BulbasaurusThe7th

3,5 stars

When this series gets the weird, eery mood right, it does get it REALLY right. You know, like... everything is inexplicable, but at the same time, it's perfectly normal for the characters. Which only makes you more uneasy.
That, I love. Now... sometimes it's just unsatisfying, though. There are many, many seemingly random story elements that often go completely ignored. At least right now. But the thing is, I don't know how they will be tied up at the end and that makes me feel like this isn't as smart as it could be. I know I am not necessarily making a lot of sense, but my point is, sometimes it feels like this series is a bit too random for no reason.
This is coming from a person who, more often than not, prefers the beginning stages of horror; when things are set up. The explanations are usually nowhere near as satisfying. But still, we have a lot going on here and they are all put on a shelf titled “bear with me now, these will come back later”. Now sure how long interest can be kept up with all that.

Some ideas are hilarious and cool. Some are unoriginal in the vein of “rednecks who are racist or some shit are attacking us”. Or “that one way too excited, busybee worker trying to fix us up, but he is also a racist sometimes”. Like... okay, man? Very cool, yet another person we are supposed to dislike because polo shirts or something, but then it's like... oh, racist. Which you didn't know, but whatever.
I don't know, I like this book at its off-the-walls (handplants, anyone?), not at its “every fucking horror movie made in the last few years”.

Does the author have the skills to bring any of these storylines to fruition, though? We still don't know shit about Spencer, the owners, Jack's illness and the doctors, his biggest fan, what the fuck is going on with Jerry (whom I love, he is hilarious), whomever is targeting the town, anything!
Now, I know this is some online writing project and as that, the quality of the writing is pretty freaking great. But at the same time, I don't think it benefits from (as far as I know) not having a definitive ending point. Maybe I am wrong, might be, but at this point it feels like this will end up being an endless project where the heart just goes after a time and I will forget about it.
We will see.

FINALLY some things about this series get explained and resolved. Finally we circle back to a bunch of stuff, certain things get explained!!!!
Now... I will say something about this series. It's so weird and has so many elements, you have to read them relatively close to each other, otherwise you will forget a bunch of the fever dream type shit that goes down. Great for a binge, if you are so inclined.

So far, this is the most seriously horror of the books. The other two had fucked up, gory stuff, but this seems to have longer stretches of just dark stuff and everything going wrong for our characters. Jack reaches his deepest point yet.
It also really leans into the whole idea of Jack being unreliable in so many different ways that by the end you don't even know in what way you should accept that this is not happening. Or is it? All in all, things go super trippy.

One thing you need to know; it's unlikely you will be able to solve any of the mysteries yourself. The story is just too unpredictable and seemingly random for anyone to really be able to reason it. Maybe you can write things on a board and throw a dart into it, whatever it hits is your theory. That would probably be the most accurate way to do this.

I'm still not entirely in love with the typical “small town America is like the most awful thing, we are too special for such a place”. It's still a bit yuppie, a bit too “I'm smarter than the pleb”, but otherwise it's fine.

It's always difficult to write a review of the later books in a series, so this will just be some observations about this one.

This is my second time reading through the series, which means I went in already knowing I liked it a lot. Now, if you are just first picking it all up, it probably takes some time to get to know the characters and start seriously caring about them, but by book 3 you are supposedly all in. By now we know most of the character's back stories, usually through shorter little flashbacks and conversations.
Here, though, Silo's past is used as the backdrop of a considerable chunk of the story and is more integrated into the whole thing.
Another interesting choice with the characters is adding one more member to the crew. That was kind of risky, especially when the ones we already have are so freaking likeable; that is one of the big strengths of the series, the group dynamic and the characters themselves. Now I am not saying I dislike Ashua, but there is no way I am liking her as much as for example Malvery. Nah, mate.

The exciting scenes (like one specific one with a fighter jet race) are extremely cinematic and cool. Part of me wants to see this as a series. Then again, looking at the track record big studios have with book adaptations, I do not want to see this ruined by turning Jez into a manhating turbo lesbian or changing Silo's back story, because black people can't be slavers.
But you could just see it, the huge fights and flying and freaking daemonism.

All in all, this is still one of my favourite series ever.

When I first started reading this series, I expected it to focus much more on Rachel and Nick's relationship with each other, but it was a lot wider than that.

What I realised as I went on is, you will not be able to remember every single person mentioned here and I think that's intentional. It's overwhelming and confusing in so many ways. At the same time... the moment you let go of that, you are going to have much more fun.
Some of the characters getting more of a role here were a lot of fun. I especially loved Kitty, the chapter with her adviser trying to help her become classy was amazing. The guidelines, they made me laugh so hard. Don't get me wrong, Kitty is an awful person, she really is, but she was so entertaining in her dumb and greedy ways.

I still didn't buy Kevin Kwan as an emotional writer. He is amazing at being funny, being over the top entertaining. The deep and emotional moments... well. Yeah, no, they didn't work for me, they often felt melodramatic in the not so brilliant way. Often I didn't feel like I cared that much about them.
Which is funny, because I get super invested in the dumb drama. The big speech Rachel throws at Colette? AMAZING.

On a side note, I watched the movie version of Crazy Rich Asians with my mother during Christmas. While is was different from the book, it was pretty great, we both enjoyed it, though sometimes I had to explain things to her, mostly about the connections between people.
Apparently, the movie of this one is on the way, we will be watching it for sure.

In this one someone from the mother's past shows up and threatens the peace the family managed to find in the Highlands. After this point the description of the plot part of the review will be one big spoiler. You learn real fast who this stranger is, but I know some of you are super sensitive to such things.

