Narmer And the God Beast Cover Reveal!

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As I alluded to in my July Newsletter, I have worked up a short story in my ‘Egypt and Dinosaurs’ setting. It is called Narmer and the God Beast. As I so eloquently put it then:

“I even paid for a cover and everything . . . “

https://alligatorsandaneurysms.wordpress.com/2021/07/02/july-newsletter-new-fiction-master-of-secrets/

Well, that cover is here. It was created by illustrator Lee Eschliman who is absolutely fantastic. You can take a look at his other work on instagram. Lee’s artwork has been in my life since I can remember. One of his logos graced the deck of my very first skateboard (if you can believe I used to skate) and he’s influenced several of my hobbies overs the years. I was absolutely ecstatic that he was willing to craft the cover for my story. It turned out simply amazing.

Anywho, without further ado, here’s the cover for Narmer and the God Beast (and the back cover blurb to pique your interest):

“Had I anything in my heart but hate for my brother and pity for myself . . .

I may have suspected I was about to meet a god.”

Broken and bleeding into the cool Nile waters – shattered by his brother’s cruelty – young Narmer pays the crocodile no heed as it enters the stream. Let it come.

But the hunter swims on, and only then does Narmer know its aim, the defenseless god-beast drinking and playing up-river.

Dinosaurs will again roam the desert sands, uniting the disparate Two Lands into one great Egypt, if Narmer can drive off the crocodile, if he can endure his brother’s malice.

If he can save this sacred creature and be saved by it . . .

So, there you have it. Narmer and the God Beast is officially announced. The launch on Amazon will take place on October 4th, but you can also preorder it now. I’m going to be doing a series of posts this month about my influences for the story and how it came together so stay tuned for those. Some stories and teasers in this world have already been posted on this blog so look for them on my fiction page.

And finally, you can just follow my progress on things and get quarterly updates and new fiction by subscribing to my newsletter at https://jdweber.news/EgyptAndDinos. For signing up, I’ll send you a copy of the first story I every wrote about a warlock doctor.

See you next time!

*Update 9/14 – I’ve begun posting some of the “influence” posts I mentioned before. Here’s what I’ve completed so far:

Re-Reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings After 25 Years (Part 1): ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’

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Happy Friday everyone!

It’s April 10th, do you know where your hobbits are?

I mention the date because in years past I’ve celebrated #TolkienReadingDay (March 25th) by posting something J.R.R. Tolkien — or Middle-Earth — related on this blog as a kind of tribute (and reflection upon) one of the great examples of Fantasy literature.

This year (and apparently last year as well), that date came and went, unremarked upon and unnoticed. I’d love to give some epic (or even reasonable) excuse such as the wizard Saruman held me captive atop the formidable tower Orthanc in Isengard, or that my posts are “never late, nor early. But arrive precisely when (they) mean to”, but the truth is . . .

I just completely whiffed this deadline.

By the Ides of March I was only about halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring, and ten days later I’d progressed little further. Instead I posted about a dinosaur novella (Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur) and then about the Greek hero Daedalus (Daedalus Is Dead) (another novella). And time marched on.

But finally, I’ve finished!

And I’m here to say . . . it was a lot of walking?

I first read The Lord of the Rings, as I’m sure many did, in the lead up to the release of Peter Jackson’s iconic films back in December of 2001. Like right up to the release. I KNOW I’ve mentioned the story of that first theater trip — 11 years old and sitting in the car in the parking lot of the theater during previews, sans shoes like a good hobbit, trying to finish the last pages of Fellowship before going in to see the film — on this blog before though I can’t find the exact posts at the moment.

I LOVED those movies as a kid. My thoughts on the books were more mixed and at least as far as the Fellowship is concerned, are mostly the same as a 35 year old hobbit, as they were when I was just an 11 year old hobbit.

In the long years since I first read The Fellowship of the Ring, I’ve often joked that Tolkien will stop the action of the plot to describe the shape and texture of the petals of each flower in a field of daisies. I forgot to mention he will also name the ancestry of each flower going back three generations, and sing a few songs about the more prominent members of the lineage.

It’s telling that the author’s note in my edition is a whopping 35 pages!

Jokes aside, it isn’t hard to tell that Tolkien has a great love of stories, and he spent an incredible, and perhaps painstaking amount of time inventing them. And so when it comes time to tell one of the stories, it’s a bit of a fire hose with all the other stories rushing out at once.

I know I struggled with this as kid reading LotR but as an adult I found it a bit more endearing and dare I say, magical. I had completely forgotten whole sections of Fellowship, like the entire character of Tom Bombadil, which I found myself marveling at upon this second read through.

And I found myself laughing at just how often the hobbits would stop to eat during the beginning of their quest to leave The Shire. But then again in awe at how little it seemed there was to laugh about by the time they left Weathertop.

And then of course there is Rivendell, and MORIA. Lothlorien feels like a whole other book, sad and kinda depressing, and then BOROMIR!! Yeesh. I couldn’t believe the book ended like that even though it doesn’t really have the shape of a cliff hanger we would read in other books, it totally is a cliffhanger and a kinda a crazy one at that.

I’m not usually one for songs or poetry in Fantasy, as even in a world with dragons and wizards (or whatever other nonsense), it’s always felt a bit unlikely that a character would just begin singing randomly and as a musician I usually get hung up trying to figure out the tune. Most authors are not musicians (or even poets), and with little in the way of reference to the actual pitches they were considering as they wrote, it just sort of comes out sounding bad in my head.

However, I did enjoy the songs within this book more than I expected and can see why they have spawned absolute legions of pale imitators in other fantasies. Some were lofty and refined (Legolas singing of Lorien), others lowly but sincere (Frodo mourning Gandalf). The song Sam sings when they make camp by the stone trolls was positively crude. I mentioned in my review of The Hobbit, that Tolkien can be quite whimsical at times, and while I think the reader sees less of that in LOTR than in The Hobbit, it still sneaks its way in at times.

Finally, the following quote from a little spat between Boromir and Aragorn during The Council of Elrond in Rivendell struck me:

“But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from the sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dunedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

And yet less thanks have we than you. Travelers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. ‘Strider’ I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin . . . That has been the task of my kindred while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown.” – pg 279

This feels like it could have come directly from the mouth of Geralt of Rivia. Strider is a Witcher! A lot has already been written on the influence of LOTR on Andrezej Sapkowski’s elves, and how they subvert the tropes and cliches of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, but I hadn’t made this connection between the Dunedain and Witchers before, and it’s one I’m eager to explore as I delve further into the worlds of both authors.

