Epic Plains

The Souls Of The Fire Dragon
by John Wrieden

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (2) of 5 Stars – “It was ok”
Recommended for: Fantasy Readers

Book description:

Fate leaned back in his chair and smiled. “The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference.” Death nodded in concurrence. “Wake up, Akea, and see the truth.” A young man awakens suddenly in a cold, dark alleyway with no recall of who he is or how he got there. A woman is leaning over him, urging him to flee with her. ‘The Watchmen are coming!’ she warns him. He goes with her and soon recovers not only his name. Akea, but discovers that he is a powerful magician, albeit with an unfortunate lack of self-control. Together, with a small band of rebels, magicians and one very seductive female dragon, he fights for the freedom of his city and country, which lie under the tyrannical yoke of dark magicians and brutal men.

I was sent this book for review a little over a month ago and finally managed to get to it. I have been looking forward to it. An Orwellian concept with dragons and magic – what could go wrong with that?

The plot kept me somewhat engaged but there were plenty of confusing elements that just seemed disjointed or out of place. The multiple dimensions with the vague addition of Gods, but not a full pantheon seemed like a bunch of editing or refinement was missing. Ok, so Life, Death, and Fate are present… which indicates a Greek thing… where is the expansion on that then? The author relied on the readers assuming what Life and Death (as godlike entities), but then didn’t really account for the mental jump of wondering where the rest of them were.

Yet there is a solid base there that further stories could be built from. Expanding on the different realities and a bit more structure may bring the world to life a bit more. It really felt that if there was a bit more solid work on the editors part with the author that it would have brought everything up a notch. I will be keeping an eye out for more stories from this author in the future to see if the potential I do see is indeed realized.

Fire Gazer: Arson at the Wolfe House
by Kevin Burton Mcguire

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (1) of 5 Stars – “Didn’t like it”
Recommended for: N/A

Book description:

Follow Ben Johnson around an Asheville, North Carolina that Thomas Wolfe would not have recognized. Ride along as Ben encounters visions of Zelda Fitzgerald, pagan rituals, a sub-culture embedded in the city’s infrastructure, and fires of unknown origin. Ben becomes enamored by DC, a charismatic drifter with a dark world vision, and he is forced to confront DC’s rejection of culture and the art it produces.

Through Ben’s private journal entries, learn about his struggle to overcome DC’s destructive cynicism and his pursuit of an artistic vision. Will Ben follow his own artistic calling, or will he adopt DC’s anti-social lifestyle?

I was sent Fire Gazer for review, and finished it in mid-February. I have been stalling on writing the review because I was hoping time would give me something positive to say about the book. Even when I do a negative review I try to give some high points.

I simply can not do that with this book. It is short, around 90 pages or so, but none the less it took a couple of sittings to get through it. It meandered all over and seemed to have little point. I think the author was trying to give inspiration to aspiring artists, but I am really not sure. The book description has an interesting premise, one as a firefighter and a writer I really liked. However, I found none of the promise in the book itself.

I really don’t recommend the book, but perhaps it just wasn’t my style and I missed something here. As much as I tried to find something positive, I just didn’t want to sit on the review anymore. Before reading this I was going through 3-4 books a week, after 3-4 for the next month. It was so jarring it totally threw me off.  So I am moving on.

Warbreaker
by Brandon Sanderson

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (5) of 5 Stars – “It was amazing”
Recommended for: Fantasy Readers

Book description:

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.

Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people.

By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

I have to be honest up front, I am doing this review with a bit of a bias. I knew I would love Warbreaker for a few reasons. First being, I like other works by the author. Also, the author released the book in free ebook format, so I had already read the first 3-4 chapters. I decided to wait to finish till I got my hands on a copy and could enjoy the book at home.

Brandon Sanderson held a signing in Minneapolis, MN (Blog post here) that I was able to attend. To support the bookstore I finally picked up Warbreaker there. Hearing Brandon explain some of the things he tried to do with the book made me watch for certain things while I was reading it that perhaps I might not have picked up on before. Brandon and his editor (Moshe Feder) both said they worked on humor in this book. While I don’t think Brandon has done bad on this in the past, it does work well in the book.

As the description states the book centers around two sisters. Both sisters grow and change through the novel in ways that we can enjoy and remain believable. Religion and faith have a big role in this novel. I don’t know if this was the intent, but how we view other religions (or different denominations of the same religion) hit some interesting notes with me as well.

You see, the princesses come from Idris, one of which is married to the Godking of Hallandren. Hallandren has a full pantheon of Gods who live there and are called “returned.” Neither religion likes the other, yet as we read Warbreaker we learn that much is misunderstood about each other. I really liked the character Lightsong who often questioned his own religion – the one he is a god in.

