Review: The Unbroken by C.L. Clark (Magic of the Lost #1)

– goodreads –

ARC received from the publisher (Orbit) in exchange for an honest review.

This has been, hands down, one of my most anticipated releases of the year. I’ve been looking for books with messy, complicated relationships lately, so that sounded fantastic, plus being promised critique of colonialism on top and that cover? With those arms? 😍

Unfortunately, while it’s a good book, I have to admit I found it something of a struggle, even if it was no fault of its own.

Review: Redemption’s Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky (After the War #1)

– goodreads –

What happens after the Dark Lord has been defeated?

“For that thing only, for the most selfish of reasons, I regret we killed him. We fought and we hurt and some of us died, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being a hero. I knew I was doing the right thing. I knew I was alive. And now he’s dead and we’re…lost. It’s like the world expected us to die with him, and doesn’t know what to do with us.”

I have been looking for books dealing with consequences of war and upheaval for a long, long time. I find the questions of what happens after the big bad is gone – how do they rebuild, how do they deal with what the war cost them, what has changed, what happens to the heroes and the leftovers of the big bad’s minions now – much more interesting than the standard epic fantasy plot of the events leading up to that. But few books ever touch upon that. Redemption’s Blade seemed perfect for scratching that particular itch.

Mini DNF Reviews: The Priory of the Orange Tree, Resistance Reborn, The Infinite Noise, Queen of the Conquered

Sometimes, it’s just not to be. Sometimes, no matter how much I want to love a book, there comes a point where I can’t force myself to read another page. Not necessarily because it’s a bad book – in this batch, there’s even two I’d give 4/5 for execution – but it happens. I often write shorter reviews of books I DNF’d just so that there’s some note on them on goodreads, but they are too short to be a blogpost on their own, and I haven’t had enough to group them together until now.

Besides, backlog cleaning is never a bad thing.

Review: The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker (The Tide Child #1)

– goodreads –

“We fight in the hope that others will not have to, and we fight to keep those we have come to care about safe. We fight even for those who do not deserve it. There is no honour or greatness in what we do, except among fools. I fight, in the end, because I have no other choice” – she held his gaze with hers – “and neither do you. So remember this, if you hear tales of bravery and greatness, they are nearly always told by people who have only watched battle from afar.”

The Bone Ships used to be one of those books for me, you know the kind – you were super excited at release, perhaps you even preordered them, but then you forgot about them for months and months. If it wasn’t for a bookclub, it would probably still be lying there. I wasn’t even in the mood for naval fantasy when I started it.

But even though the odds were stacked against it in every possible way, I liked it quite a lot and blazed through it surprisingly fast.

Review: The Silence of Medair by Andrea K. Höst (Medair #1)

– goodreads –

The Silence of Medair is the book that concludes the 2019 r/Fantasy Bingo challenge for me. Oddly enough, it’s been on my TBR since 2015, mostly because of the concept, so I was curious to finally try it. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to its promise – while the idea is indeed great, the execution is…less so.

Review: Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (The Band #1)

– goodreads –

“They used to call us the Kings of the Wyld, remember?” “Yeah, they did. When we were twenty years younger. When our backs didn’t ache every morning and we didn’t wake up five times a night to piss. But time did what it does best, didn’t it?”

I know – I’m late to this particular bandwagon (heh). Kings of the Wyld is a book I’ve been eyeing for ages, unsure if I’d like it or not despite all the praise. I finally decided to take the plunge because of two things: 1) the ebook went on sale in my region after years of waiting and 2) I need lighter reads and this seemed perfect. And I just had to see what all the fuss was about.

Did it live up to the hype? Well…yes, but also no.

Review: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive #2)

– goodreads –

This post contains no spoilers for The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive #1).

The Stormlight Archive is a series that needs no additional introduction. When I want something long and suitably epic, I can count on it to deliver. But while it works very well as a whole and is one of the better epic fantasy series I’ve encountered, the individual parts are far from flawless and I cannot separate it from the hype surrounding it. Because of that, this has been one of the hardest reviews to write.

For once, I’m not going to attempt to summarize the plot. A lot happens and unlike most epic fantasy, it doesn’t have a clear arc, not until the very end. A good or a bad thing? Depends. As usual, Sanderson holds his cards close and keeps information to  dribble right until the end, when he unleashes everything at once.

Mini Reviews: Ninefox Gambit, Treason’s Shore, Prince of the Godborn (DNF), A Coalition of Lions

You may have noticed there haven’t been any posts for a while. Since March started and I got hit with a full load of classes and assignments again, time and energy for reviews have been scarce. Writing takes a lot out of me. I faced quite the conundrum: I still wanted to review every book I read, but at the same time I’ve been way too exhausted to and in a massive reading slump besides. Blogging simply fell by the wayside.

This is a compromise: a series of mini reviews that don’t quite fit my usual format. It’s probably not going to be the last post of this type. I’m starting to feel better, there will be longer reviews again, but it’s probably still a while until I’ll be able to post with any sort of consistency.

Reread: Last Song Before Night by Ilana C. Myer (The Harp and Ring Sequence #1)

– goodreads –

I’ve been in a bit of a slump, so I went for another quick re-read. There’s a whole pile of books waiting to be read, a reading challenge to finish…and ended up grabbing and devouring this book again instead. Oops.

This is classic epic fantasy in modern clothes. It’s the living proof how much do complex characters and atmospheric writing improve a seemingly simple, stale story concept – deceptively simple as you read it, then you try to describe it and stumble upon all the little intricacies. And the best thing, it doesn’t take hundreds of pages and multiple books to get to the point as is usual for the subgenre.

All her life, music was a secret. It was what you stole to the cellar at midnight or the deep pine woods to play, or sing. Verse was composed in greater secrecy still, by light of a single candle after dark. Even then, Lin had to hide the burned-out candle the next day, smuggle it out to the midden heap under the cover of the night.

But now music was a drinking song in a tavern performed to  crowds of rough men, or more recently, a stately ballad sung to lords at their firesides.

Review: We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson (The Reborn Empire #1)

– goodreads –

I received an ARC of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There has been quite a lot of hype surrounding this book in the blogger circles I run in. I simply had to try it. And yes, it lives up.

“But what is choice?” he said, checking over every blister and sore. “What is power? In truth you have none. None of us do. We are but leaves buffeted upon life’s stream, our every decision already made before it comes to us.”