Cassie

Thank you to Netgalley and Solaris for an early access copy

And Put Away Childish Things disappointed me a little bit if I'm being honest. The concept is a brilliant one, as I've grown a tiny bit jaded on Narnia over the years, so seeing a darker twist on it was a really enticing concept. And I think that this book would have absolutely nailed that concept, had it been a full fledged novel rather than a novella.

I'm generally a sucker for a novella, so initially I was actually glad to see that this title wouldn't be a monstrous addition to an already overwhelming tbr, but now I wish that it was that monstrous addition. Because what is here, is really good, despite being riddled with pacing issues, it just failed to click with me, or explore any of it's themes and messages deeply enough for me to feel really satisfied with them.

This review is going to be quite negative, despite the 3 star rating, so I do want to preface this by saying that my issues aren't a fault of the book for the most part, they're a fault of my personal reading tastes, and I do think that there's an audience out there for what this book has on offer, it's just not me.

Something that I really did like about the book is how it blended Portal Fantasy with Science Fiction, which (in my admittedly limited) experience with Portal Fantasy hasn't really been done before. Tchacovsky attempts to pin scientific principles to the functionality of the portal world, and does it really well in my opinion.

Reading the book was a perfectly enjoyable experience, that I was engaged with the entire time, but I ran into more issues with it the deeper I got, though none so major that I felt the desire to put the book down, and found myself reasonably content with the time I spent reading it.

The book tries to deal with a bit too much with the page count it has in my opinion. It tries to deal with listlessness, not living up to the expectations you'd set for yourself, what it means to be alive, utilitarianism etc. and this just leads to the book feeling both bloated and rushed.

The main character is likely a primary cause of this, being a passenger to the story at almost every turn, never really taking a proactive, bar making a single phone call at the mid-point of the story. His voice was at times extremely grating as well, dripping in cynicism up until a sudden turn of heart that doesn't really feel earned.
The side characters however, were delivered upon quite well. Well, two of them were. Seitchman and Timon.

Seitchman is a PI who tracks Harry down for a cult who worship the stories his grandmother wrote about a mythical land, and Timon is a faun from that land, who's fallen victim to the decay of the land. Both characters are really good, and I think the book would have benefitted from being multi-pov between Harry and Seitchman, so that we could have had an actually proactive PoV.

I thought the antagonist was really weak, as they weren't set up the best, and then when introduced, they were very moustache twirly. Tchaicovsky has done this a few times, notably in Dogs of War, but I felt like that book in particular had more to say with it's themes and messages than this one ended up having, so having a less interesting antagonist wasn't particularly an issue there. Another factor that makes this worse is that this antagonist is very interesting conceptually, but doesn't get the screentime necessary to become a truly interesting character. Again, I feel like this would have been allayed by the book being longer, as maybe we would have seen the full breadth of this character.

The world of Underhill is really interesting, presented as a Narnia-esque land in the final stages of entropy, dying out because of some mysterious reason. I would have liked to spend more time in it, but half the book is dedicated to Lockdown era London, which leads to the feeling that this was inspired, in part, by the feeling of losing months at a time to Covid due to the disruption that it caused, which is shown by the strange loss of time experienced when people travel between our world and Underhill.

I really liked the spin that Tchaicovsky on the “always winter” angle, with the snow not actually being snow, instead being some kind of strange fungus that's coating the land as a result of the decay that it's undergoing.

The prose is fine, it's nothing particularly to write home about, however, I could be getting swayed by the fact that my ARC had quite a few grammar issues in it, and the typesetting wasn't fantastic. So, I won't comment too much on the prose for that reason.

Another issue that I had was the pacing, which was a little bit too breakneck for my taste. The pacing it had would have worked better for a different book in my opinion, because again, it just tries to tackle a bit too much for it's own good, so you'll be introduced to something, and ferried along before you really get to experience it properly, which was a massive shame, as there were questions and concepts raised that I would have loved to see fully explored. From my experience with Dogs of War, this seems to be the style of pacing that Tchaicovsky likes to employ, however, it just didn't really click with me all that well.

The last thing I want to touch on, while admittedly not that important, is the cover. I don't like it. I think it's really boring and generic, which is a damn shame because I feel like you could have done quite a few extravagant and eye catching things with the story, such as an art piece showing off the decaying Underhill, but instead we're left with a rather boring cover that screams “bad Narnia rip off” The colour scheme looks very nice however, so I feel like the book will, at the very least, look nice on the shelf if you get it physically.

In short, the book failed to deliver on the promises it makes in the depth that I would have liked, and has a really annoying and passive protagonist, however if you don't need deep exploration of themes, and enjoy Portal Fantasy, and the theoretical science behind it, I would recommend this book. For me it sits solidly at a 3/5, because despite my misgivings, it was still a fairly enjoyable read

Prequels aren't usually my jam. More often than not I find them to over eager to remind you of the stories that came before, and neglecting to forge a personality of their own. Needless to say, I was thrilled when not only did A Day of Fallen Night manage to be an amazing book in it's own right, but eclipse Priory entirely.

This book answered every single issue that I had with Priory, and then elevated itself even further in my eyes. The plot is stellar, which is really impressive, considering anyone who read Priory, knew how this was going to go, almost beat for beat, yet Shannon manages to weave the story in such a way that you're kept guessing on the finer details all the way up until to the end.

Every single character jumps off the page, and if I was to sit here and gush about each of them, I'd probably end up hitting the character limit on Goodreads. So, I'll just gush about each of the PoVs for a bit, because they all slap. One takes a little bit to get going, but when it got going, it was one of the first to become a consistent page turner for me.
First, you have Gloria. Gloria is the Berethnet heir, and is reluctant to do the duty that her line has, to bear an heir, and keep the Nameless One at bay. The daughter of the first good Berethnet in living memory, and a heathen king, Gloria is an extremely strong willed character, who goes on an extremely emotional journey throughout this book, being forced to come into her own by the grief of ages. While she is in my opinion, the weakest of the 4 PoVs, that's by no means a dishonor to her, as she is phenomenally well written, and in my opinion eclipses all of the PoVs from the previous book.

Secondly there's Dumai. Dumai is the answer to my dislike of Tane's PoV from the previous book, that the East didn't have good representation in that book, whereas here, the East shines, and allows us to finally get a good idea of the culture of the Seiikinese, something I felt was lacking from Priory. On top of that is her romance plot, which is my favourite in the series, not to mention just outright being one of my favourite romances in fantasy overall. Dumai is a temple keeper, who is the daughter of the emperor, kept in hiding in a mountain shrine.

Thirdly, there's Wulf. We stan Wulf in this household. Wulf is an orphan who was adopted by a lord, but has to contend with the whispers that he's the spawn of a witch, due to him being found in the Witchwood as a child. He brings this fascinating perspective on the Six Virtues, as he always feels like he has one foot in and one foot out. Couple that with the mystery surrounding him, and you have the recipe for a genuinely amazing character to follow.

And lastly, we have Tuva. Tuva has my entire heart. This, this right here, is the best character between the two books. Tuva is an older member of the Priory, and the keeper of the tomb. She acts as a mother to her lover's daughter, who bears her name. This is because of the loss of her own child years before the story. Something awesome about this character is that she's older lesbian rep, something that I don't think I've ever seen before, so that's a pretty big feather in her cap. But on top of that, she's just an amazingly well written character. It was like this book was made explicitly so that Shannon could tell her story, and I'm delighted about that, because I adore her so so much. One of my favourite characters in literature, by a country mile.

As I said before, I could gush for ages about the characters in this book, but we'd be here for far too long, because there's just that many great characters throughout. I would recommend this book to people just for the character's alone, so everything else being just as good is just a bonus.

The story itself is amazing. Shannon used the structure of this novel to create this really slow burn plot that explodes all of a sudden, that's only enhanced by having read Priory first, and knowing the battles that are to come. The way she interwove the personal struggles of the characters into the overall throughline of the book was genuinely marvelous. The fact that she was able to convincingly interweave all of the PoVs as well was stellar. Fyredel as a villain is fantastic, and this book really allows us to see why dragons are so feared, much more so than Priory did, in my opinion.
And then there's the worldbuilding. This book not only has really solid explicit worldbuilding, but if you've read Priory, it also has amazing subtle worldbuilding, as you can spy really small cultural changes, such as the fact that the twelve virtues is only six virtues here, implying that over the next 500 years another 6 get added, only enhancing the fact that the religion Virtudom is built on is kind of wishy washy and bullshit. There's also the major cultural differences that the East has, due to the water dragons falling into a slumber years before the story.

And the romance is so good. I thought Ead and Sab were good, but both romances in this book were so well written, one being a really solid slow burn romance that's just burgeoning, and the other being a romance that's been a reality for the two characters for decades at this point, but is still really strong throughout. On top of both of these, whenever there's characters in a relationship, they're written in such a way that you can tell they love each other, and it doesn't feel like them being together is a contrivance for the sake of the story, which is such a breath of fresh air, since a lot of fantasy will write characters that seemingly hate being in their relationship, but will swear up and down that they're happy together.

On top of that, Shannon writes spice really well, though it isn't ACOTAR levels of spice, it's there, and it's fantastic. It doesn't dominate the chapters it's in, but it's portrayed in a realistic manner, and used to show the personalities of the characters, with the way they approach sex reflecting the way they approach everything in life

Then there's the battle scenes. Iw alked away from Priory really disappointed, because the final battle of the book sucked. But that's not the case here. Everytime there's a major battle, it has awesome moments, where every major character involved is given a moment to shine, and I couldn't have been happier about that. This book is host to one of my favourite fight scenes I think I've ever read, that being Fyredel making a delivery of some bones.

Overall, I fucking adored this book, please read it. Even if you didn't enjoy Priory, I think there's something here for you, since this one answered every single issue I had with it, and then some. 5/5 stars, this was a journey I was loathe to see the end of. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Roots of Chaos, but if this is any indication, it's a very bright one.

Warm Up acts as a prequel novelette to the Vengeful series, and it has me very intrigued to carry on to that series. I've definitely seen better prologues written, but this one definitely paints an intriguing enough picture that I'm going to continue into the main series.

The MC, David is pretty decent, having a unique ability and backstory that sets the stakes for the kind of power that people can possess within the universe, so I'm excited to see the heights to which that's taken in the mainline books.

3/5 stars, it's solid, but I've seen better introductions.

Hoo boy. Priory of the Orange Tree was a book that had a lot to live up to. This book has one of the most evangelical fanbases that I've ever experienced, so in my mind that meant there had to be something to it, that it was going to be this phenomenal book that would never leave me when I finished it. Then, in the buildup to the release of it's prequel, dissenting opinions began to arise, decrying the pacing, complaining about the YA nature of it, saying Shannon's prose was weak. And I'll admit, I put the book off because of those opinions. I really shouldn't have. Priory of the Orange Tree slaps, despite it's issues (some of which I've already mentioned), and I wish that I'd read it much sooner than I did.

I adore the world of the book, and how Shannon has managed to weave a thoroughly convincing history into the world, even down to how that history has been rewritten. The magic system, the unique cultures, both the systems of faith, and the methods in which they're governed all feel well developed and thought out, which is no mean feat for how short a time she has relative to other contemporaries. In just 800 pages, she manages to flesh out 3 different cultures, and touch on 2 others, all the while pushing the story forward with every single page. I've seen other authors struggle to do less in longer series, so I was pleasantly surprised by how she nailed the cultures in this book, as I didn't expect them to be this well developed when I started reading it.

