Sean Williams (1) (1967–)

Odo and Eleanor are catching eels in the riverbed near their home village when they discover an enchanted sword. The sword awakes when Odo cuts his finger on the blade, and it declares that Odo has the blood of a true knight. Odo has never wanted to be a knight, unlike Eleanor, who has dreamed of it all her life. Prompted by the sword, they set off on an adventure to discover why the river is drying up (working theory: dragons?), and along the way they have many adventures.

This is a fun romp of a story, though the plot doesn't really bear up under close inspection. Still, it's full of humor and action, and fans of lighthearted juvenile fantasy should take a look.… (altro)

Trigger warnings: Loss of limb, explosions

5/10, this was honestly another underwhelming science fiction novel and despite its low rating I was hoping to enjoy this novel but I did not. The worldbuilding was at best vague and at worst incomprehensible since there was an integral aspect of it known as d-mat but I don't know how they made it and whatever the Water Wars were but it might be some allusion to climate change; I don't know. This bothered me throughout the whole book as the main character Clair keeps using this teleportation system but I still have no idea how it works and I don't get the message of the story but it might be about the dangers of over-relying on technology and/or the government but the execution didn't work out and it felt kind of preachy and inorganic. The characters weren't much better either, as Clair wasn't even a strong protagonist rather she was just there to move the story along alongside some of the sacrificial characters whose names I forgot and d-mat/Improvement killed them, but I didn't care for them since they weren't developed and didn't have much time on the pages. The pacing was sluggish, with a few faster-paced scenes interspersed, but that wasn't enough to save this book from becoming a slog, I'm surprised that I got through it all without giving it a DNF, and the action was about blowing up an airship and teleporting to space however there was a duplicate Clary there, and they couldn't coexist so she asked her friend Q to crash the entire d-mat system, and it just ended in a cliffhanger which was a huge letdown however I would like to read the next two books in the series, but I doubt the library would get them considering this book is ten years old now. If you like science fiction books read this book however, there are better ones, like The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff that you can read.… (altro)