druid’s staff. He has to fight the kings big ugly champion galgavar for some reason. He is told to pick up a spear and chooses one he feels pulses of will from. While they duel he is overcome by the will in his spear and condemns Galkavar for killing the kings ex-champion. Galkavar hits Vis very hard but then is exiled based on Vis’ claims. Vis gets sent to warrior school to make friends and train.
\nRes: Vis maintains his ties to his Telimus family, tried to discover who in the Anguis knew about the attack and thus caused Calidus’ death. Oh also Callidus’ sister lizzie is underneath Vis in his pyramid, she does not really like him. Vis goes to visit Viridius at the academy because Emeesa asks him to. Him, Iden, and Aequaa explore the ruins and Vis almost dies. Viridius tells them he wants to stop the cataclysm again. They leave. Vis meets with Acteliois or whoevber, the guy with the scar who can jump between worlds. He takes Vis to a military meetings of all of the highest ranks (princeps etc.) and they learn that they know the cataclysm are coming and won’t stop it. Vis and Diago (his alopie wolf he picked up at sola vargas) kill them all. Vis now has an alter ego wearing this metal mask and pretending to have an arm. He kills people routinely and starts a civil war in Caten. Everything gets murky. Ulcisor is somewhere who knows and him and Cadmus the dispensator run the household in the city.
\nObiteum: Vis breaks into Ka’s city by letting gleaner stab him and carry him in. He frees a dead guy about to be made a gleaner and they are friends fora while before the dead guy kills himself. They meet an assassin noble woman Netifret who helps Vis break into the Nomark, the ruling dead body of the city 1 level under Ka.
\nLuceum: Vis and his friends learn of an attack by Galkavar and a rival king, they kill a scouting party and Vis spots his father. They leave to join the war and Vis gets taken by Keir the druid to go a different way to learn the Nazgan (will). Vis sneaks away and finds his father, a Unqtee dead guy sent here by Actelios and they are happy, but Vis denies his father and continues with the druid. He breaks the test in some city because he is Synchronous then gets captured by Galkavar and KLeir is killed. Vis is led to the siege of King Raounons castle in shame with a silver arm he took from a robot thing.
\nRes: Vis tries to save everyone. Aequa gets killed by Senator Tercius Decamus (Iro’s father_ because Iro is dead now. He also breaks Vis’ legs, but Vis uses his main character powers to make a cast and go into prison to save Lanistea. He learns ulscior also in prison. Sees Reluqia (Ulscor wife who works for the Anguis) but leaves her in the Sapper. Frees the other 2 and gets them out of the city. Then goes to save Iden. Tells him who he really is (diago and murderer ) to get him to come with him. They try to find Ka.
\nObiteum: Vis flees the city, goes and gets a crook and flail from behind a magic synchronous door, and returns and kills and breaks a ton of stuff. Netifret helps him, he breaks into the central pyramid and presumably kills Ka (an old guy sleeping on a stone)
\nLyceum:
\nVis and King Raounon are killed, but while Vis sinks in a river his father appears and gives him a vitareum (Scarab amulet with will) to save Vis but it kills him since he needed it. The silver arm fuses onto Vis and he can control it. He swims back up, grabs Keir’s staff, goesinto a vision and talks to Kewir, Then challenges Galkavar and kills him so the other kings men flee. Go Vis!!!
\nRes;
\nVis and Iden summon Ka, he sends a Unqee to guide them to the necropolis, but then under it to where Military hgave bee nstashing dead bodies for years. Iden says no but Vis is bad guy now, and presumably the only synchronous being capable of causing a cataclysm which is necessary to fight the concurrence. He now has an army of 80,000 dead and the will of a princeps. The dead include his mother, sister and Callidus.
Cosmere lore I guess.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-sword-of-kaigen-wang","title":"The Sword of Kaigen","author":"M. L. Wang","series":"Theonite","seriesNumber":null,"pages":651,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Independently Published","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44033470-the-sword-of-kaigen","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"101172","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781720193869","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-sword-of-kaigen-wang-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-sword-of-kaigen-wang/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/18/2023","dateFinished":"7/30/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-tainted-cup-bennett","title":"The Tainted Cup","author":"Robert Jackson Bennett","series":"Shadow of the Leviathan","seriesNumber":1,"pages":410,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Del Rey","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/150247395-the-tainted-cup","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"97808","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Mystery","isbn":"9781984820709","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-tainted-cup-bennett-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-tainted-cup-bennett/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"6/28/2026","dateFinished":"7/2/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A really cool, unique world where we follow the perspective of a protagonist who is pretty much a “Watson” witnessing a smart detective deduce stuff. The body mutations are interesting, the broader world in danger of leviathans is interesting, the mystery is ok. The surrounding world does the heavy lifting for this which makes me want to continue deeper into the series. Audiobook was not my favorite narration ever.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Tainted Cup
\nRobert Jackson Bennet
\nShadow of the Leviathan #1
The Tainted Cup Summary
\nDinios (Din) Kol gets summoned to the house of a rich gentry family, the Haza’s. He is the assistant to the local investigator, and acts as her “Engraver”. Din is a sublime, someone who has been genetically modified, and now has a perfect memory. He uses smells to help collate different memories. He discovers that an engineer, Taqtasa Blas, has been killed by the contagion Dappleglass. If it gets into your body it will grow rapidly and explode out, killing you. We learn that Din suffers from something similar to Dyslexia, giving him a lot of trouble reading.
\nHe interviews people in the house and returns to the investigator. Anagosa (Ana) Dolabra is very eccentric. She hates to leave her house and often wears a blindfold to reduce stimulation. After going over what he saw with her, Ana has Din bring three servants of the Haza estate to her house. After interrogating them she makes the groundskeeper reveal that he helped an assassin enter the house and plant the dappleglass seed.
\nSoon after this there is a breach of the Sea Wall, a Leviathan/Titan got through. Ana and Din are invited to the neighboring canton of Tala to investigate, since 10 engineers there died from dappleglass the night of the breach. They are introduced to the investigator for this region, Tuwey Uhad, and his assistant Tazi Miljin. Miljin and Din go and interview the partners of the dead engineers and Din learns they all visited Talagray (Canton capital) 8 days before the breach. They find a Reagent Key (A key that can open certain plant doors it is near) in one of the dead engineers, and they walk around with the key until they discover it opens a door to the Haza estate in Talagray. They also suspect the assassin is Kiz Jolgalgan, since she was known to hang out with the dead engineers.
\nDin and the officer Kepheus Strovi go to investigate a local miller but find him dead and have to fight off some deserters. Din turns out to be a very good fighter since he can engrave actions as well as memories (uncommon ability). Him and Strovi have romantic tension the rest of the book but nothing important.
\nDin goes and breaks into the home of Blas’ assistant, and finds her dead with a hole in her head, the same as the miller. He also finds an odd reagent key, as well as lots of money and references to 4 specific cantons. He gives the odd key to an Apothetikal named Ionia Nusis to research. Ana figures out that both of the dead people were killed by a Twitch, and enhanced person who can do super fast bursts of movement, and the Haza family is known to employ them.
\nFayazi Haza, the daughter of the local family head, reveals that her father died 2 weeks ago and her house has been in quarantine since then. Din gets sent to investigate and finds dappleglass in the bath. Something seems odd about the way Fayazi interacts with her servants, especially her Axiom (good at math people). He also finds evidence that the Haza family was sending letters to the same four cantons Blas’ secretary would visit.
\nDin and Miljin track down Jolgalgan but she is already dead from a dappleglass contamination, probably not an accident, she was killed. Shortly after this the Apothetikal Nusis is found dead in her office, and Din discovers that the Reagent Key in her safe is not the same one he left for her.
\nAna tells Fayazi Haza that her life is at risk to make her and her servants come to the Iudex (police) headquarters. There she reveals that a Canton that died from a dappleglass contamination 11 years ago was intentional by the Haza family. They blocked the development of a cure (That is the odd key Din gave to Nusis) in order to make their own land far more valuable. The supposed Axiom servant is actually the twitch sent by the main family branch to watch over Fayazi (who knew nothing). The Twitch dies due to a trap set by Ana and Din’s swordwork and they have enough evidence to indict most of the Haza family.
\nA leviathan approaches the walls but is killed in a single shot. Ana also confronts the other investigator, Tuwey Uhad. He was angry about the corruption in his city so helped Jolgalgan, but got carried away and too many people died. He admits it and is in trouble. Din gets promoted to full time assistant and him and Ana ready for their next adventure. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-taming-of-the-shrew-shakespeare","title":"The Taming of the Shrew","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":291,"yearPublished":1593,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47021.The_Taming_of_the_Shrew?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_12","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.5","numGoodreadsRatings":"182126","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780743477574","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-taming-of-the-shrew-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-taming-of-the-shrew-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/14/2024","dateFinished":"3/17/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Weird and Dumb.
\nC
I have the collected works of Mr. Shakingspear in a single book, I will probably tier list them or something. This one is better than Romeo and Juliet (bottom tier) and pretty even with Macbeth.
\nA
I love this series. The perfect blend of YA and fantasy. Everything works out for Euginedes and he is very clever and sassy and awesome.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-thousand-deaths-of-ardor-benn-whitesides","title":"The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn","author":"Tyler Whitesides","series":"Kingdom of Grit","seriesNumber":1,"pages":784,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35838132-the-thousand-deaths-of-ardor-benn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"2070","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Heist","isbn":"9780316520256","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-thousand-deaths-of-ardor-benn-whitesides-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":0,"readCount":2,"currentRead":true,"averageScore":5,"url":"/books/the-thousand-deaths-of-ardor-benn-whitesides/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/21/2023","dateFinished":"7/10/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"An awesome combination of Lies of Locke Lamora, Mistborn: The Final Empire, and Dragons. Set in a world reminiscent of the Wizard of Earthsea, the author clearly pulled from many different inspirations and then made them into a fantastic story of his own. I really, really enjoyed this book and am excited to read the rest of the series.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":null,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"7/6/2026","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-thursday-murder-club-osman","title":"The Thursday Murder Club","author":"Richard Osman","series":"Thursday Murder Club","seriesNumber":1,"pages":382,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Penguin Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46016436-the-thursday-murder-club","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.72","numGoodreadsRatings":"768984","genre":"Mystery","subgenre":"Humor","isbn":"9780241425442","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-thursday-murder-club-osman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/the-thursday-murder-club-osman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"1/8/2026","dateFinished":"1/17/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I read this with my Wife. Enjoyable murder mystery, not the most suspense but a light, fun read.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Thursday Murder Club
\nRichard Osman
\nThursday Murder Club #1
We are reading between Joyce’s diary entries and a limited third person POV with different characters. Joyce is a 70 something living at the coopers chase retirement facility. She is introduced to Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron who run the Thursday Murder CLub, where they go over cold cases and try to solve them. THe owner of Coopers Chase, Ian Ventham, is a bad guy who only really cares about money. He is planning to fire his long time business partner Tony Curran and replace him with Bogdan, a polish guy who is very handy. But Ian is worried Tony will try something since he has a history with drug dealing and guns. Ian is also planning to renovate an old nunnery and graveyard to make more money. He fires Tony and moves on. Tony is back at home, planning to kill Ian, when someone bludgeons him and he dies.
\nThe thursday murder club now have a case close to home, and rope in Detective Chris Hudson and DCI Donna De Freitas to helping share information. Elizabeth seems to be ex-british secret service or something. There was a photo by Tony’s body showing him with Jason Ritchie, the son of Ron and one other old gang member who has been missing for decades.
\nIan Ventham brings a digging crew to dig up the old nun convent graveyard to turn it into more old people housing. The old people try to stop him, and an old Priest, father Matthew Mackie comes to help them. Bogdan goes up and starts digging anyway. He passes Bernard Cottle, who always sits on a bench by the graveyard. Ian Ventham pushes father Matthew Mackie and people close in from all sides, trying to split them up. The police are here now and tell Ian to leave. He starts walking to his car but something is clearly wrong, then he falls over dead. Meanwhile Bogdan just dug up bones that should not be there, so he reburies them and leaves.
\nElizabeth also has an old friend Penny who is in Willows, the long-term hospital. Penny is an ex cop and the reason they have access to these old cases. He husband John is an ex Veterinarian who is always sitting with her in the hospital. Elizabeth will freqwuently go talk to penny even though she is in a coma like state. Bogdan tells Elizabeth about the bones he found and she sends them to a friend to get analyzed. Joyce also has her daughter Joanna look into Ian Venthams finances to see what they can find out.
\nMeanwhile, the polic ethink Jason Ritchie killed Tony, but he tells them he didn’t. Said it was probably Turkish Johnny. Chris and Donna investigate Father Mackie and find he is not ap riest but a doctor from Ireland, but he won’t tell them anything. Bernard then kills himself but his secret was just that he buried his wifes ashes under the bench and is sad. Chris goes to Cyprus to try to track down Turkish Johnny but no one knows where he is. Elizabeth interogates mackie and learns he used to be a priest at this monastery but the nimpregnanted one of the nuns he still loves so he didn’t want her body drug up (she hung herself). The police believe that Turkish Johnny killed Tony, but don;t know about Ian. Elizabeth cracks it after talking with KAren Playfair up on the hill and Karen recognizes an old picture in a magazine from Coopers Chase. John, Penny’s husband, used to be a vet in the 70’s and killed a sad man and buried him in the graveyard. Except that is not ruee. Penny did some street justice and buried a man there, and John was rying to cover for her, so he killed Ian to stop he digging of the graveyard. Elizabeth tells him she wil tell the police tomorrow, so John kills Penny and himself with overdoses. Steoehn, elizabeths dementia having husband, plays chess with Bogdan and asks him if he killed Tony. Bogdan admits it since Tony killed his old friend. Bogdan also killed Turkihs Jognny in the 70’s. ANd Joanna, HJoyces daughter, bought coopers chase and everything goes on.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-time-paradox-colfer","title":"The Time Paradox","author":"Eoin Colfer","series":"Artemis Fowl","seriesNumber":6,"pages":391,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Hyperion","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4957406-the-time-paradox","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"95898","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781423108375","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-time-paradox-colfer-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-time-paradox-colfer/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"12/6/2024","dateFinished":"12/14/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Once again the best one in the series. As Artemis grows up and the writing improves they feel more like characters and it is less about one maniacal scheme after another.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-titan-of-baleros-aba","title":"The Titan of Baleros","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":11,"pages":1526,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176941314-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"1601","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108028","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-titan-of-baleros-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-titan-of-baleros-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/22/2025","dateFinished":"5/19/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"This one was really good. Lots of different stuff going on
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-titan-s-curse-riordan","title":"The Titan's Curse","author":"Rick Riordan","series":"Percy Jackson and the Olympians","seriesNumber":3,"pages":320,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Miramax Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28185.The_Titan_s_Curse","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"1241341","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9781423101451","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-titan-s-curse-riordan-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/the-titan-s-curse-riordan/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/13/2023","dateFinished":"6/14/2023","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-trouble-with-peace-abercrombie","title":"The Trouble With Peace","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The Age of Madness","seriesNumber":2,"pages":506,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358101-the-trouble-with-peace","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"47332","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316187183","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-trouble-with-peace-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-trouble-with-peace-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"5/28/2024","dateFinished":"6/4/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Better than the first one, reminds me of the french revolution. Went through it really fast.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-tunnels-beneath-wisehart","title":"The Tunnels Beneath","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"The Aldoran Chronicles","seriesNumber":4,"pages":826,"yearPublished":2022,"publisher":"Easthaven Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67991308-the-tunnels-beneath","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"2164","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9798986107424","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-tunnels-beneath-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-tunnels-beneath-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"6/13/2023","dateFinished":"6/20/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"The series keeps getting better every book. Adarra is the first one to stop being such a mary sue, which is a nice change. I had initially thought this was the last book but there is clearly at least one more, I would guess probably 2 or 3 even. It was interesting to have a book without following the central Aramoor plot at all, no Dakaran or Barthol or anyone else in the capital.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-two-gentleman-of-verona-shakespeare","title":"The Two Gentleman of Verona","author":"William Shakespeare","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":245,"yearPublished":1594,"goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82346.The_Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"6.8","numGoodreadsRatings":"17589","genre":"Fiction","subgenre":"Plays","isbn":"9780671722951","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-two-gentleman-of-verona-shakespeare-summary","hasScore":false,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":null,"url":"/books/the-two-gentleman-of-verona-shakespeare/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":null,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/9/2024","dateFinished":"2/9/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Starts off terrible but gets a bit better. Speed is cool.
