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#BookReview This book, second in Naomi Novik’s young-adult dark academia fantasy series ‘The Scholomance’, starts exactly where we left off in the first book (ramblingreaders.org/user/clare_hooley/review/558898) with our two main protagonists, our narrator El and and her perhaps boyfriend Orion, now seniors in the deadly school. The end of the senior year is when both of them will face ‘graduation’ - a literal gauntlet run through a room filled with wicked hungry magical monsters (always deliciously well-described by Novik’s writing) that, in a standard year, only about half those entering survive. Of course with El and Orion both being so exceptional, we know this isn’t going to be a standard year. El has mellowed out (grown up) from being quite so whiny and angsty, although her sarcastic streak remains undimmed, and now even has friends. Owing to events at the end of book one, she also can’t be invisible to anyone anymore. This character development makes the book stronger and more engaging than before. I will say though, that the ongoing romance between El and Orion is a bit hormone-driven for me, but that’s not out of keeping with the context and age of the characters. After the first third of the book sees El fighting her way through difficulties much as per book book one, we get a change in the second half, as lessons end and it all becomes about practice for graduation, with plenty more school politics as alliances are formed, then broken, then formed again. At least at first, the overriding theme of the series so far, how different it is for haves and have nots, is continued. In the last third of the book, the twist is gradually revealed; it’s not a give away to say El is expected to save the day. It’s also fair to warn there’s a cliffhanger ending - we don’t know get to learn the precise fate for El and Orion here. Overall, once again, there’s a lot of fun to be had here in our characters’ struggle against the malevolent school, although this still doesn’t feel a very likely world. Our information as to what is really it is going on ‘outside’ has been limited to dialogue with incoming freshman hinting at something very ominous. At two-thirds of the way through the trilogy, it does feel a bit late in the day to only now start exploring the ‘real’ goings on and dark prophecies that have been fed as titbits throughout both books. As good as the writing in it is, I’m hoping we’ll get start to get insight that actually moves the story on beyond heroes versus monsters early in the next book.

Young-adult fantasy told in first person through the eyes of El, a 3rd year (~16 years old) female student in the ‘Scholomance’, the magic school of the series title. We as reader are thrown directly into her life at the school, which is completely cut off from the outside world of the adult wizards (there are no teachers here). In this first book of the series, we are then taken a-pace through a series of the school’s non-stop horrors as we learn most of the students die in increasingly gruesome ways; there’s magical monsters at every turn, work assignments that turn deadly, contaminated food, bullies and cliques, and a good dose of adolescent angst. In fact, it’s all quite a good deal of macabre fun, and told with much delightful malice. One of the main themes is how much easier life is if you come from a position of privilege, in this case meaning that you enter the school from a specific ‘enclave’, and thus have a ready-made support network. Without this, students such as El need to find or join such a network by brilliance, drudgery or even offering themselves as cannon fodder. El, however, is so cantankerous, she pushes everyone away and can’t get into the position to show that she is brilliant, namely she has very powerful spells. Although that makes her interesting, it is definitely frustrating that we have an awful lot of text dedicated to her self pity, stubborn pride and even her trying to talk herself out of both. As a counterpoint, we thankfully have the ‘enclaver’ Orion, also acting as romantic interest, who has a gift that means he is courted by all rather than being seen as a person, showing that privilege isn’t necessarily all wonderful either (or at least in this school). The book would be better if we directly switched to other points of view to contrast with El’s everlasting sardonic inner monologue, but I can see that would be complicated for the intended audience. The other negative is that the world is just a too far out there to be believable - as bemoaned by El, it is really is just far too non-stop - but suspend all that because I just need to know how are characters are going to survive graduation, and that’s the next book… #BookReview

After setting up such an amazing world, I struggled with this sequel. The book this time focuses on the development of Kellhus, the warrior-prophet of the title, as he continues to exert his manipulative control on the Holy War. I mostly enjoyed his sections, and found the theology and philosophy interesting. Sadly, everyone else is just far too superficial, even more so when we lose much of the mage Achamian as a countering character. As we march across the continent lurching from battle to battle, anything which is fresh and pithy, and properly grim (there’s an excellent section on finding water), becomes ploughing on through a repetition of the same again and again, so there’s little that really advances the plot or keeps us immersed in the horror, it’s just the killing off another 30% of one or another army. I just seemed to be skimming a lot of text to get to each victory/defeat and another hundred miles or so closer to the destination town! I’m truly hoping we finally get some of the over-arching political dimensions of the world back in the final book.

