Susana Imaginário
This is a beautiful book. The cover matches the content perfectly and everything in its design shows care and attention to detail.
The writing is clear and accessible and the editing professional. Nothing felt forced, far-fetched, foreign, exaggerated, or out of place.
The piscatorial setting is perfect for the story, filled with elements that probably will only be fully appreciated by those who grew up in small villages along the Portuguese coast, but they certainly add to the atmosphere of the narrative.
The summoner's cry greatest weakness is its length. The characters are three dimensional and the story complex, but both could use more page time. Sometimes I felt like I was just skimming the surface and some things felt rushed towards the end. There was little opportunity to wonder about the character's past, to delve into their motives, to dread and guess their future before it was revealed. By the end, I had all the answers, but I also felt like there was a lot more to discover. I can only hope for a sequel.
ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Legacy of the Brightwash kept being recommended to me by different people, so I eventually gave it a go and within a few pages, I was hooked.
This is a well-written book with too much detail perhaps, but the devil is in the details, as they say, so I kept paying attention, hoping to find some hidden demons. No such luck, though... Then around the halfway point, the mystery that drove me to devour the first half of the book became pretty obvious and was pushed to the background while the narrative shifted to focus more and more on politics, intrigue, Tashué's personal and professional doubts as well as his past and present love interests with little relevance to the plot. (There is a relation, of course, but it could have been addressed in a fraction of the pages.)
I really enjoyed the premise, the potential of the story, the worldbuilding and most of the characters and I can definitely appreciate the amount of work put into this novel. That's why I kept hoping for a twist or something else, something more, and finished the book with a sense of saturation and disappointment.
Despite being too detailed and melodramatic for my tastes, Legacy of the Brightwash is a worthy read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys characters going through a midlife crisis, lots of political intrigue and romance.
Author's Note
The original manuscript of Wyrd Gods was over 300k words long. When I decided to self-publish, I figured it would be better to turn it into a trilogy (or tetralogy as it turned out) which meant I had to break up a storyline that was already fragmented by design. The result is a strange and complex book with the added disadvantages of being a debut novel and the first book in a series.
If there's one thing I ask from my readers, it's patience. Think of Wyrd Gods as a Part I of a much longer story, and trust that there is a method to this tale of madness. Everything will eventually make sense in the end.
Thank you for reading!
I was looking for a quick sci-fi read as a palate cleanser between fantasy tomes when Ringer made a timely appearance on my Twitter feed.
Ringer is a short, entertaining and slightly predictable read (which is not always a bad thing, especially when all you want is to enjoy a character's journey through an existential dilemma), carefully written to induce wonder, suspicion and even paranoia. I particularly liked how thought provoking it was at times and, if anything, I wish it had delved a bit deeper into the psychological and social implications of the plot.
6 stars!
Seriously, I need to reevaluate my rating system in order to do justice to this book.
I've been looking forward to the conclusion of The Age of Madness all year and by the dead, Joe Abercrombie did not disappoint. The characterization and dialogue are off the charts. It's been quite the emotional and intellectual ride. I miss it already.
I confess I couldn't care less about the humans in this story or their struggles, but I never thought I'd ever care so much about spiders.
Paternus features one of the largest ensembles of deities and mythological figures I've ever come across. I even had to stop reading a few times to research names I was not familiar with! For a mythology fan, this is awesome.
It has a bit of a rough start and I almost gave up after a chapter of YA drama, but good stories take time to develop and this one is no exception. Sadly, I never quite related or cared for Fiona and Zeke, and I think this story would have benefited from a more mature cast.
I still loved how Ashton managed to include so many different deities and lore in this story. The cinematic scenes and dialogue were a treat, and the present tense narrative made this book even more enjoyable.
I read Senlin Ascends back in June and meant to leave a review then, but of course, life kept happening. There were more books to read and what was postponed ended up forgotten.
As I'm now finally starting book 2, I decided to take a few minutes to write down my thoughts about this brilliant book.
It's not often a book grabs me from the beginning and when they do, I usually have a fairly good idea of the type of story I'm reading and what to expect.
I was completely lost with this one.
Almost every theory and expectation I came up with was wrong. I must have spent the first half of Senlin Ascends alternating between moments of ‘oh, dear' and ‘what the f#ck?' talking to myself like a crazy person. I loved the weirdness and mystery of it all, the vivid descriptions and the beautiful prose.
Senlin Ascends is unlike anything I've read before and Senlin is such an endearing character, perfect for this story.
It's not easy to review this book without spoilers. In sum, Senlin Ascends is quite the intellectual and emotional adventure, filled with witty humour, bizarre characters and situations. I was almost sad when things finally started to make sense.
I'm looking forward to continue this series.
Orconomics has been on my TBR for years, but I confess the title, cover and its overwhelming popularity put me off reading it. You see, I take satire very seriously and every other book recommended to me as satire turned out to be a poorly written parody. Not this one, though. Orconomics is the real deal, and it turned out to be the surprise of the year, right when I was about to give up on self-published books altogether. This is a well-written story, with great characterisation, engaging dialogue, a proper plot and oh so clever throughout! Seriously, it deserves all the hype and I can't wait to read the next one.
I advise you to set your sensitivities and prejudices aside before starting this book. The story is dark; the characters are flawed, and the end is brutal, just as advertised.
My favourite thing about it was the different take on werewolves. Usually portrayed as mindless brutes, self-pitying outcasts or sexy beasts, in Echoes of a Storm, the werewolf is a man who owns his monstrosity. He's competent and unapologetic. In any other story he would probably be the villain, but in this one he barely stands a chance against the real villain, a creature so cunning and despicable you'll just love to hate.
I think I'd enjoyed this book a lot more had I been reading it, though. I found the narration quite difficult to follow at the beginning. The long pauses and lapses in editing kept pulling me out of the narrative. That being said, the narration improved considerably towards the end and Echoes of a Storm is far from tedious. The constant PoV changes and references to past events worked pretty well and forced me to keep paying attention in order to put the pieces together. Still, to say the end was unexpected is an understatement, but I can't say much more than that without spoilers, you'll just have to read it to find out why.
(I received an audible copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.)
It always surprises me when a book meets my expectations, and I had pretty high expectation for this one.
I can't wait to continue reading the series.
I didn't expect to enjoy Ready Player One half as much as I did.
The book is not without flaws. The endless lists and info dumps would definitely put me off had I been reading it. Fortunately, Wil Wheaton did an amazing job narrating the story and made even the most boring passages fun to listen to.
I recommend this book to every introvert and geek who never felt at home in the real world.