Category: Reviews

Book Review – The Price of Time by Tim Tigner

Book: The Price of Time

Author: Tim Tigner

Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller

Part of a Series: No

Kindle Unlimited: Yes

Summary:

A small tech start-up in the medical field has just made an amazing discovery. They figured out how to stop the aging process. Immortality was now in human hands, and only seven people in the world had it available to them. With the nearly inexhaustible wealth of one of the members, they had only two questions: what to do with their newfound existence and how to keep their secret.

Their plans accidentally cross paths with the recently “disgraced” CIA operative Zachary Chase who is privately looking into the disappearance of his old college friend. His investigation leads him to Skylar Fawkes, and together they try to unwrap the mystery of the immortal group.

Review (Spoilers):

This was a random book that I decided to pick up based on the premise of a group finding immortality. I didn’t really know any of the thriller aspect going in but let me tell you, it was pretty great.

The Immortals, as a group, are fairly interesting. They find themselves in two camps: the scientists and the business people. After several years of enjoying their immortality, they begin to realize an issue with not aging. The rest of the world does and soon, the rest of the world will notice that they do not.

The solution, of course, is the old tried and true method of assuming new identities every few decades. The problem? The modern world makes that extraordinarily difficult. It is not just a case of forging a few documents and sending in for a new license. The only solution that they can find is to assume the lives of regular people. They hire a former foreign intelligence worker to locate suitable replacements and begin the process of eliminating them and taking over their lives.

One of the selected replacements happens to be the friend of former CIA operative Zachary Chase. He is a good hero for this story as his fall from grace with the CIA was due to the fact he refused to change his report after discovering compromising information on an American diplomat. This frees him from the agency but gives him the skill set needed to investigate his friend’s disappearance.

His investigation leads him to Skylar Fawkes, a former triathlete looking for a new life and one who happens to have been selected as a replacement candidate for one of the Immortals. The two team up and look for answers while the Immortals not only attempt to complete their replacements but also deal with the sudden deaths of their members.

This was just a super fun book. It was a little slow to kick off, but once it starts, it keeps a steady pace until the finish. Like I said, Zachary is a good hero for the story. He’s your typical, all-American boy. Sure, he is a little jaded from his time with the CIA, but he never really comes across as cynical. He’s just a man trying to make a difference.

The Immortals are also interesting to follow. The story really only focuses on three of them, but in those three, the questions of morality and ethics surrounding artificial immortality are explored. Why is it important that they keep the discovery secret? Are they still human or a new species? How far will they go to survive? Of course, the novel makes a stand on these issues, but it doesn’t restrict the arguments to service that stand.

All in all, this was a fast-paced and fun ride. The characters were interesting, the story engaging, and the reading was not bogged down in techno-jargon. Going back to look up some things for this review made me realize that the author has more books in Kindle Unlimited, so I will definitely be checking out more of his work. All in all, I award this book the Steel Stash.

I know that thrillers are a bit outside of my typical genres, but if you’ve also read The Price of Time, let me know what you think? Are there any other thrillers I should check out? Or any good books exploring immortality and what it does to a person? Let me know below, or you can tell me on Twitter @steelstashwrit1.

Of course, if you are looking for a space fantasy with a grimdark feel and a bit of a thriller aspects, then please check out my new novella, Rose Nexus, out now on Amazon. You can get it here. And as always, I mustache you to stay fantastical.

Book Review – Gaming the System by P.A. Wikoff

Book: Gaming the System

Author: P.A. Wikoff

Genre: LitRPG, Fantasy

Part of a Series: Yes, Imprisoned Online Book 1

Summary:

Sephiroth, or Seph as he prefers to be called, is the child of a new age. Robots and A.I. have advanced to the point that humans really don’t need to do anything. Instead, they get to sit at home and game all day, and big names gamers are a big deal. Unfortunately for Seph, he doesn’t like games.

