The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain (Book One)

Title: The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain
Author: Oldman Brook

Series:The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain (Book One)
Succeeded By: ???

Ratings

Score: 5/10
Chart Entry Point: 29
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I'd like to see where this goes...

Review

I was a little confused when I first opened this book and saw how it was written. Instead of the normal past-tense narrative of most fantasy books, this was written in the present tense. As a well-practiced reader of this first-style, it took some getting used to, but after a while I found it almost as natural to read for the most part.

What was immediately clear when I was reading this book is the theme of brotherhood. The three dwarves are brothers, the two shapeshifters are brothers, the two elves are brothers - although they all seem to have a different relationship with their siblings.

The Hunting of the Bubblenuff

Title: The Hunting of the Bubblenuff
Author: Joshua Goldfond

Ratings
Score: 6/10
Chart Entry Point: 32


Review

The Hunting of the Bubblenuff was possibly the most inventive book that I've reviewed. It has a certain feel to it that lingers from reading the title to the final chapter, and one that suits it well. It's got a fairly frivolous plot, but some of the ideas in it are truly unique, and still remain interesting. I almost surprised creatures such as the Somnabulent Sheep don't exist in reality.

Life Descending (Cry of Havoc Book One)

Title: Life Descending
Author: John Hennessey
Series: Cry of Havoc (Book 1)


Ratings

Score: 4/10
Chart Entry Point: 43
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Unlikely

Review

    I was looking forwards to reading this book when it was first given to me. The things that the blurb mentioned were all very interesting: the familiar idea of war in a different world, a man reborn into a new one, and a search for the unique sounding artifact known as the "Impermeable Suit". The blend of common and new aspects of the genre looked like the perfect read for a fantasy reader. I did however, have some problems with it. Beginning with the fact that all the interesting things I was looking forwards to finding out about were barely hinted at in the first half of the book...

King's Wrath (Valisar Trilogy Book Three)

Title: King's Wrath
Author: Fiona McIntosh
Score: 8/10
Chart Entry Position: 19/45


Review

In my experience of reading McIntosh's previous books, the endings have been fairly weak and anticlimactic. If it wasn't for the fact that the first two and a half books of her trilogies are generally extremely good then she wouldn't be one of my favourite authors. This series however, and particularly this book, was the exception. The majority of the series was, while still well-written, loose and unfocused. But the ending was possibly the most exciting one that McIntosh has written.

Code Lightfall and the Robot King

Title: Code Lightfall and the Robot King
Author: Daniel H.Wilson

Ratings

Score: 5/10
Chart Entry Point:


Review

I often say that books aimed primarily at younger readers can also be enjoyed by adults. Having read this one, I'm not so sure. The reason is simply because the story is childish. It's not a particularly simple story, and it does have an interesting twist at the end, but the plot has a lot of things that a child might find exciting, or realistic, that an Adult probably wouldn't. Of course, it's aimed at children - so if you're looking for a book for your kids, then this could be a good one for you.

Nightwatch (Discworld Book Twenty Eight)

Title: Nightwatch
Author: Terry Pratchett
Superseries: Discworld
Series: The Watch Books
Preceded By: Thief of Tme
Succeeded By: Monstrous Regiment

Ratings

Score: 10/10
Chart Entry Point: 1
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Bought them on Pre-Order

Review

A friend of mine was looking at my blog for the first time this week, and the first thing she said about it was "How come there's nothing by Terry Pratchett?". My first response was along the lines of "Surely everyone knows how good a writer he is..." but then I remembered a conversation a month or two ago with several people who hadn't heard of him. Hence this review. Nightwatch is not necessary my favourite of his books, but it's the one I know best. And it is a fantastic book...

Renaissance (Assasin's Creed Book One)

Title: Renaissance
Author: Oliver Bowden
Superseries: Assassin's Creed
Series: Ezio Trilogy (Book One)
Preceded By: The Secret Crusade
Succeeded By: Brotherhood

Ratings

Score: 1/10
Chart Entry Point: 40/40
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Not at all

Review

In these days of computer gaming, more and more books are being based on the computer games we can buy. I even saw an animated cartoon of Pacman the other day, in full HD on a 3DTV. Some of these books are quite good (See Force Unleashed II), and some of them are poor. Unfortunately, This is one of the latter.

Outbound Flight (Star Wars)

Title: Outbound Flight
Author: Timothy Zahn
Superseries: Star Wars

Ratings

Score: 10/10
Chart Entry Point: 7

Review

Outbound Flight is a mission to explore the galaxies beyond the one Star wars is set in. It's the first book in the Star Wars chronology to include Thrawn - one of the most famous characters in the Extended Universe, and it's for this reason that I chose to read it. And it was a good decision...

