The Fallen Fortress - R. A. Salvatore

TSR, 1993, 293 pages

IBSN: 1-56076-419-8

Read: December 2025, age 47

 

The Cleric Quintet, book 4 

 

Reasonably fun - the fights especially.  The magic is atmospheric, but doesn't really match the setting - it's not Vancian at all.  This whole series is better than I'd expected, and probably would have been spectacular if I was under 20.

 

Rating: 3 

High Five - Janet Evanovich

St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2000, 317 pages

Original copyright: 1999

ISBN: 0-312-97134-6 

Read: November 2025, age 47

 

Stephanie Plum, book 5

 

Fun, but forgettable.  A very quick read.

 

Rating: 3

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 

Barryar - Lois McMaster Bujold (Audiobook)

Blackstone Audio, 2009, 11.7 hours

Original copyright 1991 

Read by Grover Gardner

Listened to: September 2025, age 47

 

Vorkosigan Saga, book 3 

 

I didn't realize that it had won a Hugo.  It was a good book, but I didn't think that it was that good.  

 

Rating: 4- 

The Hot Kid - Elmore Leonard

Harper Collins, 2005, 312 pages

ISBN: 0-06-072422-6

Read: September 2025, age 47 

 

A period piece - set in South in the 30's - it was an okay story about a US Marshal tracking down a bad guy.  The prose was very nice, and the plotting a bit meandering and slow, and there was really no character growth.  It was good, felt very cinematic.

 

Rating: 3+ 

Virtual Light - William Gibson

Seal, 1993, 350 pages

ISBN: 0-7704-2614-X 

Read September 2025, age 47

  

Bridge Trilogy, book 1

 

First of a trilogy, but no need to read the second.  The world was interesting, and the characters were fun, but the title tech was just a MacGuffin that could have been a piece of paper.  Fun, but nothing spectacular.  The feel was very much Snow Crash, but without all the infodumps, and just surface level.

 

Rating: 3 

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Anchor, 1998, 311 pages 

Original Copyright 1985

ISBN: 9780385490818

Read: September 2025, age 47

 

Beautiful, haunting, terrifying, and boring as all get-out.  It was a good book to have read, but doesn't make me want to go find more like it.

 

Rating: 4 

More Than a Little Warped - Annette Marie & Rob Jacobsen (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2023, 2.6 hours

Read by Iggy Toma

Listened to: August 2025, age 47

 

The Guild Codex: Warped book 3.5 

 

I liked this one better than the last Demonized book, but it was similar - I already knew how it all worked out, so there wasn't the suspense that there could have been.  I still think that a super-group trilogy would have worked better.

 

Rating: 4
 

Delivering Evil for Experts - Annette Marie

Tantor Audio, 2021,  9.6 hours

Read by: Cris Dukehart and Teddy Hamilton

Listened to: September 2025, age 47 

 

The Guild Codex: Demonized book 4 

 

This was a real let-down after the fantastic end to the Spellbound thread.  Most of the book was playing catch-up, showing the same events of  Damned Souls and a Sangria through different eyes.  From here, it seems like Damned Souls, Delivering Evil, and the next Kit Morris book should have been wrapped together in an 'Avengers'-style trilogy, interweaving all three threads within one narrative.  Basically by here, none of it would make that much sense without the other threads anyway - might as well lean into it.  It would have smoothed out some of the redundancy as well.

 

I was happy when this book was over - enough flogging the horse, it died last book.  Not that this one was bad, but the structure made it anticlimactic.

 

Rating: 3 

Damned Souls and a Sangria - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 8.6 hours

Read by Cris Dukehart

Listened to: August 2025, age 47 

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound book 8 

 

Well, here's the big payoff for the series so far.  It was worth it.  Another great book, and now I'm sad, because we're done with Tori and her mages.

 

This series, especially the Spellbound thread, was fantastic.  It stayed strong all the way through to the end. 

 

Rating: 5 

Space Team - Barry Hutchinson

Zertex Audio, 2025, 7.9 hours

Read by Phil Tron

Listened to: August 2025, age 47

 

Space Team book 1

 

Humour is hard.  I'm sure there are people who resonate with this style of farce, but I just found it too much.  The characters - all of them - were just so incredibly stupid through the whole book, and I didn't find that funny.  As a result, I didn't much like the book. 

 

Rating: 3- 

Lost Talismans and a Tequila - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 7.9 hours

Read by Cris Dukehart

Listened to: July 2025, age 47

 

Guild Codex: Spellbound book 7 

 

More of the same, which is fantastic.  Great series. 

 

Rating: 5
 

Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold (Audiobook)

Blackstone Audio, 2009, 8.6 hours

Original copyright 1986

Read by Grover Gardner 

Listened to: July 2025, age 47 

 

Miles Vorkosigan, book 2 

 

Or, how Miles' parents met.  Solid space opera & love story.  

 

Rating: 3+ 

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void - Mary Roach

W.W. Norton & Co., 2011, 334 pages, 

ISBN:  9780393339918 

Read: July 2025, age 47 

 

Very little to do with Mars, but all kinds of interesting tidbits about the space program that I hadn't heard anywhere else, and very well told.  Lots of fun.  I'll keep my eyes open for more from this author.

Rating: 4+