Wes Baker

I'll echo what's already been said about this: it felt wishy-washy and a bit heads-in-the-cloud and never really said a lot. There are some good bits and pieces here, but overall it felt like a waste of time. Not so bad I had to stop reading it, just bad enough to not recommend it to anyone I know, and to go so far as to recommend not reading it. I expected a lot more from Mr. Chimero.

This is the book on creativity that I've been waiting for. It covers so many topics so quickly, and yet each topic feels complete and not rushed. This is a book that will sit on my shelf and be read multiple times. Highly recommended.

A great book on how to take your time and draw what you actually see. I really enjoyed the exploration of L-mode vs R-mode thinking and what that means for your drawings. My only complaint—and it's a result of what you're doing—is that each chapter might end up taking you two to three hours to get through because of how long each drawing will take. I guess that's not really a complaint because it's so enjoyable, but more of a warning.

The material was relatively good, though it felt like a lot of super-positive self-help. If you do decide to read this, do yourself a favor and avoid the audiobook like the plague. The narrator is slow in parts and fast in others and generally feels like a novice instead of a professional.

This was an incredibly fast read, maybe 30 minutes or so long. It's full of beautiful imagery, simple dialog, and surprises aplenty. Being something written for young adults, there's a lot of archetypes to be found: the chosen one, unknown and dangerous magics, and the deceased parent, however they all tie together very neatly and the story makes you care despite the genre-standard tropes.

If I had to pick one thing that this book does incredibly well, it's the action panels and how they create a fantastic sense of motion.

This is a dense book and it took me a few months to get through, mostly due to me forgetting to pick it up, but the material is excellent. I've read a few books on biases and heuristics before and always enjoyed the material, but I felt like this book did a better job of really focusing on the repercussions of them and how they might affect you.

The ending is a bit of a letdown as the author concedes that he's not sure how to fix these problems, but being aware is an excellent start.

As someone that grew up with parents who let me roam and get into some trouble, I can't tolerate the current trend of protecting children from any thing that could potentially hurt them in any way, form, or fashion. This ‘book' (more of a pamphlet) was a quick read and a good argument for letting your children earn their share of scars and bruises. This is something I'll need to re-read when I actually have children.

Way too much dude. The author starts with the assumption that you, as the father, only care about the end product, not the whole pregnancy. Also, a lot of the information is redundant if you're taking a Bradley Method class.

We join Royce and Hadrian again, but this time they're far deeper in Averyn politics than before. Additionally, we start to see Royce's hard facade crack a bit and he's a bit more human (something that has me worried for the fifth and sixth books). Of the two books in this omnibus, I definitely enjoyed the fourth book, The Emerald Storm, more because I'm a sucker for a nautical setting in fantasy books. Royce and Hadrian flounder onboard the ship for the first few days and eventually get better, with Royce using his accumulated talents for the good of the ship, while Hadrian enjoys a rather sedate job as cook. Meanwhile, we continue to see the New Empire grow, shift, and change as they work on binding everyone to their rule with the Essendons (in particular Arista) and Degan being some of the few willing to challenge them.

The fourth book leaves you without a clear ending, a gray area much like most of the characters, and it has me frothing at the mouth to start the third, and final, omnibus.

I'm a glutton for a story about an assassin, but then add in his partner who's a mercenary with a heart of gold and you've got me hooked. Now, paint a slightly askew picture as compared to your bog standard medieval fantasy and you're two for two. Then add in a layer of political intrigue and some heists and I'm all in.

On some levels, this story feels like a buddy cop movie, except instead of cops we have a pair of fixers (men for hire who can steal, kill, implicate, and solve ‘problems'). From the first book on, they're involved in more than what they ever intended, being hired to do a too-easy job for far too much money, which goes bad very quickly. From there, we see them help a kingdom and then a small village.

I think what makes this book so great is the interaction between Royce and Hadrian (our assassin and mercenary, respectively). The roles are pretty standard with the assassin being angst and short-fused, and the mercenary having his own code of honor and wanting to what's right. Yet, it just feels so good to watch them do what they do and in the way that makes sense to their character. I love that Royce thinks of himself first and maybe everyone else later, and that Hadrian is looking to do what's right for others and be honorable, despite his association with a thief and assassin.

I highly recommend this book.

Some of these are beautifully illustrated. However, I apparently can't stand H.P. Lovecraft.