Graham
The Founders Trilogy burst onto the scene with Foundryside showing an engaging cast of characters and a very clever magic system. Now we are at the close of the series, the gang of characters is mostly still with us but has expanded to include a whole nation with some intriguing new characters in the form of Aspects. And that expansion of scope is probably the defining feature of this finale. The scope is huge. Whereas the first two novels were largely confined to the city of Tevanne, we are now in a world spanning story. On the whole RJB handles this well, but the sprawl loses some of the intimacy of the earlier novels. The enemy has changed here too. Rather than wealthy elite, or god like Heirophant, they are now facing a world spanning AI entity. In some ways this shows an interesting allegory to modern society.
The story is as action packed as previous ones, the stakes do feel genuine (RJB is not scared of killing off characters). The world building is as fascinating as ever - the ancient city where the door through reality was first opened is an intriguing and vividly realised fever dream. The resolution between Clef, Cresades and Tevanne was well done, giving a satisfying conclusion. However, I miss the heists, the scheming and more intimate feel of the earlier books. This was a good finale, but it is my least favourite book of the series, mostly due to some of my favourite elements of the earlier books getting a bit overwhelmed by the increase in scale.
This was fun! It has been a while since I have read such a pure epic fantasy novel so this was very refreshing. Ok, so the ideas may lean heavily into existing tropes but the execution here is on point. The basic concept is that the world has been split in two by some ancient cataclysm into the World Above and the World Below, with the void in between inhabited by monsters. The conflict that created this divergence is still very much ongoing. Into this our two main protagonists are thrown, a sorcerer called Aram and Markus - someone completely immune to magic. They form a friendship in their village but there world is turned upside down when a parasitic order of magicians takes notice of them.
There is definitely a black and white, good vs evil vibe running strongly through the story, very Tolkeinesque in its view. There is strong coming of age element typical to many epic fantasies, a definite chosen one narrative as well. The world building is done extremely well, with the two sides of the world definitely feeling distinctive.
All in all I loved this - devouring the story super fast for what is very chonky book. The prose was engaging, well written. The characters had you rooting for them. The scope felt suitably vast and epic. My only minor criticism is on the main evil character Sergan, who was a little bit one note, but he served his role well. I cannot wait to see where this goes - the book provided a satisfying conclusion to its main arc but there is a very obvious wider story that can be seen to grow from here. This type of plotting is to be applauded as well - it is nice to get some satisfying closure in the first book!
Highly recommended
Dark Academia seems to be a very in subgenre right now. The Golden Enclaves is the final entry into the Scholomance trilogy that is firmly imbedded into this genre. This story is quite different in feel to the first two in many ways though. First, El has now graduated, so the ‘academia' side is somewhat reduced in this take. Now we have El and her friends jetting round the world, visiting various of the ‘enclaves' that had been alluded to in the earlier books. Whilst expanding the world like this is fascinating in its own way, it is a drastic change of pace and scope from the confined and claustrophobic feel present in the earlier novels. And whilst El has always been defined as a crazily powerful dark wizard (potentially) this book takes that Mary Sue type feeling to even further extremes, so the sense of jeopardy is somewhat reduced.
That being said, the dynamics of the characters remain as entertaining as before. The world and its rules are fascinating in their development. It is wonderful to see where Novik takes her imagination when descibing these amazing wizarding enclaves.
In the end this book suffers a little when compared to the first two books in that it is such a different scope and feel. I miss the tension and the trapped feeling that the first books generated. This is an entertaining and well written grand urban fantasy at this point, but I think its expansion in vision actually weakens it a bit compared to the earlier books. The finale does feel earnt and satisfyingly though, so it makes a fitting end to what is on the whole great Dark Academia series
This story was sent out free to subscribers of Patrick Samphire's newsletter.
First of all I realize that it is recommended to read this prequel short story after the first book, but I decided to jump in straight here to get a taste of Samphire's world. It is an intriguing one - this is part of the origin story for one of the characters that will appear later and she is fascinating. Reading this has hooked me enough that I will definitely have to get to reading some of the main sequence soon!
