Book Review: The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan

Genre: Fantasy/Grimdark
Series: The Black Iron Legacy
Author Info: http://garhanrahan.wordpress.com/

This book has been all the rage in the grimdark community and rightly so. I read it a few weeks ago but was not able to post the review until now due to my swamped schedule and low mental energy level.

The Gutter Prayer is a very strong debut and doesn’t even read like one. You can tell the author is quite experienced in worldbuilding and action-heavy plots even if you didn’t know he has a professional background as a game writer.

The setting is a city with a Lovecraftian and steampunkish aura to it, inhabited with the normal people and bizarre city guard creatures called Tallowmen (lovingly called candle-fuckers by the people) on the surface, ghouls and weird ass creatures living underground in the vast network of tunnels and huge caverns. There’s the industries of the alchemists with their polluting chimneys and toxic dumps, huge cathedrals, university complex and all kinds of cool places in the city of Guerdon. The city is quite intriguing and full of surprises. The criminal underground and the machinations its leaders plot, the actual underground and its entirely different culture and hierarchies keep the feeling of adventure and exploring alive throughout the whole book.

The strength of this book is not the characters, but rather the worldbuilding, plot, mystery solving and fast-paced action.

There’s a small but eclectic cast of main characters. The protag figure is Carillion (Cari) who was cool in the beginning but grew dull. Professor Ongent, Rat the Ghoul and the thief taker Jere are the most interesting characters in my opinion. Then again you don’t read this book for character porn. (Malazan is where you go for character porn.) The multi-layered, Lovecraftian-steampunkish-weird city and its messed up theology, strange lore, way-out-there creatures, political intrigue and awesome action is what The Gutter Prayer is offering in generous quantities. It’s like a playing a fine game of Arkham Horror but with mystery and puzzle-solving elements.

The one thing I wasn’t impressed with was the big twist in the end cause I have seen the exact same kind of thing elsewhere (not going to say where cause it’d be a spoiler to those who read that one.) But then the whole aftermath with the new city was bizarre, original and super cool. The ending is weird like the rest of the story and all that weirdness works out in a great harmony until the last page.

Overall The Gutter Prayer is a great read with lots of original and entertaining elements and fast-paced thriller aspect.

Book Review: Seraphina’s Lament by Sarah Chorn

Genre: Fantasy/Grimdark
Series: The Bloodlands
Author Info: http://www.bookwormblues.net/

Seraphina’s Lament is one hell of a debut.A word of warning: This book is grimdark as grimdark goes. It is not exactly the bleak and nihilistic kind, but it is grimdark so if you are looking for a dark, gritty story with some disturbing scenes and highly damaged characters, this is your thing. If you love Mark Lawrence books this is definitely your thing. For one it opens with a killer prologue featuring abject cannibalism. There is violence and gore but it is not a gorefest -the grimdark is more in the characters. Every single one of them is broken and the main theme of the book is “You must break in order to Become” it is quite a thing to see these broken characters getting even more broken. Sarah Chorn takes broken to a whole new level. I gotta say this is one of the best grimdark debuts I’ve read.

The story is highly inspired by the Holodomor starvation massacre engineered by Stalin (not to mention the villain is literally Stalin!) The setting is a secondary world based on the early period of Soviet Russia with the addition of magic, slavery and a rigid caste system.

Read the rest on my guest review at Booknest:
http://booknest.eu/reviews/guests/1466-seraphinaslament

Book Review: Blood of the Heirs by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

Genre: Fantasy/Coming of Age
Series: Coraidic Sagas
Author Info: https://aliciawanstallburke.com/
Blood of Heirs is the debut book by Australian author Alicia Wanstall-Burke and the first book of a series. This is a coming of age book, I’d categorize it as YA fantasy that is great for the grown-up audience. I am not a big fan of coming of age stories, but this one impressed the hell out of me. First of all, big kudos to Alicia for writing such a great story that is free of ever-so-irritating love triangles and keeping the romance element to an absolute minimum. One of the reasons I steer clear of YA except for the books that are vetted is the horrendous teen angst, excessive romance (or main plot being romance) and love triangles. That is a huge turn-off for me, and even the romance dose in the mighty Wheel of Time irritated me to no end. Romance and love triangle stuff aside, the characters are highly compelling and the storylines flow smoothly with brilliant twists and turns.

Read the rest on my guest review at Booknest:
http://booknest.eu/reviews/guests/1449-blood-of-heirs-coraidic-sagas-1

Book Review: Godblind by Anna Stephens

Genre: Fantasy/Grimdark
Series: Godblind
Author info: https://anna-stephens.com/

This year has not been very good, I didn’t read nowhere near as much as I’d like. Way late to the party with the 2017 debuts and still a few books left to catch up. I have been so curious about Godblind for the longest time, and happy to finally read it.

