"Ships, Secrets, and Survivors" by Sarah Rodecker and Helena George

This book is like if you took one of those teenagers-having-a-big-and-slightly-deadly-competition books and abruptly turned it into a seafaring pirate adventure book partway through. And also the teenagers are all actually adults; the protagonist is like 20. And all the ships can talk.

The main character, Ravin, is a sort of ex-assassin. "Sort of" because I'm not sure if, when you've trained to be an assassin but then failed the assassin entrance exam, you count as an ex-assassin or just a never-was-an-assassin-to-begin-with.

But there's also a character, named Shade, who's constantly suspicious of him. And we know Ravin is trustworthy because he's the protagonist, but in a world where assassins are an established system of untrustworthy ne'er-do-wells, it does make quite a bit of sense to not trust the one that suddenly appeared in your midst. On a related note, Shade's change of heart and cessation of suspicion does not seem to me to make sense with how his character is up to that point.

I think this could have used maybe one more proofreading pass. There are a couple places where I think I can see what they're going for, but there are a couple of words left out.

The ending wraps everything up a tad neatly for my taste. It's just oddly convenient how everything works out.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...a soft T15+ for sexual references. Honestly I think the movie ratings do a better job with this sort of thing, because they say "parental guidance until the age of [age]", meaning that parents can decide whether or not they want younger children to read it (or, in the case of movies, watch it). But I wouldn't hand this to a 13-year-old without a few reservations (or at least without talking to their parents), so there you are.

4 stars.

(Endnote: In case you were wondering, which you almost certainly weren't, the titular "ships" are not the romance kind of ships. Except for two side characters who are married, there's no romance in this book.)

"The Schwa Was Here" by Neal Shusterman

A schwa is the upside-down "e" symbol. It's used pretty much exclusively in phonetics, and it makes a sort of "uh" sound.

Don't worry, this isn't a book about typography. It's actually about Calvin "the Schwa" Schwa, a teenager who makes you forget about him. Not on purpose, it just sort of happens. Unless he's pointed out to you, or he points himself out to you, it's really hard to remember him. He's just so eminently forgettable, so much so that people will often forget he's there in the middle of talking to him. Or talking about him. Or writing about him.

He's not the main character, though. That honor goes to

The Schwa Was Here isn't actually a book about the Schwa. Well, it is and it isn't; he's definitely prominent, but he's not the protagonist. The protagonist is Anthony "Antsy" Bonano, a normal and non-forgetfulness-inducing teenager. There's also an incredibly curmudgeonly old dude, the old dude's blind granddaughter who accidentally induces a love triangle, and various minor characters.

Speaking of the love triangle. Love triangles just fill me with a certain je ne sais quoi... I think it's called "annoyance"? This one does at least get resolved fairly quickly, unlike some I could mention (coughKeeperoftheLostCitiescough), in that it doesn't take like ten books and counting. But it still annoyed me while I was reading

This book seemed like it was going to end unsatisfactorily, and then it didn't. The ending, originally bittersweet and somewhat hollow, is made abruptly better by the final two pages.

The chapter titles are quite funny. I like them.

Did you notice that |on the cover, the author's last name is spelled with a schwa where the schwa sound is|? I didn't until |I was like a third of the way through the book|, and I think it's a neat detail. Especially how |you miss it at first, but then you notice it and it was there all along|... it just ties in so nicely with the story.

How many times have I started writing this post? Somehow I keep forgetting about

So yeah, the book was good enough and interesting enough that it inspired... *gestures vaguely at the above post* this from me. It's sort of the blogging version of performance art, I guess?

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for some crude humor and a veiled sexual reference or two.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I think I've cracked the code. The Schwa is actually Kilroy. They were both Here.)

"Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

This book is creepy.

I honestly don't know what else to say about it. It's about a girl, named Coraline (not Caroline), who discovers that the bricked-up doorway in her flat actually leads to a scary mirror-world inhabited by a reality-warping monster who pretends to be Coraline's mom and wants Coraline to stay with her forever. And who, in the grand tradition of reality-warping monsters everywhere, doesn't like being told "no." There's also a cat.

Coraline is one of the better child protagonists I've seen. She acts believably like a kid, she isn't 12 (I don't think she's 12, anyway), but despite being a realistic child she's not useless.

Most children's horror books (I'm looking at you, Creepover) are... not actually that scary. At all. Coraline is an exception. It genuinely frightens me, and that doesn't happen often. I'd actually read it once before (this review is being written after a reread), and that almost makes it worse, because now you know what's coming.

(Granted, I'm not the target audience for things like Creepover. But still. It's not that scary.) 

