Princess Juniper of the Anju (read for fun)

I picked this up at a public library book sale because it sounded like fun. A good little adventure. Seeking help from your mother's tribe to fight off an invasion of your father's kingdom, and undergoing formal trials to acquire that help, that does sound like an adventure, doesn't it? On one hand, it deals with heavy stuff. On the other hand, the actual content is pretty tame. What I mean to say is, the premise of this book is violent but the events are not. They're rated PG, at highest. 

I'm having difficulty being concise about this book because of how well the author takes adult-level issues and makes them acceptable and/or palatable for children. Ammi-joan Paquette does a great job on that. 

An invasion of one's homeland is a serious issue, and it is treated seriously in this book. Juniper has to make a decision about what she should do, as a princess of Torr, as the queen of Queen's Basin, and what she can do realistically. She has to be diplomatic with people she doesn't like and also with strangers. She has to work through anxiety and uncertainty. These are all adult-level things. 

Yet, the book is not grim. It is not violent.  It has a steady stream of optimism. Be confident. Take things one step at a time. Focus on what you can take care of now, and don't worry about all the other things in the future just yet. Make friends, not enemies; if you can, find common ground with enemies so they might become friends. These are all great messages for children, and they come in a gentle but firm fashion. 

Also, I want to mention the world-building, landscapes and culture, that sort of thing. The author does a great job with this as well. The layout of Queen's Basin, the path to the Anju community, and then the Anju community itself are all gorgeously described. These are the three major areas where the book takes place, and they are expanded to the extent that they feel like real places; like fully realized environments. The culture of the Anju is built up magnificently as well. It is developed over the course of the book, bit by bit, and becomes an essential plot-point. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives "Princess Juniper of the Anju" an A+

Click here for my previous book review: No Game No Life - Practical War Game (read for fun)

Click here for my previous book review:  The Irregular at the Magic High School - light novel volume 1

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

The Irregular at the Magic High School - light novel volume 1

I looked into this because I watched the anime on Crunchyroll. It is a fun show, but I got the sense that I was missing a lot of content. It was in the way events were presented and exposition was delivered, they hinted at much more. So, I picked up the first volume out of curiosity.  I was right. There is a lot more going on than the anime shows. 

The anime shows the events that take place and the outward relationships between characters. It doesn't show all the world-building and magic theory that the author, Tsutomu Sato, put into the light novel. Just as an example of the former, Tsutomu Sato uses several paragraphs to describe the evolution of the train system in Japan, and the effect this has on human life and relationships. The magic system gets even more space. 

Indeed, one could say that this story is not so much about the Shiba Siblings as much as it is about this modern magic system that Tsutomu Sato has devised. Chapter 0 is entirely about magic, and various points about it and its terminology are re-iterated to enforce understanding or introduce something new. The Shiba Siblings, standing at opposite ends of this magic system, serve to illustrate various mechanical and social effects of it. 

Overall, I found this to be a somber and technical story. It doesn't have many highs or lows, simply progressing at an even pace. Even fight scenes are like this. It is kind of like Tatsuya Shiba's mood, stoic-leaning-dour. It is a very interesting story, but I can't say I enjoyed reading it. Then again, this is the Enrollment Arc, and this arc isn't as much fun in the anime as the following arcs are. I'm thinking the next volume I read will be the start of the Nine Schools Competition arc. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Irregular at the Magic High School -  light novel volume 1" an A

Click here for my next book review:  Princess Juniper of the Anju

Click here for my previous book review:   Tasha's Cauldron of Everything - Dungeons and Dragons 5E (read for fun)

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything - Dungeons and Dragons 5E (read for fun)

I was really excited to read this one.

I picked it up because I heard that it did interesting things with character creation, and that it provided a leg up for the Ranger core class. It does all this and more. First, character creation. 

Lots of options here for customization. Unlike previous books, which provided generators and tips for adding flavor, there are numerous mechanical options here. When I heard that TCoE would allow players to mix and max race options, I was afraid that it would open the door to illogical powergaming, without respect to lore. While powergaming is definitely an option, as it always is, the lore is still intact. For instance, if you wanted to build a wizard in the past, then it was recommended to go High Elf, Tiefling or Human to get a bonus to Intelligence. A dwarf wizard would always be inferior for lacking that, which discouraged roleplay possibilities. Now, with TCoE, a player can officially state that "my dwarf character was more studious than other dwarves, and so he is more intelligent, but he's not quite as hardy as other dwarves." There is no official way for non-dwarves to get explicitly dwarfish racial abilities, like their poison resistance, so that is reassuring. 