\nD
A really solid, fun progression fantasy. Had it from kindle unlimited. A cool system for power progression and decent character work.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-voyage-of-the-dawn-treader-lewis","title":"The Voyage of the Dawn Treader","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"The Chronicles of Narnia","seriesNumber":4,"pages":248,"yearPublished":1952,"publisher":"HarperCollins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/444329.The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"513601","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780064471077","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-voyage-of-the-dawn-treader-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-voyage-of-the-dawn-treader-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/11/2022","dateFinished":"10/11/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A top tier book in the series, the scene with the kids coming back to our world has always been one of my favorite parts of any book ever. The most literal tie to Jesus, Heaven, and Christianity in any of the books. Super cool stuff going on though, super important set up for the Last Battle.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-wandering-inn-18-aba","title":"The Wandering Inn 18","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":18,"pages":1253,"yearPublished":2026,"publisher":"Self","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-wandering-inn-18-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-wandering-inn-18-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/30/2025","dateFinished":"12/4/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Pretty good entry
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Earthers in Wistram give a presentations and demonstrations, about the shape of both Earth and Innworld, and of combat tactics with an Airsoft gun. The Earthers in Wistram have a therapy session. The archmages spy on the Antinium Hives. Aaron Vanwell (Blackmage) speaks to Amerys in prison. Aaron works with High Mage Telim and the Ullsinoi faction to invent a virtual reality combat game. Wistram issues a broadcast revealing the Golden Triangle as a scam world-wide.
\nErin interrupts Venim's day off with his daughter, afterwards talking with Numbtongue over a Peanuts comic, she realizes she might be more Peppermint Patty, than Marcie like she wanted to be.
\nZevara demotes and transfers Relc to Cellidel, the city is in need of Senior Guards and it would be a temporary assignment.
\nMaviola makes breakfast for Olesm, before heading off to meet with Erin for the day.
\nMaviola and Erin start awkwardly again... before having to burn an explanation for Erin to see with Flames, then after a merger of skills they share each-others memory.
\nNext is teaching both Erin and Lyonette budgeting, before a field trip to Invrisil, where Bethal gets poo thrown at her and riots break out in the streets.
Bethal and the Players of Celum shelter in the Wandering Inn, away from the riot in Invrisil. Pelt leaves Pallass and moves to Esthelm, forging a Dragonblood Crystal sword for Numbtongue as thanks to Erin. Noass and Sir Relz start broadcasting Invrisil's riot, which sparks violent riots in other cities, including Pallass and Liscor. The Lords and an angry mob confront Magnolia, who refuses both to help the people of Invrisil and also end her [Trade War]. Magnolia turns the mob against the lords, as they can't get to her.
\nErin tries and fails to stop the riot in Liscor. She instead goes around rescuing her friends and citizens who are sheltering with her magic door and [Invisibility]. The Antinium help the Watch restore order in Liscor. Erin leads a group of her friends into Invrisil to rescue the Lords right as they're about to be lynched. The rescued lords start negotiations for a trade deal with Erin.
\nRyoka meets the Silver Swords and runs away when they say they've been looking for her, eventually getting captured. Mrsha experiments with the [Compartments of Holding], and shows Ekirra and Visma the post-riot grief of the Antinium. Shassa Weaverweb (an Oteslian [Druid]) accidentally kidnaps Mrsha, then returns with Nathaliarstrelous to have a meeting of [Druids]. Nathaliarstrelous confronts Bird about his overhunting of birds, but doesn't object much since Bird eats them. Erin plays a game of chess against Teriarch, and he throws a tantrum when he loses. Nathaliarstrelous challenges the Shield Spiders of the floodplains and wipes many of them out.
\nThe selphids assist Geneva in Baleros as the Yellow Rivers plague worsens, and send a message (via Ulinde) to Joseph. Erin impersonates him and speaks with Geneva, eventually revealing that she has antibiotics. Erin gets Octavia to ramp up manufacturing and share the method of reproduciton, and hires Tritel and Ci to deliver what they have to Baleros. Drassi confronts Noass and Sir Relz on-air about their poor journalism, regarding both the Golden Triangle riots and their downplaying of the Yellow Rivers disease. In Zeres, Niers Astoragon's students prepare to travel in search of a cure for Yerranola, who is gravely injured and in agony.
\nAlrric helps manage Ilvriss' mining company, recruits for Operation Periss (including miners and the Named Adventurer Shriekblade), and has dinner with Ilvriss. He and his daughter are secretly Doombringers, and he is part of a small cabal in Salaszar that hired Bearclaw to try to rescue/kidnap Mrsha. With her failure and disappearance, they've sent one of their own to collect Mrsha, Wanderer.
\nRichard, Tom and others live in Rhir under Lord Hayvon, and head to 5th wall for training.
\nCirille, Merish, and the others, stationed together at 5th Wall, have to deal with diversity.
\nKing Othius IV speaks to Nereshal and a group of recaptured Mages, and announces his intention to summon more Earthers, sacrificing a hundred thousand unborn children for the spell, despite the moral objections of the Mages. He uses his aura/skills to compel their loyalty.
Lord Hayvon Operland, a high-ranking [Lord] in the service to the Blighted Kingdom of Rhir, subtly manipulates, bribes, and gaslights the Earther [Heroes] into their continued support for the kingdom's war against the Demons of Rhir, despite their desire to go out into the world and find other Earthers. One of the Rhir Earthers smelts titanium weapons. Tom the [Clown] tries to convince Richard that the Blighted Kingdom isn't fighting a noble crusade but is instead a militant ruthless empire that would discard them in an instant if they weren't "useful", but Richard is doubtful. Tom continues to obey and kill Demons anyway because he "has to kill someone".
\nAn Izrilian detatchment, lead by Commander Cirille (a Drake) and Chief Warrior Merish (a plains Gnoll) is deployed to the 5th Wall - a massive barrier under construction along the Blighted Kingdom's front lines against the Demons. Once there, they find the front is staffed by soldiers and warriors from all around the world, from Ailendamus' [Knights], to Terandrian [Hunters], Lizardfolk warriors from Baleros, [Flesh Reapers] from A'ctelios Salash who eat their fallen enemies, [Martial Artists], and even [Necromancers]. So are the Earthers, including Tom the [Clown] and his groupies/imitators, the Gloomless Troupe.
\nThe Demons begin an attack on the 5th Wall, sending thousands of soldiers and a new form of giant self-duplicating serpent.
\nThe Serpent-Titans attack 5th wall.
\nCirille, Merish, and the others develop new tactics based on synergy between their groups.
\nFlora tells Giants about guns.
\nCirille and Merish's detatchments defend the 5th Wall against the demon attacks, along with Tom the [Clown] and the other soldiers of Rhir. Bastion-General Quiteil uses his Skills and expends a Tier 7 scroll [Arrow of Winter: Glacius Pillar] to make a mile-radius blast zone of cold. After the battle, racial and cultural tensions between the various factions defending the wall heighten. Tom does crappy, un-funny stand-up comedy that makes almost everyone uncomfortable.
Cirille and Merish spend time training together, trying to make their forces work better together and ease the tension. Huntress Delezza, a high-level [Demon Hunter], dies of injuries from the battle while the Earthers are trying to get her a blood transfusion. Cirille recieves and accepts an invitation to join Ilvriss' Operation Periss.
\nWe discover that both Harpies and Giants aren't extinct, but that they've joined the Demons of Rhir.
\nSilvenia attacks 5th wall.
\nCirille discovers that her message to Ilvriss accepting his employment offer was intercepted and altered. As she goes to investigate how and why, the undead in their camp start going rogue as the Demons attack, beginning with an area confusion spell and compromising their [Message] spells and artifacts.
Silvenia (leading an army of illusory Demons) kills the Bastion-General of the Fifth Wall, and almost the entire detatchment of soliders defending it. Tom the [Clown] tries to kill her, but she effortlessly kills him by ripping him into tiny pieces. She and her forces destroy the 5th Wall and begin seeding the area with Creler eggs to make it uninhabitable.
\nBastion-General Quiteil expends a million gold pieces worth of consumables to push her back and prevent her from destroying the 4th Wall as well. Lord Hayvon attempts to retake the position of the 5th Wall, now in ruin. Silvenia, the Death of Magic, one of the Deathless, is ordered to retreat by the Demon King.
\nCirille is found dead after the battle. Tom is alive as well; Silvenia only killed his Skill-duplicate. The Izrilian detachment returns to Izril, after losing most of their soldiers. Lord Hayvon uses his skill, [Pride of the Fallen], to send ghostly copies of the fallen soldiers home, to spread word of the Deathless of the Demons' return, and request reinforcement.
\nErin and Mrsha recieve a letter from Ryoka, and then write their own back in reply. Mrsha's writing is shockingly good, tutored by Lyonette to write like a princess. Mrsha realizes (with Teriarch's help) that she can write out phrases onto cards to communicate, and goes around insulting everyone in the inn until Maviola teaches her a lesson.
\nLiscor's council recieves a letter informing them that Hectval's city leadership accepted their invitation, and is coming to meet with them. Shriekblade and [Assassins] around Izril recieve a letter outlining a contract.
\nKing Raelt of Jecrass recieves letters from various leaders of the surrounding kingdoms, offering him piecemeal aid; insufficient to win the war against the King of Destruction. He leads a near charge into the King of Destruction's forces, and manages to pin down Flos and stab him through the heart by sheer luck and sacrifice. It is meaningless, as Flos just heals up with a potion. Raelt and all of Jecrass' forces retreat from Belchan entirely and form up at their borders. Raelt announces his intention to sue for peace to the other rulers, knowing he can't win the war.
\nThe Horns of Hammerad interrupt a careful collection of adventurers who were trying to take out a group of Face-Eater Moths by charioting in and causing havoc, obliterating the moths. They save the village, which is in the lands of House Byres, and the villagers recognize Yvlon. The Horns make their way to Yvlon's home, and meet with her parents. Ksmvr asks for one of the trees on House Byres' land.
\nRyoka sends a letter to Laken, presumably about the Solstice party, and she and Fierre begin travelling in the Unmarked Carriage towards First Landing. Fierre takes the panacea and starts vomiting repeatedly.
\nSelys goes around asking people what she should invest her money in. A new employee of the Wandering Inn, Welle, gets mugged in Liscor, and though Hawk witnessed the crime, he did nothing about it. Erin discovers Relc was transferred to Cellidel and already left a week ago. Hawk and Selys break up.
\nSelys goes to Pallass to find investment opportunities, and runs into Onieva. Onieva is looking for a new place to set up a Turnscale bar, and considering the Wandering Inn, but decides to try testing Selys and then Erin to see if they're homophobic. Rose suggests a variant of Romeo and Juliet where both leads are gay men, and nearly gets lynched before Erin rushes to defend her. Rose realizes that this world is extremely homophobic, and Onieva overhears the entire affair.
\nSelys and Erin talk more about possible ideas on what Selys could do with her money, and discover that Kevin knows how bicycles work. Kevin works with Palt, Hedault, and Pelt (funded by Selys) to design a bicycle, and as an aside, builds a skateboard. In Pallass, Kevin, Hedault, and a bunch of the city's teenagers skateboard down the giant level-to-level ramps. Leon and Troy secretly sell information to Grimalkin.
\nKlbkch, Anand, and some Painted Antinium arrive in the Hivelands to show off the Free Hive's accomplishments. Klbkch fights the Grand Queen's prognugators, who are copies of him, and defeats them all at once with his [Recaptured Sublimity] Skill. The Queens show Klbkch their preparations for the future: The Grand Queen has constructed and stockpiled food, so they can create and sustain an army 23 times larger than their best from the First Antinium War. The Silent Queen created elite Antinium, including some which use bright light-based attacks to disorient and blind enemies. The Armored Queen created giant Soldiers, who are big and will draw enemy fire and waste their Skills. The Flying Queen is working on flight and projectile weapons. The Twisted Queen created new Birthers which can continue without the need for maintenance by Queens.
\nAnand creates a grave marker for General Sserys at the place where he was killed in the Hivelands during the First Antinium War.
\nSalamani the Mage Runner tries to deliver Lady Ieka's message to the Archmage of Izril. Ryoka and Fierre ride the Unmarked Carriage, discovering that it's run by a Djinni named Karsaeu-Dequoa. Several criminals ride with them, including a [Trapmaster Assassin], two [Gang Leaders], a Brother of Seredipitous Meetings, and a Sister of Chell. Ryoka and Fierre arrive on the island of the Archmage of Izril.
\nRabbiteater sets sail on a ship bound for Terandria with the Knights of the Order of Seasons, still in disguise as "Ser Solstice".
\nOctavia's antibiotic (now named Occilium) proves to be effective at fighting Yellow Rivers in Zeres. Lyonette removes her boon from Octavia and gives it to Numbtongue instead. Ferris continues to fail in his attempt to get Erin to visit the Walled City of Manus. Gresaria Wellfar, [Harbormistress] of First Landing, shows up in a chariot and attacks Maviola, as a way to say goodbye to her. Az'kerash trains his Chosen by having them practice attacking Belavierr. Upset at their failures and Toren's success, they bully Toren and beat him until he nearly dies. Toren hides, and meets the Healing Slime, bonding over their mutual fear of their captors.
\nOrjin of Pomle ponders how to fight enemies like the Death of Magic or a Kraken. Salii expands Pomle, refilling the oasis, creating a televised fighting arena, and an area of exceptional harshness for improved training. Grimalkin tries to put more pieces together about "Earth", and realizes that Lady Pryde is sending him weight-lifting numbers as a competition.
\nGriffon Hunt arrives in Windrest, and Halrac is upset to find nothing left but ash. They head to Riverfarm, and discover that almost all the Windrest villagers survived and moved here. [Emperor] Laken tries to hire them, and they're initially skeptical. They take out a nest of Juvenile Crelers, and then start excavating several spots around the Unseen Empire, discovering treasure, and deciding to stay and accept Laken's offer. They investigate the Goblinlands and find Pebblesnatch.
\nErin gets the black flour from Oteslia, and tries to make her "Midnight Bread", but fails and makes a Shadowloaf instead. Saliss comes by the inn, and Erin orders coffee beans and more cocoa beans from Oteslia. Saliss introduces himself to Rose. Niers Astoragon's students head to Oteslia carrying the poisoned Yerranola, chased by pirates and seafolk. Part of Feshi's Weatherfur tribe comes to defend them. We discover that Oteslia's First Gardener has an adoptive son who is a Dragon in disguise: "Cire"
\nRyoka and Fierre begin trying to get into the Archmage of Izril's mansion. They discover the minefield, artillery spells, the fake illusory mansion, get trapped inside the real mansion, get past a mirror-clone room, golems, poison gas, and a maze. They're finally captured after Fierre succumbs to an insanity trap. Taken prisoner, Ryoka uses her friendship with the wind to help her, Fierre, and Salamani escape and collect a bunch of magic from previous invaders. They decide continuing is too dangerous, and blast their way back out of the mansion.