I particularly enjoyed how the Inysh culture developed throughout the book, as they have a really unique religion, where they're ruled by a line of Queens who's bloodline keeps an ancient evil at bay as long as it goes on. Seeing the culture be challenged by the events of the book was an absolute treat, and left Inysh the most developed of all the cultures by the end, both in part due to the amount of time spent in that culture, and it's importance upon world politics within the story.

The characters are second to none, having no characters that I thought were bad. There were characters who I hated fairly distinctly, but for the most part, those were characters you were meant to hate. The way Shannon writes character arts is one that I really appreciate when I see it, since it feels much more real, and I'm glad that it's so common in modern fantasy. Characters don't let their guard down around people they don't know, so it takes time for you to see their true character, which gives you a huge amount of insight to the kind of person that they are.
Of particular note is Sabran, who at the beginning of the book, was my most hated character. I couldn't stand how rude and arrogant she was to Ead, the PoV character who's chapters Sabran appeared in. But by the end of the book, Sabran was one of, if not my favourite, characters in the book. Seeing her worldview and values be challenged and warped by the events of the book was stellar, every event slowly cracking the façade that she'd put around herself. It was masterfully done, and her ending felt so earned. I'll gladly admit to crying at the last chapter she was in.

Most of the PoVs are fantastic, with one particular exception. Ead, Loth and Niclays are all excellent, though Niclays is a bastard and I hate him. Tané however, was at best, mildly interesting, and at her worst, a total slog to read. She is probably the worst character in the book, having a neutered amalgamation of multiple other character's arcs, with very little to set her apart, and the personality of a wet rag. It took nearly the entire book for her to get moderately enjoyable, and she never rose higher than that. The only saving grace of her chapters was getting to see the Eastern culture be developed upon, as she was the only PoV who was born and raised in it, so she was realistically our only glimpse into the inner workings of the culture. I genuinely believe that Tané is the single reason that people drop this book in the early stages, as she's so dry to read, which is doubly impressive, considering her culture is based heavily around water.

The romance in the book is phenomenal. I haven't been this invested in a romance in a fantasy story in years. As a matter of fact, I can't recall what the last romance I was invested in was. It's a sapphic slow burn romance, and I ate that shit up. It could have ended up feeling very forced, but Shannon does a phenomenal job of selling the reader on it, making it feel extremely authentic.

I only have one more gripe with the book, though it's a massive spoiler, so read on at your own risk. If you do decide to not read on, I recommend the book, it's really good. Anyway, onto the spoiler.

The final battle of the book, that it spends 700+ pages building up to, amounted to a grand total of 40 something pages. This on it's own wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and I'm not looking for a Wheel of Time length final battle, but it just felt rushed. There were much more minor parts of the book that had more page time, which sucks. But on top of this, it was just kind of mediocre. The character moments were pretty decent, but there was so few epic moments in the battle itself, that it didn't lend itself to the buildup it had received in the slightest.

I'm actually surprised that I don't hear more about this, as I personally felt extremely let down when I reached this, so it shocks me that nobody else has seemingly shared this opinion. I really do think it could have benefitted from about 20-30 pages more, since the books already really long, so what would the harm have been in ensuring that the battle was the best part of the book. It's ultimately not so much of an issue that I dislike the book, but I was definitely disappointed by that aspect of the book.

Overall, as I said before, you should get this book, it's fantastic. It's part of a series now, but you can read it as a standalone, and it will 100% work well as one. 4.5/5 Stars

Secret Project 2 was definitely the book out of the 4 that I was least hyped for. Despite having an interesting premise, I didn't really know what it was the book was going to be trying to deliver on, even after reading the preview that Sanderson released last year.

It's been two days since I finished the book, and if I was to be completely honest, I still don't really know where it lands for me. On the one hand, it was a total page turner, but in the sense that I wanted to see where the story went out of curiosity, as opposed to out of love for the story being told. And despite the fact that it never actually got all that exciting to read, I was still disappointed to be finished with the book, as I wanted to spend more time with the few side characters that managed to hold my attention, and the world that I felt wasn't explored to the fullest of its potential.

So I don't fully understand my feelings on the book. I'm left feeling really conflicted about whether I enjoyed it or not, because on the one hand, I don't regret reading it, and had a pretty decent time with it, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The rest of this is gonna be a little rambly, since I'm gonna try and put my feelings to paper (sort of) to maybe get a better grip on them.

First things first, lets talk positives, because there's a good chunk to like here. The setting/concept is cool. I group them because it's impossible to divorce one from the other. It's top tier. It's a very cool idea that I've never seen done before, and scratches my itch of wanting read more Sci-fi that has cool concepts without getting really heady. It also manages to interweave fantasy in fun ways, which I can really appreciate. The historical accuracy of the setting seems fantastic, albeit with some creative liberties that make sense with the rules the books establishes.

Then there's the art that's done throughout the book. It's not the beautiful tapestries that we saw with Tress, but my god, do these look good. There's a solid variety of art pieces, one set tells a story, others are at the top of chapters of the in universe manual, some are just traditional art depicting a scene from the last few pages. Steve Argyle absolutely killed it in every regard. I'm hyped as hell to get my physical copy so that I can actually see them put to paper, because hoo boy are they great.

I'm personally not jazzed with the cover, as I think it's a bit mid, but all the interior art makes up for that by a mile (and who knows, the physical edition might sway me, I'll include an edit when I get it).

And lastly, some of the side characters are excellent. Mainly Ealstan and Sefawynn. There's some other pretty good ones, but I can't mention them because spoilers. Sefawynn is definitely my favourite character in the book. I like her strong personality and no nonsense attitude that she displays throughout. Her character arc was the only one that I was even remotely invested in, as I wanted to see how she'd overcome her confidence issues.

Other than that, I don't really vibe with anything else in the book to the point where I'd count it as something I liked. The story itself was kinda mediocre, since it just ends up becoming a fairly generic behind enemy lines cop thriller, except we don't follow the cop. We follow his friend, who sort of just bumbled into the whole thing.

Then there's most of the characters. They're either bland and forgettable, or downright shit. For instance, the main villain of the story is the most generic gang leader I've ever read. It's like he was ripped right out of a James Patterson novel, and put into an actually good authors work. Others are just a total drain, like Ryan (Fuck Ryan, all my homies hate Ryan), or just don't have enough screentime to make any meaningful impact on the experience.

But the worst offender, by a country mile, is Johnny, our (un)lovable protagonist. I hate Johnny, and I think he's a big reason behind why I didn't connect with the book as much as I'd have liked. Johnny's a whiny, needy little twat, who thankfully, actually has an arc of some description, but that arcs dire. I have never been less invested in a Sanderson character than I was with Johnny. I genuinely believe that he's one of, if not the worst, protagonist Sanderson has ever written. I hated him, and was glad to be out of his head by the end.

Then there's the pacing of the book. It never felt like it picked up, while also feeling like it went too quick. The book just sort of lackadaisically plodded along, like the story was actively bogging itself down attempting to prevent itself from getting to the point, and then when it finally did, it just speedran towards the most predictable ending that it could have possibly hit. We didn't even really get a satisfying conclusion to the main throughline, as the villain ended up just leaving, and that was that. There was a lot of really solid potential with certain twists, that weren't really set up that well beforehand, (with one exception being the wight that follows Johnny), and overall, the plot left me thoroughly whelmed. Again, this is something that I feel actually stems from Johnny being a shit PoV, because the more interesting parts of the Sanderlanche, happen to 2 other characters, with Johnny just winning a pretty meh fight.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't think that the world got explored to the fullest of its capabilities. Dan Wells has expressed interest in continuing the series, and I'd definitely be intrigued to see more of it, both dealing with the universe Johnny visited, and other potential time periods that are being monetized. I think there's a lot of mileage in the concept, I just wish we'd gone further in this book.

And if I'm being honest, that could be one of my issues with the book overall. I feel like it could have been a lot longer, and actually expanded on the really interesting ideas that were presented throughout the book, like the religions and the magic, but ultimately we didn't really get a whole lot of expansion on any of these things, except being told that they exist, which is a massive shame.

I could also see this dimension being used to explore the entire world, as we see characters from the Middle East and Asia at different points in the book, so I'm definitely not soured on the idea or the world, I just wish it had been handled differently, and perhaps, had this not been a side project for Sanderson, it would have been, but alas, here we are.

All in all, the book is a mixed bag. It doesn't break the streak that Sanderson has for me of never writing a bad book, but it is another one of his rare mediocre books. It's propped up quite a bit by the obvious love that Steve Argyle put into it. But I didn't connect with the plot, or the characters, with key exceptions that did prevent this book from being terrible. I would say, out of all the ones that I've read, this is probably Sandersons worst book, but it's still very far from a bad one. 2.5/5 stars.

Siege and Storm is the second book in the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and it is the dictionary definition of middle book syndrome. This book brings so little to the table it is genuinely a Herculean feat.

The story starts out a few weeks following Shadow and Bone's ending, with Mal and Alina on a boat bound for Kerch, ready to start a life away from the clutches of the Darkling, and bide their time to return and stop him. This plan is put out to pasture almost immediately however, as they're tracked down almost instantly to the inn that they've been staying at, and recaptured.

The Darkling now has the ability to summon creatures using his powers, and the Grisha are even more under his thumb than ever following Alina's escape from him. As he's transporting Alina back to Ravka, with the help of a pirate he's hired, he tells her that they're going to be getting her another of Morozova's amplifiers, this time from a mythical sea-serpent, which is a shock to both the reader and Alina, as Grisha have historically only ever had one amplifier.

With the help of the pirate working for the Darkling, the serpent is tracked down and brought low, but then the pirate betrays the Darkling and helps Alina escape from his clutches, stealing the serpent from him in the process as well. Alina then kills the serpent, taking her second amplifier, but this time it's fully in her control.

This all happens in the first 60 or so pages of the book, so by this point, I was ready for a book that was absolutely jam packed with action. But, alas, that wasn't what I was to get from this book. Instead, Alina returns to court to mope about and pretend to lead the Grisha for about 250 pages, while dealing with some of the most irritatingly dumb relationship problems that I've had the misfortune to read for a while.

Her and Mal go through around 3 arguments in this book, and all of them are easily avoided if they just spoke to each other. But no, that would require these characters to have an ounce of spine to them for even a second. Communication issues are a very real thing in relationship, but they're almost never enjoyable to read about, instead just being this really banal piece of storytelling that's frustrating to read.

But hey, at least we get court politics, which were a highlight of the last book, but again, no such luck. Alina takes almost no action of worth throughout this book, instead allowing everybody else to be a driving force behind her in court. This just felt like a carbon copy of the last books court drama, but much more rote and tedious. We keep getting the excuse that she's hunting for the last of Morozova's amplifiers, but that goes absolutely nowhere for the entire book.

But of important note is just how mediocre of a protagonist Alina actually is throughout this book. She, for some mental reason, is still hung up on the Darkling. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently Alina is red-green colourblind, so the massacre of innocents is A-ok to her. What this leads to is this bizarre love-quadrangle between her, Mal, the Darkling, and Nikolai, but we all know who'll she end up with by the end. If I'm being honest, I could have dealt with an Alina/Mal/Nikolai triangle, but the books insistence that she would have any continued interest in the Darkling is fucking baffling, as by this point, his only redeeming quality is being attractive, and even that's becoming less true as he uses his power more.