Oh yeah. My mom reviewed this.

[EDIT, 1/13/2026: Changed the cover image so it wasn't the one from the graphic novel.]

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for being really, really creepy, but otherwise having nothing else objectionable. That said, it would probably also be a really good horror videogame.

4 stars.

(Endnote: This review is part of my first completed quest.)

Mini-Reviews 17: Again

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers

My mom reviewed this, here. Go there for some actual thoughts on the book.

I honestly wouldn't have done even this utter placeholder of a mini-review normally. However, this (sad excuse for a) review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+.

3 stars.

Tags for this one: 3-star, classics, junior fiction, magical realism, rated E10+

Quaint Creatures by Andrew D. Meredith

This is a book about a veterinarian in what's basically a D&D world. It's quite fun and I wish it were a series so I could read more of it.

I think it balances the slice-of-life aspect with the plot quite well. That, however, is my personal opinion; other people might think it needs more plot or more slice-of-life.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence. It could be a reasonably good videogame; I'd play it.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, fantasy, rated E10+, slice-of-life

The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray by E. Latimer

This book involves (posthumously) Dorian Gray, of The Picture of Dorian Gray fame. That would be a spoiler, but come on, the book's about spooky magic paintings and the protagonist's last name is Gray.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for scary scenes and {T15+ implied past homosexuality, thanks to the subject matter involving Oscar Wilde. It's pretty veiled, and if you didn't know about Wilde you probably wouldn't notice it, but it's there and it bugged me. It was also kind of sprung on you near the end, so I'd already read most of the book before I noticed.}

1 star. Honestly I probably should have quit reading it, but I wanted to know how it ended. It's rather a shame about the above-mentioned redactedness, because Bryony herself could have been quite a compelling protagonist.

Tags for this one: 1-star, magical realism, rated T15+

(Endnote: Zac Efron is in none of these books.)

"Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbitt

For best results, listen to |"Who Wants To Live Forever"| while reading this.

Tuck Everlasting is a poignant book about how it's not really a good idea to |live forever| in a fallen world. (Granted nothing I can find says the author was a Christian, so it's possible the point is actually just it's-not-a-good-idea-to-|live-forever| period, but I stuck "in a fallen world" on there because, y'know, |Heaven|.)

There's a character in this, "the man in the yellow suit," (he's never actually named, but he's always called the man in the yellow suit because he wears a garish yellow suit) who's pretty much the quintessential |"evil businessman who wants to take over the magic and sell it and RUIN EVERYTHING BECAUSE HE'S A JERK"|, and I thought he was going to be |the main conflict of the book|. And while he does set off the |actual main conflict, he does so when one of the immortal people kills him by accident|. Which is actually a pretty novel way of dealing with such a character; they're skilled at making audiences be like "for pete's sake just stop messing with things and get out of the plot," but |almost nobody ever takes them out of the plot|.

You could also say this is a book about |the Fountain of Youth|, but it's really not; presumably |an actual Fountain of Youth would just rewind your age to a greater or lesser degree|. Whereas the |immortality-granting spring| in this is actually more like |a Fountain of Putting Your Life On Pause Forever|.

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for discussing death and suchlike.

4 stars.

(Endnote: |Anybody else remember when I used to do| potato soup |jokes on heavily redacted posts?|)

"Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex" by Eoin Colfer

In which Artemis has an incredibly annoying alter ego.

He's come down with the titular Atlantis Complex, which is a mental disorder criminals with magic get. In his case, it manifests as an irrational fear of the number four, an irrational love of the number five, severe paranoia, and (eventually) the aforementioned incredibly annoying alter ego. That last is named Orion and he's pretty much the opposite of normal Artemis in every way.

This one jumped fewer sharks than The Time Paradox, possibly because there aren't tons of sharks left to jump. It's better than that one, but it's still probably my second least favorite volume. This is Orion's fault.

Artemis's extremely fancy phone has a bunch of mini-programs, or "mi-p's", on it. Tech-savvy readers may recognize these as what we now call "apps". This isn't a Renamed Concept Rule, though, because the book was written in 2006, and mobile apps started being a thing sometime around 2008. So rather than cumbersomely renaming apps, this book actually predicted their existence.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence and Orion being weird. 

3 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "No," said the centaur with absolute certainty. "And I say that with absolute certainty."

    Page 137.

    [for context, there's a giant squid trying to crack open Artemis's sea helmet]

    The noise was exactly what Artemis had always imagined it would sound like if a giant squid tried to crack his sea helmet.

    Page 293.