When a midnight release for the newest gaming tech comes out, his parents ask him to pick their order up. In the process, Seph wrecks his bike, “borrows” a car that was meant to be delivered to the daughter of one of the largest game streamers, and finds himself publically tried and convicted. His sentence? Three years in a virtual jail where he will have to play games while also having to earn in-game currency in order to pay back his fine as well. Will he be able to survive his sentence, both physically and mentally, or will he crack under the weight of his virtual jail?

Review (Spoilers):

So, like most LitRPGs, this book also starts out in the “real” world. Unlike most LitRPGs, this book spends about the first quarter in the real world. Now, I get wanting to get to know the main character prior to their trials, but this felt a little long to me. In addition to all of that, Seph really isn’t that great of a character in the real world. He’s whiny, his internal monologue and rhetoric feels vaguely like the complaints of the “nice guy” who always gets stuck in the friendzone (except, of course, there is not enough human contact in the world to have that even be an issue). And then, in a moment of affluenza, he steals a car in order to deliver his parents game systems all because he didn’t want to borrow their car from the start.

Now once the trial hits, Seph feels like a different character. He still has his disdain of A.I. and artificial life, but all in all, there is a character shift that follows him into the game. The Seph that starts playing Dreamscape, the MMORPG that he chooses as his prison, is a lot more likable. He is determined if a little naive. He bumbles through the game having foolishly skipped the tutorial despite not being a gamer (though it was a convenient way for us to get exposition) but never gives up. This is a Seph you can root for.

As for the game, it has the typical feel of a fantasy RPG. There is nothing too special or unique about it, but this isn’t a bad thing. Once Seph starts to open up to some players, he starts to develop some friends (a connection he never had outside of prison), and he grows and learns. He gets targeted by a gang that likes to lurk in the starter area and attack new players, but through some luck and ingenuity, he is able to overcome both them and the level boss.

If you are new to the LitRPG genre, this is a fine book to start with. It has all the base pieces for the genre while also being entertaining. P.A. Wikoff doesn’t bog his story down with numerous side quests (at least not yet), but it also doesn’t feel boring. It’s a tight, well-paced story that succeeds technically and enjoyment-wise. All in all, I award it a (weak) Silver Stash. I look forward to seeing where this storyline goes from here.

What are your thoughts? Did you enjoy it as well or am I off my rocker? If you want some more LitRPG goodness, check out some of The Completionist by Dakota Krout. And as always, I mustache y’all to stay fantastical.

Random Thoughts – The Problem with Time in Sci-Fi

Time brings an interesting problem to sci-fi. In any other genre, time can almost be ignored. Either it matters to the story or it doesn’t. This can be its own issue, but that is mainly a logical or consistency thing. In sci-fi, though, time becomes integral to the discussion. This has to do with the fact that so much of sci-fi has to do with space.

I recently read two books that highlighted the problem of time and the two solutions to it. The first book was Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlein, and the second was Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The solutions were a generational ship and hibernation/stasis respectively. That’s right, this is a double book review and random thoughts. And warning, there will be spoilers for both.

In Orphans of the Sky, Hugh is part of the crew of a ship headed to a far off galaxy. It’s been an unknown number of generations since the ship took off, but it has been long enough that everyone has forgotten what their mission is. They know they are on a ship, though they don’t understand that it is a space ship or that anything exists outside of the ship. The ship is all of reality and all that there is.

The external conflict is a fight between the humans that Hugh is a part of and mutants who hide in higher levels of the vessel. Hugh is captured by a group of these mutants where he is taken to Joe-Jim, a two-headed mutant who leads one of the strongest gangs. Hugh manages to befriend Joe-Jim and is exposed to the true nature of reality, the ship, and its mission.

He attempts to convince the humans to ally with the mutants in order to accomplish their original mission. Everything seems to work towards this plan, but a sudden betrayal by the Captain reveals that the humans want to maintain the status quo and their new society. The mutants are all killed while Hugh, his friend, and their wives are barely able to escape to settle on the planetary goal of their ancestors.