\nStill pissed off, and only needing to get the Archmage's attention, they use their new arsenal of magic items and set fire to her island and launch a massive attack on her mansion. It works, wakes up the Archmage, and Ryoka completes the delivery with a dash of Ryoka sass.
\nThe Guild of Assassins ambushes Magnolia Reinhart while she's on the road, at the behest of the Circle of Thorns. They manage to kill Sacra, two more maids, and cut of Reynold's legs, leaving Magnolia with only Ressa for defense. They're about to kill Magnolia when Tyrion rides to her defense. Teriarch teleports Magnolia, Ressa, and Reynold to safety, leaving Tyrion behind by himself to defend against the now furious assassins. They are called off by the Circle, and the Circle of Thorns decides that they're going to force Tyrion to help them as a servant, rather than the ally they wanted.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-wandering-inn-19-aba","title":"The Wandering Inn 19","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":19,"pages":1160,"yearPublished":2026,"publisher":"Self","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-wandering-inn-19-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-wandering-inn-19-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"12/9/2025","dateFinished":"1/16/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"A bit long winded in certain parts. Very long chapters, and I hope they change the ending for the actual book, feels like we are building to a climax not resolving one.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Numbtongue makes friends with the patrons of the inn by gambling on card games, and talks with Ratici and Wilovan. Rasea Zecrew tries and fails to recruit a Goblin ship carrying Greydath of Blades to her crew. Rags forms an alliance with an Ogre tribe that's moving to the High Passes. Mavika visits the Goblin Chieftain Anazhure, the [Witch] of the Molten Stone tribe, who is making a deal with another Goblin chieftain.
\nA captured group of Goblins (from the Kraken Eaters tribe) in a traveling menagerie is released by Anazhure's magic. The goblins slaughter their way through Invrisil, and one makes it to the Wandering Inn safely, with Erin and Numbtongue defending him. Numbtongue kicks him out into the High Passes when it's revealed that the goblin took children as hostages in Invrisil, and then killed them. Arcsinger's Bows come through the door and kill the escaped goblin.
\nNumbtongue rests by the graves of the goblins slain during the Siege of Liscor. Shorthilt's ghost appears as Numbtongue levels up.
\nRyoka, Fierre, and Salamani return to Reizmelt. Mihaela Godfrey, Runner's Guild Guildmistress of First Landing, is there to appraise Ryoka for Courier status, but holds a grudge for the death of her son, Valceif Godfrey. Mihaela beats Ryoka up repeatedly, and then fails her Courier certification. She runs away through a dimensional skill, [The Courier's Last Road], and Ryoka follows her. They have a more amicable conversation, and Ryoka returns to Riezmelt. Colfa bursts in on Ryoka, and informs her that Fierre has fallen gravely ill.
\nSammial Veltras also falls suddenly and gravely ill, possibly due to [Assassins].
\nFierre is deathly ill, as Ryoka arrives to investigate. Ylawes, Salamani, and the other Silver Swords follow her to help. Ylawes puts silver in their well, a Byres family tradition, and becomes suspicious of the val Lischelle-Drakles as Vampires. His suspicions are mostly assuaged, but he calls to meet with Delany d'Artien.
\nThe Horns of Hammerad visit Yvlon's family estates, and she blows up at her father for his bigotry and the fact that he participated in the Siege of Liscor with Tyrion Veltras. Ksmvr gains a second tree.
\nRyoka discovers that the Byres house has poisoned the land with silver, via their family tradition, causing the malady afflicting the Vampires. They remove the silver from Fierre with activated charcoal and distilled water, and Fierre gets somewhat better.
\nThe Circle of Thorns sends another [Assassin] to Tyrion Veltras to negotiate for his servitude. Both his sons, Sammial and Heathon, have been poisoned.
\nTeresa Atwood and King Fetohep discuss the Vampires. Nawalishifra discovers that the Naq Alrama ingots sold to the King of Destruction, forged by her father, were flawed and thus completely worthless. Trey Atwood gets on a ship bound for Wistram Academy, under the alias of Troy Atlas, and meets another Earther by coincidence. King Raelt prepares to surrender to Reim, but manages to extract a contract for war from Medain, Nerrhavia's Fallen, and the Claiven Earth. Raelt duels with Jecaina, and consults the Quarass about his options. After he decides to accept Flos' peace treaty, High King Perric of Medain instructs a Gold rank team to kidnap Jecaina in order to force Raelt to continue the war against Reim. Raelt and Flos ride towards Medain to rescue Jecaina. Minotaurs land and kill several of the adventurers kidnapping Jecaina before marching on Flos' army.
\nJecrass attacks Medain's army to rescue Princess Jecaina. They manage to rescue her, but King Raelt is captured in the process, and Geril is killed.
\nMars challenges the Minotaurs using her skill, and they all try to accept, before the general sends forward prisoners for execution, to regain their honor. The Minotaurs prove themselves a match for the King of Destruction and hunt down his mid-level elites and his common soldiers, forcing him to use his [Army of the King] skill. The Minotaurs retreat, job done, and Rasea Zecrew covers their escape by running Flos over with her ship, shooting a bunch of people, and killing a half-giant and Ulyse. Nerrhavia's Fallen, the Claiven Earth, Medain, and a dozen other kingdoms declare war on Reim now that [Army of the King] is on a month-long cooldown.
\nThe King of Destruction's people react badly to losing to the Minotaurs: Mars cries because she's so fragile and insecure that she can't take losing, Orthenon is mad about his own failures, and Flos is more determined to do even greater violence, resolving once more to capture Jecrass and execute thousands of Belchan's citizens. Flos orders Orthenon and Mars to go burn a city to the ground to soothe their ego.
\nAilendamus begins an invasion of Kilav, and ramps up their blockade around Terandria. The ship carrying Rabbiteater and the Order of Seasons falls under attack. Empress Nsiia hangs out in Illivere, learning how to make Golems in secret. Drassi is orderd to apologize to Perric for calling him a "rat-king" on air, and instead doubles down and calls him a "rat-bastard".
\nAfter Lyonette tells him Pallass won't sell him a ballista, Bird resolves to build one himself. Erin builds a secret room that contains the Earther's technology and knowledge, and reveals it to Maviola and Selys.
\nThe Woven Bladegrass tribe attacks a Drake city. Archmage Feor tries to censure Archmage Naili for hiring the Illuminary to attack the King of Destruction, but she has more support than he realized. Calrus contemplates an honorable death in prison, and asks Bezale to send a letter to Venaz, asking him to arbitrate.
\nKlbktch considers hiring (or kidnapping) a naval [Captain] to help him return to Rhir, or finding [Greater Teleport] scrolls. Xrn practices the limits of Pawn's [Holy Barrier] Skill by using him as a training dummy. Anand builds an underground lake in the Hivelands and constructs a model ship as a proof of concept, beginning a shipbuilding project for the Antinium.
\nThere's a rainstorm in Liscor, and Pallass. Octavia gets an offer to move to Pallass with a grant and stipend, but she turns it down. A magical typhoon (Typhoon Erannda) makes deliveries over sea difficult-to-impossible, and delays the Yellow Rivers cure arriving in Baleros, as well as several nations siezing the shipments (Khelt to cure one family, Medain to help control the epidemic in their ports, and Ailendamus exclusively to deny medicine to other kingdoms). In Baleros, Geneva treats a young Dullahan boy who's likely to die without the cure.
\nTyphoon Erannda bounces off Wistram's weather shields and is deflected towards Baleros. Four Sea Couriers (The Hundredfriends Courier, Shellbaazaar, the Four Winds of Teral, and the Waterbear) accept the delivery of the cure to Baleros. The couriers complete the delivery through the typhoon, with the help of [Sea Druids] and even [Pirates].
\nSaliss of Lights gives Maviola an experimental potion. Jelaqua and her team go to a Dullahan ball with Maughin. The Circle of Thorns assassinates every [Alchemist] and [Healer] that offered aid to Tyrion Veltras.
\nForsooth! Missing Information? It cannot be!
\nThis page is incomplete! Please help us finish this by adding information from the chapters. In quadruplicate!
\nRyoka, Fierre, and Salamani head to Invrisil. Empress Nsiia learns golem-crafting in secret. Magus-Crafter Femithain works on Domehead, his state's submission to the Golem Fights. Nsiia meets the Oracle of Elbe. Yinah the Cat's legs are shattered. Nsiia's Golem Cat is discovered and widely praised, but she destroys it to make prosthetics for Yinah. Domehead participates in the Golem Fights, and ends up defeating the reigning champion by learning additional fighting moves from Nsiia and Armsmaster Dellic mid-fight, possibly becoming sentient.
In Az'kerash's castle, Belavierr makes a Cloth golem.
\nLyonette forces Mrsha to wear clothes, and Mrsha chooses to wear a kilt. Chesacre and Thaina reveal that they've learned Mrsha's sign language. Garry continues selling things from his bakery, and Pawn begins writing a bible. Montressa and Bezale solidify a business franchising things like Invrisil's seamstress shop, exploiting Erin's magic door, and Liska (Ishkr's sister) gets hired. The Players of Celum get a spot to perform on Wistram Television, but get bumped down by the Singer of Terandria. Jasi wanders around Celum with Numbtongue, and stay for a bit at the Frenzied Hare talking to Agnes. The Singer of Terandria performs music videos with hidden messages for earthers (you can be scried with your name, Ailendamus is bad, Wistram can protect but is the Illuminati). The Players of Celum copy her song (with Numbtongue playing guitar in disguise), and then start their play. It's a night of the double full moon, and the Raskhar are enacting a plan.
\nGeneva demonstrates to other [Healers] why they shouldn't be using healing potions all the time, and tells Seve-Alrelious that "Joseph" from Liscor was responsible for the Occilium. Mrsha follows Hexel out into Liscor, curious what he does all day, and catches him on a date with Elirr. They impress upon her the need for secrecy, then continue their incognito date. Saliss checks in on Maviola, who's feeling the effects of true youth from Saliss' experimental Potion of Youth, made with Faerie Flowers. Raeka accidentally reveals to the rest of the council that Krshia and Lism are dating. Lism works on his [Carer] initiative (making sure the elderly, young, and at-risk citizens of Liscor are fed and cared for), has a meeting with Hedault about possibly expanding Liscor's walls, talks to Erin about wanting [Teachers] and magical herd animals or resources, and offers Belgrade six square miles of aboveground land for Antinium development in exchange for their construction help. The Raskghar stream out of the dungeon, thirty going to attack the Wandering Inn, but are completely obliterated by Saliss. The rest are diseased, and surrender to Liscor. Hectval's delegation arrives in the chaos.
\nMany people from Liscor take shelter in the [Garden of Sanctuary], sleeping in the safest place in Liscor. Erin discovers the Gentlemen Callers and the Brothers of Seredipitous Meetings guarding her inn outside, and they tell her they've been hired to protect her. Lism and Krshia talk to Wing Commander Embria about how to deal with the newly-arrived Hectval diplomats. Olsem interrogates the Raskghar and discovers that Nokha told them to surrender in hopes of being cured, but they have no intention of remaining nonviolent after that. Maviola arranges a party for Hectval's diplomats. Zevara brings Erin to her office, expecting an ally to her stance of "Raskghar are people and deserve trials" position, but while Erin agrees, she doesn't have much passion for that stance (despite realizing, intellectually, that it's inconsistent with her treatment of Goblins and Antinium). Erin interrogates the Raskghar, trying to discover if they can be redeemed, but finds nothing in them. After talking with Numbtongue, Pawn, and Bird about it, she searches in herself instead and creates the Flame of Mercy, which proves to her that the Raskghar are people (while still being criminals and murderers). Pallass takes custody of the Raskghar.
\nRyoka, Fierre, Salamani, and Erin trade their impressive stories. Liscor's council is annoyed when Pallass reveals they're not going to consult Liscor about the Raskghar prisoners. Magus Grimalkin tries to make Ryoka an offer, and then strongarm Erin, and gets himself kicked out of the Wandering Inn and the door to Pallass disabled. Lism discovers the reason Hectval's delegates have been so hot-and-cold is because they're deeply bigoted, and beats up their lead diplomat at a party and kicks them out of Liscor. Ryoka beats up Leon and Troy for spilling the beans about Earth to Grimalkin, and Palt offers (with Erin's blessing) to buy info off the Earthers.
\nTyrion calls for aid from the Five Families in curing his son's poison. The Circle lights one of his cities on fire, and the other nobles can't help him (the assassins are threatening their specialists' families). Ryoka settles back into the inn, discovers Relc is gone, tries unsuccessfully to meet with Magnolia, and meets with Ieka (who gives her lots of gold and reiterates her promise to attend the Riverfarm Solstice party). Erin plays 4-on-1 chess for fun, and brings the inn crew to Wailant's farm for a mini-vacation. Kevin, Pelt, and Hedault finish their prototype bicycle, and Ryoka almost flips out about it, but refrains and realizes she's not the sole gatekeeper of Earth's knowledge or morality. Ryoka, via Palt, communicates with Elena in Wistram as "batman".
\nEmperor Laken resolves an issue with creepy little [Witches] haunting Riverfarm at night by restricting when and where they can practice their craft. Ryoka talks more to Elena via Palt and his master, learning that Wistram is spying on people through the scrying orbs (including the Antinium). Pebblesnatch makes Griffon Hunt some Egg Drop Soup in Riverfarm, and Ulvama summons another Goblin tribe to the Goblinlands. Lord Gralton Radivaek arrives in Riverfarm to ask for help with Tyrion's sons being poisoned. Rie tries to convince Laken it's too dangerous, but he tricks her into thinking he's agreed and then tasks the [Witches] with divining a cure behind her back, only telling her afterwards. Tyrion puts out a public call for someone to make the cure and deliver it, and the Couriers of First Landing accept.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-wandering-inn-20-aba","title":"The Wandering Inn 20","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":20,"pages":1197,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Self","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-wandering-inn-20-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/the-wandering-inn-20-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Online","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"3/17/2026","dateFinished":"4/14/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Coming back to The Wandering Inn after taking a break for the first time in almost two years exposed some of the writing flaws I had become accustomed to. I also think this was just generally a weaker entry in the series overall. Hard to say much without spoilers so deep into a series but there was a major event that happened and a lot of the reactions to it felt uncharacteristic. Some of the power levels between characters also feel a bit odd at points. Still had a lot to enjoy, and the climaxes were as broad and epic as always, but this is a low point in the series for me.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Wandering Inn #20
\nPirateaba
\nThe Wandering Inn #20
\nThe Wandering Inn #20 Summary
https://wiki.wanderinginn.com/Book_20/tl;dr
\nXrn kidnaps Ryoka to have a conversation. Saliss gets a summons for a military operation, and hides in Erin's inn, talking to Bird, Numbtongue, and Erin, because he doesn't want to go. He's convinced to go anyway by General Shirka, and Chaldion bribes him into the attack on the Hivelands by offering to take six names of Turnscales off wanted lists and redirect the Watch's efforts for three months. Saliss, Mivifa of Feathers (Oteslia's Named Adventurer), Zeter (Manus' Named Adventurer), and a bunch of soldiers attack the Antinium hives and damage the Armored Queen's "Steelclad" project. Saliss fights Wrymvr and Klbktch, finding himself unable to kill Wrymvr. Klbktch gets chopped in half by Wrymvr on purpose, so the Queens can rebuild him. Saliss returns home and announces that he's going to make the antidote for the Strategists.
\nMeanwhile, the Couriers from first landing (including Mihaela Godfrey) attempt to deliver the cure to Tyrion and run into the top Assassins from the Guild. Lacel the Leaper and a Drake courier is killed, Mihaela is severely injured, and the delivery fails.
