Props to Tony for keeping up the reviews when I got behind
and overwhelmed. I will try to do better this year, and
hopefully cover some books in each tranche, as in this one,
from my 2023 backlog as well as the previous month.

Disclosure: As always, the urls are Amazon affiliate links which
in theory could earn me a few pennies if buy something after entering
Amazon through one.
===

Warriorborn: A Cinder Spires Novella (The Cinder Spires)
by Jim Butcher
https://amzn.to/42pw2dw

The Olympian Affair (The Cinder Spires Book 2)
by Jim Butcher
https://amzn.to/3SH9cek

Just as Butcher eased back into the "Dresden Files" with a novella, "Warriorborn" leads off his return to the world of the "Cinder
Spires".

Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster is a "Warriorborn" lieutenant in the
service of Spire Albion. It's been so long since the first Cinder
Spires book that I can't recall if the Warriorborn were introduced
there or not, but basically they are semi-weres: stronger & faster
than normal humans, and also more subject to impulsive and instinctual behavior. War is brewing in the setting, and the Spirearch is
concerned that he hasn't received vital intelligence from the new
Albion colony at Spire Dependence, so he sends Benedict and a "dirty
dozen" team of Warriorborn criminals to asses the situation and do
whatever it takes to retrieve a dispatch case.

Arriving by airship and dropping in stealth Benedict's team finds
that it's not a case of the Spirearch's agent being held or killed:
The whole spire has been massacred by unknown and apparently
impossible means. Perhaps the war has started, but as far as anyone
knows, Spire Aurora has no weapon that could have done this. As
it develops, there are witnesses who it is vital to bring back to
the Spirearch along with the dispatches, wherever they are, but
that won't be easy in the hellscape of a ruined Spire, the hostile
native life of the Spires setting, and enemy action. At least
Benedict understands *that* part of it..

This was a very satisfying return to a setting I really enjoy. I
would say the only nit was a speech given by Benedict's (convict) second-in-command, an excellent character, which did not have the
payoff I expected later.

_The Olympian Affair_ takes up directly after "Warriorborn", and
Benedict continues to feature, but the three main characters here
are Auroran Colonel Renaldo Espira, a Warriorborn in a society less
friendly to such than Spire Albion, Albion Captain Francis Madison
Grimm Captain of the AMS Predator, the Spirearch's personal ship,
and Albion Lady Abigail Hinton, scion of an important Ablion merchant
House, and the Spirearch's personal representative to the diplomatic
goings-on at Spire Olympia.

What are the goings-on? Well, war with Aurora is coming, may already
have arrived, and Albion is going to need all and any allies it can
get. The conference is full of backstabbing, sometimes in a literal
sense, and Lady Hinton is having a difficult time of it. Not helping
matters is that her lover, Albion's most famous duelist has also
been sent to Olympia, with strict instructions not to duel *anyone*
while his Auroran counterpart is also there and is determined to
provoke same. Helping matters even less is the fact that Abagail
finds herself involved in a duel of her own, and the menace from
Spire Dependence is bearing down on everyone despite all Espira can
do to stop it.

I really like the Cinder Spires setting. Its quasi-Elizabethan
characters all live turned-up-to-eleven lives, fighting harder,
loving larger and friending stronger than in our own workaday world.
We get a few new pieces of information on the setting in this book,
which tend to make me think I was wrong in my initial assumption
that it takes place in the same multi-verse as the "Codex Alera"
books. We also get an interesting twist at the end of the book
which puts in in the mind of a similar turn in the first of McClellan's
"Glass Immortals" books. I also like Butcher's portrayal of having
cats as allies: It doesn't help as much as you might think.

Aftermath (Expeditionary Force Book 16)
by Craig Alanson
https://amzn.to/3St9fJ8

After Joe & Skippy defeated the series big-bad in book 15 (or what
had gradually developed into such), I wasn't sure there would be a
book 16, but life goes on, and just because the Elders are gone,
the Senior Species don't stop scheming, and Earth's whole entree
into that category is still really largely a bluff.

