Fantasy – Page 13 – Marked for Plot

The Witchstone

Good Omens is a book that casts a very long shadow. Even when books aren’t explicitly setting out to be humorous, it’s tough to avoid comparisons when your lead characters are angels and demons. In this case, we’re only working on the demon half of the equation, but with humor as a core part of the story’s pitch, it immediately had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, I found The Witchstone to mostly be a disappointment, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call the book a bad one.

The Premise
Laszlo (800) is a demon, a nepo-baby, and about the laziest curse keeper you could possibly imagine. He ignores his job of cultivating misery in his assigned family and instead messes around finding ways to swindle enough money to buy the newest Gucci shoes. Unfortunately, a new manager gives him an ultimatum: shape up within a week, or get turned into primordial ooze. The Drakeford family meanwhile, is cursed to turn into monsters, slowly becoming more and more violent and deformed until they need to be put down by their own children. Maggie (19) and Lump (11) get dragged into Laszlo’s orbit when he arrives on their doorstep, claiming he has the keys to solving their family’s problems.

Read if You’re Looking For: plucky humans, sassy demons, some casual tentacle horror

Avoid if You’re Looking For: humor that’s insightful and cutting, tonally consistent books, the next Good Omens

The Diviner (Journals of Evander Tailor #2)

The Journals of Evander Tailor series has been a guilty pleasure favorite of mine for a while. It’s the type of fantasy I wish I would have had as a kid: fun fight scenes with a nerdy gay lead. Life has been pretty hectic recently, so I went in on the audiobooks to listen to as I rip up carpets and contemplate whether I have the skill to try and refinish the floors with my pitiful DIY skills (the answer is definitely not, at least right now).

The Premise:
Evan is in his second year of magic school. After killing the king with the help of a Fae Queen, he finds himself with lots of eyes on him as he scrambles for power that will keep him safe. However, the year will bring a lot more than schoolwork after a visit to a neighboring country clues him in that there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye with the kingdom. Something is terribly wrong, and, let’s be honest, it’s probably the nobility’s fault.

Read if Looking For: fun enchanting, asshat nobility, drama-free relationships

Avoid if Looking For: careful prose, confident characters, books free from tropes

The Whitefire Crossing

In my eternal quest for queer men represented in non-Romantasy books, I’ve started to look back at books that I likely missed in my childhood. Published in 2011, this book would have come out right as I was transitioning to reading books for adults more regularly, still desperately closeted in a small town, and craving representation in any variety.

I didn’t quite find that in The Whitefire Crossing. Both male leads are entangled with women, though sequels very well reveal bisexual identities or add new lead characters. It’s tagged as LGBTQ+ in Goodreads though, which is a good indication that there’s something there. Time will tell I suppose. It didn’t blow me away, but had a lot of interesting things going for it.

The Premise:
Dev is a seasoned smuggler, who ferries magical goods across the mountains in trade caravans. Kiran is a mage on the run from his master, and will give up anything to escape. Dev takes him on as ‘one last job’, but the journey across the mountains is anything but the routine trip Dev is used to.

Read if Looking For: extended travel sequences, detailed climbing descriptions, all-powerful mages

Avoid if Looking For: dynamic fight scenes, books high quality female representation

Sorcery and Small Magics

In my constant hunt for the perfect romance and the perfect Gay Fantasy book, I’ve read a lot of good books and a small mountain of bad ones. I’d initially brushed off Sorcery and Small magics based on the pitch, but after a series of glowing reviews, I decided to give it a try. And what I found was an enjoyable (if not revolutionary) story that was a great book to listen to while packing up boxes for my upcoming move.

The Premise
Leo is in school to develop his skills as a Scriver, someone who writes magic for Sorcerers to cast. Only he doesn’t want to be a magician, or at school, or paired up with his arch-nemiss Grimm, a prodigal talent who matches Leo’s personality about as well as personal responsibility does. When a magical control spell gets cast accidentally on Leo, however, he finds himself unable tied to Grimm far more tightly than he ever wanted to be.

Read if Looking For: wholesome and casual writing, casual bickering, violins

Avoid if Looking For: traditional Romantasy, books that develop theme rigorously

This Inevitable Ruin (Dungeon Crawler Carl #7)

Dungeon Crawler Carl has quickly risen to one of my favorite series of all time. It’s brutally fast paced, irreverent, and has a delightful blend of horror, humor, and melodrama that I adore. This review is for Book 7, which focuses on the much-awaited Faction Wars. Be warned, spoilers ahead for anything in books 1-6.

Carl has arrived at Faction Wars, ready to kill a few thousand offworlders, win a bunch of money for Donut’s fan club, and try to figure out how to keep both Katia and Donut alive.

