Book reviews.

You can all see where these are going if you’ve been reading my LJ lately.

Book 40: Magic’s Promise by Mercedes Lackey. Another very quick read, and pretty much engaging from beginning to end. I’d forgotten how dark this book was. Poor Tashir. What a shitty hand that poor man got dealt in life.

Book 41: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling. Ordered because I also have a library copy of the latest book. This was probably my least favorite HP book to date, but then, Umbridge makes up for all of it. I just wish she hadn’t gone batshit crazy at the end and gone all maniacal villain on Harry and company. She was creepy and disturbing, and for the most part one of the coolest villains ever because she had motive, nor was she stupid or particularly cheesy.

Book 42: Magic’s Price by Mercedes Lackey. In which we are introduced to Stefen, who I will fangirl endlessly for being a wonderfully complex character and who also failed utterly to get on my nerves…something I can’t quite say for the actual hero of the books.

I should add that I really do like Mercedes Lackey. Her writing is flawed, yeah, but I can overlook the flaws and enjoy the books, provided that I don’t try to analyze them too deeply.

So, now that that’s out of the way, here’s an ethical question. I see that Mr. Goodkind has actually published “Debt of Bones”, the short novel in the Legends anthology which I am currently reading as a standalone novella. Can I include that as a book I’ve read for the year, or are you all gonna insist I finish the whole Legends anthology before I can count it?