Review: Of Bone and Thunder

 Of Bone and Thunder by Chris Evans

From my brief investigations into the author (Chris Evans of The Iron Elves trilogy) it would seem that he’s a bit of a military historian and I definitely think that’s where this book stems from. It’s a story inspired by the Vietnam War (obviously with a fantasy twist) and you definitely get the impression straight away of confusing objectives coupled with oppressive heat. 

Of Bone and Thunder starts off in a slightly confusing manner, what with the prologue being from the perspective of a bird, but it very quickly drags you in and becomes a visceral, pumping tale that feels very real.

We start following normal soldiers doing a normal day’s work in heat that should only be experienced when you’re standing next to an industrial oven. We move on to a less normal soldier but still doing what amounts to a roughly normal day’s work. And finally we find ourselves following an airborne regiment doing a kind of normal day’s work.

We do see that the Kingdom back home is in turmoil and has almost exploded into open rebellion whilst conscripted soldiers fight in a searing hot jungle for a cause they don't know about.

I felt like, to start with, the plot meanders slightly with regards to the soldiers on the ground, rather than being propelled onwards into the maw of some great big bad evil end of the world nonsense. But I think that is also kind of the point with soldiers fighting a war that they see as pointless. That isn’t to say that the story isn’t compelling; we find ourselves sucked into the very real struggles of the soldiers on the ground (and air). 

One of my favourite parts of the story is the rags (read: dragons). Evans uses them to create dragon-based air squadrons. And it’s awesome. There’s something about the way Evans describes them that makes them feel heavy, hot, and oh so real and dangerous. And that’s before they even start breathing fire. I love it.

It’s compelling in its characters and every page reveals something deeper in each of the characters that makes you more interested in them. You become invested in the characters as you see their faults, their love for their comrades, and what they are willing to do to keep one another safe.

Evans does a great job of not pulling any punches or trying to glamorise warfare but at the same time the crescendo to the story will still get you cheering for the characters at their triumphs (I was smiling like a goon on the train). 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and thought it was a detailed exploration into the minds of soldiers on the ground, how social change affected them, and the stresses of dealing with a command structure unprepared for the environment they faced. 

It was well written, the characters were quite flawed but ultimately sympathetic and I found myself excited to get back to it. What more could you ask for?! Dragon? It has that too!

I would definitely recommend this book to fans of the Malazan series. This book is a dark exploration of war that still has also those features that make you want to read on and dig deeper into the world, the characters, and the conflicts.

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Review: Fearsome Magics

I've only picked up short story collections relatively recently, I (exceedingly) foolishly thought that they might not be good as a full length novel.

This book, Fearsome Magics (edited by Jonathan Strahan), proves I could not have been more wrong.

Inside we have stories from Garth Nix, K.J. Parker, Justina Robson, Ellen Klages, Christopher Rowe, Isobelle Carmody, Tony Ballantyne, James Bradley, Karin Tidbeck, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Frances Hardinger, Kaaron Warren, Genevieve Valentine and Robert Shearman. ( I didn't want to leave anyone out)

I enjoyed every single one of the stories in this anthology and highly recommend you go and read them all. But I thought that perhaps the best way to do a review was to pick some favourites and go into detail about those and then do a round up, so without further ado!

‘Home is the Haunter’ by Garth Nix

                This was one of the longer stories in the anthology and did take a little longer to get into  (but still not that long, I mean there’s not that long altogether!). A story of Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz, who just happens to be a living puppet, it took a little time to get drawn into the world but when I was I did not want to go anywhere. Once the story got going I could barely put it down, the writing was fantastic, the pacing was excellent, and the characters were outstanding. As soon as I finished this story I set out to find out more about Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz and purchased a collection of short stories on them. 

'Grigori's Theorum' by Isobelle Carmody

                I don’t think I have anything bad to say about this story.  A story about the end of the world, it gave me chills. The imagery that Carmody brought up and the feelings of sheer inevitability and acceptance just blew me away and I have been telling people about this story all week. Seriously, I thought it was amazing, an interesting concept exceedingly well told. 

"The Changeling" by James Bradley

                A haunting tale really blurring the lines between what might actually be magic and what we might just want to perceive. Exploring a theme of escapism and social acceptance this particular short story did stay with me for its ambiguity in its ending. Bradley definitely pushed his protagonist to the edge.