    Any first-day chemistry student could have told Ragby never to put sparks near a mystery gas.

    Unfortunately, Ragby had never met any first-day chemistry students...

    Page 326. 

(Endnote: The author's name is actually pronounced "Owen," not "Ay-oine" or "Ee-owen" or anything like that.)

"Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox" by Eoin Colfer

Ah yes. The Time Paradox. The only volume of the entire eight-book Artemis Fowl series I do not personally own.

Let me explain.

Now that we have the eighth type of fairies back (as of The Lost Colony) and can do the big magic again, the fairies have the capability to do things like time travel. Which is good, because Artemis's mom is dying of a sickness or something, and in order to save her, he needs a very specific species of lemur. Don't ask me why.

Unfortunately, back when he was still evil, he caused that exact species of lemur to go extinct. Again, don't ask me why. So Holly and present!Artemis go back in time to stop past!Artemis from extinctifying the lemur, which leads to more time-travel-based shenanigans.

And this is where the book gets weird, and it doesn't stop doing so. I would be entirely unsurprised to learn that this was written with the goal of "make Artemis/Holly shipping less problematic;" normally it's super weird and kind of creepy because Artemis is like 15 and Holly is like 80, but this one solves (well, "solves") that by physically re-aging them until they're both biologically the same age. Doesn't really get rid of the mental age gap though, which is where like 87% of the problematicity comes from.

Also, somehow past!Artemis is more competent than present!Artemis? I found that pretty hard to believe. There's also weird stuff with people who want random endangered animals to go extinct if they aren't useful, which is actually |Opal Koboi's fault. Somehow.|

This book's sole saving grace is that it does manage to be plot relevant, with |time-traveled past!Opal| featuring majorly in book 8.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for being weird.

2 stars.

(Endnote: For all the title says, |book 8|'s time travel is |a lot more paradox-y and confusing|.)

"Keeper of the Rend" by Lisa Maxwell

The cover makes it look like horror, but it's not really. It's more magical realism than anything.

This book has a symbolism-laden main villain (a colorless and lifeless alternate dimension inhabited by an entity that wants to make our dimension colorless and lifeless) that it doesn't attempt to use as a heavy-handed allegory for something in real life, and I'm not sure what to make of that.

On the one hand, it's kind of nice to have a book like this not be bashing you over the head with its philosophy. On the other hand, it does leave the book feeling kind of... uh... unfinished? Incomplete? It's got a sort of space in it where it feels like something is supposed to go, where you expect there to be that aforementioned allegory, but there's nothing in it. There's no overwhelming central message to the book, contrary to the rest of the text that feels like it should have one.

Which honestly makes it seem more mature than a lot of other middle-grade fiction. Now that I think about it, I don't know if what I'm seeing is this book being nuanced, or other books being overly direct. Granted, the maturity and nuance is kind of undermined by its tacking on a weirdly trite bit at the end, but still.

(Basically, there's two intermingled subplots, one about how the main character's brother is being a more-than-usual jerk to him, and one about how the main character's dad ignores him and thinks his birdwatching hobby is for wimps. The first one ends with a "well, now that he's no longer |pretty much mind-controlled by the evil dimension entity's spooky marbles of doom| he's nicer, but there have been some permanent effects and this isn't just going to magically go away." Which makes the resolution of the second one, which I expected to also have some variant of "this isn't just going to magically go away," seem weird -- "the dad suddenly realizes he needs to spend more time with his other son, and asks him about birdwatching to do so, despite not having had any sort of character arc leading up to this" doesn't really mesh with the rest of the book. The rest of the book is intricate and well-plotted enough that I'm just going to blame the editor for this weird juxtaposition.)

The book doesn't shy away from having the boy protagonist get rescued from things by the girl deuteragonist, but it also doesn't shy away from reversing that and having the girl deuteragonist get rescued from things by the boy protagonist. I thought that was interesting; usually if you flip the damsel-in-distress trope around by having the damsel be a guy, you don't also flip it around again and have the rescuer also have to get rescued herself.

It's possible that part of the message of this book is "parents should be there for their kids, who shouldn't have to be solving problems that should be solved by adults." Both Xavier (the protagonist) and Clementine (the deuteragonist) really shouldn't be fighting this evil entity, and they both grow up significantly over the course of the story. They're also |not actually able to stop it by themselves; if Clementine's dad hadn't realized what was going on and come to the rescue, they would have lost, and probably both died.|

That being (at least some of) the message would explain the weird tacked-on bit I mentioned above, if the editor was trying to make it more obvious or something.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and family problems.