So, Give The Fellow Ship of The Ring Another Read?

Definitely. Whether it’s because you haven’t peeked into a Hobbit hole in some 25 years (wow), or it’s your first time in Middle-Earth, give this one a read.

Sometimes it can be a bit difficult to keep momentum when page after page has gone into the description of what amounts to a pretty view, or a sprawling backstory, but for any who can push through, the reward is a rich and immersive settings, perhaps one of the foundational 2ndry worlds in all of fantasy. I was in awe not only of the incredible world building, but also in the contrast of the stakes of the adventure between the beginning of the book and the end. When the hobbits first set out, it almost seems like they’re taking a slightly harried holiday, but by the end, we can really feel the (middle) earth shattering potential of Sauron retrieving the ring, and truly just how desperate the Fellowship’s quest is for all people.

Despite all the doom in gloom, there is still some humor and levity within these pages, and really quite a bit of hope throughout. And though I’m not usually much of a fan of lots of songs or poetry breaking up the story, they just seem to make sense in this context.

Finally, it is perhaps not very insightful to say that LoTR has had a huge influence on the Fantasy genre; of course it has, but it was fun to pick out specific examples as I read. The most striking on this read through was between J. R. R. Tolkien’s Dunedain (Rangers) and Andrezej Sapkowski’s Witchers. Obvious in retrospect, but still not something I’d clocked until now.

That’s all I have for this week! It almost feels silly to ask, but has anybody read this one? Recently or as kid? What parts do you love best? What’s your favorite Fantasy that Tolkien helped inspire with LotR? What nostalgic memories does this book bring up for you?

As always I’d love to read your thoughts and stories, so please leave them in the comments! I’m looking forward to talking about this one!

Amaze Amaze Question? Does Project Hail Mary Live Up To The Hype?

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I’ve mostly tried to stay away from reviews of Project Hail Mary as much as possible, but as perhaps the first “major” sci fi movie to come out in 2026, it’s hard to completely tune out the noise. Third hand — my friends and coworkers talking about reviews that they had read online — I was hearing everything from “pretty good” to “Ryan Gosling’s best role to date!” (which holy cow that’s a huge endorsement).

Compounding expectations was (of course) my own experience with Andy Weir’s books and this particular adaptation’s source material. I enjoyed The Martian (novel) enough to . . . write bunch of Buzzfeed style headlines about it? (still one of my favorite posts!)

I also loved the film adaptation of The Martian, but apparently never wrote a review, and I thought Artemis was good as well, but also didn’t give it a review.

Andy Weir’s stories — that I’ve read — have a kind of optimism surrounding science and human ingenuity which feels a bit like a throwback to classic Science Fiction, only without all the baggage that most stories from those early days seem to trade in without realizing it.

By 2021 when Project Hail Mary (the book) released, I was a confirmed fan, if maybe not a raging zealot. My experience with that book was positive over all, with just one small complaint regarding Weir’s gendering of the alien: he acknowledges that Eridians may have a whole different system/conception of gender than humans, and then just defaults to he/him. But past me was taken with watching Grace solve problems and “do science” in humorous and engaging ways. Also this book both referenced AND used a 3D printer, so I felt seen professionally as well hahah.

Needless to say I was pretty excited to see Project Hail Mary on the big screen. I was also very curious to see how one major twist would play out since it was pretty much blown from the first trailer (I’m talking about Rocky lol).

Since it has been about five years since I read the book, I’ll admit that my memory of the book’s finer details are pretty hazy. So I won’t spend any time in this review trying to compare the similarities and differences between the novel and the movie, or how faithful the movie was to the book. I don’t really remember, and I’m sure there are others out there doing exactly that.

What I will do is comment on how many other movies this movie seemed to reference. For instance, the ship’s computer — Mary — was giving me Jarvis vibes (from Iron Man), but also some Hal vibes (from 2001: A Space Odyssey). I’m really glad it didn’t go that way, but I would be curious if 2001 was an influence of author Andy Weir, or an influence of the directors (Phil Lord and Chris Miller).

Also Rocky and Grace had several Kirk/Spock moments touching hands through the clear crystal barriers etc. I’m always curious if these things are intentional, or if I’ve just seen too many movies.

The last film this movie reminded me of was Arrival. A major part of the plot is “first contact” though the film — and I remember feeling this in the book too — kinda breezes right by it and gets Rocky and Grace talking pretty quickly. For anyone who has tried to learn a language, and I’ve tried to learn several at this point, this feels a bit too convenient, but perhaps since I was expecting it, I didn’t really let it bother me.

However it wasn’t just the “first contact” plot that reminded me of Arrival, but the way in which Grace is pulled out of scientific obscurity, and plopped in the middle of massive global task force working on a world threatening problem. The way he’s able to solve problem after problem . . . it’s well worn territory but also very GOOD territory (now that I think about it, this is also kinda the plot of Godzilla (1998) lol).

I’d say this is probably not Ryan Gosling’s greatest role ever, (that would be The Nice Guys jk jk), but I certainly don’t think anyone could have done it as well as he did. It’s hard not to notice the physicality he brings to the role. Something like putting on a space suit to go on a space walk, could be handled sooo many different ways — for instance focusing on each piece in slow motion to heighten the drama — but this movie speeds through it with Gosling acting like a bull in a china shop. It was hilarious.

Give Project Hail Mary a Watch?

Absolutely! I don’t think Gosling will be winning an Oscar for Project Hail Mary any time soon, but I CAN say that this was the most fun I’ve had at the movie theater in a long time.

Two Eridian thumbs way down (which is the equivalent of a human thumbs way up). Amaze. Amaze. Statement.

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone seen this one yet? What did you think? Do you have a favorite “first contact” story? What’s your favorite Andy Weir book?

Leave your thoughts in the comments! Looking forward to talking about this one! Until next time!

Beyond the Wax and Feathers: A Deep Dive into ‘Daedalus is Dead’

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Time passes, but some stories never get old.

I’ve always — since like 6th grade — had a bit of a penchant for Greek Mythology. It’s an itch that seems to most frequently be scratched by videogames (God of War, Hades, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or the OG: Age of Mythology), but one that occasionally will be satisfied by books and literature.

Back in 2023 I did a bit of a binge, finishing Fit For The Gods, Galatea, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, but the Greek gods and the myths surrounding them are never really that far off in my mind.