\nRyoka takes Mrsha on a bike ride. Xrn has a conversation with Ryoka, in which she presses Ryoka for actual aid from the self-professed "ally" of the Antinium. Ryoka tells her Wistram is spying on the Queens through their scrying mirrors, and gives Xrn microscopes and knowledge of how to sterilize an area of bacteria (which mess with the Antinium Queens' experiments).
\nNumbtongue and Mrsha get into an argument over the laptop, and Lyonette is pulled into it, ending in a physical altercation in Invrisil. Zevara attempts to arrest the Gentlemen Callers, but Erin helps them escape. The Players of Celum finally convince Erin to attend their play in Invrisil, all the Earthers and mages from the Inn, as well as Ryoka, Fierre, Salamani, Numbtongue, Lyonette, Mrsha, and a lot of other friends of the inn (including Xrn in a human disguise). The Players set up a huge parade to celebrate, and the attention starts to make Erin feel socially awkward. At the Djinni's Spoon, Barelle the Bard tries to perform a song about her deeds, but she faints. She goes on a walk to clear her head and calm down, gets lost in the bad area of Invrisil, tries to stop a mugging, and finds some of the Brothers of Serendipitous Meetings. She follows them back to their hideout and chats with them, Wilovan, and Ratici, then invites them to come see the play with her. Afterwards, she returns to the Wandering Inn to discover that Badarrow and Snapjaw are there.
\nBird reunites with Badarrow, Snapjaw meets Erin and is impressed with the free food. Ryoka, Fierre, and Salamani buy magic items, including a Golem, and Ryoka gives some magic gear to Mrsha, Bird, Badarrow, and Snapjaw. Ryoka discovers Tyrion Veltras' plea, and keeps wanting to investigate it despite everyone else telling her it's suicide. Persua accepts the delivery of the cure from Lady Ieka, who has recieved conflicting orders from the Circle. Ryoka brings Delanay d'Artien to the Wandering Inn. Selys meets Todi, who came to the Wandering Inn to try to get what the Horns of Hammerad, Halfseekers, and Griffon Hunt got from the inn, and she considers hiring his team.
\nAn [Assassin] inspects Octavia's shop to make sure she's not making Tyrion's cure. Earl Altestiel of Desonis arrives in the inn, playing chess against Olsem and Erin, and has his [Strategist] take a mage-picture of Erin to send to Niers Astoragon (to ask if she's his chess partner). Xif and Saliss come to the inn, Xif haranguing Saliss about taking credit for the cure for the [Strategists] in Oteslia, before accidentally revealing that Saliss has been making the cure for Tyrion instead. Saliss kills a few [Assassins], then brings the cure to Invrisil's Runner's Guild.
\nSaliss promises to defend Invrisil's guild from [Assassins] for two hours, awaiting a runner to deliver the cure. Ryoka prepares to accept, and her friends try to stop her. Ryoka convinces her friends one-by-one not to stop her. Erin resolves to help Ryoka get out of the city, and Snapjaw asks Erin not to ask Numbtongue and Badarrow for help.
\nMany runners and Ryoka's friends join her plan to make a distraction while she sneaks into the Runner's Guild. Her plan immediately falls apart and she's captured, but Erin leads multiple armies into Invrisil through her door, including part of Pallass' 1st Army, Liscor's guard, human soldiers from the Lords she has trade deals with, and an army of Antinium lead by Xrn. Ryoka gets rescued, then grabs the cure from the Guild, only to discover once she's out of the city that the vial is just water. Saliss meets her with the real cure, along with Maviola, and they begin running for House Veltras. Maviola makes an appeal on the scrying orb, and a bunch of people start wrecking the assassins to help them escape (the Silver Swords and Lord Gralton). Belavierr, watching on the scrying orb, sends a rain of needles after Maviola. Ryoka, Maviola, and Saliss take cover, then transform into horses once the scrying spell cuts out.
\nFierre drinks the blood of [Assassins] in Invrisil, and gains [Assassin] levels for the first time.
\nRyoka, Maviola, and Saliss have four hours of reprive from their "transform into horses" gambit. As they're found again, and start fighting through more waves of [Assassins] while running, the Singer of Terandria co-opts the scrying broadcast to sing to them, granting them benefits from her Skills. Chaldion starts using his Skills on Saliss, and the King of Destruction grants them a [Greater Blessing of Armor] from afar. People from all over start using Skills and magic to influence the run. Archmage Viltach launches lightning at the assassins. When the [Assassins] cut the trio of runners off at a bridge, guarded by thousands more [Assassins] (a third of all the assassins on the continent), Saliss stays behind to take them all on, detonates all his potions, and uses his capstone skill: [Disable Friendly Fire].
\nGresaria Wellfar attacks the Guild of Assassins in First Landing, and is immediately killed. The rest of the Five Families, [Sailors], etc, all attack and blow up their headquarters. Maviola El turns back to stop the [Assassins] using her new level 50 skill, trapping them in a burning forest filled with fire elementals. Only four Faces manage to escape, chasing Ryoka. Ryoka dons a glider and flies away, but the [Assassins] shoot at her and one of them is a Garuda. Mavika and Alevica come to help, delaying the [Assassins], and Ryoka summons Typhoon Erannda, killing one of the assassins in her escape. When she lands, three [Assassins] catch up to her. Tritel, Salamani, and Hawk intercept the assassins, killing one. Another fled. The third, Ferin, killed Tritel and Ci before running after Ryoka again. Tritel used a Skill to sacrifice himself to save Ci.
\nFerin shoots Ryoka in the back with a crossbow, and Tyron Veltras arrives to take the cure. Ryoka is rushed to a [Healer], uncertain if she will survive, and Ferin is killed by Tyrion. Maviola El and Saliss both survived. Mihaela Godfrey declares Ryoka is a Courier.
\nThe [Assassins] try to kill Farmer Lupp and Ryoka's friends in revenge. The Five Families kill them, and conduct a massive purge, blowing up their ships, unmasking and executing their agents with truth spells. House Veltras finds Mire the [Assassin]-[Alchemist] Face, and executes her in front of her family. Jericha (is implied to have) tortured the [Toxins Expert]. Half the leaders of the Circle of Thorns reveal that they were foreign adversaries that infiltrated the Circle.
\nErin experiments with her new [Boon of the Guest] skill, giving people [Boon of Relc] and [Boon of Saliss]. Pawn and Xrn test his [Prayer: A Leaf in the Wind]. Fierre uses a new skill, [Body: Reject Toxins] to cough up more silver dust. Fetohep of Khelt orders bicycles from Solar Cycles (Kevin, Selys, Hedault, and Pelt's bike shop), and reveals that he knows Kevin is an Earther, inviting him to come to Khelt. Chaldion, Altestiel, Olsem, Bird, Erin, Niers (through the magic chessboard), and a bunch of others have a chess tournament. Troy starts giving tips to the Flying Gnoll of Pallass. Badarrow and Snapjaw buy out Octavia's stock of mana and healing potions for Goblinhome. Invrisil tries to poach Joseph for their football team. Hexel bolts the magic door to the wall and installs a truth stone in an arch above it, to check for [Assassins], and Lyonette hires him to help design stuff for the inn.
\nKrshia tells Erin it's time for the Meeting of Tribes, and wants to talk about Mrsha.
\nKrshia speaks with Erin and Lyonette about leaving for the Meeting of Tribes.
\nInkar, an Earther, reflects on the similarities between worlds, and how she came to be here, as the Longstalker's Fang Tribe marches toward the Meeting.
\nWhile meeting the Greenpaw Tribe, Inkar is shown part of and airplane that fell from the sky. The two tribe's decide to work together as allies at the Meeting of Tribes.
\nTwo Drake Generals talk as their Army is halted, waiting for Gaarh Marsh, Khoteizetrough, Demas metal and other tribes to finish crossing paths.
\nLehra is pursued by Niila thru a drake town outside Zeres, before calling a truce to get away from Wall Lord Dragial.
\nThe Ekhtouch Tribe joins the camp in the middle of the night, and more of how The Meeting of Tribes works is explained.
\nPlains Eye orders Mrsha's death after seeing her on WNN.
\nFlos, speaking with his Gnoll's, has word sent to The Meeting of Tribes, he will grant land in exchange for service.
\nIlvriss talks to Allric about Salazsar possibly allying with Gnoll tribes.
Rabbiteater and the Knights try and break out but fail when General Yerzhen intervenes.
\nKids play "Attack Liscor" in the Inn and Erin sees their impression of her. Altestiel asks Erin permission to court her, over a game of chess, since he has been called home.
\nTalia apologizes to Rabbiteater and tells him her family will pay his ransom. He tries to confess to the Knights, then asks Talia to remember her promise.
\nThe women of the Inn come out in force to help Erin get ready, give advice and relax, although Hexel relaxes her most of all.
\nThe Earl takes Erin for a walk above the Flood Plain on a water bridge, as they return Erin is bombarded by other suitors vying for her affection.
\nA Runner comes to to take Erin to the Mages Guild to ransom Ser Solstice.
\nLasica talks to Garry about the competition, and standing, for Erin's affection.
\nAfter settling the ransom Erin lets Altestiel down easy, over a game of Go, and witness's his sulking first hand... a little.
\nSer Solstice is grabbed by the mage and guards, who cast silence spells on the other Knights, and taken to find out who is under the helmet.
\nErin physically causes an earthquake throwing her [Boon of the Guest] to Rabiteater, just as the mage and guards attack.
\nSer Solstice fights his way out toward the other Knights where he is cut of by General Yershin, who challenges him to a dual. Zel coaches Rabbit through the fight, even keeping him from drawing blood, pointing out that its a dual not death.
\nSometime during the dual Ser Solstice's visor is stuck open, revealing his face, Ser Markus and Dame Talia see before Markus points it out to Rabbiteater.
Niers gathers his top advisors at breakfast with Foliana to announce his departure for vacation.
\nErin watchs as Kiish and two Knights have to body-check Altestiel into his carriage, to leave and go home.
\nErin warns The Callers that the door will be off line for a few hours for upgrades as they return from Invrisil.
\nAs Hexel starts to make the upgrades Erin rushes off to a funeral. When she returns she is in crazy plan mode.
\nNiers scares Merxel popping out of a wine bottle,Erin talks to Laken, and a force of drakes closes in on Liscor.
\nNiers arrives in the Flood Plains, the Antinium spread word of the attack forces, Todi and his team take note of the Gold ranks that just went to Esthelm.
\nAmbushes outside Liscor and Esthelm, fighting outside the Inn, Erin gets hit with poisoned bolts and appears to die, but Kevin tells the mages to flash freeze her at the last second, and Niers is captured by a Razorbeak.
\nWAR!!!!!!!
Erin is frozen and placed on a bier in the Garden, Krshia falls to the ground from her saddle, Tkrn howls, Rags sits and stares lost in time.
\nPawn, furious his Skill isnt working, tackles Garry, Maviola argues to put Erin to rest properly, Saliss has Montressa cast [Detect Life] while Numbtongue cast [Detect Death], both show nothing.
\nVisma starts laughing, whispers to Mrsha and the kids point out Erin's Skills are still working.
\nHectval receives Liscor's message of war at the same time their 3rd Regiment is wiped out.
\nOlesm's force strikes fast and hard, but inexperience and hot blood soon start to take a toll.
\nGeneva helps lay out a plan, and agrees to come TRY to help. Hope, uncertainty, fear....RAGE.
\nMaviola rushes to catch Liscors Army, Olesm struggles to maintain cohesion over all the rage.
\nAmbush in the hills, word spreads and Hectval starts loosing allies.
\nMaviola arrives with the door, Olesm summons the Black Tide.
\nOlesm kills the enemy General, Maviola is captured by Belavierr, but killed by Az'Kerash mercifully.
Luan shows up the Bushrangers on a 30k march, before leaving on a delivery.
\nRyoka wakes up and learns of Erin and Maviola's deaths on the way to Riverfarm.
\nRiverfarm is set, all the Nobles are present, Ryoka convinces The Players to put the performance of their life on as the party starts.
\nDelanay tells Ryoka and Halrac everything as noon slowly approaches.
\nBlackmage sits in his room, Luan runs from an ambush, Laken waits alone, the sun disappears.
\nThe Blighted King performs a ritual.
\nThe Fae arrive as fast as the eclipse fades.
\nAaron, Luan and Laken all have visitors of their own.
Othius conducts the ritual, in secret, far under ground.
\nLady Zanthia wears a heavy burden, a Frozen Warrior protects Lord Tourant’s son and Ryoka saves Sammy from a Satyr.
\nRyoka meets the first of 3 guests of importance:
\nA Wyrm - traded for 2 questions, resisted her intimidation and stare.
\nA Treant - Saves her from Sikeri, helps with wording of request to #3 in exchange for meeting Tyrion.
\nEmerrhain greets Aaron by hand-shake and name before setting to work.
\nTamaroth holds Laken in his house, after Laken calls him on his trick, but also learns of the other's vulnerability.
\nThe Summer Court stop Ryoka before she can reach #3, free beer, statues and... corn... win them over?
\nMelidore (#3) sits with Ryoka, Ieka, Mavika and Zedalien, for a repast before business.
\nAfter forcing Melidore's boon, he opens a door to Avalon, causing the Frozen guards to attack.
\nThe Dancing Man sends Luan into a [Fireball]'s path when he is rejected.
\nThe Lost Thing breaks into the Garden, an army of Goblin ghosts protects Erin's body.
\nThe Wild Hunt is challenged to duels, Ryoka passes as Melidore howls in rage, the Summer Court get him to play the Green Knight.
\nFour People approach the edge of the Fae's party in the wake of Ryoka disappearing.
\nRyoka enters Avalon
Ryoka arrives on a hill filled with flowers and monolithic gates to other worlds.
\nWhile trying to organize her overstimulated thoughts, Ryoka stumbles on a fork in her clear path. City right - Forest left.
\nThe Winter Warrior pursues Ryoka and calls the Wild Hunt on her.
\nThe Four are denied from the party, barely.
\nAs Ryoka gets deeper into the forest everything changes, she learns perception is the key.
\nAs the rituals power builds, the mages feel something is off.
\nAs Ryoka starts to understand, a giant tries to eat her before Nama saves her.
\nWhen she enters they city she finds magnificent ruins.
\nThe Four force their way in, the Fae start to fight.
\nRyoka runs into a Kid outside a pub, he tells her not to enter, Nama saves her when she flees the bugs.
\nUlvama prepares to leave, Aaron hurries his work and Ryoka meets 3 Arthurs around a familiar stone.
\nNama shows Ryoka her destination, Tyrion rallies everyone to help the Fae and Ryoka meets 3 Wyrms, a Squad of Toy Soldiers and Ivolethe.
\nAfter thanking Nama properly, the pair fly, Ivolethe buries Belavierr and Az'kerash in snow, and talk about Erin.
\nThe Soldiers trade with the Kid for a "Stick", and Ryoka gets the Arthurs' autographs.
\nBack at the gates Ryoka realizes its a graveyard, not a garden of flowers.
\nNumbtongue finds Reiss guarding Erin's body surrounded by goblin statues that shouldn't have been there.
\nMelidore traps The Five, and calls for his KING.
\nThe Ritual, the Gateway, The Five, the Fae, it all mixes and twists the magic, Othius addresses Earth.
\nRyoka and Ivolethe sneak back through the portal into a Vault.
\nOne text message "The Gods are alive"
\nOberon retreats, he offers to send Ryoka back to Earth, Ivolethe tells her a tiny part of the prophecy and Oberon gives her a plastic dagger and tells her to seek out Goblins before she goes through the portal.
