What do you think?
Rate this book
The Sorcerer's Corpse
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 28, 2026
It's more of a 3.5, but this website won't let me do half stars, so I bumped it up to four to even out the average rating a bit.
I have a lot of half formed thoughts about this book, but I can't figure out how to word them in a review, so I'll just say that the book is too small for its contents. It has a lot of concepts but some of them it discards and others it doesn't give room to breathe. I think Loren and Maal are well balanced to be 2/3 of the POV characters, but there's so much going on on Kores end.
Some spoilers to follow.
The jester system is very interesting, I'm a big fan of sacrifice used as the price to make magic happen. However, almost everyone with that power has a workaround so that the price doesn't last or isn't significant for them. We spend a sizable chunk of the book seeing our lead losing limbs in order to advance her quest, but then she regenerates them later. Once that happens the only price we see her pay for her jester afterwards is her hair, and even then it doesn't seem like all of it. Then she loses her ability to make those wishes with sacrifice, and then we don't see any more wishes occur for the rest of the book. This is somewhere around the halfway point. I understand that much of the remainder of the larger plot is about this wish granting ability, but given how often we see it used for smaller things in the first half, it feels really noticeable to not see anyone using it in the back half.
I can't form my other thoughts in to anything constructive but I do want it to be clear I did like this book, I read it in two days. I just wish it had more space to breathe and explore some of the concepts it wants to explore.
I have a lot of half formed thoughts about this book, but I can't figure out how to word them in a review, so I'll just say that the book is too small for its contents. It has a lot of concepts but some of them it discards and others it doesn't give room to breathe. I think Loren and Maal are well balanced to be 2/3 of the POV characters, but there's so much going on on Kores end.
Some spoilers to follow.
The jester system is very interesting, I'm a big fan of sacrifice used as the price to make magic happen. However, almost everyone with that power has a workaround so that the price doesn't last or isn't significant for them. We spend a sizable chunk of the book seeing our lead losing limbs in order to advance her quest, but then she regenerates them later. Once that happens the only price we see her pay for her jester afterwards is her hair, and even then it doesn't seem like all of it. Then she loses her ability to make those wishes with sacrifice, and then we don't see any more wishes occur for the rest of the book. This is somewhere around the halfway point. I understand that much of the remainder of the larger plot is about this wish granting ability, but given how often we see it used for smaller things in the first half, it feels really noticeable to not see anyone using it in the back half.
I can't form my other thoughts in to anything constructive but I do want it to be clear I did like this book, I read it in two days. I just wish it had more space to breathe and explore some of the concepts it wants to explore.
April 10, 2026
i feel like i need to gather my thoughts before i come back with an actual review. what i can say is it truly is amazing what some people can come up with. also, i keep randomly picturing the jester starfishing as it appeared. anyway
June 2, 2026
“All that was ever accomplished by humanity became meaningless in just one brief moment of history.” This is quite the visceral dystopia. It is as gross as it is unique and as mind bending as it is funny.
There is nothing more invigorating than when I believe I am just being entertained by a perfectly satisfactory book—until I put all of the pieces together and realize that my scope of understanding had only been at the surface level at best. I first had this rush of realization around page 200, but the author provided enough context and clues that I could have figured more out sooner—if I hadn’t been so busy daydreaming my way through the engrossing, surreal environments and imaginative “magic” system (or is it nightmaring my way through the “magic”? I suppose that would depend on the True Human.). The story continues this pattern throughout: burying the larger picture in so many fun, intricate layers until it all converges too obviously to miss.