Godblind is a page-turner grimdark tale, I didn’t even realize I was at the end when I read the last page. I was like “It’s finished? Wow!” Action doesn’t let up and there is plenty of breathtaking thrill. There is also political intrigue and religious clashes, which are my favorite themes to read in fantasy books.

I have read some critical reviews complaining about the use of modern verbiage in Godblind. Normally that is a pet peeve of mine, but 1) It’s very negligible and 2) The story is so thrilling I didn’t really care.

Rillirin’s thread is quite an interesting one and her character development is pretty cool. Looks like she will unlock her potential in the second book. Crys was my favorite character since I’m a sucker for the underdogs. His adventures and especially the tavern and barracks scenes were so much fun to read. The Mireces high priestess Lanta reminded me of Cersei from the Game of Thrones, she drove me crazy and I wanted to beat her with a saguaro cactus so bad!

Dom the shaman is quite intriguing and his sad story adds a nice element in-between all the fast-paced thrill rides. Corvus is hella interesting, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time. I have a feeling he will have a bigger part in the sequel. Durdil, commander of the palace guard was one of my favorite characters and his POV chapters were some of the most compelling to read.

That’s the quick rundown of the characters. I am particular about keeping my reviews spoiler-free but I can say there are some head-spinning twists and some characters will go to places. There are some incredibly savage and cruel moments that are more brutal than even the darkest of grimdark, so Godblind is definitely not for the faint of heart. Male readers be warned, there is one torture scene that is going to make you cringe (or worse.)
I ought to classify it as GDAF (Grimdark As Fuck) as we say in the Grimdark Fiction Readers & Writers group. But it is also a great action thriller and might make you forget to breathe in a few places.

Overall a great fun read, compelling characters, fast-paced action, great battle scenes and political intrigue, plenty of blood and mayhem to boot.

Book Review: Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Series: The Band
Author info: https://nicholaseames.com/

This is going to be a difficult one. Kings of the Wyld was one of the most successful fantasy debuts of 2017, in fact it outsold every single one by scores except for The Bear and the Nightingale (which is high up in my TBR list.)

There has been massive hype and buzz about this book, it sold like hot cakes and the rock band allusion was well-loved by the audience. It is a decent popcorn to be honest, but unfortunately not exactly my cup of tea. First and foremost, this is a funny popcorn, if you are looking for any depth and any serious stuff, this is not the book you want. King of the Wyld is for those who want a light read and a good laugh, and especially the male readers.

I must admit did not enjoy the first 100 pages but thankfully it got much better. It is a nice and entertaining light read in the end, but I found half of the humor too masculine and immature to my taste. Then again overwhelming majority of the fantasy audience is dudes, so  there is no problem when it comes to the market.

The character cast is pretty cool in general, the monsters are quite entertaining and original. There are plenty of old school d&d style quests and adventures, I enjoyed those for the most part. The whole rock band and music scene allusion should be definitely hell of a lot of fun for rock fans, it is a pretty cool and original concept, just not my thing. Magic Moog was my favorite side character. He is hilarious and great fun to read. Every old school fantasy and D&D lover will be an instant fan of this character (and if they don’t, I shall question their sanity.) If Mr Eames wrote a novella or spinoff book of Moog, I’d totally read it. Ganelon the barbarian -tank of the group- and the bandit Jain are my other favorite side characters. Those two added plenty of bonus fun to the story. However, the band of old mercenaries don’t come off the least bit mature -they all sound like frisky 20-somethings. Except for Moog, he sounds like an old guy going a bit senile.

The protag Clay Cooper is a cool fella. Even though Kings of the Wyld was not quite my cup of tea, it had enough good parts to make me want to read the sequel, Wild Rose. It’s not all fun and giggles, however, there is plenty of violence and fast-paced fight scenes splattered with gore and a good dose of thrill & suspense. Overall it’s a decent popcorn to read to wind down and relax, but it didn’t impress me a whole lot since I am not a fan of modern slang and pop culture references in fantasy. I like the old times atmosphere and either historical-like or completely alien settings. The other issue I had was the Deus Ex Machina dose being too high to my taste. Characters, monsters and adventures make up for it though. Like I said, Kings of the Wyld has some great moments. 

