#aj hackworth

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And the Mighty Will Fall - I had fun! Which is really all I can say, tbh. When I finished the third book back in 2023 I said I didn't know if the author planned to write more books in the NeoG series, but I would be happy if that was where she ended... and that still stands true. I enjoyed this book, but it didn't really feel necessary or like it added to the story. It went really hard on the Die Hard plot, yall XD At least with the big time jump from the previous book it had a good reason to explain a lot of things to me that I'd forgotten.

The Fifth Season - finally read this! A solidly good series that really held my attention and has given me a lot to think about, even if it's not going to be a favorite (which seems to be a common thread with Jemisin for me)

Rook - unofficially Jackaby #5, which I had never read! And wasn't super worth it, tbh. Reading this really cemented the fact that I didn't have a bad time rereading the original series because they were rereads. Not to repeat myself from my comments on Jackaby in December, but if we could have taken some plot points from this (and book 4) and turned them into book 3.5 it would have been great and made a lot more sense. As it is, watching Abigail having to struggle to find her feet yet again was not an interesting read.

Soulless - I was forewarned that these weren't particularly serious books, but I admit I found this a bit sillier than expected! Not fully to my taste but close enough to be amusing, so I will probably pick up the next book at some point (spoiler: I did).

The Scourge Between Stars - It was fine? It was fine. I certainly had a ok enough time reading this, but if you think about it at all there's not a lot of substance, just a little Alien-ish thrill. Not one I'd go out of my way to recommend, there's more interesting generation ship and space thrillers out there.

Penric's Demon - so fun! Honestly, mildly-antagonistic-evil-voice-in-my-head is one of my favorite things and it's hard to do wrong XD And of course I already loved the author's World of the Five Gods novels, I can't wait to continue the series. Would recommend, but ideally after you read the novels.

Starter Villain - there was lots of debate over which Scalzi novel should be my first, and I think this was the correct choice! I was indeed very delighted by the cats and the dolphins and the silliness of the villainy, but there was a... tone? to the writing and character voice that I didn't love and was exacerbated by the audiobook narrator. If more of his books were accessible via audiobook from the library I might still give them a shot, but at this point I don't think acquiring them elsewhere is worth my effort or money.

The Library of the Unwritten - honestly, probably a little to soon to reread this (I originally read it Oct 2024), but we're doing the second book for book club as well and I wanted to try it out on audiobook instead of print. It took me two tries but I did get through it! It was fine, but not interesting as a reread, and I could probably have skipped it so soon.