This was very clever—perhaps too clever for its own good, based on other reviews. Slow, methodical development alllllmost stalled this out for me. But then it really, really comes together. The themes are just far too satisfying, running parallel to the classist angle being discussed and examined, but, of course, particularly the myth central to the story. 

It not only illustrates, in quite a deft way, why classics are classics, why art imitating art etc. was, and still can resonate so well. While also putting into focus how little has changed in society with gender dynamics, the male gaze, who controls what narrative and why, and manages to be dynamic, complex, to the point of making the antagonist humanized; but then, exploitative in so doing, again mirroring myth and society. 

It seems to be the largest sticking point for readers: the amount of text dedicated to a predator harrowing the protagonist. But, in its defence, it is the entire point. And, for me, it’s what made this so exceptional, rather than the gradual increment of 3 star expectations and 4 stars exceeding them. 

Pretty solid. Again, the humour just works, despite being low brow and raunchy, and typically not my thing. It picks up right where the last left off, which was a bit of a cliffhanger, and so this one ends in likewise fashion. 

The themes are also pretty solid, though, as you’d expect, not heavy, but ever present. There’s a bit more character development, their relationship gets organically deeper. 

I do think, as incredibly pacy and fun it is, the development of the world building did make it feel like not all that much happened; but all of it was super fun, and I’m already excited to find out what’s going to happen on the next floor and how certain things established will play out. Good times. 

Aspects of this were really well handled: the intersection of black culture and Arthurian legend, grief and how and why it’s processed like it is by the protagonist, especially. Other parts—such as the love story, that of course, has a bad boy and a good boy involved, was really, really forgettable. 

However, by the end it does get pacy and more interesting than I had expected. There’s plenty more interesting stuff that can happen in future instalments, and the amount the text had to breath really nurtured all those things to a point that felt organic and not like a very typical first book the genre is so fond of. 

Classifying it as dark academia is a bit mystifying, though. I mean, sure she is technically in college, but basically all of the book has nothing to do with classes or, like, academia… so, yeah. Just some buzz words attached to it, I guess. 

I was actually fairly certain I was not going to jibe with the humour of this book, but it actually won me over fairly easily. Did not see that coming. Did not see a Lot of this book coming. Where to even start. 

So, while the LitRPG thing isn’t new to me, this particular setup, where people are forced to run a dungeon as actual people forced into a game that’s like D&D (but is more like a weird pastiche, really) is kinda new to me. There’s lots of scenarios where people are forced into games, but the Running Man games, Hunger Games, overlayed with the game elements, I don’t know, feels somewhat novel to me. Mostly because the comedic elements come from the Powers That Be having studied humanity and, with their own creativity, functioning much like our own post-capitalism, manage to churn out a game that is tailored for public consumption, while also being a satire on creativity and how stupid main stream culture is because of how these things function.

Throw in a talking cat named Princess donut and a meat head with a heart of gold and you’ve got a really, highly readable and entertaining, pacy as hell, weird ass book. It’s extremely commercial in its prose and never really manages to put together something more than really simple prose work. And in this first book I wouldn’t say there’s much character work to speak of either, although I hear it has a surprising amount of it later on. 

It’s a solid first effort and I’ll continue with it to see how it develops. Cliffhanger ending with Carl and Donut having to choose their classes. I gotta admit, I’m curious. 

P.S 
As a nerd, it did bug me that magic missile is weirdly lasers coming out of donuts eyes in this. And yes, it could just be another nod to the pastiche, and the aliens just co-opting culture for amusement, but like, scorching ray exists and it would make more sense. I wonder if he put it in there just to bug people familiar with the D&D, or something? 

Consistently lush in prose, these are very easy to enjoy, I found. Tonally they range wildly, but the character work remains the same. It starts with something like a more traditional hook, then becomes more like an ensemble, besides the fact heist, and then becomes mostly just character arcs. It makes the trilogy more thematic and locationally based than you might expect. I guess it really depends. After all, I didn’t even read the blurb, so I had no real preconceptions. I just had read Woodrell before and wanted to again. 

I could see why this would be wide ranging in opinions, since it really doesn’t have much for genre fiction fans, yet literary pretensions also don’t really apply, even if some of them are present. The prose and characters and are absolutely forefront and fantastic, but I never got the sense Woodrell wanted to do more than pose opposing opinions and observations about a people steeped in dichotomies. 

What that means, really, is you need to take your pleasure from the prose and characters, and they are not likeable, and they are messy. Fortunately for me, that’s what I prefer. 

Within the minds of a three women watching a very unusual play, against the backdrop of brushfires that… kind of feel like they ought to be more important, honestly, we get the rumination of lives turned inward, as they experience art. With all the context of their lives playing part, it’s a pretty interesting notion, and novel to me, so this was a really quick, compelling read, for me. 

