Lucas Blogs About Books

Yeah, that's right, I've been sick this past week. Should I get tested? No, my covid test came back negative. Also, since we only share cyber-space instead of meat-space, you're probably fine. Well, I hope you feel better. Wait, you're not going to give me crap about something so obviously absurd as a blogger taking a sick day? You've only done it once before, you've got good sick day credibility. Oh, so I do. Back next week.

Well, that's eye-catching.   So, what's this book's deal? Well, Hypothetical Reader, Magic for Liars  is a fantasy novel by Sarah Gailey. It's about Ivy Gamble, a private eye, who finds herself in the employee of Osthorne Academy when a member of the faculty is found bisected in the library. Bisected? You mean like split into two parts? Yep! Right down the middle. What kind of school is this? It's a magic prep school. Is Ivy a magic detective? No. But her twin sister, Tabitha, is on the faculty. So when Headmaster Torres still has lingering doubts about the official investigation, she hires Ivy to poke around and see if she can find any leads. Anyway, Ivy and Tabitha fell out years ago after finding out that Tabitha could do magic and she went away to a school like Osthorne. While Ivy interviews faculty and students she also finds herself flirting with Rahul Chaudhary, the physical magic teacher, while maybe, kinda-sorta letting him think that she knows how to do ma...

It's that not hard being green. So, you actually stopped playing Hades  long enough to write a blog post, eh? Yes, Hypothetical Reader, I was able to exert a modicum of self-control and sit down to write about this lousy book. Poisoning the well, aren't we? Maybe a bit, but we've got another inductee into the " books-that-I-didn't-finish " club. I struggled mightily to complete this book and gave up two-thirds of the way through. Dude! You were in the home stretch! I know, but each time I put the book down it got harder and harder to find the motivation to pick it back up. According to my book-mark, I even stopped in the middle of a chapter. Anyway, I just realized that I haven't even mentioned the title or author yet. You're slipping. Sure you wouldn't rather talk about Hades ? Well, that's certainly done a better job of holding my attention of late, but no. I'll blog about Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer. So, what's its deal? Well, it...

  Hmm, it's sort of book-shaped. Lucas, did you play video games all weekend instead of getting anything ready to post today? Maybe, why do you ask? You seem to have deployed the inOpportune cOntent rePlacement proceSs . Oh, yeah, see I picked up Hades on Friday and I've been spending a lot of free time trying to escape from the Underworld. Sorry. I guess the Dionysian impulse won out over the Apollonian. You're the worst, Lucas. ‾\_(ツ)_/‾.

I So what's this book's deal? Oh, this is The Obelisk Gate , it's the second entry in N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy. Wait, did you blog about the first book  without me? I did. And you expect me to be able to keep up? I mean, I can write you however I like. Maybe you read the first book but haven't read the second and I don't need to fill you in. Well, maybe you could just give me a quick recap of the story so far. Okay. So on this continent called the Stillness there are people called orogenes who can control seismic activity. They are feared and oppressed. An annoying feature of life on the Stillness are Fifth Seasons which are seismic catastrophes leading to conditions not unlike nuclear winter. The main character is Essun, an orogene who tried to escape and live a normal life until her husband, Jija, learned the truth, murdered their son, Uche, and ran off with their daughter, Nassun. All of this happens against the backdrop of a Fifth Season that is p...