\nRyoka comes out of the sky in the middle of the party, The Ritual worked at a cost. Othius asked for all the children except of Rhir to be sacrificed since he feels he has fought alone for so long.
\nThe Meeting of Tribes begins.
\nLyonette decides to go to Oteslia and Ulvama barges in as the Magical door is checked.
Estimating as 8.00 - 8.12T based on word count. I assume it will end either before or on the interlude which is the next chapter. There is a big spoiler that started at the end of the last book but continued through this one, which does take something out of the whole story. Certain chapters like the one set in Oteslia and Wistram are great, but in general just kind of moved along. Will probably take a break for the summer and maybe see if the official releases can catch up. Chandrar actually had some interesting chapters in this one which is not always true.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Wandering Inn 21
\nPirateaba
\nThe Wandering Inn #21
The Wandering Inn #21
\nErin is dead and the solstice is passed (double entendre). Silveran, the antinium worker in the inn, goes and finds another job helping clean up peoples shops and help the antinium image. Pawn is angry and is gaining bad skills because he is questioning his faith. The Horns of Hammerad try to see the healer of Tenbault but can’t so Pisces comes up with a plan to retrieve another piece of the Heartflame armor and get Az’Kerash (The Necromancer) to heal Erin. Ulvama the goblin shaman has reached the inn through the magic door, and tries to comfort Numbtongue and Mrsha. Lyonette leaves for Oteslia, along with the Gentleman Callers, Wilovan and Ratici.
\nSome of the residents of the inn begin to go elsewhere. A bunch of antinium enlist in the city watch to help defend Liscor. Manus is super worried about the antinium in general. Magnolia Reinhardt arrives in Zeres, the first of the five families to enter a walled city in forever. She does so with fanfare and heads to Oteslia for her meeting.
\nThe Meeting of the Tribes is taking place. We meet Inkhar, an earther from Mongolia who has been living with plains gnolls. They plan to meet with the Silverfur group and head to the tribe. On the way they visit half of a downed plane from Earth. A lot of gnoll-ish politics happen, and they spread knowledge of Earthers and the new inventions from Earth. Liscor has a lot to share thanks to Erin.
\nElirr tries to find one of the earthers still in Liscor to send to the meetings and decides on Rose. Ryoka has a weapon from the fairy realm, and uses her wingsuit and hangglider to actually fly using wind magic. Ulvama is able to summon some of Erin’s magic fire and brings hope back to the inn.
\nFetohep is feeling bored, and a dangerous slaver in Roshar is learning about Earth tech, developing cannons. Teriarch, in the form of Eldavin, arrives at Wistram. He is scandalized by how shoddy everything is and becomes friends with Trey, disguised as Troy Atlas. Eldavin duels Feor and the other archmages and then starts his own faction, the Terras faction, to teach people how to do good magic. He wants to help Erin, but has to handle Wistram first.
\nWall Lord Ilvriss is working very hard to assemble his anti-necromancer group. He eventually collapses from exhaustion, but then recruits a talented prostitute and the named adventurer Shriekblade, as well as his uncle, a talented diplomat. He is learning to get high level people regardless of class. When he hears about Erin he spends a lot of money to buy a partial regeneration potion that does not work, but his hostile purchase invites repercussions and he threatens another drake family.
\nRabbiteater, disguised as the knight Ser Solstice, arrives at the Order of Seasons headquarters with Dame Talia. More and more knights learn he is a goblin and some don’t care, but Dame Talia is angry and won’t talk to him. He begins to make friends and many of them see goblins maybe can be good. Eldavin begins reteaching how to do the basics of magic (as he sees it), helping students become great mages.
\nLyonette is worried about the war in Terandria. Ailendamus is beating the Dawn Concordant, of which her home kingdom of Calanfer is a member. She arrives in Oteslia with Wilovan and Ratici as guards, but also Saliss who needs more potion supplies. They hope to find someone to research a cure for Erin. Once they get there they stay with a named adventurer, Mivifa, a pegasus rider who is a friend of Saliss. They discover that all of the researchers in the city are busy with a mysterious project, which turns out to be faerie flowers. They are all furious since those are Erin’s and they should not have them. They try to protest but the First Gardener can’t do much about it, so Lyonette gets Wilovan and Ratici to steal every flower in the city. Using this new monopoly they begin to sell flowers, get supplies, and get help researching for Erin. They also meet Wil and Yeranola from the Titan’s academy.
\nJecaina Leysars is trying to lead Jecrass after her father got kidnapped, but it is hard. Reim and the King of Destruction offer her a truce but she denies them. She makes a lot of good, canny decisions and helps her country a lot, mostly with the help of Fetohep. He is bored so he talks to Jecaina all day and advises her so she becomes a much better queen. In the end she calls a council of leaders of Chandrar on the Wistram News Network and they decide to execute Prime Minister Lyfelt. This slightly appeases the King of Destruction, but a bigger issue is that now Medain (The group that kidnapped her father) is invading. Everything seems about to fall apart despite her clever plans, when Fetohep of Khelt rolls up with a massive undead army. Jecaina sold him a good river portion of Jecrass in exchange for his protection, so Khelt expands + has water and she is temporarily free from her problems.
\nPelt forges some Adamantium, a very intensive process, then gives it to the Dullahan smith Maudin. Ryoka is a good flying courier now and visits some friends. The Necromancer is still trying to teach his chosen while Toren runs around. The Horns call on other adventuring to help them invade the Village of the Dead, a named rank threat. A shocking amount of teams come in Erin’s name and just for an adventure.
\nGuardsman Tkrn of Liscor is making friends at the Meeting of Tribes. Him and Inkhar meet with the Titans other students, Venaz, Feshi, Meric, etc. They play baseball and speak of new Liscor inventions, while witnessing talented gnolls. They even become friends with Lehra Ruinstrider, a newly made named ranked adventurer gnoll. Ferkr, the gnoll mage from Pallas, gets abducted while traveling to the meeting.
\nWe get a weird chapter were Erin seems to travel back home to Earth, but then realizes it is an illusion. This happens a bunch of times and we learn they are called “The Spirited Generation” on Earth and they are aware people are vanishing. Eventually Erin breaks the loop and one of the newly awakened gods is with her. Maviola and Zel’s ghosts sacrifice themselves to save her, and she runs and meets a dead dragon and some others. More gods appear to chase her and she flees across this spirit realm of death to Chandrar, where the ancient rulers of Khelt can keep the gods away. Erin uses her imagination to summon stuff to help them. She knows she is half alive and hopes for a way to return to life.
\nTrey is learning a lot in Wistram, mostly thanks to Eldavin. His hunt for archmage Amerys still has not found anything though. The factions still fight over earthers although they have made some spaces for themselves. Trey makes some new friends, but then archmage Viltach sees his lifesand golem and invites him to his room to talk. They experiment with golems and talk about magic. Trey gets claimed by Eldavin’s Terras faction, but at the end goes to Viltach and outright asks him for help freeing Amerys. THE END.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-wandering-inn-aba","title":"The Wandering Inn","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":1,"pages":1235,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41033158-the-wandering-inn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_13","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.42","numGoodreadsRatings":"15339","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-wandering-inn-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/the-wandering-inn-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"5/26/2023","dateFinished":"6/9/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I finished this book at 11:58 last night, so just barely within the 2 week barrier. This is a web serial so you wouldn’t expect the best writing, but the author did go back and redo the first book (this version) a few months ago so it is better than it could have been. Despite how bad the writing was in certain places and the weird grammar and inconsistencies, I loved this. It was fun, easy to read for most of it, then at certain sections, it got incredibly emotional and made you connect deeply with the characters. And it is still coming out and the books are super long so I am very excited to continue.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":9.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/24/2024","dateFinished":"7/24/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Just as good as the first time. I really enjoyed the first half seeing Erin just learn and make the inn better. The ending still hits hard, Ryoka is still awful. Can’t wait to keep reading the series. I also got engaged in the middle of this one, which gives it bonus points.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-way-of-kings-sanderson","title":"The Way of Kings","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":1,"pages":1007,"yearPublished":2010,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7235533-the-way-of-kings?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_11","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.32","numGoodreadsRatings":"695652","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765326355","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-way-of-kings-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.75,"url":"/books/the-way-of-kings-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"6/28/2021","dateFinished":"7/4/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"8/2/2024","dateFinished":"8/26/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Just as good as I remembered. I honestly thought the last third of the book happened later in the series but I keep remembering just how much happens. The books really do need to be as long as they are to fit everything they are supposed to. I also got all you can eat sushi while starting this. Incredible.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-way-of-renegades-wall","title":"The Way of Renegades","author":"Steve D. Wall","series":"The Bards and Dragons Saga","seriesNumber":1,"pages":468,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123179883-the-way-of-renegades","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"302","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Flintlock","isbn":"9798375495415","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-way-of-renegades-wall-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/the-way-of-renegades-wall/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"2/14/2026","dateFinished":"2/20/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"Narrated by Steven Pacey, which is an automatic advantage. Could just be the narrator but did feel vaguely Abercrombie-esque. This is a great book that more people should read. Set in a similar historical world to when Europeans first crossed the Atlantic and clashed with the Native Americans, but definitely not a historical fantasy. Great flintlock fantasy and, while not super complex, an enjoyable magic system with good rules. The characters are great and varied. This book rocks. Saw some praire dogs while listening.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Way of Renegades
\nSteve D. Wall
\nThe Bards and Dragons Saga #1
Audiobook Spelling
\nCharacters:
\nDevo - Clan of Justice adoptee, big and red
\nDellioph - Bard Sorcerer, on the run newly arrived in the new world
\nUlric - War Hero in hiding, doing escort work around Quinport
\nAndrostos - Talua’s husband, Ulric’s friend
\nTalua - Ulric’s friend
\nLyren - Ulric’s sponsor / friend
\nJack - Innkeeper of the Captain’s Mast
\nGali - daughter of the chief of the Odegna Teo tribe (the natives on the new world)
\nAdi - A young girl
\nColl - An Earth Spirit
\nChancellor Eramea - One of 6? Chancellors in the new world
\nEdwell - Son of Ronwell, owner of Mastas Munitions.
\nMelviar - Bad guy
Places:
\nQuinport - large port city in the new world
\nThe Captain’s Mast - Jacks tavern and the gangs meeting place
Devo (Devoshka) is a red-skinned member of the Clan of Justice. He was cursed by an evil sorcerer Melviar (why he is red), and was adopted by the Clan of Justice, tall, strong fighters. Devo has an innate connection to Melviar and they have tracked him down and are about to ambush him, when huge, lizard like beasts (Called dragons but not the big flying fire-breathing type) attack them and Elder, the clan leader, holds them off so Devo can escape.
\nDellioph has just arrived in the New World town of Quinport. All he has with him is his old master Urelio’s Lute, Galandon’s Sword (A bladedancers sword), and his musical ability / secret sorcery. He was fleeing the Magnate, someone who had power over him. He tries to find a tavern to work in but most of them have contracts with two siblings, the children of chancellor Eramea.
\nUlric, Talua, and Androstos are escorting a carriage back to Quinport when they are attacked by Teo. Androstos is a Physik, a physical sorcerer, meaning he can imbue his own body in some way, his being speed. They use their muskets and Andy’s abilities to fight off the Teo, only a couple escape.
\nDellioph returns to the Captain’s Mast, a tavern he stopped at earlier, and since the Eramea siblings aren’t there he begins to play anyway. Right before he starts they show back up and the bigger one (Tim?) begins to beat Dellioph and almost kills him, but Devo suddenly shows up and saves Dellioph. So Dellioph in turn vouches for Devo and they sit together. Dellioph uses his sorcery / the imbued lute to understand and communicate with Devo and learns he is from the Firelands, a volcano archipelago a ways away, and that Devo is hunting Melviar, a dangerous sourcerer. Dellioph kind of manipulates Devo into being his bodyguard and says he will help him get people to go kill Melviar, and plays for the tavern and uses his sorcery to make people love it even more. Ulric is also in the tavern listening.
\nGali is in the Odegna tribe, and her father, the chief, is addressing the tribe to talk about what to do about the “Durians” (colonizers). His people just returned from the raid where Ulrich killed a bunch of them, and they are feeling helpless. So Gali volunteers to lead a mission to another tribe I think, but instead takes her friend Aita, Dewstu?, and Kenoa?, two warriors, to Quinport to learn how to make muskets. A traveling priest stayed with them for a while so she can speak Unnish, the colonizer language of the area.
\nUlrich needs a new musket so goes to Mastas Munitions, where Ronwell is a genius and makes the best stuff. He has invented a new kind of rifle that does not need powder to fire, a carbine rifle. Ulric realizes this will be revolutionary. He does not have enough money currently so goes to talk to Lyren, learns they have a new job and some cash (marks) and goes to smoke a pipe by his dead friend Sam’s grave rock thing. While their the local coalition, the ragtag infantry being formed by the chancellors, comes and accosts him. They know he is Ulrich someone famous from the old world and he has a price on his head. They want him to work for them since he was a good commander but he says no, so he has to run. He gets Andy and Talua and they make a plan, but when he talks to Ron about muskets the coalition already threatened him so he can’t, but Ulrich offers him 600 marks (a buttload of cash) and promises never to take Ron’s son Edwell out with them again. Ed is a great shot but his parents love him and are protective. So They plan to get the money by having Androstos fight in the “Bouts” in a few nights and win, then leave town.
\nThe next morning Dellioph wakes up and him and Devo get taken to Chancellor Eramea’s mansion. The chancellor threatens him, then reveals he knows Dellioph is a sorcerer, but says he may stay at the Captains Mast and play as long as he comes and does jobs for him on occasion. This is just the type of thing Dellioph fled so he is mad. Him and Devo get tossed in jail for a day for hitting the chancellor’s baby boy. Dellioph is still leading Devo on saying he is working on getting men to hunt Melviar. They talk in prison and we learn there are two types of sorcery: Physicall, where you can imbue one aspect of yourself (and only one), and Elemental, where you can control one or many of the elements. Dellioph is a secret third type but does not share that. Devo says that Melviar is both types of sorcerer, which should not be possible, and he can do magic on people, which should not be possible, and he has made “dragons” big violent fast crocodile ish things.
\nWhile traveling to Quinport Gali meets Adi, a young girl who seems confused alone in the woods. She says she is also going to Quinport so the Teo escort the girl there. Dewstew is kind of antagoiistic to Gali and does not like the “durians” (What they call all of the coalition / colonizers), but Gali convinces him they need muskets to compete in the current meta. They get to Quinport and despite having saved a young girl, they are treated roughly and some of their possessions taken. They drop Adi off at a tavern (the captains mast), Gali takes them to a church, but it is not the one her traveling priest works at. She keeps giving people coins they have collected for information, and to make them stop bothering them. They finally reach the correct (poor district) church but then are ambushed by a gang of 10 thugs with weapons who want their money. They try to run past them and make it to the church, but in the process Aita gets a hatchet to the neck and bleeds out in the church. Gali is devestated since that was her best friend. They learn from the priest there that her friend priest died of sickness a while back. She also learns some of her info is wrong, like these people are not all Durians, that is just a religion, and the language is called Unnish. The new priest takes them to another Teo living in the city.
\nAdi talks with Devo, she has a spirit named Coll living inside her, and has no memory before the last few days. Coll can speak into Devo’s mind so they can communicate and shares that they also want to kill Melviar, so Devo likes Coll.
