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Queen Tsiora is a young and unproven leader, so her willingness to ignore the caste system of the Omehi people is making her a lot of enemies. She prefers to name the most capable people to key roles and that includes Tau, who has been named Queen's champion even though he is a lesser. Decisions like that have sparked a rebellion as the Noble caste resists her changes and offers up her sister as the "true queen." This would be problem enough for any ruler, but it is happening at a time when the Omehi people are about to be attacked by a stronger enemy, so fighting amongst themselves is only going to result in their ultimate doom. This dire scenario is bad for the Omehi people, but it is an opportunity for Tau. This infighting provides him a path to the revenge he seeks against Abasi Odili, the Noble who killed his father. Abasi is leading the rebellion in order to maintain the status quo that gives him a permanent advantage over lessers like Tau, and therefore Queen Tsiora has ordered Tau to kill him. That will be no easy task but Tau is ready to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to make it happen.

Hugo not only survived his summer travels with Alustin but stories of their accomplishments preceded them home to Skyhold. Thus, his fellow students have now dubbed Hugo "Stormward". Alustin is being cagey about the purpose of that trip but Sabae suspects that he used her and her fellow students as a cover to spy on the dragon Idris. There is no doubt that Alustin has been a remarkable help to Sabae, helping her make the most of her strange magic, so she is keeping her distrust to herself for now. Her doubts only grow when they get home and the four friends are tasked with ferreting out a traitor on the Skyhold Council. Kanderon has known for years that someone on the Council has been working against her but she was angered when the traitor made sure a vote to protect Hugo from Bakori, the demon in the labyrinth below Skyhold, went against Kanderon. The Council claims to believe Kanderon is exaggerating the danger to ensure an easy test for her "Pact"ed student, but she is certain this is a direct attack against Hugo because of their Pact. Hugo and his friends are uncertain how much help they can be, but except for Sabae, they trust Alustin and Kanderon implicitly.

The Omehi people have a caste system and Tau Solarin was born at the bottom of it. That makes him a lesser just like his father. The bad news for lessers is that the Omehi have been fighting an unwinnable war for hundreds of years and the lessers are front line fodder in that conflict. However, Tau has a plan. He is not a violent person, but he is a determined one, so he is willing to go to great lengths to live his full life. When he comes of age, and it is time for his testing, he plans to purposely sustain a permanent injury to keep him out of the war. Better to be maimed than to die early in the war. Tau is young man with the determination to make such a sacrifice; however, he never gets the chance. Before his testing day arrives, those closest to him, including his father, are brutally murdered by a few members of the noble class. Nobles are bigger, stronger, and better trained than lessers so his father never had a chance. Tau's rage knows no bounds and he decides to twist his determination into a new plan. Become the greatest warrior his people have ever known, and then kill the nobles responsible for the death of his father. Of course, Tau is still a lesser and determination alone is not enough to overcome the odds stacked against him...

The blurb for Into the Labyrinth is hardly unique; an awkward insecure student of magic must somehow find his talent before entering a monster filled maze at the year's end. This is really the story of four students, three of which have unusual parameters to their spellcasting, and their enigmatic mentor who is determined to turn those challenges into opportunities that will make them effective battlemages. In a multiverse world where most of the population has at least some magic, and every mage's abilities are unique based upon their affinities and casting style, the characters have more in common with the average superhero than Harry Potter or other "kids studying magic" books. Also, despite what the blurb says, the Labyrinth isn't the focus of the first book, which would be better described as the adventures of a young team of superheroes as they face epic villains, traitors, and mysterious named Powers, all while trying to avoid becoming the pawns of interplanar politics.

Book 6 of the Innkeeper Chronicles pushes its mix of fantasy and sci-fi humor to the edge of the ridiculous with this galactic version of "The Bachelor". The Spouse candidates are a fantastically diverse group of aliens and according to rumor at least one of them wants to assassinate the Sovereign of the Dominion instead of marrying him. But behind the "show" there is a surprising amount of substance. The metaphorical spotlights are on several minor characters from previous books and at long last we learn Caldenia's backstory.

