books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Cold Iron Task (The Unorthodox Chronicles 3) by James J. Butcher

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Stars: 4.5 out of 5

This is an excellent story. Both Mayflower and Grimsby are put through the wringer here, but both come out on the other side with some significant character growth.

What I like about Grimsby is that he is genuinely a good guy. Life really tried to beat him down time and time again, but that didn’t make him bitter or jaded. He isn’t trying to lash out at a world that frankly put him through hell. He chooses compassion and believes in treating people right. He cares about his friends, even too much sometimes.

My only complaint is that he seems to be a little too trusting for someone who’s had such a hard upbringing. I mean, I understand that he feels guilty for what happened to his friend and wants to help, but he could have asked a few more questions before agreeing to the heist, don’t you think?

But it’s also wonderful to see how much of a positive influence he is on his friends, even if he doesn’t realize it. The fact that Mayflower turned to him when he needed support is very telling. Mayflower from book 1 would have laughed at the mere idea of it, then punched you in the face for even suggesting it.

I’m glad that Grimsby finally learned a new spell, and OMG it is so fitting of his character! Hopefully, now that he has found peace with himself and realized that his magic isn’t damaged, that the burns are an intrinsic part of him, he will be able to advance as a magic user.

This book also raises more questions about who his mother was and what really happened during that apartment fire. Hopefully, we will get more answers in the next book.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

The Five Faces (Markhat 8) by Frank Tuttle

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Stars: 3.5 out of 5

Don’t get me wrong, I love Markhat and his friends, and the beginning of the story tugs at my heartstrings. I am a dog lover, and I work in animal rescue, so any mention of dog fighting makes me see red. So I was right there with Markhat when he went Hulk Smash on the b&%tards in that warehouse.

I really wanted more of that plotline, but unfortunately, it gets dropped almost immediately. Sure, we find Cornbread by the end of the book, but it’s almost a side note. We don’t even get to see the reunion with Saffie, which was a bit disappointing.

Instead, we get a story about yet another ancient would-be big bad crawling out of the nether and into Ranith. And while it was a fun ride, the stakes didn’t seem as personal as the previous books. Which is weird, considering the fate of the whole city was on the line.

There were also a lot of unanswered questions. Like, what was the point of taking over the drug trade in the city or beating up other members of Ranith’s underground, if the big bad was playing host to a literal Death god who was going to kill everyone anyway? That was the end goal, so why go into all the trouble with the rest?

Also, the whole jumping in and out of time, into the future and back, was a bit confusing. And it lowered the stakes in the end. Yes, Markhat made a sacrifice in the end to defeat the death god, but Markhat is also here and unhurt at the end of the book, so it cheapens what happened.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a really good book, and I’m still loving this series. It was just a bit less enjoyable than the previous ones.

books, Horror, Reviews

The Murmors (Annie Jackson Mysteries 1) by Michael J Malone

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Stars: 2 out of 5

This book started very strongly – Annie has no memories of her childhood due to a terrible accident that killed her mom and landed her in a coma, and on top of that, she starts hearing murmurs and sees how people will die when their death is imminent enough. What would she do with this strange ability? Especially since she just started working in a nursing home.

Well, turns out, nothing at all. Annie quits after the first day there, and her ability doesn’t really come into play at all during the rest of the book.

I felt cheated. Like the blurb was a bait and switch. I came for a woman with a strange ability, not a generational drama and a plot that ground to a halt after the initial setup and then proceeded to creep towards an ending at a snail’s pace.

It doesn’t help that the actual plot of the book is not interesting, at least not to me. Any of the supposed twists were telegraphed way in advance, so I didn’t even have any aha moments to look forward to. And, as I mentioned, the plot went into a completely different direction than I expected.

I also couldn’t connect with Annie at all, even though I tried. To me, she just reads as very immature and full of herself. She only thinks of how things impact her and never even tries to consider how her actions impact those closest to her. And everyone tiptoes around her as if walking on eggshells, even before her curse manifests.

I also wasn’t particularly invested in the other timelines we follow in this story – the one of Annie’s mother and her sisters, and the one of the original twins who brought the curse into being.

Mostly, it was a slog to read and left me rather underwhelmed. I honestly am confused where all the raving reviews are coming from. Did I read a different book than everyone else? I will not be continuing with the series.

PS: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.

books, Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

The Will of the Strid (The Wells of Fate 1) by Kingsley M Hobson

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DNF at 35%

I just couldn’t get into this book, and I usually love a good fantasy story. Good versus evil, coming of age, and all that. Heck, I can even enjoy a Chosen One trope from time to time, but here, I just kept losing my interest in the story.

I think the biggest issue is that it felt like there were no stakes in what was happening, at least not for the protagonist.

