The Hod King Review by: Dani Long

Posted on December 21, 2018 by michaelevan28

The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft
Review by: Dani Long 

I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The third book in The Books of Babel series is an amazing installment in an already superb series.

Unlike past books in the series, The Hod King is broken up into three parts. The first is an account of Thomas Senlin directly after the events of The Arm of the Sphinx. He is sent to Pelphia undercover by the Sphinx to investigate the Colosseum. Naturally, finding himself finally in such close proximity to his lost wife, Marya, Senlin cannot help but disregard the Sphinx’s orders and seeks a way to meet with her.

The other two parts of the story are told simultaneously and a little after the events of Thomas’s POV and focus on the perspectives of Voleta and Edith.

This is the first time in this series that any character other than Senlin has had a major POV and I gotta admit when I realized that was what was happening I was not sure it would be the same not having Tom at the forefront of the story.

But my fears proved absolutely groundless as I was soon just as absorbed by Voleta and then Edith as I was with Senlin’s part. Bancroft’s remarkable prose and character-building had me immersed in every page regardless of which character’s eyes I was looking through.

Looking at this series as a whole so far (there is one more book to come!), I am astounded at how far everything has come for these characters. A village schoolteacher steps off a train and a year later is neck deep in an adventure that neither he nor the reader saw coming.

I think that is part of what grabs me so much in this series. Thomas Senlin isn’t where he is now because of a prophecy or because he is some amazing warrior. I bet pre-Senlin Ascends Thomas would not have even described himself as brave. He was a village schoolteacher that lost his wife in a crowd. This schoolteacher has found the determination and the wit to go after his one simple goal. This series is very much the story of what a person can be capable of without even realizing it and I find that very inspiring.

Finally, I cannot wait to see the end of this series. I can’t possibly see where Bancroft will take us on the finale to this adventure. Both Tomas and Marya have been through so much that they can’t possibly fit back into their lives in the seaside village of Isaugh. But there is also no way that Thomas’s adventures will not leave a permanent mark on the Tower of Babel.

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On the Shoulders of Titans Review by: Dani Long

Posted on December 21, 2018 by michaelevan28

On the Shoulders of Titans by Andrew Rowe
Review by Dani Long 

On the Shoulders of Titans is the sequel to Sufficiently Advanced Magic, the first book in the Arcane Ascension series. It picks up almost directly after the events of the first book and continues the story of Corin Cadence and friends with exactly the same style and quality as the first book.

First, this book gets mad kudos for one thing: it has a recap chapter at the beginning of the book.

I love when authors do this because when I start a sequel a few months after finishing the first book in a series, I am always afraid that I will have forgotten too many details. I greatly appreciate this small thing and will shout it from the rooftops.

As for the continuation of Corin’s adventures, this second installment has the same strengths and weaknesses that the first book had. The characters are wonderful and easy to engage with, but the book is bloated by an over-use of exposition that ultimately does not add much to the story.

The book opens with Corin dealing with the aftermath of the events at the end of Sufficiently Advanced Magic. Between betrayals and injuries sustained by his friends and finals coming up on top of all that, Corin has more than enough to deal with. In trying to unearth more information on his brother’s whereabouts, Corin also has to begin making decisions about who to trust; should he play everything close to the chest or would it be better to open up more to those around him and accept their support, even with the risks that that comes with?

The character development that Corin’s character experienced in this book was subtle and very well done. You would expect after the betrayal that he experienced at the end of SAM that he would clam up even more. While he starts out that way, he eventually realizes that it is emotionally exhausting to maintain so much secrecy. With the revelations on some of Corin’s recent past, there was also some exploration of dealing with trauma from abuse.

As mentioned, this book also has many sections of exposition related to the magic system.

The magic system in this world is very intricate and detailed which is generally something that I like. Whether it is the sheer volume of that detail that is involved or the perhaps it is the delivery, which frequently is kind of dry with Corin asking several questions and getting scholarly-sounding answers, I found it easy to skim over these sections and did not feel like I was missing anything.

That said though, that was something that was frequently mentioned in reviews for the first book. So if you read the first book and found that you enjoyed, or at least didn’t mind, the exposition, there is no more or less in this book. It is consistent with the amount that was found in SAM so if you were good with it there, you’ll likely be good with it here as well.

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The City of Brass Review by: Dani Long

Posted on December 21, 2018 by michaelevan28

The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty
Review by: Dani Long 

This is going to be a difficult review to write because I was really not into a huge chunk of this book but then the good parts got really good.