It would seem the same holds true in the current literary zeitgeist. A simple search of ‘Greek Mythology retellings’ in Google returned a Goodreads list with some 292 titles. This March saw the release of a publication entitled The Brainrot Odyssey: A Terminally Online Translation in which:

“. . . all 24 books of Iakovos Polylas’ Modern Greek verse translation alongside a new English translation in ‘brainrot’ — the internet-native, meme-inflicted register of a generation that communicates through screens.”

Also, Madeline Miller is purported to have a new retelling in 2026 as well, this one focused on Persephone!

What a time to be alive!

If Miller’s Song of Achilles can be said to have opened the way for less conservative retellings of these beloved stories, then Circe (and to a lesser extent Galatea) really kicked open the door for feminist retellings and in the years since we’ve seen a surge in retellings focused on heroines and women pushed to the margins by previous iterations of the myths (love this!).

Perhaps this is just me, but any book or media about Greek Mythology not following this trend seemed a bit retaliatory, and most often garnered a heavy sense of skepticism, if not full on ickiness.

And then along comes Daedalus is Dead, marketed as:

“A delirious and gripping story of fatherhood and masculinity, told through the reimagined Greek myth of Daedalus, Icarus, King Minos, Ariadne, and the Minotaur.”

I mentioned in my End of Year Book Tag (2025) that the myth of Icarus and Daedalus is one of my favorites, after reading this novella I should amend that to say: the myth of Icarus flying too high and falling to his death is a parable which resonates with me . . . I don’t really know shit about Daedalus.

Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes — kinda my source book when it comes to Greek myths — only has about four paragraphs dedicated to Daedalus and his son Icarus, while a full eleven pages are dedicated to Theseus, the Minotaur, Ariadne and king Minos (which I will have to read again now!).

It makes an obvious kind of sense that Daedalus’ story would center around fatherhood, and that a critique of masculinity would present itself through the father’s character and the choices he makes in relationship to his son.

Side note: though I haven’t had a chance to review all the games yet on this blog, this is one of the central elements of the God of War series. To over simplify it: rebellion against a bad father in the Greek Saga, and then the journey to becoming a “good” father in the Norse games.

In Daedalus is Dead, our legendary inventor’s main tasks are kind of split. When Daedalus is alive, he wants to protect and provide for his son, escape Minos, and make a better life himself and his family. In the afterlife, he simply wants to reunite with his son and kind of get the boy’s approval (though what he must do in pursuit of that goal is far from simple).

Icarus’ approval is so crucial for Daedalus, because as the reader learns more about the man, it becomes apparent that Daedalus isn’t a wholly good dude. The sort of idealized identity that Daedalus relates to the reader in the beginning of the story is in many ways misremembered or embellished to benefit Daedalus.

Daedalus presents himself as a maker, someone who builds things, who creates and therefore is the opposite of the masculinity defined by someone like Minos, who only conquers, takes, and destroys.

But what does Daedalus build?

Toys for baby Icarus, beautiful palaces and temples, but also warships and a prison-maze to trap and isolate young Asterion who is terrifying and deadly, but also — as Ariadne points out to Daedalus — only a child.

There’s so much to unpack within these pages, and I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, but I wanted to bring up one more thing which I feel is important to this conception of Daedalus, and to its accounting of masculinity.

That is the river Lethe, which in Greek mythology is one of five rivers found in the underworld of Hades. Drinking from the river causes complete forgetfulness. In Daedalus is Dead, who drinks from this river and for what reasons (again no spoilers) is quite notable, and interesting (at least to me) thematically. There seems to be an element to masculinity, and the masculine conception of the self, that is picking and choosing what to remember. I’m not sure I’ve fully figured out what Daedalus is Dead is trying to convey through this inclusion, but I’m also completely fine with it being somewhat messy or open-ended.

Perhaps my only criticism of the novella, is that there were no noticeably queer characters. For a story that seems to showcase so many forms of masculinity with its different characters, I would have liked to see some queer characters in the conversation as well.

Give Daedalus is Dead a Read?

Yup! Daedalus is Dead has completely redefined the myth of Daedalus for me, adding swaths of nuance and intricacy to a character which before now had seemed somewhat secondary. Though small in page count, this story looms large in implication, and has a lot to say about the roles men play in society.

That’s all I have for this week!

Has anyone read this novella yet? What’s your favorite greek myth? Who is your favorite hero or heroine? Favorite god or goddess? As always, leave your thoughts and insights in the comments! Looking forward to talking about this one!

Until next time!

Wait, Are Hadrosaurs Carnivores? A Mostly Loving Review of Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur

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It occurs to me as I write this review, that Ian McDonald is something of a big name in Science Fiction. A Hugo Award winner (The Djinn’s Wife in 2007), and Grand Master of Science Fiction (according to the European Science Fiction Society). Looking at his catalog, Luna stands out as a book I wanted to read back when it came out (wow in 2015) but apparently never got around to. River of Gods has my attention simply because it’s an epic title.

I think I had a sense that there was some weight associated with this author’s name when I came across an ad for Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur, but I was really uncertain what it might be. I was mostly thinking — probably as the marketing department hoped — Dinosaur!! There’s a dinosaur on the cover!

And then I hit the buy button.

As Dinosaur books go, this one is pretty good. It’s setting is fairly unique, taking place in a sort of gritty future where the U.S. has regressed into a kind of feudalism in which whoever has the most guns gets to decide the law of the land. There’s weird techno-clowns, and bikes genetically coded to their riders which will poison anyone else who touches them. Tarot decks predict your future based on the texture you feel when you touch them, and everyone seems to speak about as much Spanish as English.

Oh, and of course, seemingly the only shining light in this grim future: the dinosaur rodeo.

It’s a bit bananas when you stop to think about it, but it also kinda just works, and mostly you’re having too much fun marveling at all the strangeness (and dinosaurs!) to really question what’s going on.

I attribute this to McDonald’s writing style. His prose are sparse, leaving a lot unsaid, but still managing to get the point across. Something I’m always curious about whenever reading books where unusual (fantastic?) creatures play a large roll in the story, is how will the author mix in their descriptions. Mostly McDonald doesn’t, often just giving the name of the dinosaur, and assuming the reader knows it or will look it up. Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops are easy ones; Anchiornis and Carnotaurus maybe not as much. Timursaur, might be made up?

McDonald’s opening description of the Carnotaur really stuck out to me, and is perhaps a good example of his writing style in this book:

“The dinosaur is a Carnotaurus sastrei. Imagine a classic T. rex. King of the killers. Draw it badly: a heavy, dumb-looking head. Ludicrous wiggling arms, like maggots. Too-long legs, a whippy tail. You’ve drawn a Carnotaur.” – pg 1.