We are told that a great evil is waking up and will destroy the world as we know it if Storn and his two companions don’t go into this magical realm and make sure he keeps sleeping. Okay, good. Yet nothing in what the author describes of the land and people who inhabit it so far points towards this resurgence. We get mentions of tavern talk that things are getting bad, but we never experience it firsthand.

Also, it’s said that this great evil was imprisoned 80 years ago, yet only legends remain. What, nobody talks about those times because they “don’t like talking about them”? Really? WW2 happened about 80 years ago as well, and everyone still remembers what that was and the horrors it caused. You are telling me that all the people all over the land just spontaneousely decided to forget something just as traumatic? I don’t believe that.

More importantly, this big evil has no impact on Storn’s life. Well, apart from those weird bats tracking him during his journey to Ursula, but even that is only mentioned twice. What are the stakes in this journey for him? He is not in danger. He is not seeking anything. He is just told that he has to go into the Strid, and he just nods and tags along.

As far as my protagonist go, I like them actively participating in their fate and making decisions, even if they are bad ones. The only active decision Storn made was to run away from home by hitching a ride in the ragman’s wagon. After that, he just follows along and does what he is told for vague reasons that are never fully explained. He could walk away at any time, and his life wouldn’t be particularly changed.

This makes for a boring read, and I don’t feel like trying to fight my way through more pages to see if it ever gets more interesting.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Grim Dark, Reviews

She Dreams In Blood (The Obsidian Path 2) by Michael R Fletcher

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Stars: 2 out of 5

I really liked the first book in the series. It was dark and brutal, but also had a very interesting concept. I wanted to find out what shattered Khraen’s heart and why his empire crumbled. I also wanted to learn more about this world and the danger that the Demon Emperor was guarding it from.

Well… I kind of got the answer to both of those questions, but honestly, it was very underwhelming.

More importantly, where the first book was full of adventures and palpable tension, this book drags. Yes, the opening is fast-paced and interesting, with the sinking of the ship Khraen and Henka are on, but after that the book is boring until about 90%.

The main reason for that is that Khraen stops being the driving force behind the story and becomes a passenger to Henka’s plans. Henka frees him from the necromancers. Henka hands him the next shard of his heart almost on a platter. Henka persuades him to sail to their next destination. Henka makes all the plans and preparations.

And Khraen? He spends this whole book moaning about how he doesn’t want to be as horrible as the Demon Emperor, while doing terrible things and killing countless people, both himself and by letting Henka butcher them without saying anything. And he tries to justify it by saying it’s necessary… while hating himself for it and feeling sorry for himself and saying that oh no, he is still not like his past self, and blah, blah, blah. So on and so forth, and we are running in circles for 350 odd pages.

I lost all respect for this character. He is honestly pathetic. By the end of the book I wanted to slap him and yell: “We get it that you want to be a better person! Well, either start acting like one, or stop with the moaning and start with the killing. Sh*t or get off the pot already!”

I also don’t understand his blind fate in Henka. He doesn’t remember her. He only has her word that she is his wife. Yet he believes that she loves him and will never harm him. Why?

And yes, he unleashes a can of whoopass at the 90% mark in the book, but even that show of force is useless in the end. He murders hundreds of people. Destroys an entire city… and ends up losing everything anyway – his friend, his wife, even his freedom. What was the point of all this?

I am disappointed in this series, and I don’t think that I will be continuing with the next book. I don’t care enough about Khraen at this point to try and find out where his pathetic self ends up.

books, Reviews, science fiction, Space opera

Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries 8) by Martha Wells

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Stars: 4 out of 5

Murderbot is back! And his risk assessment module is repaired and functioning better than in the last book. He even added an emotional check subroutine on it, and let me tell you, the results of that check are often hilarious.

Here we have Murderbot at his best – when he is in charge and trying to extricate humans out of tricky situations while pretending that he doesn’t really care about them. But we all know that he is a big mush under that gruff exterior, and that he absolutely cares about his humans.

Murderbot has a plan (well, the bare bones of one at least), but that plan goes out of the window as soon as he enters the taurus anyway. Shenanigans happen, with lots of snark from our favorite SecUnit, and I loved every minute of it.

We get to meet DR Mensah’s extended family, including one of her spouses and her daughter. Sofi is an amazing character, but I loved Granma the most. Also, it’s hilarious how awkward Bot is with children, but how good he is with them as well. No matter how much he gripes about it, it’s like he senses when little humans need him to be there for them, even if it’s just a strong hand to hold on to when the world around is scary.

Oh, and Three freeing other SecUnits with Murderbot 2.0 code, and the rogue SecUnit panic that spreads through the taurus is rather funny to read about. Especially Bot’s reaction when one of those units tried to interfere with the rescue of his humans.

