The Uncrowned King tournament is a prestigious gathering of sacred artists unlike any other. All of the Monarchs of the most powerful families attend in person, each fielding teams of their strongest young Underlords. The tournament itself spans several months and has a multiple round structure, with each round presenting a different challenge designed to whittle down the playing field. All four of Cradle's main characters have qualified as competitors in the tournament, but not all of them are representing the same team, which means that they could wind up fighting against each other at some point. Eventually, the top eight competitors will earn the title of Uncrowned, and with it receive personalized training from a Sage before the next round. The final four each receive gifts from the other families and promise of future ascension to Sage and beyond. Because this tournament takes place in the shadow of a looming war, the stakes are higher than ever, and both sides plan to push the rules to their limits.

"The needs of the many will always be loud. But in the end, it is only the strength of the few that matters." By the end of the first book, Vis was a character I cared about and I wanted to better understand what the impact would be of his successful run of The Labyrinth. The impact to him as a person, to those characters around him that I grew to care about, and to the Hierarchy itself. And while The Strength of the Few does provide those answers, that is only one third of what it provides, because now the story is split across 3 PoV characters. Even though I should care about all 3 the same, I just didn't, and that was also true for the worlds they each inhabited. So did Islington's ambitious plan to triple the scope of his story work out, or is this yet another example of an author not telling his readers the story we were hoping for?

The exact method to transition from Truegold to Underlord can be a bit of a mystery for some sacred artists, and many are never able to cross that line. It requires you to know yourself, and your motivation for following the sacred arts. Once that personal insight is achieved then the sacred artist must reach outward to the vital aura all around them, become infused with soulfire, and be reborn as an Underlord. It is certainly a coveted rank and desired by all Truegold sacred artists, including Lindon, but for Yerin, this step in her progression has literally become a matter of life and death. After sustaining irreparable damage to her lifeline in a battle, Yerin's life has been shortened to the point where her death is imminent, unless she manages to be reborn during the transformation to Underlord before her lifeline runs out. No pressure.

When last we saw Zac he was still working on his upgrade to Late Hegemony as he and the others with access were whisked away for the trial event at the Left Imperial Palace. Zac gained his first seal for the event several years ago so the history and competition of the event has been building for several books. This is only the fifth such event to occur over hundreds of millions of years with the grand prize authority over one of the nine peaks of the Dao. Although Zac has maintained that he intends to leave the grand prize to others willing to die for it, we all expect him to get pulled into the thick of it since the fate of Earth's sector of space hangs in the balance. Not to mention he always ends up at the center of events so it was with great anticipation I started reading.

Long ago, the Monarch Northstrider created a world of his own. This pocket world, Ghostwater, is where he kept some of his most valuable items; however, that pocket world is now dying. The stability of that world was damaged in the events of the last book, and the Skysworn are determined to retrieve some of the valuables before they are gone. It is not clear how long that world has left, but Lindon, Yerin, and Mercy are all part of the team sent to retrieve those items. It doesn't take long for them to become separated, leaving Yerin and Mercy stuck outside, with Lindon trapped on his own inside the dying world. So is this a worthy story or is it just a contrived way to split off Lindon and send him on a side quest that allows him to catch up in power to Yerin?

Whether you call them gods or spirits, the Southwestern United States has always had its stories about Coyote, Raven, Dog, and many others who dwell in a plane alongside ours and sometimes crossover. In this fantasy set in the twenty-third century, Selena flees an abusive relationship to a small town in the Historic Zone with only a small suitcase and her dog Copper. Sadly, the aunt she hoped to stay with has died, but everyone assures her that she's very welcome and the small house is hers if she wants it. Can it be that easy? Well, there's scorpions, rattlesnakes, and the strange visitors her aunt took in, but they tell her it will be fine. Turns out those visitors weren't human and while I don't agree with this being classified as "horror" that is one evil Roadrunner and getting him to back off involves a shotgun, a demi-god, and a trip to the Spirit World.

The time has finally come for Lindon's duel with Jai Long, and despite all Lindon's training and advancement in the path of the Blackflame, it is still not even close to being a fair fight. Not even the fact that Lindon healed Jai Long's sister from her crippling affliction turned out to be enough to spare him from his fate, which has been orchestrated from the start by Eithan Aurelius. This is all part of Eithan's plan to elevate the Aurelius family above the Jai family and this duel is merely a single move in a much larger game. None of that matters to Lindon because it is very likely he won't be alive to find out if Eithan's plan actually works. Knowing this, Lindon has has no plans to fight fair, but unfortunately for him, Jai Long also has some tricks of his own prepared.

Michael Truesday, aka Stone Tactical - an Earther super, is continuing his fight against the pedophiles aiming for world domination known as The Society. Now that he's found his father, it's time to take on the corrupt trustees of his two billion dollar inheritance from his mother, but The Society isn't about to let go of that money without a fight. They seem to think a thirteen year old from the Baltimore foster system and a Native American lawyer from Montana can't be a threat, which is just fine with the boy genius and former Delta Force soldier. It would be simpler for Mike to take out the men who abused his mother with his superpowers from a distance, but he prefers to tear them apart financially, socially, and politically so he can watch them suffer for decades.

Alex Archer never really settled into life on Earth after being rescued from Scorpio, her former home that was occupied by the Lankies for the last 8 years. Her restlessness caused her to join the NAC Defense Corps and this book details her training and her first assignment, an emergency combat deployment. That's a rather ominous start to a military career for someone who spent years living in a bunker hiding from the Lankies, because even though she did not fit in on Earth, she has no desire to find herself back on a Lanky occupied world. But an allied warship has gone missing in the Alpha Corvi system and the NAC is deploying to investigate why. It's pretty obvious to Alex "why" - and her very first deployment has her heading right back into her worst nightmare.

Originally intended to be a single book, Huntsong and Ghostsong are the second story arc in the Singer of Terandia series. I thought the first book, Gravesong, was slow to get started but the setting and action of the second half were enough to keep me reading even though Cara herself felt a bit lackluster as the MC. I thought these two books were great, partially because there are essentially three MCs now and Haeight's story is particularly compelling, the fascinating setting in Noelictus just keeps getting deeper, and Pirateaba's writing has really improved since she wrote The Wandering Inn. Ashamed of her role in the near total destruction of Afiele, Cara heads to the capitol of Noelictus and it's famous theater, The Synphasium. In Menorome she is disgusted by the corrupt Hunters Guild that failed to protect Afiele, the seemingly mad royal family, and the Helpful Servants who have somehow taken control of another girl from Earth. Its all tied together in a complex web that leads back to the sociopathic [Witch] Belavierr.