So Dina's dad is finally with us, yay. Now up until this point we ave been introduced to some small mentions and such of magic. Of course dragons too. But we weren't told about whole different branches of it. Now of course I had a feeling Dina's dad was going to be someone, as they never even mentioned him, really and it was quite obvious. Here he turns out to be a Blackmaster, someone who is able to create illusions, to make people see things not there, to bring them dreams with his magical flute. It's made obvious his whole family is something big and important and in their own field they are big ones, though we never get to meet them. Something I find interesting is that... I feel there is a bit of an issue with how Mellussina sees him and how he behaves. Not sure if this is an intentional artistic choice by the author, but it never gets properly explained. Meanwhile the family gets in trouble and Nice and Davin even end up in prison. Now this was so far the most dark thing in the books. I still think it's perfectly appropriate for children and I would even recommend it to them, but yeah. Some messed up shit happens.

Here is the thing with this series. I like the books. Duh. I like the individual stories. But this is book 3 in a 4 book series. You know when people say something is greater than the sum of its parts? I think in this case it's the exact opposite.
I am having a blast every single time I am reading a new book of this. But. I think the series as a whole could do much more with its interesting concepts. There is just so many questions and so much left to discover. It's almost like these small stories are just picked out little bits of a huge, epic saga.
Jim Butcher keeps talking about how he is going to write a YA companion series to his Dresden Files with Maggie, a child character and her dog being the protagonists. This series feels like that. Like there is something, big things going on outside the limited bubble of Dina's immediate circle and I would kill to be able to read that one as well. Now it's possible I'm just old. But even for a children's book, there could have been much more... I guess, opening up the world.
I'm still giving it a high rating, because the book itself if really nice. It's well-written, it's fun, the characters are good, the concepts are stellar. Maybe if there more book, maybe if the individual volumes were longer.
I don't feel the author treats the reader as stupid (Which is an issue with some children's books), more like we are only scratching the surface.

I would still recommend this to kids or adults who enjoy middle grade. I am definitely going to read the last book ,but I will forever wish it was more than this.

This is a case where I am giving the book a rating (4 stars), but giving the series overall a different one (3 stars). Why?

This is the culmination of everything. Dina's decision on what she will be. Davin's chance to make things right and live with the consequences of the previous book. For Nico to face Dracan.

All those things sound brilliant, but nowhere near enough. There are so many things mentioned about the world, the characters, the different types of magic. There are dragons! And nothing is utilized to its full potential. We hardly get any answers, and while the story ends, it feels like just as many elements simply got forgotten. Hell, we have characters who show up, do things, then we just never hear of them ever again, even though they are important. It just kills a lot of your sense of danger when nobody actually goes the whole way with something devious they want to do.
It also introduces characters who are meant to have emotional significance. Yes, it introduces them halfway in the last book when they are already so short. Not gonna lie, I was rolling my eyes when I was expected to feel just as much for a character who showed up 5 minutes ago as the ones we learnt about for multiple books.

All in all, the whole series should have been more. It should have opened up the world more instead of just mentioning things, then going nowhere with them.

DNF.

I loved the first book, I did. But this one is just not for me. In a world so interesting, with so many characters already there, with so many stories you can tell... I find it's a crime to waste time on plain old love stories. It's just not my thing, I find romantic relationships to be the most boring interpersonal bond you can write about and it's disappointing to me that both this and the next book are spent on that.
Also, why do people have to make it obvious people will end up together the very first moment? It's... not good. Sorry, I'm not sorry. I'm way too stressed and exhausted nowadays to read books that annoy me.

More from stuff like this on Tome Raider.Seems like I am in a steampunk kind of a mood and it seems to work out great. As it is increasingly more common, this story is centred around three different POV characters; petty criminal Clay, spy Lizanne and navy officer Hilemore. They live in a world where certain people have special ability to drink dragon blood and do superhuman things. Because yeah, this one has dragons. Wouldn't have guessed looking at the cover at all. On top of that, they have different kinds (black, red, green, red and supposedly, according to myths even white), all giving a different power. Sounds peachy, eh? Think again. War is brewing between different countries and even the one we follow is having issues with bureaucracy and technical stagnation. In this situation an expedition is started to find the white dragon and a lost young woman, supposedly still alive out in the jungle, decades after the failed, previous trip. There is a lot going on, yes. It's complex, hard to explain without giving away too much or sounding like a rambling crazy person. My previous read, [b:The Clockwork Dynasty 32670125 The Clockwork Dynasty Daniel H. Wilson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1527606594l/32670125.SX50.jpg 53238815] was the same genre and extremely lovely, but much smaller in scope, so I enjoyed how it really managed to show the extent of a world you can do with steampunk. Somehow it always makes me... I guess limit my ideas, which is probably just coming from not having read much from the kind. Still, there is room for even more, the concepts are really creative and can be used in all kinds of crazy ways. A lot of the war and the internal problems of the place are involving politics, but what I loved about that part was how neither side had all their shit together. Often times authors go peachy the moment things are political; they can't be critical of all sides, they just have their loyalties one way and somehow they don't go far enough to take risks. Which is sad, I would love risk taking fantasy. Sure, in today's word it feels like everyone is offended by something, something is always taboo and off limits and you HAVE to give straight answers, but there should be room for this. For a book so long, it actually had enough substance, though. The alternating POV chapters help with that for sure (one of the benefits of it, in my opinion is that even boring chapters can be made better if the other characters are having an interesting time). Mr. Ryan didn't stretch things out too much with world building and nothing else, action was mixed in with it all. Plot twists are not a must for me. Many people disagree, but here they were done well. We discover interesting things about characters and lore, history and the science of the world. I appreciated how the twists really had all that variety, it showed some thought put into it all. I would say there is something for everyone on this front. So about the characters. So far the three POVs were a bit weird. Lizanne and Clay meet early on and are in touch, they have to work together, while Hilemore is separate from the other two, having his own story that connects to the war aspect, but doesn't cross over to the others. Up until the veeeeeeery end. That made me pumped. I mean not sure how much of it is a spoiler, I had a feeling Hilemore wasn't just there for the lulz, but to connect with the other two, but hey. They are sufficiently separate entities. They do sound like separate people, influenced by their circumstances, which is essential for different POVs, as one of the potential pitfalls is all of them sounding the same and becoming a mass of the same.You can't pull this off by just coming up with an interesting cast, you really have to KNOW them, their ways, their typical figures of speech. Everything. At this point I would say it's not going to go too too dark. For a books about trying to save the world and all, it has a good amount of discovering things, adventures, things that break up the fact that certain places are lawless enough for people to drop like flies. It's not trying to have too much pathos, never goes over the top, never feels like this is too much of a rigid, lecturing dark story. It's actually well-balanced as far as tone goes. I'm definitely picking up the next book. I need to know what happens, it keeps my attention, it is definitely worth your time. It is “normal” fantasy enough for people not familiar enough with steampunk, but it was different enough. Good stuff, one of my favourites of the year so far. Good night and let out some steam with this!

