Review: Spear of the Emperor

Spear of the Emperor by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

[Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review]

Framed as the memories of an ancient thrall in service of the Mentors Chapter, Spear of the Emperor tells the story of an expedition that has braved the Straits of Epona, crossing the Cicatrix Maledictum to reach the Darkened Imperium beyond and establish communications with the Adeptus Vaelari stranded there.

Seen through the eyes of Anuradha, Helot Secundus to Amadeus Kaias Incarius, the story brims with some of the themes that make Warhammer 40k such an interesting setting to read about: Hope in the face of hopelessness, freedom in the face of slavery, defiance in the face of impossible and heart-breaking odds. It is a heartfelt and beautifully-executed look at the cogs of the machine, so to speak- the Astartes, their thralls, the worlds they come from. Their tales are painfully their own, as they always are on the best stories, but they are also evocative of the larger universe they live in, of an Imperium perpetually on the brink, and of the many sacrifices that must be made in the name of keeping it running, as one characters put it, from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour.

There is no endless orgy of blood to be found here. Blatant violence, when it happens, its usually swift and brutal, a punctuation sign to that which preceded and that which will follow, but the book is all the better for it, for the focus are unashamedly the characters, not the arsenals, their triumphs and their tragedies as they strive to eke out some manner of personal meaning in such a hostile world.

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Review: Dark Harvest

Dark Harvest by Joshua Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[Received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review]

Summary: This story had all the classic elements of horror. The decaying, decrepit town was of course present, as were the hostile, unhelpful inhabitants and the secret cult. So were the troubling dreams had by our main character, the dread visions caught at the corner of the eyes. But these elements, unsurprising and almost token in their predictability, were woven very effectively into a compelling narrative that kept me faithfully turning the pages. They provided a journey that is likely to be of great interest to people who crave this kind of horror in a non-urban setting.

Prose: Perhaps one of my favorite elements in the book was the prose itself. The author manages to capture and paint a vivid picture of the story events and the dreariness of Wald in a way that really made the place pop in my mind. It sure made for an enjoyable read. The word green was utterly ubiquitous, but I suppose could not be helped. 4/5

Plot: As mentioned above, the particular elements of the plot fall on the table almost as a matter of course. This by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, though at times it did feel a bit too by-the-book other than the fact it was taking place in a fantasy setting. There was a points that soured my enjoyment of the story, however. (view spoiler)[ Namely, the Old Stag not devouring Harran at the end by virtue of the latter already belonging to Sigmar. It makes sense, but it also makes all the suspense the book had been slowly building feel like a sham. The second, also concerning the Old Stag, is that his speech felt a little too refined whenever he spoke to the character. Also, Gilt's death felt utterly cheap and telegraphed from the moment he mentioned the foretelling. (hide spoiler)] 3/5

Pacing: The story felt a little plodding near the beginning. Though Harran is a very interesting character and viewpoint for most of the story, the very start of it felt a little too studded with banal introspection. 3/5

Characterization: The characters were without a doubt the most enjoyable aspect of this story, alongside the prose and the world-building. Harran, specially, and I can't help but wonder if we'll see him again in another book. 4/5

World-building: Though this was the first book I've read set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, I feel like the author did a particularly excellent job in providing flourishes of memory of Harran's previous life to embellish his present situation and his character as a whole. The same goes with the information he provides regarding the different creatures and the setting. 4/5

Final Score: 3.6/5 rounded to 4/5.

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Review: Cadia Stands

Cadia Stands by Justin D. Hill
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Summary: I will be frank, this book was a severe disappointment to me. Maybe I just came to it with the wrong expectations, maybe I am not really the target for this kind of book. Anyway, the fact remains that there is very little I find memorable in this book. There are no great descriptions, no great characters, no great dialogue, no great prose. The author just throws names and explosions and disjointed scenes with recurring characters that are minimally developed and calls the job done. It tries to paint the very grim picture of Cadia's fall, but somehow it manages to paint all the epic fighting and doomed resistance in an amazingly boring light.

Prose: The book is written in an astonishingly dry fashion. The author really doesn't spend any time being descriptive. He goes briskly about painting the barest hints of scene, then proceeds onto the events, narrating them with equal briskness. For the first half of the book we are mostly treated to disjointed vignettes of characters used to show us the progress of the war, but again, the author goes about this in a way that feels almost perfunctory, not memorable in the least. 2/5

Plot: The plot is literally the doomed, grimdark resistance and ultimate fall of Cadia as seen through a handful of hardly-developed characters. None of which is told in a particularly memorable manner. I mean, take the pylons. They are introduced as important to the standing of the Cadian Gate, but the plot opts instead for a diabolus ex machina destruction instead of properly integrating the pylons more directly into the fall of the planet. As it is they are completely left by the wayside. Really, I feel like the whole plot is an excuse to write numerous vaguely interconnected after-reports set on the Warhammer 40k universe. 2/5

Pacing: As mentioned, the book is really brisk, it never lingers too much on any character or even on any particular event, and as such most of everything lacks any kind of emotional impact. 1/5

Characterization: I'd hazard to call what we have in the book more viewpoints than characters. Obviously, they are characters, but none of them are particularly developed, they all have the same basic drive and behave in basically the same fashion, effectively making it very easy for one to blend into the other. 2/5

World-building: The book does a half-hearted attempt at painting an image of what life is like on Cadia. I think it fails, much like most of the rest of the book, because as mentioned above the prose is brisk and dry, and it never really stops being so. The meager information feels like you are reading an exceptionally boring tourist brochure for an imaginary place. 2/5

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Review: The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are really no words for this book, except to say it was stupendous in every way that counts. Really, what follows is basically me just praising the book and everything in it. If you have no stomach for such, just know that I honestly believe it is worth a read for anyone who likes fantasy, but specially character-driven fantasy.