The magic system in this novel is intricately tied into the religions and has a lot to do with why the different denominations are at odds. It takes a bit getting used to, but as the reader settles into the world it gets more and more natural.

Warbreaker I would recommend to any fantasy reader in its own right, though other Sanderson books are worth checking out as well.

In case you haven’t noticed, I did add a new page on Epic Plains.  I have added a “Received” page.  This is books I have received for review through either Goodreads Contests, Author Contests, Advanced Reader Copies from the Publisher, etc.  I have seen other sites do this in the interest of disclosure and liked the idea.

Of course I hadn’t anticipated receiving so many in the same month, so I am a little behind on reviewing those.  I plan on getting through at least a couple of them in the next week.  I do like reviewing books since some of them are outside my usual genre.  This is sometimes a good and a bad thing.  I have found authors I like this way, and also found books I could barely get through.

Adding to this working on a short story for a writing contest, should be a busy month!

Bright of the Sky
by Kay Kenyon

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (4) of 5 Stars – “Really liked it”
Recommended for: Fantasy readers looking for a series

Book description:

In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire gathers both human and alien beings under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and a never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme.

Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire to free them. Thus begins a tale of high adventure and vast concept, replete with alien cultures, an exotic Mandarin bureaucracy, and a man with nothing left to lose. He may not find what he seeks, but he’ll be offered a view of the multiverse, the power of princes, an unthinkable revenge—and unexpectedly, love.

In this, her first series, Kay Kenyon has created high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion.

This book was actually really hard for me to pick a rating. I settled on 4-stars, but there were some issues with it. I ranked it a little higher as there are great indications that through the course of the series this will be really great and the questions I had with the first book will probably be answered. (Currently there are 4 books out in the Entire and the Rose.)

The scope of this book builds and builds the course of the novel. We learn that the universe Titus comes from is called the Rose and the “other place” is called the Entire. (Hence the name of the series.) We find out pretty quickly that Titus somehow crossed into this other place before with his family and somehow he came back, but without his wife and daughter. When we meet Titus, it has been two years since he returned with little to no memory of what happened to him. Through the course of the book we learn some of what happened to Titus and what happened to his memories. We learn that the Entire is well aware of the Rose and one of the rules of society is that the Rose should never know of them. The Tarig have manufactured the entire universe and society in a way that elevates them.

At times a bit of fantasy seems to be mixed in yet, but perhaps we just don’t have all of the explinations. The part where we learned how Titus lost his memories seemed a bit weak to me, though there were many open threads and perhaps this was just one of them. I did however enjoy the story and like to read series, so was happy with the open threads. What she does do a great job of here is world building. The Bright is described just the right amount and more importantly the changes in how Titus views it are done very well and believable.

This series has been compared to Dune, which I think is a good comparison. The complexity isn’t quite as buried as Dune is, but there are complex and unanswered questions throughout the book and left open at the end. I am looking forward to picking up the rest of the series and continuing to discover the world and universe that Kenyon has given us.

Tigana (10th Anniversary Edition)
by Guy Gavriel Kay

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (5) of 5 Stars – “It was Amazing!”
Recommended for: Fantasy readers of any type.

Book description:

A masterful epic of magic, politics, war… and the power of love and hate.

This is that rare, spellbinding novel in which myth comes alive and magic reaches out to touch us.  Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free.  It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel, despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannon be spoken or remembered…

But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embarks upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name: Tigana.  Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.

I have read Kay books before.   I discovered him through a friend about a year ago reading The Fionavar Tapestry and Sarantine Mosaic, The Fionavar Tapestry being right up there in books that I now love.  Kay books usually take me a little bit to get into, but once I do I cannot put them down. Tigana was no different.  Yet now that I have finished it, it ranks up there with the best books I have read period.  It grabbed me on an emotional level that makes me wish I had discovered it years ago.

As the description states, the book is about a land that was conquered.  Not only was their land taken from them, but their name was taken from them. The implications of this are what Kay explores in this novel.  This struck a cord with me partially because I have a similar theme in the novel I am working on, but Kay takes it in a different direction.  With their name goes their identity.  Their history, deeds, story all lose the root and focus.

Pain, loss, hate are all explored here.  Yet also we see love, sacrifice, and wondrous deeds done in the effort to regain what was lost.  Magic exists in this novel and world.  (As the basis of the novel is a spell that makes everyone except the people born in that land before the spell was cast forget the name as soon as they hear or read it.) Yet, it is really a sideline for most of the novel.   They interactions of the people and what they feel are what Kay focuses on.

As this is a stand-alone novel, if you haven’t read Kay before, this would be a great place to start with his works.  This specific edition was nice to read with the afterword by the author.  It helps explain some of where he came up with the ideas and what he was going for with the plot themes. He accomplished his goals very well.

