I have quick-talking smart-asses on the brain and in my heart, and I have been feeding that fire with KJ Parker’s massive catalog of books. Parker continues to add to this large body of work by doing stuff like releasing entire trilogies at once at alarming speed. Today's subject is the first book in the…
Continue reading ➞ Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead – Instead Of His Intrusive Thoughts
If you have been hanging around The Quill to Live for a while you might know that we love Sebastian de Castell. Author of The Greatcoats and Spellslinger series, de Castell is a permanent fixture in our hidden gem recommendations. He has a swashbuckler charm that pervades all his stories with humor, drama, and emotion…
Continue reading ➞ The Malevolent Seven – Angels, Demons, And What Lies Between
The Chosen Twelve, by James Breakwell, is a humorous standalone dystopian thriller about a group of young senior citizens competing in a series of chaotic simulations to determine the fate of the Earth and all organic life. It strikes an uncommon balance between silly and serious and certainly checks the box when it comes to…
I really can’t get over how much fun The Siege novels by K.J. Parker are. They are simply delightful and honestly a little hard to describe. A Practical Guide To Conquering The World is the third story in a set of loosely connected standalone novels by Parker about unlikely individuals achieving military dominance. Book one,…
Continue reading ➞ A Practical Guide To Conquering The World – Translates To A Good Time
I love a good “getting the team back together trope”. There is something so fun about going down a list of unlikely allies and having the hero show up on their doorsteps and convince them to come back for one. Last. Job. It’s a simple and easy plot device, but it does a great job…
Continue reading ➞ The Maleficent Seven – Short Of Magnificent
The Blacktongue Thief, by Christopher Buehlman, is the first book in the Blacktongue series and a book that left me with a profound sense of deja vu. It is a book that I both felt I had read before, yet is bursting to the seams with originality and authorial flare. It's crammed full of some…
Continue reading ➞ The Blacktongue Thief – The Magic Of Student Loans
Alright full disclosure, I am only writing this review because I was provided a nice free ARC by Netgalley, and I feel bad that I never actually talked about the book. I was hoping to let Ten Arrows of Iron, the second book in The Grave of Empires series by Sam Sykes, quietly sail me…
I am a latecomer to Welcome to Night Vale, much to my shame. If you are unfamiliar with the famous podcast by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, it’s a humor-based series about a small American town replete with supernatural happenings. The character who narrates the series is a small local radio jockey who does his…
Continue reading ➞ Mostly Void, Partially Stars – Shines Bright In The Dark
Look, just read this book. You are going to like it. Swordheart, by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), is an impossible book to dislike. It’s a fantasy romantic comedy that positively radiates humor, joy, and character. It is currently published by Argyll Productions, a small targeted publisher, so Swordheart is relatively unknown - which is a…
Continue reading ➞ Swordheart – Pointedly Funny and Heartwarming
Let’s get it out of the way early: Martha Wells’ Network Effect is phenomenal and likely surpasses the high expectations set by the novellas. If you are coming into this paragraph and don’t know what I am talking about, I assume you have been living under a rock. Wells’ Murderbot novellas have repeatedly raked in…