But the worst part of this book, by far and away, is that by the end of it, I was genuinely confused why this series was a trilogy. The majority of this book was an utter waste of time and energy, and were I not positive that there's greener pastures ahead in the series, I wouldn't be continuing after this shift show of a book.

And then there's the ending to the book. I hated it. It was so insanely boring, and made the rest of the book even more pointless, as it effectively wiped the slate entirely clean, leaving me confused as to why there even needed to be a middle book. On top of that, there was a major asspull that I really disliked, but I'm going to refrain from going into too much detail because of spoilers

My recommendation is going to be contingent on whether or not book 3 is good, so I'll edit this review after having finished that, but this book just wasn't it. 2/5 stars, with it being saved from being 1-star just by virtue of how enjoyable the opening to the book was.

EDIT: After finishing Ruin & Rising, I can fully recommend this book. This was a hiccup, not an indication of things to come ^^

Mistborn Era 2 has been a mixed bag in many ways. While I've thoroughly enjoyed it, it's always felt a tiny bit out of place in the grand scheme of the Cosmere. That's likely due to the fact that, much like the Secret Projects releasing this year, these books were born out of Brandon accidentally writing a trilogy.
Alloy of Law was originally meant to be a novella, and the Bands of Mourning was written to get over writer's block for Shadows of Self.
The books themselves have been thoroughly enjoyable, giving a nice break to the at the time consistently high stakes stories that Brandon had been writing, but again, they felt like they lacked direction. Pair this with 7 years of delays, and The Lost Metal was a book to be cautiously optimistic about. Brandon had never let us down, but he'd also seemingly never had this much trouble writing a book.

So, as I wrapped up my time with The Lost Metal, and said goodbye to Era 2, I couldn't have been happier with how it turned out. Perhaps a few months from now, my love for it will soften, and I'll look back on it a bit more harshly, but as of now, this sits very high up in my rankings for the Cosmere novels that we've gotten.

Issues that I had with Era 2 have been resolved, both in Sanderson's technical skill, and the characters within the pages.

Sanderson's prose is lightyears better than in previous Era 2 entries, showing just how much he's improved as an author. He still has his easy to follow prose, but will throw in some genuinely beautiful lines here and there.

But where he really shines, is the characters. Each one feels more defined than they ever had, as previously they had relatively simple characterizations, (with the exception of Wayne, who in my opinion, always had the most depth out of the whole cast) and never really sold me on their motivations as much as other characters in the Cosmere.

However, in this one, every character feels well thought out, each action they take deliberately written to further their character. There's two in particular that really grabbed my as I read.

The first is Wayne. Wayne continues to be an absolute gem, consistently making me laugh, and then following it up with an absolute gut punch. His self hatred is palpable, and at points, genuinely distressing to read. Sanderson thankfully solved his creepiness towards Ranette in a way that doesn't excuse, but explains it, and allows the character to genuinely grow from it.

The second is Steris. Prior to this, Steris was my favourite Sanderson character, not because of her amazing arc, or epic moments, but just because she was so pleasant to read. I was able to see myself in her self doubt in prior books, and her being accepted by her close knit circle was some of my favourite character work that Sanderson had done. However, in this book, it's taken to a whole new level. She's learned to accept herself, but doesn't think she has the ability to thrive in society, and when she's thrust into the spotlight, she doesn't really know how to handle it. Watching her grow in this book was one of my favourite parts of the book.

The early pacing is definitely something that I can see being a turn off to some readers, since Sanderson doesn't take any time setting the scene, and just puts the pedal to the metal from the word go, and doesn't stop until the book ends. This was definitely jarring when I was reading it, but I ultimately think it was the right call for the book, since I don't think it needed the usual Sanderson setup.

The absolute best part of the book, was the Cosmere links. Prior to the release of the book, Sanderson said that the gloves were coming off with Lost Metal, and by god, was that man not lying.

This is the book that is most densely backed with Cosmere crossovers, and it's glorious. We get more revelations about the nature of the Cosmere, and the events taking place in it than we do in half the Cosmere stories combined, and I can't get enough of it.

We got conclusions to stories that I never though we'd see any more of, including The Emperor's Soul, and even get hints towards worlds we're yet to see.

I don't think a Cosmere book has ever left me with more new questions about the future of the series, and I'm here for it. If this is how the gloves coming off starts off, I can't wait to see the state of the Cosmere 5 years from now.

This was a fantastic way to end Era 2, dripping with exciting setup for Era 3, while still feeling like a complete story that fits perfectly within the Cosmere. The potential for the future of Mistborn is massive, and I'm here for it.

All in all, this book is one of my favourites from Sanderson, and I can't wait to see how Era 3 shapes up when we get it, since I feel like it's going to be his best series yet.

Soul Music is the third entry in the Death sub-series of Discworld, and marks a low point in my journey with the character. This book was at some points a legitimate slog to make it through, but when it hit its stride, it hit heights that I wasn't quite expecting from it.

The book opens with Death reaping Mort and Ysabell from the first Death novel, intermingled with scenes of their daughter, Susan, receiving the news. Death, reeling from having to kill his daughter and former apprentice, goes off on a journey to understand the purpose of life, and by extension the Duty. This leaves an opening that has to be filled, or else the events of Reaper Man might be repeated, so Susan is forced to take up the mantle, and do the job in Death's stead.

Meanwhile, a young man arrives in Ankh-Morpork, looking to be the world's greatest musician, and with the help of a powerful magical guitar, takes the city by storm, creating a new type of music. Music with rocks in it.

It's not really accurate to call this a Death novel if I'm being honest, as he has extremely little screentime in this, with the focus sitting squarely on Susan, who, despite being a fairly solid character, doesn't bring much new to the table, as her arc is a sort of retreading of Mort's arc. It's concluded in a different way, but the steps that got us there felt very similar.

Despite being content with how Death was handled, I would have loved to see more of his journey of self discovery, as each of those scenes were highlights of the book, and only served to strengthen my absolute adoration of the character.

I really enjoyed getting a more in depth dive into Ankh Morpork's culture, as so far, all I've read has been Death, so I haven't really had an opportunity to get a grasp on what the city was like, so getting Buddy's PoV as he also has to learn about was a really good introduction to the culture of the city. The guilds were a definite highlight of the book.

Something I didn't really connect with was the satire of the book. I didn't think it was quite as clever as the previous two, and I think that's down to the fact that it's laser focused on one specific topic, making the humour feel really inflexible at times. It felt like it was relying on a lot of in jokes for a specific community, which is a shame, though when it was at it's best, it shone as brightly as the other works I've read from him.

The biggest issue with this book has to be the fact that it absolutely refused to go anywhere for a good quarter of it's page count. I understand that it's introducing a new character to the readers, but oh my lord, I was bored shitless for a good chunk of the book. It was definitely funny, and it had a few highlights here and there, but overall, it's early pacing was just really sluggish, which was a massive issue for me, especially since I started this the same day I finished Reaper Man, which had exceptionally tight pacing.

The middle section wasn't much better, as there's a subplot going on throughout the book, where Ridcully is trying desperately to understand the science behind Music with rocks in it. But this kicks off pages after we get a perfectly sufficient explanation from Death about what's going on. Overall, the entire wizard aspect of this book was fairly monotonous, and I feel like it getting trimmed down to their newfound obsession with the music would have probably led to the entire book flowing in a much better manner overall.

The conclusion of the book was genuinely the only point where I was content with the pacing of the story, as I felt like it wasn't missing a beat there. There wasn't any plodding along. It had a point, and it made sure to get to it before the reader got bored of it.

Despite my issues with the book, I still walked away having enjoyed my time with the book, though I'm beginning to expect that it's going to be nigh on impossible for me to not enjoy a Pratchett novel to some degree, as they're just utterly wonderful. It's a solid 3.5 stars, and despite my issues, I still fully recommend this book.

This book has been advertised by the community really poorly. Fans of the series will swear up and down that it's what Grim Dark is meant to be, and that it's this extremely gritty series, that pulls no punches. While yes, I agree that it has some heavy hitting moments, this is by no means the darkest book I've read, nor does it really feel particularly Grim Dark.

And this is to the books benefit in my opinion. I can't imagine a change that would have made the book better for me, however, for some readers, the lack of momentum on the plot will be massive turnoff that will be difficult to get over. This book is all about the character work, and it shines. The Blade Itself has some of the most well realized characters that I've ever read in fantasy, with Abercrombie deftly turning them on their heads regularly, completely shifting your perspective on them, without it ever feeling like a betrayal of the character that we'd seen up until this point.

I'd give a basic synopsis of the plot, but there isn't really much to talk about that isn't in the blurb on the back of the book. Most books will move past the blurb, but TBI doesn't until the last two or three chapters. And again, for a lot of people, this will be crippling for their enjoyment of the story.

I've been told this improves by the end of the series, which is good, since a full trilogy with that slow of a story would have been an issue for me. But this book feels like an extended prologue, that wants to spend it's time establishing the characters so that when the shit hits the fan, you already know who's who.

The writing is stellar, the prose rarely does anything too special, but the dry wit that's regularly on display is excellent. There were multiple jokes that had me needing to put the book down while I waited for a laughing fit to subside. On top of that, every single PoV character has a distinct voice that separates them from the other members of the sizable cast. By the end of the book, you'll have been in the head of 6 different characters.

On top of that, Abercrombie's choice of character for certain events is pristine. He'll show you an event from the PoV of a character that you weren't expecting to see it from, and in doing so, will elevate the event above what it otherwise would have been. A prime example of this is when a character is trying to gain access to a city, and you would have expected to see it from that character's PoV, but instead, it's delivered from another characters view, allowing you to see the reasonable doubt they display about these newcomers, while also enhancing a side character in the eyes of the reader.

Overall, I'm gonna rate the book a solid 4.5/5. I'd like to see more progress made in the story in future installments, and if Abercrombie keeps the same quality of character writing while delivering on that, they'll likely land a full 5 stars, because this book was fantastic.

Before They Are Hanged is a book that I have a hard time putting my feelings on into words. This book was certainly an enjoyable one, but I have some pretty major frustrations with it after my time spent with it.

But, let's start with the positives first, as those outweigh the negatives by a fairly large margin.
The characters are still absolutely stellar, much like they were in The Blade Itself, each PoV character having an extremely strong voice in their inner monologue, giving you a more defined feeling of who they were.
A
s per the last book, Glokta remains my favourite, and if he carries on this way in Last Argument Of Kings, he'll end the series as my favourite character. But, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jezal, who earns the most improved award, this time actually having some semblance of a character arc, which is genuinely very entertaining to read, albeit rather tropey.

This is great, since in TBI, he was a bit of a tool, and his chapters could occasionally turn into slogs if it was just him pottering about. This time he feels like a centerpiece for his chapters, instead of something that we're forced to endure while he experiences other people doing things.
Logen's old band is also a standout in this book, despite their minimal page time, and I'm very excited to see more from them throughout Book 3

The expansions to the world in the book are also a joy. We get more of an insight into the North, though I do wish that we were able to see more of an advancement of that plot however, as barring one major event following a hike in the woods, there really wasn't much going on in the North.

The journey west was a really enjoyable romp, with some super enjoyable action sequences, and fantastic worldbuilding, both for the history of the world, and the magic system.