Verdict: If you are looking for a funny comfort read -especially if you are a dude or rock music fan or both- go for it, you will most likely love it. If you like original monsters, including yucky and hilarious ones, you will have a lot of fun. Even if you are the nitpicking puritanist type like me, Kings of the Wyld is still pretty entertaining and you won’t regret reading it.

Book Review: Blackwing by Ed McDonald

Genre: Fantasy/Grimdark
Series: Raven’s Mark
Author info: https://edmcdonaldwriting.com/

It has been a couple of weeks since I finished Blackwing, but I am writing the review now since I had been dealing with illness, job change and other personal issues. I wanted to find some quiet time in order to do justice to this excellent debut. There was a lot of hype when it came out, and Blackwing more than lives up to it.

The whole story is told in first person narrative from Ryhalt Galharrow’s perspective. I couldn’t decide whether the guy is likeable or not, but he is quite an intriguing character. Galharrow, a battle-hardened drunkard with nihilistic tendencies, is a Blackwing captain serving one the godlike entities called the Nameless and moonlighting as a bounty hunter. He works with his crew, and two core members stand out as stellar side characters. Nenn is a sharp-tongued badass warrior, and Tnota is an affable navigator from an exotic land. Nenn reminded me of Michael Fletcher’s Stehlen character from the Manifest Delusions books. She takes no shit from anyone and fights like a demon. What’s there not to like?

The other well-written female character is Ezabeth, Galharrow’s old girlfriend from his teenage years he is still madly in love with. She is quite enigmatic for most of the story, kind of mysterious and distant from the POV of Galharrow. She is a damn good example of a first class badass female character that is not a warrior princess type. Ezabeth is a 45 kilo nothing skinny gal, but boy does she kick arse left and right!

The setting is cool and the place called Misery is one of the most impressive settings I have read so far. Hats off to Ed for creating such a novel, spooky, weird ass place. You never know what will hit you in Misery, you feel the terror along with the characters walking on eggshells. The villains and mutant creatures that are spawn out of Misery are pretty unusual and creepy as hell.

There are a ot of mysteries in Blackwing, and their beautifully paced resolutions and reveals make it a page turner you can’t put down until you drop (or finish the book.)
I gotta say people are right to compare it to Abercrombie’s work, it has the grimdark, the humor, the gore, the battle scenes and the plot twists. Oh and Ed McDonald’s HEMA mastery shows. I’m easily bored with prolonged swordfighting scenes (Raymond E. Feist, I’m looking at you!) but McDonald manages to put just the right dose of sword porn, keeping it highly engaging and neat. There’s matchlock and sword fights, both are excellent.

The only thing I’ll complain about is that the relationship development between Galharrow and Ezabeth in the last part of the book didn’t sit right with me and felt rushed. But that’s not a big deal considering the book is a damn good read overall.

All in all Blackwing is a pretty solid debut (I know, I know, everyone is saying the same on Goodreads but that is a fact!) with a top notch post apocalyptic grimdark setting, kickass grimdark characters, super cool magic system, copious doses of originality and creative talent. You are missing a lot if you aren’t reading it -I know I slapped myself for being so late to pick it up.

Book Review: Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence

Genre: Fantasy/YA
Series: Book of the Ancestor
Author info: http://mark—lawrence.blogspot.com

Grey Sister is the sequel to Red Sister, and second book of the series. Here is my spoiler free review of Red Sister.

I said Red Sister will leave you with a book hangover in my review. Well, take that and multiply it by a hundred, that’s the hangover you will get after reading Grey Sister.
The sequels getting better and better is a Mark Lawrence thing, going by his track record.

Grey Sister picks up the story fast forward two years. Nona is studying in the Mystic class, with the yearning for vengeance burning in her heart. The way the characters, plots and relationships develops over the foundations laid out in Red Sister is just amazing. Nona’s character development is brilliant and her infinite love and loyalty for her friends will put a tear in your eye.

Nona’s conflicts and struggles, and the way she handles them adds quite a bit of depth to her character. She is overpowered in some parts and totally vulnerable in some others, which creates a good balance.

Things get hell of a lot darker as the story moves forward, with more evil business uncovered, and pretty gritty settings. It is not grimdark like The Broken Empire books, but has quite a few grimdark elements. There are also some horror story moments which gave me goosebumps.

Abbess Glass and Zole are the rising stars in Grey Sister. Zole was an annoying character in Red Sister, but she grows into a first class badass and one of the coolest characters of the series. She steals the show in some glorious and unforgettable badassery moments, as well as some deeply emotional ones.