 

All in all I think this a very strong anthology with a collection of stories that are all wonderful, creepy, epic, and heart-breaking all at once. To say that I would recommend this short story collection would be a bit of misdirection. I have already recommended this anthology several times to friends.  It has strong female characters, teddy bears, maths, and a village jam and preserve competition. What more could you want?

If you need something to occupy your mind for an hour and you want something that will stay with you and you can get your teeth into, grab a steak and this book.

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Review: Emperor of Thorns (Audiobook)

Once again this was an audiobook but I actually got a signed hardcopy as a gift (awesome gift!) and it turns out the new POV character's chapters were in a different font, which I thought was really cool! 

Anyway! 

As per usual Mark Lawrence does a wonderful job of throwing us right into the action and then folding in the back-story like a fine cake made of blood, death, and misery. This time we join Jorg as he is about to make his way to Congression (I’m not sure if that’s supposed to the capitalised but why not?) and again some backstory woven in that adds wonderful depth to the world, story, and character.

A brand new twist on this book in particular in another POV character! Say what!

This time we hear from … Chella’s perspective (Sorry I had to look that up, fantasy audiobooks mean I’m not sure how to spell things sometimes). It’s an interesting tale and gives us much more information about the world and a fresh perspective on things (although definitely not a fluffy happy one).

If there’s something that Lawrence can do, it is weave different levels of stories together. We also get lots of those throwaway sentences that Lawrence is so good at which are just beautifully put together and just make you stop to appreciate them. 

One thing I was slightly confused about was the foreshadowing that Lawrence included in his book. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of foreshadowing, especially if it means your second read through is completely different.  I’m not sure if I felt the foreshadowing was obvious, because it wasn’t very heavy handed at all, or perhaps more that Lawrence’s writing process is more of a (to use a term made famous by GRRM) gardener than an architect. Whatever the cause, reason, or rhyme I did find that I had seen ahead the twist long before it happened.

I don’t want you to take away that this is necessarily a bad thing, I’m not sure if it was supposed to remain a mystery until the big reveal or if Lawrence wanted us to guess it early on. With the story being in first person (for the most part) it added a tremendous amount of dramatic tension to the final chapters of the book and made those scenes all the more powerful. 

All in all this book was a very good close to the Broken Empire trilogy and I very much look forward to reading the next series that Lawrence has lined up for us (especially if he takes us beyond the end of Emperor of Thorns in his world's timeline to see what effects the finale had on it).

This was an excellent book of the same high calibre that Mark Lawrence has crafted before. In Jorg we get a philosopher, warrior, king, and broken thing. Mark Lawrence makes no apologies for Jorg but we don’t want to and we fall in love with him all the same (perhaps more so because of that). The story moves a little slower than the previous books but it is still quick and compelling. It will make you laugh, it will tear at you and make you cry and leave you wanting more stories from Lawrence’s world.

What more could you want?

 

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Book Review: Assail by Ian C Esslemont

Look at it! It's so awesome!

Hopefully I was not alone in my giddy excitement when I saw the title of this book.

Assail.

All Malazan fans will know the weight that sits on that continent. Throughout Erikson’s series we have seen some of the toughest characters be chewed up and spat out by Assail. And sometimes they even survive.

We enter the world of Malazan once again as we always do, with some new characters and some old faces, and I think by now with 15 books under most readers’ belts (I’m going to assume that you’ve read Esslemont’s series after you read Erikson’s) we have enough context that we are immediately drawn into the new stories. A young man from one of the tribes on Assail and a sea-captain on his way to the fabled continent are a couple.

Esslemont does a wonderful job of building tension and suspense in the first portion of the book. We are only given fleeting glimpses into what lies at the heart of the continent and what terrible things might happen. Further to this we are thrown a complete curve-ball with the prologue and only left with burning questions.

Esslemont builds on this consistently throughout the entire book and we are given hints, both great and small, about what is happening and important revelations about the world. I could barely put the book down in the first half for all of these hints and questions (I almost missed my stop a couple of times on the train) and then by the time the second half of the book comes around you’re caught up with the momentous plot you can’t put it down then either!

I will say that for some reason around Chapter Six there was this weird explosion of adverbs. As though Esslemont realised that adverbs can be okay sometimes and got a little carried away. It was a little off-putting once I realised he wasn’t doing it deliberately with one character to try and make a statement about their POV, but then after that chapter it dies down and all is well with the world.