It’s worth noting the use of the Carnotaur’s scientific name. BwAD seems pretty well researched and hip to our modern understanding of dinosaurs in 2026. Velociraptors don’t feature heavily in the story, but when mentioned, they’re described as chicken sized, and are raced at the start of the rodeo as a warm-up event. Feathers are mentioned.

I wasn’t really fact checking as I read, but everything felt pretty accurate which I loved. The only kind of weird thing is the following paragraph from somewhere in the middle of the book:

“A heavy chunk of concrete, flung hard, flung accurately, strikes Prince’s haddy on its left foot. It rears and bucks. The riot boys roar and hoot — a hit, a hit! — but they don’t see that the haddy is spooked and if it throws Prince, if it breaks, it will come for them. And it has two hundred stiletto teeth. And it likes soft, well-fatted meat.” – pg 57

To my knowledge, Hadrosaurs are primarily herbivores. The five minutes of digging I spent on this revealed that they may have been opportunistic, and snacked on crustaceans during mating season (to get more protein for egg-shell development), however, this seems pretty far off from the behavior threatened in this passage.

I’m so curious what inspired this part of the scene. Is there some in-world explanation? Or is it a mistake?

In any case, Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur seems to get most everything else right (that I noticed), and the storyline and strange setting more than make up for any artistic license used by the author.

It occurs to me upon review, that the rodeo is really the only context of the setting which seems to integrate dinosaurs, despite there being a seemingly thriving industry surrounding even just this one use. Personally, I hope we’ll see a sequel, or perhaps a larger work in which dinosaurs play an even larger role in the every day life of this strange timeline.

Give Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur a Read?

I’d say yes! Even among “dinosaur books” — which are already fairly unique settings — this book stands out with a premise that seems to stretch our conception of the kinds of stories we can tell about these incredible creatures. Personally, I really enjoyed the author’s talent for description, and the imagination used in building up this world, which is quite dystopian, but also fairly familiar and prescient (and probably more than a bit cautionary).

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this story yet? What did you think? What were your favorite dinos? Were there any you learned about for the first time? Would you watch a dinosaur rodeo?

Leave your thoughts and feelings in the comment section! Looking forward to discussing this one!

Until next time!

“I’ll Settle for Making You Feel Something”: Mission Accomplished in M.L. Wang’s Blood Over Bright Haven

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“The best I can do is create a book that reflects my angst at the time of writing and hope it resonates. If I’m being ambitious, I hope my stories foster empathy, curiosity, and critical thinking about the complex power structures at play in our lives. At my heart, though, I’m a silly genre fiction girl, and I’ll settle for making you FEEL something.” – Interview With M.L. Wang (Blood Over Bright Haven)

Well, congratulations. You did . . . you really did.

This was not a book I could wait around until I next saw my book club to talk about, this was a book I had to text them about as I was reading. How far are you? Did this happen yet? Can you believe . . . ?

This may seem to imply that reading Blood Over Bright Haven is something of a high-octane experience, with lots of action, relentless pacing, and a rollercoaster’s worth of plot twists and turns (perhaps like a certain series about dragon riders that’s really popular right now).

Another quote from the interview referenced above describes Bright Haven as: “. . . more compact . . . lower on action scenes, and higher on all-nighters in the library.”

This isn’t a book you speed through, it’s one you sit with. One you read a chapter or two at a time, and think about in between.

Without spoiling too much, I’ll take a moment to give some trigger warnings:

  • This book contains some instances of suicidal ideation
  • It also contains an attempted sexual assault
  • It’s generally pretty gore-y.

I don’t mention these things to turn off readers from the book. Indeed I think everything listed here is handled with the utmost care by the author.

I mention these things because I feel like some folks would want some warning, and also because it illustrates how truly intense this story is.

In terms of genre, Blood Over Bright Haven is still Dark Academia as the “. . . premise hinged on a scholar uncovering a conspiracy through research . . . ” (another Wang quote from the above interview), but similar to The Centre, it hardly focuses on school at all.

In fact, BOBH‘s main character, Sciona, is all done with school, and the first woman to be appointed “Highmage”, a role which feels like it should resemble that of a scientist, but as the reader learns more about this world, comes to understand that the role is also quite tied to religion and . . . for lack of a better term, an extremely cultish patriarchy.

Like other books within the genre, BOBH is extremely concerned with wealth and privilege, and the power structures which perpetuate inequality. Where I think this book shines brighter than others I’ve read in this genre, is in the way we see Sciona struggle in her battle against these forces. There are many zero sum games within these pages, and a spree of chapters in which every stance Sciona takes against injustice, seems only to heap more injustice upon the oppressed.

Not every novel needs to feel “real”, and often times supposed “realism” in novels is just another kind of power fantasy, but I though BOBH had a kind of plangency because of how it mirrors reality. As Wang hoped it would, it gets you to feel something.

I’d also say that BOBH is in many ways quite poetic.

Or maybe — as I’m struggling to be — articulate.

The author mentions that she chose the book’s “Western Gaslamp setting” as a kind of aesthetic shorthand so she would not have to bother with lots of worldbuilding. A backdrop readers could easily conjure on their own. I have only read a handful of books within that setting, so I didn’t find it “boring for me, creatively” as the author seems to, but I will agree that it suited the story well, and proved a deft move for another reason: it allowed for a poetry of ideas rather than scenery. Much of the beauty of this book is in the eloquence of the way its ideas were presented rather than the craft of its visual imagery.

There were many times while reading that I thought to myself: “dang, I hope someday I can express some idea that well” (obviously I should have written some of them down but I haven’t been very scholarly lately. Maybe a re-read is in order some day!).

All of that aside, the imagery on the front cover of the epitomous “Spellograph” could rival any of the artwork in a Brandon Sanderson secret project.

So, Give Blood Over Bright Haven a Read?

Absolutely! Looking at my goodreads account, I’ve only read about four books so far this year, and I’d say Blood Over Bright Haven is the best fiction I’ve read yet.

Just as the author hoped, it’s a book that makes you FEEL. One that you literally cannot rush through, because you find yourself sitting with each reveal, wanting to really understand what you’ve just read before continuing. In today’s fast paced world of minute-long Tik Toks, I’d say that’s a pretty impressive feat.

