Bibliophilia

Of the making of books there is no end.
Overmuch study maketh men mad.

 

If you're curious about my approach to "reviews," you might want to read this. If you're curious about me, I have a Website, and a blog about things Medieval and Celtic. I read a lot. I suppose you could say I am a professional reader; I have a Ph.D. in English from UCLA, with an emphasis on things Celtic, and literature before 1832. I serve as Webmaster and Managing Editor for The Green Man Review and volunteer as an Admin for Absolute Write.

 

My most recent books are about doing stuff with the iPad. Most of the books I review here are books I purchased, a family member purchased, or that I borrowed from a library. When a publisher or author provides a book or an e-arc or an ARC, I will state that in the review. I am not paid to review the books on this site. (I do occasionally serve as an outside reviewer for scholarly books being considered for publication by academic or scholarly presses).

 

I like ebooks. I like making ebooks. I like reading ebooks. I object, violently, to text dumps and poorly made ebooks, and will so note in reviews of books that have been badly produced by a publisher who thinks exporting a file from InDesign is all it takes. In general, I am not soliciting books for review. Please do not send me review books as attachments without conferring with me first, since your attachment will be automatically deleted by my server. I am no longer willing to review self-published books, unless you're an author I've previously reviewed, or you are publishing a backlist of previously commercially published books. You can contact me here.

 

If you purchase something after following an affiliate link on this site, I will receive a percentage of the price. This is my FTC disclosure, in case you wondered. In other words, I'm a mercenary hack.

 

Barbara Hambly The Darwath Trilogy

I read these years ago in the 1980s when they first came out, and liked them very much. 

 

  • The Time of the Dark (1982)
  • The Walls of Air (1983)
  • The Armies of Daylight (1983)

I read them again as part of  checking out Oyster, and I'm delighted to say I still like them lots. I hadn't realized that she wrote two more Darwath novels:

 

  • Mother of Winter (1996; Locus award nominee 1997)
  • Icefalcon's Quest (1998)
  •   
  • I'm not sure how I missed them, since I've read most of her fantasy and SF books. I'm looking for them know. The Darwath re-read led me to re-read Hambly's Windrose Chronicles:
      • The Silent Tower (1986)
      • The Silicon Mage (1988)
      • Dog Wizard (1993; Locus Award nominee, 1994)
      •  
      • They too held up well (I'm pretty sure that Windrose's character has a tiny bit of homage to Tom Baker's Doctor Who) and again, there are two more related books:
      •  
      • Stranger at the Wedding/Sorcerer's Ward (1994)
      •  
        • My excuse is that I wasted an interminable amount of reading time in grad school. 

Currently reading

In Search of the Irish Dreamtime: Archaeology and Early Irish Literature
J.P. Mallory