Buy Kill the Beast
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: All faeries must die. That's the creed Lyssa lives by as she makes her living slaying all manner of faerie creatures. It's a task she's pledged herself to ever since her brother was killed by a faerie monster known as the Beast. She's spent over a decade trying to track this elusive creature, but she's never been able to find it - until one day, she's approached by an eccentric dandy named Alderic. Alderic recently stumbled across the Beast's lair, and having also lost family to the monster, he's willing to pay handsomely for its death. Unfortunately for Lyssa, she'll need to bring the hapless Alderic along to collect the ingredients she needs to forge a weapon capable of killing the Beast. But as the two slowly bond over their past losses, Lyssa may find friendship in the most unlikeliest of people.
Kill the Beast is an excellent story of friendship, love, grief, and loss, all told while fighting monsters. This is all grounded in its two central characters, Lyssa and Alderic. They are complete opposites, clashing over how to handle almost every aspect of their quest. Lyssa is competent, efficient, and stubborn, the kind of person who believes force is the most expedient way to solve problems. Alderic, meanwhile, delights in life's pleasures, and prefers empathy and conversation (and occasionally large sums of money) to overcome problems. Alderic would be so easy to dismiss as useless if there wasn't often some wisdom in his actions. His compassion and willingness to simply talk to people opens more doors than Lyssa can break down, and with far less collateral damage.
I absolutely loved watching Lyssa and Alderic learn from each other and slowly, ever so slowly open up to each other. This is a slow-burn enemies to friends to lovers story (no spice) that earns every step along the path. It isn't without some heartbreak along the way, but I was never mad at the story or thought that any bumps were unnecessary. In fact, those bumps often WERE necessary to break through the last few walls preventing emotional growth.
There was one thing I didn't love, though it largely has to do with personal preference. There is an element in this story that I don't think will take many people long to figure out, and I think the author is aware of that fact. But I HATE being ahead of a character when it comes to discovering information. I fully realize that the structure of the story demands things get revealed when they do, but I personally was impatient for everybody to finally be on the same page.
Kill the Beast is a lovely standalone tale that I highly recommend. It has action, mystery, and romance, with two characters I adored. It's an excellent debut and I will definitely be back to see what the author writes in the future.
3:00 AM | 
Posted by
Caitlin G. |
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Book links: Amazon, Goodreads
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alexander Darwin is an author living in Boston with his wife and three daughters. Outside of writing, he teaches and trains martial arts (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). He’s inspired by old-school Hong Kong action flicks, jRPGs, underdog stories and bibimbap bowls.
Outside of writing fiction, Alexander has written for publications such as Rolling Stone Magazine. His latest piece, The Lost Diary of Anthony Bourdain, was a featured piece in Rolling Stone’s January 2022 Issue.
Publisher: Orbit (December 3, 2024) Page count: 411 pages Formats: all
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: In Angel City, there are two forces of power: the Lumines and Grand Central. These two secret factions are rival groups of alchemists, magic users with the ability to transmute elements. But their crowning achievement is sand, a drug that enhances the best - and worst - aspects of any person who takes it. With everyone from politicians to pop stars clamoring for the underground drug, control of the sand trade is vital. As the Lumines and Grand Central draw closer to outright war, two childhood friends find themselves on opposite sides of the battle line. Will their own personal needs for power and control outweigh the love they have for each other?
Red City is a gripping tale of two people caught up in a tangled web of conflicting loyalties as feuding magical cabals get ready to wage war. This isn't Romeo and Juliet; that's a love story of two relative innocents trying to escape the conflict around them. Ari and Sam are far from innocent. They each commit dark deeds and are fully complicit in the violence breaking out in the city, all while trying to reconcile their complicated feelings for each other.
The author does a fantastic job of building up Sam and Ari's relationship in the first third of the book. We spend quite a bit of time seeing their quiet solidarity with each other before life's pressures drive them apart. While the way they join their respective alchemical faction differs, their reasons for doing so are similar: they are isolated, lonely children who find themselves at far too young an age weighted down with the responsibility of protecting their respective families. Power begins as a means to create safety; only far too late do Ari and Sam realize the cost that comes with that power.
