Darkin: A Journey East (The Darkin Saga #1) by Joseph A. Turkot

 Darkin: A Journey East (The Darkin Saga #1) by Joseph A. Turkot

Synopsis: The greatest dark wizard, long thought dead, has risen anew; in his wake marches the vast army of the Feral Brood. None could have foreseen the total evil set to descend upon Darkin.

A long age of peace has left the land devoid of heroes. Slavery has taken hold of the world’s commerce. All hope rests in the rebellious spirit of one slave.

Alien bloodlust besieges Adacon late one night—an impulse drives him to murder his guards and set out to find and kill his oppressers. Escaping into wilds unknown, he realizes the great peril awaiting him.

A strange hermit appears from under a sand dune, claiming to know “magic.” He believes that if they work together, they can build a band of warriors powerful enough to change the fate of the world. Can they find any still harboring valor and chivalry in their hearts?—or will their quest be for nought, ending in the ruin of the world?

Review: There were a number of things I didn’t enjoy about this book.

The biggest problem was probably the characters, they didn’t really have much personality to them and they didn’t really interest me.
Adacon, is supposed to be an escaped slave, had no evidence that he was. What there was of his personality didn’t match his status of being an ex-slave, he was confidant, no fears, no worries about being captured, intelligent and educated. He was also far too skilled as well, both him and his fellow ex-slave have excellent fighting skills and are able to overpower trained men despite not having practiced themselves. They have other ‘natural’ skills they shouldn’t, such as being able to ride horses skillfully.

The love story didn’t see natural either, two characters fell pretty much instantly in love and would do anything for each other. The family had no problems with the relationship. It just all seemed too easy and unrewarding.

The characters were on the whole overpowered. Most of the situations had no tension since the characters always seemed strong enough to take on even overwhelming odds.

Too often the characters would say or do something they (and the author) would think was funny or clever, but it just wasn’t.

The characters speak in a very unnatural way, almost archaic, but not really, more like a kid’s tv show from the 80’s.

One of the characters is a gnome who enjoys alcohol. The other characters are always very critical of his drinking (despite the fact the gnome had just found out his son had died), and the author is as well in the way he describes the gnome and what he does, compared to the other characters. Rather than coming across as a moral against abusing alcohol, it seemed to be preachy and it annoyed me how badly everyone was treating him.

There was a massive overuse of magic, every time the characters got into a difficult situation, the author would bring them close to defeat, then someone would use magic and save everyone. While magic is part of a fantasy novel, it shouldn’t be abused in this way, even books where the main characters are wizards (such as the Harry Potter series.) the characters use methods other than magic to save themselves.

The story was very clichéd and unoriginal, most of the plot has been seen many times before.

The descriptions were okay, but nothing special. It was generally easy to follow the action and to understand what something looked like, but it was lacking the attention to detail that most fantasy novels include.

There were large chucks of world building information and occasionally it became difficult to remember it all.

Overall this book was okay, but had many flaws. I didn’t feel connection with the characters, the death of almost any book, and I wasn’t convinced the main POV character personality suited his background. It was clichéd, and when it tried to be funny or clever it generally failed. The massive overuse of magic and overpowered characters hit another nail in the coffin by taking away any tension there might have been, and making any dangerous situation pointless and the resolution dull.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Rating **

 

Light in the Gloaming by J.B. Simmons

 Light in the Gloaming by J.B. Simmons

Synopsis: “The Gloaming was worse than the grave…”

Or so Tryst believed when he banished the former prince to this secret and brutal exile. Now Tryst sits on the throne of Valemidas. He feasts with nobles and prepares an army to conquer the world.

But things are never as stable as they seem. Old loyalties remain. Tryst’s half-sister wants vengeance for the disappeared prince she loved. What happens if a man survives a place worse than the grave?

Alliances will crumble, battles will rage, and souls will transform in the Gloaming.



 

Review:

The characters were outstanding, they had interesting and diverse personalities. The good characters had flaws. There were also some characters who appeared to be aiding the main character, but with the way the author conveys the heroes thoughts we have doubts along with him whether they are truly helping him or if they will betray him in the end. The author did an excellent job of bringing across believable thoughts and feelings from all of the characters.

It was interesting to see chapters from the point of view of the hero, Andor and his rival Tryst from first person perspective and chapters from the point of view of other characters written in third person perspective. It was an good technique and it certainly made me feel it was a story about these two main characters.

The story was excellent. It was different from your average hero having to overthrow the villain story. Since the hero had to be more subtle about it and was attempting to do it without killing his rival.

The action was fairly light and the fighting scenes tended to be short. That’s not to say there isn’t anything happening or that it is short on excitement. There is plenty of that; it just takes a different form, such as the main characters planning on how they will overthrow Tryst. Probably the biggest disappointment with the action was how the tension could build up, or something appears to being set up for an action filled sequence only to turn out to be fairly small. SPOILER The showdown between Andor and Tryst as well as the big battle were both disappointing given all of the build up to them. [END OF SPOILER]

The descriptions are very well written, every part of the world is more brilliant in the way the author describes it.

The Gloaming was a very interesting place, but sadly only fills up a small section of the book, a couple of chapters at the start and at the end, which was odd giving the title and the synopsis. The memories of the place do effect Andor during the story, but I really would liked to have seen more of it, either by having the prince spend more time there or by having more detailed flashbacks to the place.

Overall I would rate this book four and a half out of five. The lack of action, and results not matching up to the build up were my main reasons for not giving this book the full five out of five. But it is strong enough for me to be on the look out for the next book in the series.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. 

