Second paragraph of third chapter:

He arrived at the clockmaker’s tree shortly after dawn.

As will be apparent, I’m working through the material given to us as part of the Hugo and Sir Julius Vogel voter packets as I reach the end of my stack of (mostly electronic) books acquired in 2020. This popped up as part of the Hugo submission of Diana Pho for Best Editor, Long Form, along with nine other books, and I think it’s the last of them.

This started off really well; a fantasy secondary world (which doesn’t always float my boat) where the protagonist, a young magical warrior who is also the queen’s secret lover, starts to find out more about how it all functions. It’s the third book in a trilogy, which often means a harsh did-not-finish for me, but it worked well at first – I believe that the three books have different protagonists, so the plots are not too intertwined.

And then in the last quarter or so, it simply lost me. We shifted to a confusing landscape with confusing characters, where we found out confusing things about our unreliable protagonist. It was disappointing after what I felt was a strong start. Maybe I lost energy and it’s on me. Anyway, you can get Tides of the Titans here.

This was both my top unread book acquired in 2020, and the sf book that had lingered longest on my shelves. Next on those piles are From a Shadow Grave, by Andi Buchanan, and The Blacksmith, by Barbara Howe.