Abigail Nussbaum’s review of Lucy explains really well what I liked, and didn’t like, about it.

I also liked rachelmanija's review of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians—if you can stand spoilers (heed the content warnings), there is good discussion in the comments.

Daniel Abraham, The Widow’s House: In this latest novel in The Dagger and the Coin series, Marcus Wester has awakened a dragon (it doesn’t go like he—or probably you—would think); Cithrin bel Sarcour has achieved temporary safety in a city that’s never been overrun (same); Clara Kalliam is enjoying her lover and plotting against the Regent (this is a pretty good book for her, actually); and Geder Palliako still hates ruling but sends his armies out to serve the Spider Goddess and get Cithrin back (he’s still queasily understandable, probably more so now that he’s more disconnected from the slaughter he’s ordering). Good things: banking is a really important part of the plot; at this point, most of the players have most of the knowledge they need, so there’s hope an endgame is in sight. Bad: when will the next volume come? Also, the faith in the power of commerce to avoid war (and corruption!) seems misplaced, but I expect Abraham will not take the obvious route here.

Alis Franklin, Liesmith: One of us! Loki Laufeysson is alive and living in Australia as a computer mogul, where he meets Sigmund, a classic pasty nerd half-heartedly trying to program a game with his friends as he ekes out a living as an IT drone. Except Sigmund is also the reincarnation of Loki’s wife Sigyn, and when they meet, the barriers between who Sigmund was and who he is start breaking down. The worldbuilding is inventive and Sigmund’s discovery of the fluidity of his sexuality is entertaining. I have to admit, I have no idea what happened in the end, although it’s possible I’d have understood better if I were more up on my Norse mythology. Still, it was a fun queer urban fantasy that you’ll probably enjoy if you like the idea of modern-day Loki who just wants to be left alone by the rest of the gods.

Steven Brust & Skyler White, The Incrementalists: I don’t really know what to say about this. The Incrementalists are a bunch of people who are reborn again and again, and their former personalities can take over new bodies, though other times the newer personality mostly survives and there’s just a vague continuity with the older entity. They share memories via mindscapes, where they can transfer objects that represent particular memories—it’s all very complex and they have a lot of jargon for it. Supposedly they try to make the world incrementally better (thus the name) because they’re operating behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance about who they’ll be next time. But despite occasional mentions of world events, they didn’t seem to do anything, and the book is taken up with a highly personal power struggle between a new initiate, her former instantiation, and her/their lover. The couple of nods to the fundamental creepiness of this whole idea—they take over the minds of existing complete people!—did not reassure me; although I don’t think it’s his strongest work, Michael Marshall (Smith)’s Intruders does it better in my opinion.

Jim Butcher, Skin Game: Whether you will like this book as another level in Harry Dresden’s game of power-up, as he’s forced by Mab to partner with a vicious untrustworthy demon host to rob Hades (and Marcone, incidentally), probably depends a lot on whether a narrator who withholds vital information is acceptable to you. If you can roll with it, then if you’ve got this far you’ll probably enjoy what is essentially a heist novel; if narrators who lie by omission make you spitting mad, you’ll be mad. Also, like many genre novelists, Butcher seems to be more willing to be sexually explicit than he was in earlier volumes, though it’s not fan fiction level.

James S.A. Corey, Abbadon’s Gate: Easy-to-get-sucked in space adventure. This book, the third in the series, features Captain James Holden, still too stubborn for his own good but also seeing the ghost of his dead not-really-friend who is the instantiation of the alien protomolecule that killed a bunch of people.  It also features some new characters, including a minister with a preternatural ability to forgive that you’ll either love or hate. Mars, Earth, and the Outer Planets all rush to the new structure created outside the orbit of Uranus by the protomolecule, nearly killing each other because why let possible alien invasion get in the way of politics? Meanwhile Clarissa Mao is seeking revenge against Holden for getting her father put in jail just because he killed a couple of moons’ worth of people by trying to weaponize the protomolecule, and her revenge leads to a truly inspired bit of plotting where Holden makes a perfectly understandable mistake with big consequences. It’s got microgravity, religious and ethnic diversity, new varieties of racism (people from the Belt have big heads), and generally I find myself happy with the series.

Geoff Johns, Forever Evil: The Crime Syndicate (an evil version of the Big Five of the JLA) comes to Earth and takes over; for most of the book, the second stringers plus Lex Luthor and a few assorted villains have to fight them. It’s hard to imagine a Mirrorverse crossover that doesn’t suffer by way of comparison to A Better World, which for my money is a perfect story. However, I give points for Batman’s secret boxes for when he needs to defeat the rest of the Big Guns: the one for WW is empty, ‘cause he’s got nothing. This makes up for an annoying aspect of the Superwoman evil analogue. Also: super smart and bad-ass Lex Luthor, which is never a bad thing; this Luthor is much more central and much more complicated than Luthor in A Better World.