Our story begins in early nineteenth century Cairo in the middle of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. Our main character, Nahri, has grown up on the streets with no knowledge of where she comes from or who her parents are. She thieves and lies to make a living with dreams of saving up enough to send herself off to study to be a physician. After a ritual that she thought was made-up goes awry and she accidentally summons an ancient warrior to her side and monsters on her trail, Nahri must race to the magical city of Daevabad for safety.

The setting is honestly what sold me on this book. While I have read urban fantasies and other magical stories that take place in a more contemporary setting, I have never come across one that pulls you into Egypt. The story pretty quickly pulls away from that Cairo setting and moves to the fictional city of Daevabad but it also has a very distinct Middle Eastern/Egyptian feel to it.

There was only one thing that killed a lot of this book for me but it was a pretty big thing: the characters.

I felt like there was a lot missing from the characters and their development and the development of some of the relationships. There was some good foundation for Narhri’s character at the beginning of the story. She is strong-willed, intelligent, and ambitious but still at the bottom of the food chain. She is very much a person that is ready to blaze her own path in life once she finds her footing. But once she got on the way to Daevabad, it seemed like all character development stopped.

Her traveling to Daevabad with Dara took up I would guess maybe close to 200 pages (divided between her POV and the second POV character, Ali). That is a pretty high page count and I honestly don’t feel like it was well-used. I felt like that time was intended to be spent setting up Dara and Nahri’s romantic interest in each other but I never felt any chemistry between them.

Because of this, a very large part of the book dragged a lot for me and I almost DNF’d because I just did not care about the people. This is a very character driven story so for the characterizations and developments to be lacking hurt the quality of the book a lot.

What makes this book difficult for me to rate and review is that for a lot of it I was convinced it was going to be a very low rating. Then there were the last 100-150 pages which were AWESOME. Everything came together and so many things were pushed way further than I ever expected them to be pushed and I loved every single page there at the end. Where I was forcing myself to read a few pages at a time for most of the book, suddenly I was sucked in and could not put the book down.

Some of my frustrations at the characterizations can almost be forgiven with this section because, after reading it, I felt like the characterizations as they stood worked really perfect for setting up those final scenes. This goes especially for Dara, who I felt like his character could use some work early in the book because I was oddly getting a bit of an Edward Cullen vibe from him (“ugh, I’m such a monster, don’t love me Nahri, ugh, I’m so horrible but oddly super attractive, uuuuggghh”). But it just worked with the way the ending unfolded.

If I am going off of how eager I now am to read the final book in this series, The City of Brass gets all the stars. But seeing as I did struggle through a lot of it, I am going to meet somewhere in the middle.

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The Fifth Season Review by: Dani Long

Posted on December 21, 2018 by michaelevan28

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin
Review by: Dani Long

I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Fifth Season takes place in the Stillness, a world where tecctonic shifts are wildly unpredicatble and has lead to humanity facing extinction many times.

After working at her village’s school all day, Essun comes home to find that her husband has murdered their 3 year old son and kidnapped their 8 year old daughter. While trying to cut herself off from her emotions so that her grief does not consume her, Essun follows after them in hopes that her daughter is still safe.

This summary does not even scratch the surface of what is going on in this story.

On top of this being an emotional ride as a mother attempts to be reunited with her only living child, it is also a story of a world that has turned people into commodities in its efforts to survive.

While this world is rocked by constant tectonic shifts that could at any time upend the lives of everyone living, there are people called orogenes that are capable of moving and controlling the earth itself. But if they ever lose control, they could spark an apocalypse. Because of these powers, they are feared and hated and also seen as a necessity. There is a school where orogenes can learn to control themselves and their abilities, that very school also teaches them that they are less than human.

As you can probably tell, this is not a feel good kind of book. This is a your-heart-will-be-broken-repeatedly kind of book.

In addition to Essun’s story, we also follow Damaya and Syenite.

Damaya is a young girl whose powers have just manifested. Her parents locked her away while waiting for a Guardian to come take her to the Fulcrum (magic school). Through Damaya’s eyes we get to see not only how people are willing to hate even children that have this magic out of fear of them but also how that magic school functions and creates a system where they think of themselves as lesser beings.

Syenite is a full grown orogene who is sent with a more powerful magic-user, Alabaster, on a mission to help a town. Through both Syenite and Alabaster’s story, we see how the world treats the people whose only job is to help them. Not only are they expected to serve a people that hate and fear them and would easily see harm done to them, but they are also expected to debase themselves to perpetuate this system.