Got the ebook for free from the author, which was mighty nice. Thank you! (He is also absolutely hilarious. Read his Goodreads stuff, it's a joy.)

If you read books, especially nowadays and you are an alien who never saw real life you will assume only young people ever go on adventures. If they take an older person it is just so someone can die so the young hero can magically, quickly become the coolest, most powerful and knowledgeable one left.
Not here. Here we have older men having to find the sheath of Excalibur, which can heal the protagonist's wife, while multiple secret groups try to get there sooner, for various reasons.

The first thing I noticed about this one was the prose being so freaking smooth. It's like butter, I have no idea how it happened, but it's just so readable. Don't scoff, it is a big thing, especially in a book with an old-timey vocabulary and such. Also, it is something that many authors (not even always novices) fail at big time and it can really kill the momentum and the fun of reading. I mean in some way it's a bit sad that this is a big deal, because hey, books are meant to be read, but whatever.
Now I know I took a long time reading this, but it's not at all the book's fault, but freaking real life is getting in the way.

The whole Arthut-myth is not something that's super well-known here. Of course it is part of the universal European culture and all, we know about it, but the details are murky for the borderline Slavs, but that doesn't get in the way. It doesn't necessitate crazy in depth expertise in the stuff, which is how I prefer my books connecting to history. There are merits in the 100% history buff stuff, but it's not for me. So again, a win for this book.
(When I was younger the Sam Neill Merlin series freaked me out low key. They aired it on TV a lot here at some point, I don't even know why. But yeah, that, along with The Labyrinth and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves probably left a mark on my soul big time. )

As I said before, this is a book of old dudes, which... again, I love. I have no idea what's going on with me and someone would probably tell me I'm crazy in some way, but I relate to old men a lot. I'm neither, but older men are my absolute favourite protagonist stock. These ones are awesome, freaking great and fun. They are not always super wise, not always the Gandalf or Yoda. Nothing wrong with that at all, because people aren't necessarily super wise just because they are older. In this case you could actually see the young people who have grown old, not just old people who were born as old men. You know what I mean.

The story is good in itself, as a one book thing, but it can be more than that, longer and I want it to happen. I find it's different enough, I feel there is a need for this, a market for something like this. I want it to succeed. I want it to go on, because there is a lot of potential for telling us more about the world of it.
I would also recommend it to people around me. I will. It's an incredible pleasant read that just makes you feel good about things at the end of the day.

Have a nice day and read indies!

More of this kinda stuff on Tome Raider.

I guess I am becoming more willing to give unknown, small books a go and so far I'm not regretting it at all. Then again, Michael loved this and our taste is fairly similar with fun, action packed stuff, so I guess I should have known. (To my family; if you find my mummified body under a collapsed pile of books, Michael is to blame.)

When you hear ‘holy weapon' you most likely imagine it as this one single item that is so special that no other can ever reach its level and only the chosen one can even think of using it.
In this series that's not true at all, whatsoever. There is a whole organisation (called Valducan) with holy weapon wielding people, who go wherever they are needed to take care of demons that terrorise humanity.
Our hero, Matt was raised by a retired Valducan knight after his whole family having been slaughtered by demons, Matt himself having been infected by a demon. After the death of his master he inherited Damoren, the holy gun/sword and now he is even being recruited into Valducan, as their knights keep dying in horrible ways.

Not sure how many people have read Darren Shan's Demonata, a horror series with gruesome stuff for... kids. I used to be absolutely obsessed with it, it was a genuinely fantastic series. It also had a secret organisation to stop demons and in many ways this felt like a spiritual successor of a more adult kind.
From the get go that was a good thing in my mind, not gonna lie. But I guess that tells everyone that this is horror. It's nasty, it's bloody, people will inevitably die and monsters will come. At the same time, this is less of the Stephen King kind, more like gruesome fantasy and to me that works. I genuinely prefer it that way. Somehow that feels more exciting and less about being shocking.

And boy, it was exciting. As upsetting as it could be, there was so much action and the different characters had so many different skills. Somehow it really felt like this world could offer even more, so much adventure and I am convinced that it is not going to be used up for some time now.
I'm not saying the author will definitely turn it into one more gigantic urban fantasy series (long live Harry Dresden), but it absolutely has the potential for it. The skill is there, the cool, the great characters you can get attached to, it just needs time, work to elaborate more, to write more stories.

Would it be absolutely wrong to call a story charming with so much horrible things happening to people? Then what should I say? It has some kind of a charm that made me interested. That made me connect to it, that made me want MORE. I usually say if I will read the rest of the series at the very end of my reviews, but... dude, be honest, I am reading the rest of this so much, it's unfunny.
I'm also happy to see that the author is actually working on it. Books are coming out, it's not stuck, I will have more. What does it say about me that I'm happy about that.

Another funny thing about this series is that Matt, the protagonist is dropped into a whole new situation with complete strangers. They are already a well-formed group with connections and attachments, but Matt is completely new, which to me is interesting, as we see tragedies from the point of view of someone only semi-attached to the rest. He can not hope to feel as much for the others as anyone else, because he is the new guy.
That was a smart decision. We connect to Matt's point of view as we know just as little about the others. Of course we care, we are humans, but somehow we are still a bit outside of it at the same time. It was great, as it didn't make me feel like we were being pushed to feel things. The author didn't assume we were instantly 100% in love because we knew a character's name.
I find this is something that can be done so wrong; expecting the reader to feel gigantic feelings just because we were told we should be feeling that. How I hate that. Here, though, it was great. Not sure how much of it was deliberate. Maybe it was just an idea. But it was good.