**** 1/2

Midnight City (Conquered Earth #1) by J. Barton Mitchell

 Midnight City (Conquered Earth #1) by J. Barton Mitchell

Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic world controlled by alien invaders, two teens and a young girl with mysterious powers embark on a dangerous journey. What they find will change everything...

Earth has been conquered. An extraterrestrial race known as The Assembly has abducted the adult population, leaving the planet’s youth to fend for themselves. In this treacherous landscape, Holt, a bounty hunter, is transporting his prisoner Mira when they discover Zoey, a young girl with powerful abilities who could be the key to stopping The Assembly. As they make their way to the cavernous metropolis of Midnight City, the trio must contend with freedom fighters, mutants, otherworldly artifacts, pirates, feuding alien armies, and perhaps most perilous of all: Holt and Mira’s growing attraction to each other.

Midnight City is the breathtaking first novel in the Conquered Earth series, and a stunning work of imagination from debut author J. Barton Mitchell.

 Review: The best book I’ve read in 2014 so far… okay so it’s only January and it’s the forth book I’ve read, but I’m pretty sure it will still be one of my favorite reads by the end of the year.

While I do enjoy reading dystopian and science fiction books, I tend to prefer fantasy. The fact I rated this book so highly, despite the fact it’s not my favorite genre, shows just how much I enjoyed it.

The story itself is excellent. I really enjoyed reading what was happening to the characters and the world around them.

The characters were fantastic and rarely have I seen such evenly balanced male and female in the lead roles. Their abilities are closely matched, their personalities are just as strong, neither of them outshines the other in terms of story or quality of writing, and neither of them dominated the relationship.

Speaking of their relationship I thought it was really well done, they initially dislike each other and very slowly they begin to fall in love, with very believable feelings such as denial (to themselves) of their attraction and later accepting the other is attractive but convincing themselves they are not interested in pursuing a relationship. The long journey they go through makes it more interesting. I don’t normally like much romance in reading, but I did enjoy this one, partly because of the reasons I have already listed, but also because the romance didn’t dominate the story.

The characters are developed through the story in more ways than just on a romantic level. But it is done slowly and in a believable way.

The thoughts and feelings of the characters was also written very well.

The world building is done exceptionally well. There is plenty introduced to the reader to make the world interesting, but it is spread out throughout the book so I never suffered from information overload. There was always enough information and reminders, that I never felt lost or confused.

A few times I did think things were over explained, but it was pretty rare and didn’t go on for too long. I guess it’s better to have things explained a little too much than not enough.

The descriptions were of a good length, enough detail to follow what is happening and to visualize the world, but not so much that it got boring.

The pacing was perfect, while there is plenty of action and adventure, the author was never afraid to slow things down, to give the characters more personal and intimate moments, or to give us important information about their personalities or background.

I have very few criticisms of this book. The only one that bothered me was the fact that neither Holt nor Mira never really questioned Zoey about her powers, her past, or strange way of talking. Occasionally they would ask her something but were accepting when she said she didn’t know why. This seemed to go against Holt’s and Mira’s suspicious nature.

Overall I thought this was an excellent book, with a really enjoyable story, with strong male and female lead characters, a very interesting world, excellent pacing and descriptions.

Rating: ***** + ♥

 

Aquaman, Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Aquaman Vol. VII #3) by Geoff Johns, Paul Pelletier (Illustrations), Ivan Reis (Illustrations)

 Aquaman, Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis (Aquaman Vol. VII #3) by Geoff Johns, Paul Pelletier (Illustrations), Ivan Reis (Illustrations)

Synopsis: Aquaman, who long ago lost contact with his people, must watch as armies emerge from the sea to attack the surface world. The Justice League answers the call to defend the shores from the invading Atlantean horde. But whose side is Aquaman on? With his brother Orm at the head of the undersea army, will Aquaman stand with his Earth-bound superteam? Or his own people? Find out in this exciting hardcover collecting AQUAMAN #0 and 14-16 and JUSTICE LEAGUE #15-17

Review:
This was the first comic book/sequential art book that I have read.

I thought the story was good. Even though it was vol. 3 in this series I never felt lost in the story without having read the rest of them.

The artwork was mixed in my opinion, some of it was really good other parts were pretty bad.

In this case Raj was wrong, Aquaman does not suck.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. 

 Rating ****

Sway of the Moon (The Sacred Oath Chronicles #1) by Nan Cederman

 Sway of the Moon (The Sacred Oath Chronicles #1) by Nan Cederman

Synopsis: "Tonight, a war between
the light and the darkness
has returned. Two warriors
clashed in the battle, which
has continued throughout the
ages. The dark one lies at
our feet, righteousness has
declared a victory" ~ Sahgi

In the year 9898HE (103BCE), tragic events compel a mystic civilization to isolate itself from outsiders. Isolation provides the serenity and freedom for the kin-people to expand innate abilities to an unearthly level. Isolation provides their dark, twisted heritage to fracture the three kindred bloodlines of the blended nation. Once again, the ancestral battle for supremacy reignites.
In the year 12020HE (2020CE), anthropologist Caeth Salkar begins to research her legacy.
Amazed by the detailed ancestral
chronicles, she decides to document their epic struggle to overcome the thirst of the dark ones.
Her research reveals 5 chosen Mystics. Each one swears a Sacred Oath to battle the dark, heinous power, which becomes stronger with each confrontation.

