Anki

The Hound of Rowan is an enjoyable first novel, following in the literary footsteps of many boarding-school stories (magical or otherwise). There are a few rough spots in the writing/storytelling, but overall this is a solid book.

Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens is the fourth (and currently last) installment of the Alcatraz Smedry series. Brandon Sanderson ramped up the tension while still maintaining the lighthearted, humorous tone of the series. The reoccurring use of the word “stoopid” did get a little bit irritating at times, but each previous book in the series had some element or other designed for that purpose. Definitely hope that Brandon is able to write and publish the fifth book.

I expected to enjoy this book more than I did, given the setting and the premise of the story. The writing is solid, and things are fairly well paced. All these things combine to make, well, an average story instead of a gripping one.

Turnabout is an interesting novel that explores a couple of ethical questions. It's a quick read, with several fun characters, and I enjoyed it. Had a few issues with some technical aspects of the basic premise, particularly dealing with memory loss and regression, but as I am neither a doctor nor a scientist I cannot say whether or not the problems I had have any grounding in reality. And it is a work of fiction.

This was a pretty quick read, and I enjoyed it. There was enough description that someone not familiar with Forgotten Realms gets a grounding in the world, but not so much that people who are familiar with the world are wanting things to hurry up already.



My one real beef is that it ends on a cliffhanger, and we aren't going to see the next book for several months minimum (probably closer to a year).