Apart from the ‘Adverb Attack of Ch. 6’ Esslemont’s language is diverse and descriptive, and I did note at times how wonderfully creepy he could be (in all the right places). Esslemont’s voice really shines and I think that he has developed wonderfully since ‘The Night of Knives’ way back in 2004. He gives the proper weight and sadness to those characters and scenes that need it but is also a dab hand at cracking jokes. There was a wonderful moment in a climactic fight scene towards the end that did give me a mighty chuckle.

The Epilogue does a wonderful job of tying everything together in a neat little bow. I did wonder whether it was necessary and should have been a final chapter, but perhaps that’s just pedantic of me? Regardless, the Epilogue ties all of the threads of this book together and then shows us some of the paths the characters want to take next. So instead of leaving us with the unanswered questions that we were sometimes left with in Erikson’s work, Esslemont ties everything together and then scatters the seeds for the next round of storytelling. And each and every single one of those seeds should be an epic story in its own right.

By the time we reach the end of the book the world has been suitably threatened, our view on it has been suitably rocked, and we have had our hearts suitably broken. All in all, Esslemont continues to build and improve on his previous work. Every volume increases in complexity, skill, and epic scale.

I absolutely urge any fantasy fan to read the Malazan series, and if any Malazan fans are hesitant to pick up Esslemont’s series after what a good job Erikson did, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed. Esslemont has at least 3 more books to go and I for one cannot wait to read them. 


Assail is released on the 14th August and you can preorder it in hardback or ebook from Amazon, or from the publisher's website.

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Review: Orb Sceptre Throne - Novel of the Malazan Empire

 
Well I think you can understand now why the gap in blog posts, eh? It was because I was reading through a Malazan book.

So, fair warning, if you haven't read any of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series or Ian C. Esslemont's books which don the subtitle 'A Novel of the Malazan Empire' on each cover then I suspect this is all going to sound like gibberish to you.

This time I'm working my way through the Ian C Esslemont series Novels of the Malazan Empire which is obviously set in the same world and deals with largely new ground. And this review might seem a bit sparse on the details but then again, if I reveal too much I actually have the potential to ruin two whole separate epic fantasy series... so we'll see how it goes.

And which book, I hear you ask? (that was creepy, how did you do that?) Well, Orb Sceptre Throne, book number four in Esslemont's series. And if you don't like Amazon links, well then here's a link to the publisher's website.

Some of the characters we know and love appear in this book, set as it is in Darijhustan, so we see Kruppe, Rallick Nom makes an appearance among others. In terms of the timeline for this book it's sits neatly after Erikson's Toll the Hounds but also before the finale of his series.

One of the things I am supremely enjoying about Esslemont's works of the Malazan world is that he is exploring all the things that Erikson never had the time to (I rather suspect this was divided neatly by the two of them before either started writing). In this book alone we learn more about the Seguleh, the Moranth and the interesting history of Darijhustan. Now if that's not enough on its own to make you read this then I don't know what will be! But I'll keep going nonetheless.

Of all of Esslemont's books that I have read so far, this one has felt far and away the best of them. I'm not sure if it was the plot, the pacing, the characters or the writing alone that made it feel like that but I suspect it was rather the collection of all of them.

Rather than starting the book in the typical Malazan fashion which is to say plopped down and left to figure out who's who, rather like a party-goer who decided to use the skylight instead of the door, we already know most of the players here. Or at least if not the players then where the players come from which gives us much needed context.

Granted, a lot of that context comes from Erikson's books, but it still felt nice to dive straight into this and look at the echoes of events from Toll the Hounds and before. So I think you would definitely need to have read up to there with Erikson's books before you have a go at this one, some of the characters are the same and you definitely do not want to spoil the events of Toll the Hounds! So I would say, as a standalone work, that is probably this book's only downfall (if it can be called that!)

Enough time has passed and the scenery has so changed that there is an aura of mystery about the place and we're not sure why that scholar is digging around in the wells outside the city, or what he found down there, but I know darn well that it's not going to end well.