Review: My first big problem was with the characters. Apart from a few 'evil' characters who have fairly minor roles in the story, the entire cast of characters was way too nice. They are always saying nice things too each other, doing kind acts, having nice thoughts. It just made them all seem unrealistic and bland. Very occasionally one of the characters would get angry about something and say something unkind, but upon seeing the person upset they would immediately feel bad and apologize, and the upset person would normally also say sorry for overreacting, this is followed by more overly kind words to each other.

One of the worst example of this was when one of the characters sends his wife away after an attack. She didn't want to go, but he became angry and ordered her to leave. She is so traumatized by thinking about his words while she is traveling back, she goes into premature labor. She prays to the goddess of childbirth, who first saves the wife and child by stopping the labor, then attacks the husband (sort of). He realizes why he is being attacked and rushes to his wife, who by this time is at their home. They are both very sorry and ask forgiveness, then... they have sex! Seriously his wife just almost went into labor because she was upset with him so they solve it by having sex! What was he going to do poke the baby back in?

The evil characters were just as over the top as the good ones. The first one we meet was insane, pure evil, full of anger and acted irrationally. He had no redeeming qualities or reasons to justify what he was doing. All he needed was a mustache to twiddle and he would be a stereotypical old movie bad guy.

The second group of villains actually started with more promise, they had more diverse personalities and were interesting to read about. But after a while they begin to change, and were similar to the overly kind characters. They would be sweet, say nice things to each other, and their only real evilness was their intent to battle against the main group of characters. The change they went through was too quick and unbelievable, for example the leader of the group went from ripping out throats of those who challenged him in the slightest way, and abusing women, to wanting to do the right thing, showing kindness to his rivals and wishing to meet the approval of his 'beloved' in just a couple of chapters.

From the premise, I was excited to read about Caeth Salkar, a person from the future researching about the other characters and their history. This was an excellent idea and showed much promise. Unfortunately it was badly executed, they never had any real voice, we never learnt anything about them or their views on what they were researching. Most of the time they were just there to provide a narrative voice, explaining concepts or what happened over a period of time between chapters. In the end they became pointless and their role could have been written just as regular description.


The speech was too elegant for too much of the book, characters would often say things like "my soul dwells in darkness when you are not around." If someone said phrases like this occasionally it would be okay, but when it is used in most conversations it just becomes unbelievable, dull and loses it's value, because everyone says things like this all the time.

As well as the speech, the general writing was too long winded, had many repeating points and recaps on events that had just happened. The pacing, especially at the start was painfully slow.

Other than a couple of things, their wasn't any long term plot. A problem would arise, it would be dealt with by the characters, then once it had been fully resolved a new problem would occur. It was unbelievable and gave me less motive to want to keep reading since there was never really an issue up there for long enough for me to I want to keep reading to see how it would be resolved. Characters also tend to be able to solve problems too easily.

The point-of-view would also shift from one paragraph to the next with no clear indication of it doing so, which was sometimes confusing or at least disorientating.

The text in this book was left aligned, instead of the standard justify alignment. I found it to be a little distracting at times.

The story itself was fairly good, especially towards the end of the book. And the concept of having a character researching the history was a great one. The writing was too elegant and rich for long periods, it would have been better to have used a more natural way of speaking and describing for most of the book and only use the elegant style at certain, important points to make a more dramatic statement. It is certainly easier for an author to tone down their work at times, than to elevate it when they do not have this sophisticated writing style.
The characters need work, just because a person is on the good side, it doesn't mean they have to be completely nice all of the time.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Rating **

 

Bastial Energy (The Rhythm of Rivalry #1) by B.T. Narro

 Bastial Energy (The Rhythm of Rivalry #1) by B.T. Narro

Synopsis: By using the energy of the land, some humans have found they can develop extraordinary abilities. At the age of seventeen, these warriors, magicians, chemists, and psychics are allowed the opportunity to train at the Academy, increasing their opportunity for a well-paying career. But there’s a catch. They must fight beside the Army if requested by their king. Most aren’t concerned by this, as the current treaty has prevented battle for nearly seventy years…but that’s about to change.

Of four roommates with interwoven stories, Cleve Polken takes focus as a hostile warrior who feels more comfortable in a duel than a conversation. Never getting past his parents’ death, Cleve has developed a crippling fear of psychics, for some may have the power to resurface the torment he buried within himself upon his parents’ passing. Cleve’s forced to face this fear head-on when he discovers that not only is one of his roommates a psychic, but that he has an overwhelming attraction to her, which he quickly attributes to a psychic spell, nothing more.

By the time an army of savage, reptilian men called Krepps become involved in the war, all hope of resolution without battle is shattered. In this powerful army, one born with the inability to smell doesn’t have the same feeding urges as his fellow Krepps and is outcast because of it. He finds himself with an unlikely ally in the middle of a crossroad, trying to find a way to reunite with his sister. Little does he know how much his choices will twist the fate of the war and alter the lives of the four human roommates forever.

Review: I have mixed feelings about this book, some parts were excellent but there were some disappointing things too. It’s one of those books I wish I could give a half star rating to because three seems too low, but four is too high.

Initially I didn’t like the main characters in the story. For most of the main characters, we are shown fairly negative traits such as recklessly putting another in danger to get what they wanted, uncaring of others and being anti-social, killing of an animal because it was a ‘failed’ experiment, and teenage drinking (although in their world you are considered an adult at fourteen). The only character who has shown to have positive traits was Zoke, who is a member of the race of antagonists in the story.

While it is generally a great idea to give the ‘good’ characters negative traits in a story, having most of the cast behave in this way at the start of the book didn’t work for me as it put me off them for quite a bit of the book. Fortunately as we get to see more of them, we get to see the good in them and I found myself supporting them, but this took longer than it should have due to how they started out.