I was also quite impressed by the eloquence of the way ideas were presented in this book which deals with heavy topics such as privilege, power, and patriarchy. And Sciona’s unique perspective and flawed character (though good intentions), set Blood Over Bright Haven apart from other Dark Academia, and Gaslamp titles I’ve read.

A truly great book!

That’s all I have for this one. Has anyone else read it yet? What were your thoughts? Please leave your ideas and insights in the comments section. Looking forward to talking more about this one!

Worth the Rewind? How Does the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Movie Hold up in 2026?

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A little more than a month has passed since I played through Prince of Persia The Sands of Time and while I haven’t made much progress playing the newest PoP title, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, I did manage to track down a copy of the Sands of Time film and give it a rewatch.

Side Note: PlayStation randomly dropped a new God of War side-scroller, The Sons of Sparta, which has had me pretty consumed lately. Also, I had a guitar gig which was incredible but took up a lot of my time!

This film is, more or less, my only other connection to the Prince of Persia franchise, as I never played any of the other games.

I’ll be honest, I have pretty little memory of what was going on in my media consumption back in 2010 — if my notes are accurate, this is the only art from that year I’ve talked about on the blog so far — that was mid college, and before I had a goodreads account, so . . . a real dark ages scenario overall.

In any case, I remember being quite pleased with the movie, and thinking it was actually pretty solid when compared to other video game film adaptations.

My thoughts about the film haven’t changed too much.

In 2026, I am mostly interested in just how many little visual allusions the movie made, not to previous Prince of Persia games, but to the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which many people believe is a kind of spiritual successor to PoP.

At one point in the film we see Gyllenhaal standing at the end of a beam-like structure, high above the city streets, of which the viewer can take in the surrounding environs before making the infamous leap of faith central to the AC franchise.

Also, during one of the MANY action sequences, we see Dastan (Gyllenhaal) emerge from the shadows on a ledge, jumping down, feet forward, arms spread in a V. This is of course more visual language that anyone even remotely familiar with the two (maybe three?) AC games out at the time would have recognized as homage.

Finally, just the sheer amount parkour — choreographed by the founder of the sport/discipline David Belle — within the movie, was another constant reminder of the AC franchise, of which parkour is a hallmark.

Dastan’s positioning as an orphan, raised out of poverty by the king for his bravery and good deeds was also a striking inclusion in the prince’s backstory. To my knowledge, nothing like this was present in the Sands of Time game, although by the time this movie came out, several other PoP games for PS2 and PS3 were out, which I’ve never played, so perhaps this element was scraped from one of those games?

In any case, I suppose the prince’s backstory more or less had to be created whole-cloth, as the prince isn’t even given a name in the Sands of Time video game.

Jake Gyllenhaal is an interesting choice to play Dastan. Up until this point, I don’t think he had played many action-oriented roles. His credits that most stick out before PoP are October Sky, Donnie Darko, and Bubble Boy. Broke Back Mountain and Jarhead probably would have also been top of mind for folks watching this in 2010; however, I still haven’t seen either, so I’m not sure what bearing they’d have on this movie.

Honestly, maybe very little. Gyllenhaal seems to have a pretty varied stable of roles, each kind of niche. I half wonder if PoP was an attempt to make something a bit more mainstream, but one that ultimately was perhaps just another niche. Something fans of the game would go see and remember fondly, but by no means a massive success (although I’m seeing on wikipedia that it was the highest grossing video game adaptation until 2016 when the Warcraft movie beat it out, so . . . I guess still pretty popular).

A lot of attention is called to Jerry Bruckheimer’s (producer) involvement in the film. He’d had two movies (Confessions of a Shopaholic and G-Force) come out since the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie (At World’s End) in 2007, and I think there was a sense, or at least an attempt at creating a sense, that this was going to be the NEXT Pirates style sensation. PoP seems to have fallen well short of that franchise both financially, and socially, however I couldn’t help but notice some connections between the films.

I’m thinking mostly of a particular scene in which princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) plays into the perception of women being weak/fragile creatures and pretends to faint from heat stroke. When Dastan does the chivalrous (but predictable) thing and rushes over to revive her, she steals the macguffin and leaves Dastan to be captured by bad guys.

This fainting routine feels plucked directly from the Pirates franchise, and indeed — with some small variation — it was. The faint is legitimate at the beginning of the first Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) when Elizabeth Swan (Kiera Knightly), forced by the fashion of her time to wear an extremely constricting dress, literally cannot breathe during Commodore Norrington’s (Jack Davenport) prelude to a proposal. She then PRETENDS to faint later in the film in order to cause a distraction and give Jack and Will (Depp & Bloom) a chance to enact a rescue/escape. Then the bit is riffed on again — quite humorously — during the sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) during a three-way sword fight (so cool) between Jack, Will, and Norrington. She hopes that they will stop fighting to revive her, but instead the three ignore her completely much to her offense and chagrin.

Elizabeth Swann is rated by Cracked as one of Hollywood’s saddest attempts at feminism, so pulling from the same bag of tricks probably does not win Princess Tamina any points, but I did think her character — and interaction with Dastan — was leagues above princess Farah in the original Sands of Time game.

Give Prince of Persia The Sands of Time a Watch?

Sure! I can’t say it’s a particularly deep movie; however, it is perfectly entertaining for what it is, and something of a breath of fresh air when it comes to video game adaptations, both leading up to this movie and since.

As a fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, I greatly enjoyed picking out the visual allusions to that series, and while prince Dastan’s epic adventure was not the epic financial or cultural success that the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were, it was interesting to see the long shadow those movies cast over the film.

All in all, I wouldn’t burry this one with the original game, beneath the sands of time.

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone rewatched this one recently? Or have anecdotes or memories of seeing it back in 2010? What else where you excited about from that time? Would you ride an ostrich? (yes random, but there is an ostrich race in the movie hahah)

As per usual, please leave your thoughts and insights in the comments! I can’t wait to talk about his one!

Until next time!

Gone Girl: A Rare Instance Where I Wish I’d Watched the Movie First

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I suppose we could have seen this post coming.

With my review of The Grownup, and Gone Girl (book) it was perhaps only a matter of time before I followed up with a review of this movie.

But the question I want you to ask yourself while reading, is did knowing I would eventually do a post about this movie ruin the thrill of seeing it finally appear on the blog?

I felt myself trying to answer a similar question while watching David Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

Despite writing an entire post about all the other reasons the novel was excellent besides the big twist, still the main question on my mind while watching was: Had I spoiled this for myself?

