aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. I make a lot of Bookwyrm lists. I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.
In this all-new tale, published here for the first time, World Fantasy Award winner K.J. …
Uninspired short story
2 stars
I've already forgotten the name of the protagonist, but the gist is: prominent noble in standard fare fantasy world is jailed for killing his wife. Son doesn't know what happened, but vows to get father out of jail except he's first being sent to the front lines of an unwinnable war. He draws up plans like a Pepe Silvia meme, wins the war in hours, then high-tails it back to the homeland for poorly written Machiavellian political intrigue to get his dad out of jail. Dad is mad at getting out, confesses to killing wife because she nagged, and then father & son are on opposite sides of more political intrigue.
Retired private eye, Red Bailey, is finally happy in Nevada, spending most of his time …
The setup baffled me
3 stars
Once the story gets past the beginning chapters and gets into the criminal element in New York, Red Bailey being lined up as a murder suspect there, and then on the run in the Sierra Nevada, it's all fun twists and turns and deception upon deception packed into a mere 153 pages.
The entire setup feels flimsy & convoluted to me. I don't understand what's so special about Mumsie McGonigle that he'd let her go or change his life for her or murder for her, but also not so special that when they split up it's no big deal. Or that he'd not take steps to get rid of evidence that she knows about so that associates of hers can blackmail Red Bailey a decade after the split. But hey, women are mysterious and wiley creatures who magically make men do dumb things, am I right?
In Brandon Sanderson's riveting "Firstborn," a Tor.com Original short story, much glory is expected of …
Doesn't really stick the landing
3 stars
Content warning
vague booking about the ending
Dennison is a younger noble raised, unbeknownst to him, to face his brother Varion in battle. Varion has nearly finished conquering the rebellious parts of the empire. The emperor expects Varion to turn and try to become emperor. Thus, Dennison, who is a screw up that can't win any of his battles.
The whole thing is reasonably interesting, except for the abrupt end. One failure should not result like that.
Katie Price is known in every living room in America. A small-town Wisconsin girl who …
Perfect people falling in love
4 stars
Wil & Katie are high school friends who haven't talked for 13-ish years because Katie got discovered by Hollywood the summer right after high school. They finally reconnect and sparks immediately fly. But can they overcome a) the residual pain from a decade-long disconnect and b) the publicity of a relationship where one of them is a Hollywood A-lister and one is not?
On the one had, I really enjoyed a story where literally everyone is super intelligent & uses their words. This is not a story where the conflict is based on people doing something stupid and/or miscommunication that they are afraid to say what they mean to other people. The stakes are real though. Wil is finally looking to move on from a mental space triggered by her father's death; she is considering law school that she put off when her dad was dying. Katie is looking to …
Wil & Katie are high school friends who haven't talked for 13-ish years because Katie got discovered by Hollywood the summer right after high school. They finally reconnect and sparks immediately fly. But can they overcome a) the residual pain from a decade-long disconnect and b) the publicity of a relationship where one of them is a Hollywood A-lister and one is not?
On the one had, I really enjoyed a story where literally everyone is super intelligent & uses their words. This is not a story where the conflict is based on people doing something stupid and/or miscommunication that they are afraid to say what they mean to other people. The stakes are real though. Wil is finally looking to move on from a mental space triggered by her father's death; she is considering law school that she put off when her dad was dying. Katie is looking to start a production company after a decade of acting accolades, and getting derailed by a relationship with someone outside Hollywood.
However, I can't give this my top rating for a couple of reasons. Wil & Katie and the story around them are too perfect. Everyone including the background characters has perfect motives. Everyone (except Katie's ex) is perfectly accepting of everyone else. And the manner of the ending feels like everyone's wish fulfillment on what happens to shitty exes. At least what I would want to happen to my famous ex who does shitty things. And secondly, at times the pacing is really slow because the protagonists talk through everything first. At times I wanted to yell at the characters, GET ON WITH THE BANGING YOU'VE TALKED ABOUT IT ENOUGH.