4 stars. I'd really like to read this with a book club sometime so I can see what other people think of it, as it was really thought-provoking. Maybe that's what the lack of hitting-you-over-the-head-with-real-world-applicability is for; it's so you actually think about it instead of being like "okay, this is what this book is unsubtly saying, I get it, on to the next one."

(Endnote: Blogger insists "deuteragonist" isn't a word, which it totally is. Look it up if you don't believe me.)

"Steal Fire from the Gods" by Clint Hall

The Prometheus reference in the title doesn't make sense until the very end.

This is set in a world after robots acquired sentience, then acquired element magic, then acquired world domination. Over the course of the story they also acquire |blood magic| (despite not themselves having |blood|; they get it from |kidnapped babies|), then finally acquire |Satan|. I thought the robots were alien robots at first; they are not.

The plot follows a guy named Gunnar Graves, who's initially rather angstily self-centered and doesn't grow out of it for much of the book, not helped by everyone telling him he's some sort of chosen one. That usually tanks my enjoyment of a book (the "overpowered chosen one who angsts because he doesn't want to be the chosen one" trope is one of my least favorites, because it almost always feels like an emo teenager's self-insert), but in this case, it's redeemed. Mostly by the very end.

Speaking of which, ENDING SPOILERS. |The last two chapters elevate this from a kind of mediocre book to a pretty good one. The main character, Gunnar Graves, who's somehow acquired the title "The Immortal Gunnar Graves" over the course of the book... kinda dies. And by "kinda" I mean "permanently". This marks the first time I've seen any book do that; there's a couple famous series I've read that kill off their main characters, but both of them get brought back.|

|In my eyes, this makes up for the self-centeredness of the main character, as he goes from "it's all about me and my personal angst war against the robots" to sacrificing himself so everyone else can have a shot at the robots. The telepath kid NPC, who the main character had spent half the book being mad at for no good reason, proves to be quite good at his job. I like the telepath kid.|

The magic system in here isn't very explained. Possibly because the main character hates his magic lessons. 

This is, uh, sort of Christian magical realism? It's implied the magic is from God and the robots are just misusing it (this is possibly |Satan's fault|), and the book is written by a Christian. Eh, it can have the tag, it's better than A Song Called Home was.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A strong T for violence and harm to children.

4 stars. 

(Endnote: I have no idea what the promotional quote means by "compressed-epic".)

"The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman

This... was weird.

Well, everything Neil Gaiman writes is weird somehow. He seems to have a weird imagination. But this one is extra weird.

It's a guy remembering stuff that happened when he was a kid. The stuff includes a cat, a weird miner guy, a very strange pond, some witch-ish people (related to a character from his other story The Graveyard Book) who live at the end of the lane, and monsters that could be very effectively played for cosmic horror if this were that kind of story.

My mom reviewed this on her blog, here. Her thoughts are much more coherent than mine.

Neil Gaiman did a very good job of making the main villain, |Ursula Monkton the human incarnation of the extradimensional monster|, be the kind of person who both kids and adults hate with a flaming passion. I.E. a slightly lower caliber a near-exact clone of Dolores Umbridge.

I honestly don't have a lot to say about this one.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for, as my mom said in her review, "scenes where a 7-yr-old witnesses two adults engaged in adult activity (not described explicitly, but what they're doing is very obvious), scary scenes, and suicide."

4 stars.

(Endnote: In case you're wondering, it's pretty clear that the titular ocean is neither the Pacific nor the Atlantic.)

"The Burning Tree" by Helen Dent

It's a tree... THAT'S ON FIYAHHHHHH!

Actually, the Burning Tree is not, in fact, on fire. |Yet.| What it does do is randomly curse people for no apparent reason, until it kicks off the plot by sending the main character's sister into a coma. (This is apparently the first time it's done this to someone.) To try to reverse this, the main character, Ellie Caster, |sets it on fire in an attempt to get rid of it. Unfortunately, this just makes everything worse|.

This one is magical realism more than anything. It's not played scary enough to be horror, and the magic isn't understood enough in-universe to be urban fantasy. Those three (magical realism, urban fantasy, and horror) are sort of the trifecta of "modern setting but it has magic".

Anyway, the book is set in a small town inhabited mainly by three huge extended families: the Casters, the Levys, and the Finches. The Casters and the Levys super hate each other, and the Finches are just kind of there. Unfortunately for Ellie Caster's blood pressure, she has to work with her nemesis Charlotte Levy when the Burning Tree starts causing problems. And also a guy named Curtis Finch, the cousin of Drew Finch, Ellie's crush (who has a crush on Charlotte, not Ellie, causing even more drama).

