Synopsis An aging alchemist seeks the key to the Universal Tincture said to unlock the Thousand Worlds of the Mind, but she never expected to solve the riddle of the hermetic heart. A meditation acolyte travels the mystical social media known as the Caravan and finds that the Thousand Worlds lie just below the surface, […]
Low Fantasy
Review: The Living Waters (Weirdwater Confluence, Book 1) by Dan Fitzgerald
Synopsis All painted-faced nobles can choose to go on a roughabout at some point when they are young adults to experience life outside of their luxury and comfort. Usually these experiences lead to uncomfortable situations that are short lived and the nobles are well watched over by trained professionals. However, when two nobles, Temi and […]
Review: Priest of Lies (War for the Rose Throne #2) by Peter McLean
Synopsis Tomas Piety has been many things: soldier, priest, gangster…and spy. As Tomas’s power grows, the nobility better watch their backs, in this dark and gritty epic fantasy series. People are weak, and the poorer and more oppressed they are, the weaker they become–until they can’t take it anymore. And when they rise up…may the […]
Review: Priest of Bones (War for the Rose Throne #1) by Peter McLean
Following the story as told/written by Tomas Piety in first person, the reader is met with a matter of fact recounting of events that reveals a character who is choosing to share his story, while also keeping some of the details to himself. This is all done while commenting on it all in a manner that, I don’t want to say is bleak, cause it’s not really that, more like with very few fucks left to give and heavily influenced by the protagonist’s principles. This sort of unreliable narrator is the kind that fascinates me the most, especially because when done well, and I’d argue that McLean did it brilliantly, it reveals more about the characters themselves than what they’re actually telling the reader. At the same time, this makes for a fast moving story that doesn’t waste time on world building through long expositional paragraphs, but rather only focuses on the relevant details and events.
Review: The Sword in the Street (The Ink and the Steel #1) by C.M. Caplan
The Sword in the Street has been one of the hardest books for me to review. I’ve been putting it off for a while now, fiddling with the draft over and over. Not because I don’t have anything to say about it or that it was bad in any way. If anything, maybe it’s because I am too close to it. It was a very emotional read for me.