Two New York Times-bestselling psychologists explain the science of cons—and how we can avoid them. …
Interesting
4 stars
Lot's of interesting pop psychology on why people fall for scams. There's lots of techniques that scammers can use to prime people for scams. For example, that most people don't want to be the impolite person who asks hard questions especially in front of others.
As for what we can do about it, most of the sections have a technique or two designed to slow down a person's slide into the scam. However, they're all variations on "be vigilant enough to think about X". For example, "ask yourself why an offer is being made to you." The techniques will work best for someone who is already cranky and vigilant like me, and probably less so without training for others. And I really really wish all these techniques were put together in one section at the end, to provide a coherent overall thinking process.
Katie Price is known in every living room in America. A small-town Wisconsin girl who …
Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous is starting off so damn well! Romance with smart women (even the minor characters are smart). They use their words. They're setting up the stakes as "is minor TikTok influencer willing to blow up her life for famous Hollywood star". Stakes that make me believe in the characters rather than get frustrated by them.
In the garden of a large Georgian villa in Southwest London, socialites and politicos swap …
I've now completed a list of the winners of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, including this 2025 winner. As always, editions on the list on SFBA.club have good covers & descriptions; your mileage may vary on other servers.
From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate …
New episode of If Books Could Kill podcast dropped this week, featuring this fawning biography of a very ugly man. Now added to the If Books Could Kill list on SFBA.club and other fine Bookwyrm servers.
Tagged as a cop killer when a mission of vengeance goes wrong, Angel Dare finds …
Little agency
2 stars
I previously quoted a passage in the book where Angel Dare wonders how she became a sniveling problem. It appeared at the time that Faust had a redemption arc in mind, but the high point of the book is the first chapter where she's about to culminate her revenge by murdering Vukasin (big baddy from previous two books). Someone else gets to him just before she does, and in the melee she shoots and kills a cop.
For the rest of the book, Angel is on the run from the cops, the cop ex-husband of the dead cop in particular. The story hands her off from protector to protector, each of whom gets written out of the story with no real continuity from each to the next. Not just discontinuity between characters, but between each story segment too. Sometimes we aren't even told how they get from segment to segment. …
I previously quoted a passage in the book where Angel Dare wonders how she became a sniveling problem. It appeared at the time that Faust had a redemption arc in mind, but the high point of the book is the first chapter where she's about to culminate her revenge by murdering Vukasin (big baddy from previous two books). Someone else gets to him just before she does, and in the melee she shoots and kills a cop.
For the rest of the book, Angel is on the run from the cops, the cop ex-husband of the dead cop in particular. The story hands her off from protector to protector, each of whom gets written out of the story with no real continuity from each to the next. Not just discontinuity between characters, but between each story segment too. Sometimes we aren't even told how they get from segment to segment. In the penultimate scene she and an accomplice are chased into the forest or scrub by a cop that appears out of nowhere, and then suddenly we're in the final locale a few states away.
Heel turns out of the blue. Bad guys with little or no character development. Angel on an uncontrollable river raft of a story. Everything about this is lacking. Just read the first two books and pretend the third doesn't exist.
Angel Dare went into Witness Protection to escape her past—not as a porn star, but …
Morally flexible heroine
4 stars
After the story of Money Shot, Angel Dare is supposed to be in witness protection, but they didn't protect her enough, so she's on the run trying to hide. On the run, she stumbles into another hit on her ex Thick Vic and his son Cody. Because of her fondness for Vic, she helps Cody. The entire story about her and Cody is orthogonal to her story, except that she's trying to lie low for her own protection. Angel is quite willing to dispense with morals about sex, truth and the sanctity of life to survive, or help Cody survive.
Tagged as a cop killer when a mission of vengeance goes wrong, Angel Dare finds …
The vibe so far on this book is nowhere near as good as the first two books. It's not just Angel Dare on the run. it's Angel Dare pregnant and turning tricks and no criminals even after her. Cops are, because the author had her kill a rando cop about 5 pages in. I'm in through the end, but without improvement I'm going to rate this a lot lower.