Children of Time starts with a group of scientists over a terraformed planet. Their goal is to introduce a group of apes to the planet along with a virus. This virus is designed to improve evolution among the apes. As they are about to launch the apes and virus, a terrorist plot is revealed that destroys the ship.

The virus is just barely launched where it crashes to the planet and finds a suitable host in several of the insect and arachnid species. The virus works in the spiders, causing them to grow larger and smarter over hundreds of generations. They form a complex society, battle and domestic ant colonies to serve as biological computer systems, and become the dominant species on the planet.

In addition to this plotline, there is another that follows a group of humans from Earth. Earth has been used up and has become uninhabitable. Scraping together the technology of a lost past, they are able to create a ship to carry the remains of the human race to a new planet. The crew is placed in stasis for the trip, though several members of the key crew are woken up periodically to address various problems such as attempted mutinies, god complexes, and finding a suitable planet to settle on.

Ultimately, the solution to the humans’ settlement problem rests with the world the spiders have claimed. Pushed by the existential dread of extinction, the humans and spiders clash for control of the planet.

Both books are great. Orphans of the Sky does have some very problematic issues with how it views women, and I completely understand any who can’t get past that. The only good thing is that it is only brought up maybe twice in the story, so it does not act as a huge distractor. It is fun and thought provoking despite this, and I give it the Silver Stash.

Children of Time is amazing. Really, if you are a fan of sci-fi, read this book. It tackles interesting questions, sets up it plots well, and the spiders aren’t that bad. Trust me, I’m an arachnophobe and I’m saying read this. My only issue is the actual resolution to the conflict. Ultimately, this book gets the Steel Stash. It’s amazing.

Now that the books are out of the way, let’s look at how they handle time. Like I said, time is one of the most important aspects of space sci-fi. To paraphrase Hitchhikers’ Guide, space is big, like really, really big. Space is stupid big. Distances in space are so great, they are practically meaningless. They become measured in how long it takes light to travel to them.

Think about that. Distance is measured by how long it takes one of the fastest phenomenons we know of to travel. We don’t do that on a planet. We can see and imagine distance on a planet. You can conceivably walk from one end of a continent to the other. You can travel around the Earth. To travel to another solar system, you have to find some way of accelerating to the speed of light and then it will still take you decades.

This means that the only solution to space travel, well without a handwave of faster than light travel, is to either have a generational ship or to use stasis. Find some way for your grandchildren to reach the planet or freeze yourself.

Orphans of the Sky uses the first approach. With generational ships, you end up with some interesting problems and questions. What happens if the crew forgets? What happens to society? What about concepts like free will and democracy?

Of course, the last question is probably one of the most important. Unfortunately, it is one of the easiest to answer as well. A generational ship can’t be a democracy. People have a habit of not always choosing the best solution for the whole. With a ship, you only have what you have. You are severely limited on resources. Democratic and capitalistic models are not likely to work unless you massively over-design everything. Of course, that has its drawbacks as well in terms of cost of construction. So everything needs to be rationed.

Even if you have the ability to provide abundance for everyone, there is still the issue of maintenance. It is a ship after all. It needs to be repaired. It needs certain actions. Over a short timeframe, that may not be an issue, but what happens when you need more engineers, technicians, and specialists? Do you let society decide? Do you beg? Or do you put the mission and survival of everyone onboard above individual wants and tell people what they need to do?

Of course, another solution to the people issue is to alter the society to place a higher value on these jobs. This can be accomplished through extra perks and incentives, or it can come on the form of veneration and deification of the command. This is the direction that Orphans end up going in. The original captain, Jordan, became a god to the people of Hugh’s time while the mutineer Huff became the devil. The Captain wasn’t just a job, but a position of honor and power, not for the common man.

One of the values of Orphans is that not only does it ask these questions, but it also explores the issues that they can bring up. Jordan’s writings, ship manuals and technical logs, become holy documents. One must be initiated into the grand mysteries of a scientist to even read them, and even then, these things aren’t for question. They are merely to be followed.