Soul Born (Soul Born - Book One)

Title: Soul Born
Author: Kevin James Breaux
Series: Soul Born Saga

Succeeded By: Blood Divided

Ratings

Score: 3/10
Chart Entry Point: 37
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I won't be.

Review

I was drawn into this book by the cover art. I found it to be quite stunning. In fact, it's one of the few books that have made me go to the artist's online Gallery. Or even glance at the name of the artist on the copyright page. I know there are some people who do this with every book, but I'm not one of them, so it means quite a lot. After half an hour looking at Dan Dos Santos' Gallery, I remembered I had a book to read.

And I was disappointed. Especially for the first hundred and fifty pages or so. There are three major problems, which I will discuss separately below, but had I not being reviewing the book, I don't expect I would have finished it. I just couldn't see it going anywhere interesting. Which is where the first problem comes in...

The Last of the Sky Pirates (Edge Chronicles: Rook Trilogy - Book One)

Title: The Last of the Sky Pirates
Author: Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell
Superseries: Edge Chronicles (Book Seven)
Series: Rook Trilogy (Book One)

Succeeded By: Vox

Ratings

Score: 10/10
Chart Entry Point: 5
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Definite

Review

I've been a little busy this weekend, so rather than rush through a book and not give it a fair chance I decided to write a review of a book I'd already read. This is one that I particularly like, so I thought I'd share it. It's not the first in the Edge Chronicles, but is the first of the books following Rook Barkwater, and the first one I read.

One of the main reasons that I like it so much is the complexity of the world it's set in - particularly with the breadth of life forms. Many fantasy books have two or three species other than humans, but this series has many more than that. From Waifs, little psychic elves, to Shyrkes and Banderbears. There are tens of different sentient species, and all of them are quite distinct. There are few other fantasy series that boast a culture as varied as this one. Not to mention the unique technology that they use - much of it based on flight. It's imaginitive and exciting...

Painted Doll

Title: Painted Doll
Author: M. Christian

Ratings

Score: 6/10
Chart Entry Point: 31
How likely I am to read the next in the Series:If there was one, I'd be interested.

Review

I quite liked this story - but it's nothing like what I was expecting.

The basic premise is that Domino is an "Erotist", someone that arouses clients not using their body, but using special "paints" to simulate them sexually and in other ways. You'll see when you read it. It's an interesting idea, I will say - and something I can see why people might want to try. The other main storyline is of why Claire and Flower are apart - which comes to a rather unexpected conclusion for those two - although I'm not really sure what happened to the antagonist (possibility for sequel?).

Running Black (Eshu International Book One)

Title: Running Black
Author: Patrick Todoroff
Series: Eshu International


Ratings

Score: 4/10
Chart Entry Point: 35
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Unlikely

Review

The story started promisingly. I liked chapter one quite a lot. But it turns out that it's not representative of the rest of the story. In fact, It's more of a prologue. Which is unfortunate.

While I liked the story, and the idea of clones - if not the names of the first three - I found that the narrative was extremely difficult to read. And I'm not really sure why, if I'm honest. There is one thing that contributed I'll discuss in a moment, but other than that... I don't know. Maybe it was too jargon-y or something. I just found myself not actually understanding what was going on quite often.

Nights of Villjamur (Legends of the Red Sun Book One)

Title: Nights of Villjamur
Author: Mark Charan Newton
Series: Legends of the Setting Sun
Succeeded By: City of Ruin

Ratings

Score: 6/10
Chart Entry Point: 8
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I look forwards to it.

Review

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I began this book, but it' the first book I've read in a while that's ended in a truly satisfactory way. Considering that it's the first in a series, and plenty of plot-lines are left to explore in the next book, I'd say that's quite impressive. And it's not the only good thing that I can say about this book either. I found it to be a very nice read.

The Rebel Prince (Moorehawke Trilogy - Book 3)

Title: The Rebel Prince
Author: Celiene Kiernan

Series: Moorehawke Trilogy (Book Three)
Preceeded By: The Crowded Shadows

Ratings

Score: 7/10

Review

I enjoyed reading this final entry in the Moorehawke trilogy much more than I did the first two. The pace was a lot faster, the objectives of the characters more clear, and we finally get to find out a lot of the answers that the first two books made us ask.

However there are a couple of things I didn't really like. For example there are a considerable amount of storylines that are concluded "Off-Page". They results of these storylines are all pretty much mentioned in the epilogue, but not with the prominence that they needed concluding. One of them was quite major to this book, and the other is one that has been increasingly important throughout the trilogy, until in this book it becomes Christopher's 0nly real story...

