Against the Tide of Years - S.M. Stirling

Roc, 1999, 454 pages 

ISBN: 978-0-451-45743-1

Read: November 2025, age 47

 

Nantucket, book 2 of 3 

 

Really interesting, well written, and slow.  Small text on thin pages; this book just took a long time to read.  I very much enjoyed it, but I also wished that it focused more on survival and less on war.  That's a common thing for me with this author, and expected.  I might have to write the book I want to read, because I can't seem find that one anywhere.

 

Rating: 4 

 

 

Night Masks - R. A. Salvatore

TSR, 1992, 311 pages

ISBN: 1-56076-328-0 

Read: November 2025, age 47

 

The Cleric Quintet, book 3

 

Another decent book in this series.  Cadderly is trying to recover from PTSD from the events of the first two books, and now has to fight off an assassin team and also learn to actually be a cleric.  I liked the first bit, but the second bit felt a little abstract for a D&D book; advancement was more at the speed of plot rather than the explicitly written magic system of the Forgotten Realms.

 

Rating: 3+

 

 

Relic - Alan Dean Foster

Del Rey, 2019, 385 pages

Original Copyright 2018

ISBN: 978-1-101-96765-2 

Read:  October 2025, age 47

 

A much more melancholy book than I was expecting - I thought this would be a big dumb object exploration, but in fact the main character was the title relic, and the book was an exploration of being the last of one's kind.  Well-written, but a bit less fun than I'd expected.  

 

Rating: 4-

 

 

In Sylvan Shadows - R. A. Salvatore

TSR, 1992, 310 pages

ISBN: 1-56076-321-3

Read: October 2025, age 47

 

The Cleric Quintet, book 2 

 

Not quite as good as the first, but still not bad.  Quick, and fun. It tried for depth of characters, but didn't really succeed.

 

Rating: 3 

Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut

Delacorte Press, 1985, 295 pages

ISBN: 0-385-29416-6

Read: October 2025, age 47 

 

I'm not really sure exactly what *that* was, but it was well written, interesting, and not even a little bit like I was expecting, which is par for the course with Vonnegut, I suppose.

 

Rating: 4 

Canticle - R. A. Salvatore

TSR, 1991, 313 pages

ISBN: 1-56076-119-9

Read: October 2025, age 47

 

The Cleric Quintet, book 1 

 

Well, this was better than the other Salvatore books I've read lately.  Still not fantastic, but readable.  Cadderly is a fun character.

 

Rating: 3 

Raven's Shadow - Patricia Briggs

2004, Ace, 334 pages

ISBN: 978-0-41-01187-2

Read:  October 2025,  age 47

 

Raven Duology, book 1

 

Decent fantasy, kind of fluffy.  Nice to see a non-whiny teenage adventurer for a change.  It didn't really make me want to read more non-Mercy stuff, though.

 

Rating: 3