Then there's Glokta's journey to Dagoska to fend off the Gurkish hordes was my favourite part of the book however. I love politics in fantasy, so seeing court politics in the middle of a siege was really fun, especially with Glokta's sardonic running commentary. This combined with further insights into his personal history made this a really fun section for me to read.

Other than that, there's the same usual positives for First Law. The dialogue is tight, and at times out right hilarious, the prose is solid, and it's pacing is perfect. But I do have a major issue with the book.

Ending spoilers are gonna follow, so I recommend not reading past here if you're yet to read the book. 4.5 stars out 5, I highly recommend reading it.
Anyway, onto the mini rant.

Why was a huge portion of the book wasted on the quest for the Seed, only for it to mean literally nothing at the end. I genuinely felt a little robbed of my time after reaching that twist. I get it, Macguffins fucking suck. They're almost never done well, so this is a twisting of that trope. But my god, it wasn't done well in this book in my opinion. Obviously my feelings on this are subject to change depending on how LAOK handles the fallout from this, but this being pulled didn't make me all that desperate for book 3. I'm still going to continue, as I have heard nothing but praise for the ending, but holy shit, I hated the conclusion to that story, especially considering it was the one I was most interested in.

Royal Assassin is one of the best that I've ever read. I didn't think that Hobb would be able to so decidedly top the already amazing Assassin's Apprentice, but here I am, basking in the fact that she made her previous work look almost amateurish in comparison. She's opened my eyes to parts of her books that I didn't even realize appealed to me, and doubled down on the aspects that I loved.

First things first, let's get the prose section out of the way. If you're at all familiar with Hobb's work, you'll know what you're getting with this. She doesn't do purple prose, but she does exceptionally well crafted prose that enriches the text at every step. Some of the lines that she drops into this book wracked me full of sobs because of the sheer power of the writing. Dialogue is also a massive strength of hers, every single character feeling like their dialect and delivery has been painstakingly considered. Of special note is the Fool, who's every line feels like it's been meticulously crafted to get your mind racing about the possible meaning behind his cryptic speech.

Then there's the story. First off, the court politics. They're so much better in this than they were in Assassin's Apprentice, since Fitz is so much more observant and alert, and finally begins to take a more proactive approach when it comes to involving himself in them. We actually get the opportunity to really see the man behind the curtain, and it's fantastic. But even then, Hobb uses this newfound agency and observant nature as a fog for the reader, blindsiding us with twists that are brilliantly crafted and that she practically screams at both us and Fitz, but neither notice because we don't have the experience the world required to see them. I found myself regularly blindsided by the twists the story took in regards to the court.

But that's only a small part of the whole, and of equal note in my opinion is her handling of the magic systems. If I was to complain in the first book, it would have been the underdevelopment of the magic system, but I was under no illusions that that would be the case for the rest of the series. In this book we have extended periods of time coming to grips with both the Wit and the Skill, and these are also used to give us broader of the characters that surround Fitz, both old and new. These have the potential to be one of the most interesting magic systems that I've ever encountered, and I'm so excited to see how they're expanded upon in Assassin's Quest.

I also really enjoyed how she did combat. If it's small brawls we get the whole thing with almost every detail, but if it's larger scale battles, we get the initial burst, and then a smash cut to the aftermath, the reasoning being that Fitz loses himself in the battle and his future self can't recall the nitty-gritty. I really enjoyed this way of doing large battles, since in some fantasy, the fights can begin to drag on after a while, so this method sates our appetite while not burning us out on the combat.

And then there's the characters. I could probably write a full essay on my love for the characters here, but I don't want this section to drag, so I'm gonna briefly touch on the standouts. But, before I do, I just want to say, there isn't a single character that I dislike in this book. There's ones I hate, but they're still solid characters when all is said and done.

Something that I really appreciated about the book was Hobb's ability to write off screen character arcs that work really well. For instance, Hands was a prick last book, and I didn't like him. But throughout the book, he undergoes a character arc in the background that completely transforms him to be a much more tolerable person, and we don't see the journey, just the slow transition of the character as Fitz notices him around the stable, and when finally we see an interaction with him, his arc has been completed, and it doesn't feel like whiplash from a sudden character shift.

For the characters we do see the arc for, Fitz has to be talked about. Fitz' journey throughout this entire book is one of the most cathartic, yet still painful, arcs that I've ever read. We finally see him begin to come into his own, while weathering painful setbacks and losses, and growing from each one. He's an incredibly well crafted character, and is honestly one of the bests PoVs in fantasy. I don't want to spoil too much of his journey, but this isn't the Fitz we once knew, who was placid and tried to fade into the background. His heritage plays a large part in his story now, coming to the forefront rather than being an insult to put him down.

Verity is a standout as well, as we finally get to know the reclusive King-in-waiting, destroying himself to save his kingdom. He's one of my favourite characters in the book, and steals every scene that he's in.

Burrich is just as good, if not better than he was in the prior book, and is just my favourite character in the series so far. His devotion to Fitz is beautifully written, and the pain that he carries with him is heart wrenching the few times he shows it. I adore him so much.

Then lastly, there's Regal. I hate Regal. He's an inhuman spiteful little shit. He makes Ramsay Snow look like a kitten in comparison. He is one of the most evil characters that I've ever read. He draws genuine fury out of me so often it's shocking. I have had to put the book down for a bit to calm down after he's done something. I'm desperately hoping to see a very brutal and drawn out end for him in the last book.

I've barely touched on the characters, but they're all phenomenal, and I don't know how Hobb nailed each one so perfectly. There's still Nighteyes, Molly, Patience, Kettricken, the Fool, Rosemary, Chade, the list just goes on and on, and it's great. Just for the characters alone, you should read it.

The world is also expanded in staggering ways. We get more of the history, both political and mythological. But mainly, we get the current political climate shown to us, through Fitz' work as a kings man. We're introduced to new leaders, and get our first glimpses at what the raiders true motivations might be, whilst also being shown that not all Outislanders are scumbags. It's wonderfully executed, and as with Assassin's Apprentice, leaves me parched for more, since no amount will satiate my desire to see the wonders hidden in the world.

The only major thing that I can say might be an issue for people is the pacing. This book is slow as shit. I really appreciated that about, but I've been told before that I don't have the best gauge for what good pacing in a story is, since I can just sit there and read character moments ad nauseum if they're done well enough, which as I said before, they all are. That being said, the pacing won't be an issue for people until the middle of the book, since the beginning is actually really fast paced.

Overall, this was an absolutely perfect book in my opinion, and I'm gonna be recommending this to anyone who'll bother listening to me about it. 5/5 stars, but only because I can't give it more.

Storm Front really disappointed me. This is the first book in the Dresden Files, and it has a reputation online for being incredibly mediocre, and even still, I felt let down by it. Despite being compulsively readable, this book doesn't rally manage to tell that solid of a story due to a number of small issues compounding together to bog the book down. I'm still going to continue with the series, but as of right now, I'm going to struggle to recommend it to people, as I don't have many positive thoughts on this book.

The first major issue that I have is the characters. They're, to be quite frank, shit. By the end of the book, I couldn't point to a single character that I genuinely enjoyed reading about, as most of them fit neatly into generic archetypes and never grow past them throughout the story. This is doubly true for female characters, but I'll get into that a bit later on.

The biggest offender for this in my opinion is Dresden himself, who we spend the most time with, but has zero development throughout the story. He starts the same as he ends, which is really disappointing, because Dresden is riddled with flaws. He's a cynic, a chauvinist, and arrogant to boot (despite multiple major cock ups due to said arrogance), and only manages to make it through the story through sheer luck. He has one of the worst PoV voices that I've ever experienced, however I've been assured that this gets better, which makes a lot of sense, since it would be incredibly difficult to make him worse.

I can't really talk about Dresden without talking about how much of a sex pest he comes across like. This man can't interact with a woman without thinking in depth about her curves, the things she can do with her body, and how hot she is. It's cringe inducing. Even more so when it seems like all these women want to throw themselves at his feet. It's just tedious, and reads like a teenage boys self-insert half the time.

But the only reason the side characters aren't worse than him, is because they're barely characters. They're cripplingly simplistic, with not even their dialogue really giving a sense of their character (with one exception being Linda, but she sadly ends up playing into Dresden's constant sex pestery). This was a major for me, since characters are generally more important to my reading experience than the plot of the story.

However, the story itself is really barebones and predictable, so even if I was more of a plot reader, I don't think my rating would really change. There's a central mystery that we follow, and it starts off really interesting, making me genuinely curious how it's going to wrap up. And then the very obvious answer is given to us a quarter of the way through the book, but Harry, who again, has a massive ego about his magical skills, can't work out the incredibly obvious answer. This isn't even an answer that's obvious through knowing about story structures for generic detective stories (which this very much is one), this is just basic critical thinking that Harry seems to lack, despite repeatedly showing that he isn't dumb. I don't give the spoiler away, just in case you do read it, but it is, at least in my opinion, really obvious. This obviousness makes Dresden feel really inconsistent as a character, and I hope that gets shored up soon, because 16 more books of Dresden being conveniently moronic will get old fast I think.

I also had issue with how many really concepts and storylines are hinted throughout the book, especially considering what we actually ended up with. There's the murder of his girlfriend, the creature that lurks in his shadow, the NeverNever. All of these really interested me, and we got nothing but setup for them. It made the book feel like an extended prologue for the series, which is a real shame, because if we'd started with some of those concepts instead, I feel like the book would have flowed way better.

Something I really appreciated about the story though, was it's pacing. This would likely be a one star read for me if it didn't have the really tight pacing that it does. This book doesn't waste a page, and I love that. Everything we see is done to further the story, which is what allows this book to still be a page turner despite the flaws it does have. If this book had slowed down, I can't say I would have been able to finish it, since especially towards the end, my interest was beginning to wane, and only the pacing kept me going.

All in all, I'm really hoping that the next books in the series improve on the promise that this one shows, so I'm very likely to continue on with the series down the line. I am aware that the series doesn't pick up until around Book 3 or 4 for most people, so I'm prepared for Fool Moon to still be a bit of a problem read for me, though I'm looking forward to continuing the series despite the issues present in Storm Front.

The book sits at 2/5 rating for me, it wasn't quite bad enough to justify one star, but it wasn't that good either. I can't really recommend it, since I didn't vibe with it all that much, but if you enjoy books like James Patterson's longer form series, I think this one would click for you.

Halo Evolutions Volume 2 is the second half of the now split Halo Evolutions, an anthology set in the Halo Universe.

For this review, I'll be doing some mini reviews of each of the entries in the collection, with the exception of The Icon and Connectivity, as I feel like those are too small for me to really have a full opinion on. I'll be giving each story it's own separate rating, and at the end, giving a final overview of the book, with an average rating of the stories mentioned below.

Blunt Instruments - 3 Stars

Blunt Instruments is the opener to the book, and has us following Black Team, a squad of 4 Spartans, who are on a demolition job, the target of which is a Covenant mining rig. With the help of a drone, they execute their plan to take down the Covenant's position.

This was a pretty okay story. The dynamic between Black Team was really enjoyable, with each of their personality's jumping off the page, and the overall throughline of the story adds some fun lore tidbits to some of the Covenant species, primarily the drones, my opinion of which has now shot up due to how cool they were in this story.