So far as I can tell, Fincher stayed pretty darn close to the source material. I didn’t have a copy of the book on hand to check, but I think the opening line of narration is exactly the same as the opening of the book.

The opening montage expertly shows the depressed Missouri town Nick and Amy move back to, and their house — and later the crime scene — felt plucked exactly from my own imagination.

By this point in the film (so almost right away), my experience while watching seemed to switch from wanting to know WHAT was going to happen next to wanting to know HOW was it going to happen next. And which did I like better?

I thought Amy and Nick meeting had potentially even more cute/clever dialogue than the book; however, I felt Nick’s portrayal was too sympathetic throughout (although I still think Ben Affleck did a great job. It’s the least “cool” I’ve ever seen him and I though it worked perfectly).

On the topic of casting, these days I’m pretty happy to see Rosamund Pike in just about anything. Even though she’s had a pretty long and illustrious career before playing Moiraine Damodred in Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time adaptation, I’d say it was that role which really put her on my radar (I didn’t even remember that she was in Die Another Day until looking at IMDB). Of course this role is much different, but still — to my mind — incredibly well executed and compelling.

For folks around my age, Neil Patrick Harris will always be Barney Stinson. Obviously he’s had other incredible roles besides How I Met Your Mother — my personal favs include A Series of Unfortunate Events, Undercover Brother, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog — but for any millennials watching, Harris’s portrayal of Desi Collings is a bit uncanny but for all the wrong reasons.

In 2014, How I Met Your Mother was just winding to a close, so I’m sure Harris’s association with the show was even stronger then it would be today. And for Gone Girl, I’m sure Harris was excited to take on a more serious role, maybe even considering it an opportunity to show how problematic a character like Barney Stinson would be outside the context of a comedy. And so Harris relies on the same moves: the overt once-overs and unearned confidence.

I can guess at what the effect was supposed to be here. I can logic it through. There was supposed to be a reversal, a calling to account. A not-so-funny-now moment.

Unfortunately, I think the effect was quite the opposite. The association with the humor was too strong. Instead of adding a sharp edge to once laughable behavior, I felt Harris’s casting took the sharp edge off some really sinister behavior.

My only other critique of the movie also involves Desi’s storyline. In the novel, Desi’s relationship with his mother (he’s lowkey obsessed with her and only dates women that look like her) is just like this weird, inexplicable nuance that really just turns you off to the character straight away. While reading it I remember wondering how Flynn had even come up with it, and what was she trying to accomplish by including it.

I never really came to a firm conclusion about it, whether I liked it or not, but I really felt its absence from the film (or if it was included, I straight up missed it). Now, there is probably not much revelatory in stating that film often lacks the nuance and intricacy of a book. They are different art forms, with different constraints, and different strengths. But in this instance — after Fincher has been proving all film just how closely he can get to the source material — I found myself wishing they had left that weird detail in.

So, Give ‘Gone Girl‘ a Watch?

Absolutely! But to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post, my experience was absolutely effected by reading the book first, and I feel this is a rare instance in which I kinda wished I had seen the movie first, and then gone back to the source material later.

I generally try not to think of the relationship between a film and book in terms of one being better or worse than the other, but since these are so similar, I can’t seem to help it. I did enjoy the book more, and I think if I had seen the movie first, I would have been absolutely floored, and then in awe to see it all unravel on the page, instead of floored to see it on the page, and slightly disappointed by what I saw on the screen.

That’s all I have for this week!

Has anyone seen this movie before? Or read the book? Which did you like better? Was there anything you saw included in one that didn’t make it into the other? Did you wish it had?

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments. Looking forward to talking about this one!

Until next time . . .

My Nerdiest Review Yet? Why I Loved “Why We Read”

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Well I have to admit, this is probably the most nerdy (meta?) thing I’ve reviewed on this blog in a while. Reading about reading. Stand by for the feedback loop to die down, and for this reality to implode.

Ok. Better? Cool.

Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out by author and professor Shannon Reed is a lot of different things. It’s sometimes insightful, sometimes silly and superfluous, but always an engaging read.

Essentially, Reed comes up with twenty-eight or so answers to the question posed by the title — and intersperses about twelve or so humorous book related asides, like funny quizzes and how-to’s — which cover a range of topics, some deep (To Learn How To Die (And How To Live)), and others definitely less so (Because I Wanted Free Pizza).

What I love about this collection is the unabashed sincerity with which Reed just loves books. Even the books she doesn’t like, she finds useful in their own way, and is able to pull something out of every reading experience whether it be just an assignment in a class growing up, or a treasured and dog-eared tome that gets read again and again every year like clockwork.

As someone who has also spent a lot of time reading, and built something of a life centered around books, Reed’s enthusiasm was a much needed reflection and validation.

But even for folks who don’t read thirty books a year, and work in some book related industry, Reed’s essays are quite encouraging, offering plenty of reasons to pick up a book, while also reminding us that we don’t need even one reason to simply start reading. It is valuable for its own sake.

Reed pulls primarily from personal experience when constructing her essays, and while she certainly has some interesting stories and anecdotes from many points in her life, I especially enjoyed the sections that were about her classroom. She has read a TON of books and during these classroom scenes the reader not only gets to hear a fun story, but often times will manage to come away with a slightly deeper understanding of certain books too.

I tried once before to read George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, but couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. It was validating to read that this was a book Reed struggled with as well, and to hear how she and her class managed to work through it. I’ve been wanting to give the book another shot, and now I feel at least slightly more prepared.

If I’m honest, I felt so much like one of Reed’s students while reading that during a chapter about twist endings she advises the reader to stop reading her book and go read Gone Girl before continuing on. I actually did, and it was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve had recently. I had a whole heap to say about that book in my review, and wouldn’t you know, when I finally went back to Why We Read to see what it had to say about the book, I learned a whole heap more.

Another reading secret which was revealed to me within the pages of WWR was that you can read cook books and you don’t have to actually make any of the recipes. It seems obvious, but I’ll admit that I’m not much of a cook, and so cookbooks were never really something I ever engaged with in my (ahem) reading diet (the primary exception perhaps being What’s Cooking In The Kremlin). After reading WWR, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t give it a try. Perhaps a whole new world adventure is waiting for me within those recipes.

Give “Why We Read” a . . . Well a Read?

This one gets a whole-hearted YES from me.

Why We Read makes a great case continuing the practice of perhaps one of humanity’s greatest past-times. Whether it be for pleasure or for work; to learn, or to relax; to cry, live, or die, there are as many great reasons to read a book as there are great books to read. Why We Read just takes the time to list a couple of those reasons, and show us how a life of books — a literary life — can be a fulfilling and amazing way to live.