In my Red Sister review, I said “I have a feeling she will do serious damage in the next book” about Abbess Glass, and I was right. I have to say Abbess Glass is a wonderful representation of mature female in fantasy literature. She doesn’t have any magic skills, but she has a the genius wits, wisdom and intuition. She has a much bigger role now that she is deeply involved in an intricate chess game of political machinations, which I found absolutely mind-blowing as a huge fan of political intrigue. Not only that, but the corruption in the church and people using religion to further their own agendas makes the story pretty realistic.

Sister Kettle also has a bigger part and her epic assassin ninja mojo steals the show in a few places. Her battle scenes are super awesome, and her lovely personality comes as a bonus. Not to mention she has admirable heroic qualities.

My other favorite was a non-human character called Keot, the little demon companion of Nona. He is a proper chaotic neutral, quite charming in a twisted way, and highly entertaining. It takes a special kind of genius to bring a disembodied character like that to life, with a palpable presence and strong voice. I’m a fan!

There are incredible twists and turns in Grey Sister, dialled up from what you see in Red Sister. I’m still so awestruck with the marvellous political intrigue and the breathtaking action-thriller parts. Second half of the book picks up the pace by several levels and the action gets so thick, you can’t put the book down to the point you forget to eat lunch. I am not kidding you.

The magic system introduced in Red Sister was pretty neat, but Grey Sister lays bare all the dazzling details of it. I have to say the originality and the whimsical beauty of the thread magic was one of the absolute best things I have read in any fantasy book to date. I don’t even have the words to do the justice here. Let me just say that if they made this series into movies, thread magic would make some truly mesmerizing scenes.

The last chapters took me to a whole another dimension and would have left me with a supermassive book hangover had I not lined up just the right books to cure it.

If you aren’t reading this series, you are missing out a damn lot. Grey Sister is a masterpiece and fantastic in every way to say the least.

Book Review: The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

Genre: Fantasy
Series: The Wheel of Time
Author info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan

This is book #4 of the legendary Wheel of Time series. See my reviews for the first book, the second book and the third book.

Warning: Spoilers for the previous books, since it’s inevitable when reviewing series, especially a long one like The Wheel of Time.

It took me forever to start, since SPFBO and some new releases came along. I have missed whe WoT world until I finally got to reading The Shadow Rising.

The beginning chapters are dynamite, featuring the girls and Mat’s gambling with fireworks. Things get pretty interesting. I found some of the early parts featuring Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne a bit too slow, but it picked up in no time. The Shadow Rising features the most stunning part I have seen in the series so far: The history of Aiel through Rand’s perspective. That is one of the coolest things I’ve read in fantasy.

Now let me say a few things about the characters. Character development didn’t fall short of my expectations. I was hella annoyed with Faile in The Dragon Reborn and found her repulsive, but she actually grew into a super cool figure. Kind of reminded me of Mike Fletcher’s unlikeable characters you love in the next book (the books are Beyond Redemption and The Mirror’s Truth for the unitiated.)

Pining romance is one of my pet peeves in fantasy and it annoyed me in a few places, but it was hell of a lot less than the previous volumes, especially the Game of Houses stuff. I gotta say I missed the political intrigue, there was some political intrigue in this book but not nearly enough. The other badass scenes more than made up for it, though, so no complaints there.

I loved Elayne’s and Faile’s character development above all else. The amazing detail of new places, cultures and especially the Aiel parts were great. There are some crazy twists that left me with my jaw hanging open. Robert Jordan’s storytelling is ever so impressive. Tanchico was far grittier than any other city in the previous books, not just the setting but the politics and the relations between different groups.
The Shadow Rising is quite a bit darker and just as intense, and I have a feelings things will get darker still.

I can’t wait to read book 5!

Top Ten Favorite Book Quotes

Happy TTT everyone!
I have been out of blogging for some time due to personal and health issues, I gotta admit missed the Top Ten Tuesday the most.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blog meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and this week’s theme is favorite book quotes. Here goes my top ten:

“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you’ll find an edge to cut you.”

“I remember… I remember asking a wise man, once… though whether it was last year or a thousand years ago I cannot tell. I asked him, ‘Why do Men fear the dark?’ I could tell he thought the question wise, though I felt no wisdom in asking it. ‘Because darkness,’ he told me, ‘is ignorance made visible.’ ‘And do Men despise ignorance?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they prize it above all things-all things! -but only so long as it remains invisible.'”

“A wise man who’s ignored is about as effective as an idiot who’s listened to.”

“Everything frightens me, and it’s well that it does. Fear is a good friend to the hunted, it’s kept me alive this long. The dead are fearless, and I don’t care to join them.”

“The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?”

