The story seems set up as a quest/mystery, but the narrative voice is more concerned with the rather forced romance between the two viewpoint characters.
Guards! Guards! Review
I really want you to think of this less as a review for a specific Pratchett novel - Guards! Guards! - and more as a reminder to come back to Discworld every now and then.
Recommendation: DragonForged
The particular incarnation of the creatures in DragonForged is as god-like beings, and the story has a certain mythical overtone.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice Review
It is the combination of an unsympathetic narrator, no meaningful plot progression, unremarkable rhetoric, and unserious approach which led me to abandon the text. I’m not certain why it’s received so much praise and attention, other than the controversies it stirs.
The Narrow Road Between Desires Review
What’s missing from The Narrow Road Between Desires is not conflict, or higher stakes, but a point. It never gives the reader an answer to the question “why am I reading this story?”
Beowulf Review
It can be read, outside of some of the trappings and language, as a kind of historical-fantasy tale with which plenty of people today are familiar. We still tell monster tales, albeit usually not in alliterative verse.
Life in a Medieval City Review
We’re all supposed to be getting away from the stock, default medieval Europe-inspired fantasy settings, because they’ve become passe. It’s true such settings can be overused, but they are mostly overused because so many authors fail to utilize books like Life in a Medieval City.
Wind and Truth Review
Entire subplots of the book read like anachronistic polemics on mental health, and the result is a robbing of depth from most of the characters who powered the series’ earlier installments.
Some Thoughts on Character Death (And Resurrection)
We can all agree there are fates worse than death, but death can still be considered the “ultimate” consequence because it is, at least under normal circumstances, final.
A Historically Adjacent “Adaptation”
I was intrigued by how well the riddle’s tone and contents, read through the lens of referring to a travelling minstrel increasingly unneeded by his society, could map into the world of Impressions, and especially the druids’ fate.
