Category Archives: Fantasy

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, 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, 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.

books, epic fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

The Sword Defiant (Land of the Firstborn 1) by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I loved the Gutter Prayer by the same author, so I was really excited about his new series… but ended up being disappointed. 

The worldbuilding is pretty run-of-the-mill fantasy here – a group of heroes who fit the traditional mold of paladin, warrior, barbarian, bard, thief, changeling, etc. save the world from an evil overlord. We have elves, and dwarves, and Wilders, and obviously humans. This is nowhere near as original as Gutter Prayer. But even that isn’t a deal breaker. I read plenty of classic fantasy that I loved.

I was also sold on the idea of telling the story of what happens after the heroes saved the world, and the world moved on, while they grew old and disillusioned. This could have been great! Unfortunately, this turned out to be boring.

The biggest issue with this book is the pacing. Alf spends so much time thinking about the past and how everything changed that he literally doesn’t do anything meaningful for 70% of the book. He wanders, he wonders, he regrets that Pier is dead. He wants his old band back together, even though it’s been 20 years, and they all became different people than when they defeated Lord Bone. He constantly overlooks the shady stuff his former companions do because they are the Nine, and they can do no wrong in his eyes…

He seems to constantly be reacting to the events instead of acting. This makes for a very boring character. And a very boring narrative, because nothing of note happens until about 60% into the story. Then the pace suddenly picks up, and the reader is bombarded with revelation after revelation, some of which had absolutely no foreshadowing. Why did we spend more than half the book twiddling our thumbs instead of setting up the big confrontation better?

I also didn’t particularly care about Olva and her quest to find her son. We barely meet Dewyn before he is kidnapped, so he is more of a plot device than a real person. And since he isn’t a real person to me, I couldn’t relate to Olva at all. And he doesn’t even become a real person by the end of the book, just a vessel for the return of a different being. 

I was bored for most of the book. I skimmed through chapters of the Council deliberating on useless stuff and Olva exploring the Isle of Dawn. All I felt was a mild irritation about Alf just wafling about and wanting him to act. Do something, anything! Yes, things picked up by the end of the book, but by then I was already checked out of the story.

As much as I loved the Gutter Prayer, I’m afraid this series was a complete miss for me.

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

books, Dark fantasy, Reviews

The Failures (Wanderlands 1) by Benjamin Liar

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Stars: 2 out of 5

That cover is gorgeous, by the way, and drew me to the book in the first place. The blurb sounded intriguing as well. And after reading the inspirations the author took from other authors that I love, like Sanderson and Erikson, this book should have been right up my alley. 

Then why was it such a frustrating read? Well, because of the squandered potential. The world is unique and intriguing. There was so much potential, but it is squandered.

The first problem is that because the world is unique, the author throws too much of everything at the reader at once, but at the same time, doesn’t explain enough of how this world functions or even how it all fits together. Case in point – the different POVs from various groups (the Killers, the Monsters, the Lost Children, etc.). We alternate between them from chapter to chapter, but NOWHERE does the author mention in which chronological order these events actually happen. For half the book, I was under the assumption that all these stories happened at the same time, just in different parts of the Wanderlands. So I was very confused when I started encountering characters from the other storylines in Sophie’s neck of the woods. Or when I discovered that Candle is another certain someone we follow in another story arc. This makes for a confusing and messy narrative where the reader is left to puzzle out what even came first and what is even important.

 As an aside, the whole Deadsmith story arc could have been cut out of the book without really impacting the overarching plot. Yes, he is the one who broke Candle and pushed another character on her path, but did we need chapters and chapters of his endless pursuit of his Prey? Just to see him appear for like two paragraphs at the end of the book and bugger off again? Also, what was the whole point of Lourde/West/Mr. Vulch? 

The other issue is the characters. They are so larger than life that they stop being characters and become caricatures. It’s hard to empathize with any of them apart from Sophie. By the end of the story, I didn’t care about what happened to any of them apart from Sophie and Ben, who, surprise, surprise, were the most human of them all. 

I was also disconcerted by the use of names of Christian origin in a foreign world. It’s not a future Earth, it’s a completely different world. So why do we have a James, a Chris, a Katherine? Or even Sophie, for that matter? I understand the Behemoth having Earth-sounding names, because they come to the Wanderlands from other worlds, some of which might be our Earth (as implied for Gun and Jackie), but the characters that are born and raised there? You don’t even have to use your imagination anymore to create names, ChatGPT can do that for you, so this screams of lazy writing.

Finally, I understand that this is the first book in a series, so it has to do a lot of setup, but I also expect to read a fully finished story arc – with a beginning, a middle, and a resolution, or a return to the status quo, by the end of the book. Here, we have a cliffhanger. NOTHING is resolved for none of the characters. Yes, you could argue that Sophie’s story gets some kind of resolution, but does it really? After almost 600 pages of setup, and hints at something catastrophic, we just end mid-action, almost. There are more questions than answers. Where is Winter? What is happening in the rest of the Keep? Why did the Consort take the Cold Key? 

As it stands, I was left frustrated and disappointed by the end of this book, and with no desire to read the next one.

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

books, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Dark Game (Lance Brody 1) by Michael Robertson Jr

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

This was entertaining enough that I felt engaged with the story and cared about what happened to Lance and Leah, so I feel that a 2.5-star rating is earned. However, there are a few problems with this book that put me on the fence as to whether I will continue with the series. 

