Category Archives: Lilypad-Library

Books, blurbs, and bullrushes

The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen (2024) – BR00299 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 27 2026

Plot or Premise

The Olympic gods still rule Earth, and once every hundred years, they choose champions to compete in the Crucible to see whose patron will lead the Gods for the next 100 years.

What I Liked

The trial of the Crucible is covered by this first book in the series instead of being spread out across multiple novels. In addition, the love interests ensure that nobody mistakes this for Percy Jackson stories aimed at a younger audience. Hades is awesome, while most of the rest of the Gods are caricatures. The trials are generally good throughout, with relatively realistic challenges and solutions.

What I Didn’t Like

When we first meet Lyra, I thought she was in her teens. Everything about her screams mid- to late- teens. A few chapters in, it reveals she’s 23. Wait, what? She is nowhere near streetsmart enough for 23, particularly with the life she’s been living and work she has been doing. Way too naïve. Equally, Lyra’s supposed curse is never fully explained, including how her existing friends “show up” for her during the Crucible but had never done so before, and she makes a couple of new friends relatively easily, but had never been able to before either?

The Bottom Line

Gods, have you met death yet?

The Compound by Aisling Rawle (2025) – BR00298 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 25 2026

Plot or Premise

In a semi-dystopian future where the world is at war, a TV show called The Compound puts 20 young men and women through a series of Survivor-like tasks, with Big Brother dynamics.

What I Liked

I gave this book to my brother-in-law for a new Christmas Eve tradition. I thought he would enjoy the cross-over stuff from the two shows. The mechanics of the game seem great, as each member tries to figure out how they want to play. Eventually, the dynamics stop being simply “fun” and the real emotions show through. And at least a couple of the roommates are a wee bit psycho.

What I Didn’t Like

I was hoping for more info about the outside world, what they were all “running” from, their backgrounds, and their motivations to join the show. And when it all comes to a head at the end, it seems weird that the show just keeps going.

The Bottom Line

Come for the show, stay for the spectacle

The Last Starfighter by Alan Dean Foster (1984) – BR00297 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 24 2026

Plot or Premise

Alex Rogan, earthling, has been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada.

What I Liked

It’s hard to separate out the novelization from the movie it is based on. The story works great — Alex’s initial life being “less than” what he wants, his accidental recruitment, his balking at fighting in the war (“Save the Whales, but not the universe?”) and his battle testing turning him into a starfighter.

What I Didn’t Like

The book does a rather poor job of Maggie, Centauri, the beta unit, and even Grig. They are all pale imitations of the characters that are in the movie, even with more room to flesh them out. A few key dialogue sequences were obviously edited in the final script as they snap on screen, and the alternate versions feel a bit flat.

The Bottom Line

A slight step down from the movie it’s based on

McNally’s Trial by Lawrence Sanders (1995) – BR00296 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 22 2026

Plot or Premise

A funeral home is doing above-average business, shipping a lot of dead bodies from Florida back to their home states. Something doesn’t smell right, so the company’s financial officer asks Archy to look into it.

What I Liked

It is very clear that the officer isn’t telling the whole truth about the source of angst, but Archy and his father think at first it will turn out to be nothing significant. Meanwhile, Binky convinces Archy to train him as a discreet detective, although Binky ends up swinging with some of the suspects, so the discreet part is gone. There is one character in the book, the wife of the CEO, who is dying of cancer and is absolutely delightful in every scene with Archy. She’s written in almost the same terms as Archy’s mom, and the affection shows.

What I Didn’t Like

There is a whole substory with the FBI to help with the investigation problem for other jurisdictions, but it rings false and unnecessary. Even the motive for what is going on seems light for the outcome.

The Bottom Line

Buy a casket, get a mystery for free

McNally’s Caper by Lawrence Sanders (1994) – BR00295 (R2026) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
January 21 2026

Plot or Premise

Griswold Forsythe wants to know who is stealing valuables from around the family house.

What I Liked

Officially, Archy is there to catalog the books for insurance purposes. His real purpose — to catch a thief — is hidden. After you eliminate Griswold as a suspect, you have his wife Constance, daughter Geraldine, son and wife and granddaughter, a housekeeper, the housekeeper’s son, two maids, a chef, and a gardener. The fun is in finding out that each of them has at least one secret, sometimes several. The simple theft seems easy enough to solve, and then the stakes get raised with Griswold’s death. Was it the investigation into the thefts? Or something else…like money?

What I Didn’t Like

There is a mystery with a former polo player, some odd interactions within the family after a falling out, without much clear explanation of why the person is still around at first, and then even when revealed, it’s rather convoluted. The solution wasn’t particularly creative or interesting.

The Bottom Line

I would rather read some of the books he was cataloging