ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Never Die by Rob J. Hayes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This review is quite long but the short version is this: Never Die is currently one of the three best self-published books I’ve ever read. If you still need more convincing, read further. …
Jade City by Fonda Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Green Bone Saga (Book #1 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 544 pages (UK Paperback edition)
Published: 7th November 2017 (US) & 9th November 2017 (UK) by Orbit
Incredible, the multiple nominees and awards this book has won are all well deserved. …
Night Shift by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Night Shift is exactly what I have always expected to find in Stephen King’s work, but which I have only experienced sporadically in his novels; it was genuinely scary. Short story collections are generally pretty hit or miss for me. Even those I’ve enjoyed aren’t usually overwhelmingly successful, giving me a handful of stories sprinkled liberally with mediocre tales. Not so here. I honestly enjoyed every single story in this collection. …
Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A magnificent coming-of-age standalone.
Fantasy and sci-fi will always be my favorite genres to read. I’m not ashamed to say that I haven’t read a lot of novels outside SFF; mainly because I found the popular and the highly acclaimed non-SFF books that I’ve read so far to be mostly disappointing or just not satisfying enough. However, there will always be that rare occurrence where I pick up a random book outside of my favorite genre and realized that I have been transported by a magical portal. Boy’s Life was that kind of book; it grabbed my full attention since the prologue and it still dazzled me after I finished it.
Picture: Boy’s Life by David Ho
Cover illustration by: Richard Anderson (flaptrapsart)
Skullsworn by Brian Staveley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne (Book #4 of 4)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy
Pages: 320 pages (US Hardcover edition)
Published: 20th April 2017 by Tor (UK) & 25th April 2017 by Tor Books (US)
Absolutely marvelous. Not only Skullsworn is Staveley’s best work so far, it’s also one of the most well-written books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Skullsworn is a standalone prequel to Staveley’s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne trilogy; focusing on Pyrre Lakatur—one of my favorite characters from the main trilogy—as she faces her final trial to become the Priestess of Ananshael, the god of death. To pass her trial, Pyrre has fourteen days to kill the seven people depicted in an ancient song, including the one she loves / someone who will not come again. The main problem in this trial for Pyrre isn’t the killing itself, but love; she isn’t sure if she’s ever been in love or whether she knows what love is. If she fails to find someone to love—and then kill—she will fail the trial and die in the hands of the Priests of Ananshael. Pyrre isn’t afraid of death but she hates failing, and hence, she returns to the city of her birth, Dombang, in the hope of finding love and ending it with her blade.
“Love is not some eternal state, but a delight in the paradise of the imperfect. The holding of a thing is inextricable from the letting go, and to love, you must learn both.”
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Epic, masterful, and scintillating in every sense of these words; The Crippled God is an unforgettable magnum opus that concludes Steven Erikson’s genre-defining series: Malazan Book of the Fallen.
11,216 pages (Bantam paperback edition) and 3.3 million words read in exactly two months and two weeks; I’m done, it’s finally over. The entire ten-volume of Malazan Book of the Fallen has been in my TBR pile for almost two years long, and now it has been read, dusted and shelved. Erikson has raised the benchmark for Epic/military fantasy ridiculously high with what he created in this series. Together with Wrath by John Gwynne and Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb, The Crippled God stands among the top of the best final book of a series I’ve ever read, and there’s a definite probability that it will always stay on that list.
“I have enjoyed our long conversation. What’s three and a half million words between friends?” – Steven Erikson
Heir of Novron by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Heir of Novron is without a doubt one of the most emotional and rewarding re-reads I’ve ever had the chance to experience. But most of all, it’s a book that put together all the things I love about Fantasy and about reading in general: Magic, legends and myths, unforgettable characters, duel scenes, chivalrous and heroic moments and emotions. Lots of emotions.
Just take a moment to look at the book’s dedication…
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L
ancelot by Giles Kristian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I firmly believed that I would never experience another Arthurian novel as magnificent as Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles trilogy. I was wrong.
I’ll start my review by saying thank you to Robin Carter from Parmenion Books for recommending this book to me. Without him, I wouldn’t have known about this book at all. Seriously, other than his one-time recommendation, I literally never heard of or saw anything about this book anywhere else, and that’s seriously a sin because this is a brilliant book. If you’re into Arthurian Tale or historical fiction, this is a must-read. …
Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Against all odds, Toll the Hounds blew my mind away and became one of my favorite installment within the series.
Toll the Hounds, just like House of Chains, is one of the installments which I heard plenty of mixed things about; they’re there for valid reasons. However, unlike House of Chains which disappointed me a lot, I actually found Toll the Hounds mesmerizing, a treasure trove for philosophies, and also one of the most rewarding books in the series so far. The story of the novel focused on the characters in Darujhistan and the Tiste Andii race. That’s right, we’re finally back in Darujhistan after seven books and we finally get to see the story focusing almost completely on the Tiste Andii.
Picture: A fanart of Anomander Rake by artsed-d8joaqa
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ll probably never look at moths the same way again.
What would happen to the world if half of the population went to sleep and never woke up? And how would that reaction differ if the population was divided by gender, and all of the sleepers were females? How would men handle a world without women? …