It's engaging enough to make me stay interested throughout the whole thing, and its main plot twist was twisty enough that I didn't see it coming. Which are my favorite type of plot twists. It's possible that I've just read so much middle-grade fiction that based on the blurb and the first few chapters I can throw several general roadmaps out into the ether, and one of them usually broadly matches the plot of the book.

When I can't do that (like with this book, which is actually YA, not middle-grade), or when there's an out-of-nowhere plot twist, is when I get pleasantly surprised. (Or unpleasantly, as with things like "turns out the love interest is secretly the main villain").

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fight scenes. I'd play a videogame of it, though I'm pretty sure players on their second or third (or eighth, or ninety-second) playthroughs would use their metaknowledge to try to sequence break (going to places and doing things before they'd happen if you play the story normally). I think it would be hard to stop that while still maintaining verisimilitude, but it's probably possible.

4 stars.

(Endnote: As far as I can tell, Helen Dent is no relation to Arthur Dent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame.)

"The Dunwich Horror" by H. P. Lovecraft

Behold, Baby's First Lovecraftian Horror.

 

I realized early on that most of the chapters in this can be summed up in a sentence apiece; behold my best efforts at doing that.

 

Chapter 1: Dunwich is spooky because spooky things happened there.

Chapter 2: A weird lady has a very ugly and creepily mature baby.

Chapter 3: Weird lady, her insane grandfather, and the creepily mature baby do spooky offscreen stuff in their house.

Chapter 4: The creepily mature baby becomes an eight-foot-tall creepily mature toddler.

Chapter 5: The evil kid discovers the Necronomicon and a professor tries to stop him.

Chapter 6: The evil kid says an eldritch ritual and sort of dissolves.

Chapter 7: A giant invisible monster terrorizes Dunwich.

Chapter 8: Three professors translate the evil kid's equally evil journal and devise a plan to stop his plans.

Chapter 9: The three professors arrive in Dunwich and start trying to find the monster.

Chapter 10: The professors yeet the monster out of realspace with an eldritch ritual.

 

The book could have had the first three to four chapters condensed into one without much detracting from the story, aside from making it a bit less atmospheric.

 

The eldritch rituals used by both the three professors and the evil kid feature Lovecraft's trademark unpronounceability. I don't have much to say about that, other than just pointing it out.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for some swearing and creepiness (particularly the somewhat overdramatic description of what the giant invisible monster looks like when it's temporarily rendered visible, which is pretty disturbing when visually represented).

 

3 stars. I have now taken a small nibble of this genre, and it's not really to my taste. That said, the overall quality of the story wasn't terrible.

 

(Endnote: This is the only rendering of the cover I could easily find that doesn't have an artist's picture of the titular horror on it.)

Mini-Reviews 13: It's Not Even Friday!

Playing with Fire by Derek Landy

Book 2 of Skulduggery Pleasant. (Book 1 is here.) In this one, some new (or possibly not so new?) bad guys show up and try to resurrect an evil giant monster thing. |They succeed, and the heroes have to fight it.|

It's been like a year since I read the last one, so I don't remember how many of the villains in this were mentioned in the first one.

Oh, and the Spring-Heeled Jack shows up, which was interesting.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and giant spiders.

4 stars. However, as previously mentioned, there are giant spiders; I can read past them, but if you hate giant spiders, you probably shouldn't read this.

Tags for this one: 4-star, cool magic, modern setting, rated T, urban fantasy

The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby by Jenny Lundquist

This is about a twelve-ish-year-old girl, Violet Barnaby, whose mom is dead and whose dad has recently remarried. She spends most of the book grieving for her mom and railing against the injustice of change.

She also spends most of the book repressing the urge to just snap and start shouting at everything. I, too, have repressed that urge, as probably have we all.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, DRAMA!, modern setting, rated E

The Wolf of Cape Fen by Juliana Brandt

This book has a very twisty plot, and one that holds together in light of the new plot twists (I'm looking at you, Maximum Ride). Plus they're actually well-executed enough that I don't see them coming, which... either I've been reading books with untwisty plots or I've just gotten really good at spotting the plot twist.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for "deal-with-the-devil"-style magic (though not with the actual devil).

3 stars.

Tags for this one: 3-star, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

(Endnote: HALT IN THE NAME OF THE FRIDAY KNIGHT! Man, I really need to review Dragons at Crumbling Castle...)

Mini-Reviews 12: The Day Has Come

...when I run out of things to reference in the titles of these posts.