The Dragon Factory
by Jonathan Maberry

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (4) of 5 Stars – “Really liked it”
Recommended for: Action/Thriller Readers

Release Date: March 2nd, 2010 – Reviewing Advanced Reader Copy

Book description:

Joe Ledger and the DMS (Department of Military Sciences) go up against two competing groups of geneticists. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele. Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they’ve drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag.

This book was a fun read that kept me interested the whole time. The Dragon Factory isn’t in my regular genres, but that was part of the fun in this case. I received this book through a Goodreads “First Reads” contest, so wanted to bump it up on my reading priority list. I came into both the story and author cold, meaning I hadn’t read any other reviews and Maberry was a totally new author to me. (He was kind enough to stop by this site and point out some links to free fiction on his own website and wished me well with the book.)

The book took me a little to get into as I didn’t know the characters and didn’t really get how Maberry was doing his scene changes. Without giving too much away, I will simply say between scenes he would have an additional scene taking place elsewhere and at a different time. I initially found this a bit jarring and couldn’t follow, but as the story unfolded those scenes started to make sense and by the end reflecting on them they were critical to the plot.

The second half of the novel was jam-packed with action. The story was really smooth sailing from there on out and I just kept reading one more chapter till I finished it. Maberry does an excellent job of keeping the story interesting and the plot moving the whole time. A reason I don’t often read the genre is I find a lot of it too predictable. We can generally guess about halfway through the rest of the book what needs to happen. This book quite often had a part of what I would guess, but certainly not in the way I would guess and contained plenty of moments that surprised me.

Jonathan also left a note on Goodreads mentioning that he will shortly be finishing the third book in the series (The King of Plagues) and that the series is in development for TV. Pretty exciting actually. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves action/thriller/covert-ops sort of stories. For this genra to get a 4-star from me and keep my attention that well, that says its good. I am looking forward to reading more of Jonathan’s work and keeping my eye out for that TV series!

Here are the links to Jonathan’s free fiction:

There are also two free Joe Ledger short stories available online (and they won’t add to the clutter in your room): COUNTDOWN takes is a prequel to PATIENT ZERO (http://us.macmillan.com/CMS400/uploadedFiles/COUNTDOWN_free.pdf) . And DEEP, DARK (just posted yesterday), takes place just before the second book, THE DRAGON FACTORY. Here’s the link: http://jonathanmaberry.com/download-the-free-joe-ledger-story-deep-dar

I have been meaning to do a post for a while.  Jeff over at Fantasy Book News & Reviews had a good post discussing and responding to some comments on his reading preferences.  A lot of the responding originates from this post on a different site.

The key part of the discussion I picked up on is whether the gender of an author determines whether or not I read a book.  Apparently a few folks did “Best of” lists that didn’t include female authors or something along those lines.  I am going to have to agree with Jess on this one – the gender of an author has nothing to do with whether or not I will read a book.

The post goes on to discuss some of the comments in the one article criticizing Jeff’s reading habits.  The thing that most bothered me about the post and the comments is that by somehow reading more male authors than female makes you sexist, limits your horizons, or other such stuff at that.  One commentor actually seemed to have a level head though.

The key part of what Aiden said was this:

It bothers me that Jeff even has to think consider whether he’s ‘sexist’, because of the gender of the authors he enjoys.

Bottom-line, I don’t think people should worry about the authors race/number of fingers/gender, and just read books they enjoy. Just because all the books on my ‘Favourites of ’09′ list are written by white males doesn’t mean I chose them for that reason, it just means that those white males wrote the best books I read this year.

Jeff somewhat agreed with this for his own reasons, though he did say he tends to purposely select male protagonists.  You know what – that’s fine.  I read what I like, he reads what he likes, and we both post about it.  People tend to enjoy the best what they can identify with.  The whole discussion seems a bit silly to me.  Who cares if someone is “limiting” their choices or not?

All that being said, I would be annoyed if the same was said about me.  True this site is fairly new and to date I have reviewed and written about all male authors, though one does approach things from a female protagonist reviews.  Most of my favorite authors are males, but there are quite a few female authors I read.  My own novel I am writing does have a male protagonist, but certainly contains inspiration from Katherine Kurtz more than anyone else.

To be honest though, I don’t pay that much attention to the gender of an author.  I see a book title, description, or blurb that interests me, I read the back (description) and if I like it flag it on my “To-Read” list on Goodreads.  Seeing as I subscribe to quite a few Review sites, sign up for book contests, and now am starting to get PR releases (and hopefully ARC’s soon) I get flooded with possibilities.  I really don’t even pay attention to whether or not the name is male or female, etc.   I tend to look at the cover and read the description before even really seeing who the book is by.