I did think the start of the story was rushed and that some of the characters built up relationships too quickly, not necessarily romantic relationships, but ones where people were prepared to risk their lives or freedom, for someone they had only just met.

The thoughts and feelings of the characters were really well explained and detailed. I really felt I was in their head and could hear what they were thinking. As well as being well explained, they also seemed to have believable emotions behind them, such as self-doubt, attraction to others, fear, and worry whether they are being influenced by Psyches.

The rest of the descriptions were also well written and for the most part it was easy to follow what was happening and feel like you were in the world. Only a couple of times did I find myself having to reread a paragraph to understand what was happening.

Some of the time I did think that things were over-explained. This would often manifest when we are told something for the first time, I found the explanation went on for several paragraphs too long in an attempt to really make sure the reader ‘got it’. Other times the problem was when something was re-explained, the reminder could go on for quite a few paragraphs when only one or two would have done. Whenever this happened it broke up the flow of the story.

Conversely some things are either not explained enough or not until much later in the story. For example an important plot point is that bows are illegal, we are told in the first couple of pages that they are illegal and one of the main characters owns one, but we are not told why until later in the story. I found this frustrating as I felt this should have been explained much earlier.

Some of the conversations characters had were unnatural and seemed to only be there to explain a plot point or perform some world building. This often takes the form of one character telling something that realistically they should already know or was written in a way it felt the author was speaking to the reader rather than one character to another. This clunkiness pulled me out of the story and didn’t feel right.

One particularly bad example of these was when one of the main characters has been arrested and being brought before the king for a crime that could give life imprisonment. While being taken through the castle the guard is giving our character a guided tour and telling him about how various things worked. As well as being unnatural it took away the dramatic tension as it felt if the guard is telling him all these things, then our character can’t be in trouble.

There were some inconsistencies in the story, the worst examples were centered around the psyches whose abilities seemed to vary greatly, even within the same character. Sometimes they would be able to do something psychically with ease and other times they wouldn’t be able to do a similar action at all. This seemed to be plot driven rather than follow any believable pattern. These inconsistencies made it harder to find the story realistic in its own universe.

Some of the timelines also didn’t seem to fit and it seemed a lot more time passed for some characters compared to what happened with others.

The choice of sending our main characters (who are first years at the academy) on a dangerous and important mission didn’t seem right. The explanation given, that the rulers wanted to save all the older students and graduates for battle just didn’t seem right. Removing around five people from the army wouldn’t make a difference to a battle, but it could make a big difference to the outcome of such an important mission.

Due to some scenes of a sexual nature and some swearing the book is really only suitable for an adult audience (18+).

Overall I would rate this book 3 ½ stars. The story was good but let down by inconsistencies within it own rules, some over explaining, or things occurring that didn’t seem natural. The characters were good, despite my initial dislike of them.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Rating *** ½ 

Razor's Edge (Empire and Rebellion #1) by Martha Wells

 Razor's Edge (Empire and Rebellion #1) by Martha Wells

Synopsis: Times are desperate for the Rebel Alliance. Harassment by the Empire and a shortage of vital supplies are hindering completion of a new secret base on the ice planet Hoth. So when Mid Rim merchants offer much-needed materials for sale, Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo lead an Alliance delegation to negotiate a deal.

But when treachery forces the rebel ship to flee into territory controlled by pirates, Leia makes a shocking discovery: the fierce marauders come from Leia’s homeworld of Alderaan, recently destroyed by the Death Star. These refugees have turned to pillaging and plundering to survive—and they are in debt to a pirate armada, which will gladly ransom the princess to the vengeful Empire . . . if they find out her true identity.

Struggling with intense feelings of guilt, loyalty, and betrayal, Leia is determined to help her wayward kinspeople, even as Imperial forces are closing in on her own crippled ship. Trapped between lethal cutthroats and brutal oppressors, Leia and Han, along with Luke, Chewbacca, and a battle-ready crew, must defy death—or embrace it—to keep the rebellion alive.

Review: This was a very traditional and familiar Star Wars story. While this was good in some ways, such as making it familiar and fitting to the Star Wars universe it also made it lacking in originality. Almost every plot point I had seen in one Star Wars story or another.

While it is set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, it does very little to connect the two movies, there are some references the Death Star and talk about plans for Echo Base but these instances are few and far between, and the story could have almost been set at any point in the Rebellion Era.

The cast of characters from the movies were portrayed well and were fitting for their personalities at this point in their journey. The story focuses mostly on Han and Leia and their underlying attraction and tension came across well. Leia is especially well written, she is strong on the surface but has self doubt, fears and guilt over what she has gone through. Chewie, Luke and Threepio also appeared a little in the story and their personalities were on target, Threepio provided some comical moments.

The main cast of good characters were a little to perfect however, they were always able to come up with plans that either worked perfectly or they could alter on the fly to succeed. They also were always able to correctly interpret events and what others were planning even it was unrealistic for them to do so due to a lack of information.

The rest of the cast of good characters was okay but nothing special, I would have liked to have seen more played with the Alderaanion pirates and what they had been up to.

The cast of evil characters was fairly weak and they never really felt like a threat. The danger from the pirate leader was undermined by constant reminders of how everyone working for her was unhappy and seemed ready to betray her as soon as the situation presented itself. The commander of the imperial vessel also never seemed dangerous, he had a fairly weak spacecraft, he wasn’t a particularly intelligent commander or tactician and didn’t have and powers that the characters would need to be scared of.

