“You can’t beat no orc marines

When we fire our M16s!”

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Mary Gentle’s Grunts in a nutshell. Grunts is a satire of the schlocky high fantasy Tolkien ripoffs of the 70s and 80s. It pokes fun at the aesthetic of the American military as portrayed in film and literature. It combines Grand Guignol (think slapstick but extra gory and violent) dark comedy with satire on bad fantasy.

A fantastic conclusion to the Book of the New Sun. Do not skip this one, it’s cool, it’s funny, it’s wacky, it’s begging to be read multiple times.

If you’ve got the right group, this would make for a great book club book.

Shadow & Claw is an omnibus containing the first half of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun which is a far future sci-fi fantasy epic following the story of Severian the torturer, a self described insane person who has trouble differentiating between reality, his memories and his dreams.

A murder mystery set in a Warhammer 40k-esque far far future universe setting with necromancy at the core of everything. Also it’s horny but not explicitly so.

This novel is trying to do a little too much IMO and fails to tell a cohesive story that works all the way through as a result.

It’s not bad, far from it. It’s just inconsistent and a little long.

This novel suffers from middle book syndrome. It continues the story set up in the first book and, hopefully, sets up the third and final book.

The shake that passes will echo. The wave that recedes will come back. The mountain that rumbles will roar.

The Fifth Season is a story about suffering and trying to find moments of pleasure and peace in a broken world.

The POV characters are all persecuted and forced to suffer because of circumstances outside of their control.