Blood Over Bright Haven 2/5

Wow this was not good! Story just gets completely hijacked by the themes which are presented in the most heavy handed fashion imaginable. I had problems with the sword of kaigen but that book at least had a strong emotional core that's completely absent here, major shame

A Shadow in Summer 4/5

Have repeatedly heard this book described as a slow burn but I was completely enthralled the entire way though, only real criticism is that the ending isn't quite as explosive/interesting as I would've liked but I'm sure that's coming down the line, highly recommended

Perdido Street Station 3.5/5

Mieville is undoubtedly an incredible writer and I was constantly wowed by all of the insanely inventive worldbuilding but imo the overall plot went in the single most uninteresting direction it could've and I was kind of checked out for the last third or so

Toll the Hounds 3/5

Expectations for this were through the roof and while there's more than several flashes of brilliance here + Erikson consistently being in a league of his own in regards to prose, it just did not hit the way I wanted it to at all. Maybe my the biggest letdown of the year

King Sorrow 3/5

Not entirely sure why I picked this up since i'm not a horror guy at all but it was pretty fun, not entirely what I was expecting as it wasn't very scary but the emotional payoffs were mostly good, lot of poignant character moments near the end but definitely a bit bloated/uneven

Reaper's Gale 4/5

Have some conflicting thoughts on how a few plot/character threads were resolved and I think the marine sections very much overstayed their welcome but this was otherwise a major return to form after finding the previous book comparatively underwhelming

parallel or melting away

Darien 3/5

Fairly enjoyable popcorn read, felt like a superhero origin story superimposed onto a fantasy setting which was pretty novel but definitely way too short to really get super attached to the world or characters. Wanted a palette cleanser in between malazan books so it served its purpose

The Bonehunters 3.5/5

Hurts to give this a comparatively low rating when it has maybe the best singular chapter in the entire series (so far) but it was otherwise easily the most bloated and meandering book for me, a major contrast with how tight the last two were.

Why does the difficulty go down when you die??? Makes it basically impossible for the player to gauge what difficulty they *should* be playing it at, the challenge becomes so inconsistent and random unless you just commit to doing each stage from the beginning whenever you die! It's terrible!!