This post got a little longer than expected and I hope the topic is beat to death.  The only change I anticipate making here on Epic Plains is to review books whether or not I actually like them.  Seeing as my “To-Read” list is rarely less than 50 books, I end up being pretty selective in what I purchase, so generally only buy books I know I am going to like.  However, I do have a ARC and contest book coming in, so consider those randoms that while in my genre I may or may not like.

Any thoughts?

The Myriad (Tour of the Merrimack, #1)
by R.M. Meluch

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (2) of 5 Stars – “It was ok”
Recommended for: Military Scifi Readers

Book description:

The U.S.S. Merrimack was the finest battleship class spaceship in Earth’s fleet, able to stand up against the best the Palatine Empire could throw at them, even able to attack and kill swarms of the seemingly unstoppable Hive. But nothing could have prepared the captain and crew of the Merrimack to face the Myriad-three colonized worlds in the midst of a globular cluster that the Hive had somehow overlooked.

Military SciFi is one of my favorite sub-genres. I picked this up thinking something along the lines of Weber and the book did fit the genre. Plus it mentioned one of the cultures being based on Ancient Rome. Seeing as Ancient Rome is my favorite historical period, I figured this book would be the greatest story ever.

However, it did take me a little bit to get into the story. A lot of the beginning of the book started with hints of background that read like this was a book in the middle of a series and you should have read the previous book before starting this one. Once I got past the first 50 pages I started to get into the story a bit more. The basic premise is that two former enemies have allied to defend against something even worse. A hive insect sort of race that’s only goal is to make everyone its next meal. That combined with what felt like fairly stock characters made this into a sort of Star Trek meets Starship Troopers.

The book however did manage to carry itself almost all of the way through, far enough to make me want to know more, until the end. I will avoid spoilers, but the twist at the end was jarring and just not needed. It detracted from the whole story instead of adding to it. Without it, I may have considered continuing on in the series, but in light of a story that took a lot for me to get into in the first place ending like that, I lost all interest in following the adventures of the U.S.S. Merrimack.

That being said, plenty of people love this book. So if the plot sounds of interest it might be worth your time. I would recommend instead reading David Weber and Steve White’s Starfire series. The last couple (In Death Ground and The Shiva Option) dealing with Arachnids who want to eat everyone. That being what I had hoped this book was going to be.

MythOS
by Kelly McCullough

Jakob’s Goodreads Rating: (4) of 5 Stars – “Really liked it”
Recommended for: Fantasy and Geek Readers

This is the fourth book in Kelly’s Ravirn series, starting with WebMage, Cybermancy, and Codespell.  Ravirn once again finds himself in a heap of trouble.  Best intention tends to backfire on him yet again.

Book description:

In the 21st century, magic has advanced with the times and gone digital. But when Ravirn-a computer savvy sorcerer-is thrown into a parallel world where magic runs on a different operating system, he’ll need mad skills to get out alive.

As I mentioned in my reviews of both Cybermancy and Codespell these books are a blast to read.  It is a fun mix of cyberpunk, Greek mythology, and fantasy all rolled up into a quirky ball.  Like the others, I finished the book fairly quickly in a couple of days.  Once again however, that had more to do with reading for long stretches than it being an abnormally short book. (Yes, I ended up staying up quite late once again to finish this one… which is why this review is being posted pretty quickly after the last one.)

MythOS is a bit of a departure from the last three books in a way.  We have some of the old cast we have come to know.  Ravirn, Melchior, Tisiphone, and the missing webtroll Ahllan make appearances. However almost all of the other characters are totally different.  See in this 4th book, Ravirn departs the Greek Pantheon and ends up in a universe where the Greek Gods are silly stories and the Norse Pantheon walks the world. Ravirn still is a lesser power, but in a totally different playing field.

Naturally through the course of the novel Ravirn manages (whether through action or inaction) piss off just about every faction in the Norse Pantheon as well.  (Perhaps this is the true talent of “The Raven.”) We also end up meeting everyone from Loki to Odin and quiet a few in between.  It was kind of jarring going to a totally different pantheon.  This probably is what Kelly was going for here.  We really get into Ravirn’s situation when he too is trying to recall half forgotten legends and figure out how that will impact him returning “home.”

MythOS progresses at a fast pace and is enjoyable the entire time.  Ravirn finally starts to build himself up and make his own choices as opposed to just going with whatever seems best at the time.  He consciously starts to turn himself into something greater.  The part that sticks into my mind the most is the point in the book where Ravirn has to actually pick sides. Chaos power or not, Ravirn is building into a heroic figure.  I am really looking forward to what Kelly has in store for us with the 5th book.  I recommend picking these up and following the whole series.