That being said, at times, the prose is really murky, making it difficult to fully picture the environment that the story is taking place in. This is most notable at the end, as the Spartans are making their way from the demo site to their exfil point. I was thoroughly let down by this, as it took me straight out of the story at multiple points.

Overall, thanks to this story, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Black Team, as I know they appear in the Glasslands trilogy of books, but I was glad to move onto something else by the end.

The Mona Lisa – 4.5 Stars

This was the standout story in the collection in my opinion. It's really easy to forget that you're playing an unstoppable monster of a human in most Halo games, so seeing a story from the perspective of normal marines is always going to be interesting, especially when you add The Flood into the mix.

This story was fairly predictable, but in a manner that made the horror of the plot all that more tangible, as it allowed the tension to build to a crescendo before everything went utterly tits up.

The Flood were phenomenally written throughout this, likely being at their most terrifying across all of Halo's expanded media. The setting of the Mona Lisa, the titular ship, made a for a really intense atmosphere, similar to the library from Halo: Combat Evolved, but again, from the much more terrifying PoV of bog standard marines.

The expansion of certain aspects of the lore is really cool, such as being one of the earliest glimpses into the sheer depravity of ONI, and the lengths that they would go to in order to get a leg up on the Covenant, seemingly betraying every single moral that the UNSC strives to maintain.

The cast of characters is also extremely strong, with my favourite being Lopez, the matriarchal sergeant who leads the squad of marines throughout the book. Watching her slowly lose her hope of returning home was genuinely heartbreaking, and seeing her have to continue ever on, despite the losses of soldiers that she viewed as as important to her as children, was extremely tragic, and I loved the imagery the author used for it, with each soldier being one of her “rosary beads”.

The relationship between Rimmer, a prisoner on the ship, and Henry, a Sangheili prisoner on the ship, was a really stark way of contextualizing just how menacing the flood were as a threat, as this book is set before the events of Halo 2, so the Elite's were still their enemies.

My only gripe with this book, is that it ends on a really weird, unsatisfying note, where we don't get closure on a couple of characters, who in the 13 years since Evolution released, have never reappeared in the franchise.

Overall though, this is one of my favourite pieces of Halo media, and I'd likely find myself recommending Evolutions to people just for this story alone.

Palace Hotel – 2 Stars

Palace Hotel was a really weak entry into this anthology. I've never read anything by Robert Mclees, and I think I'll be making a point to avoid anything his names attached to, because oh my lord, his writing style is horrible.

This story takes place between the second and third missions of Halo 2, and follows Master Chief as he escorts a squad of Marines to the rest of their unit.

This is a pretty cool setup, let down by the fact that Mclees switched the PoV of the story twice, without any form of indication whatsoever. There was a point in it where you're reading from

Master Chief's perspective, and a few sentences late, with nary a page break to be seen, you're in the head of one of the Marines. As I read this, it genuinely jarred me to the point where I nearly put the book down, or skipped onto the next story. This happens again later in the story, but wasn't anywhere near as jarring.

The prose during action scenes is also really inconsistent. In anything longer than half a page, Mclees has a total inability to write interesting combat, but when he writes some that's short, it's generally fantastic. There's a point early on, where Chief 1v1's a Jackal, which lasts maybe a paragraph or two, but was the only moment that I genuinely enjoyed a fight scene during the story.

I don't usually quote books in my reviews, but there's a line I want to highlight here, because it's one of the worst things I've ever seen a character say, so if I had to suffer, you should too.

“I believe I can honestly say that even though you are an honest-to-Buddha one-man death squad, and that if you were to ask nicely I'd give up my lucrative career in the Corps and start pumping out your babies as fast as you could put them in me”

This is said by a marine corporal, who only a page or two before, had been cursing Chief out, and the only thing that had changed in that time, was they went up some stairs. I think that quote and context does enough to show my issues with Mclee's writing style

The only reason I'm not rating this 1 star, is because there's an amazing moment at the end, where Chief meets a childhood friend of his, and his this moment of realization that he's not the person he was when he knew her.

Overall, this story sucked, and I would recommend that if you do read it, skip towards the end of it for the only amazing moment in it. I am genuinely of the opinion that when they split evolutions into two volumes, they should have just done away with this story in it's entirety, allowing it to be forgotten.

Human Weakness – 4 Stars

I really enjoyed this story, and thought that it was a really well thought out deep dive into the psyche of Cortana, and the need to deal with your own mortality from the perspective of a character that's never had to feel pain.

Watching her have to come to terms with the reality that she, like every other human, has an expiration date, was really intriguing, and added a lot of layers to her character that's enhanced her arc in Halo 4 quite a bit for me.

I really engaged with the parts of the story where she was battling with the Gravemind's offer, and the temptation that that created within her, especially since it was framed as a way for her to forever stay with John, her one and only friend.

Seeing her lose hope throughout the story, as the Gravemind broke her will, to the point where she genuinely believed that Chief was just a hallucination the Gravemind created to toy with her was fantastic, as it really added to her rescue in the game, something that I thought had been mishandled there.

Overall, it was really good, but nothing phenomenal. It's a perfect piece of supplementary material to an already fantastic game, serving to enhance it further. It was definitely pallete cleanser following the train wreck that was the last story, so I give it props for that.

Wages of Sin – 4 stars

This one is interesting. I can see it being a story that people might glance off of because of the framing off it. This is the final confession of a member of the race of Prophet's, where he outlines how his species failed the Covenant, and deserve the fate that they're now reaping.

It's one of the more beautifully written stories in the anthology, having prose that is far beyond any of the other stories.

And again, like a lot of the stories in this collection, it adds a lot to the expanded lore of the Covenant, giving a degree of sympathy to the one race the games don't portray as victims of an unfair religion.

I'd probably rank this one as the third best in the collection, just behind The Mona Lisa and The Return.

The Return – 4.5 Stars

This is one of the most intriguing bits of lore Halo's ever had. This story follows a Covenant Shipmaster 7 years after the events of Halo 3, as he returns to a planet that he glassed twenty years prior to the story.

This story deals with the guilt and doubts that plague the shipmaster after learning of the Prophet's betrayal of the other races. He relives the memories of his assault on the planet as he sees the destruction that he wrought in the name of false prophets, and this forces him to tackle the meaning of his existence, now that he's played such a key role in the perversion of his people's religion.

The structure of the story is really cool, since whenever the shipmaster sleeps, he has vivid dreams of the events of the war, ranging from his glassing of the planet that he's on, to the day he executed his ship's prophet in front of his crew during the Great Schism.

This is a very short entry in the book, but in my opinion is the most effective at getting a message across to the reader. It's tied as my favourite with The Mona Lisa, as I just don't have the heart to pick between either of them.

From the Office of Dr. William Arthur Iqbal – 3 Stars

While interesting, I think that this one could have been left on the cutting room floor. This is a letter from a member of ONI informing Xenoarchaelogists that they'll now be working on understanding the Forerunners in order to get a leg up on the potential future threats the Covenant may still pose.

It adds some new lore tidbits to the excession, and shows that ONI are still acting on the assumption that the Covenant are the enemy, but other than that doesn't really do anything all that interesting.

Overall rating – 3.5 Stars

Halo Evolutions was a solid read, and despite being let down by a really weak story at one point, almost everything in the collection was well worth the read, especially if you're a fan of the expand Halo mythos. I can confidently highly recommend this to almost any fan of Halo, if just for The Mona Lisa and The Return alone, as they're well worth the box price of the book.

Jade Legacy is the final book in the Greenbone Saga by Fonda Lee. The previous two books have been absolutely stellar, with Jade War blowing the original out of the water, shocking everybody by not only dodging middle book syndrome, but surpassing the original book. So Jade Legacy had a lot to live up to, the pressure mounting with every day that passed. And I'm pleased to say that, not only did Fonda stick the landing, she once again surpassed the previous book.

Jade Legacy delivers on the promises of the series in ways that are both expected, and come out of left field. No character's conclusion feels wrong for them, each of them making it to a point that makes perfect sense, even when if it wasn't necessarily what I expected for them.

A big part of that in my opinion is the books really interesting structure. The previous books took place over the course of a year or two, whereas this one takes place over 20, with 4 major timeskips in it. I knew about this going, and was really dubious, since I haven't seen a lot of stories pull that off particularly well, but I can't see any other way for the story to have been told.

Due to this structure, this book is DENSE. Almost every chapter has some hard hitting moment, where a major event unfolds, or a character has everything come tumbling down around them. This should, by all rights, feel like there's just too much going on, but for some reason, I never felt like it was.

I think it has something to do with how the book is structured, since the time jumps, both big and small allow you to have a degree of separation from these events, whereas when you don't get the time jumps, such as with the bombs early on, the scenes feel much more intense, forcing you to deal with the event as it happens, instead of getting a play by play of the events after the fact.

Lee also continues to show her ability to deal with difficult issues with tact and grace in this book, and it's so good. She deals with disability, being a failure, turning into your parents, being scared of not living up to what came before and having your idyllic view of your parents shattered.

I was particularly impressed by how she handled Wen's recovery from her disability that she received at the end of Jade War. Wen was a character who I definitely enjoyed in previous entries, but Legacy elevated her to a whole new level for me, placing her firmly in my top 5 characters.

The world of the book has expanded massively, to the point where we now see every major country that's been mentioned in the past, and the effects of Jade on them all. Shotar in particular was one that I wasn't expecting to show up in the book, but I'm glad it did, since it definitely had the most interesting vibe out of all of them, especially considering the history that it shares with the main characters.

Lee still handles death in an expert way, rarely having it be this Hollywood-esque thing, where last words get exchanged, and one liners are shot out at the speed of light. Instead, death is a generally very quick and dirty affair, that has to be brushed past in the moment because of the dire stakes of the moment. None of them really hit the same as Lan's in the first book, but that's likely because of just how different his death was to traditional fantasy death.

Seeing how the culture of Janloon evolves was another highlight of the book. The Green Bone culture has just gotten more and more enticing as the series goes, being this neat amalgamation of Samurai honour codes, and Yakuza street rules. Watching that chafe against an ever expanding world is such a fascinating time, especially when you see how foreign Green Bones treat their culture, and doubly so when you see how foreigners use Jade as a tool, instead of a status symbol

Fonda's prose is as usual, pretty good, but nothing all that special. She doesn't really have any stylistic hallmarks, she just writes an engaging world that's rich with descriptions, and has tight dialogue. It's not quite as basic as early Sanderson, but it's certainly no Rothfuss either. It fits in a nice little spot where it just does the job really well.

Where her writing shines is in the distinctiveness of each PoVs voice. If Lee didn't tell you who's head you were in, you would likely still be able to work out, since each character has subtle differences to them that allow you to get a real feel for them, and even allows you to see inside their head when they aren't the PoV character, because you just know how they're going to react to the things that are going on around them.

All in all, I cannot recommend this book enough if you have any positive feelings towards the rest of the series. It sticks the landing in spectacular fashion, in a manner few veteran writers can manage, let alone a debut author. This was an absolute tome of a novel, that was such a page turner, I read it faster than most novellas. I'll be purchasing every Fonda Lee novel day one in the future.

Saint's Testimony was a really fun read. This short story tackles the question of whether or not the Smart AIs in the Halo universe deserve to be considered Human, and the morality around decommissioning them after 7 years just to prevent their rampancy.

