Four Small Reviews

The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

Initial Rating: Highly Recommended.  (How I Rate Books)

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Urban Fantasy, Mythology, Horror

Similar books:

• Anansi Boys

Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• Norse Mythology

Here’s the TL;DR for my review (SPOILERS!):

• Pros
  • Good hand-drawn art
  • A Classic Tale of renewal and revenge
• Mixed
  • Very dark at moments, both artistically and subject-matter wise. Sometimes this was good, sometimes it was depressing.
• Cons
  • First few stories weren’t so great

 

The Baboon War by Nnedi Okorafor

Initial Rating: Recommended with Reservations.  (How I Rate Books)

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, YA, Short Story, LeVar Burton Reads

Similar books:

• ?

Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
• Binti

Here’s the TL;DR for my review (SPOILERS!):

• Pros
  • LeVar Burton did a good job narrating this and bringing it to life
  • Non-traditional story and main characters
• Mixed
  • Ends on an ambiguous point
• Cons

 

War of the Spark: Ravnica- Short Stories by Greg Weisman

Initial Rating: Recommended with Reservations.  (How I Rate Books)

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, YA, Franchise Fiction, Magic the Gathering

Similar books:

• ?

Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• War of the Spark: Ravnica

Here’s the TL;DR for my review (SPOILERS!):

• Pros
  • Provides Rat’s perspective on the events of the novel. I like Rat, so this is good.
• Mixed
• Cons
  • I’m not sure why we needed this, though. This re-treads a lot of the same narrative ground as the accompanying novel. Indeed, without the novel for context this probably doesn’t make sense.

 

Born of Aether by Alison Luhrs (Re-read and re-review from earlier this year)

Initial Rating: Highly Recommended  (How I Rate Books)

Goodreads

Genres: Fantasy, Franchise Fiction, Short Story, Magic the Gathering

Similar books:

• ?

Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• Unbowed, Ixalan, Dominaria
• Guilds of Ravnica
• Born of Aether
• Loran’s Smile
• Children of the Nameless

Here’s the TL;DR for my review (SPOILERS!):

• Pros
  • Bittersweet story
  • Awesome main character
• Mixed
  • The whole Magic the Gathering super-plot which goes on in the background of this still doesn’t seem very awesome
• Cons