“Still, children hope in ways adults find hard to imagine. They carry their dreams before them, fragile, in both arms, waiting for the world to trip them.”

“It is better, I think, to grab at the stars than to sit flustered because you know you cannot reach them.”

“For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

“A sane man is simply a man afraid to unleash his inner demons.”

Book Review: The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker

Genre: Fantasy/Grimdark
Series: Aspect-Emperor
Author info: http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/

This is the fourth and last book of Aspect-Emperor,the sequel series after The Prince of Nothing. You will need to read The Prince of Nothing books for the story to make sense. The starting point is The Darkness That Comes Before.

Here are my reviews for previous books in the series (First one is spoiler free, but the following reviews inevitably have spoilers for the previous ones)

The Darkness That Comes Before (book #1)

The Warrior Prophet (book #2)

The Thousandfold Thought (book #3)

The Judging Eye (book #4)

The White Luck Warrior (book #5)

The Great Ordeal (book #6)

 

I should have written this review months ago, but I have been in ill health and busy with a lot of other things, and then I got into SPFBO and didn’t have the time and energy to wrap my head around this. The Unholy Consult is not an easy one to review, it is quite intense and packs a few punches to the gut to say the least. I didn’t want to rush it.

The first 200 pages was an unrelenting force wind of grimdark, comparable to Category 5 hurricanes in terms of darkness, gore and abject savagery. I had been wondering if Bakker could outdo himself after six extremely dark books, and boy he did! These parts are definitely not for the faint of heart and will disturb even a seasoned veteran reader of grimdark.

There are some major reveals and twists I didn’t see coming. The Consult is laid bare, but not in the way I thought. Not at all! To be honest, I found the reveal about the Inchoroi a bit of a letdown, but now that enough time has passed to process it all, what’s behind the grand scheme is quite fascinating. Only I didn’t realize it at the time, but after I thought about it for a few weeks.

The twists come like a tornado and spin your head around. That is as much as I can tell without spoiling anything.
Akka, Mimara and Serwa parts were among my favorites, and Akka levels up in badassery here. Serwa’s heroism will make you tear up. She got on my nerves a few times in the former books, but her epic acts made me forget about that rather quick.

Kellhus and Golgotterath chapters balance out the extreme savagery with intelligent strategy, and Akka-Mimara chapters as well as Serwa’s killer scenes offer the emotional depth, page turner action and great insights.

Ishterebinth survivors joining the Great Ordeal was quite a bit of fireworks, along with the Nonmen’s tragic past echoing its glum tones.

The Darkness that Comes before hangs over the Great Ordeal like a black veil of horror, and I felt its strong effect on pretty much everyone. The best and worst of humanity gets exposed in all its glamor and depravity.

The most innovative aspect of the book was the scenes written from the POV of Malowebi as a decapitant. A character without a physical body is no mean feat to pull off and yet another beautiful display of Bakker’s genius.

There are some epic quotes in The Unholy Consult, as one can expect from a Bakker book:

No truth spoken is true simply because words have consequences, because voices move souls and souls move voices, a great radiation. This is why we so readily admit to corpses what we dare not confess to the living. This is why only the executioner can speak without care of consequences, Our speech finds freedom only when the speaker is at an end.

Truth becomes ignorance when Men make gods of Deceit.

Ink affords all souls the luxury of innocence. To write is to be quick where all else is still, to bully facts with words until they begin weeping.

Men, the cracked vessel from which the Gods drank most deep.

The Unholy Consult doesn’t start with a bang, but certainly ends with one. What’s even better is, there are the two short stories called Atrocity Tales (which were previously published on Bakker’s blog) and a 150 page Unholy Simlarillion encyclopedia in the end of it, which is packed with more sweet details adding to the one in the end of The Thousandfold Thought. This whole package was a great medicine for alleviating the massive book hangover.

The first short story, titled The False Sun, provides important insights to the working of the Consult, betrayal of Mekeritrig and the evil sorcerer Shaeönanra. The second one, Four Revelations, gives a great glimpse to the disturbing decay of the Nonmen’s memory and how it messes them up in the most heart-rending ways. That is straight up literary fiction right there. It punched me in the gut all the same the third time I’e read it (I’ve read both stories twice before The Unholy Consult came out.)

Now I will be counting days until the first book of next series comes out.
Verdict: The Unholy Consult is the grimdarkest of all grimdark books published to this date, featuring profound horrors and some incredibly epic scenes. You are missing a huge deal if you aren’t reading this series. The Second Apocalypse will come to be known as one of the milestones of the fantasy genre, its criminally underrated status nothwithstanding. Just mark my words.