The book is told from the perspective of the AI Iona, who was previously a main character of a comic series set within the universe.

The book lends a lot of credence to the arguments made by Cortana in Halo 5, enhancing the ending to a game that desperately needs any help it can get, so it definitely gets points for that.

The use of other AI that we've met in the Halo universe is also a really nice touch, as we get to see their perspectives on it as well. We also get a deeper dive into the mind of AI, and how they function, demonstrating that despite the fact Cortana was the most well made model of Smart AI, the others are still just as Human, and deserve the respect that goes along with it.
I really enjoyed this story, but I struggle to recommend it unless you have Kindle Unlimited, as I think a pound is a lot for how short the story is, clocking in at only 40 pages or so. 4/5 Stars

The Dildo in the Kitchen Drawer was great. For such a short book, it does so much. It sits at only 15 pages, but it conveys the relationship between the MC and her girlfriend brilliantly, highlighting flaws in the relationship, but also doing a fantastic job of showing why the relationship works in the first place.

This is a really funny book, and a super easy read. I would have loved a full book with these two characters, but alas, it appears that this is all there is to see from them. They fully embody the disaster lesbian trope, and I'm here for it.

This would be a 5 star book, but I need to dock it for the sole reason that you can't get this book off of any of the retailers on the authors linktree, instead you have to find it online, which was a nightmare to do. If you can find it, I highly recommend it, though I can definitely understand not wanting to for the sake of a 15 page book. Because of how arsey it is to get, it's a 4/5 stars for me.

I have really mixed feelings on this book. I should really enjoy it, since the previous book in the series was one of my favourite reads of last year, introducing one of the most unique and interesting Sci-fi worlds I've ever read, having a main character completely different to any I've seen in the space, and just overall being really well written.

So going into Ancillary Sword, I had really high hopes, and I don't want to say that they were dashed, since that seems a tad extreme, but they certainly weren't met. This book is the definition of middle book syndrome. Almost nothing interesting actually happens throughout the novel, which is a crying shame, because, just like Ancillary Justice, the world is realized brilliantly, with every new detail we get about the culture, the history and the technology elevating the Radch Empire even further than it reached in the first book.

The major issues were, at least in my opinion, almost everything else.

The plot picks up a week after the last books ending, with Breq now being registered as a cousin of Anaander Mianaai, and being raised to the rank of Fleet Captain, and given her own ship to command. She chooses her lieutenants, one of whom is Seivarden from the previous book, the other Ekalu, a previous lieutenant of the ship.

She's sent to Athoek to safeguard it from the other Anaander, but also to guard her old captain's sister, who is stationed onboard the orbital station above Athoek.

The majority of the book takes place on this station, and makes sure that you understand the culture of the peoples that live aboard it through and through. The scope of the story is one of the biggest strengths. Too much epic Sci-fi makes a point to constantly system hop and explore as many planets as possible, even if it's to the detriment of the story. Leckie very clearly feels the same, since the next book in the series, is also set on the same station.

Leckie's prose is just as good as in the prior book, with her weaving every new environment in front of you effortlessly. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's really good.

Well, so far I've been very positive on the book, so it's time to explain where it went down to three stars. As I said, the worldbuilding is absolutely fantastic. It's just a shame that very few of the characters feel as well fleshed out. Physical descriptions are sparse, rarely going more than one or two sentences, the monogender making it difficult to even pin down the basic profile of a character. I say this despite the fact that I really like the monogender as a concept, I just wish Leckie had given more description for the characters.

The only characters I can say I genuinely like are Breq, who has a really strong voice as a PoV, and is just really fucking cool to boot, and Tisarwat, the young Lieutenant who had a personality transplant with a 3000 year old Emperor. Seivarden was a good character in the previous book, but she's missing for the majority of the story, only really having one major moment towards the end of the book.

The other main issue with the book, is that barely anything happens. There are 3 events of note.
Without specific spoilers, they were the shooting, the bomb, and the standoff. And that was it. The rest was quiet conversations and setup for the last book. I understand that writing a second book in a trilogy is a nightmarish balancing act, but oh my god, I was just interminably bored for the majority of the story.

These two issues compounded to make me really confused when I finished the book. I could point to things I really enjoyed, but I also found myself just sort of disinterested in continuing. I fully intend to see the series through, since the Anaander storyline is fascinating to me, and I really like being in Breqs head. If you enjoyed Ancillary Justice, I'd recommend going into this with tempered expectations. This isn't going to leave you with the same fulfilled feeling that Justice did, but you'll probably have a pretty good time with it.

I adore The Greenbone Saga, so the minute this was announced, I was all in, no questions asked. Then I saw the price. And I found out I was all in, with at least one question asked. I'm going to preface this review with the disclaimer that this is not worth the hardback cost, unless you are a die hard Fonda Lee fan. This book is good, but it's not “full novel price” good.

Untethered Sky is a book that is entirely focused on the training of Rocs, giant birds of prey that their trainers, known as Ruhkers, use to hunt Manticores, beasts that prey on humans. And it does this really well. If you want to see someone train a really cool animal companion, and be very good at it, this is the book for you.

However, there are a good few issues with this book, that knock it down a little bit for me.
For one, the worldbuilding is almost nonexistent. You get told the aforementioned bit about Rocs and Manticores, and learn some minor details about the empire it takes place in. But for the most part, the book is entirely focused on the training of the Rocs, and hunting Manticores. In my opinion, this is a massive misssed opportunity, as the glimpses that we see of the world make it seem like a really vibrant culture. I hope that down the line, Fonda decides to make this into a larger scale series so that we get to properly experience what's on offer.

Something else it does very well, is characters. For anyone that read Greenbone, this is not gonna be shocking. Fonda has the ability to craft characters that you fall in love with within pages, so it's almost a guarantee that you'll click with someone in her cast. This is no exception, with the two main characters being excellent.

The big difference between this and Greenbone in my opnion, is perspective. This book is told in First-person, in the style of a memoir, which fits really well in my opinion. It allowed me to get into the character's head perfectly, which I appreciated.

The story itself is ok, I guess. I'm not in love with it, but I don't dislike it either. It serves it purpose perfectly, but isn't all that rich, and I wasn't really all that invested in the minutiae of it.
I liked the structure of the book, with it just being 4 long chapters, each one denoting a specific part of the main character's growth as a trainer. It allowed for timeskips where necessary, without it feeling jarring like they can in other books. This is also helped by the PoV being a first person memoir too.

Overall, though it lacked things that I look for in a lot of my books, I found myself very content with the book, albeit wanting more from the universe as a whole. A solid 4/5 if you get it digitally or in paperback. I still stand by the fact that Tor and Gollancz have massively overpriced this book, and I really hope that doesn't become the norm for novellas, since I think it will all but kill them long term

The Pariah by Anthony Ryan is the first in his bibliography that I've read, and I have to say, what a first impression it was. The TL:DR of this review is that it absolutely blew me away despite a rocky start, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who is fond of Grim Dark, because to date, this is one of the best I've read yet.

It follows Alwyn Scribe, a figure of note in the kingdom of Albermaine, who is telling us the tale of how he became this figure of note. Throughout the book, great deeds and stories of him and his companions are hinted at, but we don't see any of the major ones in this book.

This book serves primarily as setup for the future installments in the trilogy (albeit a very good setup), essentially acting as the trilogy's prologue. This is a method of storytelling some author's try, but rarely manage to make work in any meaningful way, as this style of first entry can end up being rather boring, lacking any meaningful form of conclusion to character arcs.

Ryan managed to setup and deliver on multiple satisfying story arcs throughout the book, while still dangling enough threads in front of me to entice me back for the entire trilogy. At this point, I've gone ahead and ordered my copy of the Martyr, and pre-ordered my copy of the Traitor for when it releases.

The world that Ryan built consistently had me wanting to know more, and getting frustrated at Alwyn's lack of knowledge on the world around him, because it always felt like there was some bit of information just outside of his knowledgebase, which added so much to my experience with the book.

And if the world was good, the characters were masterful. Every single character felt realized to their full potential, none of them boiled down to good and bad, they just were, and it was fantastic. Characters would be coloured as either good or bad based on Alwyn's world view, yes, but by the time the story was done, they were usually much more complicated than it would initially seem. There is one exception to this, however it would be spoilers for me to get into it.

There are 3 characters I want to highlight, as I think they're deserving of extremely high praise.

The first is Wilhum. Without going too deep into spoilers, Wilhum's character arc, and delving into his reasoning behind joining the pretender was excellently done, and when his devotion to his god was explained, it made me bawl my eyes out, the only event to do so in this novel.

The second has to be Evadine. Evadine feels like a character that has been heavily inspired by multiple historical figures, such as Joan of Arc, Martin Luther (the protestant, not the King), and, oddly enough, Jesus. Usually, a character being this heavily inspired by Jesus would make me not all that fond of them, but again, Ryan just has this very clean way of sequestering his characters within the pages in a believable way that doesn't feel inauthentic to the story he tells.

Lastly is by far and away my favourite character, and that's Alwyn. Alwyn is one of the most enjoyable protagonists that I've seen in a while. I adore how he was written as this man who was so complicated, not even he could parse the maze of his own goals. This led to an ungodly well thought out character arc, that will subtly sneak up on you, and again, is just utterly believable.

His worldview is never changed drastically, instead he just finds the ability to understand how he truly views the world, instead of simply latching onto the beliefs of others that don't clash with his own enough to cause issue with him. This lets him, and by extension the reader, begin to see the world from perspectives that were locked off to him either through ignorance, or just through fooling himself.

Watching Alwyn grow in faith was absolutely fascinating to watch, as was his deep loyalty to the people he aligned himself with. If he continues to grow like this in future installments, he might end up as one of my favourite protagonists in modern fantasy.

The prose in this book is also something worth praising. It's generally quite easy to read, and won't challenge you with it's wording, but it does have a tendency to just come out of left field with an absolute banger of a quote. This is evidenced by Ryan opening the book with one.

“Before killing a man, I always found it calming to regard the trees.”

What a way to start a book. It's not going to go down as one of the great openers of fantasy, but that line just sticks with me as such a solid tone setter.

All this glowing praise is to say, I think you should read this book. It truly is a phenomenal time. There are some caveats, and outright cons in that, and I'm going to expand on them as I go on, but I just wanted to make it clear that I love this book. But it has some problems that are going to end up rubbing people the wrong way.

So, I'll start off with a light one. There's no blurb on the back of the UK Mass Market Paperback. This might not sound like much of an issue, but in my opinion it's a big deal. You should still read this book, but my god, does it seem like Orbit didn't want you to. Instead, they just have a quote from the book, and then multiple recommendations from other authors. But all you have to go off of is a quote, that, to be honest, can very easily mislead people into thinking this is a book about an Assassin.

This isn't an issue that solely exists for this book, Shadow of the Gods is another book that Orbit have decided doesn't deserve a blurb. However, that book has the benefit of releasing with one of the most striking covers in the last ten years. The Pariah has very generic art on the cover. It's a hooded man with a sword. It's very well made and was obviously painstakingly designed to get the tone of the book across, but it doesn't do as good a job of conveying the series as the next two books in the trilogy's covers do. This cover also doubles down on the issue that the quote at the back creates. Again, this is a very small gripe, and I've spent more time than it's worth on it, but it really made it difficult to want to continue at first, especially when combined with the next issue.