Honestly if you’ve reached Book 7 of Dungeon Crawler Carl, you don’t need me to tell you whether or not you’ll like the series. If you’ve got no idea what this is, look at my review for book 1 linked above.

By a Silver Thread

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off has brought me some real gems (Orconomics in particular I loved) and also some real duds (I did not like Murder at Spindle Manor). But I do love self-published works, and so when the slate of finalists came out, I decided to grab the titles that called my name. I won’t be reviewing all of them, though I’d already read Wolf of Withervale which I quite enjoyed, but don’t see winning because of how unabashedly queer it is. Unfortunately, I found By a Silver Thread to be a missed opportunity with interesting ideas and flawed execution.

The Premise
Lola is a changeling, supposed to have died as a child after replacing a human baby. However, a ruthless blood mage has kept her alive, turning her into a servant dependent on his medicine to keep her from dissolving into a monster. Unfortunately, he has gone missing, his home ransacked, and Lola only has enough pills for a few days. The hunt is on to find her master, and she’s willing to work with anyone to guarantee that she stays human(ish).

Read If Looking For: classic urban fantasy elements, fun magic, an interesting take on fey

Avoid if Looking For: tightly plotted stories, fleshed-out characters

The Truth of the Aleke

The Lies of the Ajungo captured my attention with how deftly Moses Ose Utomi mixed fable elements into a simple, but tightly written novella with an entrancing setting and eye for exploring power as a motif. The Truth of the Aleke continues that journey, jumping forward several hundred years, abandoning the folktale-esque vibes for something more traditionally ‘epic’ while still maintaining the thematic core of the series.

The Premise:
Several hundred years after the events of The Lies of Ajungo, The Cult of Tutu (the now-dead main character of Lies) has conquered the entire desert. Only the City of Truth stands free, relying on its warrior-seers to protect the city from the onslaught. Osi is a peacekeeper who dreams of bigger and better things, and his impulsivity leads him far closer to the action than he ever thought was possible. He wants to save his city, but Truth is not always as simple as it seems

Read if Looking For: interesting takes on traditional story beats, fallible characters

Avoid if Looking For: deep worldbuilding or complex magic systems

The Bone Swans Collection

The Bone Swans of Amandale has been one of my favorite novellas for a while, and I’d been meaning to read the full collection it was included in at some point. I finally got around to it, and while I don’t think any of the stories quite captured the genius of Bone Swans, there were a few other gems in here. Expect dark fairy tale vibes to run through the series of stories as a motif, and generally high writing craft quality.

Bone Swans: Stories by C.S.E. Cooney | Goodreads

The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales

Generally speaking I only read two books at a time: one audiobook and one text copy. This book, however, has been sitting on my nightstand for around a month. Filled with 2-4 page stories (and the pages aren’t big) this collection of fairy tales and fables was perfect to read before bedtime, chipping away at it whenever I wanted to read, but didn’t have the brain power to commit to my longer novels.

The Premise:
With 26 stories in 100 pages (several of which are only art), there’s a lot of variety in content and characters here. However, there’s a through line of in this stories of hopeful vibes, queer characters, and magical worlds. Even the science fiction stories feature magic or magical creatures, and it always felt very fitting.

Read if Looking For: stories that can be read 5 minutes, hopeful and magical vibes

Avoid if Looking For: complex or deeply thematic reads

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

It’s been nice to see witches getting more love in fantasy over the last five years. Whether or not they delve into historical witchcraft or lean into fantasy cliches, they’re just a fun archetype. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a pretty damn good book focusing on what witchcraft in the modern age might look like. Like with a lot of modern fantasy, you’re getting some political commentary woven into the story, and this book does a good job of locking into an exciting plotline and sticking the landing.

The Premise:
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC) is a pseudo-governmental organization in the United Kingdoms managing the affairs of witches, keeping magic secret, and generally preserving traditions as well as they can. In theory of course. In reality, any group is political, and fracture lines have been spreading over the coven’s racist biases, especially post-civil war in the witch/warlock community. But when a young boy triggers the oracles saying the grand demon himself is rising, things will get rough quickly. Only he’s not a he. He’s actually a she. In this book we follow Helena (High Priestess of HMRC), Elle (a witch trying to live away from witchcraft as much as possible), Niamh (left HMRC to use her powers as a vet) and Leonie (who formed Diaspora, a coven focused on providing a community for witches of color) as they navigate their old friendships, current dilemmas, and what it means to be a woman.

Read if Looking For: witches, critiques of TERF ideology, witchy goodness, POVs from many ideological perspectives

Avoid if Looking For: Books with subtle themes, cinematic action