\nDellioph also has a plan to win money, make Devo compete in the bouts and if needed use his sorcery to empower Devo so he wins. Devo fights and beats most people, but the final fight is against Androstos, and a lot of money is at stake. Andy is winning but then Dellioph uses his magic to give Devo the edge and wins 664 marks (would have been enough for Ulric to get his guns and supplies and skip town). Devo gets pissed at Dellioph because he is starting to realize that he is being tricked and storms out, leaving Delioph to be confronted by Ulric and Lyren about his blade dancer sword and urelio’s lute and why the chancellor let him go. They end up pressganging Dellioph into agreeing to flee town with them, since his position is precarious and they need the cash. They agree to buy supplies then leave first thing tomorrow (Ulric wanted to leave tonight).
\nDevo and Adi have left Quinport and are going to hunt Melviar on their own. Devo and Adi are teaching each other their respective languages.
\nThe Teo meet with the Teo in the city, Chemyc? (Chem-ic), and he basically calls them dumb and they call him a traitor, but Dewstu and Kenoa take Aita’s body out of the city to bury and say they will wait one day for Gali. Chemyc gives her a list of musket makers for her to research and some clothes to blend in.
\nThe next morning, far later than Ulric likes, Dellioph wakes up and they go shopping. They get to Mastas munitions at the same time as Gali. They are about to buy the stuff and leave when soldier show up, being racist to Gali and threaten everyone. They take her money, then one recognizes Ulric and takes his money also. Dellioph saves Gali from being assaulted or worse, and they all flee back to a secret room in the Mast before the Coalition can gather mor troops. Lyren does recon and learns that Ron and his wife from Mastas munitions have been taken prisoner and their guns confiscated, so they hatch a plan to steal the wagon with the guns and then meet up with Gali’s friends so help guide them through Teo land. In return Ulric teaches Gali about muskets.
\nDellioph is even more upset and sulky and scared. They assume he will be able to kill guards with his bladedancer sword but he knows he can’t. They are all in position in set up when Dellioph gets a feeling and starts playing his lute and magicing like crazy. He ends up enthralling a huge crowd, including Gali and Talua, greatly interfering with Ulric’s plan. He gets everyone to scream that Dellioph is king of the bards, the the soldiers with the gun wagon show up and one hits Dellioph, he screams, and the crown goes into a bloodthirsy frenzy. In the chaos Ulric knocks Delioph unconscious, throws him in the wagon Androstos helped steal, and the 4 of them barely make it out. They meet with Lyren, get supplies, and are out of the city with far more notice than they would have liked. They meet up with Dewstew and Kenoa, a tense meeting but they agree to temporary peace.
\nDellioph wakes up a while later in the wagon and Ulric and talua question him at knife point. He admits to being an “enchantment” sorcerer, a secret third type, but has no idea what came over him in the town, he barely remembers it. He is distraught because he lost the case for Urelio’s lute. Talua hates him and no one trusts him and he is sullen.
\nThey reach the village of the Odegna (gali’s tribe), and find everyone has been slaughtered, then “dragons” show up, presumably what killed the village and Kenoa dies early. The rest flee with Andy using a ton of magic to carry Ulrich and catch the wagon while Dellioph makes the horses go supersonic. They reach a cliff and are climbing up when the dragons catch them. The wagon rolls down in to the river so the only supplies they get are some ammo and guns, then Dewstu falls and while trying to catch and save him Ulric falls into the river with him. A lizard goes in after them and Ulric is scratched.
\nAt the top of the hill Gali is in shock from everyone she knows dying, and Dellioph is forced to tell more truths about himself. He is cursed ( a solid black tattoo around his wirst) that makes it so he can not harm another living creature. Talua still hates him, and says they need to go back for Ulric. Dellioph learns Ulric is the “Eternal Colonel of Helena” or something, a famous dude who fought in a ton of battles in the Old World.
\nThe End.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-way-of-shadows-weeks","title":"The Way of Shadows","author":"Brent Weeks","series":"Night Angel","seriesNumber":1,"pages":645,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Orbit","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3227063-the-way-of-shadows?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_14","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.3","numGoodreadsRatings":"177936","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780316033671","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-way-of-shadows-weeks-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-way-of-shadows-weeks/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/1/2022","dateFinished":"8/6/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I’ve read this book before a long time ago and enjoyed it a lot more this time. Kylar is a cool cat. Mr. Weeks still isn’t the best at writing his female characters but he’s working on it I think. Book sort of follows the pattern of long stretch of slower building up then a ton of action in a short time then repeat over and over.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-weight-of-glory-lewis","title":"The Weight of Glory","author":"C. S. Lewis","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":208,"yearPublished":1949,"publisher":"HarperOne","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18654696-the-weight-of-glory","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.78","numGoodreadsRatings":"26584","genre":"Nonfiction","subgenre":"Religion","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-weight-of-glory-lewis-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/the-weight-of-glory-lewis/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"10/14/2022","dateFinished":"10/14/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Boring essays
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-well-of-ascension-sanderson","title":"The Well of Ascension","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Mistborn","seriesNumber":2,"pages":590,"yearPublished":2007,"publisher":"Tor Fantasy","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2115046.The_Well_of_Ascension","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.76","numGoodreadsRatings":"687957","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765356130","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-well-of-ascension-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-well-of-ascension-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"7/18/2022","dateFinished":"7/23/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Just as good as the first book, I want to both grind out the rest of the series because it is so good but also want to go slow so I can enjoy it for longer.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-white-tower-wisehart","title":"The White Tower","author":"Michael Wisehart","series":"The Aldoran Chronicles","seriesNumber":1,"pages":645,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Michael Wisehart","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33531228-the-white-tower","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.46","numGoodreadsRatings":"6455","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780998150512","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-white-tower-wisehart-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.75,"url":"/books/the-white-tower-wisehart/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/22/2022","dateFinished":"6/27/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I need to remember to go back and finish this series when I get more credits. Gives off very, very, very strong Eragon inspiration but replace the dragon with cooler magic. If you liked Eragon I can almost guarantee you will like this.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"1/3/2023","dateFinished":"1/16/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"A really fun fantasy read. Has a lot of classic tropes, pretty common chosen one plot line but it reads well and doesn’t feel super YA. Good characters and people die.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-will-of-the-many-islington","title":"The Will of the Many","author":"James Islington","series":"Hierarchy","seriesNumber":1,"pages":639,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Gallery / Saga Press","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58416952-the-will-of-the-many?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_19","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"243846","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9781982141196","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"the-will-of-the-many-islington-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-will-of-the-many-islington/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/14/2024","dateFinished":"2/25/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book I will read this year. Started off strong as a setup for a university fantasy book, but hit and changed so many classic themes and tropes. The last 20% is a huge tone shift and so amazing. Turns into a psychological thriller during the final few chapters, then the epilogue was the most insane twist ever. Normally you can kind of feel big plot changes coming but this caught me completely by surprise and I loved it.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/30/2025","dateFinished":"11/12/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Still a very good book. Listened to it on a plane going to a friends wedding.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"The Will of the Many
\nJames Islington
\nThe Hierachry #1
Princeps->Domidus->3->quartus->quintus->sextus->septimus->octavius
\n50k\t\t30k\t\t2k\t348\t56\t\t8\t0
\nVis Telimus (Actually Diago prince of Sous) is an orphan living in latens, a part of Caten/The Hierarchy, a republic that has conquered the world by using will, the ability for people to give their strength to others, making powerful people. He works at a prison and is good at foundation (chess). A magnus quintus comes by asking to see a prisoner, and learns Vis is smart and adopts him. Vis fights in an arena at nights in his free time.
Magnius Quintus Allquiscor Telimus is trying to sent someone to “the academy”, place for all the smart rich kids to get their placement for life. On the way, a big flying ship called a transvect gets shot down by a rebel group called the Anguis. Vis talks to one of them who claims she knows he is Diago, and wants him at the academy and more orders to follow.
\nVis learns from a sextus who graduated from the academy with oilkiscors brother, Cirus. He committed suicide. Lanastia teaches him everything. Their is a thing called the labyrinth you navigate for a test. Vis and Equa the daughter of a rich guy, go to a festival in teh capital city of Caten but their is an attack by the anguis! He kills their leader Melior (On accident more of a suice), who was actually his fathers old advisor estevan. Vis is a hero, Catenicus, and the Anguis hate him (Except the top ranks who know who he is and the plan).
\nVis goes to the academy. First meal he punches a kid named Iden. Their are 5 classes, 3-7, Vis starts in 7. He befriends Calades, a 7th who dropped from 3 but is very smart. Vis gets to class 6 and starts to befriend Iden, but their professor is racist so he doesn’t let either kid advance. Vis sneaks out and explores the ruins on the island Sola vargas for AllKeeCore. Then the festival of the ancestors happens.
\nHe meets his adopted father and new mother, Reluqiua, who is the Anguis lady who attacked the transvect shuttle way earlier. On the way back he does a dangerous mission to ewxplore the island and finds a labyrinth justs like the academies but with real death and probably a big reward. Something about a gate to Obequiem and Luquiem. Someone in class 4 dies by “suicide”., it was the anguis helpiung Vis out. All he has to do is win a sword fight to advance. The fight is rigged so the other guys automaton body won’t break. Vis pounds him into unconscious like a savage brute. Advances to 5. Quickly to 4. Much harder now, people actually competent. The 3rds, Indoll, Emeesa, and Belly, invite him to a summer home for a training break. The summer home is his old Palace on Sous. he goes, listens in to secret government meetings. Saves Emeesa from drowning, they become romantically engaged.
\nMagnus QUintus OllCiScore Telimus tells him he has to run the new labyrinth during the Eudchiam, a final test for the top students. Vis challenges Belly to a foundation game to take her spot in class 3 and wins. Euduchiam Time::::
\nPartnered with Caledus and Equa. They try to steal a tracking thing from the “Safety teams” of Sexti. Works, but seems off. Vis sneaks away and runs the labyrinth. An Alopie (Direwolf) he helped his first time here and named Diago shows up to Deus Ex Machina. He runs the labyrinth, but all that happens in the gate is words appear on his arm “Wait” then “RU..” he runs. Gets stabbed but escapes. Learns with Equa that the safety teams have been killed and anguis are killing everyone. But it is actually a military (The government has 3 bodies: Religion (academy), Military (Telimus family is one), and Governance (Caledus family is one) ) raid idea thing to steal power. Vis tracks Emeesa (his girlfriend) to the top of a tower and she uses Will to save him (not allowed for students to have). Then she sees something weird on his arm and pushes him off a tower into a river to kill him. Diago saves him again. He goes back to save Caledus but he isbadly wounded. Carries his dead bud back to the academy and is named Domitor (best) of the academy and can take his position of hcoosing. But he lost his arm. 1 arm Vis they call him. He chooses to work for Caledus’ Dad, the census taker of governance (big betrayal of both military and the anguis who think they own him). Viridian, Prinicplas of the academy and the one who OilQusckor originally thought killed his brother CeeRor talls Vis to join him and religion as he istrying to stop another Cataclysm (A big event that destroyed the world as we know it 302 years ago.
\nEpilogue:
\nVis went through a gate thing after the labyrinth. We cut to him in a different 2 worlds (Obequiem and Luecieun) and he meets Ceeror in one. Mysterious.
The end.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"the-wind-runner-aba","title":"The Wind Runner","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":10,"pages":1334,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199017014-the-wandering-inn?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.92","numGoodreadsRatings":"1611","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-wind-runner-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/the-wind-runner-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"3/20/2025","dateFinished":"4/15/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Not much happened. Some of the chandrarian politics were interesting but a pretty uneventful book.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-winter-king-cornwell","title":"The Winter King","author":"Bernard Cornwell","series":"The Warlord Chronicles #1","seriesNumber":1,"pages":431,"yearPublished":1994,"publisher":"St. Martins","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205788549-the-winter-king","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"52400","genre":"Historical Fiction","subgenre":"Historical Fantasy","isbn":"9780312156961","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-winter-king-cornwell-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/the-winter-king-cornwell/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"4/13/2025","dateFinished":"5/9/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Took a very long time for a pretty short book. The first half is just super dull and exposition and info dump. Definitely more historical fiction than fantasy, and pretty violent. The second half picked up considerably so I may continue on with the series, and the writing is quite good.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-wisdom-of-crowds-abercrombie","title":"The Wisdom of Crowds","author":"Joe Abercrombie","series":"The Age of Madness","seriesNumber":3,"pages":520,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Gollancz","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56597275-the-wisdom-of-crowds","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.2","numGoodreadsRatings":"42184","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Grimdark","isbn":"9780316187244","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-wisdom-of-crowds-abercrombie-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/the-wisdom-of-crowds-abercrombie/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/4/2024","dateFinished":"6/13/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"One of the best fantasy books of all time. Not quite perfect but the character work is amazing, the last third is purely perfect. I saw most of the reveals and plot twists coming but some stuff still genuinely shocked me. Kind of sad to be done with the first law world. I will have to read Sharp Ends at some point.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-wise-man-s-fear-rothfuss","title":"The Wise Man's Fear","author":"Patrick Rothfuss","series":"The Kingkiller Chronicle","seriesNumber":2,"pages":994,"yearPublished":2011,"publisher":"DAW Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1215032.The_Wise_Man_s_Fear?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.1","numGoodreadsRatings":"629716","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Academia","isbn":"9780756404734","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-wise-man-s-fear-rothfuss-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/the-wise-man-s-fear-rothfuss/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"8/25/2022","dateFinished":"8/30/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Wowzers Kingkiller is such a good series I want book 3 to be finished this installment added a ton more lore and speculation
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":10,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"1/30/2024","dateFinished":"2/12/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Maybe a perfect book. 40 hours goes by so fast. It’s amazing how long Kvothe can stay at the university and it never feels slow or like any filler, then when he leaves and so many major events happen within the last quarter of the book it doesn’t feel rushed or like anything is skimmed over. So awesome. I pray doors of stone comes out before I die.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"the-witch-of-webs-aba","title":"The Witch of Webs","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":12,"pages":1703,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209352535-the-witch-of-webs","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.04","numGoodreadsRatings":"1410","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781961108042","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"the-witch-of-webs-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/the-witch-of-webs-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"5/20/2025","dateFinished":"6/20/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Lots of Emperor. Weakest book in the series I think. Interesting ideas but not executed very well.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"thick-as-thieves-turner","title":"Thick as Thieves","author":"Megan Whalen Turner","series":"The Queen's Thief","seriesNumber":5,"pages":337,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Greenwillow Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8306741-thick-as-thieves","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.34","numGoodreadsRatings":"16944","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780062568243","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"thick-as-thieves-turner-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/thick-as-thieves-turner/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Overdrive","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"9/27/2021","dateFinished":"10/3/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/14/2023","dateFinished":"4/17/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Kamet POV. Not my favorite but fun to work with a different pantheon of Gods for the myths and stories.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"throne-of-glass-maas","title":"Throne of Glass","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"Throne of Glass","seriesNumber":1,"pages":406,"yearPublished":2012,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76703559-throne-of-glass?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.38","numGoodreadsRatings":"2538232","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781639730940","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"throne-of-glass-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/throne-of-glass-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"3/29/2021","dateFinished":"4/4/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"through-the-belly-of-the-beast-thorne","title":"Through the Belly of the Beast","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":2,"pages":356,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50410228-through-the-belly-of-the-beast","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.64","numGoodreadsRatings":"2820","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","isbn":"9781733664431","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"through-the-belly-of-the-beast-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/through-the-belly-of-the-beast-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"3/18/2022","dateFinished":"3/23/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"12/3/2022","dateFinished":"12/7/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"Should have just been attached to the first book, nothing of note really happened and no characters were interesting.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"tiamat-s-wrath-corey","title":"Tiamat's Wrath","author":"James S.A. Corey","series":"The Expanse","seriesNumber":8,"pages":534,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Orbit Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28335698-tiamat-s-wrath","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"83577","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9780316332873","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"tiamat-s-wrath-corey-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/tiamat-s-wrath-corey/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Book","yearRead":2026,"dateStarted":"4/8/2026","dateFinished":"4/15/2026","hasReview":true,"review":"I’m not really sure what score to give this one. Parts of it were super engaging and we learned more about the universe, but some sections were also super slow and felt like nothing got added. Throughout the first half Elvi was the only character really keeping me engaged but the back half started to pick up and the last 200 pages were really exciting. The space combat felt the most real and understandable of any in the series so far, which was great. Going to go right into the final book, excited to see what happens.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Tiamat’s Wrath
\nJames S. A. Corey
\nThe Expanse #8
Tiamat’s Wrath Summary
\nhttps://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Tiamat%27s_Wrath
\nFour years after the Laconia-Sol Conflict, James Holden is an honored prisoner on Laconia. He is attending the Funeral of Chrisjen Avasarala, who died in her sleep four months earlier on Luna. Then, when Winston Duarte moved the funeral service and her tomb to Laconia, Holden could still hardly believe she was gone. By the end of the service, Holden runs into Kiki, Avasarala's granddaughter, and they discus the impact her grandmother's legacy had on them. As incentivized science institutes, businesses, and celebirites all had moved to Laconia Capital City, Duarte moved the center of humanity to Laconia. So while Holden makes his way through all of those famous and powerful people at the reception in the state building, he runs into Camina Drummer, and they converse about their predicament under Laconian rule. High Consul Duarte arrives at the reception, and Holden notices how some of his physical features are off because of the Protomolecule testing that Paolo Cortázar has done on him.