In private I joked with Michael about how the guys in this book would be cool as Japanese dating sim game characters. All different types, all cool, I would find it hilarious. Which adds even more to the potential of this becoming big. I have no idea how books become the super big hits, but man, this would deserve it. It would work well, people could relate, a movie would be super fun. Everything. I guess I will have to push one more series on my friends for gift giving holidays. Because I am that friend. I AM THAT FRIEND. (With me it's either hand made stuff or books almost always, deal with it.)

I loved it, over 9000 stars, great stuff. I do recommend it, I will get the other books, I would sell my soul for the new one at this point.

Good night and I hope I'm sticking to my guns about this one!

More of this on kinda stuff on Tome Raider .
Second books have a tendency of being a bit of fillers and just generally the least interesting part of a series. Mr. Ryan was like “fuck that, Imma do this”. Maybe he didn't say that, maybe he doesn't swear, but after a book this badass I imagine him being like that. If I'm totally wrong, contact me or whatever.

We go on with the story. The White dragon and Co. is still insistent on taking over the world with Spoiled and all. The human are less enthusiastic about the project, but at this point they are kinda powerless against all that crazy. And they are also idiots, who have a hard time allying against something that will potentially kill em all.
Lizanne needs to find a mythical inventor. Clay needs to find a place he had seen in his future that leads him to the salvation of the word. Hilemore needs to find his cool. No, he needs to do the captaining in a way that allows Clay to do his thing, but that sounded kinda fun. Also, they go to some arctic place. So cool. Ha.
Aaaand there is a new POV character, who would be a spoiler, even though this person has the first chapter, but still. There is a new one, with a whoooole new point of view that I personally never expected to see and it was REALLY interesting and a whole new facet of the story. Ingenious. Seriously, we will see the inside workings of Spoiled. How freaking cool is that, man? I swear, it surprised me in two ways; how cool the world building in one more way and how entertaining borg zombies can be to read.

I've loved pretty much everything about this. When it comes to fantasy with serious topics and not much humour, like here... I need me some exploration. I find that if the story is dark and serious in tone I need two things to make it palatable; either some hilarious dark funny moments (hello Mr. Dresden, I love you so much) or adventures and the wonder of exploration. Here the latter is what's happening more and I am 100% fine with that, because the world building is on point.
We got to see for example the Corvantine Empire in this one, which is extremely interesting and different from the Ironship Syndicate, but just as dangerous. We got a different kind of human race! It's all fascinating stuff and the whole thing was much easier to grasp than in the first book. There some moments were a bit hard to follow with the names and different powers and all, but it did pay off 100%.
(One thing from the first book they didn't care much about here was the way Product was weakening, though. I really liked that idea, so I hope Mr. Ryan deals with it later, but it was totally understandable why they didn't care too much while everyone was trying to survive crazy stuff. The implications are just... really interesting.)

The characters were still great. At this point in time I can't help cheering on the author for writing a young female character who is a person, not a Straaaawn Female Character cliche. Lizanne doesn't go on tangents about how she needs to beat men. She is not morally superior. She does need her male allies just as much as the female ones. For how much we keep hearing about female characters, we do have a lot of shittily written, “all that matters is that it's flattering to think about her for women who typically can't even land a punch”, and Lizanne is NOT anything like that. Do enjoy.

With fantasy novels romance is always something that can make or break my relationship with them. I don't need it. If it never happens... I'm kinda content with that. But if we do it, then at least make it feel okay. Here that happens. Romances start, they are understated, Mr. Ryan realises that the focal point of the story is not soap opera, but dragons and wars and all that. None of that gets overshadowed by needless romantic drama. People can even drift apart without ridiculous meddling, magical or otherwise and good ol' “I could explain, because I am not going to, which means you will misunderstand and hate my guts”.

Never read anything before this series by Anthony Ryan, so I have no idea if he is generally this freaking brilliant and magical and perfect, or he just got lucky. I doubt it's luck, this is pure talent for intricate stories in well-built worlds with enjoyable characters, with tight action, with constant excitement, everything. Seriously, I can only rave about this.
I'm gonna say, though, I don't think this series is a good first time getting into fantasy as a genre. It's just really complicated and being unfamiliar with the genre as well as trying to understand a specific world like this can potentially put people off of fantasy for a long time. Otherwise it's A+.

At this point I'm interested in everything the author produces. I need to read his previous books, get the sequel of this as soon as it comes out and I'm looking forward to whatever he does next. Again, I can't say for sure if this is his norm or not, but I am optimistic and really pumped about not only this, but reading in general and you need a certain kind of book to achieve that effect. So there is that, I freaking loved this. All the stars in the sky for this book.

Have a nice day and definitely get this burning hot piece of work!

DNF at about a third of the way.

Some books just really kill my resolve to actually push through and this was that way. I wouldn't necessarily say it was a really bad book or that I feel nobody could like it, but honestly, it just hit so many of the things that kill a book for me.

First of all, the blurb ruins it all from the get go. We get told right away that Revik is wrong. Not just that, but when I started reading it was obvious that he was wrong. Hell, all people on his side are obviously written to be total assholes.
While at the same time everyone of the plainspeople are written as these wonderfully exotic, wise, deep, super mega warriors whose shit smells like roses.
I kind of dislike that, the way people living a simpler life are often portrayed as these wonderful people just by virtue of being “exotic”. Isn't it a bit... I don't know, weird to just assume that if someone lives in a hut instead of a house and walks instead of using a horse they are magically morally superior and somehow better as people? (Also, if it would be so, why don't people who believe it move to a hut? Sounds super easy to me.)
I really dislike when a book pushes the idea that the richer and/or more developed people and societies are somehow just bad, while the poor and/or less developed are just full of wisdom because of reasons. We are all people. We all have the potential for both in us.