When Elder AI Skippy's attempt to harness a new Sentinel to impress
the Rindalu and buff Earth's "being our friend brings bennies" cred
goes awry, it emerges that perhaps "Skippy The Magnificent" isn't
actually quite so these days, which is a huge problem, and when it
develops that *another* Elder AI is at large and in opposition it
is (yet another) extinction-level problem.

I felt this was a subpar outing in the series. While it's nice
that Joe no longer feels so much imposter-syndrome dealing with
these cosmic level problems, his solution here was not well conveyed.
Which is to say it was conveyed in excruciating detail after-the-fact,
rather than being hinted at during the action. Certainly we knew
that something fishy was going on with the Beetle Admiral, but the
whole thing could have been handled better. Also, we got extraneous side-jaunts to the "Mavericks" characters which didn't amount to
anything (other than keeping that storyline mentioned), and there
were some dire words from Bilby that didn't lead to anything.

I will say the new menace is logical, but not something I had
expected.

Dread Knight: A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Harem
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/4bjHxqZ

After Mike Truk, Sarah Hawke is the best writer of hot adventure /
harem adventure that I know of. Setting aside the sex, her characters
are smart and likeable, and her settings are interesting

_Dread Knight_ takes in a new setting for Hawke. It's a post-fall
fantasy somewhat D&D world existing in the aftermath of huge magic
wars and a world-changing spell gone wrong which called down the
Zombie Apocalypse on top of everything else.

Still, people struggle on, and gradually the zombies (called "The
Riven" here) have gradually been driven back on many fronts, and
much land has been cleansed of the corruption which spawns more.
Duncan Keene is a Dread Knight. His order makes bargains with
demons to gain the strength to fight The Riven. It's a thankless
life as demons always take more and more, and each Dread Knight
knows his (or her) life will end in insanity, more likely than not
to be put down by comrades as the evil becomes to strong. Duncan
has no illusions about his path, and no regrets. It's a hard life,
but the Knights, together with the Paladins of Aodor have been an
effective team.

Or *were* an effective team. Several years before our story starts,
with the main battles won, the Paladins betrayed the Dread Knights,
and Duncan ended up a condemned & bitter prisoner. Forced on an
expedition into the Grey Moors under the authority of a Lady Confessor
of Aodor, an unexpected (disturbingly so) Riven attack kills Duncan's
party and he himself is left for dead, yet somehow he wakes to a
beautiful woman's face and a second chance for himself, and perhaps
his world.

As usual for Hawke, this was an enjoyable, solid book. At this
point I can see some of her tropes, for instance, Duncan's awakening
angel, Kithani has strong traces of the Amazon Kaseya, and the Elf
sorceress Vess gives off intense Valuri vibes, but it works well
enough, and I want to see the story play out.

Incursion: A Space Opera Harem Adventure (The Lost Fleet Book 1)
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/49kZWC1

Insurrection: A Space Opera Harem Adventure (The Lost Fleet Book 2)
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/42wPTYw

Invasion: A Space Opera Harem Adventure (The Lost Fleet Book 3)
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/3SnNXNd

Renegade: A Space Opera Harem Adventure (The Lost Fleet Book 4)
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/42nKWks

Here's another Hawke series, in the same setting as her "Wings of
the Seraph" which I reviewed some time back. While that series of
novellas was very much a "Star Wars" gloss, "The Lost Fleet" (not
to be confused with Jack Campbell's series of the same name!) is
more a milsf outing.

Several centuries ago, a conquest fleet set out from the Dominion
(the polity being re-established in Wings Of The Seraph) to carve
out new territory and subdue the alien species of The Drift.
Unfortunately the spacial anomalies of that area of the Galaxy
caused the Fleet to be cut off and unable to return home. Well,
unfortunately and fortunately. While the local aliens were happy
enough for the Dominion Fleet to put down the Dowd, who were on
everyone's bad-side, they weren't all that enthusiastic about the
whole being conquered thing and were glad enough that the Fleet
couldn't reinforce or retreat, leaving it to establish local colonies
and interact on a more equal level than planned.