Syenite’s chapters were 100% my favorites in this book, I loved the way that we saw her teachings on her place in the world that the Fulcrum had instilled in her be challenged by Alabaster. I loved how much they hated each other but the way that their character relationship grew. I was totally expecting something super cliche to happen between them but it went a direction that was a million times better than I expected and also so much more heartbreaking.

All that said, Damaya and Syenite’s chapters are told in the third person while Essun’s is told in second person. So we have chapters of “Damaya/she/Syenite did this…” the chapters that tell Essun’s story are more “you did/felt this…”

This is not something that I think I have ever seen outside of maybe some flashback chapters here and there. Never before have a seen an entire POV told like this. And I’ll be honest, it was difficult to get used to. Between this and some exposition-y sections at the beginning of the book, I really was not sure that it was going to be for me. But after a while the exposition tapered off (and really it wasn’t that bad to begin with, maybe a page or two at a time) and I adjusted to the second person POV and got really into the book.

And I am so freaking glad that I did. All the tiny struggle at the beginning was so worth it! I am usually that person that has contrary opinions about hyped books but this is one that I am 100% in on the hype for it.

Not only does this book make some powerful statements about how people treat each other, but it is also so beautiful to watch it all come together in the final third of the book. I think that N.K Jemisin took some serious risks with this story and the way it was told and it all paid off in the end because this is one of the best books I think I have read in a while.

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Jack Bloodfist: Fixer Review by: Dani Long

Posted on December 21, 2018 by michaelevan28

Jack Bloodfist: Fixer by James Jakins 
Review by: Dani Long 

Twenty years ago, families of orcs and goblins fled from their homeworld through a magic portal that led them to urban Virginia. Now it seems that the danger they fled has followed them to their sanctuary and is threatening to destroy the home they’ve made.

Garak “Jack” Bloodfist is the son of the cheiftan that led this group of orcs and goblins on their exodus. He now operates as a “fixer” by helping the communities in any way that he can. Because of this, he is the first person that is called when a fellow orc turns up murdered which leads Jack straight into the middle of the threat his small community is facing.

Probably my favorite part of this book all comes down to it having a non-human main character. Between this book and Jonathan French’s The Grey Bastards, I am becoming more and more captivated by orc main characters, which is not something I thought I would ever say. Having long been portrayed as the mindless pawns of villains in scores and scores of fantasy stories, I find that I am really enjoying reading about them as the main cast of characters.

There were some magical abilities that orcs have that was briefly explored in this book. The warcriers were the only ones really talked about in this installment but I would be really curious in future books to see what other abilities and roles other orcs may have.

I mean, our main character here is an orc whose magical ability turns out to be singing. As bizarre as that sounds on paper, it really worked well. I definitely want to know what else the orcs are capable of.

Jack Bloodfist: Fixer is a fun balance of action and humor that reminded me a lot of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. The humor and style are very similar and throughout the book, I could not help but picture Jack Bloodfist and Harry Dresden sharing a beer in a hole in the wall pub somewhere.

Highly recommended for fans of urban fantasy.

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Beyond Redemption Review by: Michael Baker

Posted on December 20, 2018 by michaelevan28

Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher

Review by: Michael Baker 

Fantasy is a pretty tried and tested genre. That is not a bad thing of course. A lot of fantasy you see tends to follow a similar pattern, be it Chosen Ones, prophecies, great holy wars between good and evil, medieval-esque settings and so much more. That is the beauty of fantasy though. Because of its nature, the world is at your fingertips to mold and create. You are heaven and hell. You are God.

I first learned about Beyond Redemption through a friend of mine who recommended it for me, when I was searching for fantasy that went beyond the classic bread and butter. This delivered. Oh, boy, did it deliver. I had the pleasure of speaking with the author just this week, and I offered him an interview on my blog. Soon I hope, you will be able to see it!

This review does contain a couple of spoilers, but I will not go into much detail.

Book one of the Manifest Delusions series, Beyond Redemption is really that; a grim, gritty and realistic look into grimdark fantasy.

