Actual rating 2.5While competently written, A Touch of Light is a book that just failed ever really catch my interest. I think there are several reasons for this and I’ll start with the characters.The characters are solidly constructed, given decent personalities, individual motivations, a fair bit of complexity, but they’re not likable. Not because they’re […]
Open Sorcery is a book based on the premise of Magic operating like coding in a modern world setting. It executes this premise excellently, both from the feel of how the spells are crafted arduous over a period of days or weeks, to how the magic system as a whole was implemented into and affects […]
The Stone of Farewell improves on the Dragon Bone Chair simply by virtue of beginning more immediately, the conflict has already begun and the characters must endure or attempt to influence it according to their situations. (As opposed to the lengthy beginning a set up in the first book that, while necessary, was slow.) Simon’s […]
For me, Miss Percy’s can best be described as ‘fine’ despite its components being largely strong: the prose is strong, the main character is well defined with a fare bit of complexity, and I usually very much enjoy period pieces. Even the pacing, which is superficially part of why i didn’t enjoy the book more, […]
Ever the Night Road feels like a coming of age adventure novel, driven very much by a main protagonist that feels lost about her place in the world, with what she wants being denied to her by the world. You add in some soft magic, some horror elements, and a grand sense of mysticism and […]
Full of slow, brooding, and often macabre, horror, A Song For the Void is well written and delivers excellently on its time period. The ‘Charger’ is wonderfully tangible in the way it operates, from the ship itself to the command structure and interactions of the crew, as well as just being an excellently setting for […]
Mythera Chronicles has a strong foundation, with solid worldbuilding and fairly complex characters, but the pacing is too quick, often diminishing the values of these foundations by allowing only superficial or glancing attention to be payed to them. Our main character visit a major dwarf settlement while in the course of their journey but only […]
From page one, The Umbral Storm immersed me in its world, a world full of fantastical imagery and strong creative depth. The scenes of the first couple chapters are alive in the cracking of bark, and chill, blanketing mist in a forest of mountainous trees. The world build is tangible and tactile, allowing the readers […]
I found the first odd third of Broken Souls (basically the prequel stories) difficult to progress through. This is largely due to Lura’s side of the narrative as she is compelled into prostitution and sexually assaulted multiple times, and I just found none of it an enjoyable narrative, and the story style itself is dark […]
I listened to the audiobook for Roil and the narrator was good, but nothing extraordinary.If you like darker fantasy and distinctive world building, Roil is a good offering. The characters are solid, and out two main leads feel particularly human with a good mixture of flaws and personality that makes it easy to invest in […]
A quick, easy read, Beyond the Atmosphere introduces into a complex setting of warring species, internal intrigues, widely distinct cultures. This setting, the variety of the cultures in particular for me, is the book’s strongest feature: from the insectoid Masters to the Founders who retreated to an entirely different dimension, it is an interesting setting […]
There is a good story in Into the Violet Gardens, dealing with government betrayal and the abuse of ‘others’/racism, but its prose and narrative composition make it difficult to enjoy and sometimes difficult to follow.On the subject of its prose, the book makes excessive, and most often weak, use of similes, sometimes as many as […]
Aerovoyant is a complicated review for me: it is well written, the characters are complex (Alphonse in particular) and the pacing is strong, making for an entertaining read from start to finish; but it is also driven by a message (the author expresses as much in the foreword) and there were many times during the […]
Bleeding Iris is a visually and conceptually strong book; there are several scenes throughout that were just cool to imagine and visualize, from the way the iris’ of those who accept their bargains rupture and bleed out, to more specific imagery like a woman dressed in a veil and all-black despite the heat passively pulling […]
While well-written, Hills of Heather and Bone is a fairly standard on a conceptual level with its magic system and core plot revolving around necromancy and magical persecution. There’s some neat bits of creativity where the bones house the memories of the dead, and the necromancers must record or honor those memories in exchange for […]