Crowbones Anne Bishop Crowbones  is the third novel in  Anne Bishop 's  World of the Others  and eighth in  The Others  series, and it is, sadly, the last. Since it was published in 2022 and we've now entered 2025, it seems likely that this is the very end of  The Others . We return to Lake Silence for  Crowbones , with old favorites Vicki, Grimshaw, Julian, and of course Aggie Crowe and her fellow Crowguard along with the Sanguinetti across the lake from Sproing at Silence Lodge. It all starts one Halloween night, except that since this is Namid, Halloween is called "Trickster Night," but yeah, it is  totally  Halloween. Vicki tells Aggie Crowe and her other Crowguard employees about it, and they just love the idea, so Vicki finds herself in charge of a big party at the Jumble. And, well, stuff goes wrong. Like, the kind of wrong that leaves dismembered human bodies littering the grounds. It has been a constant throughout the previous...

Men at Arms Terry Pratchett, Jon Culshaw (Narrator), Peter Serafinowicz (Narrator), Bill Nighy (Narrator) Men at Arms  is only the second novel in  Terry Pratchett 's  City Watch  subseries of the  Discworld  series, but I think I already discern their central message. It is that the good that is done in the world (be it  Discworld  or Earth) is accomplished not by Great Persons -- not by Kings and Geniuses and Modern Major Generals -- but by ordinary hard-working people who keep putting one foot in front of the other. It's fair to point out that it's a hackneyed message. On the other hand, it's a theme that I love and can never get too much of. Although  Pratchett  is not alone in extolling ordinary folk, his way of doing it is unique. No other writer lights off the sorts of linguistic fireworks that  Pratchett  pops off line after line, page after page, seemingly without effort. (I say "seemingly" because that appearance of e...

Mihi Ever After: Off the Rails Tae Keller At the end of  A Giant Problem , the second book of  Tae Keller 's  Mihi Ever After  series, Mihi, Savannah, and Reese were told, "The Princess is in trouble." The Princess is Princess Pat, the heroine of the Rainbow Realm's version of Sleeping Beauty. In fact, there were signs that something was amiss in the Rainbow Realm -- it was fading. In Book 3,  Off the Rails , Mihi and the gang set out to rescue Pat. It transpires that, in addition to the Rainbow Realm as we formerly have known it, which is built from European fairy tales, there are multiple other fairy tale realms. These are built around the folklore of other places, such as for instance Korea. And there is a train station in the Rainbow Realm where these trains can be boarded. Pat left on a train in order to find magic that she could bring back to prevent the Rainbow Realm from fading. She has not returned, and the fading is still happening. Mihi and the gang t...

The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius Patchen Barss If I were asked to name the greatest physicists of the second half of the twentieth century, I would probably choose three:  Richard Feynman ,  Steven Weinberg , and  Roger Penrose . (I am a neuroscientist and a mathematician with a long interest in physics. I'm not the best person to choose great physicists, but I'm not the worst.) Thus when my local Theoretical Physics Institute (every town should have one!), the  Perimeter Institute , announced a public presentation by  Patchen Barss , a science journalist who has written this biography of  Penrose , I immediately snagged a ticket. Barss  wounded my confidence by emitting that cliché of the science popularizer: that you make science interesting by telling the "human story." Oh, please! I don't read a biography of  Penrose  for the sake of the human story. Why do science popularizers find it so hard to believe that there...

Chide the Waves Seanan McGuire Chide the Waves  is Seanan McGuire 's March 2025 Patreon reward. She introduces it as follows: (Image: A wide-eyed tortoiseshell Maine Coon on a beige background. She is very fluffy. The reflection of a television is visible in the window behind her.) Elsie sees ghosts we have proof. Ahem. I'm trying to move away from this time period in Toby's life, but it's hard when so much was happening to so many people. (I swear the next accidental novel will be Arden and Nolan on the Golden Shore.) Now it's Gillian's turn, as she tries to contend yet again with Faerie crashing in and gleefully wrecking her life. She is not having a good time. This is another installment in the October Daye series. As  McGuire 's introduction suggests, it's the story of Titania's attempt to impose her own custom reality on faery, as told in the novel Sleep No More .  Sleep No More  told how Toby (with a little help from her friends) defeated Tita...

The Tears of a Dragon Intisar Khanani OK, that title is a lie.  Intisar Khanani 's  The Tears of a Dragon  is not really about  Beverly Cleary 's  Ramona Quimby  meeting a dragon. Or is it? The Tears of a Dragon  is a novella in  Khanani 's  Dauntless Path  series. It immediately follows  The Bone Knife . Both stories concern a family in rural Menaiya. The father trains horses and has three daughters: Niya, Rae, and Bean. Bean, the putative Ramona of this family, is the youngest. In  The Bone Knife  the sisters helped a visiting Elf, Genno Stonmane, and he gave each of them a gift. Bean's gift was a small stone horse, which she wears on a thong around her neck. A troop of soldiers visits their village, and the gossip is that they have captured a baby dragon, whom they plan to use as bait to kill the mother. Bean is outraged and drags her sisters into a ill-planned raid to rescue the baby dragon. It's a good little story. S...

Wild Country Anne Bishop Anne Bishop  likes cops. I can say with certainty that she likes them as characters in her books.  Wild Country  is the seventh novel in the  Others  and the  World of the Others  series. Each of these seven novels features policemen prominently. Monty (Crispin James Montgomery) is one of the most important characters of the five Meg Corbyn novels.  Lake Silence  has Wayne Grimshaw. Furthermore, I suspect that  Bishop  likes cops in real life, too. They are not universally good guys in her books -- there are bad cops. But those who are main characters are presented sympathetically. Wild Country , however, is the first novel of  Others  that features a cop as protagonist. That would be Jana Paniccia. Jana fought hard to become a cop. The police academy in Hubbney had little use for women, and her classmates didn't think a woman could be a good cop. She emerged successful, and also with a giant chip ...