The Land (2-6) - Aleron Kong
I was underwhelmed by the first book, which I reviewed here a while ago, but it had an interesting enough concept to get me to try the 2nd one later. The second one was a huge improvement ( I guess he could afford an editor at that point ) and they have gotten better from there. The first one was pretty basic 'video game is real' but from the second one, the scope keeps expanding out. The books are more about building up and managing his settlement, and the extra problems that come from being responsible for other people's lives. It's actually a plot point that him leveling up and collecting rare artifacts is actually making life really dangerous for his people, as it's drawing increasing amounts of attention from hostile people and creatures.
One thing I didn't expect - the game mechanics were entertaining enough that I actually occasionally became frustrated at the main character's awful choices ;p
I'd upgrade to a strong recommendation if you are a fan of this kind of thing, I'm going to pick them up as they are written.
Critical Failures (1-6) - Robert Bevan
I picked these ones up on recommendation from someone here. While a lot of the humor didn't really work for me ( a little too drunken fratboy ), I found the storyline and characters really interesting and entertaining. I thought it really hit it's stride with their first attempt at teleporting back to Gulfport, and just got better from there. I have to give credit to the ongoing gag with their shameless abuse of the 'Mount' spell, it's both hilarious and creative ;p Katherine is absolutely a psychopath, and Mordred probably did the real world a favor by banishing her, it was only a matter of time before she became a serial killer ;p.
Will read more as they show up.
The Kingdom of Copper - S.A. Chakraborty
Sequel to City of Brass - this one is after a 5 year timeskip and follows the same characters from the first one. The political infighting and racial tensions have basically reached boiling point here, and Daevabad is on the edge of a complete bloodbath. This was very easy to read for a book with such complicated stuff going on, and stayed up to the quality of the first one. Overall a great book I thought.
Underlord - Will Wight
The powerful Akua clan pit their dependents against in each other in a contest to select new Underlords to compete in an upcoming tournament. The temptation of all the resources that have been made available makes that contest become deadly.
This one was excellent.
Trials of Magic - Thomas K. Carpenter
Orphan teenage girls try various plans to pass the grand exam that gets people accepted into the Hundred Halls of magic. Some of these plans are less sensible than others - summoning major demons is arguably less work than studying, but has some potential issues ;p
This was lightweight kind of fun, although the world building didn't really make any sense.
Broken Ice - J.R. Rain
The adventures of the CIA's only vampire agent. It probably says something that employing a vampire that can read minds, edit memories and mind control people is the *least* implausible thing about how the CIA operates in this book. Background research was obviously not a high priority here.
It was kind of 'eh' overall, I finished it, but don't have any real desire to read more.