Because the alchemy factions keep secrets on pain of death, Ari and Sam don't realize they are caught up in the same conflict until the story jumps forward several years, when tensions between Angel City's top two factions are about to erupt into a full scale war. By that point, they've both become critical members of their factions and believe they should do basically anything to protect their faction and its interests.
For those who love to revel in soapy, toxic relationships, this book will be absolute catnip. Ari and Sam are children when they become caught up in extremely manipulative relationships that will mold them into adulthood. That means that when sex enters the scene, while it is always between two consenting adults, it is by no means part of a relationship that is in any way healthy. (And yes, there are explicit scenes in the book.)
Don't come to this story looking for a sweeping romantic tale. This is full of dark actions and morally compromised characters. Practically every relationship in RED CITY is jagged or broken in some way, but characters care for each other despite that. Unfortunately, each character has too many conflicting loyalties for a juggling act to be possible, leading to inevitable heartbreak.I did like that the author sometimes gave the audience a peek into other characters' lives that the two main characters are never privy to; the protagonists don't magically get to learn everyone's motivations by the end of the story. It creates the tragedy of knowing the real reasons some side characters make the choices they do, reasons our protagonists will never know.
To top it all off is the fantastic magic system that relies on manipulating the very atoms that make up everything. Alchemy is as much science as magic; alchemists have to know the atomic structures they are working with, how to transmute something from one element to another in a balanced way that doesn't cause an explosion or some other unstable reaction. But for those who master it, your imagination is the limit. It means that fight scenes are full of people pulling knives from brick walls or conjuring a shield from air molecules. It's fast-paced and fluid and cinematic and I loved it.
The only quibble I had with this book is sometimes I found the prose a little too overdone. There were certain scenes that were flowery enough that I found it took me out of the story instead of pulling me further in. Thankfully, the characters are engaging enough that
Red City is here to be your next dark fantasy soap opera read. It's the kind of novel where characters are morally grey at best, where everyone has done something truly evil at least once. If you need joy in your next read, this is not for you. If you're looking for complicated relationships that are heading towards heartbreak fast, this needs to be on the top of your TBR.
Buy Dungeon Crawler Carl
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Carl never would have guessed that chasing his ex-girlfriend's cat outside in the middle of winter would be the thing that saved his life. As fate would have it, however, that's exactly when aliens showed up and wiped out most of the human race, and only being in the wrong place at the right time kept him alive. But if Carl wants to stay alive, he has no choice but to enter the 18-level dungeon the aliens have erected underground. It's part of an internationally broadcast gameshow, one where fans and sponsorships can make all the difference in whether or not you live until the end. Can Carl, along with the cat Princess Donut, survive the gauntlet of death long enough to gain a following that will help them win?
Dungeon Crawler Carl is a fast-paced bingeable adventure that I found hard to put down. Despite a rather bleak premise (what with most of humanity being wiped out and the rest being put into a deadly televised game show), the book itself leans into the absurdity of the situation. One minute Carl is chasing a runaway cat, the next he's trying to outrun a bunch of goblins in a tank and being awarded loot boxes for surviving the situation. The author manages to keep things light-hearted most of the time, without fully losing sight of how dire the stakes are. An in-game counter, for instance, keeps a tally of how many humans are remaining on the planet - and that number is steadily dropping all the time.
Underpinning this whole story is the LitRPG architecture of the narrative. Upon entering the dungeon, Carl is given a virtual interface that acts much like a video game UI. He can see everything from a mini-map to enemy health to his own stats. All of these elements are a critical part of how the story gets told. There are lengthy discussions about the minutiae of the game, everything from how the menus work to how to grind experience to level up abilities.
You'd think a stat heavy story would be dry as dust, but I found myself thoroughly engrossed. Now admittedly, I'm part of a prime target audience. I'm a gamer who enjoys watching D&D actual plays, who doesn't fast forward when players are doing the "boring" level-up part of the game. So in many ways, I found sections where Carl and his new tutorial guild master go over stats and loot boxes and how everything works extremely soothing.
But I think for the mainstream audiences, there's some drama in figuring out how this works because it's literally life and death. If Carl can't figure out a build for the game, if he can't figure out how to use potions and weapons and the difference between a neighborhood boss and a city boss, he's dead. Sure, having a familiarity with games in general will help get you invested, but I think the stakes keep you invested as well, even if you aren't an avid gamer.