The other thing is how damn slow this was. The flow of it feels like cement, with way too much talk about random, unimportant things. The weird writing style in the parts dealing with the tribe people didn't help as well. This goes back to my previous point. Why, oh why are they written like a bunch of deep wisdom spewing weirdass monks without a proper human personality? They all sound full of pathos and just really stiff. Not dynamic at all, like they are made out of wood.

Revik's story is weird for a different reason. He gets saved and raised by man, not remembering anything from his childhood and family and all. He doesn't ask, though. He just accepts almost no information at all and then does whatever he is told. A kid would want to know things, not just do the things, then accept everything randomly told him when it was convenient to convince him about something.

All in all, I really didn't like this one. It's lifeless and slow, doesn't really feel like the characters are actual people and the sides are ridiculously perfect for their role in this good and bad fight.

We reach the big battle, where all our characters need to get together and duke it out with the White and his army. Yay!

It took me years to finally get to this book. Somehow I didn't want to do it, I didn't know how the story was going to have everything resolved. Don't get me wrong, it did, though... I would be lying if I said this wasn't my least favourite book in the series.
The ideas are still great and still, something isn't as satisfying about this one as I would have wanted it to be, which is doubly annoying as this book is LONG. There would have been space. Then again, that space was spent on repetitive descriptions of random new guns and bombs the characters just invented. On military things, like what group went in what direction. Just too much filler.

I do still recommend this series, though. The thing I specifically really appreciate about it is the fact that even the characters with supposedly good intentions mess up. Human nature was portrayed perfectly. Sure, we have a revolution and in most books, especially nowadays would have portrayed the poor workers as the noble ones. Here? They were far from ideal. They were just as clueless and prone to mindless violence.
Another thing is, relationships between people fail sometimes by the fault of none of the parties. Not every romance ends with perfection and that doesn't mean one of the people cheated or lied or was a horrible person all along. Another very well-executed thing about the portrayal of characters.

Some elements didn't go anywhere. You were made to believe the shortage of product was a huge deal or that Tinkerer was very important, then suddenly the topic just fizzled out.

All in all, a solid series, with a slightly lackluster ending.

4,5 stars I had issues recently with picking up books I ended up not finishing because I didn't enjoy them at all. It's a consequence of A, me trying new authors and B, not having any reservations when it comes to just dropping books if I'm not having fun with them. But now I was getting annoyed, so I went with someone I knew I liked. On the surface this is another book where a bunch of random people team up to save the whole world from total destruction. It has all kinds of Fae, humans of course, those two mixed together, even rooster-people. Yes, gigantic roosters with arms, who can speak and do shit, it's actually pretty awesome if you're asking me. So far it sounds nothing special. But we are talking about Jonathan French, so there is that to be a bit extra. Again, he touches creatures I don't really like that much, in this case it's the Fae. One of our most important characters is a cute girl with wings. But still, I have no idea how, but the guy has such a good sense when it comes to writing a book that is enjoyable. I am convinced it is more than learning the art of putting words together and such. It is something he does as an instinct an I can't help appreciating it. You get attached. Somehow this book genuinely feels like part of something bigger, just a small slice of events that all happen during thousands of years and connect all the different characters and races. When a new element is added it fits. It does feel like the whole world is mapped out, not at all like the author just needed to throw in something and he desperately made it fit. ([b:The Emperor's Blades 17910124 The Emperor's Blades (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, #1) Brian Staveley https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369246817s/17910124.jpg 25095579] , take note.) For a beginner it's especially impressive; what will this guy do later? Of course I have read [b:The Grey Bastards 27838712 The Grey Bastards (The Lot Lands, #1) Jonathan French https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447657324s/27838712.jpg 47822077] by him, which was also brilliant, so there is that, but really, I feel there are no limits for Mr. French. It all just feels very old, like every single thing has a rich history. We aren't swamped by unnecessary infodumps, though. Delicate balance there, something not even ll the more famous and experienced authors can always manage perfectly. Now that said, I only gave it 4,5 stars. Why? Sometimes the conversations and thought processes weren't as logical and obvious that I would have liked. It felt a tiny bit of a beginner mistake, which is excusable as it is a first novel, it happens rarely and the rest of the book is really damn great. I also needed a bit of time to learn who was who, because I have issues with names, especially if they sound similar. I mean I understand that, though, they should sound like names of a cohesive language and culture. I'm also more willing to overlook minor bumps as I know for a fact that the author realised these, he took care of them and managed to learn how to avoid being confusing and vague. It's great to see that, honestly. It's hard to talk about the plot without giving away too much or sounding kind of deranged, trying to put together so many things. Just trust me on this, it's fun. There is a lot of action, it's not boring and it's creative. Now one of the things I pointed out about [b:The Grey Bastards 27838712 The Grey Bastards (The Lot Lands, #1) Jonathan French https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1447657324s/27838712.jpg 47822077] was how the plot twists were genuinely big, they changed all the things about the world you assumed to know. Here it's not that extreme and it doesn't even matter. The story is able to carry its own weight by just being so well done. I had one worry about this book before starting, namely if Mr. French could show a different face than his other series. That one has crass humour and a lot of it, it's just rough and hilarious like that. This isn't anything similar, not even close and that lets us know he is not some one trick pony. Again, where was this guy hiding? In a day and age when so many authors are super famous just writing the same stale stuff over and over again. We need to have higher standards for ourselves. There are such brilliant authors like this out there, unknown ones that you just have to discover. We don't have to just go with the big names because they are obvious choices. I salute all the new faces, like Jonathan French, Nicholas Eames, Benedict Patrick, etc. I will definitely read the sequel of this and if he ever writes more, that too for sure. I'm going to add Mr. French to the list of my favourite authors as well, because I can. There. Have a nice day and look for the new faces!