I always try to read everything as blindly as possible, so if there were a summary, I wouldn’t have read it. But, since this book doesn’t seem to have a one on this site, I’ll provide a little (Feel free to skip the remainder of this section and the next, if you share my sentiment. But, I promise I am being vague and leaving out all the best parts.). The seven remaining humans are essentially gods in this puppet-laden, nearly colorless world. Kore, a puppet, is selected to fulfill a quest by the True Human who created their world from the ashes of ours. Simultaneously mysterious writing on the sun also provides more inspiration for this quest. Or is perhaps initiating a new one? Armed with a special sentient, snarky Foetal blade and corpse armor, the seemingly simple quest quickly goes sideways. Kore is forced to venture beyond the world of The Golden Princess to the domains of other True Humans, and suddenly everything isn’t quite as black and white. Or colorless. “‘This makes no sense,’ Kore says. ‘You said I couldn’t summon a Jester in the first place. I am a puppet, am I not?’”
This is split into three distinct narratives that ultimately inform each other and culminate. Each protagonist is a distinctly different type of repressed, empathetic, bumbling antihero, and even though I had favorite storylines initially, by the second half of the book, I was so engrossed in each that I never wanted to switch. “He sees himself in the creature, a tormented victim subservient to someone more powerful.” I also love the way the narrative splits—It is a great source of depth for all storylines.
I always fall into the trap of turning everything into a social commentary these days. But I don’t think I’m entirely wrong in this case. “Is there nothing more to life apart from human desire to trample others to emerge on top?” Even though this prospective future is horrifying, there are so many levels of humor in the specific decisions of the humans smart enough to hoard power as well as how these choices warp them. Even if you spin out like me and keep applying these hypotheticals well beyond the scope of the novel.
Warning: If you are a reader who evaluates lists of trigger warnings before deciding to read something—this book is probably not a good fit for you (unless you are just worried about a specific trigger—in which case you would probably be fine.).
There is nothing more invigorating than when I believe I am just being entertained by a perfectly satisfactory book—until I put all of the pieces together and realize that my scope of understanding had only been at the surface level at best. I first had this rush of realization around page 200, but the author provided enough context and clues that I could have figured more out sooner—if I hadn’t been so busy daydreaming my way through the engrossing, surreal environments and imaginative “magic” system (or is it nightmaring my way through the “magic”? I suppose that would depend on the True Human.). The story continues this pattern throughout: burying the larger picture in so many fun, intricate layers until it all converges too obviously to miss.
I always try to read everything as blindly as possible, so if there were a summary, I wouldn’t have read it. But, since this book doesn’t seem to have a one on this site, I’ll provide a little (Feel free to skip the remainder of this section and the next, if you share my sentiment. But, I promise I am being vague and leaving out all the best parts.). The seven remaining humans are essentially gods in this puppet-laden, nearly colorless world. Kore, a puppet, is selected to fulfill a quest by the True Human who created their world from the ashes of ours. Simultaneously mysterious writing on the sun also provides more inspiration for this quest. Or is perhaps initiating a new one? Armed with a special sentient, snarky Foetal blade and corpse armor, the seemingly simple quest quickly goes sideways. Kore is forced to venture beyond the world of The Golden Princess to the domains of other True Humans, and suddenly everything isn’t quite as black and white. Or colorless. “‘This makes no sense,’ Kore says. ‘You said I couldn’t summon a Jester in the first place. I am a puppet, am I not?’”
This is split into three distinct narratives that ultimately inform each other and culminate. Each protagonist is a distinctly different type of repressed, empathetic, bumbling antihero, and even though I had favorite storylines initially, by the second half of the book, I was so engrossed in each that I never wanted to switch. “He sees himself in the creature, a tormented victim subservient to someone more powerful.” I also love the way the narrative splits—It is a great source of depth for all storylines.
I always fall into the trap of turning everything into a social commentary these days. But I don’t think I’m entirely wrong in this case. “Is there nothing more to life apart from human desire to trample others to emerge on top?” Even though this prospective future is horrifying, there are so many levels of humor in the specific decisions of the humans smart enough to hoard power as well as how these choices warp them. Even if you spin out like me and keep applying these hypotheticals well beyond the scope of the novel.
Warning: If you are a reader who evaluates lists of trigger warnings before deciding to read something—this book is probably not a good fit for you (unless you are just worried about a specific trigger—in which case you would probably be fine.).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews