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Just had a re-read of this, and now I'm living in Canada I get even more references in it than I did the first time. This is a serious comic, it's not a wacky parody or anything. But it does have a gorgeous double-page of Ottawa getting nuked, and twist in the story is on the cultural difference between "power" and "hydro".

Five leafs out of five.

As I get older I find Mercedes Lackey books harder to read. There's lots of very light stuff, long chapters discussing a character's self-worth and whether they deserve love. And then in this one, a lot of discussion of rape and torture (less explicit torture than the first Valdemar trilogy at least).

The first book in particular has the protagonists separate, and Elspeth has a nice travelogue through some lands having tea, while Darkwind is watching his society get screwed. It's very odd. To be clear, I still enjoyed this trilogy, I think this one improves as it goes.

For myself I read all Lackey's books in the wrong order. As someone who read the Mage Wars first, getting the "unspoiled prequel" effect of reading those two in the correct chronological order was very enjoyable. My 2019 read-through was pretty much mixed-up.

Continuing through T Kingfisher's world. Yet another romance. Yet again very funny. Although I can see the novelty of each character's self-doubt wearing off after a bit. At least in this book both protagonists have good backstory reasons for feeling unworthy of love.

Also more gnoles, reminding me somewhat of Lackey's hertasi - no-nonsense non-humans. Technically this is the first of what the author promises to be a SEVEN-book sequence, but at least the first three (existing now in 2023), I'd say have a relatively minor link together.

A YA book with more murder than one might expect, and an awful lot of allegory. Wizards look just like normal people, but someone in power wants them all registered and blames them for the ills in society.

I think I would have found the plot too heavy-handed (not really been into YA since I was one) if not for the author's yet-again delightful whimsy. This is narrated by the protagonist, who is a baker, and so all metaphors and the like are baking related. Everything has the colour of honey, the consistency of dough, or the smell of almonds. The actual enchanted gingerbread men and sourdough starter are the icing on the cake.

No, I am not sorry.

Very generic fantasy, but the gnoles are great. If the romance annoys you, don't read any of the other books set in this universe, they are all romances. But the characters are funny, and the narration is wry, and it's very easy reading. Swords and sorcery, tick tick.

I have a Canadian friend who is very desperate for me to like Will Ferguson, this is the third book of his that he's lent me. The first one irritated me quickly and I forgot about it and the second. This one is a set of travel essays from different provinces of Canada. They are sorted from west to east, and are almost-deliberately chronologically out of order.

However they're a funny and occasionally touching, always caustic, sometimes fondly (sometimes not) look at different cultures and micro-cultures in Canada, from the point of view of someone who isn't actually from Toronto but may as well be "stock white North American" looking at the least-American bits.

One of the hardest Valdemar books to review. Like the first two, there's a lot of light romance froth of "these two people somehow manage to mistake their love for each other repeatedly" but then over about 30 pages we get to prolonged torture and rape. I find the rapid tonal change very hard to cope with.

Other than that, more engaging than the previous in the series, with battles rather than school lessons.

First up, for the impatient (like me), this book doesn't actually cover the Franklin Expedition until the last third of the book. Unsurprisingly, we know a lot less about the voyage, as they didn't come back. So a large part of this book is about some of the ship's previous voyages, exploring Antarctica. This also includes Palin's trips there where he contrasts what he's seen. He has a lovely turn of phrase and some gentle warm humour, but the book isn't a comedy.

The book is able to cite sources until the Franklin Expedition departs Greenland, and then covers what the rest of the world saw (Western, and Inuit). He lists which theories he believes and covers the finding of the shipwrecks.

Unlike the other two books, this is just Talia and Kris patrolling the kingdom. Relaxing holiday read.

If this didn't have the internal monologues of the pair recriminating themselves again, it would be more enjoyable.

I like Lackey's books, this whole trilogy feels more YA than I remember. There's whole pages of self-recrimination, the novelty definitely wears off.

But the setting is very cozy, of this unashamedly liberal kingdom trying to do the right thing.

Self admitted train enthusiast, I enjoyed leafing through this. I didn't necessarily understand all of it though. Despite the glossary there's a lot of passing references to loco design and the like that you have to take as read.

Mind this is mainly a picture book I guess.