Quit 20% in. I am not making any progress with this book and it kills me. Something is lost, the events just move so slowly and the ridiculous, blabber-y prose makes it feel even worse. There are brilliant ideas about the wold building and NONE of that is going anywhere here.

On the other hand we get new, fucking frustratingly UWU SPESHÜL characters, like Jane Arai, who is super magical amazing healing genius and just acts like a Tumblr girl. And of course we have to pretend that women who never met each other instantly love each other because that's how women work. Jane's instant appreciation for Bess and her supposed amazing skills is such typical YA bullshit it make me roll my eyes.
20% in and no Chalmers. Okay then.

Here we are. I really liked the first couple of books in this series and then stuff started to go down extremely fast. So what's wrong with this series now?

Angel and Phillip are starting to have rot that doesn't go away with extra brains, just as Dr. Nikas and Pietro are kidnapped by the enemy faction of the Saberton Corporation. So it's up to Angel and Co. to get them back.

The thing about Angel was how she had glaring issues. She wasn't educated, wasn't some kind of super genius or a gigantic soldier to kick all asses. Angel was Angel, the type of person who did what she could and winged the rest. Wasn't always enough, it never is, but hey. You could feel for her in a way. Many people disliked her based on many factors and that was fine, nobody is universally loved by everyone. Men also weren't constantly all over her, because again, that's just a stupid book cliche that I hate.
What changed? Everyone fucking LOVES Angel and she constantly gets chances to do things she is in now way qualified to do. When she fucks up they just explain it away, because meh, Angel is just so amaaaaaazingly cool we can't stay mad at her. The cool characters worth caring about all automatically love her and will yaaaas kweeeen her to hell and back (like Naomi, Jane, Dr. Nikas, Dr. Leblanc). At this point even all the eligible men are all over her ass, from Randy, to Marcus, to Nick, to Phillip.
They also do this very premature and stupid thing. When a character in media is consistently very typical in a way people are like “that's so X”. You know. Like freaking... Naruto (I'm sorry, this is a stupid example) behaves in a certain way and says certain things consistently for 15 years or so, so people can remark on certain things being typical Naruto. But here the character who have known Angel for like a year all act like she has her big things and something is like SOOOOO ANGEL. Excuse me? Other than being rude she never does anything that special.

The whole thing lost its touch. Other than the “Angel is wonderful effect” we have the problem of this book being some sort of a weird spy thing and doing extremely badly at it. Why are we wasting pages upon pages on the characters shopping for supplies at Walmart for the roadtrip? Who the shit cares about them eating pizza at the hotel? Also, the typical super girly makeover which is a must for some reason, though it is boring.
The pacing of the thing is bad.

At this point I'm done with the series. It's not a fun thing anymore, but devolved into a typical, boring thing that tries to sell a heroine to us who is simultaneously super normal, boring and relatable, but also super popular, good at everything and at the top of every single thing.

Good night and hope I find something to read that's not trash!

Newsflash, I still freaking adore this series and nobody can tell me I am wrong to do that. This book in specific, is possibly my favourite. Then again, I love all of them. But there is just something ridiculously hilarious about this one. I also love dragons.

In Las Vegas they organise the first international convention for monster hunters, so MHI needs to take part, right? Hunters work hard, party hard, earn big money they enjoy spending as well, the fight each other, because hey, they are all alpha as hell, which you need to go against unearthly powers. (Doesn't help that right next door someone has a huge gun trade show thing. Go figure.)
Then... monsters start popping up. Ones that have absolutely no place in Las Vegas. Why? How? What do we do now???

At this point we have so many cool characters and a convention is exactly the kind of place where they all can hang out and interact with each other.
Bonus points for more Mosh. He is a disaster and I love him.

Not much else to say about this, it's more like a monster-of-the-week thing with introducing a bigger context and setting things up. You could almost call it filler. BUT. It's the best kind, where you just fall in love with the characters even more than you did before. I needed it. The story needed it.
You would think we can't do much else interesting after the whole cosmic horror of book 2, but this is just different. After that stuff you hardly feel like characters can't handle this, it's still a lot of excitement and fun.

All in all, to me this is hall of fame, best stuff, highest shelf.

Recently I watched an interview with Jim and James J. Butcher, where James says, he thinks urban fantasy is a pretty good idea for not so experienced authors to kind of ease into writing and publishing books. I've never actually done it, so I don't know how accurate that is (though I have no reason to not believe him). All I know is that I like urban fantasy.
Now, not the paranormal romance where the main character has... relations with like werewolves and vampires. I don't like those.
But this is the kind I find fun.

The main character, Alex, runs a magic shop. Which could be a total scam, except he is actually magical and some of the stuff he sells actually works. He can see the future, which isn't brilliant for kicking ass and taking names, though it can be great if you are smart about it.
Right now his skills are needed by the governing body of the magical people to get to some kind of a relic they really really want to find.

Something about urban fantasy works with mystery extremely well. You don't even have to overdo the worldbuilding in your magical setting when 30% is mystery, 30% is... well, urban AND then there is the fantasy.
One of my pet peeves is when an author feels like to micro-manage their magical world, with us taking notes and having a full wall of paper clippings and red yarn with pins. Let magic be magical!
This was. The scope is limited enough for us to get a feel of the few characters we meet. There is talk of the political ways in which the magical people work. There is a lot of room to elaborate on that. But we are never swamped with unnecessary information to act like literary clutter, to make the world feel lived-in.

It's a pretty straight forward book. The way the mistery plays out is kind of fun, I really like the twist around that, but so far it's all a solid book in a genre I genuinely like. I do certainly think series like this have a tendency of becoming cooler the deeper you go, so I am excited for that. There is room for it.

All in all, very competent, fun, fast-paced. An easy read, but not because it's dumb in any way.

I know the author of this book and do some proofreading for him. My review is still 100% honest and not biased. (TBH, I would probably not proofread books I don't enjoy, so there is that as well.)