Kaldor Zeris is not Fleet-born, but came up on a hardscrabble
Dominion world in The Drift. When his planet was attacked by
slavers, he stepped up and actually managed to kill one, earning
the attention of Dominion Captain Ellis (responding to the attack
in a semi-unauthorized Dominion response) who noted his Zeris's
nascent psi talent, and recruited Zeris and his (literally) hot
alien girlfriend Ash into the service (also semi-unauthorized).

Now an "Immortal" (a group of ground pounders who can use psi to
deflect all attacks), Zeris works for Ellis (who is more than he
seems) along the fringes of the Dominion trying to improve the lot
of the Dominion's non-human citizens. This has been the big problem
in both this sequence and the "Wings Of The Seraph" sequence: Humans
tending to be SOBs to everybody else, despite the message of the
Seraph supposedly being for all. This is why Ash's experience with
the Service did not work out well at all, and why she now pursues
Ellis's goals through her own means.

That's all well and good, and perhaps Ellis & Zeris are making some
progress despite the poisonous politics of the Fleet and of the
Dominion itself, but then their ship runs into what seems to be a
case of simple piracy until the records of the derelict freighter
show shocking video: The Dowd are back, and it develops that there
are human traitors everywhere. If the Fleet is to survive, the
Dominion will have to become something better to win the allies
needed to drive the Dowd back once more.

Perhaps the guy to do that would be the one who has slept with every
alien species in The Drift? Just saying.

There is at least one more book to come in this series, and it's a
typical, fun, Hawke outing.

Marked by Magic: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Tracking Trouble Book 1)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/3HLPU14

Bound by Blood: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Tracking Trouble Book 2)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/490MUd1

Driven by Destiny (Tracking Trouble Book 3)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/3HJE1sp

Buroker has been writing a number of series, one leading into
another, in a Seattle setting. We were introduced to half-dark-elf
Arwen Forester in Buroker's "Legacy Of Magic" sub-series where her
tracking abilities came in handy for that series's lead character
half-dwarf Matti Puletasi.

Now Arwen is front and center, dealing with her own problems. She
has been getting by over the years in kind of a marginal way. Her
social anxiety and the fact that her Dark Elven heritage always
gets her marked as "evil" have kept her pretty much on the family
farm, where she bakes for local farmers' markets except for her
tracking work which is generally done solo or with one other woman.

Now, however, events are pulling her out of her shell. Her mother's
people are active in the Seattle area again and want her back in
the fold she feels very lucky to have escaped from, the magical
tattoo which ties her to Dark Elven demons is active again, and
can't be removed by any normal (or supernormal, so far) means, and
considering she has never had a relationship before, she is becoming
*very* aware of the exiled half-dragon Starblade and getting pulled
into his own deadly problems...

This is decent Buroker, but not, I think, top-tier. Things seem
to be moving a bit more slowly than I would like, and I didn't care
for the way things played out with Starblade's friend in the most
recent book. In addition, the cast from the other sub-series know
Arwen has problems with crowds, but didn't hesitate to inflict an
ever growing one on her at what was supposed to be a three person
dinner. The multi-series meta-plot of dragon control over all the
inhabited worlds (except Earth which they don't give a fig about,
yet..) is serviced some, and things remain unresolved in book three,
so there will be at least one more to come, which I will pick up.

Call Me, Beep Me: A Spy Harem Thriller Adventure
by Simon Archer
https://amzn.to/42pwf0i

When I called out Hawke & Truk as the best Harem fantasy authors,
I was not at all tempted to add Archer to the list. The idea of a
Kim Possible harem adventure was enough to pull me in here, but
neither the adventure nor the harem aspect was handled well at all.
Imagine Ron, Wade, Kim, & Bonnie all in college and Shego still on
the loose. Now imagine that none of it makes sense or is even
particularly coherent..

Not even Agent P could save this mess.
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columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

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