\nElvi Okoye, now a major in the Laconian Empire, leads a scientific mission for the Empire, with her husband Fayez and a number of other scientists. With the Falcon, a Laconian ship specifically made for the mission, they study Dead systems. The ship enables fast travel from system to system. With the newly invented fully immersive liquid chamber Crash Couches, it can accelerate up to 30Gs without killing its occupants. The Falcon's scientific mission also involves using a Protomolecule-infected test subject, called The Catalyst, to activate any possible Protomolecule artifacts in these unexplored systems.
\nWhile in the Adro system, Elvi and her crew find a large diamond like spherical planet. When the Catalyst makes contact with the Adro diamond, Elvi theorises that it could be a backup drive and the Rosetta Stone to the builders' technology. However, the Falcon's commander, Admiral Sagale, gives orders to leave the system before any serious study can be done. Elvi tells Fayez she suspects Sagale has another agenda.
\nWith the crew of the Rocinante separated and wanted fugitives, Naomi remembers the Rocinante. She and Alex had stowed it away on Freehold to be saved for a later day and to keep a low profile. With Holden captured and Amos undercover on a covert mission on Laconia, Naomi had taken a leadership position for the Underground. This however involves her being isolated and sent in shipping containers in Transport Union ships in order to move from system to system to communicate with Underground forces. Once she arrives to Deep Transfer Station Three in the Sol system, Naomi meets up with Bobbie Draper, who is now the Captain of the Gathering Storm, and Alex, who is the ship's pilot. During their meeting, they discuss the Gathering Storm' secret mission in the Sol system, but Naomi and Bobbie disagree on which tactics the Underground should use. Once they say their goodbyes and Naomi leaves, Alex prepares the next transfer of the Gathering Storm, which is being transferred from freighter to freighter for their mission.
\nBack on Laconia, Teresa Duarte, the daughter of High Consul Duarte, lives a busy life and has little freedom. In one of session with her tutor, Colonel Ilich, she questions who the Ring Builders were and who killed them, but Colonel Ilich says no one knows. Later, when her father begins to take her to important meetings, Teresa questions why she should be there. Duarte simply tells her he is preparing her to become the leader of Laconia in case one day he's no longer around to rule it. When Teresa runs into Holden, he warns her not to fully trust those close to her. Eventually Teresa, along with her dog Muskrat, sneaks out of the State building and goes up into the hills to a cave. There she meets with her friend Timothy. She eventually goes home, where her father meets with her to discuss Laconian tactics and decision-making.
\nWhile the Gathering Storm was in the Pendulum's Arc, Alex learns from Bobbie that their mission is to intercept a freighter carrying cargo parts for the Heart of the Tempest, which is stationed in Earth's orbit. However, the Freighter is being escorted by two Laconian Frigates, so the Storm must sneak up to the ships to attack. While the Storm engages and takes out the two frigates, Bobbie with a strike team uses a Breaching pod to take the freighter until PDCs decompress the entire ship's atmosphere. This causes the mission to be a partial failure but Bobbie does capture the ship's cargo. When they get to a hideout in Callisto, Alex gets a message from his son Kit who is getting married. After a meeting of Alex and Bobbie, Bobbie learns that the cargo they captured was anti-matter, the power source for the Tempest's weapons, and resolves to use it against the Laconians.
\nFollowing Elvi Okoye onboard the Falcon arrival into Tecoma system, it is discovered that the system is empty of any planets or even space material. The only things in the system are a neutron star and the oddly placed ring gate, which is much farther out and positioned above the star's north pole. Commander Sagale then informs Elvi of their other mission by the Laconian military: to use this system to conduct a weapon test since the Tecoma system met their requirements of a sparse system. Elvi advises against the plan but Sagale moves forward with it.
\nIn a strange interpretation of game theory, Duarte believes that he needs to "punish" the Unknown Aggressors that are believed to be making ships go dutchman. In order to do so, Duarte gave the command to Admiral Sagal to conduct the weapons test attack by sending a bomb ship into the Ring network with the Tecoma gate as a Ring network anomaly occurs. When the test is conducted, the ship phases between the gates and explodes. As a consequence to this attack, the Unknown aggressors destabilize the Tecoma system's neutron star. Fearing a possible gamma-ray burst hitting the Tecoma gate, the Falcon crew burn and retreat into the slow zone. Then as feared, the neutron star collapses and shoots out a gamma-ray burst that destroys the Tecoma gate and Thanjavur gate, which is located on the opposite side of the Slow zone. This causes the Thanjavur colony to be cut off from the Ring network and be isolated.
\nA few days after the Tecoma star collapse, the crew of the Falcon witness strange reading of radiation coming from the edges of the slow zone as the Ring station glows like a small star after being hit by the gamma-ray burst. Suddenly another missing time skip event occurs throughout the gate network and in the slow zone. The Falcon is nearly destroyed by strange dark tendrils, but Elvi is capable of activating the Falcon emergency escape out of danger and into the Laconia system as she had experience this before on Ilus. Unfortunately, half the crew die (including Admiral Sagal) from injuries caused during the time skip, and the rest barely survive including Fayez. Everything else in the Slow Zone is either killed or destroyed following the Slow zone catastrophe. This includes Medina Station, the Eye of the Typhoon, and Saba, the leader of the underground.
\nWhile Teresa meets up with Timothy again, they experience the time skip event and she leaves the cave to see what has happened. She is then picked up by colonel Ilich and security to see her father. Duarte is left in a waking coma-like state after the time skip as Cortazar's treatments to make him immortal left him susceptible to the time skip attack and he is no longer cognizant of the real world. This leaves Admiral Trejo to be running the Laconian Empire while they keep Duarte's condition a secret.
\nNaomi finally arrives at her destination in the Auberon system, after being onboard a ship where she was almost found by Laconian forces. She meets up with the local underground who she knew during her days with Fred Johnson. After learning of Saba's fate, Naomi takes over as leader of the Underground, and then sends out her plans to everyone in the Underground whom she can contact. While Naomi still wants a peaceful solution, she understands the need to negotiate from a place of strength. With the destruction of the Typhoon in the slow zone, the Laconians are not able to control the ring network like they once could.
\nAfter consulting with Naomi, Bobbie and Alex head out on a mission to destroy the Tempest using what they learned from the transport freighter ship intercept. This information reveals a blind spot in the Tempest's sensor view that Bobbie uses to sneak the White Crow close enough so they can send a small rocket with an antimatter bomb attached to destroy the Tempest. Unfortunately, Bobbie's ship takes PDC damage upon approach. Bobbie's copilot Rini Glaudin is killed but the antimatter bombs are untouched. Seeing that she will no longer be able to get the antimatter bombs close with the rockets they had, she takes a final measure of using her Laconian Power Armor's thrusters to accelerate the antimatter bomb towards the Tempest. Bobbie realizing there is no chance she can be saved, uses the remaining amount of bullets she has to get into the sensor range of the Tempest, which kills her with a PDC round. She does this to prevent Alex from making any dangerous rescue plans. As the Storm retreats from the Tempest, the antimatter bombs explode, destroying The Heart of the Tempest. The crew of the Storm receives a large amount of radiation in the blast.
\nAfter receiving the news of Bobbie's death, Alex reveals that he is heading back to Freehold to unwrap the Rocinante for the upcoming fight that Naomi is planning. Naomi, who continues as Saba's successor, heads to Freehold to meet up with Alex who she assists in getting the Rocinante in ship shape for an atmosphere launch. Soon enough they are ready to head off into space to get "closer" to the Ring Gates for better communications. While in transit, the Rocinante is hit with another time skip event. This event only affects three systems but lasts 20 minutes, longer than the previous events.
\nAfter Teresa heads up to Timothy's cave, she inadvertently leads security forces to the cave and a firefight breaks out, in which Timothy is killed by Colonel Ilich. After Teresa is taken back to the state building, Timothy's body is taken away by the native Laconian repair drones. Then Teresa learns that Timothy's real name was Amos Burton, and that he was a terrorist who planned to explode a mini-nuke in the Laconian capital, until he met Teresa.
\nDuring this time, Elvi has fully recovered and has been given increasing responsibilities to aid the recovery of Duarte, and to look over Cortazar's work. She then meets up with Cortazar, who takes her to the Pens and shows her Cara and Xan Bisset. The children had died decades ago and had been repaired by the Laconian Repair Drones. Elvi questions the children to find out if they are conscious beings, and apologizes to Cara for what happened to her.
\nHolden, who has been in contact with Cortazar, Duarte and a little bit with Teresa, has been playing a long-term chess game to drive a wedge between Cortazar and Duarte. Holden's plan comes to head when he tells Teresa to watch his conversations with Cortazar. Holden has been suggesting using Teresa as a study subject to help Duarte get better. When Cortazar slightly mentions this on camera, Teresa becomes aware of the fact the Cortazar wants to kill her. She lets Elvi and Trejo know of Cortazar's intentions. Teresa also goes to her father and tells him about Cortazar. Duarte seems to be unaffected by the news, still swiping at the air. Later in the meeting in Duarte's room, Elvi, Cortazar and Trejo discuss the future of the Empire. Duarte at one point gets up and mumbles to himself near Cortazar; the next second, without a gunshot, Duarte causes Cortazar's head to explode, killing him.
\nNaomi's plan finally comes to head, in the Siege of Laconia. Over 400 rebel ships arrive to resist Laconia, including three Donnager Class battleships. Unlike the invasion of Sol, the Laconian Magnetar-class ship Voice of the Whirlwind does not use its primary weapon for fear of triggering another time-lapse/unconsciousness event. Naomi's plan to disable Laconia begins with baiting the Whirlwind and retreating away. When the Whirlwind gets far enough away from Laconia, a few ships of Naomi's fleet dive for the alien orbital construction yards. When the ships are close enough, they fire rail guns into the orbital construction yards, destroying them, all this while dodging rail guns from planetary defense systems. This accomplishes the goal of taking away Laconia's advantage of creating new alien ships and producing antimatter.
\nDuring the engagement, the Rocinante receives a message containing Amos's evacuation codes. The codes were sent by Teresa, who had released Holden so they could leave the planet together. When the two make an escape, they are confronted by Ilich and security threatening to kill them. Out of nowhere, a "repaired" Amos kills Ilich and his security forces. Soon after, the three of them and Muskrat are evacuated by the Rocinante. When leaving Laconia, the Rocinante is target-locked by the Whirlwind. The Whirlwind however hesitates when Teresa gets on the comms and declares she is working on a mission with the rebels straight from her father. After a longer delay, the Whirlwind sends ten missiles at the Rocinante, which destroys them with PDCs. The Roci with the surviving Underground fleet leave the Laconia system.
\nOn Laconia, it is revealed that Holden's goal in his metaphorical chess game as a captive was to get Cortazar removed and for Elvi to take over the science directorate. Confident in her position, Elvi's first move is to shut down Cortazar's Pens and release Cara and Xan so they can work with her with the information they can access with The Library. She declares to Trejo that the greatest potential of information is exploring the Adro Diamond.
\nBack on the Rocinante, Holden is settling back onboard with his crew and he talks to Amos to see if he is still himself. Amos tells him that he is still himself but now he knows things, and warns Holden the Unknown Aggressors will try to wipe out humanity. Holden simply tells him that he knows this.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"toll-the-hounds-erikson","title":"Toll the Hounds","author":"Steven Erikson","series":"Malazan Book of the Fallen","seriesNumber":8,"pages":1295,"yearPublished":2008,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/938544.Toll_the_Hounds","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.74","numGoodreadsRatings":"35532","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765310088","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"toll-the-hounds-erikson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":10,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":10,"url":"/books/toll-the-hounds-erikson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":10,"format":"Book","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"2/11/2025","dateFinished":"2/26/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Really good
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"tower-of-dawn-maas","title":"Tower of Dawn","author":"Sarah J. Maas","series":"Throne of Glass","seriesNumber":6,"pages":663,"yearPublished":2017,"publisher":"Bloomsbury Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76714487-tower-of-dawn","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"1129693","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Romance","isbn":"9781639731046","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"tower-of-dawn-maas-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/tower-of-dawn-maas/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"5/3/2021","dateFinished":"5/9/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"towervale-carman","title":"Towervale","author":"Patrick Carman","series":"N/A","seriesNumber":null,"pages":256,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"PC Studio, Inc.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44173850-towervale","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"33","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780578463889","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"towervale-carman-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":1,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":1,"url":"/books/towervale-carman/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":1,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/30/2023","dateFinished":"5/2/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Half book half videogame half choose your adventure. Could be cool idea but it sucks.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"tress-of-the-emerald-sea-sanderson","title":"Tress of the Emerald Sea","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Cosmere","seriesNumber":null,"pages":483,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127280617-tress-of-the-emerald-sea","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.62","numGoodreadsRatings":"308199","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"High","isbn":"9781250899668","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"tress-of-the-emerald-sea-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9,"url":"/books/tress-of-the-emerald-sea-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9,"format":"Book","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"4/30/2023","dateFinished":"5/11/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Hoid! Princess Bride! Cosmere!