That’s all I have for this week! What do y’all think? Has anyone read this one? Is reading about reading a bridge too far?

For what reasons do you pick up a book?

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments! I’m really looking forward to talking about this one!

The Unhaul Challenge Returns!

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One of my reading goals in 2025, was to finish more books I already own before purchasing new books. This decision was not part of some buy nothing rebellion or book buying ban, but simply because I literally ran out of space on my bookshelves and the stacks of books piling up in other areas of the house — which were not shelves — was getting . . . concerning.

Couple this with the realization that most of the books I own are books I’ve never read, or books I read so long ago that I could hardly remember what they were about or why I was holding on to them, and I decided I should get to weeding.

But I couldn’t bring myself to just throw them out, so I decided to resurrect an old challenge I did back in 2021, and unhaul some books!

So far as I can tell, the original prompts were written by BooksAndLala on Youtube. I first saw the challenge on a video posted by Portable Magic, and I looked at Merline Reads to see what it might look like on a blog.

A lot of the prompts I used in my original unhaul challenge didn’t really lend themselves to having actually read the books before getting rid of them, so I made up some of my own prompts and got rid of the ones that didn’t work for me.

Which means I’m down to eight instead of ten prompts, but I doubled up on a few, and still managed to get rid of ten books! (only like a hundred more to go! lol)

Let’s get started!

A Book I rated Low

This one I just didn’t like.

In some ways How to Solve Your Own Murder seems to miss the premise implied by its own title, and unfortunately the reader can never really let go of that throughout the story (at least I couldn’t). Now mysteries in general are a little outside my normal diet; however, I do feel I’ve read enough to know the major tropes and broad-stroke tools authors use, and while this book does hit a lot of those buttons, it does not subvert them or push beyond them in any way.

It may be a comforting read for diehard fans of the genre, but it does little to convert you into a fan if you’re not already in that group.

A Book I changed My Mind About

My initial read of A Deadly Education was an extremely positive experience and even inspired a second post comparing the Scholomance to David Dewane’s Eudaimonia Machine.

However, as I researched a little further — comparing it to other Lodestar nominees in 2021, and uncovering a bit of controversy surrounding the book’s themes and execution — I could not help but feel some of the magic fade. Nearly five years later and I’ve made exactly zero attempts to finish reading the series, and do not see myself returning to this volume anytime soon.

Perhaps it’s simply time to let this one go.

A Series I Won’t Be Completing

Anji Kills a King, the first installment of the Rising Tide series, felt like it SHOULD have been everything I wanted in a fantasy book — subversive premise (story-after-the-story), a secondary world, “Tenets” (similar to the “Ideals” in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive), and loads of fighting and action — yet somehow even with all of these ‘likes’, I really struggled to finish this book.

I’ve followed the author, Evan Leikam, on Tik Tok for what feels like ages, and enjoy hearing his thoughts and opinions on other books (his book reviews were how I discovered his account, I did not know he was an author until he announced his book deal with Tor). I will definitely continue to follow that account, and would even try a second series once he’s finished with The Rising Tide, but I won’t be pursuing Anji along any further adventures.

Only Mostly Dead is actually a pretty great book. It’s humorous, but also includes some heavy topics (trigger warning) — specifically assisted suicide, and living with terminal illness — in a way that it sort of normalizes them, and does not really encourage debate. I’d also say it’s pretty LGBTQ+ friendly with one of the primary romance dynamics happening between a woman and a kind of grim reaper / angel which can (and does) go by whatever pronouns suit them in the moment.

Despite all it has going for it, the story didn’t quite get its claws in me the way some other books have. I didn’t feel strongly compelled to await the sequel. But for any who have read this short review (or my full post), and are interested? Give. It. A Shot!

A Book I Didn’t Buy

If I remember correctly, I discovered Unholy Child while helping my parents move. From the title, and the cover — which shows a very pregnant nun looking quite shamed and repentant — it would be easy to mistake this book as some kind of contemporary of Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen; however, there are no supernatural elements at all.

This story is fiction, but with a thin thread of reality woven throughout. Author Catherine Breslin was a real journalist before writing novels, and had written a story about a nun killing her child. Though there are many POVs throughout the book, it quickly becomes clear that the character Breslin is best able to write, is Meg Gavin, also a reporter, working on the story of a nun who arrives at the hospital having clearly just experienced a traumatic homebirth, but has no memory of it, or even of having been pregnant (the baby is later found dead in a waste basket).

It seems like this should make for some pretty intriguing drama, supernatural or otherwise. However, the book quickly gets bogged down with an excess of POVs, and perhaps overly ‘realistic’ (read flat) character arcs which leave the reader wondering why they have committed so much time to a book with no real sense of catharsis (positive or negative).

Unhaul it lol.

Books From Childhood I’m Finally Getting Rid Of

The Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye are probably the most recently read books in my unhaul pile. I only just reviewed Golem last week, and Amulet only a scarce two weeks before that. Goodreads wasn’t around when I originally read these (assumedly) around when they came out in 2003 and 2004, but when I finally did shelve them, I rated Amulet quite low, and never even shelved Golem.

Rereading them in 2025/2026, I feel as if I may have judged them a bit harshly. Of the two, I enjoyed Amulet more, intrigued by the mystery of just who Bartimaeus was and what real figures from myth and legend he may have been based on. I also found the Djinn to be quite humorous, though I didn’t much like his master, a 14 year-old boy named Nathaniel.

Bartimaeus fell in my esteem during Golem, as the sort of combative dynamic between him and Nathaniel never really changed, and I felt the Djinn let his worst qualities rule the story. The true hero of the story seemed to be Kitty Jones, a (kinda) villain in the first book, who gets a lot more screen time in the second. Unfortunately, in order to set up this more heroic storyline, author Jonathan Stroud had to work in huge sections of backstory through flashbacks and anecdotes etc. Which meant the main story seemed to sag a bit throughout.

Ultimately, I did enjoy both of these titles (Amulet slightly more) and I hope I have the chance to read the other two books in the series; however, I don’t see myself returning to either one once I’ve finished the series.

It was time to let em go.

A Book Club Pick I Didn’t Vibe With

The Night of Baba Yaga is a somewhat ironic choice for this category, because I’M the one who picked it for my book club to read.

Quick content warning: Two different characters in this book each experience attempted sexual assault through the course of the story. Violence of all kinds (but especially against women) is a major element of the story, and is often described in explicit detail.