First, this book is listed as the first in the series, but it starts with Lance on the run from something horrible that happened in his hometown. Something that probably killed his mother. This is very confusing for a first-time reader who doesn’t know that there is a prequel novella about these events. It can be frustrating because it feels like we are missing a big chunk of the story.

The second issue is that Lance doesn’t exactly think things through before he rushes headfirst to fight evil. This results in him being more of a damsel in distress who needs help and rescue from others, be it Leah, her father, or the paramedic. And people get hurt because of that. I would have liked him better if he had displayed at least some semblance of planning before rushing into the unknown. Also, he is no superhero; heck, he admits that his powers don’t work on demand, so this recklessness is rather jarring with the rest of his character. My hope is that, being the first book, he will grow out of it as he matures. 

The insta-love between him and Leah was also a bit cringe. In fact, I found that a lot of interactions between Lance and other characters were rather far-fetched. He just seems to “feel” which people are good and trustworthy. And these people just take his crazy stories at face value and agree to help him with everything he needs. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. 

Also, it feels like everything comes too easily for him. He senses great evil in the town, and lo and behold, he meets Leah, who is EXACTLY the person to help him with that. He gets hurt in the car crash, but not to worry, because Leah’s friend is a paramedic, who patches him up and doesn’t even think about reporting him to the cops, even though he fled the scene of an accident where a cop was killed. He gets trapped by the big bad… and once again is rescued by somebody else. If you look at it, Lance didn’t DO anything to defeat this evil. He just showed up in town, created havoc by stumbling around like a bull in a China shop, and then let other people rescue him and save the day. 

We are told over and over that he is special, but none of his actions in this book illustrate that. Again, this being the first book in the series, I hope that Lance evolves as a character and matures in subsequent books, but I am not sure I want to invest my time in finding out.

books, epic fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

The Lost War (Eidyn 1) by Justin Lee Anderson

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Stars: 2 out of 5

I was excited about this book when I read the blurb. It also has raving 5-star reviews on Goodreads, so I was really looking forward to a great new epic fantasy series when I picked up this book…

That excitement turned into confusion within the first few chapters. It really felt like I was reading the second, or maybe third book in a series, not the first one. Characters kept mentioning events that happened or things they did, and I was like, What am I missing? I even went on Goodreads to check that there wasn’t a prequel or something I missed. Nope, this is book 1. 

And I could have pushed through the confusion and still liked the story. There are plenty of wonderful books that literally drop you in mid-action and let you figure out the world and what the heck is happening as the book progresses. Unfortunately, this book isn’t one of them. 

The problem here is that nothing that happens for the first 70% of the book matters where the story is concerned. The characters meander from point to point and keep making seemingly random detours. It almost feels like the author had a plethora of great ideas and didn’t want to sacrifice any for the sake of the plot, so he plopped them all in. What’s the harm, right? Especially since none of it matters, once you get to the plot twist in the end. Well, it made for a bloated and boring narrative. 

The characters could have been the saving grace of this book, but I hated all of them, apart from maybe Samily. I especially grew to despise Aranok. He is supposed to be one of the most powerful magic users in the kingdom, and the King’s Envoy (with or without memory modification). Yet he behaves like a spoiled 5-year-old with poor impulse control. He is a grown man, for Pete’s sake! Why does he throw temper tantrums every time something goes wrong or someone dares to go against his orders? He treats everyone else around him with such smug superiority, I wanted to slap the shit out of him most of the time.

And all the female characters just fawn all over him and excuse/justify/downplay his horrible behavior. Because he is so “special”. Excuse me? I haven’t seen his “specialness” in this book, not even once. I’ve seen him make stupid decisions and put himself and his companions in mortal danger time and time again. And it fell on others to pull his butt out of the fire every time. 

I also found it extremely irritating that he kept questioning Samily’s faith. That was rude and boorish, as well as painted him in a very negative light. We get it, you are an atheist. That doesn’t mean you have to disrespect someone else’s faith or try to make them miserable because of it.

I also don’t particularly like when the author fridges characters just for shock value, like he did with Vasin and Glorbad (spelling?). Also, what the heck is it with these unpronounceable names? And Minygogg, really? Maxigogg was already taken?

I also don’t think that the plot twist ending justified the meandering plot and boring sidequests. If anything, it made me mad that I wasted so many hours reading a story that didn’t particularly matter because it was all a lie. That I had to endure countless pages of Aranok being an ass just to learn that, hey, even with his memories restored, he is just as big on ass. Needless to say, I have no desire to follow his adventures into the next book. I think this series and I will be parting ways on book 1.

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

books, Fantasy, Reviews

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

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Stars: 5 out of 5

This is a wonderful fairy tale in the best tradition of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. The true and harsh tales, not the sanitized Disney versions most of the modern children grew up with.

Veris has to venture into an enchanted forest to rescue the children of the man who was responsible for her parents’ death. This already presents a huge moral dilemma for her, because she hates the Tyrant and everything he represents, but she also understands that the children are innocent, even if they are his.

Because these enchanted woods are not the Disney fairy tale woods. They are dark and ancient, and cruel, but they have rules. Follow those, and you might, just might survive the trip and even come back whole.

I loved the description of the woods and the horrors and wonders that call them home. The author uses language like a scalpel to craft mesmerizing images of beauty and horror at the same time. These woods are alien, their inhabitants even more so. And I was genuinely afraid for Veris and the children, because what can mere mortals do against something this ancient and powerful?

We need more stories like this.

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