Esslemont weaves together all the strands of the story and pushes all the characters together from far flung islands to the glowing blue city in a wonderful manner.Towards the end of the novel the pacing is swift as all of the storylines begin to come to a head and you will find it hard to put down. When you reach the final 100 pages or so, it just becomes really hard to stop reading, one thing comes after another like an avalanche.

Overall I very much enjoyed this novel. There were times when I did pause to appreciate a well crafted metaphor or simile and other times when I was swearing under my breath purely to get the excitement of the events out of my system somehow (hopefully my commuter companions didn't mind). There was always something going on, never a dull moment, and Esslemont definitely met the high bar of scale, colour, and soul-shattering twists and revelations that Erikson has set.

If you weren't as enamored with any previous Esslemont books and were worried where he would take the series, I say to you; Worry no more! He has created a wonderful epic with this novel and once you have devoured this (disclaimer: please don't eat your books it will not make you gain the power contained within their yummy pages) you won't be able to wait for the next volume! And, what luck, you don't have to!

But in all seriousness, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. And if you are a Malazan fan who has reached Toll the Hounds, or finished the Book of the Fallen, then I urge you to read up to this volume, it will sate your undying curiosity for the Malazan world, but still leave you wanting more.


I am sorry I couldn't say any more about the meat and bones of the book, but in defence of my reticence I've already been told off by my friends for giving spoilers...

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Review: Shanghai Sparrow

I genuinely had no idea what I was in for with this book. I thought the cover art was awesome (steampunk dragon? Yes please) so I grabbed it and gave it a twirl, and then when I was done twirling I read it!

So what is Shanghai Sparrow? Well to start with it's written by Gaie Sebold!

The book is set in a steam punk British Empire, which also contains a Chinese Empire and a Russian Empire but they're only mentioned in passing, and the story follows Evvie Duchen a grubby street urchin, and Holmforth a dedicated a loyal servant of the British Empire. Throw in a pinch of fairy Folk and a dash of magic and you've got yourself a good setting.

Immediately I found myself drawn in to Sebold's story. She definitely has an excellent handle on giving the reader just enough information so that they know what's going on in the moment, but keep the reader asking questions and yearning for more information! Why is Evvie a thief? What's up with the weird Holmforth? What's this magical Etheric science I'm hearing so much about!? Suffice to say Sebold did a wonderful job of keeping me entertained but also keeping me yearning for more.

This, I think, lent itself to the pace very well. I found myself hungrily devouring the text and also wanting to find out that next tiny tit-bit of information that made the world so colourful. But Sebold avoids the pitfall that can be the trouble with a lot of fiction set in alternative universes, which is to talk too much about the world and too little about what's going on. Of course, I understand the want of authors to talk about their world, they've spent years meticulously crafting these intricate universes and only want to share them with you, to enrich your experience of the story! I get that, and at times I love it. Sebold, however, gives us the world with hints and throwaway lines that leave us asking questions.

 I understand that this could be a bad thing, but I don't think it is in this case. We are given just as much as we need to know and and it really highlights that we're being told about the characters.

And the characters are great. We mainly stay with the point-of-view Evvie with forays to Holmforth and the rare appearance of a mysterious Fox Spirit. None of the characters are just villainous because we need villains and neither do we get the most heinous of crimes and have characters performing actions that are against their nature purely to progress the plot. Each of the characters is developed and as we discover more about them and their motivations we come to understand each of them very well.

And as a side-note: I also very much enjoyed that there were many strong female characters, I am always pleased when this happens. There are no damsels in distress in this book, no sir (or madam)! All of the characters, regardless of gender, are intelligently crafted three-dimensional beings.

I was a little miffed when the story jumped to backstory for a chapter or so, after all, I wanted to know what was happening with the plot! But then you start finding out little things and the same level of storytelling is involved in the backstory so it rapidly becomes a non-issue. (And I have done this before with chapters of backstory, to be slightly miffed but also almost immediately engrossed, and this is no different!)

This is a great read, Sebold writes very well and drops colourful similes and imagery in to her work that give it that added spark. The way she has set up the plot and the world mean that the pacing is quick and well thought out, you don't find yourself rushing through the boring bits (what boring bits?) and Sebold knows how to ratchet up the tension.

I was pleased to find out that Solaris Books have commissioned a sequel as well! There is much more I wanted to see, especially of Evvie! So if you're up for a series then this is the book for you! But if you'd prefer self-contained story, then just pretend I didn't mention it!

