Knife of Dreams: The Series Finds Its Legs Again
Knife of Dreams review: Perrin finally confronts Padan Fain, Mat marries Tuon, and the Wheel of Time reread gets its momentum back after a quiet stretch.
Knife of Dreams review: Perrin finally confronts Padan Fain, Mat marries Tuon, and the Wheel of Time reread gets its momentum back after a quiet stretch.
Crossroads of Twilight review: Mat and Tuon on the run, Elayne’s fight for Andor, and an honest look at the slowest book in the Wheel of Time reread.
Winter’s Heart review: the Cleansing of saidin, Perrin finally rescuing Faile, and one of the biggest payoff moments in the entire Wheel of Time series.
The Path of Daggers review: the Bowl of the Winds finally gets used, Rand’s battle rage escalates, and a Wheel of Time reread hits its shortest, quietest book.
A Crown of Swords review: Rand’s move against Sammael in Illian, Cadsuane’s arrival, and a Wheel of Time reread that’s testing my patience in places.
Lord of Chaos review: Dumai’s Wells, the Asha’man’s dramatic debut, Egwene’s rise as rebel Amyrlin, and a Wheel of Time reread that’s starting to sprawl.
The Fires of Heaven review: Mat Cauthon’s brilliant Battle of Cairhien, Nynaeve vs Moghedien, and the gut-punch ending with Moiraine and Lanfear.
The Shadow Rising is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time at its peak: Perrin’s Two Rivers stand, Rhuidean’s buried history, and Mat’s fateful bargain. A reread review.
A review of The Fantastic Four First Steps, where the retro-futuristic world and the Silver Surfer land but Galactus is nowhere near big enough.
The Reality War discards the Rani, invents a daughter, rewrites Belinda’s whole series, and regenerates the Doctor into a face it refuses to explain.
Wish World rewrites reality into a sunlit suburb where the Doctor has a wife and a daughter and no memory. Strong premise, and it’s all setup again.
Blood of Heroes restarts the Gray Death Legion saga twenty-eight years on, with cadets defending Glengarry. Fun battles, familiar plot, different Keith.
The Interstellar Song Contest starts as a Eurovision spoof and turns into a hostage thriller, with the Doctor doing something genuinely cruel.
The Story and the Engine traps the Doctor in a Lagos barbershop powered by the stories its customers tell. Distinctive, warm, and unlike anything else.
Lucky Day brings Ruby back and turns a conspiracy streamer into the villain. Angrier and sharper than this era usually manages, and it bites.
A review of Thunderbolts, where Florence Pugh and a strong vault fight carry a film that takes the easy way out on mental health and misreads the Sentry.
Heir to the Dragon is a BattleTech novel with almost no BattleMech combat. Charrette’s Theodore Kurita biography is the best thing in the classic line.
The Well returns to the planet from Midnight five hundred centuries later and finds the thing still there. The best episode of the Gatwa era.
Lux traps the Doctor and Belinda inside a 1952 cinema with a cartoon god made of light, and then steps outside the screen entirely. Strange and uneven.
The Robot Revolution introduces Belinda Chandra via a star certificate, a robot uprising and an AI villain. Varada Sethu is excellent. The plot is not.
Falcon Guard closes Robert Thurston’s Legend of the Jade Phoenix trilogy with Tukayyid from inside a losing Clan. A good ending, if a slightly tidy one.