The Castle in the Mist by Amy Ephron

This is one of those books that doesn't actually explain what's going on within it; basically, they show you what's happening to the characters, but don't actually provide the worldbuilding behind that. It crops up a lot in horror and magical realism, and sometimes fantasy.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A soft E10+ for spookiness. Could be an OK visual novel.

3 stars. The ending was too trippy and strange for my taste.

Tags for this one: 3-star, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall

Behold, the first book of the series in which Brackenbeast is book 2. This one is definitely a lot spookier and less fairy-tale-gone-wrong.

Overall, I liked Brackenbeast better.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for {T-ish pulling a casual homosexuality mention}. yeesh. That said, a videogame of Thirteens would possibly be fun, if you like spooky things.

And 3 stars as well, for the same reason.

 

Tags for this one: 3-star, horror, modern setting, rated T, series component

"The Secret Garden" by G. K. Chesterton

No, this isn't the same thing as The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This one is a murder mystery.

It's also one of the rare ones where I don't even suspect the murderer until they're revealed. (The only other one of those within the last couple years is Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.) In the case of "The Secret Garden," it's because |the murderer showed up in a previous mystery, wherein he was firmly on the side of good|.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for |decapitation| and violence in general. Doesn't have a very videogameifiable plot, though.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    “Well, doctor,” said the priest, looking up blinking, “|can a man cut off his own head? I don’t know|.”

    Page ??? (this is a short story). It's Father Brown, doing a reveal.

Tags for this one: 4-star, fiction but historical, mystery, rated E10+, short stories

(Endnote: I'm not saying I reviewed "The Secret Garden" solely because it could get mistaken for a more famous work with the same name...)

"Five Elements: The Emerald Tablet" by Dan Jolley

The first four elements in this are fire, water, earth, and air, like normal (or like Greece). Now, place your bets on what Element #5 is!

-Quintessence

-Heart

-The Element of Surprise 

-Grimbo (E)

-Magic

-Boron

-Lifeforce

-Green

-Cold

-Metal

-Aether

-Wood

-Space

-Lightning

-Babies

-Awesomesauce

-Oregano

-Magick (with a K)

It's the last one, and their spelling annoyed me. The only books I've ever seen call it "magick" (with a K) and pull it off are The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes and its two sequels, and it works for them because they have the right vibe for it. This doesn't.

Actually, when you consider that calling it magick (with a K) was invented by none other than Aleister Crowley the popularizer of the occult, this book absolutely does have the right vibe for that... though not the right vibe for me to take it in stride.

Which, yeah, this had too much occult stuff and magick (with a K) for me to enjoy. So I'm rating it 2 stars for that. The sole reason I finished this was that I wanted to know what Element #5 was.

And were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A stern T for occult, blood magic, blood in general, and violence.

By the way, the evil eyeless dragon thing on the cover (it does actually look pretty cool, which is why I picked the book up; yes, I judged a book by its cover and discovered that wasn't such a great idea) is called a null draak. I, even I, have come up with better names for evil dragons than that. Maybe the whole magick (with a K) thing is just Dan Jolley having bad naming sense.

This review barely conforms at all to my usual format, but if it did, all the trains of thought would suddenly have giant gaps. The review is enough of a mess as it is.

Also, apparently there was an actual thing called the Emerald Tablet, which had something to do with alchemy. Or something. There's also a pseudohistorical (i.e. someone made it up) book about lizardmen and Atlantis by the same name. 

(Endnote: In addition to it making me pine for Adventurer's Guide, after having played Undertale I also couldn't read "magick" (with a K) without thinking of the character Madjick. [EDITED 2/3/2026 to change link to the non-Fandom wiki])

Mini-Reviews 11: March Forth

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

My mom reviewed this one. Go there if you want an actual review. I mostly just did this one to showcase a couple of lines.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for marital infidelity and some alcohol use.

4 stars.

Favorite lines: 

    "Moving on," [the teacher] continued, not hearing me, "I've been instructed to tell you again that you are not to touch the wet paint outside the cafeteria. Most people would know this without being told, but apparently some of you are not like most people."

    Page 49.

    "Oh, yeah," she said. "My mom always makes too much anyway."

    "You can never have too much fried chicken," Dave told her.

    "She made fried chicken last time," Heather said, still studying her screen. "I remember, because Dave ate two breasts, two legs, and two wings. Which was actually..."

    "An entire chicken," Dave finished for her, sighing. "A personal best for me."

    Pages 282-283.

