King's Blood: Review

The Five Woes have come, and the Five Realms are now fleeing.

With his world caving in behind him, Sar Wilek has to lead the remnants from his nation--and from the other four realms--in a desperate search for a new land. A new home, where they can settle down and start over.

Starting over, of course, includes resurrecting all of the ancient grudges and feuds between the Five Realms.

King's Blood: the fantasy story that is part Christopher Columbus, part children of Israel wandering in the desert.

That makes for a fascinating premise, and King's Blood, the second book in Jill Williamson's Kinsman Chronicles series, follows along a dizzying number of routes. To keep up with them, you might need to start with the first book, King's Folly, which I reviewed here, last May.

This book actually reminds me a lot of L.B. Graham's Binding of the Blade series. There is a fair amount meandering along, a complicated backstory, and a very strong thread of (alternative) Biblical history.

Beyond that, I'm not quite sure how to describe the book.

For one thing, there are just so many main characters.

When I said it had a complicated backstory, I meant the whole thing is complicated--really complicated. Once you sail beyond the basic premise of "onboard ship, must find land," there are a dozen different plot threads to follow. Each of the Five Realms has its own leaders and often multiple factions among the leaders, each chasing their own interests. Then there are the religious factions (usually muddled up with the political factions), and the romantic interests. Yes, I may have gotten a little lost along the way.

Even still, I did genuinely enjoy King's Blood. There's a lot of intrigue and action going on, I care about the characters, I love how Williamson ties the story to her previous fantasy series (Blood of Kings), and I love how she's created an Old Testament/Hebraic fantasy world for her story.

So, if you are up for following a busy story--have at it! (Even more so, if you've read Williamson's Blood of Kings trilogy, since you'll get to spot all the extra little touches in this story.)


[My thanks to Bethany House Publishers for sending me a copy of King's Blood to review. All of the opinions above are my own.]

The Shattered Vigil: Review

What matters most when evil threatens the land and even the smallest detail matters? It's elementary...

Actually, it's The Shattered Vigil, Patrick Carr's newest book, the second in The Darkwater Saga series.

The first book in this series, The Shock of Night, centers around a vicious attack on the capitol city of Bunard, but even before that book, Carr’s novella By Divine Right sets up a really fascinating world where you can quite literally ascribe someone’s skill to their talent or ‘gift’—ranging from medical abilities to musical performances.

Willet Dura stands out against that backdrop of ‘gifts’ as an ungifted man, a commoner, until the day he encounters someone carrying the most dangerous gift a man could possibly gain.

If you want, you can read my review for the previous book here, but the main thing you need to know is: yes, you should start with the novella and work through the series in order. Carr picks up the threads pretty well in this story, but I went back and reread The Shock of Night before starting The Shattered Vigil. It was just as fun the second time and made the story much easier to follow. My only (small) regret is not rereading By Divine Right at the same time.

For the Shattered Vigil itself, I think it is a worthy addition to the series.

As the story begins, Dura and his companions hope that they have ended the evil that invaded Burnard, but a series of near-disasters force them out of the city and into new perils. Though he is no longer the king's reeve, Dura and the others set out on a journey consisting of equal parts forensics investigation and fantasy quest.

I will admit that the story lost me a couple of times. The plot jumps back and forth between a handful of main characters, and it gets very quest-y at times, but it kept moving and kept turning out new adventures. Even better, Carr pulled in some highlights from the first book that I didn't expect to show up again, much less to be really important clues.

Oh, and there is also a romance...it's not quite a side-story, because it's also very important to the main story (something Carr seems to do well). Dura's lady-love is a very spunky (good) lady (literally), and between them, they produce a lot of smoldering-eyes scenes (meh, from my perspective, but good if that's what you like).

Basically, though, I really liked this story, as I've really liked Carr's previous stories. They are adventure stories--fun, a bit mature, a bit dark in places, and pleasantly inventive.

I recommend it if you like that sort of thing.


[My thanks to Bethany House Publishers for sending me a copy of The Shattered Vigil in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

King's Folly: Review

Between the earthquakes devastating Armania, his father’s mad attempts to save his crumbling, kingdom, and the strange magic from across the borders, Sâr Wilek hardly knows where to turn.

The Five Woes are coming; the end of Armania is at hand…

Like my blogging in general, this review is long overdue. I was actually supposed to post it about a month ago. The reason for the delay actually goes back to March—I got an email from Bethany House with their list of review books for the month. Right at the top of the list was Jill Williamson’s new fantasy novel, King’s Folly.

I was excited to see Williamson starting a new fantasy series after reading a few of her more recent dystopian/sci-fi YA stories. So, of course, I requested a review copy and made it onto the list.

Unfortunately, this happened about a month after moving and changing addresses. Since I didn’t get my address updated in time, my review copy floated off to someone else. (I do hope he or she enjoyed the book as much as I did.)

After waiting over a month, I started investigating and found out what had happened. The result was that I ended up buying my own copy and waiting—again—for it to show up.

Was it worth the complications? I think so.

King’s Folly, the first in Williamson’s Kinsman Chronicles, is a massive, ground-shaking (pun intended) story.

As the King’s oldest son, Sâr Wilek mainly wants to survive the castle politics long enough to be declared his father’s Heir. He’s accompanied by half-a-dozen other major characters, each with their own quest, but all of the action revolves around Wilek.

Wilek is supposed to be the king’s main supporter. If he carries out his role well enough, Rosâr Echad might just anoint Wilek as his heir, and Wilek would be able to change his father’s superstition brutality for a milder rule. The kingdom, however, is falling apart around them as earthquake after earthquake shakes the realm.

Rosâr Echad believes that only sacrifices to the gods can save Armania, but the real secrets and the real corruption lay much deeper in his court than he or Wilek can dream. It will take all of Wilek’s allies to unravel the mystery, and even then they might be too late.