The plot takes a very long time to get traction. For me, it took about 100 pages before I got into the story for the story, since up to that point, the quality of Alwyn's voice was the thing that kept me going. The blurb that Goodreads has, or even a shortened version, would have had me in the gate from the word go. It's important to note however, I have seen some reviews of this say that they didn't get into the book until almost halfway through. The events in the blurb don't take place until after the midpoint of the book.

This can lead to the story not really feeling like it has much thrust in it for a good portion of it, which is a massive problem, that again, is only really saved by Alwyn's voice. I'm generally a character reader, as opposed to a plot reader, so this wasn't the worlds biggest turnoff for me, but I can 100% see people wanting to drop the book as they get halfway through the book and still don't even see a goal in sight.

However, all that being said, this book is stellar, and if you can get past these issues, I cannot recommend it enough.

I rate the book a 4.5/5, the only reason it's not a 5 is because of the difficulty I had in maintaining interest with the opening. Other than that, I find very little within the text to actually hold up as an issue.

I've been hearing about Terry Pratchett for the better part of 15 years now. My dad was a massive fan of his, owning about 20 or so of the books at one point, desperately trying to get me interested in his works. However, the thing that finally got me to read his works was in fact the adaptation of another of his books, Good Omens. And I couldn't be happier for it.

This book doesn't just mark my first foray into the Discworld however, it's also the first time that I've listened to an audiobook the entire way through, and hoo boy, what a good one to start with. Specifically, I listened to the new audiobook narrated by Sian Clifford, who does a stellar job selling the world and characters, though I'll get back to that soon.

The brass tacks of the plot are as follows: Death decides he wants an apprentice, picks a young lad called Mort, we find out that Death isn't actually an utter bastard, then once Mort starts taking on more of the job, him and Death start to swap personality traits, and we discover why it's so important for Death to be impartial.

Ultimately, this story is a love letter to being alive. And that's wonderful to experience. So many fantasy stories feel like they want to focus on how cool war and death is, so it's nice to hear a story that wants you to know that it's okay to just live, and be normal. I think that even when I've read all of Discworld, that Mort is going to stand out to me as one of the best examples of Pratchett's personality shining through his work.

But, that's not where the good bits end, because this book is absolutely hilarious. Almost every single joke landed for me. Maybe I'm just a soft touch, but I think it's more likely that Pratchett was just that good of an author. He can weave in-universe jokes with pop culture references together deftly, without it feeling jarring, which is just masterful.

Then there's the characters. I'm going to quickly touch on Mort, because he's the character we spend the most time with. Mort is a solid protagonist. He's nothing special, if anything, he's quite tropey, being a farmboy from the middle of nowhere who embarks on a quest, but that's actually to the characters advantage, as he's put up against this backdrop of events that are far far above him, and rises to the occasion. He also manages to serve as a kind of “Human Prime” who contrasts with Death to show why the two should never intermingle, creating a wonderful dichotomy.

Then there's Death. Death is one of the single greatest characters in the history of Fantasy. This is a character who's inspired by the Grim Reaper, but if he was nice. Death is fascinated by humans, he absolutely adores them. But not just humans. He has this deep respect for life that is just intoxicating to read about.

For instance, one of the few times we see Death get genuinely angry appears at the beginning of the book. Mort is asking him rather banal questions, and struggling to comprehend the answers, and all of a sudden, Death becomes incredibly terse and angry. Mort continues with his questions, and Death sprints off down a back alley, and stops at a fountain. Mort is understandably worried that he's already annoyed his new master less than a few hours into his apprenticeship, but this worry is soon allayed when Death pulls a wet bag out of the fountain.

Death proceeds to open the bag, and out comes the souls of a few dead kittens. And Death is disgusted by the callous disregard of their lives, and the cruelty of their end. I could sit here for a long time, and gush about Death, because he is endlessly wonderful, and I'm sure as I continue with the Death books he'll grow even more so, but I'll leave it here with a heartfelt recommendation to read the book just for this.

Though, I would highly recommend the audiobook. I had an absolutely stellar time with it, the only issue I could point to being Albert's voice, which I found grating most of the time, due to the combination of pitch and how nasally it was. Death's voice actor in particular was a standout to me, the only voice I would have preferred would have been the late Christopher Lee's, who had voiced the character in the animated adaptation of Soul Music.

All in all, this is a damn near perfect book, and I think you owe it to yourself to read it. 5/5 stars, heartily recommend it.

I love Good Omens. The TV series that is. I'd never read Good Omens before watching it, and it took me a subsequent 4 or 5 viewings to finally decide to sit down and read the book. And it turns out that the reason the show is so good, is because the book it's based on is also absolutely fantastic.

I don't think I need to give a spiel about the two authors involved, as I'm sure that everybody is at least, to some extent, familiar with them. But I'm going to anyway, because I like talking about how great they are.

Sir Terry Pratchett is the author of Discworld, and up until this year, I was only familiar with him through reputation alone. Well now I've read two of his books, this and Mort, I fully understand the love and affection he gets. This is an author who is, in no uncertain terms, worth every second of your time that you spend in his worlds, because he JUST. DOESN'T. MISS. I'll likely be reading through the entirety of Discworld over the course of the next year or two, just because of how good this and Mort were. He focuses on the joys of living, and has an ability to take the piss out of anything he sets his eyes on without it feeling bad natured.

And then we have Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline, American Gods, Stardust, Sandman, and so many other books that if I were to list them all of this review would get long enough I might end up needing to find a publisher for it. He specializes in darker, creepier atmospheres, and his books tend to be more catered towards an adult audience. I'm not all that familiar with him, this is only my second book of his, but I have watched adaptations of his other works.

These two writing styles lend themselves to the other brilliantly. On paper, they shouldn't work, but they really do. The dark, depressing elements of the apocalypse are contrasted with Pratchett's brilliantly absurd humour.

And then there's the characters. I personally prefer the TV shows versions of the leads, as I find them a bit more human, which in my opinion lends itself better to the themes of the story overall, but they're absolutely fantastic. Crowley is an absolute treat of a character, being an archetype that I really enjoy, a demon who's reason for being cast down was them being a pretty alright person.

Aziraphale is an angel of the lord, who really isn't all that good at being one. He really likes the food, but more than that, loves books, going so far as to run an antique bookstore in Soho.

The plot revolves very simply around our 2 characters desperately trying to stave off the end of the world, and somehow, losing the antichrist. So now the race is on, and we have frontline seats. The story is paced like a rollercoaster, the pedal never taken off of the proverbial metal, which is glorious. No page feels like wasted time, every single sentence feeling like it serves a purpose.

The prose itself is really nice, having this nice little jaunty feeling to it that lends itself to the story really well. That being said, at times the dialogue can be really on the nose and exposition-y for my taste, especially when dealing with the children in the story, as Prattchet has a very specific way of writing children's dialogue, where it's very direct, which can make the dialogue feel a bit robotic at times.

I highly recommend the book, as it is an absolute pleasure to read. 5/5 thoroughly looking forward to my reread.

Godkiller comes out of the gate swinging and doesn't slow down for the entirety of the book, and I absolutely adored it. Despite some minor issues with the early parts of the book, this was an absolute romp the entire way through, and if this is what Hannah Kamer releases as a debut, I feel like she's going to have an insane career going forward, because this book screams quality.

Having one of the most interesting twists on gods that I've seen in modern fantasy, the world of Godkiller is brilliant. Gods are seen as parasites following an all out war against them, and we follow a Godkiller, Kissen, as she escorts a young girl, who's been joined to a god of white lies, across the country on a quest to sever the link. We also follow Elogast, an ex-Knight of the realm, who joins Kissen and Inara on their journey.

I enjoyed Inara and Kissen's PoVs quite a bit. Inara has to deal with the trauma of losing everything she's known since she was a child, and following her emotional journey through those feelings was really cathartic, as she came to terms with the fact that the people she'd lost were gone, and that they weren't coming back. It felt extremely real, and when compounded with the themes of found family, was extremely heartwarming to read about.

Kissen however, was my favourite of the PoVs. Kissen is a character whose loss mirrors Inara's in a lot of ways, so Kissen takes it upon herself to make sure that Inara doesn't end up the same way that she has. Kissen is a bitter and angry shade of her former self, hell bent on numbing her pain by making sure that the gods that inhabit the world feel just a modicum of it themselves. Her learning to open herself up throughout the book is really touching, and resonated with me on a personal level, since for years I was emotionally locked off. I also really enjoyed the disability representation that she brings, since generally losing a leg in fantasy is treated as something that closes doors completely, however, Kamer has managed to write in prosthetics in a way that fits the world really well.

The PoV I didn't enjoy, was Elogast, the ex-Knight. The story that surrounds him, is really interesting, but fuck me, Elo's chapters were dry to read. Initially, it wasn't too bad, but very quickly, he shares the same space as Inara and Kissen, so switching to his perspective to see the same events as the other two, felt more like I was being deprived of an interesting PoV, than being given the opportunity to see the world from a new perspective. Elogast has a really tropey backstory that I've seen done before. He begins to improve towards the end, and I am genuinely excited to see his PoV in book 2, due to the shift he takes at the end of the book.

The side characters are pretty decent, but aren't enough of a focus for me to have really connected with them in any major way. I liked Kissen's family well enough, but other than that, none really stand out to me all that much. The only other one I can recall decently well, is a water god we meet in the latter end of the book, who was really cool, and introduced a unique worldview to the story that I hope to see expanded on in the sequels.

The story was superb. The way Kamer weaves twists and turns into it is really clever, where she plants red herrings that the reader will just run with, and turns innocuous passages into masterful foreshadowing. Each twist landed for me, with one needing a bit more expansion in later books admittedly, but that one was by design. Outside of that, the general structure of it lends itself really well to Kamer's lightning fast pacing. This book covers more ground than some doorstoppers I've read in the past, forgoing the usual epic fantasy filler that those books are laden with, and I really appreciate that here. This is an incredibly short book, which is usually a negative for me, but I don't think I'd want this to be that much longer. The only thing that I might want, is a bit more in the final setpiece of the book, since that went by really quickly, but not so quick that it wasn't a satisfying end.

Overall, I thought this book was incredible, with few to no issues throughout. Again, the only major gripe that I had with it was the Elo's PoV was really boring to inhabit when I had to, but I hope that's fixed in book 2. 4/5 stars, I highly recommend this book.

I went into Ruin and Rising genuinely worried about whether or not I would enjoy it, as Siege and Storm was a lackluster sequel that didn't have much to add to the series, so in my mind, it was up in the air whether this was going to end up being worth my time, or a massive dissapointment that I'd walk away sour from. I'm thankful to say that this book was very good, allaying my worries in the first few chapters.

The book starts soon after the ending of the previous one, with Alina having lost her powers after the confrontation with the Darkling, hiding in the caves the Apparat called the White Chapel. She's beginning to feel isolated from the people around her, as the Apparat is controlling her every move.
She's wrestling with feelings of inadequacy after her failures leading the second army, and fears that maybe she'll fail Ravka in the long term. This, coupled with the continued weird feelings she has for the men in her life plague her, and she falls into a depressed state.

Very quickly, she gets broken free of the Apparat's Clutches, and regains her powers, and then proceeds to put together a small strike force to hunt for the third of Morozova's amplifiers, all the while contending with her feelings for Mal, Nikolai, and for some reason, still the Darkling.

