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I'm a hundred and fifty pages into this and I just keep rolling my eyes and thinking "get on with it, Sanderson". This worldbuilding could have been done in 50 pages, or it could have been peppered throughout the part of the book where things, y'know, happen.

I liked, but I didn't love this book. The concept is wonderful: magicians are effectively a kind of white-collar job like lawyers or accountants. It gives lots of fun opportunities for Pratchett-esque social satire. But I didn't get drawn in to the story or the characters, and I found the writing a bit annoying.

I realise this is the second time I have compared a book I've reviewed to Pratchett. In the case of House of Open Wounds, I thought Tchaikovsky had successfully captured something of the same kind of worldbuilding that I loved in Pratchett. But in this case, Gladstone is aiming to capture a different aspect of Pratchett -- his juxtaposition of unexpected modern concepts and a fantasy world -- but I can't quite place why it isn't working for me.

On the writing: it's fine, but every so often there's a metaphor that doesn't land, or a simile that feels a bit forced. (I think I had similar problems with This Is How You Lose The Time War.)

Despite these complaints, I'd give this a qualified recommendation: if it's something you think you might like, you probably will.

I think this was on my to read list because I saw Adam Roberts recommending it on twitter. I have read and enjoyed quite a few Adam Roberts books, so I thought I'd give it a go. It must have been on my to-read list for a while, because it's been ages since I was on twitter. The book tells the story of a convent somewhere in England in the 14th century. (I'm second guessing myself now about when the story takes place, but the exact timeframe matters very little).

The book this reminded me of, and bear with me because it will seem a weird comparison at first, is Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. Historical fiction, written in a kind of detached, almost dreamlike tone. In Mantel's book that style of writing is counterbalanced by the epic and emotionally charged events of revolutionary France described. In this book, it's mostly about some nuns and their squabbles. It was like reading something where all the emotional intensity had been smoothed out, sanded down. I also found some of it hard to follow because keeping all the characters straight was a struggle. They're all nuns. There's no real main character, nuns come and go over the course of the fifty or so years of the main narrative, and the detached writing style means that there's nothing very distinctive about most of the characters.

Having said all that, this was an interesting read: a historical novel set at a time, and in an environment that I haven't seen portrayed all that often in the genre.

I enjoyed The City of Last Chances, and this is a worthy successor. It's a sequel in only the loosest of senses: there's only a couple of characters from City of Last Chances that make an appearance. In another sense, it is continuing the same story: the story of the Palleseen's hegemonic expansionist forever war.

There was a section in the middle of the book where I wasn't sure whether it was as good as the first one: the story seemed to be dragging a bit, and the multiple perspective storytelling that worked so well in City of Last Chances just didn't seem to be working as well. But the book redeems itself in the last fifth or so. The disparate strands of the story come together perfectly and the final tense scenes are really good.

I titled this review "What if Pratchett but dark?" and I stand by that: I think Adrian Tchaikovsky has, here, tapped in to something of the same worldbuilding that Terry Pratchett did so well. Tchaikovsky's books don't have the gentleness of Pratchett, and the humour is less central, but there's definitely something of the same vibe to the world.

I don't think this is as good as City of Last Chances, but it is, nevertheless, a very good book.

I found that I enjoyed some of these short stories and I disliked some others. Some of the ones I liked really outstayed their welcome: a good idea, but the story itself dragged. That said, there's some fun stuff in there.

I enjoyed the first third of this book. After that, it kind of got a bit silly and I wasn't buying into the story as much as in the first part.