The book does start off a little slow. The first third of the novel focuses mainly on setting up the cast and some of the background to the main story. I actually skipped over the character list at the beginning of the book, since I don’t like reading off a bunch of names before meeting the characters. For this book, that didn’t really matter. Williamson’s first introductions are strong enough to carry the characters through the rest of the story. Everyone was important too, and Williamson makes good use of the various characters’ story-lines, but be warned that there are a ­lot of characters.

Two small caveats:

First, the specific format may be a little confusing—the Kinsman Chronicles is a trilogy, but each book will have three parts. King’s Folly is the first book in the trilogy, but it was released in three individual ebooks, before being released as a full novel. The first of these ebooks, Darkness Reigns, is available on Amazon for free here. The fourth part, starting off the second novel, will be released in early July.

Second, there is also a lot of sexuality inherent in the plot. None of it is graphic, and Williamson specifically notes that she’s modeling this story after the corrupt kings of Israel, which is a fair comparison for the story. If you’ve read Williamson’s Safe Lands trilogy, you know about what to expect. It is there, though, and I wouldn’t recommend the book to younger readers as a result.

With that said, I did enjoy the story. It met my expectations for a complicated, well-built fantasy novel, while keeping the adventures strong and filling the world with a mix of interesting, believable characters. A few of the characters border on stereotypes—faithful bodyguard, independent female sidekick, etc.—I found the world wonderfully complicated and unique.

I’ll be looking forward to reading what happens next.

[My thanks to Bethany House for sending me a review copy. My address should be correct and up-to-date now, for any future reviews.]

  

The Shock of Night: Review

Willet Dura was going to be a priest. Then the war happened, and he became a soldier instead. Now he's ostensibly a noble, but he's also the king's reeve, in charge of sorting out Bunard's dirty laundry in the poor quarter.

Meanwhile an evil from abroad has crept into the city, spreading like a plague among all the different classes of Bunard's society. As reeve, Willet has to be on the scene, which puts him on an accidental collision course with an ancient, deadly secret--a secret that will change the way he sees the world.

Welcome to the world of The Darkwater Saga.

I introduced By Shock of Night briefly in my last post for the CSFF blog tour, but now it's time to do a more thorough review. Since this story is so closely tied up with its prequel novella, and since I haven't reviewed that story yet, I'm going to conflate the two books just slightly in this review--without giving any spoilers, if I can avoid that.

First of all: if you're going to read this series (and I recommend you do), start by reading the novella By Divine Right. You also don't necessarily need the novella to know what's going on in The Shock of Night, but it does help a lot to understand the cultural context for the story. Once you've read the novella, though, go ahead and skip over the first chapter or two of the novel. Those chapters show up at the end of the novella, so you won't miss anything and you'll avoid a small bit of jarring repetition.

Combined, the two books are a good story--a bit grim in places between a slew of mysterious, bloody attacks and Willet's work in the street's of the poor quarter. Carr paints a realistic setting, and fun isn't exactly the right word to describe these books, but I enjoyed them.

I'll admit, I was a little concerned at first. After reading just By Divine Right, Willet's character felt a lot like Errol Stone's character in Carr's previous series (A Cast of Stones, et al.). The two characters are a similar type--one not too different from G. A. Henty's typecast heroes if you are familiar with that author--but the similarities didn't bother me as much once the story got started. I also strongly object to the way Willet is set up to win his lady-love (even if she doesn't mind). It looks like there could be an interesting plot twist coming up with that, though, and I'm waiting to see how that plays out.

Apart from those issues, the story offers plenty of vim and excitement to balance out the negatives.

As with Carr's previous series, I loved the amount of world-building and general cultural development in this new world. There doesn't seem to be much throwaway material, just a lot of interconnecting details about the special 'gifts' and the caste system they've created, about the neighboring countries, past wars, and the overall unrest in society at court, among the merchants, and in the poor quarter where Willet Dura spends much of his time.

[Edit: In writing this post and the previous tour post at the same time, I neglected to mention in either that I received a review copy of The Shock of Night from the publisher in conjunction with the CSSF blog tour. My apologies for the oversight.]

Shock of Night: Blog Tour

Willet Dura is a sleepwalker--but only when someone has been murdered in Bunard. It's an unnerving trait, to say the least. Even that trait, though, is not nearly as unnerving as the rare (and unheard of) gift he receives from one of the murdered men.

Welcome back to another Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour!

This month, the group is featuring The Shock of Night, the first book in Patrick Carr's new Darkwater Series. I really enjoyed Carr's previous series with A Cast of Stones, The Hero's Lot, and A Draw of Kings (reviews here, here, and here), so I was excited to find out that he had another novella available, leading into this new series.

That novella, By Divine Right, sets the stage for the main story by introducing the complicated social system in Bunard. In this world, some people have special gifts or skills that set them apart from the others in their trade. The gifts can be passed down from generation to generation, and over time, they have created a caste system of haves and have-nots. The purer the gift, the greater a person's ability, and the more influence he holds, whether as a leader among the street orphans or as the king himself.

Stealing someone's gift is illegal, of course, but illegal never stops some people from trying--and that's were Willet comes in. As an assistant reeve, it's his job to notice things--like the fact that several of the most gifted have died recently without passing on their gifts to any known heir.

That's just the background to the story, though. I'm writing another post with my review for the story overall. Meanwhile, you can find The Shock Of Night on Amazon here, the free novella prequel By Divine Right here, and more information about Patrick Carr and his books here.

The other tour participants will be posting reviews and commentary through Wednesday, so be sure to check back a couple times and see what they have to say.

Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Carol Bruce Collett
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rani Grant
Rebekah Gyger
Bruce Hennigan
Janeen Ippolito
Carol Keen
Rebekah Loper
Jennette Mbewe
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Nissa
Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder
Jessica Thomas
Robert Treskillard
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White

[Edit: In writing this post and the other tour post at the same time, I neglected to mention in either that I received a review copy of The Shock of Night from the publisher in conjunction with the CSSF blog tour. My apologies for the oversight.]

Storm Siren: Review

Slave girl + political star might seem an unlikely combination, but it's a combination Nym is stuck with. She's the slave girl, of course, and the political star is her owner Adora, who wants to hide Nym in the shadows of her brilliant entourage.