I will say, I did chafe a little bit against some of the chauvinistic writings for the "in-game" descriptions of achievements and lore. I understand that they're supposed to be written by an AI that doesn't have an ounce of political correctness in its coding, but the AI was already crude and condescending enough. It didn't need that element thrown into the mix on top of everything else.
I can't end the review without shouting out the narrator for the audiobook I listened to. Jeff Hayes has a great range of voices that helped keep things entertaining. It's a testament to both the story and the narrator that I got through this audiobook in a mere 10 days; normally a book of this length would take me 6-8 weeks on audio!
Dungeon Crawler Carl somehow takes the end of the world and makes it an utterly consumable adventure. Carl only completes the first few floors in this adventure, but there's enough teases about what lies on the lower levels that I'm eager to see how the game keeps evolving. Hang in there Carl, I'm rooting for you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Morgan Stang lives in the humid part of Texas. He graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA. By day he works in accounting and by night he sleeps, and sometime in between he writes in a wide variety of fantasy genres, ranging from dark fantasy (The Bartram's Maw series) to gaslamp murder mystery (The Lamplight Murder Mysteries) to cozy fantasy (The Bookshop and the Barbarian). He is a fan of all things nerdy, and lives with an immortal ball python.
Publisher: Morgan Stang (August 26, 2025) Length: 369 pages Formats: ebook, paperback
Published: February 19, 2019 by M.L. Wang Length: 651 pages (Kindle) Formats: Literary awards: SPFBO Award for Best Fantasy Book
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Christopher Moore is an American writer of absurdist fiction. He grew up in Mansfield, OH, and attended Ohio State University and Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA.
Moore's novels typically involve conflicted everyman characters suddenly struggling through supernatural or extraordinary circumstances. Inheriting a humanism from his love of John Steinbeck and a sense of the absurd from Kurt Vonnegut, Moore is a best-selling author with major cult status.
Publisher: William Morrow (May 13, 2025) Length: 400 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. Zachary Pike was once a basement-dwelling fantasy gamer, but over time he metamorphosed into a basement-dwelling fantasy writer. By day Zack is a web professional and creative-for-hire, but at night he returns to his lair to create books, films, and illustrations that meld fantasy elements with offbeat humor. A New Englander by birth and by temperament, Zack writes strangely funny fiction on the seacoast of New Hampshire.
Published: November 28, 2012 by Michael McClung Length: 362 pages Formats: audiobook, ebook, paperback Literary awards: SPFBO Award for Best Fantasy Book Series The Dark Profit Saga
ŁUKASZ
Some reviewers have compares Orconomics to Pratchett novels. A bold statement if you ask me. As a fan of satires, I needed to experience and verify it myself. And I liked it.
It’s funny and uplifting but also serious and sad in some places, as every good satire should be.
On the world of Arth, adventuring is the industry that drives the economy. Groups of battle-hardened warriors hunt and kill Monsters and Shadowkin (Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds) and claim their hoards. These loots are bought and sold by corporate interests to plunder funds long before the hero’s guild attacks. You’ll easily see similarities to Goldman Sachs in Goldson Baggs operations.
The story follows Gorm Ingerson - a fallen dwarven hero whose hero’s license has been revoked. His clan disowned him, and he lives as a rogue. One of funds forcibly recruits Gorm to undertake an impossible quest with a team of similar fallen heroes. If he succeeds, he may win back the fame and fortune he lost so long ago.
His new team includes colourful and fun cast of characters– a goblin squire (who brings a lot of comic relief), clumsy and naïve prophet of a mad goddess, an elf warrior addicted to alcohol and drugs (healing potions in the book), two mages who are at each other's throats, a thief who claims to be a bard (even though he can’t really sing) and a warrior seeking his own death. They start the quest to find Elven Marbles. As we follow the story, the plot gets a little more complicated and nuanced.
I always appreciate a well-plotted and solid high fantasy tale with humour woven into the plot and the world. The world building mixed seamlessly into the story impressed me. The characterization doesn’t disappoint - even characters that seem very archetypical get significant development by the book’s end. The pacing is just right. It speeds up and slows down in all the right places.
