Category Fantasy Books

Aug 3 2015
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Book Review: Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb

August 11, 2015

Title: Fool’s Quest

Author: Robin Hobb

Series: The Fitz and The Fool #2

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5/5 stars!

The Overview: After nearly killing his oldest friend, the Fool, and finding his daughter stolen away by those who were once targeting the Fool, FitzChivarly Farseer is out for blood. And who better to wreak havoc than a highly trained and deadly former royal assassin? Fitz might have let his skills go fallow over his years of peace, but such things, once learned, are not so easily forgotten. And nothing is more dangerous than a man who has nothing left to lose…

The Book Review:

After loving Robin Hobb for so long, I kept thinking there’d come a point where her work would stop dazzling me at every turn. That maybe I’d get used to it or something. What I didn’t expect was to love her more and more with every book, and Fool’s Quest was one of her best yet!

After following Fitz’ journey for eight books now, I am at the point in the story where every minute revelation about the characters or the world (and the history and magic within it) strikes me as profound. I find myself completely immersed in the pages, eagerly seeking my next discovery – discoveries that percolate in my brain and keep me thinking about them months, even years later. But that’s just the kind of brilliant storyteller Robin Hobb is. I remember with the same vivid clarity things that happened in the first trilogy as I do those that happened within the last book. The ending of Fool’s Fate rocked my world so much, it’s partially responsible for why I started a book blog (I just HAD to talk about it).

I think part of the reason these books have such an impact is the culmination of story. What made Fool’s Quest so profound is that it finally converged Fitz’ tale with Hobb’s other stories (Liveship & Rain Wild) that were only on the periphery up until this point – and it was AWESOME in the truest sense of the word. It’s as if all that came before was one long buildup to this brilliant moment where everything finally converges… AND THEN THE BOOK ENDED!!! And I’m on the floor sobbing because I have to wait another year to experience the final book in the trilogy.

What makes these books hard to wait for is what also makes them so special to me. They evoke real emotion and a sense of love and loss that is almost unparalleled by anything else I’ve ever read. Hobb continues to make a very compelling case to claim the spot as my favorite author. When I think about my reading experience, I’m always grateful for her books and how they’ve shaped me as a reader, reviewer, and writer.

Overall, if you like fantasy, I consider Hobb a must-read. The slow pacing of her stories allows you to savor every moment and become completely immersed in this world and these characters. I always come away with a fulfilled sense of having lived another life. I can’t help but recommend them as often as I can – start with Assassin’s Apprentice, you won’t regret it!

*Thank you Random House Publishing Group, NetGalley, and Robin Hobb for the chance to read and review an early copy of Fool’s Quest– you made my year!!

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes

Jul 8 2015
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Mini Book Review: Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb

Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb

Title: Blood of Dragons

Author: Robin Hobb

Series: Rain Wild Chronicles #4

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

The Overview: The dragons’ survival hangs in the balance in the thrilling final volume in the acclaimed River Wilds chronicles fantasy series. The dragons and their dedicated band of keepers have at last found the lost city of Kelsingra. The magical creatures have learned to use their wings and are growing into their regal inheritance. Their humans, too, are changing. As the mystical bonds with their dragons deepen, Thymara, Tats, Rapskal, and even Cedric, the unlikeliest of keepers, have begun transforming into beautiful Elderlings raked with exquisite features that complement and reflect the dragons they serve.

But while the humans have scoured the empty streets and enormous buildings of Kelsongra, they cannot find the mythical silver wells the dragons need to stay health and survive. With enemies encroaching, the keepers must risk “memory walking”- immersing themselves in the dangerously addictive memories of long-deceased Elderlings – to uncover clues necessary to their survival. And time is of the essence, for the legendary Tintaglia, long feared dead, has returned, wounded in a battle with humans hunting dragon blood and scales. She is weakening and only the hidden silver can revive her. If Tintaglia dies, so, too, will the ancient memories she carries – a devastating loss that will ensure the dragons’ extinction.