Grimdark Magazine remains my favourite fantasy and sci-fi magazine. This issue is no different, offering a nice mix of short fiction, reviews and interviews. For this review I will focus on the short fiction.
Bargaining - Gareth Hanrahan
I am a massive fan of Hanrahan's Black Iron Legacy series so was really excited to read this one. It doesn't disappoint, following an intriguing vignette in the Godswar where a group of mercenaries undertake a mission across a wasteland where a mad god still resides. This does exactly what I want a short story in an existing world to do - taking the world and telling an intriguing secondary story.
5/5
The Last Radio God - Yaroslav Barsukov
This story plays heavily on a weird concept, of a god inhabiting the radio and someone trying to get the revenge on said god. It is decidedly odd. I didn't dislike it but it was not what I was expecting. Intriguing
3/5
Crimson Shows the Way of Joy - Eric LaRocca
I like the concept here! Diving into the psychology behind human sacrifice in a community that accepts it as necessary, both from the point of view of the volunteer victim and the executioner. Dark and weird this one landed well.
5/5
Lan Thena - Christian Cameron
Against All Gods is on my TBR so nice to get a short story introduction to the world. So far it looks fascinating and I cannot wait to dive into the main part of the story. This one gives some origin story for a couple of characters I believe will take a role in the main story. Colour me intrigued
4/5
Save, Salve, Shelter - Essa Hansen
Eco disaster provides a rich vein of dystopian fiction and this short story zooms in on someone trying to save the animals during such a disaster and their conflict with more self serving humans trying to save themselves. It plays well on the human condition and some rather Nietzschean philosophy. Very bleak, but an interesting story
4/5
The Calvary - Joao F. Silva
Regret and strange medicine. There are hints of a fascinating conflict that I kind of want to know more about. We look at a crack team saving ‘souls' from people infected by some monster. A nice but very brief story
4/5
For such a chonky book this was a very quick read for me. Taran Hunt has an engaging, slightly cynical voice in her writing here which I found very easy reading. There are some distinct Resident Evil/Bioshock in space vibes with the story, with creepy genetically modified humans providing monsters on a long abandoned spaceship where our protagonist finds themselves the pawn between two competing teams attempting to recover some data.
Sean Wren, the main protagonist, is in an interesting character. A mixture of idealism, helplessness and criminality with a gift for languages. He has an impressive ability to run from disaster to disaster, but an impressive ability to talk his way out of them as well. That trait leads to an intensely action packed story that gives a compulsive readability to the story.
Fun, action packed and a bit silly in places. A good read!
Not sure what to make of this one - it is mostly a rehash of ideas used in the first book in the duology (questing to save the world with a small band who are not necessarily all on the same page). The quest is a bit weirder - the location is some parallel reality with some infection spreading in rather than the icy waste, but the modified monster concept remains the same. We get a bit more backstory on what is happening back home this time, as Kell's wife provides one of the major POV characters. This story is often more interesting than the main quest story which kind of breaks the flow of the book sometimes. The characters remain as engaging as ever though and the companions of Kell provide an intriguing extra, with their own clever redemption arcs.
A nice questing novel, not breaking any new literary ground but well enough written to be enjoyable
I can respect the ambition on this story and on the surface it ticks all the boxes that I like in a book. Fantasy with a dash of grimdark? Check. Machiavellian scheming? Check. Fascinating world building? Check.
The titular city is a boiling mess of revolution, criminality and idealism. Located on a portal to another world the whole place is a cauldron of different tensions and motivations. Recently conquered by the Palleseen, an intensely bureaucratic civilization that aims to ‘perfect' the world, the underlying tensions of the occupation provide the main setting. The Pals want order, but they are somewhat corrupt and lazy, following a brutal approach to dissent. The students are idealists who want to throw off the yoke of oppresion. The workers are chafing under increased work and the brutality of the occupation. The criminals and the old high society each want to try and take control of any revolution to make sure they end up on top at the end. The setting is delightful!
