The climax of a multiple volume-long arc can be the bane of an ongoing comic series. It can see characters unravel, the momentum grind to a pitiable slog, the worldbuilding collapse under its own weight. More than a few ongoing series with vast amounts of potential meet this fate. I recall a promising creator-driven series... Continue Reading →
Remember when I said that Killing the Children isn't only horror? Reading this second volume, it's kind of hard not to bonk myself on the head, because the horror elements, my friends, are nothing if not manifold. Let's get this out of the way: Should you pick up the second volume of this comic book?... Continue Reading →
Book 1 review here | Book 2 review here https://youtu.be/18TywmTuv7E Series: The Black Iron Legacy # 3Published by: OrbitGenre: Dark FantasyReview Format: paperbackPurchased Copy. The third novel in the Black Iron Legacy series, The Broken God awakened my slumbering love for dark, heart-wrenching fantasy. Following the Tripartite Armistice that saw Guerdon divided in three influence... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/7KUHU75NvP8 Published by: TORGenre: Science fiction, space operaSeries: The Final Architecture (#2 of many, hopefully)Pages: 593 pagesFormat: paperback The sequel to 2021’s Shards of the Earth was among my most-awaited sci-fi titles of this year. When I read Shards I fell in love with its characters, a mishmash of memorable scoundrels who made for one... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/mdM4S80F-7c Published by: Ace Genre: FantasyPages: 416 pagesFormat: hardcover Endings are damnably hard to nail—especially when the kind we’re talking about is the culmination not just of a trilogy but of disparate elements woven throughout an entire fifteen-book oeuvre. I cannot judge too well on the latter, having read only half of Mark Lawrence’s novels; but... Continue Reading →
Published by: OrbitGenre: Epic FantasyPages: 656Format: ebookReceived free arc copy from NetGalley in return for an honest review https://youtu.be/3-UcuXBPRiI All sequels should accomplish what John Gwynne’s Hunger of the Gods has. That’s to say, Gwynne’s latest expands the world and characters in such a way as to make The Shadow of the Gods appear a... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/B7nV20cD6ec This book has got me in a bind. It’s easy to relegate it to one of two neat classifications: either a straight-faced satire that takes the piss out of the military-industrial complex; or else, a fully realised celebration of the serving man’s fraternity, of the sacrifice of the individual for the collective’s greater good,... Continue Reading →
Rather than review a classic that has been spoken about time and again, I thought I'd share with you a response paper I wrote for my class in Victorian Literature a few weeks ago - let me know if you'd like to see more pieces like this on the blog! In Villette (1853), Charlotte Brontë... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4FZcNA62LQ Published by: Self-Published, recently acquired by TORGenre: Slice of Life FantasyPages: 318Format: ebookPurchased Copy for my Kindle from Amazon The blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of Travis Baldree’s debut, Legends & Lattes, and for good reason. Slice of life stories are character-driven to their core—no wonder, then, that Baldree’s novel is such a... Continue Reading →
Supernatural rural noir has been forever ruined for me by the impossibly high standards of ridiculously fun Stephen King read…but y’know what? Tim Seeley’s Revival promises to scratch that same itch. This first volume, You’re Among Friends, tells the story of twenty-something people coming back to life in a small rural American town. This throws... Continue Reading →
The Grimoire Reliquary 