The Mini Review:

I can’t say enough good things about Robin Hobb. If she’s not my favorite author, she’s at least in my top three. Blood of Dragons concludes her Rain Wild Chronicles, a series which takes place on the periphery of her FitzChivalry books. My favorite thing about these “spinoffs” is the expansion of the world I love and the most excellent portrayal of dragons. Many authors write dragons with human personalities, desires, and motives. Hobb’s dragons are bestial and almost alien in their behaviors and thoughts; in my opinion, every bit as authentic as good dragons should be. It was awesome! I don’t know that we’ll see a continuation anytime soon, but after finally learning more about Elderling lore (often alluded to throughout the entire Farseer saga and finally just scratching the surface of possibilities here) I can’t see her just leaving it at that. If you’re a Hobb fan, The Rain Wild Chronicles is a must-read. If you’re a fantasy fan, this author is well worth your time! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a new Fitz and the Fool tale to dive into…

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes

Jun 10 2015
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Mini Book Review: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson Title: Elantris

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Series: N/A [Thus Far, Anyway]

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

The Overview: Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling. Arelon’s new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping — based on their correspondence — to also find love… [continue reading]

The Mini Review:

I have been trying to write this review for well over a week now and I’m not quite sure why it has been so difficult (I mean, how hard can it be to compose a paragraph or two?). I really enjoyed Elantris, which is no surprise considering it’s a Sanderson. There’s something really nice about picking up a novel and knowing it’s going to be good. It contained everything I’ve come to expect from such a great author – fantastic and relatable characters, cool magic system/magical beings, and excellent writing. In the whole scheme of his works, I think Elantris falls somewhere in the middle (keep in mind everything I’ve read from him is 4-Stars or higher). I found countless similarities to his Mistborn trilogy, so if you liked that one there is an excellent chance you will like this one (and vice versa). In fact, there wasn’t anything I DIDN’T like about it… Sanderson strikes again!

Other books you might like:  

by Niki Hawkes

May 20 2015
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Series Review [So Far]: The Gentleman Bastards #1-3 by Scott Lynch

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Red Seas Under Read Skies by Scott Lynch
The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

The Gentleman Bastards #1-3
by Scott Lynch
4.5/5 stars!

This is honestly one of the most unique fantasy series I’ve ever read. Everything from the characters to how each section of the story was organized felt like a fresh spin on the classic concept of thievery and how it’s usually presented in a fantasy world. I have to admit that this series had me on board from the very first chapter, mostly because I thought it was funny as shit (now seems like a good time to mention that the series contains a lot of profanity). The dialogue is incredibly witty, and I lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud; I even went back to reread some of the funnier passages once I was done. The series was totally infused with that great situational humor that really gave it a life of its own.

The plot was pretty clever – an Ocean’s 11-style framework with a lot of plans, sub plans, and countless moving parts that eventually lead to the big payoffs (or the big fails, as the case may be). I really enjoyed seeing what harebrained scheme the characters would concoct next and delighted whenever they managed to pull one off. Did I always know exactly what was going on? That’s a definite no – but the journey was so much fun that not knowing didn’t bother me.

So far, I’ve made it sound like this series is a lighthearted comedy with very little substance – but I assure you it also has its fair share of absolutely heart wrenching moments. Things definitely don’t always go according to plan, and it’s how the characters deal with the fallout from those failures is what made this series truly poignant in my mind (that, and it was funny… did I mention it was funny?). For me, The Gentleman Bastards series was unique in almost every writing category I can think of, and that’s part of the reason why it’s now among my favorites. I didn’t like all of the books equally, so I’m going to take a minute to talk a little more (spoiler free) specifics about each one.
                                                                                                                                                      

The Lies of Locke Lamora:

As far as the humor goes, I think I laughed hardest during the first third of this one (which is understandable considering the plot gets more serious as it goes). I thought it offered an excellent introduction to the story, great character development, and great storytelling. As I mentioned before, the organization of each scene was different than I’ve read before because it kind of bounced back and forth between past and present. You get a glimpse in the past long enough for the “present” passages to have more meaning and context, which might be why I came away from it feeling satisfied from how rounded the story was. There was a section kind of near the middle where I wasn’t totally sure what the scheme was, let alone how what they were doing contributed to it, but that may just have been an attention problem on my end. In any case, it eventually made itself clear and I was just as enthralled near the end as I had been at the beginning. A strong first book, no doubt about it, but it’s the second one that really rocked my world.