There are a lot of characters and this is where it began to fall down a little for me. Some of the characters I really loved (the priest with his god is brilliant!) but the shear size of the cast means that they don't really get time to develop and quite a few of them I just failed to engage with.
This is an epic novel, dense in its construction and I can really appreciate the self contained nature of it. There is a lot to love here.
Deeply political maneuverings during a troubled dynastic succession. Don't be deceived by the somewhat dry elevator pitch, this is a gripping story. Part Machiavellian machinations, part murder mystery, part coming of age for a forgotten scion of a royal family. The world building is deeply impressive, with a complex hierarchy and political system which can be a bit overwhelming. Once you get your head around the terminology (which is vast and confusing) there is a rich tapestry of court life and the isolation of power. The confusing terminology in many ways serves to enhance the sense of confusion of the titular Goblin Emperor.
This is political fantasy at its best and highly recommended
Free Christmas story from Miles Cameron for 2022!
I loved Artifact Space and have been really looking forward to diving back into the Arcana Imperii. This story wetted my apatite even more. Set in the Arcana Imperii universe but a bit detached from the main story we take a look at one of the systems not delved into in Artifact Space, following an asteroid miner having an unexpected encounter.
A fun little aside and a bit of extra colour to the universe, which I always rate as an excellent use of short stories set in existing universes.
Can't wait until we get more from the series!
First off, this is my favourite book in the series so far! The rise of Eska as a kind of Dark Queen has been eluded to throughout the first couple of books but this is where we see it happen. Rob Hayes has managed a brilliant balancing act of making the actions of Eska both sympathetic and horrific at the same time. It is quite easy to understand her drive for revenge, and the way she achieves it is brutal and uncaring about any knock on effects, any innocents caught in the crossfire. Her epithet of ‘The Corpse Queen' becomes apt in multiple ways.
There is also some clever series construction going on here. This is the final book in the initial trilogy, with a decent sense of closure at the end, but the arc is left open to continue into the final two books of the War Eternal series.
This is proper grimdark fantasy with character driven morally grey action. This is the rise of what many would consider to be a villain if put in a different perspective. Brutal, violent and brilliant.
Short story collections are always really difficult to review - the nature of stories is that you will inevitably connect with some more than others, and this was definitely true of this collection for me.
The highlights for me were:
Doc's story - an interesting take on what happens if one of horror's monsters (in this case lycanthrope) gets bitten by a tick which goes on to bite someone else... The lack of agency here adds to the terror. 5/5
Welcome to the Reptile House - A budding tattooist practicing on dead bodies in the morgue gets more than they bargained for! A fun twist on a Vampire trope. 5/5
The Black Sleeve of Destiny - Compulsive kleptomania from a possessed hoody 4/5
Solve for X - Effectively torture porn. Gruesome and horrific, but probably not for everyone 4/5
Quite a few of the other stories fell flat for me unfortunately though, but that is the advantage of a collection - there are plenty to pick and choose from!
Petty spite and willful blindness with a cynical snarky out look. I get a certain almost noir tone of voice in my head when reading this novel. The characters here are extremely dysfunctional - they are driven by spite and grudges as much as anything else, and the results are somewhat predictable for much of the novel. Our main character moves from misadventure to misadventure largely due to misunderstanding and poor communication. The end result is a meandering story but there is a lot to like here. The love/hate relationship at the center of the story gives that enemies to lovers trope (kind of) and it does work as the driving force behind much of the story.
I enjoyed this, but I can see the characters could be jarring to some. For me the stupidity at times was almost endearing and played into that theme of spite in a way that worked well.