My only complaint about this book is that once again, we get very little of ART and Bot interactions. I miss ART. I want them exploring the galaxy together, watching soap operas and being hilariously snarky about the humans they have to deal with.

PS: My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced review copy.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Dark Heir (Jane Yellowrock 9) by Faith Hunter

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I think I am officially done with this series. This last book felt like a chore to finish, which is never good in a genre that is supposed to be my comfort food.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like Jane and her Beast, and the two Younger brothers are pretty good people to read about. I’m glad that Jane finally admitted to herself and others that they are found family, and even decided to make it official. It’s everything else in the books that is failing to keep my interest.

I do not care about vampire politics and who is feeding/f*&king/in a relationship with whom, or who hates whose guts at the moment. Neither of those stances is self-excluding, either. And I don’t like Leo. He is just not an interesting character to me, so all this sometimes antagonistic, sometimes almost sexual tension between him and Jane gives me major eek.

Speaking of eek, Jane repeatedly states that Eli and Alex are like brothers to her, but then there are moments when she openly flirts with Eli. No. Just… no.

Most of the relationships in this book are very screwed up, especially when it comes to Jane and other women. Case in point – Molly. Jane states that she is her best friend in the world, yet I don’t see that in this book. After the first summoning disaster, when Molly almost turns to the dark side, Jane has to knock her out. You would think that two best friends would talk about that, wouldn’t you? Nope. No “hey, you tried to kill us, how do you feel right now?” or “Hey, I’m sorry I almost turned into a blood witch and murdered you all.” Just silence and keep on keeping on. Then, during the second summoning, Jane treats her like the enemy and even tells Eli to shoot her if needed. Then we are back to being all friends at the end of the book.

Also, I felt like this book dragged. Jane kept spinning her wheels for 80% of the book, then all of a sudden she comes to conclusions seemingly out of the blue and the book steamrolls into the final battle. At some points in the story, I had to go back to re-read passages because I really felt like I missed some crucial clue, because I didn’t understand how Jane came to the conclusions she came to.

So in summary, this was a fun series for a while, but it got repetitive, and there isn’t enough story here for me to keep going.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers 1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Stars: 4 out of 5

This is the first fantasy book that I have read by this prolific author. I liked one of his sci-fi series (The Final Architecture) and bounced off another one (Children of Time). So I was open to giving another one of his books a go.

All in all, I really liked it. The author has a knack for creating interesting worlds that you want to explore and learn more about. In our case, the city of Ilmar is interesting to discover, but not a place I will ever want to visit. It’s old and crumbling in some places, with layers of history and tragedy built upon each other. 

It’s a weird place where grand mansions coexist with factories straight out of the industrial revolution (only powered by demons instead of coal). Where a mysterious Wood can be a small corpse of trees one moment, and a passage to other worlds when the moon hits it just right. Where a curse can jump from the person being executed to the executioner. Where the old nobility, massacred a hundred years ago, still snares anyone who enters their domain to re-enact their jousts and dances until they die of starvation.

You could almost (but only almost) pity the Pals who are trying to impose their order and Correct Thought doctrine on this city that rejects any kind of order or classification. It’s a broken place where magic leaks from the cracks, and hope is a small ray of sunshine almost swallowed by the clouds of despair. Even the escape through the Wood isn’t easy and is a guaranteed death sentence without proper protection.

While I was fascinated by Ilmar, I was less enthused with the characters that we got to follow throughout the book. There are several POVs, so the story meanders seemingly aimlessly for a good chunk of the book. I would even argue that some of the POVs were rather superfluous and could have been cut out without much damage to the story, which would have made the book slightly shorter and easier to read.

Don’t look for heroes in this book. There are none, even if some of the characters consider themselves as such, at least in the beginning, before the harsh reality of Ilmar slaps them in the face. These are deeply flawed people who are doing sometimes horrible things, and sometimes good things, but purely for selfish reasons. Everyone likes to talk big about liberating Ilmar and chasing the Pals out, but it’s always about who will profit from that revolution. 

So if you like your protagonists clearly on the side of good and your villains truly evil, then this is probably not a book for you. These characters are flawed people. Sometimes pitiful, sometimes horrible, but always very human. 

My only complaint is that this world feels rather hopeless. Horrible things happen, then even more horrible things follow. There is no happy ending, just an ending to this particular nastiness. Some antagonists get what they deserve, but most don’t. Also, Ilmar is back to the status quo with nothing gained on either side.