Set in a grim-painted realm of constant war and grief, Beyond Redemption explores consequences of magic, the power of religion and the stability of a soul as it slowly fractures. The magic system is solid, especially when dealing with consequences. Those skilled in magic suffer from increasingly powerful delusions that threaten to break free and trap the sorcerer. Called Doppels, these constantly conspire against the main character Konig, a High Priest dedicated to turning a young child into a god he alone can control. Of course, this does not go to plan, and the story throughout takes an increasingly dark turn. Can you murder a child to make them Ascend? This book also takes an impressive view of the afterlife. In death, you essentially live your life all over again, based on how violent your life on the living realm was. It’s quite unique and takes a refreshing look at the brutality of the world.

If you are squeamish, look away. This is a violent tale and pulls very few punches. All of it is well done and painted in such a way even I felt affected the way it was written. That takes a lot to do to me.

The book really highlights characters quite well, and it pulls no punches in its brutality. The trio of dangerous, ill-redeemable killers; Wichtig the Swordsmen and master manipulator, the vicious Kelptic and killer Schelten, and their “leader” and often sick Bedeckt, were a brilliant joy to read, despite them being borderline evil. Their relationships were believable and relatable, and despite all of their many vices and problems with each other, they got along…just. It is a dirty, violent threesome, full of murder, sickness, violent acts and one of the dirtiest sex scenes I’ve ever read. Don’t think it was tasteless, however. It was truly fascinating reading about the three.

That is not the only plotline, however. Konigs utterly insane strategy explores the equally conflicted Geisteskranken, the most powerful characters in the story who equally suffer the greatest flaws; their magic destroys them from the inside out. As he desperately tries to control his increasingly potent Doppel mania (An insight into real-life multiple-personality disorder), one of his most powerful servants, Gehirn Schlechtes, goes out to try and find the child, a destructive pyromancer with a lust for her own pain and desire to kill. She meets a Slaver with a devastating power for religious mania, converting and slaughtering his followers to be “loved”. Their relationship and that plotline was the most disgusting of all, but it was incredible how much it drew me into it. Oh, human stew. Got to love some human stew. So yeah, if you aren’t a fan of cannibalism, this may entice you to look away. Man, did it reveal some truly dark shit. You can virtually smell the excrement and vilify off the pages. But my word does it deliver effectively.

One possible flaw of this book is potentially how nearly every character can be seen as an evil bastard, with only the god-child Morgen showing some positive traits, but they are so well written that this rarely troubled me.

In conclusion, Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption is a joy to read. It is in depth, and it flows without going through the purple prose crap that plagues so many generic fantasy novels. The action scenes are fast and crisp but don’t over-extend, and the prose is extensive but not flowery. All I can say is…well done. Beyond Redemption is one of my favorite books of the year so far, and I still have plenty to go. I cannot wait to pick up the second book in the series, The Mirror’s Truth because I am invested in this series. It is not for the faint-hearted, so that is a word of warning. If you are squeamish or for some reason let written words offend you, then you’re looking for the wrong book

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Reborn Review by: Michael Baker

Posted on December 20, 2018 by michaelevan28

Reborn by Linn Tesli
Review by: Michael Baker

Well well, what can I say about Reborn? I got this as an ARC by the author, but doesn’t influence my review at all. This is a firm but fair overlook into Reborn.

First of all, the world is vast, and pretty complex. There are a LOT of characters and time-skips going on, so it can be tricky figuring out what’s happening in the story. However, the author has clearly researched and created her world very well, as each one is refreshing without being overdone. There are a vast amount of different creatures (some cutesy and some downright deadly!) some of which may turn off readers. Unicorns, griffons and talking sarcastic squirrels, this has it all. While the worldbuilding hasn’t really introduced anything original to the fantasy genre, using a lot of tried and tested fantasy cliches, I wouldn’t take that away from the author or the book, as they are utilised fairly well. The talking squirrel is actually one of my favourite characters because of how sarcastic he is! I laughed every time he appeared.

Same goes for the plot really. An evil king takes over from his sister (who you actually feel sorry for as the story goes on), a chosen group of kids have to go around, gathering allies to defeat them. While nothing special in terms of creativity, I think its well written and a lot certainly happens! There are a huge number of characters in Reborn, some written better then others, as is the vast number of races. Therefore it can be difficult to figure out what’s going on in the scope of things. Birken was my favourite character because he was likable and probably the most developed. I will be perfectly honest…I didn’t like the kids. Ayva is the most powerful and chosen character in the book for obvious reasons, but I have a natural bias against any teenager prodigies, mainly because I find them whiny and full of angst, and usually everything bends over for them on a silver platter. That…doesn’t happen so much in Reborn, but I found their powers at times a bit “overpowered”. I would have liked more conflict overall, but it’s still very well written, and gives you a scale of how vast the world is. It ends on an open ended note showing there is still a lot to come into the second book, and a lot of conflict to follow.