Emily Wilde is a scholar from a 19th century Cambridge (UK), but in a world where the Fae are elusive but very much accepted as real. While continuing her work to complete the Encyclopedia of Faeries of the title, she travels to investigate the Fae of Scandinavia, and we follow her tale through her journal entries. What’s clever is an unusual and sensitive portray of Emily, who we see finally able to overcome some social ineptitude and start a slow-burning romance with her dashing academic rival and Cambridge colleague, Wendell, who of course has a mysterious background. My favourite parts were the Fae stories themselves (including the interludes outside the plot - literal stories within the story presented as journal footnotes); there’s nothing particularly new there, everything is very traditional folklore - it’s just very well done. What does jar is that the author clearly has no idea of Cambridge academia (tenure is a concept that is neither Cambridge nor period), although we don’t spend too much time in that setting for it to be the problem it could be. For an expert on the Fae, Emily does also find herself trapped and take odd actions just a little too easily. A lighter read, but with some memorable darkness and some humour, but not enough for me to instantly want to buy the sequel.

A light quick read set in the small American coastal town of Ordinary, a town that acts as the residence of vacationing gods. Because they are on vacation, the gods we meet cannot use their powers and they, although not their powers, can die. Among the few human mortals that are in on the town’s secrets, are the three sisters of the Reed family who form the real-life police department, with the chief, Delany Reed, being our main character. Delany’s duties include transferring the power of any gods who die while on vacation to a new person. Thus, when one of gods does die, we have a murder mystery (a little too mundane as we really don’t have much stake in the outcome) and a search for a new host for the god power (which irks because it’s supposedly urgent but is not treated as so by Delany until it’s critical urgent) taking place against the backdrop of the annual rhubarb festival (too stereotypically cutesy, especially with the time devoted to explaining again and again that Delany dislikes rhubarb). The rest of the story involves a romance with a childhood sweetheart who is obviously not quite who he seems (not resolved here), and that’s actually handled nicely (there’s only one intimate scene) if with naive mooning that doesn’t quite fit the character; this has just the right amount of mystery to get invested. Then there are fun interludes with Death, newly on vacation, providing humour; it’s actually perfectly credible that Death would wear tourist t-shirts, always get served an over-the-top drink etc. etc. There are faults aplenty - not just those mentioned above, but also a serious injury that is flippantly resolved by just getting up out the hospital and saying ouch a few times - however, as the first in nine-book series, I’d still give the benefit of doubt to see where it goes, but not if paying a lot for the sequel.

It went on sale, I bought it, and then I stayed up late reading it, once again caught up in the author’s excellent storycraft. Some of what appeals to a British reader is the evocations of the UK countryside and travel that ring true - even to the point of visits to service stations - but what takes these books to excellent is the complexity of the main character, Dan. Once again, here we have him called in by the Green Man to solve a problem that requires his ‘foot in both worlds’ abilities as a human son of a dryad, abilities that mean he can see and interact with the naiads, slyphs, selkies, hobs etc. that appear throughout. Sometimes we get a great helping of his naivety (of course the big cat isn’t really literally a big cat), other times we him have try to hold his own against a pub full of adversaries with careful words, and then again he also plays a hard man that it’s clear he’s not - yet it works. There is a more obviously vicious human-led threat running through the book than we have seen before, when we mostly had evil folklore creatures, and the moralities involved are also more complex. This perhaps makes for grittier reading but these are absolutely not dark or heavy books; it’s not a spoiler to say all gets resolved in the end. The book is self contained but with a few threads left dangling, perhaps to get picked up in a future episode. I’ll definitely be buying it.

A past hero sets out on quest to investigate a warning of doom and finds judging who and what’s the evil to fight isn’t as easy as it was 20 years ago. The trouble is, not the writing exactly, but that the whole thing doesn’t get going, as we flit around visiting another DnD-inspired character in another location but never with enough time/detail to get any answers. The only exception is rather boring interludes as the main character’s sister seeks to rescue her son from danger. Only just finished the book, and all I really remember enjoying is the malevolent talking sword, with even that not injecting the humour or drama it could because it’s too often just told to ‘shut up’. The world does have potential as we learn of hints of more-interesting political ramifications near the end, but it just didn’t do it here. It is possible the second book improves now we have set up the scene, but I wouldn’t buy it straight off.