All in all, I don’t mind revisiting this world again, so I will definitely pick up the next book in the series.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Reviews, Space opera

Cello’s Gate (The Sky Pirates of Imperia 1) by Maurice Africh

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DNF at 15%

I am baffled. I don’t understand where all the 5-star reviews are coming from. I am also mad at myself for trusting those reviews and going for this book based on them. I feel like I got bamboozled.

Yes, it’s a debut and also the first book in a series, which means it has to do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to introducing the world, the plot, and the characters. So I am willing to give it a bit of grace, but my patience only stretches so far.

First of all, the pacing. I was 15% in when I threw the towel, and the plot hadn’t even started yet. We had a long prologue that kinda sorta introduced the main protagonist, along with a huge infodump about the world he lives in. Then we get this long and drawn-out heist where the author tries his best to introduce all the characters on Gray’s crew, along with their backstories. Do we really need the whole backstory of the Crest Knights right in the middle of what is supposed to be a high-stakes heist? Why do I need 3 pages of her backstory while they are crawling along a ventilation shaft in this super-high security facility? Any tension and anticipation I had for this just died on the vine.

And this tendency to overexplain, infodump, then summarize it again for good measure a few pages later, continues throughout the portion of the book I read. Why? The readers aren’t stupid. We do not need everything spelled out and summarized for us. 

My other issue is the characters. Yes, they are likable. They are also so overpowered from the very start that there is no tension to the confrontations, and the seemingly high stakes fall flat. I mean, you have what is supposed to be an edge-of-your-seat scene in the beginning with two of the protagonists pinned down in a small room by twenty highly skilled soldiers with only one way out… But this is barely an inconvenience when Gray’s companions seems to be a one-woman army who dispatches those “highly skilled” soldiers in less than 5 minutes without either of them taking any damage. 

Also, those “highly skilled” soldiers have never been taught how to clear a room properly? No, I mean, they forgot to check behind the door when they stormed into the room (which has one entry point). Then they conveniently turn their back to the door (all three of them) and let the Crest Knight kill them like the idiots that they seem to be. 

So the fact that the characters are so overpowered that you don’t feel worried about their survival, added to the fact that their enemies are morons, just makes me not give a s&*t about this story from the get-go. 

There are also some plot and description inconsistencies that could easily have been avoided if a good content editor had given the draft a pass, like that scene in the vault. The author says that one of the protagonists closes the door once the three soldiers rush in… Yet in the next paragraph, both protagonists are exchanging fire with the remaining soldiers through the open door… It’s one or the other. It can’t be both at the same time.

I was fully willing to give this debut a chance, but I value my time too much to have to drudge through 500+ pages of this.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Grim Dark, Reviews

The Silverblood Promise (The Last Legacy 1) by James Logan

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Stars: 4.5 out of 5

I think I discovered a new favorite fantasy series, y’all! I went into the book blind. I did read the blurb, but I didn’t look at any reviews on Goodreads or anywhere else. I was also in the middle of a reading slump (I still have about 9 books that I started, but that didn’t grab me enough to keep on reading). Well, this book delivered the excitement and immersive story that I needed!

I think the biggest draw in this book is the world. The city of Saphrona is almost a character in itself. It is so well described that I can see the shattered top of the Black Hand, feel the relentless heat on my skin, and smell the odors of rotting fish, sewage, and seaweed of its harbors. 

The mystery of what happened to the Phaeron, or even who they were, is also very intriguing. There are ruins of their civilization everywhere. Phaeron artefacts are prized higher than gold. Heck, there is even a magically created desert that hints at an ancient battle, but of the Phaeron themselves, we know nothing. And I think they are important to the story, since Lukan’s father was an expert on their civilisation, and he got assassinated. Not to mention that he left hints for his son along with a Phaeron relic.

But a book wouldn’t have grabbed me this quickly with a good story alone. I also need fleshed-out characters I can root for or hate. Here, we have both. Lukan is a lovable protagonist. He comes across as a loser and a bit of a drunk in the beginning of the book, but the more you get to know him, the more you discover that he has a moral core and a surprising well of courage (and foolishness) deep inside him. His interactions with Flea were some of my favorite episodes in this book. They really are like siblings, even if they aren’t related by blood. 

As far as villains go, I thought the main one was a bit of a caricature, even though I understood his motivations. No, of all the bad guys, it’s the Twice-Crowned King of the Kindred that terrified me the most. Here, we really have two beings who have no morals or scruples and who revel in inflicting pain on others. 

The only character that grated on my nerves was the Scrivener. She came across as a Karen, honestly. I kept expecting her to ask to speak to the manager. Glad we won’t be doing any more business with her in the next book. 

All in all, this is a fast-paced and engaging story with lovable characters set in a vivid and interesting world. I will definitely read the next book in the series. 

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My dreams and stories. The life of a writer.