Overall, I highly recommend Reborn. Good quality writing, a very wide-scope world and there’s a lot of fighting. If the story had any flaws, it’d just be that sometimes it infodumped a bit too much for my taste, and that my personal opinion against the “kids” grated on me, but this is just a hard-to-please fantasy writer babbling. It’s an excellent read and I frankly cannot wait to see what happens next!

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Light Dawning Review by: Michael Baker

Posted on December 20, 2018 by michaelevan28

Light Dawning by Ty Arthur 
Review by: Michael Baker

An interesting read. The entire book takes place in one city during a brutal rebellion at the height of its power, with all sorts of bleak and murky grey. It is a brutal oppression from start to finish, but I did struggle a bit. Something about the sentence structure did put me off. That sounds odd, but I found pretty much every sentence being the same length, same monotone. This isn’t in itself a bad thing, but I found myself bogged down quite a bit.

The book doesn’t have a huge amount of dialogue, and I did struggle in figuring out the plot. There are characters from each rebel faction, there is constant oppression and violence throughout the city, it is chaotic and grim. Some of it is without much substance (some characters I believe can be cut completely), but there is a gritty realism in here that has a lot to be respected. The prose however was something I did struggle a bit. There’s a lot of passiveness in the action, with not as much emotion as I would have liked. it’s more of a general documentary overview of the rebellion. Again, this is not a bad thing, but while I enjoyed reading some of it, other parts washed over me because it felt a bit outside. I would have liked to be more into the ruthlessness rather then hovering over the graveyards like a spectre.

It’s hard to maintain a storyline like this, but I think it does it admirably. It could probably do with a bit of polish and TLC, but there is an excellent story in here, and fans of the darker fantasy genre will find this a good read. It’s not my favourite read of this genre, but it is very readable, does not lack in content and action and overall has enough of a hook to keep me interested throughout.

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Kindling Review by: Michael Baker

Posted on December 20, 2018 by michaelevan28

Kindling by Angel Blackwood
Review by: Michael Baker

One of the best books I’ve read this year. I went into this curious into the world-building and the story, and both blew me away. Not once was I deceived or overwhelmed, and the little tidbits it gave me into the world and it’s lore makes me want to keep reading.

With a diverse and powerful set of characters, Kindling explores a foreigner getting dragged into a magical/religious war with the deeply feminist and fanatical magical order, the Obsidian Embers and their quest to purge male magic. It sounds gory, and it sure as hell is, but it’s so believable that it drew me right in. The fact that the book gives you a deep insight into each faction made me understand each side, and not once does it give off the “This is the evil side, hate them!” feel you get with other fantasy novels. Everyone is well-created, written with love and shows that the author really loves her world, and her story. This is hard to do from the onset, and it really shows. I started off despising the Embers, then feeling sorry for them, then rooting for them as I see how much of an asshole the King can be, right back to disliking them again. But there really isn’t a weak point in this book, it’s that well rounded.

I am fully invested into this series now, and cannot wait for the second book. Highly recommended.

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Raising Fire Review by: Michael Evan

Posted on December 20, 2018 by michaelevan28

Raising Fire by James Bennett
Review by: Michael Evan

Every once in a while I come across a writer whose work is so powerfully written, so challenging and so beautiful that I am simply left spellbound at the God given gift that has clearly been bestowed upon that individual. David Mitchell, Salman Rushdie, David Foster Wallace, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and RJ Barker are all names that come to mind whose genre bending exemplary work have had a profound and lasting impact on my life.

James Bennett is one of those writers. His incredibly beautiful, historical, mythological and poetic story about Red Ben Garston, the last dragon, the lore that keeps him alive , his damsel in distress, and his struggle to survive, just may be one of the most unique creations in the fantasy genre. Far from the urban fantasy it is marketed as, I found myself going back to certain sections in disbelief, just to re-read the beautiful abstract prose. 

James writes fantastic thrilling action sequences, and everything in this sequel to The excellent “Chasing Embers” is ramped up a notch, however if you come to the series expecting Jim Butcher or Kevin Hearne, you will be disappointed. This is literature in its finest form. It will challenge you, make you think, make you laugh and make you cry, but more than anything else, it will make you NEED to know how it all ends for Ben Garston in the third instalment.

5*

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