I read some good books in April, and some I won’t remember.
Best
- Mickey7 – a Silo-style sci-fi, where settlers live inside a struggling habitat and are surrounded by ice and hostile aliens. It was short and on point, getting extra points for keeping the story contained. Overall, a clear 5*, and recommended here. Edward Ashton is on Bluesky and saw my post 😀
- City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett – Robert Bennett comes up with very complex fantasy worlds. In City of Stairs, the Gods have been defeated and temporarily withdrew. The main character is like Adjunct Tavore, bravely facing them off when they attempt to creep back in.
- Death and a bit of love by Alexandra Marinina – Kamenskaya will chase her most obscure murder case so far. I guessed who the murderer was this time but it was overall a great crime story. It was very confusing and not at all clear, despite my good guess.
- Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings – I awarded this epic LOTR-style fantasy with only 3 stars. It is very foolish and full of tropes. But it is interesting and I’m slowly reading the next chapter on my phone so it might not be 3* after all.
Worst
- Law of Gravity – I gave it 5/5 but I have no memory of ever reading it, no idea who the main character was, and what happened. So, a special point for pointlessness
- The Mermaid Singing (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #1) – A horror story that tortures some victims but mainly the reader.
Veselin.blog 
I read The Belgariad when I was 9 or 10 and LOVED it. So much so that when I read LOTR I wasn’t impressed. That bought me a lot of ridicule from the nerd community. Every since then I’m always on the lookout for people who happen to read/see/hear the ripoff first and their reaction the original.
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Yeah, 9-10 sounds like the right age to read that book 🙂
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and full of tropes
Eddings deliberately wrote his stories based on tropes. It was an act on his part and worked for the first couple of his series but then his later stuff was less than 1star garbage.
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