There are some books which are heavy and take time to digest, some which are rich and nourishing, and some which you really need to get your teeth into. The Penric and Desdemona are none of those things — they're like the lightest cotton candy which just melts deliciously in your mouth. These dozen svelte novellas took no time at all to rush through. These are the pulpiest of pulp stories I've paid attention to in a long while, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. These books demand nothing of the reader, despite a genuinely interesting and novel system of magic and theology. They're just fun smoothly-plotted fast-talking adventure stories where our heroes get into and out of deadly messes with equal aplomb. Could be queerer, could be longer or meatier. But I'd absolutely reread these in an instant — and that's all the time it would take.