This, of course, leads to the problem of the power-hungry. Hugh wants to complete the sacred mission that Jordan set out on. In attempting to do so, he works with several key members of the scientists to overthrow the Captian and install a new man who will finish the mission. The new Captian, however, just wanted power. He found an opportunity and seized it, using Hugh and the mutants to gain his position before disposing of them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Children of Time. The crew was all put in stasis. For many members of humanity, they fled a dying Earth, went to sleep, and woke up on a foreign planet. For some, however, they kept waking up throughout the trip. The eyes of humanity during the trip is a scholar named Mason. He was a student of the past and knew the old languages and programming. Any time the ship encountered some piece of old tech, he was woken up to help translate and provide advice.

This led to some interesting questions from him. Objectively, he was hundreds of years old. Subjectively, he was only a few decades. This was a thought process that his mind continued to struggle to comprehend. How do you reconcile those two thoughts? How do you realistically rationalize the idea that you aren’t eternal? Or insignificant? How do you face the endless march of time when you constantly blip in and out of it. How do you reconcile time itself when even time becomes meaningless do to your constant jumps forward?

For the humans of Children, distance is a meaningless concept. No matter how far anything is, it is only a single night’s sleep away. For those who kept waking up, time loses its value as well.

Of course, these questions are the reason why sci-fi is such an influential genre. It is one of the only genres that can ask questions like these, that can explore the human psyche and experience through them.

But what do you think? Do you feel there are different ways to approach these problems? Different questions you want to explore? What answers do you have? Let me know your thoughts. And as always, I mustache you to stay fantastical.

Book Review – Raze by Dakota Krout

Book: Raze

Author: Dakota Krout

Genre: Fantasy, LitRPG

Part of a Series: Yes, The Completionist

Summery:

Raze is the third? Fourth? Book in the Completionist series. (Technically, the third book, Rexus, follows Jaxon, one of the supporting characters.) Joe has successfully revived the king of Ardania following the Wolfman War and is continuing his quest to unlock the mysteries of the ritual class.

Unfortunately, back in the real world, monsters start to appear and attack people. President Musk orders everyone to transfer their minds to a data core and be transported to the world of Eternia. This mass influx of new people leads to many problems, the most pressing being the supply of basic necessities such as food and housing.

Aten, guild leader of the Wanderers, asks Joe to figure out a way to feed the town that the guild is trying to raise. This quest takes Joe to the other side of Ardania as he seeks a solution in the form of a magical greenhouse. The surviving members of the Wolfman race have fled to that side of the kingdom and are in possession of the blueprints for just what Joe needs, but they ask him to clear out a nearby temple before offering him the plans. Unfortunately, the temple is controlled by a powerful player whose mind was trapped by a mage during Joe’s time in the city dungeon in Regicide.

While all of this is going on, the guild is trying to increase their rank by improving their town with more than just a greenhouse. Their building efforts, however, draw the attention of members of the kingdom, and plots are put in place to end the Wanderers growth.

In addition to all of this, Joe finds himself the target of more assassins, this time from the city Zoo who are holding a grudge from way back in Ritualist when Joe sold a unique bunny to a pet store. This threat to their entertainment cannot go unanswered. Failure to find the zoo a rare animal will result in continued attempts on Joe’s life. Success, however, will grant Joe access to the Zoo’s main income, the black market of unique items from its Bloodsport Arena.

Luckily, Joe is not alone anymore in his ritual study. With the help of a new team member, Jess, Joe is able to recruit several members of the guild to become ritualists as well. With a ticking clock, though, will this new coven and Joe’s team be able to solve all of the issues facing the guild and Joe personally?

Review (Spoilers!):

Raze is another solid addition to the Completionist series. Joe continues to be a fun and engaging character who seems to constantly draw the short end of the stick when it comes to getting along with people.

