Book Review: Stormblood (The Commons, #1) by Jeremy Szal
ARC provided by the author and publisher—Gollancz—in exchange for an honest review.
Stormblood by Jeremy Szal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Series: The Common (Book #1)
Genre: Sci-fi, Military sci-fi
Pages: 432 pages
Published: 4th June 2020 by Gollancz
Milestone achieved: This is my 400th review!
A captivating military sci-fi debut. Stormblood tells a splendid story about two brothers divided by war that is full of comradeship, actions, and conflict.
Here’s an ugly truth, I haven’t been reading a lot of sci-fi lately. I was able to read 115 books in 2019, and only eight of those books were sci-fi novels. For this year’s priority sci-fi TBR pile, I have only ten sci-fi books on my list; nine of them belong to the entirety of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, the other one is Stormblood, Jeremy Szal’s debut. I came to know about this book because the author—same as me—is a huge fan of Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown and Mass Effect video game franchise, and after reading this book, I can say that both inspirations are evident in his novel. I definitely would suggest anyone who’s a fan of either one of them, even better if both, to check this debut out.
“People compare overcoming addiction to climbing a mountain, but that assumes there’s a peak to climb towards. Stormtech was more like swimming in an endless, churning sea. You never truly beat it. You just found temporary ways not to drown.”