All in all, I was very impressed with Shanghai Sparrow and would heartily recommend it. You'll find yourself devouring pages on the edge of your seat, whether you like it or not!

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Review: The Lost Castle (The Chronicles of Krangor)

I love a good fantasy book, and I love dinosaurs. So what's not to love when you mix them together? 

That's why I picked up The Lost Castle the first in a series called The Chronicles of Krangor written by Michael Pryor, which is a fantasy novel where all the characters are dinosaurs of one sort or another (bet you didn't see that coming?).

It is a children's book, so I wasn't expecting it to be super duper complicated and just really a bit of fun to break up the weeping muddy explosion that is the Malazan universe. 

The story centers around three young saurs who uncover the evil Queen's diabolical plan to rule the world using magic. Awesome. We've got dinosaurs, an evil queen, and world domination goin' on. Mainly we follow Adalon (on the cover, I assume) a young noble and promises to exact justice on the Queen for the death of his father. 

Look at him. Being all knight-y and prehistoric

One thing that always surprises me about children's books (although it says more about the caliber of book I read, I suspect, than the caliber of children's books) is how quickly the plot progresses. We are immediately thrown into the thick of things and the plot progresses at a compelling pace. 

However, I do think that this sacrifices something of the prose as a rather inordinate amount of the time (not all the time, but just enough that I noticed it) we are being told what is happening more often than not rather than being shown. I understand that this is also partly to do with tailoring to the audience, as much as I like to imagine I'm still a kid at heart, I know that I have grown up. (Damn you Peter Pan!)

One thing that I did find a bit odd was the description of the saurs themselves. The details were never thoroughly detailed and we are only offered snippets of the saurs in any one paragraph. I guess that a reason for this is that Michael Pryor has devised a world where the dinosaurs have evolved and moved away from the petty classification of us mere humans. Instead of (what I assumed to be a descendant of the iguanadon) we are told they are 'Clawed Ones', or instead of some sort of Tyrannosaurus Rex we hear of the 'Toothed One'. At its face I think this is a good way to try and show what the characters are without bogging the young readership down with too many details. But I did also find that it left a lot to the imagination, which sometimes left me thinking "Oh, maybe they don't look like I thought they did...". Although I should qualify this that I was a massive dinosaur nerd when I was a kid (who am I kidding, 'was'?) so maybe I shouldn't wait for Pryor to tell me if a character is a Stegasaurus or a Kentrosaurus....

But moving past that and my own geekery, the characters are interesting and there is danger abound and not just the danger of the Queen's guards that have been set on those she wants eliminated. The three friends we follow (each a different kind of saur) all have their own personalities and Pryor does well to bring them out and show the value of friendship and teamwork throughout. 

So if you like dinosaurs and fantastical stories and you fancy a quick read, or you know a suitable youngling (no, I don't know why I phrased it like that either) then I would recommend this book. The world is ripe for the picking and Pryor sets himself up for an adventurous romp over the trilogy. 

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And Now For Something Completely Different! A Real Tale From History

I love me some history, I love it so much that I studied various kinds of history for pretty much my whole education. I grabbed 2 degrees in Classics and Ancient History (they were mine I promise, I didn't steal them).

One of the things I love about it is all the stories that you could make from it. Maybe one day I'll give it a go! But for now, I shall just tell you about one of my favourite episodes from Ancient History! Maybe you could make it into a story, or at the very least I hope it interests you.

Now we all know that people can make hasty decisions when their blood is up. You're excited, angry or sad so maybe you're not making the best choices?

There is an episode from ancient Athens that sums this up pretty perfectly.

At the time (427BCE) Athens' power sprawled across the ancient world and across the oceans. There was a large hegemony of city states that bowed to the Athenian's power, called The Delian League. Athens had a large amount of territory, but even father was their territory they controlled via their tributaries. Of course a lot of people weren't happy about being forced to pay Athens a variety of tithes and there are several episodes of city-states trying to secede.

In 427BCE one of the states that tried to do so was called Mytilene. The city was on the other side of the Aegean to Athens, and were very unhappy with the Athenians. They even sent an envoy to Olympia to seek help against the Athenians with their revolt, saying that the Athenians had abused their power with the Delian League. Maybe that's true, or maybe the oligarchy that rules Mytilene wanted to unite the power of their island of Lesbos, something the Athenians would never allow.

