Steel Guardian is a finalist in the first ever SPSFC! I read it as part of the judging process.
Well, when I started this book I didn’t expect it to be as wholesome as it was. It was also a completely addictive read!
Review: Captain Wu (Starship Nameless #1) by Patrice Fitzgerald and Jack Lyster
I read this as part of the SPSFC Finals! This review reflects my thoughts and not my team as a whole.
Ooooookay this was fun. I absolutely flew through Captain Wu at quite the pace and it kept me hooked the whole time. Space pirates, found family, a mysterious package are all mixed into this space opera and it created a great story!
Review: Glass Rhapsody (Songs of Sefate #3) by Sarah Chorn
Sarah’s writing is stunning, it’s beautiful and poetic and she manages to convey such painful, heart-wrenching moments with such tenderness and emotion. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a writer who can do quite what she does with words. The emotion she can convey with her writing is unmatched and I’m never quite sure if I’m mourning or floating when I read her works. My heart is always both so full and so empty.
Review and Q&A: Infested by C.M. Forest
Set entirely within a high-rise apartment block C.M. Forest makes Infested into a high-stakes horror. Nothing is as it seems and the building quickly becomes a dark nightmare for Olivia. She’s trapped in her building with no power or phone service and these earwig type creatures that seem to be taking over the residents and turning them into violent horrors.
Review: Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive #3.5) by Brandon Sanderson
I jumped in with zero knowledge of The Stormlight Archive (I haven’t even read the synopsis’) and I found Dawnshard a fascinating and completely compelling read. I am sure that there are spoilers for the first 3 in the series (although I wouldn’t know what they are), and I’m sure there are things I didn’t understand, or get the significance of. BUT, I had a great time reading Dawnshard and I found Sanderson’s writing so accessible that I actually found it really easy to understand what was going on.
Review: A Mirror Mended (Fractured Fables #2) by Alix E. Harrow
Synopsis: Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, is over rescuing snoring princesses. Once you’ve rescued a dozen damsels and burned fifty spindles, once you’ve gotten drunk with twenty good fairies and made out with one too many members of the royal family, you start to wish some of these girls would just […]
Review: A Touch of Death (The Outlands Pentalogy #1) by Rebecca Crunden
A Touch of Death is a semi-finalist in SPSFC.
would enjoy, and I was right. This book takes the apocalyptic sci-fi genre and somehow makes it it’s own.
Review: What Branches Grow by T.S. Beier
hat Branches Grow is one of the SPSFC semi-finalists and was assigned to FanFiAddict in the semi-finals.
This is very much the story of a journey. Early on Delia and Gennero meet and Gennero ends up following Delia into the wastelands. Somewhere along that journey he decides he doesn’t want to return to the town he lived in, and instead befriends her and joins her on her quest to reach a mythical city that isn’t ravaged by the wastes. I enjoyed all of the nods to other post-apocalyptic worlds.
Review: Lost Solace by Karl Drinkwater
Lost Solace is a semi-finalist in SPSFC and was assigned to FanFiAddict in the semi-finals.
Lost Solace starts in the middle of the action, at some point in the past Opal has stolen a ship and hacked the AI so it is helping her. The backstory to this gets revealed slowly over the course of the book and it’s so well woven into the narrative. We quickly find a lost ship and the story really goes from here.
Review: Saint Death’s Daughter by C.S.E Cooney
Where do I start with this incredible book? I was completely blown away by the premise, the writing, the characters, and I was very sad for it to be over. I’ve tried to explain the plot to multiple people, but there’s something about it that is just completely inexplicable and it just WORKS.
Review: Gallant by V.E. Schwab
I make no secret of the fact that V.E. Schwab is one of my favourite authors, and one of my auto-buy authors. I’d had Gallant on pre-order for a long time and couldn’t wait for it’s release.
I feel like recently Schwab’s writing has become more dream-like and whimsical than some of her earlier books. Gallant is no different. Alongside the illustrations and not-quite tangible elements to the plot Gallant turns into a haunting exploration of a family and their secrets. There isn’t a crazy huge plot and actually its far more of a character-based story that has some more intense moments.
Review: At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp
Nijkamp has written a wonderful, diverse YA book that really hits home. You never learn too much about the teens lives’ before they were sent to the Juvenile Centre, there are theories about what each teen may have done but you never really find out about their lives before. The focus is far more on the current situation, how a group of forgotten teens try to survive the pandemic that has broken out.