The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (6)
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (7)

The Thief is probably YA, but doesn't have the typical feel of a YA.  It is mostly character work while a group is traveling to the thiefing target.  I liked it.  There seems to be more going on under the surface of the pretty basic plot, so I'll be at least reading the next one in the series of five.

The Loney.  A friend wanted to start up a monthly-ish book club, and this was one of his suggestions.  It's ok.  It's billed as a horror novel, complete with a Stephen King cover blurb and some awards.  I'm not sure why.  It has some creepy vibes like, "here's a strange local," or "why did the church get vandalized," or "we found a dead animal in the field."  But it all builds to absolutely nothing.  There is no payoff for any of it.  That said, the writing is good, especially the characterization.  So I guess King liked it because it also flubs the ending?

I think I am starting the year off with rereading Acts of Caine. I'm hoping is pretty interesting on a re-read given how the series ends, and also its been a few years so I forget most of the details. Its something of a blessing for having a shit memory, rereads are more fun!
Heroes Die (1)
This is really a great book. It couches some thought-provoking topics inside over-the-top action, which makes it fun to read both on a surface level and at a bit of a deeper level. It also has a delightful ending that I had largely forgotten about. Sure its a bit contrived, but it all fits together in a very satisfying way. This satisfaction is only enhanced by how the next book starts, almost making me wish the first Caine chapter of book 2 could have been shoved into the end of Book 1 (though I don't think that really works from a publishing or story telling perspective). Its not a masterclass tale of foreshadowing, like TDTCB for example, but its still great to reread (and more interesting on a first read than TDTCB).

Witness for the Dead was good.  Addison must get enjoyment out of using as many unpronounceable proper names as she can.  This elf-goblin society she's made is also very proper and there are titles and forms of address further muddling everything up, but it makes for a very atmospheric read.  It's not terribly long and doesn't have a typical narrative structure.  It is just several weeks in the life of a Witness for the Dead, which is kind of a half priest half detective government position.  The book has very loose ties to Goblin Emperor, and is a quicker read if you just want to taste what Addison offers.

Lora Selezh is just a short story prelude of sorts to Witness.  It gives an outisder perspective to the Witness 1st person narrator, which was interesting.  That character's view of himself seems to be at odds to how others in Witness see him, but we never get outside his pov within that book.  It's a nice little story, and yes, i'm padding my numbers.  These Addison books all have a very wholesome feel to them that is absent from much of modern fantasy.

That's interesting. I like Goblin Emperor but I didnt feel compelled to read the other books, maybe because reading another full book seemed a bit tiresome. Something with an atypical narrative, and/or closer to novella size, sounds like something I might consider for some future day.

 "Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of (original) sin."
   -J V Neumann

Yeah, Bakker says so 7 years ago, and yet nothing gets done, which is a serious cause for doubt.

Hold up, did this entry exist in the published books? I can't find it in any of my Kindle copies.
That seems like something that could be updated. I certainly would like to know more about this considering the implications of potential Nonman/Human mixing going on.

IIRC you can do a search for the names and one or two appear in the series, as an individual entry in a glossary it never made it into the series...

This is indeed not in the books and never was in any published versions, at least to my knowledge, so the canonicity of the event is moot.

Not really moot:

I had no idea it was removed! I'll have to investigate...