So one thing led to another and they revolted. Sorted.

But, alas! Someone tipped off the Athenians (one of the other powers on Lesbos, and some internal dissenters) and war broke out. That's all well and good of course, except that Mytilene nor their allies were ready for it, and got their arses handed to them. That led to their negotiating terms which was essentially them surrendering.

The Athenians allowed the Mytilenians to send an envoy to Athens and plead for compassion. The envoy was summarily executed on his arrival at Athens and the Athenians began a debate to decide what to do with all the rebels.

Now, the Athenian Assembly consisted of every Athenian citizen (and here follows one of the dangers of a direct democracy) and so they could all vote on what to do next. The Athenians were scared of further revolt and enraged by this thought out plan to thwart their power. After all more than one of the city states on Lesbos has risen against them and had orchestrated an attack on Attica to help them out (them being the Mytilenians that is, it didn't help the Athenians).

So the Athenians decide that the best defence against further revolt is a good offense. Of course that means slaughtering all the men and selling the women and children into slavery. Huzzah!

And there goes the Trireme to carry it all out. Not a bad day's work, eh fellow Athenians? Phew, time to hit the sack!

The next day, they realised that maybe they'd been a bit harsh. I mean, did they really need to kill everyone? Maybe not. Another debate ensued. Whereas before every single Athenian had been in favour of utter annihilation, now even the most bloodthirsty from the day before were hesitant. This led to a narrow margin in favour of not killing everything.

Another trireme was sent out, with double the normal crew, to catch up with the first. Luckily for the Mytilenians both triremes arrived at about the same time and in what I'm sure was a crazily intense scene, the old orders were overruled.

So instead of death and destruction for anyone and everyone, they merely razed the walls, replaced the oligarchy and divied up the land of Lesbos.

Yay, democracy!

This episode I think clearly outlines the dangers of being too loose and easy with your pent up emotions. And just imagine what would have happened if the second ship hadn't reached them in time! Could it have led to a revolt that spanned the Aegean? Does it send the Athenian people into a spiraling miasma of depression and despair?

I hope you enjoyed this little segment, maybe it'll spark some ideas, maybe you just found it interesting. I hope both, and more!

More to be coming soon!

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The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf

So with this book I decided to take a little bit of a break from my usual perusal fare, and went into some Young Adult fiction instead.

I was expecting to be a little put off by the fact it was written for a younger audience and would (I thought) just shove stuff in your face to make sure you got what the author was talking about. But I really wasn't, it's easy to forget that YA is just as exciting, thrilling and complex as any other genre that you care to name. 

The book is set in a vaguely post-apocalyptic world, but the details are sketchy and it's not like the world has radiation poisoning, everything is back to normal and everyone tries to preserve the Balance, so the world doesn't implode in on itself again. 

That's why I was worried it would be a bit in your face with the themes and some aspects of the story, but Kwaymullina uses those themes to accent and drive the story rather than use the themes as the mainstay and the story as a sideline. 

We follow the story of Ashala Wolf, one of the 'Illegals' who are shunned because of their supernatural powers. I'm not going to lie, I'm thinking of the X-Men, not a bad thing, but I'm a bit of a geek anyways so that's where my mind's going. 

These powers are central to the plot as they are the whole reason that Ashala has been captured, and ran away in the first place. Apart from the fact that these Illegals are being hunted by the government, we don't find out too much about why they have these powers, leaving us lots to be discovered in later books. 

As the story begins Ashala has been captured by agents of the government and, oddly enough, an interrogation is about to take place. To glean any information Ashala is willing (or not!) to give up about her group of Illegals. 

Placing Ashala in this weird and not so wonderful place gives her a chance to be just as out of place as we would be, so a consist mystery is present and we are given glimpses into Ashala's past and that of the post-apocalyptic world which she inhabits. 

I did find the romantic elements slightly odd at first, but the parts that I found a bit awkward and crow-barred in were eventually explained and my fears were once more allayed. This is a personal thing, as I was not overly keen on the romantic elements in Daughter of Smoke and Bone despite how much I enjoyed the book overall. 

The first person perspective reinforces the mystery that we see being presented in the book and, I think, helps to hammer home the confusion and lessons that Ashala finds as the story progresses. 

