Empress of Forever
by Max Gladstone (Tor, 2019)
audiobook read by Natalie Naudus (Dreamscape Media, 2019)
Full marks to Gladstone for choosing long and self-contained over duology or trilogy. The story, however, is rather sprawling (even a batshit-crazy space opera should look beyond the moment and build towards emotional impact). Naudus’s audiobook reading adds significantly to the characterisation.
The Bone Shard Daughter
by Andrea Stewart (Orbit, 2020); audiobook read by Natalie Naudus, Feodor Chin & Emily Woo Zeller (Hachette, 2020)
Stewart’s world-building has a certain intrigue (the shifting archipelago setting is a pleasing point of difference), yet the concept of bone-shard magic, which one might expect to drive the plot, proves mostly a curiosity shunted aside in favour of standard character arcs.