Adora also wants to turn Nym into her pet WMD, which might work if Nym cooperates--and if Nym doesn't turn deadly too soon.

Welcome back to the second day of the CSFF tour for Mary Weber's Storm Siren. As always, you can find a lot of other people talking about this book at the tour's headquarters over here. Or, you can stick around and read my review right here!

First off, I was very excited to discover that this new fantasy author might soon become a favorite. (I'm waiting for the rest of the series, just to make sure.) Storm Siren has a lot of the elements that I like in fantasy--a mostly medieval setting, though with a fun steam-punk twist; vivid magical powers that bring both thrills and devastation; and an important legend woven into the story. Especially the legend...

Some fantasy gets away without have too much history in its world, while other fantasy gets bogged down. I won't go into much detail, but a huge part of why I loved this story was a certain legend introduced early in the novel. The legend, originally retold in a song, actually becomes important to the main story, instead of yet-another throw-away Tolkien/fantasy must-have-a-poem-in-the-story 'trappings.' So for me, the story gets a lot bonus points for both world-building and plot-development.

And for characters, there is Nym herself. Temperamental might describe her just as much as Elemental.

On that note, Storm Siren probably isn't the best choice for readers who like instant action or squeaky-clean stories. The story starts out slow--Nym spends the first half of the book getting oriented. It's partly the plot, which requires lots of political posturing and scheming to get the story going. It's also partly the writing, since Nym inserts a drama-queen attitude into the narration. She's got a lot of drama to be emotional about, given the way she's treated. At times, it's good drama. In her more emotional scenes, though, the attitude feels overwrought and repetitive.

After getting into the story, I mostly forgot the slow start, and Weber used Nym's past to develop some big issues like self-harm. (These particular parts do mean the book is better suited for an older-teen, mature audience.) Nym's past isn't pretty, but it felt real. On the other hand, her narrative interjections weren't always pretty either and in place, they got in the way of the story's flow. I still connected to her and the characters, but the emotional "telling" weakened the story's visceral punch.

Oh, and there is a sort-of romance running through all the political drama. Some readers believe there is also a love triangle, but I never really saw that in the story, at least reading it from Nym's perspective.

All that aside, I enjoyed the story, not to mention the cliff-hanger at the very end. Here again I differ from certain other readers, since some at least seem to assume bad things about the next book, based on this book's ending. I refuse to believe that particular train of thought, though, until I see more proof. I do believe there are plenty of bad things in store for Nym, but I'm hopeful that they will be the wonderful sorts of bad things that lead to another satisfying novel.

[My thanks to Thomas Nelson, Storm Siren's publisher, for providing me with a review copy in conjunction with this blog tour.]

Storm Siren: Blog Tour

Imagine...

Imagine a female Zeus--that is, imagine someone who is both illegal and downright impossible.

Curious how that works? Welcome back for the April Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Tour. This month, we've been reading a book by a new author, the first in a series.

Storm Siren, by Mary Weber, introduces Nym, an unusual slave girl. Nym has had an unheard-of fourteen owners in the course of her young life. Given how she's destroyed all her previous owners, no one should want her now, but apparently someone does. Nym, after all, could make a powerful weapon in the nation's defense against one of it's oldest enemies. Of course, the idea could be a wee bit dangerous, considering that Nym has no idea how to control her own abilities, especially when people start getting on her nerves.

I rather liked this story, and I'll give you a longer review tomorrow, but for now, feel free to check out some posts by the other tour participants.

Enjoy the tour!

Julie Bihn
Lauren Bombardier
Beckie Burnham
Vicky DealSharingAunt
George Duncan
April Erwin
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Janeen Ippolito
Carol Keen
Emileigh Latham
Simone Lilly-Egerter
Jennette Mbewe
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Nissa
Jalynn Patterson
Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Steve Trower
Phyllis Wheeler
Michelle R. Wood

*Storm Siren - on Amazon
Author Website - http://www.maryweber.com/

[My thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy of Storm Siren in conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour.]

How A Star Falls: Review

What happens if you find a young woman who claims to be a star—not a Hollywood star, but a real star, stranded on your little corner of the California beach?

She turns your world upside down, to start with.

Of course, Derrick doesn't really believe Brielle's story, when she claims to be a star. That doesn't matter, though, because she's ready to turn his world upside anyway.

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned any of Amber Stoke’s novels, and I'm about two months late reviewing this one, but that's my fault, not Amber's. I thoroughly enjoyed How a Star Falls—no hesitations, no reservations.

How a Star Falls is a contemporary romance novella. It's a bit shorter than you might expect, just a snippet of a story if you're used to full-length novels, but that's a good thing actually. It's enough to tell this story without any extra fluff. Just boy meets girl, with lots of beauty shining through the characters and the writing.

There's not a whole lot more to say. As a fan of speculative fiction, I was hoping just a little for the story to play out along those lines, but I still really liked how Derrick and Brielle interact and push each other to grow beyond the little bubbles they live in. If you like romance, I'd recommend you check this one out.

Emissary: Review

What if, after growing up in a remote farming village, you suddenly discovered that you didn’t belong there? What if you learned that you could wield incredible power? What if the power you wield hints that you belong to an accursed race of people, exiled, destroyed, and nearly forgotten?

Welcome back, and welcome to the new year!

 

I’m starting off 2015 with a review for the first book in a new fantasy series. It’s written under a new nom de plume, but by an author who is an old favorite. Emissary is Davis Bunn’s foray into epic fantasy, writing under the name Thomas Locke. Thomas Locke is a pseudonym created by Bunn as part of his efforts to branch out into fantasy from his usual adventure/thriller novels.

In Emissary, Hyam is an outcast farm-boy with an unusual knack for learning a particular dead language and a grudge against the mages who dragged him away from his favorite study and forced him to learn Elvish instead. Of course, for ordinary people, neither language is any good, since the mysterious races who once spoke them are long vanished.