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"uncrowned-wight","title":"Uncrowned","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":7,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52745375-uncrowned","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.14","numGoodreadsRatings":"30750","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780999851142","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"uncrowned-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/uncrowned-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/27/2025","dateFinished":"8/1/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book yet. Really enjoyable. Fun action, lots of progress
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"underlord-wight","title":"Underlord","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":6,"pages":400,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123329476-underlord","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.22","numGoodreadsRatings":"31760","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001034","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"underlord-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/underlord-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"7/7/2025","dateFinished":"7/9/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Forgot to update this one when I finished it since was on honeymoon. Still at the height of the series, not necessarily getting better each book anymore but maintaining the same level of excitement, progression, and action.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"unsouled-wight","title":"Unsouled","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":1,"pages":294,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome Publishing","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35683460-unsouled","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"59242","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9780989671767","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"unsouled-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":5.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":5.5,"url":"/books/unsouled-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":5.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"3/1/2023","dateFinished":"3/3/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"I got the first two books in this series for free and they are short so I tried them. It definitely has good ideas and sets up a cool foundation, but it is just a little too weird and cliche. Reminds me heavily of the house of blades series also by Will Wight. Could still end up being a good series but as of now I am not a big fan.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"vampire-gate-thorne","title":"Vampire Gate","author":"Apollos Thorne","series":"Underworld","seriesNumber":5,"pages":267,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54293336-vampire-gate","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.98","numGoodreadsRatings":"1646","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"LitRPG","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"vampire-gate-thorne-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3.5,"url":"/books/vampire-gate-thorne/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":4,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"4/2/2022","dateFinished":"4/7/2022","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":3,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"12/28/2022","dateFinished":"1/2/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Not very good, I played Mario while listening
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"warbreaker-sanderson","title":"Warbreaker","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"Warbreaker","seriesNumber":1,"pages":688,"yearPublished":2009,"publisher":"Tor Fantasy","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6976882-warbreaker","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.58","numGoodreadsRatings":"291405","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765360038","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"warbreaker-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.75,"url":"/books/warbreaker-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/4/2022","dateFinished":"6/9/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"This one got a point boost because of it’s connections to the Stormlight Archive. A cool color-based magic system and uses multiple character POV’s well (this is something that bothers me when done poorly). Lightsong in particular has a Zuko worthy character arc. Fantasy has done the whole “multiple perspectives from characters who seem far apart at the start coming together to form one story” thing forever, and this can be beneficial for huge stories spanning the whole world. Some authors want to use it even if they don’t have a big enough world/concept and not enough well thought out main characters. If I have to sit through 2 character POV’s, just waiting to get back to what I think of as the “Real Main Character”, it’s probably just a waste of space to include their stories. This bothers me. If a certain character doesn’t have a deep enough backstory to warrant their own telling of life, then don’t write one for them.
\n"},{"readNumber":2,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"3/12/2024","dateFinished":"3/19/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Graphic audio was free on Audible. Pretty cool. Not nearly as good as the first time I read it. I think partly because it is half a mystery and those are never as good the second time, but also I have read more and this just isn’t as great. Still a fine book however, just not as good as I remembered.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"waybound-wight","title":"Waybound","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":12,"pages":518,"yearPublished":2023,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173195300-waybound","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.24","numGoodreadsRatings":"21704","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001102","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"waybound-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/waybound-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"10/1/2025","dateFinished":"10/6/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Finished Cradle. Not a bad ending, happy endings can be good I guess. Just wasn’t super satisfying. Someone probably should have died.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Waybound
\nWill Wight
\nCradle #12
Happy Endings can be good I guess. Lindon and his friends, with the help of the monarchs emriss silentborn and Sha Miara, force Northstrider to ascend, and kill Malice and Reagan Shen, and then all the dreadgods. No one dies. Lindon has to stay on Cradle for an extra 2 years due to his dreadgod body. In the sky, Makiel the Hound sacrifices himself to kill daruman and save Ozriel (Eithan). They form a new division, the reapers, and go around saving worlds. Happy ever after.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"we-are-legion-we-are-bob-taylor","title":"We Are Legion (We Are Bob)","author":"Dennis E. Taylor","series":"Bobiverse","seriesNumber":1,"pages":383,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Worldbuilders","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35014337-we-are-legion-we-are-bob","avgGoodreadsRating":"8.56","numGoodreadsRatings":"133658","genre":"Science Fiction","subgenre":"Space Opera","isbn":"9781680680584","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"we-are-legion-we-are-bob-taylor-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7.5,"url":"/books/we-are-legion-we-are-bob-taylor/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"6/15/2024","dateFinished":"6/19/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"A short, fun sci-fi book. Want to read more. A fun mix of science, silly stuff, and philosophical questions.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"white-sand-volume-1-sanderson","title":"White Sand, Volume 1","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"White Sand","seriesNumber":1,"pages":160,"yearPublished":2016,"publisher":"Dynamite Entertainment","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28862254-white-sand-volume-1?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_10","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.18","numGoodreadsRatings":"25090","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9781606908853","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"white-sand-volume-1-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/white-sand-volume-1-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/26/2022","dateFinished":"7/1/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"A graphic novel by Brandon Sanderson and Rik Hoksin. This was different for me because I don’t normally read graphic novels but the desert world and sand manipulation work great for visual depiction. I really only read this because it is apart of the Cosmere but am glad I did.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"white-sand-volume-2-sanderson","title":"White Sand, Volume 2","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"White Sand","seriesNumber":2,"pages":160,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Dynamite Entertainment","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33551363-white-sand-volume-2","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.06","numGoodreadsRatings":"14964","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9781524103422","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"white-sand-volume-2-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/white-sand-volume-2-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/28/2022","dateFinished":"7/3/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I mean same as the first book they are pretty short
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"white-sand-volume-3-sanderson","title":"White Sand, Volume 3","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"White Sand","seriesNumber":3,"pages":160,"yearPublished":2019,"publisher":"Dynamite Entertainment","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43106809-white-sand-volume-3","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.28","numGoodreadsRatings":"12404","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Graphic Novel","isbn":"9781524110062","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"white-sand-volume-3-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8,"url":"/books/white-sand-volume-3-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8,"format":"Book","yearRead":2022,"dateStarted":"6/30/2022","dateFinished":"7/5/2022","hasReview":true,"review":"I mean same as the first book they are pretty short
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"white-trash-warlock-slayton","title":"White Trash Warlock","author":"David R. Slayton","series":"Adam Binder","seriesNumber":1,"pages":320,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Blackstone Publishing, Inc.","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53255694-white-trash-warlock?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.82","numGoodreadsRatings":"12430","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Urban","isbn":"9781094067964","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"white-trash-warlock-slayton-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":6.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":6.5,"url":"/books/white-trash-warlock-slayton/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":6.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2023,"dateStarted":"7/11/2023","dateFinished":"7/15/2023","hasReview":true,"review":"Very short, interesting magic concepts and character backgrounds.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"wind-and-truth-sanderson","title":"Wind and Truth","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":5,"pages":1344,"yearPublished":2024,"publisher":"Tor","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203578847-wind-and-truth","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.12","numGoodreadsRatings":"22880","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9781250319180","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"wind-and-truth-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":7,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":7,"url":"/books/wind-and-truth-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":7,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"12/6/2024","dateFinished":"1/7/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Release day. So far it has been by far my least favorite, pretty disappointing. Definitely the worst in the series, very sad to see in what is basically a conclusion book. Felt bloated, some of the plotlines were uninteresting. Humor was terrible, just felt unedited and a big letdown.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"winter-solstice-aba","title":"Winter Solstice","author":"Pirate Aba","series":"The Wandering Inn","seriesNumber":4,"pages":1109,"yearPublished":2021,"publisher":"Self","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57913863-the-wandering-inn","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.16","numGoodreadsRatings":"4902","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"winter-solstice-aba-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":8.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":8.5,"url":"/books/winter-solstice-aba/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":8.5,"format":"Online","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"9/30/2024","dateFinished":"10/17/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Wistram days rocked it. After that it slowed down a little. Didn’t get very many POV’s from outside Liscor area. Still really enjoyable but overall the worst one so far.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"winter-turning-sutherland","title":"Winter Turning","author":"Tui T. Sutherland","series":"Wings of Fire","seriesNumber":7,"pages":336,"yearPublished":2015,"publisher":"Scholastic","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23604435-winter-turning","avgGoodreadsRating":"9","numGoodreadsRatings":"32562","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780545685375","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"winter-turning-sutherland-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":3,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":3,"url":"/books/winter-turning-sutherland/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":3,"format":"Book","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/3/2024","dateFinished":"2/4/2024","hasReview":false,"review":""}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"wintersteel-wight","title":"Wintersteel","author":"Will Wight","series":"Cradle","seriesNumber":8,"pages":540,"yearPublished":2020,"publisher":"Hidden Gnome","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123877214-wintersteel","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.36","numGoodreadsRatings":"30352","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Progression","isbn":"9781959001058","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":true,"summarySlug":"wintersteel-wight-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9.5,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.5,"url":"/books/wintersteel-wight/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Kindle","yearRead":2025,"dateStarted":"8/15/2025","dateFinished":"8/28/2025","hasReview":true,"review":"Best book in the series so far by a landslide. Super awesome and fun. I officially understand why the series is so popular, it is just an incredibly enjoyable read. This is like Demon in White of Cradle. Worth reading the series just to get to enjoy this.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":"Wintersteel
\nCradle #8
\nWill Wight
People:
\nWei-Shi Lindon Arelius, Yerin Arelius, Timaias Adama, Subject One, Northstrider, Kiuran, Sha Miara, Reigan shen, akura malice, akura mercy, akura pride, akura grace, Eithan Arelius, AKura Fury, Akura Charity, Sopharanatoth, Ziel, Yan Shoumei, Akura Mercy, Brother Aekin, Calan Archer, Emriss SIlentborn, Tiberian Arelius, Min Shuei, Naru Saeya, Prince Daji, Meira
Places:
\nSacred Valley, The Labyrinth, Ninecloud City, Redmoon Hall, Abyssal Palace, Seishen Kingdom
Things:
\nDross, Penance, Abidan, Stormcallers, Frozen Blade School, Wandering Titan, Bleeding Phoenix, Little Blue
Story:
\nPrologue shows us the death of the Sage of the Endless Sword, Timaias Adama, in Sacred Valley. We learn that there is a curse of sorts on sacred valley that makes the sacred arts a lot weaker there, and it is because an entrance to The Labyrinth is hidden there, and the labyrinth contains someone/thing names Subject One, who created the Dreadgods.
We begin right after Wei-Shi Lindon Arelius lost in his bout to Yerin Arelius, making her an uncrowned and him not. Northstrider meets Lindon somewhere else in Ninecloud City, and asks him about Dross. The monarchs discuss the weapon Penance, given by the Abidan Hound, Kiuran. Sha-Miara is secretly a monarch and Reigan Shen is an enemy of Akura malice.
\nDross stole a memory from Northstrider and thinks lindon can use his hunger madra arm to consume madra from enemies, helping his advancement.
\nWe see Eithan Arelius use his actual strength for the first time, he reveals he is on the path of the hollow king, and defeats Sha Miara, a hidden Monarch, in 9 seconds. Sopharanatoth tries to advance and fails, she has pushed herself too far too fast and is permanently damaged unless she wins the tournament.
\nLindon and Yerin go on a date, Ziel, Yan Shoumei of Redmoon Hall, Akura Mercy, Brother Aekin of Abyssal Palace, and Calan Archer of the Stormcallers all become uncrowned.
\nAll Uncrowned have a month to train with sages. Eithan goes with the Arelius Clan sage and advances to Overlord instantly, he had just been waiting. Reigan Shen then purchases Eithan to throw the next match. Yerin will go with The winter sage, Min Shuei at the Frozen blade school and works to develop her sage-ness. We get reports on Emriss SIlentborn, and Tiberian Arelius, 2 monarchs, 1 dead.
\nMeanwhile Lindon goes to a city near the Wandering Titan to help evacuate citizens and stall the enemies of the Akura clan. He goes Akura Fury, who teams him up with Akura Pride, Grace, Naru Saeya, and some others. Once Lindon learns there is a point system and defeating remnants can buy him stuff he goes crazy, and practices consuming essence and begins to gain a ton of power.
\nThe Sheisen Kingdom is also there, and Prince Daji still wants to kill Lindon for killing his brother, Prince Kiro.
\nEithan throws his match to Yan Shoumei, Ziel barely loses to Brother Aekin. Eithan buys Ziel’s loyalty by saying he may be able to fix his channels. Mercy and Sophara have a very close battle that mercy ends up losing, disappointing her family.
\nEithan, Mercy, Lindon, and Fury go back to the wandering titan battlefield and Lindon combines his Pure Core with a pact with Little Blue, similar to what he did with Dross for Blackflame. Daji is angry as always and tried to attack a tower but Lindon was there first, Meira, restrains Daji so Lindon won’t kill him but Daji is very angry.
\nYerin discovers her Overlord revelation is that “I am not him” referring to the sword sage. Yerin and Sophara both win their matches and are the final 2. Yerin receives a Moonlight Bridge, allowing her to teleport anywhere on a slight cooldown. Ruby, Yerin’s blood shadow, uses it to teleport herself to Lindon and hang out.
\nReigan shen grabs the other uncrowned that lost and tells them he will send them with The Blood Sage to kills Pride and Mercy when they are alone.
\nSophara wins the first 2 matches, but then Yerin advances to herald by combining with Ruby. Together they are infinitely more powerful, and the first ever overlord herald. Yerin slaughter Sophara easily. The tournament is over and chaos starts.
\nFury has been taunting all of the enemy heralds, and now that Yerin won he attacks them, using the strength icon of a sage, meaning he is becoming a monarch. The 4 monarchs in Ninecloud city also begin battling each other. Reigan shen also starts his assassination plan on Mercy and Pride. Lindon sees the assassin’s appear but is too far away and they teleport off, but Eithan slips into the group before they leave. Lindond has to go force open the portal left by the sage, which should not be possible but he does with Eithan’s help from the other side. Eithan is an Archlord now thanks to Reigan Shen’s resources.
\nWhile Eithan distracts the blood sage, Lindon easily tears through and kills the remaining uncrowned assassin’s and 2 overlords. Akura grace and 2 others are already dead though. Pride and Naru Saeya barely live. Lindon finishes by battling Sophara and manifesting the Void Icon, making him a sage.
\nYerin uses penance on the Dragon King, Seshethkunaaz, and he just dies. Eithan gives lindon a wintersteel unsouled badge, marking him as a sage.
\nOrthos helped wei-Shi Kelsa, lindon’s sister, advance to Jade back in Sacred Valley, and then finds Jai-Long and says he needs his help for a mission.
\n"}},{"bookSlug":"words-of-radiance-sanderson","title":"Words of Radiance","author":"Brandon Sanderson","series":"The Stormlight Archive","seriesNumber":2,"pages":1087,"yearPublished":2014,"publisher":"Tor Books","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17332218-words-of-radiance","avgGoodreadsRating":"9.52","numGoodreadsRatings":"508022","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"Epic","isbn":"9780765326362","bookOwned":true,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"words-of-radiance-sanderson-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":9,"readCount":2,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":9.25,"url":"/books/words-of-radiance-sanderson/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":9.5,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2021,"dateStarted":"7/5/2021","dateFinished":"7/11/2021","hasReview":false,"review":""},{"readNumber":2,"score":9,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"8/26/2024","dateFinished":"9/19/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"The shallan flashbacks are pretty boring, but the last quarter of the book is electric. And then the final conflict is maybe the best out of any Sanderson book. The biggest problem is just how slow the the first chunk moves. Still awesome, but especially since I know where it is going it isn’t perfect
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}},{"bookSlug":"zahara-s-gift-walker","title":"Zahara's Gift","author":"A. J. Walker","series":"Bond of a Dragon","seriesNumber":1,"pages":263,"yearPublished":2018,"publisher":"Mystic Lake","goodreads":"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45553735-zahara-s-gift","avgGoodreadsRating":"7.86","numGoodreadsRatings":"1174","genre":"Fantasy","subgenre":"YA","isbn":"9780578458595","bookOwned":false,"hasSummary":false,"summarySlug":"zahara-s-gift-walker-summary","hasScore":true,"latestScore":2,"readCount":1,"currentRead":false,"averageScore":2,"url":"/books/zahara-s-gift-walker/","reads":[{"readNumber":1,"score":2,"format":"Audible","yearRead":2024,"dateStarted":"2/12/2024","dateFinished":"2/14/2024","hasReview":true,"review":"Really bad. Some of the worst writing I have ever read. Maybe a 6 year old could enjoy this. So so terrible. Mediocre plot. And awful writing. Like sounds like it was ran through google translate a few times. At least it was free.
\n"}],"summary":{"content":""}}]