I’m mostly glad I read this one, but I’ll admit it didn’t really vibe the way I was hoping. There’s obviously the elements I mentioned in the content warning, which I understand including but don’t necessarily enjoy reading, and then there was some story-structure things happening with split timelines and the like which I felt was poorly executed. But the biggest blow was probably that this book had really very little to do with Baba Yaga, despite that most infamous Russian Folk legend taking up prime residence in the tile.

What the story ends up being is a kind of John Wick style Yakuza beat down featuring a lesbian power couple. THAT part is pretty badass, but I guess I was just hoping for a little more of something . . .

A Series I’ll Have to Come Back To

It hurts my heart that Naomi Novik is on this list twice! Generally I really like her books, and His Majesty’s Dragon is actually pretty incredible. However, the Temeraire series is like nine books long, and I just don’t have the bandwidth for something that robust right now.

So I’ll come back to it later.

The things I did enjoy about the book were Novik’s take on dragons which are uniquely MASSIVE (basically flying frigate ships), and the organic way which Temeraire and his rider Laurence bond over the course of the book. There’s no spells, curses, fates, or other story mechanic gimmicks forcing these two characters together. They just like each other, and that’s enough. I think I’m starting to cry a bit . . .

My only mild struggle with the book came from the sort of regency era language in which it’s written. Not bad or poorly done, just not really my style.

His Majesty’s Dragon is a great book, and a promising start to the Temeraire series . . . which I’ll have to work my way through another time.

A book I Enjoyed but Probably Won’t Read a Second Time

As I imagine the bad boy shadow daddies sit at the back of the class/bus, books about bad boy shadow daddies are for the end of the list hahah.

Jokes aside Dark Lord’s Guide To Dating is a pretty fun read. Hunt’s prose are easy going, and there’s an undeniable allure to the book’s premise (dating advice for the “Dark Lord”), but I think where the book really sets itself apart was in the growth of its two main characters and how — despite a rocky start — they really end up being perfect for each other.

Where I struggled with this one was with its setting and worldbuilding. Hunt is clearly well read in the fantasy and romance genres, making plenty of references and allusions to other great works; however, I wanted to see something truly unique from THIS world, and I just never quite found it.

So while I’m happy I got to read this one, I don’t feel any particularly strong desire to hold on to it.

(For any wondering about the level of spice, I’d say this is the horniest book I’ve read yet!)

I DID IT!!

Dang look at me. Actually managing to get rid of ten books. And I only came home with five new ones. Hey I really tried ok . . .

That’s all I have for this week! What did y’all think of the list? Were there any on there that you had read before? Any you want to read? Any I should have kept?

Leave your thoughts in the comments section! Looking forward to talking about these!

Breaking the Page 144 Curse: My Long-Overdue Finish of The Golem’s Eye

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When I reviewed The Amulet of Samarkand earlier this month, I mentioned that when I was first reading this series as a kid, I never made it past page 144 of The Golem’s Eye.

Well this time I’m proud to say I managed get all the way through it.

I didn’t notice anything particularly egregious on page 144 that would have caused me to put the book down. It’s during a chapter in which we are getting some of Kitty’s backstory.

Kitty is something of a perplexing character throughout The Golem’s Eye. By the time Nathaniel meets her in book one, she’s already quite competent, and something of a mystery to both the reader and Nathaniel. In The Golem’s Eye (book 2), Stroud spends a lot of time filling in the reader as to her history and goals, but keeps Nathaniel and Bartimaeus mostly in the dark about her.

As a “commoner”, Kitty does not start the book with access to magic, but when she teams up with “The Resistance”, she begins to use magical devices. Stroud has a bit of a tightrope walk here as the whole point of “The Resistance” is that they feel magicians abuse their magic powers, yet “The Resistance” will steel these magical devices and use them against magicians. The main arc of Kitty’s story is in conversation with this contradiction (hypocrisy), but it takes many flashback chapters for us to get there.

A lot of books will set two main characters apart, with the sort of unspoken promise that their stories will eventually meet. It’s no different in The Golem’s Eye, however, I would say that because Kitty is “common” at the beginning of her story, she has much further to go then Nathaniel who has already had a whole book worth of development. All that this means, is that when I was reading Kitty’s chapters, it felt like I was reading a whole other book, with whole other characters, and whole other themes. It was very hard to see throughout much of Kitty’s story, how it was even related to Nathaniel and Bartimaeus until probably the last third of the book.

But despite this sort of slow build toward the back of the book, when I finally got to the end, Kitty was the only character I actually kinda liked, or at the very least, the only character who felt heroic.

I had mentioned in my review of The Amulet of Samarkand, that I thought Nathaniel was kinda shitty. Unfortunately this book did nothing to try and change my mind about that. And Bartimaeus was not acting his best either. Booo hahah.

This sequel did succeed in expanding this magical world which Kitty, Nathaniel, and Bartimaeus must work in. Bartimaeus took on at least one new form from Islamic folklore, transforming during several scenes into a Roc (compare to Rocs seen in Fonda Lee’s Untethered Sky).

From Jewish folklore, we see — as the title suggests — a golem which wreaks havoc in London.

Of course I enjoyed lots of little references to Ancient Egypt, with the golem destroying many ancient Egyptian artifacts within The British Museum, and Kitty and “The Resistance” enacting a kind of tomb raiding scene in Westminster Abbey (apparently London’s elite wizards buried themselves with magic grave goods much like the Pharaohs). And then there was the afrit called Honorius, who goes so far as to climb a giant obelisk (Cleopatra’s Needle) in a scene that felt very reminiscent of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.

Lastly, The Golem’s Eye provided some more evidence for my ongoing theory that cheese is funny. Here’s the line on page 401, again from Honorius:

” ‘Look at the sunset!’ it sighed, as if to itself, ‘Like blood and melted cheese.’ ” pg- 401

Not the funniest line I’ve heard but probably worth a chuckle.

Give “The Golem’s Eye” a Read?

I didn’t like this one as much as Amulet of Samarkand, mostly owing to long breaks in the main thrust of the story to catch the reader up on Kitty’s backstory, and that our other two main characters (Nathaniel and Bartimaeus) were just kinda awful the whole book.

However, there was still some awe and wonder to be had within its pages. I enjoyed seeing this series’ interpretation of Rocs and Golems, and the little references here and there to Ancient Egypt.

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone read this one before? What were your favorite parts? Do you think it is as good as the first?

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments section! I look forward to talking about this one!