Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating : 5 of 5 stars
Series: Standalone
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller
Published: July 26th 2016 by Broadway Books
“Every moment, every breath, contains a choice. But life is imperfect. We make the wrong choices. So we end up living in a state of perpetual regret, and is there anything worse?
Dark Matter made for an exhilarating, unsettling, intense and thought-provoking reading experience!
The Institute by Stephen King
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
“Great events turn on small hinges.”
I love Stephen King. This has not been a lifelong truth, and my infatuation began a mere 5 or so years ago. Since then, I’ve read a third of his body of work, and I’ve been largely impressed. While I do believe that King would benefit from a harsher editor, and that he often fails to stick that landing with his endings, Stephen King has an incredible mind. The plots he dreams up, and the characters he creates to populate those stories, are pretty spectacular and always feel original. While I’ve enjoyed everything of his I’ve read at least in part, some of his books are more successful than others. The Institute is just such a book. The plot was disturbing and vaguely supernatural without seeming implausible. The cast of characters was beautifully fleshed out and varied. And the ending didn’t suck! …
The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Lightbringer (Book #2 of 5)
Genre: Fantasy, High fantasy
Pages: 704 pages (US paperback edition)
Published: 11th September 2012 by Orbit (US) & 13rd September 2012 by Orbit (UK)
Gavin Guile has said that he has seven great purposes to fulfill in his lifetime; one of those is to write a seven paragraphs spoiler-free review so that people will read The Blinding Knife and I’m here to help him achieve that.
The Blinding Knife, the second installment in Weeks’s Lightbringer series, successfully excelled over the previous book. On my first read, I remember that I chose The Blinding Knife as my favorite installment of the series; it seems like I’m going to stand by this notion on my reread. There are many reasons to love The Blinding Knife; multi-layered intrigues in its politics, superb pacing, incredible character developments and intricate expansion to its world-building, to name a few. In the first book, there was quite a lot of pages—necessarily—spent towards the purpose of making sure the reader truly understands the mechanism behind the complex magic system; that info-dumpy section is gone now, everything flows naturally in The Blinding Knife because the concept and rules of the magic system has been established clearly in the previous book. Weeks took every foundation firmly planted in The Black Prism and gradually built upon them wonderfully here. …
The Stranger Inside by Lisa Unger
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Published: 03 October 2019 (HQ)
Bad people win. They win all the time.
Rain Winter was outraged by the not-guilty verdict that allowed Steve Markham to get away with killing his wife and their unborn child. Her investigation of the murder had left her with no doubts about his guilt, the injustice of his freedom and the inevitable media circus that gifted him the celebrity spotlight leaving her feeling sickened and powerless. Taking time out from journalism to care for her husband and baby seemed like a welcome and necessary step, a break from all the madness. But now Markham’s dead. Butchered by the same method he used to get rid of his family. And word is that it’s not the only time this vigilante has acted. That the first was actually Eugene Kreskey, the man who tried to abduct her as a child. The man who killed one of her friends and tortured the other.
If there’s a link, a story, she needs to find it. All of a sudden, she’s right back in, bringing to light all kinds of secrets that should have stayed buried. Especially her own.
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson
My rating: 6 of 5 stars.
Series: The Malazan Book of the Fallen (Book 3 of 10)
Genre: Epic fantasy, grimdark fantasy
First published: 2001 by Bantam (UK) and 2006 by Tor (US)
The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.
This in-world quote succinctly explained why Memories of Ice is one of my favourite volumes of my favourite grimdark epic fantasy series. It is the reason why I even read grimdark in the first place, given that I am so easily assailed by emotions that one wonders why I willingly put myself through such heartbreak. So bear with me throughout this series when I keep waxing lyrical about how humanity manifests its most awe-inspiring qualities in the face of relentless hardship and horrors of a world ravaged by conflict.
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The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan
My rating : 4 of 5 stars
Series: The Powder Mage
Genre: Fantasy, Flintlock Fantasy, Military fiction
Published: February 10th 2015 by Orbit
The Autumn Republic is the third and last book of the Powder Mage Trilogy and again, it’s a brilliant (and equally frustrating) mix of military tactics, fantasy, politics and investigative narrative.
The action began a few days after the closing events of the Crimson Campaign. Some of the main characters found themselves in dire situations, others were beginning new adventures. So to say the least, the book started off with a bang. …
Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: Book of the Ancestor (Book 3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, high fantasy
Published: 4th April 2019 by Harper Voyager (UK) and 9th April 2019 by Ace (US)
Incredibly satisfying, Holy Sister is a powerful conclusion to a remarkable trilogy that shines most brilliantly with its superb characterisation.
I am truly impressed with Mark Lawrence’s ability to write such realistic and relatable female characters, and to achieve that across such a wide range of age, backgrounds and personality of all the nuns and novices. I loved how he managed to make each and every one of them shine in different ways. To top it all off, it was the amazing portrayal of friendship, love and bonds between these characters that tied it all together in a most emotionally captivating narrative of sisterhood.
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The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Series: Lightbringer (Book #1 of 5)
Genre: Fantasy, High fantasy
Pages: 688 pages (US paperback edition)
Published: 25th August 2010 by Orbit
An incredibly original and entertaining start to a memorable high fantasy series.
The Black Prism, the first book in Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, was one of my first forays into an adult high-fantasy novel. I can’t honestly say that I’ve been a devout follower of this series since its conception; The Black Prism was first published in 2010 and I started this series almost exactly three years ago, all the way back in October 2016; it was near the release date of the fourth book of the series: The Blood Mirror. Now that the fifth and final book of the series, The Burning White, is coming out in less than three weeks, I figure that it’s about time I finally reread this series that I loved before from the beginning again. Why? Because I’ve forgotten TONS of details about it and this reread strongly proved it.
“All power is a test.”
Rereading is always a fascinating experience for me; I won’t lie that I have my share of issues—mostly due to overwhelming TBR and unfinished series I’m stuck in—with the idea of rereading just for the sake of refreshing memories in order to be able to appreciate the next/last book of a particular series. However, statistically speaking, rereading a book/series actually deliver a superior reading experience compared to my first read-through more often than not; The Black Prism is another great example of this situation, and it makes me wish I have more time to re-read many books that I’ve read before. …
I love how short stories are making such strides in popular fiction, as is speculative fiction. The Forward Collection is a great demonstration of this, and brings together vastly different authors to theorize on what the future might look like. What binds these stories together is their exploration of possible technological advancements in the not too distant future, without ever really giving away if the changes such advancements would bring would be for our collective good or ill. In most of these stories, technology is both our destroyer and our savior. Below you’ll find micro-reviews of each story, progressing from those I enjoyed the least to those that resonated the deepest. As I listened to the audio version of each story, readers are mentioned with the authors. …
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Wayfarers (Book 1 of 3)
Genre: Science fiction
Published: 2015 by Harper Voyager (US) and Hodder & Stoughton (UK)
This is one of the most endearing and charming novels that I’ve ever read.
I’ve had this book for quite a while but never got around to reading it. From all the reviews I’ve seen, I got the idea that it is one of those stories which the focus is around the characters instead of the plot and I wasn’t sure how I would feel about that. Perhaps I happened to pick this up at the right time, because I absolutely adored this captivating story of individuals just interacting with each other, and as a tight-knit multi-species crew they are as a whole much bigger than the sum of its parts.
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