Overall this was an okay Star Wars story, but if you have read many before you will probably be very familiar with the plot and find it predictable. The characters from the movies were well portrayed but the rest of the cast I found lacking.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Rating: ***

Magefable by Heimdall Thunderhammer

Synopsis: Durbin has always dreamed of becoming a swashbuckling adventurer like his legendary father. But unfortunately he's stuck in the secluded valley forest of Verdancia, far away from the sway and swagger of the sea. On one fateful evening a mouse named Clove and her spear hog companion Herod stumble into his village. They had escaped from the terrible lion Sinvicious who wants to stop Clove before she can gain the full power of a geomancer--a mage with the ability to control the elements. Fire, water, wind, lightning, all can be controlled by a geomancer. They can fly, turn themselves invisible, make their skin as solid as rock, shift the earth, and even control life... Although all Clove can do at this point is make weeds move.

The next morning when Durbin awakes he finds Clove and Herod gone. Unable to resist the call of adventure, he journeys out into the woods to find them, dragging along his reluctant friend Morro the hedge hog, who would rather be sitting at home eating scones and berries. On their way they meet other new friends such as Reverie, a wounded sparrow who can mesmerize animals with his singing, and Bailey, a courageous and boisterous young squirrel who is hunting for a dragon to tame. But as Durbin and Morro seek Clove and Herod, so does Krochek the Hunter--the most vile, savage rat ever to emerge from Sinvicious's kingdom. Along with his horde of bloodthirsty rodents he will tear the forest apart in his effort to find them.

Magefable is a beautifully illustrated fantasy adventure. It is the first book in an epic tale filled with magic, treasure, humor, and friendship, as well as many ferocious enemies and the dangerous elements of nature.

Review: I really enjoyed this book, it is aimed at a middle grade audience but even as an adult I really liked it.

There was a nice balance between action scenes and slower scenes, with time spent on showing the characters personalities and developing them. The action scenes did get a little repetitive as they were almost always battles between the good characters fighting against the rats or some other evil foe.

The descriptions were a good, they didn't go into great detail but were descriptive enough to give a good idea what they world looks like. They were short enough that the pacing was quick.

The characters were great and very suitable for the target audience. The main good characters were kind, funny and brave. While they are all have these traits they also each have their own quirks making each of the unique.

The artwork in the book was a cute touch. Nicely drawn, fairly simple pictures that go well with the story and writing style.

It should be said there were some violent scenes and death, while it doesn't go into any detail there were some parts, such as animals getting chopped in half, animals eating other animals or main characters dying, making this book unsuitable for young children.

There were some similarities between this book and the Redwall series, although there were plenty of differences to make this book worth reading even if you have read Redwall already.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I also got an adorable book mark, featuring artwork of Durbin and Morro and a cute little plastic leaf on it.

Rating ****

Night of the Purple Moon (The Toucan Trilogy #1)

Night of the Purple Moon (The Toucan Trilogy #1)

 Synopsis: Abby, 13, is looking forward to watching the moon turn purple, unaware that bacteria from a passing comet will soon kill off older teens and adults. She must help her brother and baby sister survive in this new world, but all the while she has a ticking time bomb inside of her--adolescence.

Review:
This was an interesting book. It was a little different than most dystopian/apocalyptic books I have read as the story starts the night of the disaster and continues through the first year rather than your typical dystopian which is set decades after the disaster.

There were many interesting and realistic scenarios that the characters have to deal with, such as disposing of dead bodies, acquiring food and water, and dealing with limited fuel and resources.

Most of the first part of the book has the characters dealing with these things as well as deaths as people reach puberty, there wasn’t much in the way of long term plot early on, other than listening for updates from the CDC on how they are trying to find a cure.

The last third of the book was more exciting as two of the characters leave the relative safety of their island in hopes of finding the promised cure.

The characters were good but not great, I didn’t find their personalities diverse enough and I would sometimes have to double check who someone was because they blurred together.

It was nice that there wasn’t any bad language and the violence was fairly mild, making the book suitable for younger readers (perhaps ten and older).

It did feel that a lot of scenes were too brief and could have been expanded to make them more interesting and give a better connection to the characters. I would have enjoyed seeing more details on exactly how they were running things, managed their resources, taught things to the younger children, worked on cleaning the water, searching the homes etc. most of this was only described briefly and it would have been so much more enjoyable if these world details were expanded.

There were quite a few times were the science or real world happenings were inaccurate or didn’t seem likely and occurred only for the convenience of the story.

Overall I would rate this book 3 ½ stars, as it has some interesting topics and ideas but I just wish they were expanded more. The characters were fairly good but too similar to each other to be anything special

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Rating: *** 

 

The Silver Falcon (Das kupferne Zeichen #2) by Katia Fox

 The Silver Falcon (Das kupferne Zeichen #2) by Katia Fox

Synopsis: England, 1184
Young Will, the Marshal’s bastard son, dreams of training falcons but as the son of famous swordsmith Ellenweore, it seems his destiny will be the forge.

One fateful day, the falcon of King Henry II is lost in a chase and Will happens upon the bird. Recognizing this great opportunity, he begs the king to let him become a falconer. With no clear path ahead of him, he decides to take matters into his own hands and following his dreams of one day becoming a falconer to the king.

Love, intrigue and betrayal leave Will more than once only narrowly escaping death and when his talent attracts King John’s attention, a powerful enemy does everything to ruin him.

 Review:
This book was amazing and easily one of my favorite reads of the year.