We see some very colourful characters along the way and they really bring Ashala's tribe to life. Although each of the members of Ashala's tribe are children of varying ages they have fully developed and varied personalities and I can still hear the giggles and laughter bursting from some of the characters. 

They contrast greatly against the grey and dreary parts of the book that are set in the government buildings. Kwaymullina does this rather well and even now looking back and thinking about the characters and the story there is a definite monochrome that hovers over the government buildings, compared to the bright and luminous colours of the setting outside the city. 

This isn't to say that the characters from the government are too dull or boring, just that the setting is nicely differentiated from that outside the city. The characters who come from the city are still diverse and have their own drives and emotions. 

Kwaymullina does a wonderful job of bringing her strong themes together in story, setting and characters. There are trials and tribulations, victories and jubilation. We follow Ashala from her confusing capture and the tale slowly unravels around her. The way that Kwaymullina shows us this unraveling delves us into a mysterious tale, leaving us wanting more at the end of the book. A thoroughly enjoyable read with a powerful message about the environment weaved in. 

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Steelheart Review

I thoroughly enjoy superhero stories, going right back to watching Spiderman cartoons every Saturday when I was a kid.

And given my absolute enjoyment that I got out of the Mistborn books I thought that the Steelheart books would be a no brainer enjoyment roller coaster. In some ways, it was.

The story tells of a world after Calamity, a big burst in the sky that’s given some people superpowers. And these people became Epics, but far from saving the world from its ills and evils, the Epics essentially became the superhuman overlords of the mortal populace. If you’re not an Epic, then you’re not worth anything, you just keep your head down and try to do the best you can without pissing off someone with any powers whatsoever so they don’t kill you.

Some of the Epics are strong and capable of ruling both Epics and normal people alike with an iron fist. It is one of these Epics that is the main antagonist, Steelheart who has taken Chicago and all the people in it and become their Emperor. Steelheart is essentially a superman like character with invulnerability, flight, super strength, energy blasting out of his hands, and most interestingly can change inanimate objects to steel.

Our protagonist, David, is the only person alive who has seen Steelheart bleed, everyone else believes him to be invincible. Steelheart went on a rampage when he did get injured, killed all the witnesses, the rescue workers and buried the bank it happened in. So he feels it’s vital that he meets and goes with the Reckoners, the only group of normal people who stand up to Epics.

But that’s enough of the story, I don’t really want to give too much away.

The writing of the book was never bad and I thought that some of the aspects of the world were quite interesting, like the Epics weaknesses. It provided an excellent sense of danger to fighting the Epics, even if they knew what the weakness was they still have to try and make sure the situation was just right to pull it off.

Technologically Sanderson made good use of the Epics to kick start some very sci-fi devices and so keep the world fresh enough that you never know quite what’s going to happen next.

The main character, David, was never irritating, always tried to do the right thing and I think that Sanderson did a good job of making his love story seem a bit immature like the character was. Pushed into the dangerous and very mature world of fighting Epics, we still find David emotionally immature in other areas, despite his encyclopedic knowledge of Epics.

But for all that it lacked a certain something. It almost felt like Sanderson was publishing this book just so he could write something about superheroes. The underlying theme of the book, whether power corrupts and the lengths you should go to stop dictators, didn’t seem to be organically worked into the story. It seemed to me that all of a sudden this theme was shoved right in your face. Something that reinforced this for me was the whole ‘geek’ thing with David. Sanderson seemed intent on making sure that you knew David was being identified as a geek. This could just be me being cynical but it struck me as something cheap to try and get David to connect with the readers at this point.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed with Steelheart really. I was hoping for something just as enjoyable and occasionally mind-bending as the Mistborn series. But what I got was the written equivalent of an okay action movie. It wasn't a bad experience and it wasn't badly done, it was enjoyable, but it wasn’t anything that would leave you speechless.

So if you’re looking for a bit of a romp through a post-apocalyptic world with superheroes rampaging about then this book will suit you. Don’t set yourself up for the most amazing read you’ll ever see, but you will find an enjoyable story with action and adventure to keep you entertained.

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The Banner Saga

You might remember The Banner Saga from its days on Kickstarter, the project of Stoic Studio which includes a lot of long time heavy-weight game makers from Bioware. And I did say that this blog was about all things fantastical, and what's more fantastic than a story about giants, men and the end of the world?



