wednesday books return from travel

Locklands, Robert Jackson Bennett. Reasonably satisfying conclusion to the Founders trilogy. Didn't like quite as much as the first two -- most of the cool worldbuilding things either were set up in the previous two books or have happened in the 8-year time gap between books 2 and 3. Also it's a utopian book -- of the sort where it tells you how awesome the utopia is, rather than the sort that pokes at the cracks in the worldbuilding. It manages this by having the actual plot of the book be about heists and saving the world from existential risks.

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke. Book club read, but also last week I was at a conference in a university building that gave me strong Piranesi vibes despite not having nearly enough statues to be Piranesi. This is still a good, odd, book. First reread so I wasn't propelled by the mystery the way I was the first time around, but enjoyed the ride knowing what I was getting into. Thinking about the ways in which The House is and is not Plato's Cave.

Thick as Thieves, Megan Whalen Turner. I haven't actually read this one in print before, but I listened to it on a road trip, which is a pretty ideal way of consuming it, but it will be interesting to see what this is like in print, not to mention how everyone's names are spelled.