This all happens within 3 chapters, and sets the pace for the entire book. Whereas the previous book was content to wallow in the act of doing sweet fuck all, this book doesn't slow down for a second, and I fucking love that about it. It is breakneck to put it lightly. This is probably going to be something that turns people off of the book, as I know there's a large portion of readers who only really connect with books whose plots have room to breathe, though personally I'm flexible with the pace of the books I read.

The characters have a much stronger showing in this book. For the most part, the constant stroppiness has fucked off, and we actually get characters whose reactions to situations makes sense, which is a welcome change from the last book. Communication issues aren't really a thing here anymore, instead characters get their shit together and hash problems out, then solve them. This is likely due to the fact that Bardugo realized that she only had so much space in this book, and a lot of ground to cover, but regardless, I was so glad to see this change.

Nikolai is a character that I specifically want to mention, as he was stellar in this book. He was alright in S&S, but he really gets the chance to come into his own here, with my favourite scene in the trilogy belonging to him, where he dresses down his father. Every scene he was in, he stole, and I love him for that.

I was much more sold on the romance aspect of the book, as Leigh gives it room to breathe and develop more naturally than in the prior books, where it was a spur of the moment thing, a symptom of the character's impulsivity, whereas in this book, it's well reasoned and explained why the character's that end up together do.

However, there is one exception to this, and funny enough, this is my only major gripe with the book. For the entirety of the last book, and for most of this one, Alina keeps positing the idea that the Darkling can be saved. Real “I can fix him” energy. And it's fucking annoying. This man has been evil incarnate for the majority of the series, having almost no redeeming moments after the mask off moment in book 1, and I'm meant to believe he's worth saving?

This is just the continuation of the shitey love quadrangle from the last book, but even more insane considering the fact that he maimed one of Alina's best friends, scarring her for life, and taking one of her eyes. Anyone who can still consider this man salvageable has been hitting the hooch a bit too hard, because fucking hell. This is, in my opinion, an example of themes taking precedent over the story presented by the text. Alina's love for the Darkling is a representation for her desire for power, and the intoxication that she's felt since becoming the Sun Summoner. But it just doesn't line up with what we've been shown. I understand that she's a victim of abuse by his hand, but it's just really difficult to believe that after everything he's done, she can see past those things, and even consider any form of romance.

If it was just a thing of her contemplating whether or not he deserved to die, that would be different, but she explicitly thinks about the prospect of returning to him at one point, as if it's a fucking question. All that being said, it didn't take away from the book enough for me to dislike it, it just took away from it whenever the idea was being thrown around.

Something that demands praise however, is the plot twists. So far, this series has had almost nothing in the way of good twists, but goddamn did this one pull a good one out it's arse for the last installment. IYKYK, but I was positively floored by it. Couldn't have asked for a more well thought out twist.

I was very happy with how the book ended, and though I predicted certain elements, I didn't expect others. Overall, I found it to be a fairly peaceful ending, which I found really resonant with the overall themes of the story.

All in all, I think you should read this series, and I for one, will be continuing on to Six of Crows very soon, and likely straight into King of Scars afterwards. I had a fantastic time with this book, 4/5 stars.

I went into Red Rising mildly apprehensively, as I'd heard a criticism common to longer series like this. “It gets good after x amount of books”. Usually I'd seen people say it was after this book. I would just like to say, with a great amount of chest, that that's bollocks. This book starts strong from the first line.

“I would have lived in peace, but my enemies brought me war.” Admittedly, after this, it did slow down for a bit. But it never stopped for even a second. Every single page had some amount of forward thrust, which was glorious.

This did however, lead to one of my few issues with the book. I didn't fully grasp the society's hierarchy as well as I would have liked. This is likely because of a combination of issues. For one, I don't think it was much of a focus for this book (the focus mainly being on Reds and Golds, with almost all the notable characters being one of these 2). The reader really only needed to know about 2 ranks at the very least, and have cursory knowledge on the rest.

The second is reading through an audiobook, meaning I didn't have access to any potential charts that show it off at the front of the book.

And thirdly, I straight up could have missed it, or just not been paying enough attention.
This wasn't a barrier for my enjoyment of the book, but it was something that I hope I don't continue to feel throughout the series, as from what I did grasp it seems to be a very interesting hierarchy.

However, the inequity in the society is put across perfectly. It manages to drip that kind of depression dystopian menace that Cyberpunk tends to have, while actually being an idyllic post-scarcity utopia at the same time (at least on the surface). In any other framing of the story, Darrow would be the villain, the monster stood ever so slightly off in the shadows, waiting for the sun to go down.

And the characters reinforce this brilliantly. It would have been so easy for Pierce Brown to make the golds all monstrously evil bastards without a shred of decency, and that is here, though not to the degree that Darrow (and the reader) might assume. The majority of the characters are actually pretty alright people, if not a little more arrogant than they have any right to be. But a good chunk of them are reasonably moral. Or at least as moral as you can be in a society that calculates how many cot deaths they should have in a given year.

Some even tacitly reject the ideals of the society, not seeing the point in engaging with the rules as they're laid out, due to the inherently broken nature of them. Like Sevron, for instance, who just so happens to be my favourite, and I'll scream myself hoarse if a single hair gets harmed on his little goblin head. He's a social outcast, who doesn't want power, he wants to be around people he deems worthy of his time, and I love that. He's one of the first golds you're introduced to, and at least for me, was instantly likable.

As a matter of fact, with the exception of Augustus, almost all of the Golds you meet early in the story are really likable, and a huge chunk of the Reds you meet aren't. As a matter of fact, I'd argue the biggest bastard we meet in the entire book was a red from the midpoint of the book (iykyk).
I would also like to commend the slightly more subtle aspects of the societal gaps that Brown included, such as slang essentially being upgraded to more sophisticated language. A prime example being “Bloodydamn” being turned into “Gorydamn”. They both mean the exact same thing, but the Golds have put this veneer of sophistication on their language in order to subtly mark themselves as betters to the peons beneath.

After all this gushing, I feel the need to quickly rant about something this book has that I fucking loathe. (Minor spoilers ahead, fair warning). Without getting into specifics, Darrow is far too fucking quick to move on from Eo's death. I understand that it's still a sore spot for him by the end, but the rocket speed at which he starts having to stop himself from sleeping with, IIRC, 3 different women, is fucking madness.

He was going to die for this woman. He basically killed himself because of the grief, and while yes, he mentions her a lot, he also starts eyeing up replacements within weeks of this traumatic incident he suffered. I really hope this gets addressed more tactfully in future books, because holy fuck it took me out of the book every single time. He's decided to tear down an interplanetary empire because they killed his wife, and he's already thinking of moving on? It creates this weird dissonance in his character that I really struggled to deal with. It's the only real major criticism that I had of the book.

Now, to end on a high note, I want to gush about how good the narrator, Tim Gerard Reynolds, is. Originally, I'd planned on reading these books physically, getting them all from my library. But then, I noticed that Books 1 and 2 are on Audible's Plus catalogue, so I though to myself “fuck it, why not.”

Thank god for past me. Past me makes awesome decisions. Because Reynolds is my new favourite narrator. The way he uses his accent to subtly shift the way that Darrow is thinking in his narration is amazing. The subtly different voices for most golds, highlighting the conformity of the society, making outliers (such as best boy Sevron) all the more stark is phenomenal.

And then there's the song. For those that don't know, there's a really important song in the story, that gets sung by characters on 2 separate occasions. I was in work holding back tears as Reynolds did his rendition of it. It's absolutely haunting, and honestly, I think it's better than the version at the end of the audiobook.

All in all, I adored this book, and I'm begging anyone who sees this review who's read the book, stop saying this is the book you need to get through before it gets good. This book is insanely good, and if it's only up from here, that's amazing. But I put this off for a while because I have so many series to get to, and not all of them have fans warning me about the lack of quality in early entries. It's such a disservice to such an incredible book.

I genuinely think that when the adaptation comes out, it has the potential to be the next Game of Thrones level SFF show. I'm incredibly excited to see where the next 2 books take me, and I'm planning on starting into GS tomorrow. Red Rising scores an easy 5 stars, I loved it the entire way through, and cannot recommend it enough. It absolutely lives up to the hype the series as a whole has.

Gah, my absolute adoration for these books grows with every single one that I read Pratchett is proving himself to have been an absolute mastermind in the art of weaving a heartfelt story that has the ability to absolutely floor me with laughter.

I don't think I've ever read a book that has been this profound while still managing to maintain such a lighthearted air to it. The balance that he strikes between these two is done so deftly that he can heel turn the tone of the book in a matter of paragraphs without it feeling even remotely out of place at any point.

This is achieved through a few different factors, the main one being the characters. The most obvious one has to be Death, who in my opinion is probably the best character that Fantasy has ever been graced with. His adoration for humanity and life in general shines through brilliantly in this book, capitalising on what Pratchett had set up in Mort.

Then there's the various characters from the undead rights movement, who are just wonderful. Of particular note are the Winkings, who are a married couple, one of whom is a vampire, that being Arthur. Doreen, his wife, has decided to take on the part of being a countess to him, in order to be supportive of him, donning a fake Transylvanian accent, doing up their house like a vampire's castle, and renaming the Notfaroutoe's. The entire time, Arthur is very disapproving, as he never wanted to be a vampire in the first place. In my opinion, it's a very sweet dynamic that shows just how dedicated to each other they are, even if Arthur seems a bit sick of it at times.

Then there's the story itself, which is an absolute gem. Death has grown a personality, and for the auditors of reality, his bosses, that just simply won't do, so they give him the sack. This, in a subversion of expectations, delights Death, since now he gets to experience the life that he's only ever experienced the end of, or has lived vicariously through his daughter and apprentice.

He takes a position on a farm, helping out an old lady, and becoming a person unto himself. This is used as a contrast to the job of being Death, where he still gives reverence to each individual blade of grass, or head of wheat, since it's in his nature to give every piece of life it's due reverence.

Whilst all this is going on, things around the disc are going rather pear shaped, as people have stopped dying in the interim between our Death being fired, and a new one being believed into existence.

What the book ends up becoming as these two plot threads are explored, is a wonderfully vibrant love letter to being alive. As you read it, you can tell that Sir Terry Pratchett adored life, and wanted others to at the very least be able to glimpse how wonderful life was. And to an extent, it works quite well. I think you'd be hard pressed to walk away from this book without at least a minor improvement to your outlook on life.

The pacing of the book is something to be noted, because oh my lord, it flows so well. It's a reasonably fast paced book, but Pratchett knew when to slow down and let the story breathe. There wasn't any point where I felt like the pacing didn't fit.

On top of all of that, this book was just an emotional rollercoaster. I got ping ponged between emotions almost constantly, to a point where I felt like I was suffering from emotional whiplash. And I loved it. One minute I'd be busting a gut laughing, then I'd be contemplating the nature of my existence, and after that I'd be basking in how great being alive is. When I finished the book, I just broke into tears for a solid 5 minutes. This was such a bittersweet book, and I'm begging you to read it.

I could gush for ages about the book, but I genuinely don't see a point. As I said before, you should read it, you do yourself a disservice everyday that you don't, it's just that good. Pratchett is one of the greatest authors of our time, and we're likely never going to see someone as gifted as him again. This is one of the easiest 5 stars that I think I've ever given, and has shot Discworld up to a top 3 fantasy series for me.