The humour made me laugh. Obviously, no author should be compared to Sir Terry Pratchett - simply because no one stands a chance. In no way is this book on par with Pratchett’s novels. It is, though, a superb fantasy satire.
Thanks to mostly uplifting tone, Orconomics works as a well-deserved rest from dark books in which characters you love die, become evil or destroyed. On the other hand, it’s not all sunshine and roses. After finishing the book I’m impressed by Pike’s skilful blend of humour and tragedy. I mourn one of characters. Every good satire needs to contain a level of tragedy and Orconomics delivers both.
The ending of the book set ups for the sequel I will definitely read once I sort out my reading schedule.
MIHIR
Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike is one of my favourite books to have come out of SPFBO. Zack Pike’s debut was just a fascinating mix of epic fantasy tropes, satire & some brilliant but biting commentary on the foibles of unbridled capitalism.
“Gorm was a veteran of waking up in a strange place with a surplus of questions and a shortfall of memories.”
The main plot begins with Gorm Ingerson, a disgraced dwarven ex-hero who has long tried to run from his shameful past. Things have been rough for him for a few years but he’s finally been given a chance to redeem himself. Soon a motley band is formed with Gorm, a goblin, an elf named Kaita and a scribe named Niln. The team is later joined by a couple of mages who are semi-mortal enemies and hilarious with their bickering. The plot follows up it’s the normal fantasy trope of an epic journey and it’s herein where the author plays his first trick.
J. Zachary Pike lulls the reader while giving us a very characteristic and trope-filled story but the worldbuilding and story details are what make the story so unique. Firstly this is a world wherein adventuring and all the other details have been presented in a very financially-oriented way. The author does a brilliant job in setting up the reader with all the details of how this fantasy world operates. From quests wherein villages pay to have their surroundings cleared up to adventurers having to pay for their own upgrades. Imagine a fantasy world run by Mckinsey consultants & Disney’s accountants, this in a nutshell is a such a world. While there is a fun vibe to the story, but as a reader you can see the veneer of avarice beneath the trappings of it all.
Even though this book is more than a decade old, its message about greed, corporate avarice and the dangers facing humans are just as true now as they when it was published. This book’s message is quite grim and kudos to the author for writing such a darkly brilliant story within a fun, satire mold. The story while following all the known Tolkienistic tropes, quite cleverly subverts them. I enjoyed this aspect and the humour within is of the sly kind which had me chuckling all throughout.
The book has some truly dark aspects to it from character backgrounds to the rigid societal structure to the financial burden that’s yoked to most of the creatures. The author has however folded humour as much as possible so the dark aspects while significant don’t overpower the story. This way the main plot stays funny & satirical all the way till the end.
I wouldn’t be lying if I say Orconomics is one of the most brilliant written stories to come out of the indie fantasy genre, however it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. The truth is Orconomics is one of the most brilliant stories to ever come out of the SFF genre. Give it a read and then read the sequels too (as the trilogy is complete). This way you can truly appreciate one of the best fantasy trilogies to have been gifted to us readers.
SPFBO CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE RATING FOR NOW
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Celia didn't mean to curse her brother. Unfortunately, her magic awoke the day she discovered he was leaving her behind, causing grief-filled words to doom him to a life without love. As the years go by, Celia searches for a way to undo the curse. But in a land caught in an unending cycle of war, can love ever find a way?
The Summer War is a pleasant fairy tale about the power stories have to change the real world narrative. Although Celia may be the first sorceress in generations, undoubtedly the more important characters in this world are the traveling minstrels known as song-spinners. Time and time again, we see them wield stories to share information and to shape public opinion. They have the power to spread truths and propaganda in equal measure, and only a fool overlooks their importance.
I also loved the portrayal of the Summer Lands, inhabited by the fae-like summerlings. Within the borders of the Summerlands, stories have a near-magical power, with the expectation that lives and conflicts will unfold according to familiar patterns and beats of archetypal narratives. Once again, power comes from knowing how to move with and within those stories, and how to use them to achieve your own aim.
But while The Summer War is charming and I certainly enjoyed it, I wouldn't say it is overly memorable. It's a definite recommend for someone looking for a short read with fairytale-like qualities. You can easily read it within a day and have a charming time. But I don't know that it or its characters will stick with me past the length of a summer.