Coming of age with mechs in a future version of earth. This is very much in the Science Fantasy realm - futuristic but with a plot and style more reminiscent of fantasy. Coming of age is a tricky trope to balance and often ends up with a distinctly YA feel, and on this story it has definitely slid into that kind of characterization for me. The characters are very naïve in there outlook, the main questing party is almost entirely filled with children rather than being balanced out with a decent number of older figures to give more grounding. The prose also leaned heavily into what I would call YA stylings. At the same time, the setting and some of the action (especially the tendency to kill off characters) pushes this in a more adult direction leaving it a bit confused at times as to what the audience really is.
That said, there are a lot of ideas abound here. I like the world building that has been done - the future earth has enough believability whilst still being fantastical. The history presented is intriguing. I do want to find more about the world!
What if the first quest you go on leaves you as the soul survivor? What if you are left emotional scarred? What if you then are forced into a second quest, retreading your first and reliving your fears?
A reluctant hero taking on a quest is a fairly standard Fantasy trope, but this story manages to twist it in an interesting way with this basic premise. Kell Kessia has no interest in being a hero. Having quested to the far North and returned successful, but the only survivor he is content to live out the rest of his life as an anonymous farmer. When the threat he encountered on his first quest re-emerges however, he is brought out of retirement by the King and manipulated into returning to the North. Along the way he picks up various companions who have their own motivations.
The Coward is a fun and lively read, and I devoured it easily. The characters are flawed but generally likeable. The stakes are high enough to keep you engaged. The monsters original enough as well. I am not sure if the side story of what was going on back home added hugely to the story but I kind of get the need to explain some of the quest conclusion. An enjoyable light fantasy read for the most part.
I loved this, but fair warning these Chorus of Dragons books can be a bit heavy going at time. The shear breadth of the world, number of characters, the whole reincarnation thing, all leads to a dense tangle of threads and inter-relationships that can be a bit mind bending. This is epic fantasy that leans heavily on the epicness.
There is an intriguing stylistic choice in this series in that each book is narrated by a different voice - essentially a different report. That gives each novel its own stylistic bend. The heavy politicking at the start of this third entry weighs it down a bit, but the pace gradually accelerates through the story to give a nice crescendo of action, although the length of the book can't help but be felt. There is a bit of middle of series bloat here but the overall is still highly enjoyable. The storytelling is certainly chaotic at times but the overall arc so far is satisfying. The characters remain likeable, even if the motivations for some still remain (probably deliberately) buried.
Looking forward to seeing how this continues!
One for the purists. This collection of short vignettes told from Nezha's side give a tiny bit more flesh to his character, but this is not essential reading by any stretch of the imagination. Fun for people who want a bit more Poppy War but it doesn't really add anything at all to the overall story
This was fun. The Common is an interesting universe, and this is a fascinating glimpse at another part of it off the beaten path of the main storyline. Looking at drug smugglers and deals with the devil, it takes a look at the gritty cyberpunk world from a different angle. I really love it when authors expand their world in this way and this sort of novelette approach works really well giving the story enough space to breathe and stand independent of the main story line, but being self contained enough to give a story that can be read without knowing the ins and outs of The Common universe.
As a free ebook this is a nice little extra from the author too!
I find myself deeply saddened that this series was never completed, as this is most definitely the first book in a larger story line. The focus here is almost entirely on world building, and what a world has been built! The basic conceit (a parallel universe where racoons have become the dominant intelligent animal) sounds a bit silly, but what Steven Boyett has managed to do is deliver an insightful ‘what if?' to how such a society might evolve with the natural differences in physiology. The central concept here is around communication and language. Having the characters communicate almost entirely by a form of sign language gives a strange depth of nuance to things. The characters themselves are intriguing, and whilst there is some initial character development here there are glimpses towards something much larger which unfortunately is unlikely to be completed (the author explains the situation in the afterword of the edition I have and I can understand revisiting something you wrote early in your career could definitely be a challenge!).