The level of detail is excellent; the author does a fantastic job of bringing the medieval world to life and fills every sense. The detail is never too long and doesn’t take too much time away from the story. There is no indication that this book has been translated from another language and is better worded and constructed than most of books.

The detailing on many aspects of the characters lives is also very well described, falconry is obviously an important part of the main character’s life and we are told a lot about this, but other things that are important to him are also given plenty of attention. A few times I did find the information lacking, such as the types of horses people are riding and the amount things cost is never given. Very rarely there was a piece of incorrect information, such as referring to the priest who opposed King Henry II as Thomas à Becket, but other than these few small things I found the level of research and detail to be very high but never described to the point it became boring.

Most of the time how the information is presented is not dull, although a few times when the author is describing important events that are happening in the world that don’t directly involve the character, typically real historic events such as the imprisonment of King Richard or the deaths or marriages of monarchs, I found these times to be less well told and it felt more like a history book than an interesting story.

The characters in the book are wonderful; they have strong but realistic personalities. You could always tell which character you were following just by the way they are thinking and acting even if no names or context was provided. They have real emotions and think things that a person would in real life but it is presented so well that it is still interesting to read. The characters have plenty of background and history. The also make mistakes, think bad thoughts, feel guilt and come to the wrong conclusions at times, all making them much more believable and interesting.

The world itself is realistic and very, very brutal, we’re talking Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire brutal at times. Very unpleasant things happen to the main characters.

The amount of action in the book is low compared to other historical fiction books and as our main character is not a warrior when there is action it is generally bad for him. Having said that I never missed the lack of high paced action as the rest of the story is so interesting.

One side effect of having so many unpleasant things happen to the main character was that whenever there was the potential for something bad to happen in was a time of high tension, even if it turned out nothing went wrong, especially as the author did such a great job of making me care for William.

The story details the highs and lows of the characters life. The ebb and flow was always believable and never took impossible leaps. The various highs and lows happened in a realistic and random manner, and you could never tell if something good or bad was about to happen simply because it was time for one.

His rise in rank while it would have been unlikely in the real world it wouldn’t have been impossible, and it was done slowly enough it really was believable.

It was also interesting to see parts of the book detour away from the characters main goal of being a falconer. It reminded me of Pillars of the Earth in that way.

I enjoyed the message that hard work and being good pays off in the end.

The story is spread out over many years, and while the date is given at the start of each chapter I would have liked to have been told how old the character was at each stage.

I loved the internal artwork in this book, it is medieval in style and fits in perfectly with the rest of the novel.

I haven’t read the first book in this series, although after this one I intend to, but I never felt lost or having missed out on anything because I hadn’t read the other book first.

I absolutely loved this book, the characters and story are amazing, the level of detail is high and everything is realistic but remains interesting.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.

 Rating ***** + ♥

A World Apart & Sword of Light (Jake Thomas Trilogy 1-2) by Steven A. Tolle

Synopsis: A World Apart is the exciting first book in the Jake Thomas Trilogy.

Jake Thomas thought he was having a bad day. An after-school encounter with a long-time rival had left him angry and dismayed, but little did he know that before the day was done, his life would be changed forever.

Suddenly and mysteriously transported to another world, he finds himself alone and without a clue how or why he was brought here. Cut off from his familiar surroundings, he has to find a way to survive and return home.

Soon after he begins to explore this new world, he meets an enigmatic warrior and is introduced to magic-wielding clerics. However, Jake finds out quickly that danger lurks all around him as demons exist on this world - and they want him badly!

Review:
The descriptions used to describe the world are of a good length. There is always plenty of information to allow a reader to really see the details of what the characters are seeing and doing, but they are not so lengthy that the pacing of the story suffers.

The author also does a good job of recapping events, for example if a character is asked to describe something that happened to them earlier in the story. In these cases, we as the reader do not need much detail and the author just gives a few lines of reminders.

The only part of the descriptions I found lacking was when the main character is being taught something, we are often told that the other characters tell him how to hold a sword, maintain a furnace or use magic but these details are never given to the reader and it left me feeling I was missing out.

The story, world and characters aren’t original, most of it has been seen before in some form. The basic story is that the main character is from our world, he is at school where he has some troubles, although he’s not quite the outsider seen in most books like this. He is magically transported to a fantasy world; the world itself is your typical European medieval fantasy setting, complete with knights, kings, a beautiful princess and an evil being bent on destroying everything.

Once there the main character turns out to be the chosen one, foretold of by a mysterious prophecy. He then begins his training by a tough warrior, who really has our hero’s best interests at heart, has a softer side underneath that gruff exterior and has the compulsory tragic past. After some training the hero is called upon to defeat a dangerous foe.

The characters are pretty standard as well. There was nothing really dislikeable with any of them, it was just everyone is someone I have seen before, many times in a fantasy novel.

One problem was that just about every good character was too nice, they would always say kind things, insist on being the one that pays for the bill, always offer and try to help everyone, be prepared to sacrifice themselves to save someone else, hug and have tears in their eyes when thanking someone. While it maybe okay to have one ‘perfect’ character in a story, when everyone is like that it just makes it dull. It also makes what they do less special since everyone is prepared to do the same thing.

There are one or two characters that break the perfect mold, although these tend to be very minor characters and their rarity doesn’t alleviate the problem with the rest of the cast.

We are given a glimpse of some of the evil characters, and in a similar problem to the good characters they seem to be wholly evil with nothing good to say about them. This gives them less depth.

There is nothing special about the magic system either. It is just flashy lights to blast enemies or heal friends.

