Category: Books

The Waiting by Michael Connelly, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

The Waiting is Michael Connelly’s 39th book from the Harry Bosch Universe. Renée Ballard from LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit is going to chase a number of different cases at the same time, with the help of Maddie Bosch. Two of the cases are serial killers. Harry Bosch also makes a brief appearance. The avalanche of cases is something we can imagine from an unit that digs into the past and the entire series is plausible. It’s very satisfying because you read about multiple resolutions throughout the book.

Renée Ballard is my current most favorite character by Michael Connelly. She’s experienced but impatient. Doesn’t shy away from yelling at people. Relies on others to do the job. She chills by surfing, which puts her in difficult positions from time to time, including in that book. It starts with the theft of her belongings while surfing. She has no superpowers and doesn’t rely on Deux ex machina to solve the cases. I like the whole setup.

This thriller gets an easy 5*/5 Goodreads rating. It will be a hard thing to read a better book in January. The bar is set high.

Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 10 Comments

Yumeko is a half-human half-fox teenage girl, gifted with the magic of illusion and trickery. She has the mission to bring a powerful scroll to safety. The scroll grants its owner a single wish, granted by the almighty dragon god, who can only be summoned once every 1,000 years. It was used to build or ruin empires, to give immortality, and to trap immortal creatures. However, over the last 2 books, the scroll was taken by an evil and long undead blood mage who wants to open the gates of hell. Yumeko and her friends will try to get it back.

This book is a LOTR-style romantasy where the entire magical system is inspired by Japanese folklore. No elves, or even kobolds. I didn’t tag the previous two books as romantasy because the love story was relatively insignificant and not out of the ordinary for fantasy books. However, this last part is all about characters doing things for each-other out of love and care. Yumeko is so nice that she can melt the hearts of demons.

5/5. Night of the Dragon is slightly less appealing to readers who aren’t into romantasy because some moments are cringe. I think the romance is tolerable.

The print quality is great and the series got its own shelf for now.

The real question for me is if I should keep reading Julie Kagawa. I’m not sure yet. It was a nice detour from the epic fantasy I usually read but another detour might be too much.

Le Cri (Sarah Geringën #1)

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

I somehow managed to read a book that’s only available in 6-7 languages, neither of which is English. The title says “The Scream”, and it got creatively translated to “Patient 488” because it starts with the death of a person who has the number 488 on their forehead. The crime scene looks like suicide but officer Sarah Geringën is not going to be fooled and will follow the lead wherever it goes. Unfortunately, some creep shows up who starts extorting her to add suspense to the book. That creep serves no other purpose and annoyed me for hundreds of pages.

The book comes with a subtle sci-fi element. It doesn’t target sci-fi fans, more conspiracy thriller fans, but nevertheless a sci-fi enthusiast could appreciate the absurd scientific theories. It’s unrealistic in the way the Three Body Problem is, which is not a bad book to be compared with.

All in all, I got tricked by the publisher’s “inspired by real events” on the cover and bought a book I shouldn’t have. I was upset that the detective abandoned her craft and started acting Commando very quickly, and I don’t think this is what should’ve happened.

3.5/5 – Not bad, may consider reading the continuation.

2024 In Books

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

2024 was the first year in which I managed to go over 100 books. This was a major achievement for me and a result of several circumstances:

  • I reengaged with the gamebook community, which is full of voracious readers (and writers)
  • I discovered the Thraxas and Stephanie Plum series that are super interesting and each book is short, single-thread, bubblegum-ish
  • A few of my friends were inspired to read a lot this year so I was not alone on this journey
  • I ignored several of the latest books by Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Zachary Pike, J.K. Rowling, Liu Cixin just because they were too long. Maybe I go back to these works in 2025. Or 2035. Not soon. Ignoring enormous books by otherwise great authors seems to be a good strategy. TL;DR.

Here are the best finds from reading 111 books and 36217 pages:

Best Series

  • Thraxas by Martin Scott – a Pratchett-style comic fantasy series, which I completed entirely in 2024. There are some hints of exploitation in the first 2-3 books.

Top 5 books

  1. We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor – Bob starts exploring the galaxy and the opportunities are endless
  2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  3. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
  4. Conquer Yourself by Silvia Azdreeva
  5. All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Best Gamebook

Trends

  • Kobolds are everywhere
  • AI is human and should be treated as a life form (yet to find a book say otherwise)
  • Pretty covers sell well

2025

I’m not sure if I’ll try to keep the pace for 2025 yet. I’ll set an official goal to read 52 books, or 1/week for the year.