4.5/5 stars
                                                                                                                                                     

Red Seas Under Red Skies:

As you can probably tell from the title, this one takes the adventure to the high seas. Knowing that was the direction the second book was headed, I admit I wasn’t convinced I was going to like it as much. How much scheming can the characters really do in the middle of an ocean? Turns out, quite a bit more than you think. This book just struck a chord with me, and I think part of it might be because of how much depth of character was explored (as well as the addition of several fantastic new characters). I also think the pacing was incredibly strong – one event flowed seamlessly into the next, and there wasn’t a single boring part between them. I imagine that’s difficult to do when your characters are aboard a ship for a good portion of a novel. Kudos to the author, who produced my favorite installment of this series (so far) and quite possibly one of my favorite books ever. That’s serious stuff right there.

5/5 stars!
                                                                                                                                                      

The Republic of Thieves:

While book #2 was my favorite so far, The Republic of Thieves was unfortunately my least favorite. Don’t panic though – it’s still a solid 4-star read. I think the reasons I didn’t like it quite as much are a bit odd, so that should be taken into account. For one thing, at some point in the novel the characters rehearse for a play… and I hate reading classic playwrighting, even creatively done within a high fantasy novel. Lynch did a great job actually bringing the play to life without letting it overtake what was going on in the real world, but I just couldn’t get into it. Even reading about the characters learning the play was a bit tedious, even though it was also kind of funny. See? I told you it was a weird reason. The other deterrent was the love story – I think the main conflict behind it was hashed back and forth just a little too often and I kind of wanted to smack the characters involved… move on already. Other than that, all of the attributes I mentioned in the first three paragraphs were strong as ever in The Republic of Thieves, and I liked the work as a whole so much that I’m basically down to splitting fine hairs to differentiate between the novels.

4/5 stars
                                                                                                                                                      

A part of me wishes I had read the first book of this series when it first came out ages ago – I’ve had it sitting on my shelf since then. The other part of me is grateful I waited, however, because of how long the wait is between book releases. There is a lot going on in these novels, so many things to orchestrate, that I’m frankly just grateful the author had enough energy to give us at least three books in the series, but I would still appreciate a solid release date for the fourth book. I’m excited to see the series getting so much attention in both the blogosphere and the bookselling world, and I’m even more glad to have finally joined the ranks of fans eager to see what happens to Locke next. If you are sick of the same old thing, give this series a try, you (probably) won’t regret it! As a side note, I listened to bits of these on audio and it is an experience… I think it’s now my preferred format for the series.

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes

Apr 16 2015
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Book Review: The Dragons of Dorcastle by Jack Campbell

The dragons of dorcastleTitle: Dragons of Dorcastle

Author: Jack Campbell

Series: The Pillars of Reality #1

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

The Overview: For centuries, the two Great Guilds have controlled the world of Dematr. The Mechanics and the Mages have been bitter rivals, agreeing only on the need to keep the world they rule from changing. But now a Storm approaches, one that could sweep away everything that humans have built. Only one person has any chance of uniting enough of the world behind her to stop the Storm, but the Great Guilds and many others will stop at nothing to defeat her. Mari is a brilliant young Mechanic, just out of the Guild Halls where she has spent most of her life learning how to run the steam locomotives and other devices of her Guild. Alain is the youngest Mage ever to learn how to change the world he sees with the power of his mind. Each has been taught that the works of the other’s Guild are frauds. But when their caravan is destroyed, they begin to discover how much has been kept from them. As they survive danger after danger, Alain discovers what Mari doesn’t know—that she was long ago prophesized as the only one who can save their world. When Mari reawakens emotions he had been taught to deny, Alain realizes he must sacrifice everything to save her. Mari, fighting her own feelings, discovers that only together can she and Alain hope to stay alive and overcome the Dragons of Dorcastle.