Outside of Hyam’s village, however, dark powers have instigated revolution and devastation across the country. A series of attacks force Hyam out of his village and bring him together with two other misfits. Together, they gather the first of a resistance. Along the way, Hyam learns a lot about the world.

To be honest, I had some small issues with the book—there’s a lot of world-building in the introduction. Locke spends a fair bit of time introducing his character and explaining the backstory. You need the info to understand what’s going on, but the best suggestion I have is to skim through it and wait for things to pick up after a few chapters. Along with that, the story follows a pretty typical fantasy scenario—young man of unknown, mysterious heritage, just coming of age with an onslaught of highly unusual powers.

Some fantasy stories veer toward inner conflict as the protagonist learns to understand and use his powers, but Emissary takes a different approach. The story doesn’t lack for conflict, but Hyam does feel at times improbably competent for someone who grew up in a hick village. Once he meets his first challenge, he moves almost at once from farm-boy to leader. After that, one or two miscreants get in his way, but otherwise people seem to cooperate with him. They have good reason to—given the power that he controls—and presumably he learned a thing or two during his education with the mages.

As far as the rest of the cast goes, a young woman named Joelle adds some spunk to the cast, and she in turn is balanced out by Hyam’s other sidekick—an old mage at odds with most of his community. I liked both characters well enough and thought they added depth to the story with both fun and tragedy.

More importantly, apart from a few lurches along the way, the story does rise to an intense, earth-shaking climax. There are lots of theatrics thrown in, but the heart of the story comes down to Hyam’s power and how he uses.

If you are interested in the book, you can read several chapters of it for free from Amazon, as the short-story The Captive. You might also like to check out this post on Thomas Locke's blog with a series of Q & A links.

  

[My thanks to Net Galley and Revell for sending me an electronic ARC copy of Emissary in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

The Fatal Tree: Review

Imagine a universe knit together like a scarf--everything is connected, nothing is coincidental. 

Cut one thread, and the whole universe begins to unravel.

Welcome back to the CSFF tour for Stephen Lawhead's The Fatal Tree! Feel free to stop by the tour's headquarters here for a list of all the other participant's posts.

As I said yesterday, this is the final book in Lawhead's Bright Empires series, a time travel story. More specifically, it's a story about alternate dimensions. Lawhead centers this series on the idea that every decision or every major event in this world creates a new world, where a different decision has created a slightly different reality. In this world, new worlds are constantly appearing, which pushes the edges of the universe outward as ever increasing rates--as scientists have been able to observe.

I've read a variety of time travel stories, but not a large quantity. The Fatal Tree, along with the other Bright Empires books, fits into the genre pretty well, with a few fun twists. There are the ley lines in England, the Sedona vortexes, and the whimsical, but very serious Zetetic Society of ley travelers intent on exploring and decoding the finicky patterns of the ley lines.

In the previous four books, Kit Livingstone gets a crash course in ley lines and inter-dimensional travel, while trying to track down the missing skin map which holds the secret to the omniverse--though no one knows exactly what that secret is. Lord Burleigh, a dark and evil villain, is also after the map. Burleigh's schemes knows no bounds, but Kit, of course, has to avoid messing with history in his ley travels.

Then, in the fourth book, The Shadow Lamp, Kit learns that someone has already changed history. If he and his friends can't undo the damage in time, the universe's expansion will reverse itself and the world will end. All the worlds will end...

I've somehow missed reading Lawhead's books before now, but this series makes for a fast, fun story, especially when you add in the quirks of being able to time travel. After all, I'd love to be able to jump to another dimension and spend four years studying a foreign language as one of the characters does-- before coming back three days later to find nothing important has happened. It would be very convenient, if nothing else, and easier than trying to not meet yourself while using a Time-Turner.

Apart from the search for the Skin Map, though, my favorite parts is the idea of finding a place where you feel at home. At different points in the story, both Kit and his (former) girlfriend Wilhelmina find themselves stuck in strangely new worlds. I won't spoil anything by saying where they end up feeling most at home, but it's an interesting concept and makes me wish even more than usual that I could visit another era. 

Still, if I could change one thing about this story, it would be to add more depth to the characters. I tend to like stories for their characters. I like action too, which Lawhead offers in abundance, but for the first book in particular, the characters felt flat. That book, The Skin Map, ended with a great cliffhanger, but it took me another book or so until I really connected to Kit or Wilhelmina. Even then, Kit doesn't get a lot of development, and only one part of the plot involves major character growth. Incidentally, even that ended up being a bit chaotic and left me mildly confused at the end.

For sci-fi/fantasy fans, Bright Empires is a fascinating genre-bending series, combining elements of both science and myth. It's also a fun adventure read, with a large helping of imaginative extrapolation. None of the books stood out to me individually, but I did like the series as a whole and would recommend them to readers with a taste for fantasy. 

[My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for sending me an electronic review copy of The Fatal Tree, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

The Fatal Tree: Blog Tour

Have you ever wanted to figure out time travel? Do you wonder if life might be more interesting in the Stone Age--or in 19th century England, for that matter?

Merry Christmas and welcome once again to the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour! This tour, we're reading Stephen R. Lawhead's The Fatal Tree, the final book in his Bright Empires series. In Lawhead's world, time travel is possible, but it's just slightly more complicated than turning a knob on a fancy gizmo.

The story starts in The Skin Map, when Kit Livingstone runs into his great-grandfather in a back alley of London. Livingstone, Sr., introduces Kit to the vagaries of time travel, but it's a business so tricky that only one man has ever mastered--and that individual only succeeded by means of a map tattooed on his skin.

With an arch-villain on the track of the skin map, a girlfriend who doesn't believe why Kit is eight hours late for their date, and his grandfather urging him to take up the family business, Kit is thrown into the crazy life of a time traveler.

