The Empty Shelf Book Reviews

            In my continuing quest to read some classic fantasy from the 1900s, I stumbled upon King's Dragon, the first book in the Crown of Stars series. The first of 7, I believe. It was originally published in 1997, so perhaps it's not TOO classic, but here we are anyway.     I don't like giving negative reviews. If I finish a book, there was something to like about it. I did struggle through this one, though. I didn't DNF because it was the first book of the year, and I just couldn't abandon hope that quickly. So, all that to say, I wasn't overly impressed.      We follow two primary points of view: Alain and Liath. Alain is a 16 (I think) year old boy of uncertain parentage who is promised to the church, but finds his way into the service of his local Count. He first becomes a stable boy, then a kennel master, and eventually a Man at Arms, but he takes a VERY circuitous route to get there. The poor kid is kind of a loner,...

  My Favorite Reads of 2024 Here are my favorite reads from 2024. I read 39 books, a handful of which were re-reads, so I’ll try to pick stuff that I read for the first time. These are in no particular order. Well, they’re in the order that I read them, just not ranked. Magician: Apprentice/Master by Raymond E. Feist (1984) - These are technically the same book. They were written and released in the UK as a single volume called “Magician,” but I guess the deemed US audiences too dumb to read one long book, so they broke it into two volumes. It actually works cause there’s a big time jump about halfway through. It’s the first volume in the Riftwar Saga, which encompasses over 30 books, and also the first in the Riftwar CYCLE, the opening trilogy of the whole damn thing. Whatever format you get it in, this is a great example of classic fantasy. It has a very formal turn of phrase to it - sort of Tolkien-esque - and the world building is excellent. In fact, it takes place on two wor...