Sleeping Late on Judgement Day - Tad Williams

DAW, 2014, 453 pages

ISBN: 978-0-7564-0987-6

Read: May 2025, age 47

 

Bobby Dollar, book 3 of 3 

 

Decent: interesting along the way, reasonably fun.  I didn't feel that it ended particularly well - it left plenty of hooks dangling to keep the story going, more like the end of an instalment than of a series, so not particularly satisfying.  

 

Rating: 3+ 

New Spring - Robert Jordan

 Tor, 2004, 359 pages

 ISBN: 0-765-34545-5

 Read: June 2025

 

Wheel of Time prequel 

 

Unnecessary, but it was well-written, had a reasonable plot, and it was fun to spend a bit of time with Moiraine and Lan.  Not a lot of suspense, seeing as we know the end state right from the start, but this was 'Good Jordan'.

 

Rating: 3+ 

Ice Planet Barbarians - Ruby Dixon (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2017, 5.9 hours

Original copyright 2015

Read by: Hollie Jackson & Mason Lloyd

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Ice Planet Barbarians book 1

 

Kinda funny, simple but reasonably fun plot, graphic descriptions of plated penises, and plenty of conventional sci-fi plot holes to allow for things like breathing, eating, and inter-species relations on a different planet.  Don't expect hard sci-fi.  It was touted as erotica, but really, it was about the level of a Harlequin romance, with aliens. The initial raping-to- establish-that-some-aliens-are-bad was unnecessary. Overall, though?  Better than it had any right to be.

 

Rating: 3+

Fire Touched - Patricia Briggs (Audiobook)

Brilliance Audio, 2016, 10.1 hours

Read by: Lorelei King 

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Mercy Thompson, book 9 

Good, but this series is starting to feel like it's running in place a little bit.  

Rating: 4-

The Alchemist and an Amaretto - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 6.9 hours

Original copyright 2019

Read by: Chris Dukehart

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound, book 5

 

The whole overarching series is good, but I *really* like the initial / main story.  Tory is a fun viewpoint for the insanity.  The characters don't necessarily change too much, but we get to learn a lot about why they are who they are along the way.  This instalment was a strong action/mystery story, but with some significant repercussions that look like they're going to start tying the other series in pretty quickly.

 

Rating: 5

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 12.5 hours

Original copyright 2020

Read by: Joel Richards

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

 Saint of Steel, book 1

 

I did not expect a straight-up romance hidden in fantasy trappings.  It was a good romance, funny, with complicated mature characters, a fun supporting cast, and just enough mystery to keep things moving, but... straight romance.  With poor communication and mistaken assumptions as main driving forces. Not a genre that I've read much in the past 20 years, and I probably won't go back too often, but it was a nice change.

 

Rating: 4

Hellbound Guilds and Other Misdirections - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 8.2 hours

Read by: Iggy Toma

Listened to: March 2025, age 46

 

Guild Codex: Warped, book 2 

Lots of fun.  This was another police procedural / duck out of water type story, and it went very well.  I haven't found any bad books in this series or the larger megaverse.

 

Rating: 4+