I've seen this series mentioned a number of times, including when the previous books were featured on CSFF tours, but never got around to reading the books. So, when I heard that the November.December tour would be for The Fatal Tree, I had some reading to catch up on. I'll post my review for The Fatal Tree tomorrow, along with some thoughts about the series as a whole. For now, though, feel free to check out some of the other tour participants, as well as the author's website:

Julie Bihn
Thomas Clayton Booher
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Karri Compton
April Erwin
Victor Gentile
Jason Joyner
Janeen Ippolito
Carol Keen
Emileigh Latham
Rebekah Loper
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Jalynn Patterson
Writer Rani
Nathan Reimer
Audrey Sauble
Jojo Sutis
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler


The Fatal Tree - on Amazon
Author's Website - http://www.stephenlawhead.com/

[My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for sending me an electronic review copy of The Fatal Tree, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

Rebels: Review & Giveaway

It’s always interesting to reach the end of a series—and a little challenging to summarize both the book and the series at once.

So much has changed in the course of the three books in Jill Williamson's The Safe Lands series! It’s not just where the Glenrock people are living that’s different—it’s who they have become.

After their neighbors at Glenrock are captured by the Safe Land’s enforcers in Captives, Levi has to become the leader, taking the place of the elders they’ve lost. The place is a twisted, drugged-out dystopian, where everyone lives for today because they’re promised nine lives and a future in Bliss, but no one actually knows what the future is like. Levi can get the others into temporary safety, disappearing into the underground, but they have no way to actually escape the city.

As Outcasts begins and the rest find safety in hiding, Mason is still on his way to becoming the medic he always to be. He has as many emotional injuries to heal, though, as physical wounds. Even more important, he needs to find some answers to the plague that is destroying the Safe Lands, and he needs Medic Ciddah Rourke to help him. He knows he can’t trust her—but he has to anyway, even if it means endangering his own life and his brother’s.

And Omar—Omar, the bratty little brother who betrays his village for a chance at glamor, is ready to become an adult and help undo the damage he caused. He also needs to help Shaylinn, now that the Surrogacy Center has impregnated her with his child(ren). The only problem? At the beginning of Rebels, he and Mason are sentenced to early liberation. They’re about to find out the secret no one will talk about.

As I said yesterday, it’s a complicated story.

The plot follows five different narrative voices high speed down a freeway jumbled with overpasses and intersections. If you haven’t read the previous books recently, there is enough backstory to get you up to speed, but if you haven’t read them at all, you might miss a lot of the action by jumping into the story at this point.

With all these threads going, it takes a while to see where the story is headed, but the journey never really slows down. Toward the end, the pieces came together briefly, before splitting apart again into a frenzied chase sequence and a TV drama that seems almost tame by comparison.

The complication actually works both ways—while there is a lot of action in play, the story does jump tracks a couple of times. At one point, for example, a major character ends up working in a cow shed and notices how awful the conditions are. It’s not a bad point to make, but to me, the section feels out of step with the rest of the story. It reads along the lines of: “Nasty dictator, corrupt system, people out to kill me—wow, modern farming practices are rotten—must escape before I get killed.” The sections like this don’t hurt the story much, though they do jar a little and make the climax feel slightly off.

It’s also sort of hard to explain why this story doesn’t end up highly demoralizing. The world of the Safe Lands is so extremely well-built and grotesque, it should be depressing. I also find heroes (or villains) who consistently mess up and end up depressed—well, depressing. I didn’t really expect to like the story much when I started reading Captives, and after a while, even quirky Princess Bride allusions can get depressing. So for me, it’s saying a lot that Omar and Shaylinn—struggling through their broken world—makes this a story about hope.

With that said, I really did enjoy the story. It’s been a fascinating journey, watching the characters grow and change, but it was really Omar who kept me reading. I was surprised in Captives to find how much I still liked him after he messes up so badly, and I’ve continued to like him as he struggles to fix his mistakes only to fail and lose hope once again. I might even read the series again someday.

#####

  

You can see what the other CSFF Tour participants are saying about Rebels here:

Julie Bihn Thomas Fletcher Booher
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Vicky DealSharingAunt
April Erwin
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rebekah Gyger
Jeremy Harder
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Melanie @ Christian Bookshelf Reviews
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Nissa
Writer Rani
Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Elizabeth Williams

As I said yesterday, I am hosting a Rafflecopter giveaway for a copy of Rebels. You can enter the giveaway by leaving a comment here or on my review tomorrow. Even better, you can get a second entry by linking to your favorite post from one of the other tour participants--I'm looking hearing about the posts you like and why.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[My thanks to Blink/Zondervan for sending me a review copy of Rebels in connection with the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.]

Rebels: Blog Tour & Giveaway

Welcome to the September CSFF Blog Tour!

The book this month is Jill Williamson's Rebels, the third and final book in her The Safe Lands series.

After Safe Land enforcers take the Glenrock families as Captives, Levi, Mason, and Omar find themselves snared behind a façade of lies and tricks that has kept the people of the Safe Lands bedazzled for generations. When the three brothers attempt to rescue their families from the Safe Land's harem (also known as the Surrogacy Center), they end up as Outcasts, hiding from the enforcers and working with a group of dissidents to rescue friends who don’t always want to be rescued.

Now, as Rebels themselves, they might have the chance to find the truth behind the lies. The trick is finding the right help, especially with pregnancies, unhappy family members, and old grudges getting in the way.

This third book kept the suspense going so long I was beginning to wonder whether Rebels really was the last book in the series—until the climax hit with a bit of a crash.

With the series wrapped up, I liked how the characters, especially Omar, changed and grew into their new roles. The series as a whole is a little more complicated to describe—I do like the story, but a few things stuck out to me for one reason or another. More on that in my review tomorrow, though.

For now, I happen to have a second copy of Rebels which came when I received my review copy for this tour. I'm hosting a Rafflecopter giveaway to find this second copy a home. You can enter the giveaway by leaving a comment here or on my review tomorrow. Even better, you can get a second entry by linking to your favorite post from one of the other tour participants--I'm looking hearing about the posts you like and why.

