Reviews :: Book Rating :: Books We Love :: Page 17

At GenCon 2014, I was lucky enough to be introduced to the Kyoudai Games crew, and they graciously provided me with a review copy of THUNDERSCAPE: THE WORLD OF ADEN (DriveThurRPG) to review for EBR.

Thunderscape is the product of a labor of love from Shawn Carmen (of Legend of the Five Rings fame), and his team. Based on older video games, the best genre to describe the setting as (using buzzwords) is post-apocalyptic, techno-fantasy, horror.

Sounds like a win right?
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A few pages into Stephen Blackmoore’s DEAD THINGS (Amazon) I realized I would want to start reading the sequel immediately after finishing so I took a risk and ordered BROKEN SOULS (Amazon). Having finished DEAD THINGS I now recognize this was a wise decision. Yay me! Based off the cover alone my eyes would have likely skipped past this novel on a store shelf — there’s nothing wrong with it but there are a hundred trillion other urban fantasy novels with Christian McGrath covers and who has the time to sift through them all? Thankfully, DEAD THINGS comes with a recommendation by M.L. Brennan, whose American Vampire series turns me into a squealing fangirl. I enjoy Brennan’s work because she diverges from the typical hard-boiled style urban fantasy. I enjoyed Blackmoore’s novel because he embraces it with aplomb.
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Steve knows that my favorite author is David Gemmell, whom I consider the epitome of true heroic fantasy. So when a copy of THE CITY by Stella Gemmell (Amazon) crossed his desk, he knowingly tossed it my way.

First off, I confess that my perception going into this book was colored by my adoration of David Gemmell and I was excited to get back to that style of story. This is not that style of story. This is a dark fantasy story, more akin to a combination of Joe Abercrombie and Guy Gavriel Kay.
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War. Revenge. Intrigue. Secrets. Magic. Everything you love about Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer Series continues in THE BROKEN EYE (Amazon).

This is what you’ve been waiting for.

Like I said with THE BLINDING KNIFE (EBR Review), trying to read BROKEN without having read the previous books will leave you lost and floundering, the sequence of events lacking real impact. If you love epic fantasy with complex characters, creative world-building, and fast-paced action, then yes you should read this series, starting with THE BLACK PRISM (EBR Review) (read the first three chapters for FREE here!). What follows will contain spoilers if you read them out of order. You have been warned.
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The latest in Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series has her heroine face her most terrifying adversary yet. This opponent is tougher than the river devil that almost killed her; more cunning than the local vampire queen; and a better baker than Mercy herself: Adam’s ex-wife Christy.
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I’ve been on the look-out for novels similar to those of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter series and Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger novels. I love the mix of Military Thriller with SF/Fantasy/Whatever. It didn’t have to be magic, but I needed something that was contemporary, actiony, and with speculative elements in it.
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Do you remember the first F. Paul Wilson book you read? I do. For a lot of us, it was THE TOMB (Amazon). I was working at Waldenbooks, stocking the shelves, and I came across the paperback. I took a moment (totally on company time) to read the back, and then I proceeded to stash to book away so I could buy it at the end of my shift. I read the novel. I loved the novel. I’ve been a fan ever since.
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When I was a kid, I read T.H. White’s THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING (Amazon). I recall reading it twice, back-to-back, never quite getting enough of the legend of King Arthur. There is something inherently awesome about those stories, something that pulls at me. Anything that has a sliver of Arthurian legend in it automatically piques my curiosity.
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I’ve often wondered how long Jim Butcher can keep it up. After all, how often have we all seen just how difficult it is for an author to be good for two books in a row. I’m not saying Butcher is perfect–I personally feel that he has two pretty weak novels in the Dresden Files–but that’s two weak novels out of FIFTEEN. Good heavens.
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VEIL OF THE DESERTERS (Amazon) is the sequel to SCOURGE OF THE BETRAYER (EBR Review) by Jeff Salyards, a Sword & Sorcery novel that earned a spot in our Best of 2012 lineup. The first book in Bloodsounder’s Arc unexpectedly blew me away (so much so that I read it and reviewed it twice) and I’ve been waiting for the sequel ever since. In the time that has passed I’ve read a lot of books but SCOURGE has managed to remain vivid in my imagination.
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