The Metalmark Contract (Metalmark Book One)

Title: The Metalmark Contract
Author: David Batchelor
Series: Metalmark

Succeeded By: ???


Ratings

Score: 7/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I'd like to.

Review

Now although it might not seem it to anyone who reads this blog, but I generally don't read books set in our world. I don't tend to enjoy them as much as those set in different ones. But occasionally there is one such book that I really enjoy. This is one of them. But before you read any further, I have a warning. This seems to be the first in a duology/trilogy/series/something. I didn't realise this, and it doesn't seem to say anywhere online or on the book except for the words "End of Book One" after the end of the narrative. Because I didn't realise this, I was a little disappointed when the story didn't reach it's full conclusion.

Mine

Title: Mine
Author: Lin Sten

Ratings

Score: 8/10

Review

It's been a long time since I stayed up till 4am reading. At least, unless you count last night. You can probably tell from that that I enjoyed it, and I'm sure the author enjoyed writing it. It's a happy book, an uplifting one. One that it's easy to enjoy reading. But it's not easy to read. It's Technical, Hard Sci-Fi, and there will be more about that later in the review. But first I want to talk about the characters. They're great.

Essentially that's the summary of the characters. I can't think of a single character that I didn't like. Maybe the chat-show host, Charles Dance. But of the main characters, there are none that are boring or lifeless. Even the bad guy seems somewhat lovable as the story progresses. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. Generally it's helpful to have someone to hate. Normally the bad guy, but not always. This doesn't have that, but while unusual, it reflects the theme of the book quite well (that of coexisting with other species).

The Gift (Chiveis Trilogy Book 2)

Title: The Gift
Author: Bryan M. Litfin

Series: The Chiveis Trilogy
Preceeded By: The Sword
Succeeded By: ???

Ratings

Score: 7/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: I look forwards to it.

Review

Normally I start with a review with a short introduction to what I thought about the book. This time I'm going to do it differently, and start with a review of the introduction of the book itself. Firstly there's the prologue. Now it's the second in a trilogy - and normally I don't like prologues in the second of a trilogy. But this was short, and in essence was the same as the prologue of the first novel - extended a bit to briefly (barely) cover what happened to the main characters in book one. I felt it didn't really didn't need to be there, but it doesn't harm the story. But what I really want to talk about of the introduction is the first chapter. The start of the novel finds the main characters (Ana and Teo) with a small group of scouts. The author uses this as a way to help remind the reader of what happened in the first book (The Sword). It's not a unique way to recap the readers, but the way Litfin utilises this tool is possibly the thing I admire most about the beginning of the book. It's easy to read - not just a long monologue about the previous book - it even misses out the majority of the story. But it shows the character of the characters, and from the first chapter we are once more identifying with and sympathetic to the characters, Ana in particular.

The American Book of the Dead

Title: Henry Baum
Author: The American Book of the Dead

Ratings

Score: 10/10

Review

I have no idea how the author of this book could have remained sane. Perhaps he didn't. This is one of the most complex books I've read - yet is remarkably easy to understand. I don't know how it does it. Somehow it tricks your brain into thinking without you realising or something. It's a book about a writer who writes a book that he's already written which is the book that you'd be reading if you read this book. Try not to think about that too much. It's basically a summary of the introduction - which I found confusing until I'd read the rest of the book. This review doesn't quite do it justice, but IT IS definitely worth a read.

Invincible (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Book Nine)

Title: Invincible
Author: Troy Denning
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Legacy of the Force
Preceeded By: Revelation by Karen Traviss


Ratings

Score: 7/10
Overall Series Rating: 9/10

Review

This book had a lot to live up to. The series as a whole has been incredible thus far, and the previous book particularly so. If this book was to even match my expectations it had a lot to do. Quite frankly: it didn't.

This was the book that everything had been centering on. The loose storylines, the tension, the emotion... All of them really suggested that this was going to be something big. But it actually seemed like the author wasn't really that into it anymore. I felt that scenes were cut short, characters were fairly two dimensional - except Jaina and Ben - and that the conclusion happened too fast.

Revelation (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Book Eight)

Title: Revelation
Author: Karen Traviss
Superseries: Star Wars
Series: Legacy of the Force
Preceeded By: Fury by Aaron Allston
Succeeded By: Invincible by Aaron Allston

Ratings

Score: 10/10
How likely I am to read the next in the Series: Never more sure that I would.

Review

This book is the best in the Legacy of the Force series. I waited until having read the final book to add this claim - and it still holds after that. In some ways it's odd, because of the first books by each of the three authors, I liked Traviss' the least. But she has shown that she is undoubtedly a brilliant writer.