Tags for this one: 4-star, a kissing book, modern setting, rated T, romance, YA

 

 

 

Brackenbeast by Kate Alice Marshall

 

The titular brackenbeasts are actually made of mud, not bracken. In-universe, they used to be made of bracken, until some evil guy turned them into mud. |And mushrooms.|

The villains in this are the sort of folklore-ish "super dangerous but also very rule-bound and if you beat them at their own game you'll be fine" villains that show up a lot in, you guessed it, folklore. 

 

I picked this up thinking it was another horror entry into my Allan County mythos ([EXPLANATORY EDIT, 4/23/2026: it was a story I was writing about the concept of "what if horror protagonists were competent people and had actual good weapons"]). And it could have made a good horror story if the author had played the story for scariness instead of somewhat fairytale-esque magical realism. Instead it makes a good somewhat fairytale-esque magical realism story.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for spookiness and violence (if you don't read the afterword, which is... T-ish.)

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

 

 

 

Paper Dragons: The Fight for the Hidden Realm by Siobhan McDermott

 

This is an Asian-flavored take on the "magic school" genre. It's set in a fantasy world.

The magic schoolchildren are learning to become a type of immortal called the Cyo B'Ahon. |Now imagine you have a thick accent, and pronounce "Siobhan" phonetically|. 

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for general violence and some evil spirit creatures .

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, fantasy, rated E10+

(Endnote: What Happened to Goodbye has the honor of being the first book to which I've given the tag "romance".)

Mini-Reviews 10: On Top Of Some Covers, All Covered With Snow

Dragon Kingdom of Wrenly: The Coldfire Curse by Jordan Quinn (graphic novel art by Ornella Greco)

This is rather below my general reading level. Let's just leave it at that. It's about dragons and a curse that's making it be winter (and, surprisingly, isn't the White Witch's fault).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for cartoon violence, or possibly on the high side of E.

3 stars. It isn't bad, it's just that I would have loved it if I was about ten, and (spoiler alert) I'm not ten.

Tags for this one: 3-star, adventure, dragons, fantasy, junior fiction, manga/graphic novel, rated E10+

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

"This is a Hansel and Gretel retelling." You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? But you're actually wrong. It's the Snow Queen.

Now, granted, the title would make a lot more sense if it were a modern-day Hansel and Gretel retelling. But, as I said in the last paragraph, it's actually a modern-day Snow Queen retelling. With a few bits of some other Hans Christian Andersen fairytales thrown in; there's that one about the red dancing shoes, the little match-girl shows up (but, unfortunately, sans |the Death of the Discworld to help|), and there's possibly some Little Red Riding Hood in there as well.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for dangerous bits and violence (among other things, the plot gets kicked off by the main character's best friend getting a shard of glass in his eye). Straightforward enough to be a sort of RPG.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, adventure, fairy tale retelling, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Apparently this one was written because one of Agatha Christie's nephews (I think) complained that all her murder mysteries were too clean and bloodless, so she wrote this one specifically for him.

 

Yes, it was still Christmastime when I read this.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for mmmuuuuurrrder and discussions of marital infidelity. It's not gory or anything.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    Colonel Johnson, Chief Constable of Middleshire, might be of the opinion that nothing could beat a wood fire, but Hercule Poirot was of the opinion that central heating could and did every time.

    Page 84.

Tags for this one: 4-star, mystery, rated T

(Endnote: The title for this post was originally going to be "Mini-Reviews 10: 10.0x10^0" before I realized that all three of the books I'm reviewing here have snow on the cover.)

"A Blink of the Screen" by Terry Pratchett

This is Terry Pratchett's collection of his short stories for adults, including:

"The Hades Business" -- Satan contacts a crooked businessman to renovate Hades into a tourist trap. It works too well. Not my favorite, and by the little author's note at the beginning, Pratchett seems to agree.

"Solution" -- an inspector stows away on a smuggler's plane to confront him about what, exactly, he's smuggling. It's |airplanes|. Short, but decent.

"The Picture" -- a mental patient keeps a horrifyingly wrong picture in his cell. I really liked the twist at the end of this one.

"The Prince and the Partridge" -- a prince meets the demands of his beloved princess's dad by reenacting the 12 Days of Christmas song. I could see what the end was going to be almost as soon as I started reading it.

"Rincemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor" -- the one that eventually became the Bromeliad Trilogy, which I'll read at some point.

"Kindly Breathe in Short, Thick Pants" -- poking fun at pointless governmental statutes with a ministry to counteract pollution by... nobody breathing as much.

"The Glastonbury Tales" -- sort of a retelling of The Canterbury Tales, but with a guy picking up hitchhikers.