The threat to Earth in the real world is a little whatever. The one effect that it does have is that it means no one is able to log out from the game. This is their new reality. Of course, this was never an issue for Joe as he sacrificed his body back in book 1. Heck, it hardly matters to the rest of the team as well. Alexis was drawing in debt in the real world, Bard fell hard for Alexis so being “stuck” in game was no issue for him, and Jaxon was an old man who found a new body. The only member really affected was Poppy who ended up leaving his three-year-old daughter back in the real world. Luckily, the game communications to the outside world still work and he was able to have his parents get her and themselves into the game.

The biggest “threat” that the sudden influx of people poses is the issues of supply. Food scarcities become a danger, prompting Joe’s determination to find the magical greenhouse. His motivations to try and continue to help everyone are the biggest reason he agrees.

The city building quest that the guild starts does offer some nice tension. While the guild is intent on growing as quickly as possible, they use Joe’s ability to make better buildings faster. Luckily, some laws on the use of magic were changed following Joe’s actions with the Mage College in Ritualist, circumventing previous laws that enforced a monopoly of the Architect’s Guild. This helps because it offers a counter to Joe’s protection as being considered “extended family” to the royals. There is still a way for the NPCs of the world to get back at the players.

The Zoo storyline was the only real meh part of the main story. Finding the black market and discovering that it was being run in an arena that artificially elevated rare loot drops was a neat addition. The ultimate conclusion of it, though, just felt a little rushed. There was plenty of other things going on in this story to really not need that one aspect. The major effect of this side quest was a massive changing of laws at the end of the book that will likely have major repercussions later. Still, it was kind of a weak addition.

Despite all of that, Raze is a great book. It was fun, light, and never took itself too seriously. It didn’t slow itself down with building harems, including random sex scenes, or too many side quests. Dakota Krout continues to write tight storylines that are a real credit to the litRPG genre. All in all, I award Raze the Silver Stash.

What are your thoughts? Have you read it yet? Anything else that you think I should check out? Let me know in the comments and as always, I mustache y’all to stay fantastical.

Book Review – The Dark Citadel Omnibus

Book: The Dark Citadel Omnibus

Author: Michael Wallace

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Part of a Series: Yes, The Dark Citadel

Spoiler Warning.

Sorry if the books run together. I did read them back to back.

The Dark Citadel Omnibus is the collection of five novels about a fantasy war. They are The Dark Citadel, The Free Kingdoms, The Golden Griffin, The Warrior King, and War of Wizards.

It starts off with the main protagonist, Darik in his home in the khalifate of Balsalom. His house is raided and he and his sister are sold into slavery in order to pay off his father’s debts. Through luck, they are bought by a local baker at the request of two other slaves Markel and Whelan. Before long, Markel, Whelan, and Darik manage to escape their master and Darik learns that his two companions are spies from the Free Kingdoms, a neighboring country.

As they escape, the city comes under siege from the dark wizard Cragyn. The sultana, Kallia, is captured, forced to marry, and raped. Despite all of this, she bides her time until the majority of Cragyn’s forces move out to continue their conquest. At that point, she launches a counterattack and reclaims her city.

Darik and company, meanwhile, travel just ahead of the enemy army en route to the Free Kingdoms to warn Whelan’s brother, King Daniel. While traveling, they are forced to escape a mountain fortress on the backs of griffins where Darik meets the griffin rider Daria. She helps him soar through the air and delivers him safely to the other side of the mountains.

As Cragyn’s forces approach, Whelan must convince his ailing brother to gather the armies of the Free Kingdoms. Unfortunatly, he is being opposed by the wizard Chantmer, Markel’s superior in the wizarding order. Eventually, forces are gathered near the town of Sleepstock where an epic battle is fought between men and wizards, griffin riders and dragons. The people of the Free Kingdoms are betrayed, however, as Chantmer helps to summon a great magical beast to battle the dragons only to have it turn on the armies instead. The Free Kingdoms are forced to withdraw to the capital where they hold their final defense.

Good prevails in the battle and our heroes defeat Cragyn’s army. Chantmer is bested by his order and forced to flee as well. The Free Kingdoms ends with Daniel abdicating the throne in favor of Whelan, Markel finding himself at the head of the wizarding order, and Darik able to join the Knights Temperate, an elite group that offers him forgiveness for the crime of escaping slavery.