The fascinating potential here is amazing. I do hope the author does feel able to revisit it at some point and complete the series, giving the resolution that it so desperately needs
What an ending! Peter McLean has given the resolution that everyone deserved here, bittersweet and uncomfortable as it is. I have read few series that have managed the landing as well as this one!
The War for the Rose Throne is not praised any where near enough - easily one of the top series I have had the pleasure of reading in the last couple of years. The insidiousness of power and allusions to real life corruption saturate story. And whilst the characters are frequently morally bankrupt you cannot help but cheer them on. Gritty, dark and visceral, this story needs to be read by all lovers of the darker end of fantasy. Tomas Piety is an antihero for the ages, his moral compass definitely a bit screwed up but entirely understandable and relatable.
I do not want to give away anything from the story here, all I can say is YOU SHOULD READ THESE BOOKS!
This was fun! A kind of retelling of the Seven Samurai but with the samurai being horrific nasty evil people. Is the concept silly? No doubt, but the execution is brilliantly done. The basic premise is that a retired warlord (and demonologist of immense power) learns of a new threat to her peaceful existence in a religious nutjob empire trying to expand, so decides to regather her lieutenants (A necromancer, a minor god of war, a pirate queen, an orc champion, a vampire and a mad alchemist) to fight off this bunch of zealots. The moral greyness of the story is exquisite as every character has there own somewhat morally bankrupt reasons for doing things. When the classical villains are the heroes the tropes get played with in very entertaining ways. The interactions between these characters are also very entertaining (no one particularly likes anyone).
Silly but enjoyable fun! Highly recommended
Let me state straight out: From the blurb I kind of suspected this book would not be for me. I received it as part of my GSFF subscription and I have a rule to read every book I receive through this so I gave it a go.
First off: I do not like lovey dovey vampires. They should be sleazy, yes, but the extremely sanitized version of vampires presented here was way too emotionally sensitive, way too twilightesque. I am also not a fan of love triangles - I find the teenage angst that tends to come through them just annoying. There seems to be a bit of renaissance on vampire novels recently, and vampires can make very entertaining protagonists. They can even work well as antiheroes, but I struggle with them as love interests as it tends to detract from their very base monstrous character. I can almost get the idea of wanting to subvert that, but that subversion has become such a cliché as to make it irrelevant and to me it just doesn't work.
My biggest peeve is the stupid weapon being used. I get that this is a fantasy setting and weaponry can be different, but fantasy weapons still need to be useable weapons. This just seemed like some ridiculous deus ex machina thing, and would in reality be completely impractical to wield. The ridiculous swiss army knife sword thing here was distracting and unnecessary and was used continuously just highlighting the entire dumbness of it.
Beneath all this cloyingly sweet angst and annoyingly dumb weaponry there was a story that had some interesting twists and politics. The conflict between the main character and his father was genuinely quite interesting and well worked, but there was so much in my face annoyance that I really struggled to enjoy this.
This was an extremely claustrophobic read. The sense of isolation, and entrapment was executed extremely well, the reveals that nothing is quite as it seems built up beautifully for such a short read. I was attracted to the Mothman premise (I have not read enough Mothman stuff) but was not prepared for the psychological horror that was presented here.
Disturbing in all the best ways
For such a short book this felt like it should have been split into two. The first part was brilliant, genuinely disturbing body horror. The second part meandered around a weird freakshow fetish group. Whilst the first part did lead into the second it was nonetheless quite a jarring change in pace.
First off, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first part. This was genuine ‘wtf?' reading at its best. The concept of extreme plastic surgery as horror one is brilliant realised and the psychology presented here is cleverly used. If this was the whole novel, I would have given this an easy 5 stars for the shear shock value.
The second part doesn't work quite as well unfortunately, being a more generic freakshow thing. The biggest issue here is the main character feels like she changes personality dramatically across the divide between these sections, and it is an abrupt divide. The whole effect is to give a disjointed feel and weaken the impact of this second section.
Despite its flaws, I cant help but recommend this for that twisted first half though. It is utterly brilliant.