Julie Bihn

Thomas Fletcher Booher
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Vicky DealSharingAunt
April Erwin
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rebekah Gyger
Jeremy Harder
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Melanie @ Christian Bookshelf Reviews
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Nissa
Writer Rani
Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Elizabeth Williams


Rebels - http://www.amazon.com/Rebels-Safe-Lands-Jill-Williamson/dp/0310735777/
Author's Website - http://www.jillwilliamson.com/

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Behold the Dawn: Review

With the melee at Bari, Italy, Marcus Annan has yet another tourney, yet another death to put behind him. It’s all he’s good for now, or so he thinks.

He’s put a lot of things behind him—his whole life actually—but the darkest secrets from his past are about to show up, and an old acquaintance wants to reopen an old wound. The secret drives Annan from one fray in Bari toward another one in Acre. He hardly knows what he wants to do there—but he’s about to get dragged down anyway by an undercurrent of schemes and betrayal.

And with that, Behold the Dawn takes off.

After reading K. M. Weiland’s Dreamlander last year, I’ve been interested in reading more by her. Behold the Dawn was high on the list since it’s historical adventure novel set during the crusades—the Middle Ages, King Richard, and all that other lovely history. The story isn't really about that history, but the history gives this story a good background and sets the tone for the rest of the adventure.

When I first started Behold the Dawn, it was a little hard to get into the story, mostly because I was trying to read the book while chasing down several other distractions. This week, though, I decided to set aside a couple of days and start over.

My final take? I really like this book.

Behold the Dawn does have a couple rough sections toward the beginning of the story, and I did a bit of a double-take at one poorly worded metaphor, but the writing overall felt easy to follow and the story itself raced through an amazing journey of dark corners and twisted secrets.

Best of all, Marcus had me cheering for him by the time I was well into the story. He’s got a history rather like most other broody heroes, but I felt he avoided the annoying angst that goes with that stereotype. He’s good at fighting, for one thing. He thinks it’s doomed him and he has no chance at escaping the life of an accursed tourneyer, but since he’s good at it, he has no problem with going after someone—especially when the guy is just asking for it. At the same time, he’s also honorable, though a bit rough on the outside.

Add to that a smart aleck squire who is quite willing to call his master a troll, a love story, a handful of other characters, and a well-played plot. This isn’t a fun and word-play story, but it’s a good story of hope and second chances.

It’s also just a fun story to read—in fact, by the time all the secrets had spilled out, I was ready to start reading all over again. I actually did go back and reread a couple earlier sections after the final plot twist, just to admire how well I’d been suckered into those first couple of chapters.

I’ll probably want to go back and reread this book at some point, and I would definitely recommend it for adventure/historian fans. Story nerds and writers might also want to check out K. M. Weiland's site on writing craft: http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/

[My thanks to K. M. Weiland and Story Cartel for sending me a free Kindle copy of Behold the Dawn, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book. ]

Merlin's Nightmare: The Legends

Welcome back for the third day of the CSFF Blog Tour for Merlin’s Nightmare! As before, you can find more posts from the tour here, as well as my review of Merlin's Blade and Merlin's Nightmare. Today, though, I want to talk about the legends behind Arthur and why I like Robert Treskillard’s new version of the story.

What do you think of when someone mentions King Arthur? If you are like me, you probably have a mental image of medieval knights in armor riding about the countryside doing good deeds. (Maybe the original boy scouts society?)

I do know this image doesn't fit reality. 

One of the earliest mentions of Arthur is linked to a 6^th Century British saint, St. Gildas. Oddly enough, Gildas never mentioned Arthur in his own writings, even though he supposedly was born the year Arthur defeated the Saxon invaders at the Battle of Mount Badon. The reference comes from a biography of Gildas written almost five centuries later. I can guarantee that the author for that hagiography didn’t have access to the Internet, so his fact checking was probably limited to reading up on legends in the local monasteries or listening to ballads at the inns.

Most of the other major sources for Arthurian legend—and the most well-known author, Sir Thomas Malory of Le Morte D’Arthur—have about the same level of authenticity. Malory, for example, may have been a brigand-knight during the War of the Roses. Scholars speculate that he wrote his famous work while in prison. He doesn’t have history or imagination on his side, since the knights of his story sounds more like 15^th Century contemporaries than true Briton heroes.

The reality is, any historical King Arthur would have more in common with Beowulf.

Growing up, I was most familiar with The Boy’s King Arthur, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, so I certainly don’t mind Malory’s version. I love the other Arthurian stories as well, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Edmund Spenser’s brief encounter in The Fairie Queen. I just like knowing where the stories might have come from as well, and I also have a particular fondness for the story of the Anglo-Saxon invasion with the changes it brought to England.

That’s why I’ve enjoyed Treskillard’s Merlin Spiral so much. He takes Merlin and Arthur back to the time when they might really have lived and recreates their world in considerable detail.

Several other bloggers have noted the amount of research Treskillard put into these stories. I noticed this as well, but I also noticed the way Treskillard interprets the fragments of history we have, combining them with bits of Arthurian legend.

So, while scholars try to identify Arthur with the Roman war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus, Treskillard’s Merlin is Ambrosius, hiding under a false name to protect himself and Arthur from the murderous High King Vortigern. Arthur becomes Merlin’s foster son under the name Artorius, another legend name, suggesting that their complicated relationship explains the later muddle about who they actually were.

Even better, since we’re talking about a wild conglomeration of legends and historical fables, the Merlin Spiral goes beyond the history. I like the history, yes, but I also like how Treskillard creates a story of magic and faith, demons and monsters. 

It fits in well with the Arthurian legends and the other stories we have from ancient England—from Beowulf to the hagiographies written about St. Gildas.

Merlin's Nightmare: Review

When it comes to Merlin’s Nightmare and the Merlin Spiral as a whole, it’s fairly easy to say what I like about this series. The characters are great, the suspense is high, and the story world is amazing. (Or, shall I say, fantastic?) 

For me, though, the biggest attraction is how Robert Treskillard plays with Arthurian legends. As I said in my post yesterday, I'm reviewing Merlin's Nightmare today for the CSFF Blog Tour, and I'll put off saying much more about the Arthurian elements until tomorrow. For now, I’ll just note that I enjoyed how The Merlin Spiral recreates the story as it might have happened in ancient Briton, rather than the typical medieval England and knights in armor setting.