A book about a card game. That sounds pretty light-hearted, yes? We play, it's fun times. Yes, well, no. In this, playing some monster summoning card game is one of the few ways the inhabitants of the city-sized slums have a chance of making a better life for themselves. Owning a card, even a weak one, is a giant thing. But here people need to team up to have a full deck and be able to play.
Hick dreams of doing exactly that; slowly buying cards, winning games, eventually helping his dad and his younger siblings move on from poverty.
And that is pretty much what I can say without spoiling half the book.

The thing about Benedict Patrick is that he will wreck you. When something bad happens, it actually happens. When the characters have to make hard decisions, there won't be some convenient way out. So even if you feel this book can't be THAT serious... yes, well, it is.
Don't get me wrong, the book is dynamic, it has action, it has so much suspense it's unreal, but you will be constantly reminded of the weight of the things.

The lore of this is insane too. I don't know how many books there will be, but there are so many interesting things about the world we have to learn. (Trust me, I have made a whole list of questions and theories I have. I wonder how right I will be about things.)
At this point, a lot of the story was the personal struggle of Hick, his first steps on the road he chose for himself. Or the one he was given. But there are hints, some more subtle than others, about a lot of other people with agendas that are far more sinister.
But trust me. Nothing about this is a coincidence. You know how some books have this undefined lore about them, just so the world feels deeper, but we never actually find out anything real? Just namedropping. This one will not be like that. I guarantee it.

Very specific thing I have to say; if you like the pure child sidekick character, you will love one of Hick's friends. We get some really precious children like that and that is why I am always extra nervous about his books. Because we need to protect them.

All in all, an unusual premise, impeccable mood and setting, action all the way, you just know it will get even better. I definitely recommend it to everyone, eeven if you don't play any of those monster card games. The rules are explained well and the story is chef's kiss.

I got my copy from the author for free, in exchange for an honest review.

Tauheen, the Aeriel queen stuck on Earth, terrorising humans, is dead, leaving Safaa as the only ruler of their kind. You would think that solves everything, right? Well, not really, no. Her subordinates joined human gangs of criminals and things are getting confusing.

I will start out with pointing out the only thing that was a problem for me even in this book; so many names. I remembered the main people, but some of the minor ones were a bit confusing.

One of the greatest things about this series is the way the characters interact with each other. There are just so many positive relationships, like Simani and Vikram's marriage, Ashwin and Ruban constantly bickering, anyone else and Hiya. Nowadays many writers seem to think having healthy relationships is just not interesting enough, but this proves that a book can be satisfying and exciting without making everyone angsty and socially troubled.

With all that said, this had a bunch of action. You would think Tauheen was the biggest bad and there wasn't much to do after disposing of her, but the story is obviously far from over. The end game is not just getting rid of certain bad people, but Aeriels and humans somehow living together. At this point we are nowhere near there, so I think this will last a bit longer.

Ashwin/Schwaan is still the best character, not gonna lie. He is ridiculous and by now we can see he still has a huge heart. Superficially he can seem like a bit of a careless moron, but man, he is such a nice one.
Another one I was surprised to like so much was Vikram. Excitable nerd he is, which is kind of funny. Interesting to have the dynamic where he is so into Aeriel history when his own wife is supposed to hunt them. But they are such a great duo.

I would recommend this for people who enjoy mystery/detective stories and obviously, fantasy. The fantasy elements never get overwhelming, so it's great for people who are either new to the genre or not extremely into it at the moment. A solid urban fantasy read.

Some ideas are so stupid they might actually just work. That's the case with this one. The protagonist is a gigantic rooster person. We have met them in the previous book, Bantam Flyn and many others, but this goes into more detail about the gigantic anthropomorphic chicken. Aaaand I freaking loved it.

The world needs saving and a legendary monster needs slaying yet again, so Bantam Flyn, a weirdo chronicler, a giantess and Deglan team up this time to do what needs to be done. This time living dead dwarfs are involved as well, which, again, should not work. It does.

Jonathan French can sell absolutely anything to you. The creatures he uses are mostly pretty much standard fantasy and mythological ones. Seriously, you can't go more basic than giants and fairies and such, they are standard since forever. Then he does something I still can't figure out and creates the lore specific to his world around them that brings new life to borderline boring ideas. (Yes, the coburn are freaking hilariously different and at first I wasn't sure what to make of them, but the rest is really nothing that groundbreakingly original.) He has such a special touch with creating a well-populated, interesting world with all the connections and history and it really works.
Jim Butcher had an anecdote where he wrote his Codex Alera series because a dude dared him to combine Roman legions and Pokemon into an actually enjoyable and fun story that works. Mr. French could freaking do the same with anything and part of the fucked up bran I have wants him to do more and more weird stuff. Go ahead. Do it. I am curious to see what sorts of twists and turns he can create around stuff.
Because I want more. I want him to wrote more Autumn's Fall, more Grey Bastards, new stories, a million books a year because I'm already missing his creativity until his new book comes out.
He is really an author to follow. Someone you should keep your eyes on as I have no doubt he will do ridiculously interesting stuff. He has it in him.

The story here is just kind of complicated and I refuse to discuss it. You need to discover it for yourself, because I can't talk about it without making it sound a lot less amazing than it is. That's the thing about it, everything I would say sounds convoluted and stupid. Trust me, I tried explaining this book to people at work and they all just looked at me like I'm mental. But this is GOOOOOOOD.

So yeah, I'm done fangirling.

Good night and don't be a chicken, pick this up!

I had no idea this was going to be the last in the series. For some reason, I assumed it was still going, so imagine my surprise when I realised we were going into the big bad boss fight.
But that also comes with the question, does this book give us a conclusion that is satisfying?
To that I would say.... yes and no? Anyone who read any of this series would know that's probably the most you can expect from the story. It's weird. Not all of the pieces make sense and a lot of it is based on the fact that you can't trust Jack's perception of reality. Then we have Jerry, who also can't be trusted, albeit for completely different reasons.