It is very good, I think, at differentiating the women at a generational level. What issues affect them greatly differ, in believable and feel very much like truisms to me. It also hits on, before COVID, issues of attention span, perhaps as a byproduct because of the realization of their inner lives and turmoil, and being provoked by the play to it, possibly. But either way, none of them can seemingly pay attention that well to The Performance, and our ability to experience and internalize art being greatly warped by modern technology, I think is really interesting, and as worrisome as climate change (a pretty large concern, both in this fiction and reality). 

Better than I expected. Immediately liked the protagonist. In fantasy stories, that’s not usually a given, and I have to grow to like them, or just not mind them. But she felt pretty well-realized and “normal”—up to a point, which was when she settles into her roll at the, more-or-less magic school, and her friend introduces her to magical contraception when its clear a guy is into her. This felt a bit weird because she’s all of thirteen, and I suppose some people become sexually active then, it just felt so naturalized that it created some dissonance, for me, between her capabilities and her, holistically, as a believable character. On the other hand, though this was an issue, I actually didn’t mind the resolution of that B plot, even if, again, the way it was resolved, felt more like the way things play out with older, mature people, rather than teenagers. There’s some work put in as to why the protagonist doesn’t think, feel, act like a teen, due to her upbringing, but I’m not so quick to buy that relationship dynamics playing out like that don’t come from experience and actual development, and not because kids aren’t kids because they’re forced to grow up quickly. But, clearly it wasn’t a sticking point for most people, who absolutely adored this book, as far as I can see. 

As pretty much the ultimate horse girl (power) fantasy, it’s all pretty endearing. Competent world building, introduced only when needed, genuinely kind characters that foster real empathy, and seemingly small stakes that balloon, again, believably and organically from the problems introduced. It’s short, punchy, and like basically all fantasy books in a trilogy, end on a cliffhanger that solely wrap up the through-line, but go no where really near the larger problems of the realm discussed, even if it’s apparent that’s where it’s going. 

This was above grade commercial fiction, and impressively steeped in the complexity of a black (officer) in Texas in what people would describe as racially charged now—which really just means that the story has a protagonist who, at a meta level, behaves and navigates life like a black man, and the text doesn’t elide that for the comfort of the audience. Neither did it feel, to me, like it went out of its way to bring up those circumstances. 

It also very much felt like an instalment of a story, which it is. It’s quick, punchy, and manages to be gripping. But also feels slightly cut short and has a cliffhanger. I am unsure if this is a series or duology, but it did manage to hook me enough to grab the next, knowing that about it going in. 

I’m also completely ignorant of Texas, so the dynamics of a black man living there as a Ranger, was particularly novel to me. 

3.5 rounded up 

 

I had put this off for a bit when I'd tried Space Opera and found it not my thing, but this was smooth and easy reading. With postmodern elements in play, our narrator a mix in Russian folklore and grander writing traditions that grip her story away from her. It was immediately compelling for me, though it comes with some drawbacks when a reader (like me) isn't very familiar with the entrenched folklore. There's no real anticipation, just the enjoyment of being on a ride that is not a rollercoaster. No rails, who knows when it will end, and who knows exactly what will happen, nor the stakes involved. Because of it, familiar readers will probably click more deeply with it than me.

But I found it engaging and interesting throughout. And because you're told early on that in a story like this, some of it "actually" happened and some didn't, and the nature of the story as an entity itself being meta, even without established stakes, it was more than enough to chew on.

 

As with a lot of stories focusing on drugs and crime, It is such a struggle to find something captivating about both the Voice, as well as the unfolding story. Fundamentally, I just do not care, nor do I personally know about (so could liken or empathize) with characters who are on drugs—and on top of that, I wasn’t even alive during the 60s, so this glittering nostalgia nugget and its subsequent snuffing out as the time period progresses, just does nothing for me. It reminds me a lot of watching Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. This preoccupation with how a medium Was and what it means to the writer should be something easily accessed, but instead feels inane to me, simply because none of it makes any sense and there’s no context, nor does the authors of this kind of content ever try to provide anything. The weird sub-genre of post 60s era of love, to me, requires an in-road I just do not have.

Beyond this, though, while it does feel a lot more accessible than I expected my first Pynchon to be, I had high expectations insofar as the intelligence and post modern elements it might have. I didn’t find the elements presents, again, very engaging, either. Much like Savage Detectives, I’m a little baffled as to how lauded this is. The characters don’t feel, or speak, or really negotiate the world naturally. Maybe it’s supposed to be comedic, and was also lost on me, as most comedic elements are. 

But, overall, I suspect it’s just a lack of good onboarding. People complain about this in cyberpunk, which for me has been the smoothest sub genre compatibility in all of lit, for me. This is, I guess, the opposite of that. I think I get what it’s doing, I just didn’t care about it, though I did struggle through to finish it. Even with the, again, hyper sexualization akin to Savage Detectives, that felt like nothing more than window dressing playing for a completely different brain/person than me.