Also on the same subject, is the idea of changing class features and even archetypes mid-campaign. I'm a dungeon master, and so I've had my share of players who want to change things up about their character or even start a new character. I've struggled to find ways to accommodate those requests within the story. Again, I'm a lore guy. I want to keep things consistent and make sure that those things have an in-universe and lore-based reason. This book helps with that by providing mechanical ways to allow and, at the same time, regulate character changes. It also has fun lore-based reasoning examples. 

Next is the Ranger core class update. All the classes received new archetypes or other options, but the Ranger is the only one that got a total overhaul. Seriously, these aren't additional features so much as they are replacement features. I understand that there is some disappointment over how the official overhaul isn't as powerful as the Unearthed Arcana, but I feel that is to be expected. In my experience, UA is always really powerful and then it gets toned down for official rules after playtesting. 

Finally, Sidekicks. The last thing in my review is going to be about the rules for sidekicks. I'd like to do more, but I'm trying to keep this review short (ish).  Sidekicks/pets/etc. have long been on the fragile end in 5E. There's a lot of roleplay potential in them, and interesting character build options for them, but they're only viable at the lower levels. These new rules make them more viable, because they can level up with the PC and gain other benefits. I say this from a place of experience. In my home game, a player befriended a pseudo-dragon, and I used these rules to make the tiny creature less squishy. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything " an A+

Click here for my next book review: The Irregular at the Magic High School - light novel volume 1

Click here for my previous book review:   The Trials of Apollo - the Hidden Oracle (read for fun)

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

The Trials of Apollo - the Hidden Oracle (read for fun)

God of Prophecy, save the future! Literally, your oracles aren't functioning. 

I picked up this book at a book sale hosted by my local library. It sounded interesting. I haven't read the other Percy Jackson books. All I know of the series is from Pop Culture Osmosis. So I was unaware that two series preceded this book, and that made for a fun experience. 

I didn't feel lost at all. The author did a great job on adding relevant info from previous books without being exposition heavy about it. Evidently, the premise of this book, the god Apollo being punished with mortality, is a direct result of the outcome of the previous series, The Heroes of Olympus. So there are a lot of Late Arrival Spoilers. That is not a problem from my perspective.

 It actually made me interested in going back to those earlier books and learning the full story of the snippets. Like what happened with Leo and why he's wandering a sea of monsters and some such. Basically, the past books are treated...casually, for lack of a better word. They're like fun pieces of series lore. What you need to know for this particular series is presented neatly. For fans of the series, I imagine they are fun call-backs. 

Apollo himself is the first-person narrator, and he is obnoxious. He is prideful, self-centered, and doesn't like taking responsibility for things etc. However, the narration itself is fun to read. It's lively and comical. While full of himself, Apollo is, I wanna say, "harmless". The times that he was malicious are played up, like that satyr he flayed or the cyclops he killed, but in this story, Apollo is not mean to other people, not even in pursuit of his own goal. It is more like he is thoughtlessly selfish.  Thankfully, he gets a good dose of character development. It helps that three of his demi-god children are part of the cast. They bring out the best in him. 

The plot in this book is essentially Apollo traveling to Camp Half-Blood, learning of the situation with the Oracles (because the God of Prophecy wasn't paying attention to them), and finding a solution. That solution being a "hidden oracle", as the book's subtitle suggests. None of the characters know how to go about doing that, and what moves the plot forward appears to be prophetic dreams that Apollo receives from SPOILER. And Zeus. At many times in the story, Apollo suspects that Zeus is mucking with his memory to hide certain knowledge from him, and only allowing him certain godly power at certain times. It makes me think that Zeus has some sort of In Mysterious Ways kind of plan. 

It was a fun book to read, and its has its serious moments too. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives "The Trials of Apollo -  The Hidden Oracle" an A+

Click here for my next book review:  Tasha's Cauldron of Everything - Dungeons and Dragons 5E

Click here for my previous book review:   No Game No Life volume 6 (read for fun)

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.