Fantasy Novella Review: The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox is the 14th novella in Lois McMcmaster Bujold's Penric and Desdemona series (itself a spinoff of her World of the Five Gods series/universe).  I've read all of the series up to this one in audio, as audio reader Grover Gardner is typically excellent, and the audio narration is no less excellent here.  If you haven't heard of the series before it follows Penric ("Pen"), a low noble of studious persuasion, as he accidentally contracted a demon Desdemona ("Des") and as a result became a temple sorcerer.  Over the course of the series, we've followed Pen's life from a young man trying to figure out life (and his abilities with his demon) up through this novella, where he's a middle aged well established man respected for his skills and with three kids and several charges under his responsibility.   It's been a very enjoyable series, especially when Pen and Des get into new situations and experiences that require him to figure things out or do something new.

This Pen & Des novella is almost more focused upon two of Pen's children: Rina, his 12 year old going on 13 year old daughter who wishes she could have a demon or magical path to pursue as she reaches adulthood, and Otta, his 11 year old adopted daughter who does have a demon (see Demon Daughter) and is unsure how she wants to use it.  The result works really well as we see Penric deal with the next generation and how the next generation deals with Pen, although I'm going to be honest I kinda wish all the ages of the kids were a bit older.  

More after the jump (Again I read this in audio, so apologies for misspellings of names):  

Video Game Review: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon

 

Trails Beyond the Horizon is the 13th game in the Trails series of JRPGs, a series of interconnected games on the fantasy continent of Zemuria (it's also the third in the "Calvard Arc" of this series). As my few readers may know, I'm a huge fan of this series, whose first game just got remade last fall (see my review HERE), but whereas that remake was very approachable for new players, Trails Beyond the Horizon is obviously not - just like the 13th book in a long running fantasy series is not going to be approachable for newcomers, the same is true here. Instead, the series truly embraces its long-standing epic nature here by combining the continuing main Calvard arc plot of protagonist Van Arkride (Spriggan/Mercenary for hire) with two new subplots led by former Trails protagonists Rean Schwarzer (from Trails of Cold Steel) and Kevin Graham (from Trails in the Sky the 3rd).

The result is....both uneven and often exhilarating. The gameplay of Trails Beyond the Horizon takes the gameplay from the Daybreak games and enhances it further with new mechanics that are real general pluses (only one of which is super broken, which is a plus for Falcom), so the game is pretty much always a blast to play. I really enjoyed the character-work done with the old returning characters (even Rean, who I pretty much hated in the Cold Steel games) and the game's side quests and minor characters' character arcs remain excellent. And of course the way the story winds up, ending in a cliffhanger ending of epic proportions, is tremendous and has me desperate to see how the story continues/concludes. On the other hand, the game's new three route structure, where you switch between Van, Rean, and Kevin's plotlines on occasion, as well as other issues with how the plot proceeds, result in the game's pacing being immensely frustrating, and the story not always really feeling like it clicks together. I'll try to be more specific after the jump, but the result is an excellent game that just feels like it could have been streamlined far more effectively and wasn't in favor of trying to expand far more than Falcom probably should.

Note: I play JRPGs in many ways as a power gamer, trying to tune my characters' abilities and setups to be maximally powerful even though that may take me longer, although I don't try to grind deliberately to overlevel or anything. That said, I also love the flavor and story of these games, which further impacts my play (For example, I refuse to part Renne from Pater-Mater, despite it not being her best holo core). The result is that I played these games on Nightmare with certain self-imposed restrictions on myself, which affects some of how I perceived parts of the gameplay.

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Book Review: The Elysium Heist by Y.M. Resnik

 

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 31, 2025 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

 The Elysium Heist is the debut novel from author Y.M. Resnik and it piqued my eye when I saw it compared to Rebecca Fraimow's Lady Eve's Last Con (a book I loved last year) - especially as a queer sci-fi heist romance novel with a Jewish connection. The novel features 5 women as its point of view protagonist characters that, when combined with an AI* character form a trio of romances that develop throughout the book (with an awful LOT of pining). And the 5 women set their aim on a truly heinous target: a man who would blackmail one of them with an illicitly made/obtained sex tape and would deny his orthodox Jewish wife (another one of them) a divorce (a Get), luring him to a Casino Tournament in an attempt to take back what is theirs.

* An Actual AI, not some LLM nonsense. I hate that I even feel like I have to explain that.

The result is a short book that is really good on the romance department - although you may pull your hair out at both pairs of protagonists pining for the other without recognizing that their interest is mutual for sooooo long - even as it might struggle a little bit at times with aspects of the setting. Specifically, if you're very big into casino games and how they work....well, unless you really like queer romance, this might drive you a little batty. And the heist stuff is very very underwhelming to be honest. But the romance and interpersonal developments here were really enjoyable, making this one still a recommend.

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Harassment, and mention of Sexual Assault/Marital Abuse is prominent, but no sexual assault occurs on page or is described and none of it is gratuitous.