With that out of the way.

From characters to plot to writing to pacing to world-building and every conceivable thing in between, it all shines.

Sure, some things might take a bit of effort to get used to (it might well be the first novel I've ever read written with a second person pov, even though I am familiar with Choose your Own Adventure books written with similar styles) but I honestly did not find them jarring as some others apparently have. Sure, it was unusual, but for me it ended up being another bit of strangeness that effectively added to the story, and the fact that two of the three point of views were written in more conventional pov hinted to the fact there was a point to the strangeness. I was not disappointed.

The plot was entrancing, and I thought the way the author introduced us to it was stupendous as well. This is a story about the end of the world... But what does that mean, exactly? And then the author walks us through all the possible meanings, all of them spectacularly interwoven. The intimate, heart-wrenching end of the world for a mother who comes home after a long day of work only to find her son has been beaten to death and her daughter kidnapped by her husband, the wider cataclysm that serves as backdrop as the massive super-continent in which the story is set is wounded and riven in such a way as to bring forth the latest and perhaps the worst in a long series of disasters. And then planetary... except not. As the author helpfully informs us, the phrase 'the end of the world' is usually an exaggeration at best and a lie at worst, because the world will eventually straighten itself out. It will not 'end'. It is only the people in it who will.

But the author also reminds us that from every ending, no matter how big or small in scope, comes a new beginning. And I think this is as much a theme of the story as the rest. And so start each of our three pov characters, each having already tipped or tipping into and end, and then struggling to make some sense from it, wrench back some meaning from which they can carve their life.

So yeah, this was probably the most ramble-y review I've done in a while, but the short of it is go read it.

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Review: A Gathering of Shadows

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am a bit torn regarding this book. I relish the setting, and the writing. But the plot was an abysmal let down. Not that the first book was perfect, either, but the first book had a certain freshness to it, and in any case, it did not have the flaws I felt in this one.

Most of the plot here felt meandering, meaningless. A journey without a destination. Specially so near the first half of the book. Alucard never really manages to be an interesting character, everything related to him feeing mostly tacked-on. All the allusions to his past hint to a big reveal that ends up being mostly disappointing too. The only really redeeming qualities are the few White London snippets we get on the way, always so disappointingly short.

During the second half gets a little better, but even then, things mostly feel purposeless, and again, the various allusions to political danger end up being completely irrelevant. I can understand that the author might have been setting up for the third book, but in a way that is how the whole book felt like, and it was disappointing. (view spoiler)[ Also, Delilah getting completely away with killing that guy -and- his two men felt really cheap. (hide spoiler)]

In the end, much like in the first book, I find Holland to be the show stealer, and again find myself wishing the story had been centred on him and his White London instead. Hell, I found myself wishing that Kell would somehow get possessed by the Dark Magic thing just so that Holland be spared, and perhaps redeemed.

Here's to hoping the third, and likely final entry will redeem the series.

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Review: A Head Full of Ghosts

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having read the book in full, I still don't know what to think about it. I still don't think it is scary, and the fact I expected it to be so, or to be more traditional horror in some way, probably colours how I feel about it. I don't think it was badly written by any stretch of the imagination, and when I stopped looking for the scary and just settled into the story I started really enjoying. Some scenes were particularly well-done, but more than anything else, I found the book to be terribly poignant, and more dramatic than scary.

The ending was the equivalent of a surprise gut-punch no matter how much I braced myself for it.

My only criticism is that at some points the book, much like the in-universe shows, seems to fall into a sleepy lull, but again, this might have more to do with my mistaken expectations than with any fault in the writing.

So if you are going to read this book, don't actually read it for the scary-ness/horror factor. Read it as drama and treat it as such, that way you wont have betrayed expectations colouring how you feel about it.

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Review: Silver on the Road

Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book had a marvellous premise, interestingly woven character and excellent prose. All brought low by the plot's execution. I honestly felt like the instances where something was actually happening were few and far between. Those instances were without a fault intensely engaging and interesting. But the rest of the time was spent on what felt like aimless, purposeless wandering.

I know we are probably meant to see Iz's growth from a child who had never left Flood to a proper rider, but like in God's War, the previous book I read, we mostly just see a lot of moving around. Waking up, preparing camp, random bit of world-building, moving on, rinse, repeat. Granted, there's a point to all the moving, but the fact remains there's little to no actual advancement of the book's apparent plot for most of the book itself, the important scenes peppered in between a whole lot of nothing. And no matter how prettily written it is, it still is mostly uninteresting. Even if it compels you to read on somehow.

I'll admit, I feel a little guilty writing this. I don't know whether I am simply being too harsh on the book. Perhaps there's just some genre convention that I am missing. It is possible, as I honestly just decided to read it based on the premise and little attention was paid to anything else. But in any case, for the few interesting scenes, and the engaging characters (I loved Farron and Isobel) and the premise itself, and the hope that the second book will redeem the failing's of the first, I give it three stars.

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