If The Princess Bride were written by Hoid, also known as Wit, it would be something like Tress and the Emerald Sea. The tale begins as many YA fairytales do with Tress setting off to rescue the boy she loves from an evil sorceress. However, since Hoid is our narrator, it loses the feel of a YA book with the first detailed description of the gruesome way people die if they happen to breathe in a spore from the Verdant Sea. Since the Sea is made up of spores instead of water, it's a fairly common fate for those travelling across it. At least the Verdant is the least dangerous of the seas that she must cross to find her love while escaping smugglers, surviving on a pirate ship, and negotiating with a dragon. It's a good thing she makes some friends along the way because all of that is easy compared to facing down an immortal sorceress.

The invading forces have finally arrived on the shores of the kingdom of Belleger, and yet the nature of this enemy remains mostly unknown. Two books of build up leave us knowing only one thing about this army, and that is their ultimate destination: the Last Repository. The enemy plans to destroy the final storehouse of all books and knowledge and unfortunately for King Bifalt, Belleger is on the way. This means he must fight a war that shouldn't really involve him. He hates sorcery and having to expend the lives of his people to protect the sorcerers of the Repository galls him. To make matters even worse, Queen Estie has travelled to the Repository in order to unlock her own gift for sorcery, which means that she too is lost to him. At least now that the invaders are here, Bifalt will finally be able to see who they are and what he is up against. To his surprise, what he learns is that the enemy is not who he thought it would be and many of them have actually been embedded in Belleger all along...

The Mistborn series started way back in 2006 and felt rather complete at the time. It was unique for many reasons, but one of the things that stood out was the detailed magic system that used various metals to generate amazing powers. Allomancers are able to metabolize metals and do amazing things with them, leveraging different metals in various ways. Most people gifted in this way burn only a single metal, but very rarely someone is able to burn them all, and such a person is called Mistborn. Little did I know at the time, but author Brandon Sanderson had a plan to keep the series going in a rather unique way. He wanted to take this magic based society and move it forward through time to explore how industrial and technological advancement would mix with magic. The Alloy of Law kicks off the 2nd Era and introduces two very entertaining main characters in Wax & Wayne, taking place a full 300 years after the original. This series combines a Wild West vibe with the Allomancy of the original series, adds in even more magic systems, and then expands to explore the Cosmere in a detailed way. Does it all add up to something worth your time or does Sanderson take it all a bit too far?

Originally started all the way back in 1983, the Vlad Taltos series follows a human assassin of the same name living on the planet Dragaera. The Dragaerans are a race of beings that were created when humans were cross-bred with a few of the local animals. The characteristics of these animals therefore became a genetic component of the members of each Great House, influencing their physical features and personality traits. The lone exception being the lowest of the Houses, the House of Jhereg, which is more of an organization formed by outcasts of the other Houses. House Jhereg is looked down upon by almost everyone and its very existence is controversial. Despite having no actual genetic basis for it, it too is named for a local creature, the Jhereg - which is a tiny, dragon-like animal. The House of Jhereg is quite a bit shadier than the other Houses and allows many frowned upon practices, including selling titles within the House for a price. That's why Vlad's father was able to buy his way in as a human, thus making Vlad a rare Easterner in a Great House. This puts Vlad in quite a unique position that he uses to his advantage in his role as an assassin for hire.

It's time for the next generation of characters to take center stage in The Band series, which gives this second book of the series a very different vibe from the first one. The all-male members of the band Saga are now retired and the story shifts to focus on Fable, a young band just entering their prime and led by the infamous Bloody Rose. Fable is a far more diverse group of adventurers than Saga was and they are also not prone to killing off their bard in every encounter. So it should probably not be a surprise that the main PoV character is actually Fable's new bard, Tam, who leaps at the opportunity to join the band to get a little adventure in her life. Tam is full of excitement at the prospect of telling the story of Bloody Rose, who is a living legend, but she quickly realizes that the real Rose is not the one the other bards sing about. Rose is fighting her own inner demons and is willing to risk everything, and everyone in the band, for glory, so this time around it might not be just the bard that dies.