That's basically what The Banner Saga is about. You come upon the story as the sun stops in the sky and the gods are dead. 

First you play the role of Ubin, an old Varl (basically their version of giants), collecting taxes and then as can be assumed in some sort of epic fantasy game; it all goes down. As I mentioned, the sun has stopped in the sky only a few days prior to your taking over the reins and the gods have been dead for longer. Some people are calling it the end of times, and let's be honest the evidence is certainly pointing that way. After a short while, which is long enough to give you a grounding in some basic history and work out how the game mechanics work, you find out that there is a flood of destructive armies called Dredge bearing down on you.

Later on you transport yourself over to the other side of the continent and follow another character, Rook. This time you're following a mainly human settlement as they deal with the death and destruction that the tide of Dredge brings with them.

It's turn based fantasy RPG game and it has a lot of elements that I really like in it. In fact, mainly what I didn't like was that it ended. It's not a really long game, but I think I'm also taking that from the other RPGs I like to play, like Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Rogue Legacy and Dark Souls, which let's be honest have a whole continent of playtime in them. Alongside the story (that we'll come onto later) that you manoeuvre yourself through, and the towns and hamlets that you encounter, you also have to worry about how you travel. By that I mean when you're marching; how long you want to march without rest (rest increases morale), dealing with random occurrences on the march (from attacks to births) and making sure you can stock up enough when you can to avoid any starvation (I did not manage that the first time around).

The art style was very well brought together so that nothing ever felt out of place within it. From the sweeping landscapes, to the towns and then down to the little arenas of combat. It was all well drawn, with as much detail as you could want from each of the screens, and well maintained so you still felt drawn in (forgive the pun) with it.

This also extends to the enemies that you face (excluding those humans or varl that you might be on the wrong side of). The Dredge, the way that they look really excacerbates the situation that you find yourself in that you're being chased by the inexorable. Starvation is hard fought against and if you're not careful you will find yourself losing followers like flies. Rest is weighed against the ever present threat that's looming alongside the scarcity of your supplies. It does an excellent job of making you feel frayed by both your task to reach your destination and the burden of making sure as many people as possible do that. 

Now onto the story.

I outlined the brief jist of the story already, but I think that the way the game is structured really helps it along. You get options alongside the conversations as they talk, and because you're taking part in an epic adventure with both a heroic Varl and a hunter-turned-leader you really get the sense of the story from both sides. The epic and sprawling, but also how it affects the lowliest of people. This is most assuredly helped along by the fact that as you travel across the vast expanse, fleeing the Dredge, you need to scrape together from every village and hamlet that you possibly can.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the story, you know, spoilers. But I found that the pacing was good, the actual conflict was compelling and the characters were very interesting. That doesn't necessarily include the protagonists, which isn't to say they don't have their own charm, but when you're playing AS the character I think it's harder to fully flesh out and map a character when the player has the option of saving the orphaned kittens one minute, making them a lovely person, and then they also have the opportunity to follow that up by kicking an old lady down some stairs on top of a cliff for no reason (none of those actually happen).

The points at which you break from one set of characters to the other mark the Chapters of the game. I found that the moments the Chapters moved from one to the other were very well segmented. I'm not sure if I was expecting less because it's a game, but I was very impressed with the cliffhangers and how it made you want to come back for more. It is frustrating I think talking about the story, game-wise, because I don't want to give anything away that might affect anyone's in-game decisions!
Suffice to say the deliberate placement of your baggage train as of tiny, but potentially many, figures against the sweeping backdrop definitely accentuates the feeling of being overwhelmed with your relatively small numbers and the ever present dangers that your fleeing party faces. 

So overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a very sweet game (as in good... not as in sweet, it's kind of dark) even if it felt short. I can't remember if there are any more instalments of it coming out, but I would be very happy to have them. It's a splendid fantasy tale alongside good game mechanics and an art style that hammers home the feel of the story and ties it all together very nicely. 

I would also like to point out that this is very much a game that changes depending on what you choose to do. Having only played through it once, (halfway through the second now) I may not be doing justice to the length of the game. There very much is a story to continue at the point at which I left it. So I'm hoping that either there is another instalment coming out, or if my choices led to the credits shorter than another choice would have. 

If you're a fan of fantasy, role playing games, or general nordic mythology, I would definitely recommend this to you. 

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