Throughout all three books, Treskillard weaves in well-known characters. I had a small thrill when I realized who Launcelot was, and another when Guinevere appeared. While the first two books show Merlin’s special calling as a champion of his faith and his struggle to protect Arthur, Merlin’s Nightmare jumps ahead in time to show Arthur on the brink of manhood. Merlin still wants to keep the impetuous boy in check, but also has to guide the man when the time comes to rescue Briton from here enemies.

There should be an asterisk after ‘as it might have happened,’ though. People don’t usually stumble across magical blue stones or get attacked by wolf-men. Nor do they typically find the Holy Grail, however much they might search for it.

In Merlin’s world, magic, dark powers, and visions are real. The struggle to walk in faith is also real, since sometimes the Sangraal heals, and sometimes it does not.

The books do have a few issues—mostly minor with a bit of clunky writing here and there. I felt Merlin didn’t actually sound older in Merlin’s Nightmare, even though the book is set sixteen years after the others. The books also tend to be episodic, with a dominate storyline to tie the pieces together. That’s not to say things are haphazard. Even minor characters show up for a reason, and backstory becomes very important along the way, but the details can feel jumbled or rushed together at times.

A little more important is the fact that the series is labelled YA, but the School Library Journal recommends them for high school readers and older. While some younger teens might enjoy the stories, I agree with the age recommendation and would be cautious about handing the books off to more sensitive or visual readers due to the graphic violence in all three books.

For anyone else, I think the books are a fairly fun, imaginative read. I think I would have enjoyed them even without the remix of Arthurian legends, but for me, that part adds an extra bit of excitement to the stories.  

Curious? Be sure to check out the other posts for this tour! You can find links to the individual posts here.

[My thanks to Blink/Zondervan for sending me a copy of Merlin's Nightmare, in conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour.]

Merlin's Nightmare: Blog Tour

Who doesn't love epic stories, Arthurian legends, or true love tales?

I rather like them myself, especially when they're wrapped up with a unique twist. So, I'm excited this week to be part of the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour for  Robert Treskillard's Merlin's Nightmare

In this version of the story, Merlin is not a great wizard, but a young man fighting the Druids' attempts to retake Briton for their own. In the first book, Merlin's Blade, he's just a boy--the half-blind son of the village blacksmith, when the Druids bring a mysterious, powerful blue stone to enchant his village. (Yes, it's that stone...in an entirely new story about how Merlin meets the infant Arthur.) 

In Merlin's Nightmare, Arthur has grown. Merlin has been the boy's foster father so far, but he now faces a decision to tell Arthur about his heritage. It's a dangerous time, with the Saxons securing their hold on Briton and Morgana raising a Druidic army to defeat Merlin.

This is the final book from Treskillard's Merlin Spiral series, but it marks the beginning of Treskillard's Pendragon Spiral. That trilogy is supposed to continue Arthur's story into the more well-known period of Arthur's life. 

This blog tour will be running for the next three days, and I'm going to post my review tomorrow for Merlin's Nightmare, with a bit of background for the series. I'll be back on the third day with my thoughts on the history and legends in the Merlin Spiral. It's fun stuff and not what you might expect for 'yet another' Arthurian story.

For now, I just got the second book, Merlin's Shadow, in the mail, so I'm off to read that later today. Meanwhile, you can go back to my review for Merlin's Blade. And, please check out some of the other bloggers! I've read a number of great posts during past tours, and I'm expect more of the same this time around.
 

Blog Tour Participants:

Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
Vicky DealSharingAunt
April Erwin
Carol Gehringer
Victor Gentile
Rebekah Gyger
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Emileigh Latham
Jennette Mbewe
Shannon McDermott
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirriam Neal
Joan Nienhuis
Writer Rani
Nathan Reimer
Nissa
Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder
Jojo Sutis
Robert Treskillard (author)
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams

Merlin’s Nightmare on Amazon.

Series Website: http://www.KingArthur.org.uk

[My thanks to Blink/Zondervan for sending me a copy of Merlin's Nightmare, in conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour.]

Firebird: Series Review

A royal daughter on a suicide mission, for an interplanetary war she doesn't support?

If you add a telekinetic stranger and an ancient prophecy, that pretty much describes Kathy Tyer’s Firebird, the first of five books about Lady Firebird Angelo and her family.

Sometime during my last semester of college, I ran across Firebird in the college library. I had a couple hours between classes, and I desperately needed something to read besides Bible study material and literature criticism, so I pulled the book off the shelf and started in.

Now, Firebird is not a short book. When it came time for my next class, I was only part way through, so of course, I had to take the book down to the librarian’s desk and check it out.

I really enjoyed the read at the time. Then, in August last year, I picked up Firebird again, after noticing the final book in the series, Daystar, among the 2013 Clive Staples Award nominees. I really meant to review the series back then, but late is (usually) better then never, and it's almost never too late to pick up a good read. Plus, Firebird gets another new cover this fall, courtesy of Enclave Publishing (which is itself a restart of Marcher Lord Press, a fairly popular Christian Speculative Fiction publishing house).

My description of Firebird is pretty simple, but the series is not. The original trilogy focuses on Lady Firebird’s story, but the story's background centers around a race of genetically-altered humans and the Messianic prophecy about one of their families. A remnant of these Ehretans escaped the Earth’s destruction and the more skilled became special-force Sentinels in their new home world. Firebird sticks with the classic space opera story. The rest of the series explores a lot more of the history and prophecies behind the Ehretans, while still maintaining a high level of action and suspense. 

It's hard to say anything more without giving spoilers, so I'll just recommend it with enthusiasm. I found the books highly entertaining, as well as thought provoking, and as a Christian sci-fi story, this one's a classic.

Firewall: Review

 Taryn Young, a top software developer for an important national-security project, is taking a vacation to go on her honeymoon. 

Just before she boards an airplane for her perfect, dream getaway, though, someone blows up the airport terminal. No one knows who is behind the attack or why. Taryn only knows that her dreams have fallen apart as she and her new husband become the main suspects in the attack.