There is a heavy Christian theme throughout the book, while the religion in the world our character enters isn’t actually Christian there are many very strong parallels and it is really Christian in all but name. In fact it is so close it is just another example of the books unoriginality.

For the most part the pacing is good, with a nice balance between action and scenes with more depth to them. There was a bit of a slowdown mid-book when the main character was in training without a great deal of action or major plot development but it didn’t last too long.

I read the Nook version of this book and there was some issue with the presentation that caused the text to be center aligned. The lines were also often broken mid-sentence half way across the page and only continued on the next line. This was sometimes a distraction and would pull me out of the story, the worst part was that it would often make dialogue confusing as it was often unclear who was speaking since you couldn’t tell if the new line of dialogue was on the same paragraph as the last one.

Another issue with the presentation, which may be in the printed book as well, was that the author didn’t use the standard use of punctuation for dialogue. I found this to be distracting and it would often pull me out of the story as I noticed these mistakes.

There was some swearing, violent scenes and references to sexual content, mostly implications or threats of rape (although no details are given), making this book unsuitable for younger readers. It is probably aimed at a young adult audience rather than middle-grade.

Overall I did enjoy the story, and if Goodreads allowed half stars I would have given it a 3 ½ rating. The descriptions were of an excellent quality and the story was enjoyable. The unoriginality of most of the elements is what hurt it the most.

I have read the second book in this series and feel that it was so strong I would recommend this series overall.

In full disclosure I won the second book in this series in a Goodreads giveaway.

 

Synopsis: Sword of Light, Book 2 of the Jake Thomas Trilogy, continues Jake's quest to return home.  Dominic and Jonas lead Hailyn, Marcus and Keria out of the demons’ stronghold, carrying Jake, who collapsed after his dramatic display of power. Jonas is stymied on how to heal Jake, but help arrives when Tomaris unexpectedly shows up in Sanduas.  Tomaris informs them that he believes that he has found a way to return Jake to his world – with the Guardian’s sword, an object of great power. When the demons first appeared a thousand years ago, the Guardian had confronted them, but was defeated and the sword lost. Standing in the way of any effort to recover the sword are two seemingly insurmountable obstacles – it is being defended by the demons and its exact location is unknown.  Following obscure clues, Jake, Dominic, and Hailyn go in search for the sword, trying to approach unnoticed by the demons. Jonas, Marcus and Keria remain in Sanduas and are confronted by a growing darkness that threatens the city itself. Lurking in the shadows, the mysterious figure from Creatos’ lair moves to protect the sword and find Jake

 Review:
The descriptions are very good, there are plenty of details allowing the reader to fully imagine the world and follow the story. The details do not go on for too long, and when short descriptions or summaries of conversations will suffice the author uses them and the pacing of the story never suffers due to too long descriptions.

I felt the characters were stronger in this book. They were more fleshed out and had more interesting personalities. Just like the first book in the series, the good characters did suffer from being too nice. They all almost always say nice things to one another, always are prepared to help someone, risk their lives and sacrifice them for anyone even if they have only just met them. By having everyone act like this makes the characters less diverse and interesting. It also makes anyone who does these things less special since you know that everyone acts in the same way.

Likewise all of the evil characters are completely evil, they all enjoy killing, forcing themselves on women, desire power and have little loyalty to those around them. This makes them less interesting and none of the evil people stand out since they all act in the same way. It was also annoying that (Spoiler ahead, highlight to read)all evil characters had been corrupted by demons. It would be more realistic if some people were just evil by themselves. End of Spoiler.

Characters also had a tendency to ‘just know’ something and their instincts would always be right. This was hard to believe and wasn’t always the best way for characters to solve a problem or know what to do next.

The first half of the book had plenty of story, plot and character development, but there was virtually no action. There were some tense scenes which could have led to action but these never turned out that way. It would have been nice to have seen Dominic’s part of the story at this point as this would have provided some much needed excitement.

The last part of the book was perhaps a little heavy in action. There are still some character and plot scenes but the vast majority of them were action based. Some of them were too similar to each other and I found myself suffering from ‘battle fatigue’ and wanting something a little more diverse and thought provoking.

The religious element is again strong, it is not overpowering but it is usually present.

There was more originality in this book compared to the first one. It is by no means an original story but it didn’t suffer as badly as the first one. We also get to see more of the world and cultures adding more interesting things and originality to the book.

The romance part is nice, it is not a large part of the story allowing a reader to enjoy the book if they are not interested in this sort of thing, but it is believable, people feelings are realistic and it is developed well.

All three main storylines were well written and interesting, and I found myself simultaneously wanting to read the current POV and to switch to one of the others as they were all so good.

Just like the first book the dialogue was incorrectly punctuated, most of the time this was just annoying and distracting, and would pull me out of the story, but sometimes it made it hard to follow who was speaking.

There was some swearing, violent scenes and references to sexual content, mostly implications or threats of rape (although no details are given), making this book unsuitable for younger readers. It is probably aimed at a young adult audience rather than middle-grade.

In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous #1) by Kate Griffin

Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous #1) by Kate Griffin

Synopsis: 'Don’t look back. It wants you to look back.’

London’s soul has gone missing. Lost? Kidnapped? Murdered? Nobody knows – but when Sharon Li unexpectedly discovers she’s a shaman, she is immediately called upon to use her newfound powers of oneness with the City to rescue it from a slow but inevitable demise.

The problem is, while everyone expects Sharon to have all the answers – from the Midnight Mayor to Sharon’s magically-challenged self-help group – she doesn’t have a clue where to start.

