Fantasy Book Club Series discussion

Please let us know what books you are reading and/or listening to during the 4th quarter of 2025 (October, November, December). What’s good? What’s not so good? And why?

All genres welcome here!

First half of October:
Some Golden Harbor by David Drake, 7.5/10. Another space adventure in the RCN/Lt. Leary series. I had trouble in this book keeping the various factions straight, which made it slightly less enjoyable. But Leary, Mundy, Hogg, and Tovera are always fun characters, regardless of the situations & characters that surround them.

Esrahaddon by Michael J. Sullivan, 10/10. I posted some comments in the topic thread for this book since it’s our group read this month.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, 7/10. This is truly the stone’s story (The Strength & Patience of the Hill), told in 1st person for much of the backstory & then in 2nd person through Eolo during the present crisis in the city of Vastai & the land of Iraden. That god’s long game was all about revenge, or maybe justice, depending on one’s perspective. (view spoiler)[Still, The Millstone (another of the god’s names) protected Eolo & Tikaz. Not sure what will happen to any of the other characters who were still alive at the end of the book. (hide spoiler)] I enjoyed the relationship between The Myriad and The Strength & Patience of the Hill, a long-enduring friendship filled with a gentle sense of respect and understanding. I found the 2nd person POV created a distance between me as the reader and the story/action/characters of the “present-day” parts of the book, like I was watching through a window rather than immersed in the plot & the emotions of the characters. One reviewer said the book was more like a folktale so maybe that distancing was deliberate.

Second half of October:
The Other by Thomas Tryon, 5/10. A fast read, with more than one twist, yet somehow still kind of predictable. I think is was quite groundbreaking when it first came out (1971).

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 7.75/10. A rather bleak but fascinating SF story of first contact in a distant future. What I liked: No question, the author can create convincing and truly alien species. The Shrouded were alien in every way to humans, except perhaps in their willingness & eagerness to learn and adapt. They were truly fascinating. The characters of Juna and Mai, central to the human side of the story, made it possible for me to connect with the story, despite how bleak and foreign their experiences were. Their relationship was the best part of the story. The second best part was how their ideas and attitudes changed the longer they were on Shroud and the more they interacted with the Shrouded. What I disliked: Like Shroud itself, this story was dark. One bad, nasty thing after another. The Concern(s) showed humans at their worst—greedy, uncaring users with little regard for the humans in their employ and even less for the planets/moons they exploited and any indigenous life that may have populated those planets/moons. All about the bottom line. The whole universe was a dreary place, with little chance of it changing or improving. So, a thought-provoking book, but an awfully bleak one.

The Black Loch by Peter May,
8/10. The author once again makes life on the Isle of Lewis come alive, grim as it sometimes is. The mystery at the heart of this story appears to be no mystery at all, but of course, things are more complicated than they appear. Beached whales and fish farming play more important roles than one might expect, and the main characters’ pasts hang heavily over the present. Moody and satisfying.

I was traveling during most of the second half of October and didn’t get much reading done—too busy sightseeing!

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier - a reread, and will probably continue the series for this last quarter of the year. I love this series.

I'm still slowly reading The Raven Tower - not loving it, but not ready to give up on it either.

I started listening to The Measure by Nikki Erlick, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm about 1/4 of the way through, and while the premise was really interesting, I have a feeling the book is going to take a direction I don't want it to go. I picked this up because a local book club was reading it. The premise of the book is this: Every person in the world who is at least 22 years old wakes up one morning to a box with their name on it. Inside, there is a single phrase, "This is the measure of your life." There is also a string in the box, the length of which varies from person to person. I'm to the point of how people are dealing with this information both personally and as a society. This book is very different than my normal reads.

I'm debating abandoning that since I bought the first book of the Licanius Trilogy, The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington a long time ago and never started it.

I'm still working on Empire of the Vampire in print. I'll likely be done with that this week.