Books

My recent BART fare has included:

• "The Shadow of What was Lost" by James Islington. An interesting world in which magic users of a certain type are bound to magically-enforced rules and shunned by society as a whole. A slightly different flavor of magic users was obliterated twenty years before the book and the fallout from that dominates the story. It's an interesting tale with multiple protagonists I enjoyed following but I found the antagonists a bit opaque and absurd. Overall a fun offering and I'll look for the next in the series.
• "Enchantress" by James Maxwell. Another tale in a fantasy world. This one involves a young woman learning to be an enchantress while her brother becomes some kind of badass warrior. Honestly, I thought this was entertaining enough but a bit choppy. The chapters with the brother were jarring when compared with the heroine's tale. And some of the other POV characters seemed really random. It was a fun read but I'm still deciding if I want to get the next book.
• "Way into Chaos" by Harry Connolly. I got about a quarter in and found it kind of tepid and not terribly engaging. It's still sitting, waiting to be finished.
• "Child of Fire" by Harry Connolly. The first novel in Connolly's "Twenty Palaces" series, this is very different fare from "Way into Chaos". It's set in the modern world with a sort of Harry Dresden feel to it. I've burned through about two-thirds of the book already and am trying to pace myself to finish it. I have the rest of the series and am kind of excited to get through it while wanting to savor the fun.