But with London’s soul missing and the Gate open, there are creatures loose that won’t wait for her to catch up before they go hunting.

Stray Souls is the first novel in the Magicals Anonymous series, set in the same fantastical London as the Matthew Swift novels.

Review: In full disclosure I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

It should be pointed out there is a lot of swearing in this book, it is not suitable for younger readers or anyone who is offended by such things.

I must admit, it took me a while to get used to the unusual writing style of this novel and early on I found myself wondering how hard it was going to be to finish this one. I shouldn’t have worried as once I had become used to the writing I really enjoyed this book.

The first unusual thing about the writing was that even though it is written in third person, the way it is written it almost feels like it has been written in first person and the author just changed all the instances of I to he/she. It made it sound like a crazy diva who talks about themselves in third person.

The thought patterns of the characters and how the pauses in action were broken up were written in a very strange way. The thoughts would often stop halfway through if the person became distracted, and if something interrupted some action the sentence would end without any punctuation and carry on in the next paragraph. At first I was very distracted by this, and found myself thinking about the writing style and was taken out of the story. Once I became more familiar with it, I actually found it to work well.

The chapters tended to be very short (about four pages long on average). The point of view often changed with the chapters and this did sometimes lead to a very stop-start style in the story. Quite often there would be a chapter following the main character, then a short chapter where one of the other characters tells you about themselves and then the story returns to the main character and follows her around again. Early on I thought this really slowed down the pacing of the story and I found myself wishing it would just get back to continuing the story. But later on it worked really well as it gave great insights into the many characters, and usually at a time that is appropriate to reveal something about that person.

The characters are fantastic and reminded me a lot of something written by Terry Pratchett. There are some great ideas that are well executed, there’s a germaphobic vampire, a druid with allergies, a werepigeons (yes pigeons, plural), a troll who doesn’t like violence and a shaman who doesn’t know how to be a shaman to name a few. They were very real, humorous in their odd ways, awkward and would act like people in real life. E.g. rather than being heroic and wanting to go on a quest they would be reluctant and only do it because they had to.

They writing style and language is very British, I am originally from England so didn’t have a problem but if you are not familiar with some of the British terms you may have troubles understanding what the characters are saying at times.

<spoiler>The ending reminded me of Bladerunner, in that the main evil character who we have been hating the whole time gives one small speech and I found myself feeling pity and compassion for them. </spoiler>

Overall I would say it took a while to get used to the usual writing style but once I did it turned out to be an excellent story with fantastic characters and well worth reading.

Rating: *****

Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #1) by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin #1) by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

Synopsis: In a postapocalyptic world of endless snow, Captain Romulus Buckle and the stalwart crew of the Pneumatic Zeppelin must embark on a perilous mission to rescue their kidnapped leader, Balthazar Crankshaft, from the impenetrable City of the Founders. Steaming over a territory once known as Southern California — before it was devastated in the alien war — Buckle navigates his massive airship through skies infested with enemy war zeppelins and ravenous alien beasties in this swashbuckling and high-octane steampunk adventure. Life is desperate in the Snow World, and death is quick. Buckle and his ship’s company must brave poisoned wastelands of Noxious Mustard and do battle with forgewalkers, steampipers, and armored locomotives as they plunge from the skies into the underground prison warrens of the fortress city.
Captain Romulus Buckle must lead the Pneumatic Zeppelin and its crew of ne’er-do-wells on a desperate mission where he must risk everything to save Balthazar and attempt to prevent a catastrophic war that could wipe out all that is left of civilization and the entire human race.

Review: This is one of those books that take a while to get going. I can see why some reviewers say they gave up with it after the first 100 pages. But this book is worth sticking with as once you get passed the initial part there is an excellent story and characters.

The descriptions are of a high level. Most of the time this is really good as it gives you clear view of the world and what is happening in it. There were some times I felt that the description went on for too long and it hurt the pacing of the story. I didn’t really need a detailed description of every single part of the ship, its crew, where they sit etc.

The lengthy descriptions are not limited to the sights, sounds and smells of the world, but also in the narrative of the characters. Just about every part of every conversation is included. The parts that slowed down the story the most was the bridge actions. First the commanding officer will give a command (usually a ship maneuver), a crew member will then repeat the command back to the commander, then we get a description of what the crew has to do (turning valves, flicking switches etc.) the maneuver or action being carried out and finally the result of what they did. There would often be several of these commands, confirmation, carryout and maneuvers in one go, making for a couple of pages of uninteresting story which really slowed the pacing down. Although for the most part this became annoying, one nice thing about this style was during times when the crew needed to do something quickly (such as hurry to a destination for a rescue) it really increased the tension as I waited for the slow paced ship/story to get to where they needed to be and I was worried they wouldn’t make it in time.

Initially I thought there was too much world building, and this is true for the first 100 pages or so. It appears in large chucks making it hard to absorb and slowing down the pace of the story. Luckily like so much about this book once you get pass the slow part there is a much better balance.

Similarly the characters suffered at the start of the story, with all the world building going on and some part spent on action, very little background is given to the characters and we don’t really learn very much about them. But just like the story, once you get pass the first part of the book there is plenty in there. We find out a lot about the main characters past, what their thoughts and motives are, and how they develop throughout the story.

As I have already said, the pacing picks up after the first 100 pages or so, and there is a much better balance between, story, world building and characters. The length of the descriptions feels about right and we are not continually interrupted by large chucks of world building.

If you are reading this book and get to page 100 and are thinking about given up then I would urge you to stick with it, at least for another 100 pages as the book really improves after the initial slowness.

Rating: ****