The Review:

I really like the concept for this story – there are two different Guilds, one dedicated to Mechanics, the other to Mages. They don’t much like each other, which sets the stage for a lot of conflict. Add to that the mention of dragons in the title, and I knew this was a book I was interested in reading.

I especially liked the Mages vs. Mechanics idea because it was an opportunity to explore the conflicting concepts magic vs. science. Campbell did a great job integrating the two ideas into a single world, embracing that both were possible depending on your perception of how the world works. It felt like a solid framework to build from, and was probably my favorite element of the story.

However, as much as I liked the concepts, there were a few things about how they were executed that I did not enjoy.

For example, we learned about this framework for the world and how Mechanics and Mages see things differently through dialogue… and a lot of it. Endless pages of the Mechanic explaining how the Mechanics work, the Mage explaining how the Mages work, both of them explaining to other people why they made the choices they did. Then each would turn around and have a mental conversation with himself/herself to rationalizing what they just had explained to them. It was tedious. It also didn’t leave a lot of room for plot-advancement aside from their very thoroughly explored internal growth.

And it wasn’t even always that they were explaining stuff, but rather what they were explaining that put me off. Let me explain ;) – the Mages believe emotion is a weakness, so they suppress all of the things that make them human. But instead of just having the Mage fight not to act on certain emotions and concepts, the author chose to have him not be aware of those concepts altogether, which means the reader has to endure the Mechanic explaining to the Mage what words like “help,” “friendship,” and even “taste” literally mean. Now, I definitely don’t mind when authors take time to explain things to the readers, but they have to be things that don’t exist in our world that actually require explanation. Even if the Mages suppressed certain emotions out of their students, you have to start with at least a semi-understanding of the concept before it can be eradicated, right? In any case, I guess I just didn’t appreciate how it was written, and could see how a different approach might have worked better.

Furthermore, it made the Mage in question come across a little simple and juvenile which meant I had a difficult time taking him seriously. The Mechanic, on the other hand, was a really interesting character and I found myself enjoying her passages the most (although that could be because the plot only seemed to advance under her perspective). It’s also worth mentioning that the end half was better than the first half (because they stopped explaining stuff to each other quite as often), which is why my rating is a bit higher than it was going to be.

Overall, I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as I wanted to. The great concept that got me to pick up the book in the first place was swallowed by needless repetition and dialogue. This is a shame because I finished the book still very interested in the basic idea behind it but lacking the patience to see how it will develop. I might continue on eventually, but it will be a hard sell. Despite my objections, I might actually still recommend it, especially to readers who don’t mind repetition (If you read The Sword of Truth series without once thinking “I’m really getting tired of hearing about the ‘Pristinely Ungifted,'” or any of the other of Goodkind’s repetitive concepts, this might be an excellent series for you). Like I said, the premise really was a good one.

Other books you might like:

The fact that my additional recommendations are pretty eclectic shows that The Dragons of Dorcastle really was a unique book…

by Niki Hawkes

Mar 30 2015
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Novella Review: Legion by Brandon Sanderson

legionTitle: Legion

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Series: Legion #1

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5/5 stars!

The Overview: Stephen Leeds, AKA ‘Legion,’ is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his ‘aspects’ are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society.

The Review:

I picked this novella up on a whim. Now, I expected it to be good because it’s a Sanderson, but holy crap! It was awesome. You get strength of character right out of the gate and total immersion into this guy’s life. Then Sanderson proceeds to hit you over the head with one cool idea after another. There were five or six concepts in this novella that I absolutely loved – any two of which would’ve made for an interesting story. I don’t want to get into specifics for fear of spoilers, but suffice to say I completely devoured this story and am still reeling from it several days later. It’s a dang good thing Skin Deep (Legion #2) is out, because I feel like Legion sparked a new craving that hasn’t yet been satisfied. If you’ve read (and liked) Steelheart, you’ll definitely like this one.

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes