Wulf's Book Reviews

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell My rating: 5 of 5 stars “ The Burning Land ” is exactly what I wanted from the fifth book in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon series : another fierce, fast-moving Uhtred adventure that keeps all the strengths of its predecessors while avoiding the weaknesses that occasionally slowed them down. I liked it very much indeed. More importantly, I enjoyed the entire journey. Every page gave me something: a battle, a sharp exchange, a political manoeuvre, a religious hypocrisy, or one of Uhtred’s wonderfully blunt observations. The setup is familiar but still effective. Alfred is ageing and ill, his heir remains untested, and the Danes see an opportunity to press their advantage. Uhtred’s position between Saxon and Dane, loyalty and independence, remains the engine of the story. Cornwell understands that Uhtred is most interesting when nobody can quite claim him, least of all Uhtred himself. His decisions feel personal, practical, and gloriously dangerous wi...

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren My rating: 2 of 5 stars “Something Wilder” wants to be a second-chance romance, a treasure-hunt caper, and a desert survival thriller. Lily Wilder stages fake treasure hunts through Utah using the hand-drawn map she has from her father. Leo, her first love, returns with friends, and Lily’s map pulls them towards a real treasure hunt. The route back to the ranch and to each other soon becomes a violent scramble involving guns, knives, death, greed, and a suspiciously reusable set of villains. Attractive premise, poor execution. » An explosion detonated in his blood. « That sentence appears twice, in Chapters Thirteen and Fifteen; Chapter Twenty-One repeats the same blood-and-fire image twice more. The pattern feels less like a developing motif than a shortcut: whenever desire peaks, the prose reaches for combustion instead of letting the characters carry the scene. Romantic-adventure capers need momentum, danger, and protagonists whose choices becom...

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire My rating: 3 of 5 stars Not the heartbreak of coming back, but the origin story I did not really need I opened my review of the first instalment, “ Every Heart a Doorway ”, with the line “Not the fantasy of going through the door, but the heartbreak of coming back.” “Down Among the Sticks and Bones” turns that idea inside out. This time, Seanan McGuire gives us the fantasy of going through the door, tracing the origins of Jack and Jill in a story that reaches for the shape, logic, and menace of a fairy tale. For me, though, that shift is precisely where the novella loses some of what made its predecessor so affecting. » On the day our story truly starts « That line captures one of my main frustrations with the book. By the time the story “truly” starts, more than a fifth of the novella has already passed, and I felt that delay. I understood what McGuire was trying to do by showing the damage inflicted on the sisters before they ever ...

Reliquary by Douglas Preston My rating: 2 of 5 stars “Reliquary” is what happens when a sequel mistakes escalation for improvement. Where “ Relic ” ( review ) was a fast-paced thriller that, for me, got the basics right and delivered genuine suspense in a tightly contained setting, “Reliquary” sprawls, overexplains, and keeps piling on lurid ideas until the whole thing starts to wobble under its own weight. It still has energy, and now and then it lands a scene well, but mostly I found myself watching it become more absurd with every new revelation. Its old-fashioned impulse to go big, dirty, and nasty is not a strength here but one more reason the whole thing feels overcooked and heavy-handed. Preston and Child clearly want the New York underworld here, literal and figurative, to feel mythic, diseased, and overwhelming. At moments, that works. There is proper propulsion in some of the descents into the underground, and the book can still generate suspense on a scene-by-scene level. O...

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars Not the fantasy of going through the door, but the heartbreak of coming back. Every portal fantasy asks what lies beyond the door. What Seanan McGuire asks instead is what happens after the door shuts behind you, and that shift gives “Every Heart a Doorway” its bruised, peculiar power. » Children have always disappeared under the right conditions. « I went in expecting something wistful and whimsical. What I found was weirder, sadder, and much sharper about loneliness, belonging, and the violence of being told that your deepest truth is nonsense. » Narrate the impossible things. « That line feels like the novella’s method in miniature. McGuire writes with the economy of a fable, but not the emotional simplicity of one. The prose is lean, clean, and surprisingly cutting. Eleanor West’s school is not a cosy sanctuary for charming misfits so much as a halfway house for children who have already found the worlds that suite...

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager My rating: 2 of 5 stars I picked “Middle of the Night” up because a Goodreads friend recommended it. In hindsight, I really should have known better. Riley Sager has been wildly uneven for me, and this novel lands firmly on the wrong side of that divide. At first, the setup works. A vanished boy, a suburban cul-de-sac, a traumatised adult returning to the scene of childhood horror, sleepless nights, uneasy neighbours, dark woods. That is exactly the sort of material from which a properly creepy thriller can be made. Sager knows how to build that initial itch of dread, and for a while I kept reading in the hope that the book would cash in on its atmosphere. » The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle… « The problem is that the novel gradually mistakes strangeness for depth. What begins as eerie and potentially poignant becomes weird in a way that feels more contrived than unsettling. The story grows increasingly complicated without becoming ri...

Platform Decay by Martha Wells My rating: 3 of 5 stars Platform Decay should have felt like a homecoming. Instead, it feels like being shoved out of an airlock and told to keep up. I absolutely loved Murderbot at its best. The early books worked because the action was never really the point, or at least never the whole point. The point was the anxious, avoidant, furious, funny, traumatised self hiding underneath the armour. Murderbot was compelling because every mission doubled as self-exploration: what does freedom mean, what does personhood mean, what does friendship mean when even admitting you have friends feels like an exposed nerve? "Platform Decay" knows that version of the series still exists, but it only lets us see it in flashes. » ”SecUnit.” « That one word, from Mensah, carries more emotional weight than whole stretches of the surrounding plot. Likewise, the late moment where Murderbot acknowledges being surrounded by friends is exactly the sort of subtle, painf...

The Island by Adrian McKinty My rating: 2 of 5 stars Bog-Standard Survival, Served With a Side of Pretension This is one of those “family vacation turns nightmare” survival thrillers that runs perfectly well on rails, and that’s exactly the problem: I’ve seen these rails so often that there’s no tension left in them. “The Island” isn’t badly written, and it certainly keeps moving, but it’s moving through a landscape of ideas that has been strip-mined for decades. You can almost hear the genre machinery: chase, threat, escalation, “resourcefulness”, repeat. What really sank it for me is the book’s intermittent insistence on being profound. Every now and then, the prose swells up, as if volume could substitute for insight. Chapter 24 gives us: » Civilization meant nothing here. Perhaps it had always meant nothing. There were no monsters on Dutch Island, but the beast was man, had always been man. « This is not depth, it’s a poster slogan pretending it just discovered human nature. Even...

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple My rating: 3 of 5 stars I went into Maria Semple's " Where'd You Go, Bernadette " expecting a clever, slightly chaotic satire with a warm centre. That’s mostly what I got, but I also got a structure that kept tripping me up. Bernadette is, by design, difficult: brilliant, prickly, and permanently on the verge of bolting. Semple captures the specific kind of marital whiplash where the person you love becomes unrecognisable, and you’re left staring across the table, wondering when it happened. » There was a terrifying chasm between the woman I fell in love with and the ungovernable one sitting across from me. « Bee, thankfully, is the emotional anchor. She’s smart, steady, and quietly funny, and I cared about her far more than I cared about the Seattle “eccentrics” circling her mother like gnats. » One of the gnats at Galer Street claims I ran over her foot at pickup. I would laugh at the whole thing, but I’m too bored. ...

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant My rating: 2 of 5 stars Gorgeous setup, then a miraculous theological derailment Wow, didn’t that blurb read great? And it started off well enough in the woods where Cooper and his daughter have been hiding for years. The atmosphere felt genuine and plausible, the prose was smart and elegant, the characters endearing - what could possibly go wrong? Cooper especially, and Finch to a lesser extent, live a tense but ultimately peaceful life: they hunt and gather, roam through the wilderness, and they do so frequently, extensively, and repeatedly. Yes, some of these excursions bring new information, but did we really need to hear about the “King of Trees” and each of its manifold brethren? Well, yes, I felt bored with large parts of this novel, but then it got worse: A certain character is introduced, and suddenly, drastically, the story springs into action. What ensues is completely unbelievable and seems to be the author’s traditionalist theo...

The Sign of the Devil by Óscar de Muriel My rating: 5 of 5 stars Redemption Through Fire: A Triumphant Farewell I’m currently reading books from the depths of my Kobo - things that haven’t been on my radar for a long time or which I was afraid to read. “ The Sign of the Devil ” by Óscar de Muriel was one from the latter category. The previous two instalments simply stank: bland stories, bad writing, character regressions instead of development — it was Murphy’s Law materialised as a book. And yet, I needed closure — “all will be revealed”, de Muriel promised for this final novel in his Frey and McGray series. To my immense surprise, not only did he keep his promise, but he actually wrote a fast-paced, interesting, suspenseful, yes, even thrilling swan song for both his eponymous protagonists and even some side characters. First among the latter is, of course, Ms. Amy “Pansy” McGray (nothing will be revealed here , though!). Like the phoenix from the ashes, de Muriel ri...

Starter Villain by John Scalzi My rating: 3 of 5 stars " Starter Villain " by John Scalzi is a light, fast-paced read filled with Scalzi’s characteristic wit and humour. I approached the book expecting an entertaining romp, but unfortunately, while it had moments of genuine charm, it often felt too shallow and predictable to leave a lasting impact. It’s a story that adheres closely to a wish-fulfilment fantasy setup — a relatively ordinary protagonist finds himself embroiled in a world of supervillains, talking cats, and evil corporations. However, the execution falls a bit flat. Scalzi’s success with the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts lies in his ability to blend humour with substance, and in comparison, Starter Villain seems to lack the depth and complexity of his earlier works. The novel is full of zany situations, but it all feels rather surface-level, with little emotional heft or character development. Even with its quick pacing, the stakes never felt p...

Seven Deadly Wonders by Matthew Reilly My rating: 1 of 5 stars Matthew Reilly's " Seven Deadly Wonders " is akin to reading a 90s action B-movie. Unfortunately, the novel fails to deliver a compelling narrative, with both the plot and characters lacking believability. While Reilly attempts to blend high-octane action with historical mysteries, the result is a muddled execution that leaves much to be desired. From the outset, the characters come off as one-dimensional and unconvincing. They are supposedly a diverse group from various backgrounds, but this diversity is sadly superficial. This oversight detracts significantly from the novel, creating a sense of sameness that undermines the story's potential. For instance, Big Ears dangling precariously over a ledge is a moment ripe with tension but falls flat due to clichéd dialogue and character interactions: » Big Ears was dangling over the edge of Level 1 directly above her, helpless. ‘I can’t get to her...

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett My rating: 2 of 5 stars “ City of Stairs ” came highly recommended by many friends and I was so looking forward to a murder mystery, an espionage story, a post-war drama, a piece of fantasy, and alternative history. Yes, maybe the sheer breadth of this should have forewarned me but what can I say… The story was… mediocre: A lot of divinity-this, divinity-that, people who want to bring back the “golden days”, profiteers, evil brothers, evil aunts, and other relatives. In short: lots of bullshit. Also, the characters: Shara, the granddaughter of the Kaj, the saviour of his people, and the killer of gods, faultless master spy, genius, is our heroine and she’s… boring. Absolutely, breathtakingly boring. She keeps being lucky and only in the end do we see her dealing with her evil scheming aunty. In between, she mostly lurches from one disaster to the next. Part of her luck is called Sigrud. An almost excessively inventive name for what...

A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow My rating: 2 of 5 stars From a story point of view Harrow's second “ Fractured Fable “, “ A Mirror Mended ”, starts right after “ A Spindle Splintered ” with Zinnia Gray, our protagonist, still trying to fix happily-ever-afters for a lot of Sleeping Beauties. That’s where my issues start: Why Zinnia again? Why not create a new character? Zinnia’s story arc was complete after “Spindle” and in my opinion, it would have made a lot more sense to create a fresh new character for this book. In fact, there’s a lot that gets repeated here: Zinnia still “falls” through the multiverse with the evil queen from Snow White, Eva, she intends to help. Sadly, while “Spindle” was a modern retelling of the old fairy tale, “Mirror” features some of Snow White’s characters and ideas but at no point is it any kind of retelling. It’s much more of a complicated series of events that somehow occur - sometimes all too conveniently - without much influence fro...

Where the Strangers Live by Oliver Phipps My rating: 1 of 5 stars I don’t know how this book ever made it to my to-be-read pile. It’s a clumsily written short novella about a woman, Sophie, and two men, Elliot and Roy (who only have eyes for Sophie’s butt, breasts, etc.) who happen to enter a submerged alien base… The story itself reads like a truly bad b-movie but as if that wasn’t bad enough, the writing style is repetitive (we keep reading the “three submariners” and other constantly repeating phrases and denominations) and clumsy. Furthermore, there are countless truly grating grammar issues (tense!), typos and other mistakes (“to” versus “too”) that made me think the author must be a non-native speaker (as am I)… The fight scenes were atrociously badly written, a crime against Phipps’ readers! Long-winded, boring and, of course, also badly written. Stay away from this! One out of five stars because I can’t award none. Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View ...

The Seven Brides-to-Be of Generalissimo Vlad by Victoria Goddard My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was a very easy read: Science Fiction just done, not lengthily discussed or even dissected but a fun ride of merely 10.000 words. Elegant prose, witty dry humour and a fragment of a story that I would have been interested in reading a full-length novel about. Five stars out of five. Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/the-seven-brides-to-be-of-generalissimo-vlad-by-victoria-goddard/?feed_id=3029&_unique_id=6612683cd754c

Nolyn by Michael J. Sullivan I tried really hard to like this but couldn’t. In fact, I’m giving up at 62%… I liked “ Legends of the First Empire ” and that series’ protagonists. I love Michael’s Hadrian and Royce . “Nolyn”, though, is a different matter: We’re 800 years after the events of “Legends” and some of the old heroes are still around which is one of the issues: All the human protagonists are, of course, long gone; but the elves are still around. Unreasonable lifespans of several thousand (!) years are poor, unconvincing and annoying storytelling devices. Yes, that was made clear in “Legends” and I was worried that might create a problem but it never mattered in that series. Now, Nyphron is still around but - before I DNF’ed - he doesn’t appear. He’s talked about but we don’t get to “see” him. Also, an old nemesis from “Legends” is still around, still conspiring and plotting which is very annoying: Don’t reuse old enemies; they had their time and place and 800 ye...

Face Her Fear by Lisa Regan My rating: 4 of 5 stars By this 19th instalment in the Josie Quinn police procedural series , Josie, our heroine, has gone through many traumata: The death of her ex-husband, the shooting of her grandmother, and the death of a colleague - things have amassed and despite being in therapy, Josie suffers from severe insomnia and now there’s bad blood between her husband Noah over… something new! No wonder Josie follows her therapist's advice and goes on a retreat with a renowned trauma therapist in a remote, isolated location in the wilderness - what could possibly go wrong?! In a setting that reminded me of Agatha Christie’s classic “And Then There Were None”, Josie faces her fear(s) when one of the other participants is murdered… A wild bear also makes an appearance and to top things off, a snowstorm suddenly starts and causes everyone to hole up together - a murderer among them! Without her team, Josie must not only work on her mental healt...

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami My rating: 1 of 5 stars Wow, this was bad, really bad. It starts with the reason for this novel’s popularity: It consists of 98% pure violence porn: We get to witness how about 40 15-year-old classmates from junior high school brutally murder each other. Actually, they’re more like slaughtering each other and through my reception of the text, I had the very unpleasant feeling of watching a violence-obsessed author act out his most revolting fantasies. Takami almost gleefully presents his sadistical ideas with excessive and gratuitous violence. While I presume the novel is meant to be a commentary on societal pressures and the dehumanising effects of violence, I felt that the graphic descriptions of bloodshed and gore were used purely for shock value and did little to further the plot or develop the characters. Speaking of which: The next percent is the characters displaying the character depth of a paramecium, a single-celled organism… Taka...