I appear to be in the midst of a John Maddox Roberts phase. This wasn’t intentional. I simply got caught up in the Stormlands series. Then, during a trip back to Portland and the obligatory visit to Powell’s Books, I picked up the second of his S.P.Q.R. novels. Not wanting to start with book two,… Continue reading Yet More JMR
Month: September 2025
The Steel Kings: Stormlands Book Four.
The Steel Kings. Cool title, and, not to bury the lede, a cool story. Book four begins almost as a book end to book three. This time Kairn, Hael’s second son is the protagonist, going on an adventure, meeting a woman. The travelogue continues, the exploration of John Maddox Robert’s post-apocalyptic North America, this time… Continue reading The Steel Kings: Stormlands Book Four.
Sword-and-Sorcery and Song and Dance: Steven Brust’s “Lyorn.”
Lyorn is the seventeenth installment in Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series. For some reason I’d believed this would the final book, as there are seventeen houses in the Cycle of his fictional universe, and one book title now corresponds to each individual house. I was, apparently, incorrect, as this novel does not tie up loose… Continue reading Sword-and-Sorcery and Song and Dance: Steven Brust’s “Lyorn.”
L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Glory That Was.”
My edition of The Glory That Was is dedicated to Isaac Asimov and boasts an introduction by Robert A. Heinlein. So right up front you have substantial implied attestations of quality. But I’ve learned not to set my sights too high, and tempered my expectations accordingly. I expected an L. Sprague de Camp short novel:… Continue reading L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Glory That Was.”