"There's No Fool Like an Old Fool Found in an English Queue" -- another poking-fun-at-the-government one, this time being the Minister of Queues getting up on TV and ranting about people who take too long to check out.

"Coo, They've Given Me the Bird" -- Russia trains pigeons to do assembly line jobs in their factories, and one factory's sole remaining human employee--the janitor--writes them a sarcastic letter.

"And Mind the Monoliths" -- living history goes weird.

"The High Meggas" -- the one that became The Long Earth, which I'll also read at some point.

"Twenty Pence, with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting" -- a bunch of travelers get stuck in a Christmas card.

[REDACTED]

"Final Reward" -- a barbarian hero dies and goes to meet his maker. As in, the author who created him. It's an interesting concept.

"Turntables of the Night" -- this one was apparently published in an anthology edited by none other than Diana Wynne Jones. Now I want to read that anthology.

"#ifdefDEBUG + "world/enough" + "time"" -- someone dies in VR, and a repairman is called.

"Hollywood Chickens" -- a bunch of chickens get loose in Hollywood and develop an advanced civilization on one bank of the highway. Especially hilarious because of the reveal at the end.

"The Secret Book of the Dead" -- poem about dead pets.

"Once and Future" -- Merlin is actually Mervin, a time traveler from another world's future, who makes the Sword in the Stone work with... electromagnets.

"FTB" -- Santa Claus visits a bank mainframe because it Believes What It Is Told and someone told it about Santa Claus.

"Sir Joshua Easement: A Biographical Note" -- an extremely tongue-in-cheek biography of an unknown person from a painting.

[And of course, there are the Discworld stories, noted below.]

"Troll Bridge" -- Cohen the Barbarian gets annoyed/sad because the world is running out of adventures for barbarian heroes.

"Theater of Cruelty" -- Captain Carrot discovers a live-action (courtesy of the Discworld having gnomes) Punch and Judy show whose owner has been murdered. 

"The Sea and Little Fishes" -- Granny Weatherwax is told to stop freaking people out by being all spooky, so she decides to freak people out even more by being genuinely nice to them.

"The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem" -- exactly what it says on the tin. Pratchett wrote it because the BBC asked if the Discworld had one. According to the text, it is the only national anthem that "formally has a second verse consisting mainly of embarrassed mumbling."

"Medical Notes" -- about strange mental disorders found on the Discworld. Quite possibly the most hilarious story in this entire collection

"Thud: A Historical Perspective" -- apparently the actual origin of the game of Thud.

"A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari" -- a speech Pratchett wrote for the twinning of Ankh-Morpork with a town in England.

"Death and What Comes Next" -- a philosopher attempts to use quantum uncertainty to convince Death that he's not going to die. It doesn't work.

"A Collegiate Casting-out of Devilish Devices" -- Lord Vetinari sends an inspector to the Unseen University to regulate it. The University faculty ignore him.

 

"Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts" -- what happens when you put Captain Carrot, Sergeant Detritus, Bashful Bashfulsson, Chrysoprase the Troll, and Lord Vetinari (among others) in a meeting about creating the Boy Scouts for Ankh-Morpork.

 

"The Ankh-Morpork Football Association Hall of Fame Playing Cards" -- baseball cards for Unseen Academicals.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for language and crude humor.

 

4 stars, for being hilarious. 

Favorite lines (this post wasn't long enough yet):

    It was a series Five, which in my opinion were a big mistake. The Fours were pretty near ideal, so why tinker? It's like saying, hey, we've invented the perfect bicycle so, next thing we'll do, we'll put thirteen more wheels on it--

    Page 121, from "#ifdefDEBUG + "world/enough" + "time""

 

    Annoia, or Paranoia Inversa

    The belief that you are out to get everyone.

    Page 240, from "Medical Notes"

 

    According to the trollish philosopher Plateau, "if you wants to understan' an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he's still your enemy, at least you're a mile away and he's got no shoes."

    Page 247, from "Thud: A Historical Perspective"

    In his opening remarks, Captain Carrot referred to the current problem of delinquency of young people in the city, which has recently been the subject of many articles in the Times.

    Miss Partleigh interjected that this was because there was nothing for them to do.

    Lord Vetinari observed that in fact there was a vast range of things for them to do, running from petty theft to armed gang warfare, and that therefore the question was one of finding something for them to do that, if at all possible, did not actually involve the death of innocent, or presumably innocent, bystanders.

    Page 264, from "Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts"

(Endnote: I'd just reprint the entire of "Medical Notes" in the favorite lines section, but A] it would spoil the enjoyment of anyone reading it for themselves, and B] it would probably also be some form of copyright infringement.)