Even still, I wasn't 100% happy. I feel like the fact this was based on some kind of a web serial plays a role in it. A bunch of it was probably random ideas that didn't always end up working in the grand scheme of the narrative, but by then it was too late to retcon everything. I get that. I understand. Yet I still feel like the very end was just a little anticlimactic.
It shouldn't be a surprise. It works with how this story works. Besides, I usually feel the same way about most horror stories. The atmosphere and mystery is what I like. The solution is usually kind of... meh?

At the end we have some chapters with the backstories of characters. God, that was so annoying. They were all so serious and supposedly emotional, but they felt tonally whacky, mismatched and absolutely forced. Like the author suddenly felt like he needed to make you understand these people who kept doing absolutely stupid shit all this time were actually tragic victims of their circumstances.
This plays into another thing I didn't understand about the series.
The interesting this about this book series is that the baseline of weird for the characters is crazy. They can see mutant raccoons and not be bothered. Handplants? Cool cool. Cosmic horror and body snatchers still make them say “wait what”, but even that is way below how you and I would react. This is just that kind of a place. Murder and death abound.
Then they lose their shit because a character offers tequila because Rosa is a Latina. It really felt like the author just needed to virtue signal just a little. My issue was the same with Calvin Ambrose. We had to make a polo-shit-khakhi-shorts huwite man character who is suddenly racist and that is FREAKY, but the fact this whole town is mega fucked is... fine? It's so inconsistent when the characters are supposedly unflappable because everything about this is bonkers.

The very end has some clever misdirection and the author obviously knows half the books made no sense, which is good. I like to see that.
I just can't say I am really happy with this whole thing.
The series at a whole is a 14/20 stars, which sounds realistic. Yeah. I am good with that.

25% and DNF.

This is a short little thing, I shouldn't just quit it like that, but I can't do this. Everything about this book makes me not want to read it at all. Sorry about that. I'm not writing the review to diss or to try to hate on this, but I do not want to forget my reasons why I got absolutely annoyed by it.

Martha Macnamara's daughter is in trouble, so she does what most of us would; calls her mother, so said mother leaves New York to meet her in San Francisco. In her posh hotel she meets a weird Asian man, named Mayland Long, who seems impossibly old for someone looking middle-aged. Once Martha's daughter, Elisabeth doesn't show up, they decide to find her.

Sounds suspenseful, hm? A mother trying to find her daughter, desperately seeking the help of a mysterious man. HAHA. Yeeeeah, no. We will have no Liam Neeson style a'la Taken. No. Martha Macnamara is an absolute airhead. Her daughter is impossible to access and she has no idea what happened to her, maybe her body is rotting in a ditch, maybe some Saw thing is happening to her. Martha... marvels on chandeliers, plays with toy cars, listens to stories about random shit told by Long. They hang out. She laughs when Long is trying to ask questions to her daughter's old acquaintance and doesn't even pay attention to the things being said.
In short, she feels like a kid with attention issues in the body of a middle-aged woman. So annoying.

But hey, the prose is actually just like the protagonist; it drifts around and makes me skim, which is not something I enjoy. But is all just feels so inconsequential, like a song that was meant to be background for something and when you pay attention, it just feels like it was written by a squirrel of average intelligence. Maybe it was a thing in the 80's that I should know about to not be some uncultured swine, I don't even know, I just feel I am not enjoying myself and that's that.
To me it's all just uncomfortable and... dare I say, pretentious?

Another thing. Miss MacAvoy obviously has her interests, like Irish mythology and Taoism and all, which is nice, but her characters keep talking about things that you will not get if you are not actually knowledgeable about the exact things she is. It makes me feel totally out of the loop. Don't get me wrong, I like looking up a few things that I hear about in books, that can be interesting, but this level of artsy prose with things I have no knowledge about mix together into a jumbled mess of nonsense to me.

As I finished the book fast, I can't say much more about the story and resolution and the overall pacing, but god, this wasn't one for me. At this point I don't feel I should keep reading when nothing at all works for me.
Not going to lie, I am a bit disappointed. I wanted to read this book for a long time and all.

So long and don't drag on! (Hurr hurr, get it? Dragon. Shoot me now, after that pun not even my mother would look for me if I disappeared. Sorry.)

4,5 stars
While I am generally not too into YA, I think I am developing a thing for middle-grade and this book was a great example of what I am looking for.
We're following an orphan (as many, many times before) named Christopher, who works as a kind, but a bit kooky apothecary, Benedict Blackthorn's apprentice. At first things seem fine, with a warm, adorable humour, but maybe they can't be all that safe when mysterious assassins are after the apothecaries of London. Things are about to turn quite dark...
While the story itself is historical fiction (1600's), it wasn't hard to follow at all, but it had some kind of old times type magic that didn't even need any of “real” magic. The mysterious ways of apothecaries in that age were absolutely brilliant for giving it that quality. Good choice there, Mr. Sands. That was probably my favourite about the whole thing; first expecting some sort of fairy powder or wizards, then realizing that while it wasn't going to have any, I didn't even miss it any longer. The balance between the historical aspects and the not too nice things in the life of the time and this magic.
I loved the characters. Some of them were sinister, some downright deceptive assholes, but none of them were grating to me. As a middle-grade book, it's safe to say you aren't going to get deep psychological studies on the human mind, but I didn't miss it at all. Other than his master, Christopher has a best friend named Tom, an eternally loyal gentle giant of a friend, who felt a bit like a balance for all the dark things happening to the boy.
As we get ahead, the story gets darker and darker. I for one appreciate that Mr. Sands dared to pull to that, to not sugarcoat things simply because he intended his book to be read mostly by kids. I'm pretty sure my younger self would have liked that. In this respect The Blackthorn Key reminded me of the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud, which is a great thing in my book. Still, keep in mind when giving this book to children; there are some pretty depressing things happening and it is about a series of murders. Just so nobody gets sleepless nights.
All in all, I LOVED it and I am hoping for a sequel. Kevin Sands, I am keeping an eye on your from now on. Things look promising.