A new release by Christian fiction author DiAnn Mills, Firewall starts off with a bang. Okay, that’s a bad cliché, but this is one of those ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ stories about national security, computer hackers, and terrorist plots.

I have to say I liked this story, mostly. It’s a thriller romance, a story of finding love in between the gun fights, as Taryn recovers from her initial shock and joins with FBI Special Agent Grayson Hall hunt for answers. Together, they have to track down the real villain behind the bombing before time runs out and Taryn’s special software turns into a Trojan horse.

I did struggle a bit with the story. Some of the details felt awkward, especially early on, when the plot focuses on Taryn’s job and the initial FBI investigation. A good part of the search involves program security and hacking, but nothing gets very technical, and non-technical readers won’t have a problem with any of it. The software development process seems too simplistic, but my problem there might be that I’m married to a software designer and get to hear about all the stages of development from time to time. (And, for the record, I don't really think either of the cover models look like the main characters.)

Apart from those details, though, Firewall has a lot of action, with plenty of narrow escapes, near misses, and revelations. Taryn’s search runs into a number of twists, including a big one at the end, but my favorite part was getting to know the characters and their determination to see things through.  I’d rank this as a fun, light summer read for anyone who likes romance with their action stories. 

[My thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for sending me Kindle ARC of Firewall, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

Cinderella Revisited: Book Tour & Giveaway

What happens when Cinderella is so painfully shy that she cannot bear the idea of attending the royal ball? Or when the slipper fits . . . but on the wrong girl? What happens when Cinderella is determined to oust an imposter prince from her rightful throne? Or when she is a cendrillon miner working from a space station orbiting a cthonian planet? What happens when Cinderella, a humble housemaid, is sent with a message for a prisoner trapped in a frightening fairy circus?

Welcome to the fourth day in a week-long Cinderella Tour hosted by Amber Stokes and Rooglewood Press!

Last year, Rooglewood Press hosted a short story contest with a Cinderella theme. Five Glass Slippers presents the five winning stories, all with a unique twist on the fairy tale's true-love story. Today's Cinderella is Stephanie Ricker, author of "A Cinder's Tale."

I haven’t finished Five Glass Slippers yet, but it's waiting on my Kindle...

Speaking of which, the book is on sale through the end of this week—you can currently get the ebook on Amazon for only $0.99, so now is a good time to check it out if you are interested. I loved Stephanie’s story, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the other authors have done with their stories. According to the blurb for “A Cinder’s Tale:”

It’s a dangerous life, yet Elsa wouldn’t trade this opportunity to work at Tremaine Station, mining cendrillon from the seething surface of planet Aschen. Nevertheless, when a famous deep space explorer and his handsome son dock their starcraft at the space station, Elsa finds herself dreaming of far galaxies beyond Aschen's blistering heat. There is no time for dreaming, however, when danger threatens the space station, and Elsa and her fellow miners are tested to the limits of their courage.

This story had me enchanted with its pumpkin patch full of bubbling lava, but it also introduces a fun, reinvented cast with Bruno, Gus, Jaq, and even the fay Marraine.

Today, Stephanie is answering questions about herself and "A Cinder's Tale," starting with her own Cinderella moment at Seasons of Humility. I’m excited to have Stephanie here today with a question of my own. So, welcome to The Loremistress, Stephanie!

Q: What would a ball gown spacesuit look like?

A: Hi, Audrey! Wow, tough question…I haven’t considered that before. Does the suit need to be life-supporting, perhaps for a ball in zero gravity? If so, the helmet wouldn’t be a bubble, but would be sleek, following the contours of the head, with a large viewplate so that the wearer still had good peripheral vision for dancing. The suit would be form-fitting and would transition smoothly into light boots that wouldn’t be too bulky. To give the impression of a ball gown, the suit would have sheer, flowing fabric attached here and there to float in zero gravity. I have no idea if this would actually work, but it sounds pretty!

Thanks, Stephanie! You’ve got a fantastic dress for Elsa in the story, even if it isn’t a spacesuit.

It does seem unlikely that someone would design a real space suit in a ball gown style. Still, if space travel becomes more practical, I’m sure someone will find a market for fashion designs even in space—perhaps for a suit like the one on the title page for “A Cinder’s Tale?”

About Stephanie Ricker:

Stephanie Ricker is a writer, editor, and tree-climber. She adores the cold and the snow but lives in North Carolina anyway, where she enjoys archery, hiking, canoeing, and exploring with friends.

Stephanie’s fiction has been published in Bull-Spec, a magazine of speculative fiction, and in four consecutive editions of The Lyricist, Campbell University’s annual literary magazine. She was the editor of the 2009 edition of The Lyricist, which won first place in the American Scholastic Press Association Contest. Stephanie’s non-fiction has been published in an assortment of medical magazines and newsletters, and her senior thesis on Tolkien was published in the 2009 issue of Explorations: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity for the State of North Carolina.

You can find out more about Stephanie and her writing on her blog: www.QuoththeGirl.wordpress.com.

Want to see what other questions Stephanie is answering today? Check out these links, but be sure to enter the giveaway below as well:

1. Is therea singular character that really touched your heart and why? 

2. What was your inspiration for this particular story?  Was it a picture, a phrase,something someone said, or something different? 

3. If you were a princess in another planet, whichplanet would it be and why?

4. How did you come up with the idea for your book?

5. Which of the characters in ‘A Cinder’s Tale’ is mostlike you in personality and interests?

6. You have stated that you enjoy archery. Which bowstyle do you prefer: recurve or compound?

7. ‘A Cinder’s’ Tale has a cast of characters that feel real enough to meet in real life (even the fay). Which actors do you think best fit their appearance?  

8. You mentioned in an interview with Anne Elisabeth Stengl that this was your first foray into fairy tales. Can we expect to see more sci-fi retellings in the future?
9. Your story takes place in the far corners of the universe. Do you have a favorite spot in outer space and a picture of it?

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