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The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)

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The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I give up. Here’s where I say goodbye to The Wheel of Time.

The Shadow Rising is the fourth book in The Wheel of Time series, it’s been claimed by many fans of the series that installment is one of the better books—some even said it’s THE best–written by Robert Jordan before Brandon Sanderson takes over. I personally found this book to be the worst in the series so far.

Just like the extremely repetitive nature of the series, the only way I can explain why I found myself incredibly disappointed is, again, by repeating the cons that I’ve mentioned in my review of the previous three books. What I mean by this is that the story starts awesome, became extremely boring, and then a great conclusion again. Seriously, I read through the first 25% in a day, then it took me six days—with skimming Perrin’s story—to finish the remaining content. I won’t lie that a ridiculous amount of determination was self-forced on me in order for me to able to finish this. …

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The Bitter Twins (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, #2)

The Bitter Twins (The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, #2)

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The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

The Bitter Twins is a stunning sequel of staggering inventiveness and imagination.

I am in awe with the direction the story took after the unexpected turn of events at the end of The Ninth Rain. Instead of suffering from the middle book syndrome, The Bitter Twins continued to captivate me with its eldritch worldbuilding and engaging characterisation. I had to keep this review a bit shorter than usual, as there’s simply too much potential to accidentally spoil the numerous surprises that I kept encountering during my read.
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Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

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I received an advanced reading copy from Tor.com in exchange for an honest review.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.

I wish to echo Ann Leckie and simply say “I love Murderbot!”

With Rogue Protocol, The Murderbot Diaries is indeed shaping up to be a fantastic series of novellas that tick all the right boxes, albeit in a smaller-sized package of excellent science fiction action and empathetic character development.
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Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate, #1)

Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate, #1)

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ARC provided by the publisher—Orbit—in exchange for an honest review

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An incredibly entertaining start to a new space opera series.

Velocity Weapon is the first book in The Protectorate series by Megan E. O’Keefe. This was my first experience reading O’Keefe’s work and I had a fantastic time with it. isn’t an easy book for me to review. It’s not because I found the book to be disappointing or not up to my preference, but I honestly think that many components of the storyline or what makes this book truly great can be considered a spoiler that the task of reviewing this book ended up being more difficult than usual.

“Being offended by facts is a long human tradition.”

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The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3)

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The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Not much actually happened in The Dragon Reborn but it was more engaging than the previous two books.

The Dragon Reborn is the third book in The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. The title of this novel may be The Dragon Reborn, this title implies that Rand will take the central role again, but the main characters of this book were actually Mat, Perrin, and Egwene. If I’m not mistaken, Rand has only like three or four small POV chapters. This doesn’t mean that Rand wasn’t important to the main story, the storyline still heavily revolved around him. …

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Age of Legend (The Legends of the First Empire, #4)

Age of Legend (The Legends of the First Empire, #4)

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Age of Legend by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant sequel which fulfilled both my eager anticipation and high expectations, Age of Legend takes the First Empire series to another level of greatness with the promise of a showstopper by its finale.

Age of Legend is structurally different from the continuous narrative in the preceding three volumes. This book has three sections; the first part is the shortest which deals with the immediate aftermath of the battle at Alon Rhist. The second section takes place one year after that, and there will be another five years’ time leap for the third and largest part of the book. Without needing to go into too much detail and dragging the narrative, the three-part story enabled the reader to appreciate how protracted the war was between the Rhunes and the Fhreys, before going into the more portentous events.
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The Blackest Heart (The Five Warrior Angels, #2)

The Blackest Heart (The Five Warrior Angels, #2)

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Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Blackest Heart by Brian Lee Durfee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m absolutely stunned by this 960 pages marvel.

Seriously, The Forgetting Moon was awesome already, but The Blackest Heart triumphed over its predecessor in every possible way. I don’t even have words to express how grateful I am that the author sent me these two books, which weren’t even on my radar, to review; it’s truly serendipitous that I found a new ongoing favorite series because of it. …

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Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

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I received an advanced reading copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

An awesome sequel to All Systems Red, Artificial Condition pumps up the fun and action.

Before I continue, I maintain that our genderless robotic main protagonist sounded female in my mind and hence, I will refer to it as she. Our sardonic SecUnit decided to return to the mining planet where a prior incident culminated in her self-christening as Murderbot, with the intention to investigate the real cause of the said incident. In the course of attempting to hitch a ride there without being caught, she managed to bribe her way through by offering the transport bots her treasure trove of media, books, serials, and music downloads. I don’t know about other readers, but this cracks me up so much!
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The Forgetting Moon (The Five Warrior Angels, #1)

The Forgetting Moon (The Five Warrior Angels, #1)

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Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A severely underrated epic fantasy debut.

The Forgetting Moon is Brian Lee Durfee’s debut and it has been published for almost three years now. Honestly, it’s quite sinful that this book has less than 500 ratings on Goodreads at the moment; not only this is THE biggest fantasy debut I’ve ever read so far, The Forgetting Moon is also one of the strongest beginnings to an epic fantasy series I’ve come across. I’m truly flabbergasted by how underrated this debut is. Gorgeous cover art by Richard Anderson, a beautifully drawn map by Robert Lazzaretti, high-quality floppy paperback (yes, this is a plus), and most importantly, amazing content. Why is no one talking about this book!? I seriously wish someone had recommended this book to me; I never heard about this series until the author himself sent a review request to me and I’m gratified that he did.

Picture: My signed copy of The Forgetting Moon (I have to share this. Check out the badass signature!)

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Last Bastion (FFO, #2)

Last Bastion (FFO, #2)

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I received an advanced reading copy from the authors in exchange for an honest review.

Last Bastion by Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Bastion was supposed to mean safety.”

It seemed, however, that Rachel Aaron and Travis Bach decided that safety will be a bit boring for the fictional characters and the readers. Hence, they gave us a heart-pounding, fast-paced, action-packed and dangerously addictive MMORPG-style adventure in the world of Forever Fantasy Online with a great cast of characters.

The story picked up immediately from the ending of the first book. Our main characters, James and Tina, arrived at the city of Bastion to seek refuge and find some answers after the world of FFO was suddenly released from the Nightmare. A term used by the NPCs who are supposedly real people to describe their entrapment in the game environmen, the Nightmare is so named for the dreadful never-ending cycle ofreliving the quests the players undertake, oftentimes dying a painful death over and over again. What greeted the player characters, however, was a city on fire and laden with corpses. Not exactly their idea of a safe haven from the constant danger and fighting they’ve encountered in the past few days.
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