ARTIFICIAL CONDITION picks up a few days after the end of ALL SYSTEMS RED. Murderbot, as it refers to itself, is unsure if anyone is coming after it after it ran from its human guardian. Either way, it wants to journey to the planet where the tragic incident happened that led Murderbot to choose its name. There, it hopes to find out what really happened to cause its glitch and the subsequent massacre.  The readers, in turn, will discover another fun adventure, although perhaps one less novel than the first time out with Murderbot.The better parts of ARTIFICIAL CONDITION come from the new chara ..read more

Anna Smith Spark captures the dark heart of grimdark fantasy with her poetical prose in this beautifully violent sequel to The Court of Broken Knives. The Tower of Living and Dying begins exactly where its predecessor left off: with blood and death in vast quantities. Marith has really come into his own; he harnesses some dark force that makes him an indestructible killing machine. Men, armies, dragons alike fall before his sword and his fury. When he wields his blade, he is like a painter with a brush: the battle field is his canvass and he is ready to cover it in blood. He does not fight ..read more

Note: An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher.  It has not affected my review in any way. The Afterward is a book that begins with an interesting premise: how easy is it for one to fit back into "regular life" after you've spent a year on the road, Questing to overthrow a Big Bad?  Unfortunately, while the premise and characters are well-introduced, the overall follow through in this book fell flat.Kalanthe and Olsa have a complicated history.  Kalanthe is an apprentice knight, and Olsa is thief.  Together, they were part of a group that spent a year traveling the realm on a Qu ..read more

Orchestra of Treacheries is the sequel to Songs of Insurrection. I read the latter when it came across my radar a while back. I finally got around to Orchestra of Treacheries and I had pretty high expectations for where things were going to go after the first entry in the series. This sequel ended up being a little bit of a mixed bag, however.   To begin, there is a great deal to like about Orchestra of Treacheries. Kang’s world building is extravagant and fascinating on every level. One of the things I loved about Treacheries was that we were treated to a much wider view of the world than in ..read more

This is a very strong dark fantasy debut that will appeal directly to fans of The Poppy War and The Name of the Wind. It’s intense, mystical and brutal.  The novel is Asian inspired, depicting a fighting academy that has an eastern quality to it. The masters who rule their and teach their ways despise the use of magic and hoard it in their secret vault to protect the world from its effects. They hunt and kill magic users and will gladly slay an infant at birth if they bare the taint of magic. They are an order that appear benevolent but have many dark secrets they hide from the boys they clai ..read more

This is actually my second trip through the outstanding ALL SYSTEMS RED, book one of the four-part novella series, THE MURDERBOT DIARIES.  With the final installment, EXIT STRATEGY, released, and a full length follow-up book announced earlier this year, I decided to make time and finally read the complete adventures of Murderbot.ALL SYSTEMS RED features the self-named Murderbot, an AI construct in a humanoid body made of both artificial and organic parts.  Murderbot is supposed to be a fully regulated security robot, but it’s managed to hack its governor module and can do whatever it damn well ..read more

Josh Erikson has given us a sequel that improves on everything the first book did well. 2018’s Hero Forged was a uniquely styled urban fantasy that provided readers a great deal of fun. 2019’s Fate Lashed takes everything that Erikson did in his debut and turns it up to 11. From the cinematic quality of the prose to the deep character development and to the witty banter, Erikson’s second novel hits perfectly in nearly every way.  It’s difficult to know exactly where to start singing Erikson’s praises in regards to this novel. From the very first pages we’re presented with an astoundingly well ..read more

Review 1 - 8.5/10*by Calvin Park. Never Die is an exhilarating read. It’s excellently paced, keeping things moving from the very first pages. The novel is difficult to describe; a creepy boy named Ein brings warriors back from the dead to join him on a mission. Sometimes those warriors help him to kill other warriors so he can in turn bring them back and have them bound to him. It’s what we would get if Dynasty Warriors and Pokemon had a creepy book baby.  I’ve already mentioned the pacing, which is something that truly shines in this novel. Hayes starts the action early and never really lets ..read more

This is such an incredibly clever resurrection of storytelling. The Mistborn Trilogy is driven by mysterious powers; it's not until the end that we were given the full facts. Or were we? In this Sanderson reveals more of what happened beyond the mists. Originally, when I picked this up I wasn’t expecting much. In fact, I’ve been putting off reading it ever since it was released. My expectations were low. Brandon Sanderson has written some truly awesome novels, but he also has released a few things that probably didn’t need to be published. Things like those little novellas he released in betw ..read more

Many thanks to the author for providing a copy of this work for review.Tales of Kingshold is a fun collection of novelettes and short stories set in the world of D.P. Woolliscroft’s Kingshold. Short story collections are always a little challenging to review, since one’s enjoyment can vary greatly from one story to the next. While I’ll mention specific stories in the review below, the rating reflects the entire collection. These stories give us glimpses of characters before, during, and after the events of Kingshold, so if you enjoyed that novel and want some titbits before the second book com ..read more