Flash forward a few months and The Golden Griffin sees our heroes attempting to clean up after the battle with Cragyn. The dragons are still a threat which Daria and her griffin riders are trying to fight. Darik rides with the Knights Temperate to clear out the remaining pockets of resistance who didn’t flee. While doing so, he discovers a new threat. Not only are the dead rising to fight against the living, but Cragyn was merely a host for the wizard Toth, a powerful dark wizard who nearly broke the world centuries ago.

When Whelan hears of this, he gathers his armies and marches towards the Dark Citadel in order to put an end to this threat once and for all. Markel, meanwhile, continues to chase down Chantmer with Darik’s help. Darik finds that he is able to use magic and spends the journey learning his new skills.

In Balsalom, Kallia is reorganizing her city for the war effort. She has married Whelan, both for love and politics…and as an attempt to hide the fact that she carries Toth’s child in her womb.

In her attempts to end the threat from the dragons, Daria is presented with an unlikely opportunity. While escaping from a horde of dragon wasps, baby dragons, she leads them into a pack of wild, golden griffins. One griffin is injured in the fight, and Daria takes the opportunity to try and tame the creature while helping it heal. When she does, she becomes the first of her people to ride the powerful golden griffins.

The Warrior King sees the armies of the Free Kingdoms and khalifates marching towards the Dark Citadel. As they fight through Toth’s armies, Markel and Darik close in on Chantmer. The betrayer is hiding in a rival khalifate, learning the khalifate style of magic while also planning a coup that will place the long-lived wizards in charge of society. Politics and intrigue abound in the khalifate as the Free Kingdoms attempt to negotiate a treaty while Chantmer prepares his move.

As Whelan approaches the Dark Citadel, he finds that his brother Roderick was killed and reanimated by Toth to lead the dark wizard’s forces. The two brothers are forced to fight, unfortunately for Whelan, his sword Soultrap, a magical blade that traps the souls of the people it kills, is struggling against him. The evil influence of the souls of Toth’s armies are trying to turn the will of the blade against Whelan. During the fight, Roderick is able to temporarily resist the commands of Toth and manages to sacrifice himself on Whelan’s sword. His soul, now trapt in the blade, tips the balance and allows Whelan to use it for good.

War of Wizards is the final fight against Toth. As he sits atop his Dark Citadel, Toth sacrifices the innocent people of his kingdom in order to fuel his dark ritual. This ritual raises an army of wights, tortured souls who seek to avoid the Harvester and kill the living.

Darik has returned to Balsalom and helps to manage the defenses of the city against the wights that are coming to claim Kallia’s child for Toth. With the aid of Chantmer, they manage to hold out against the undead army, hoping that Whelan can end the war on his front.

At the Dark Citadel, Whelan and Markel lay siege to Toth’s fortress. They manage to breach the walls just as the dragon reappears. Daria swoops in on her golden griffin with the rest of her griffin riders to battle the dragon while the armies burst into the city. Whelan and Markel climb the Dark Citadel where they meet Toth and kill him.

Unfortunately, that was part of Toth’s plan. His soul flees his body and travels to Balsalom where it tries to take root in the child Kallia just gave birth to. Through powerful magic, the Harvester is summoned to the room where the god of the dead is able to gather Toth’s soul and end the threat. In a moment of compassion for the living, the Harvester grants a new soul to the child so that it can grow and live a normal life. Darik leaves fighting behind him and travels north with Daria to find a new land for the griffin riders to settle.

So first off….the first two books in this series were pretty good. The last three kind of plodded along. All in all, it was fine, but it felt like Dark Citadel and Free Kingdoms ended the story only to have the author keep it going. It really didn’t pick back up until the second half of War of Wizards minus a few scenes throughout.

This series also felt like it could belong in the young adult category. It was a fairly simplistic writing style, the arcs were decent enough, but most of the struggle seemed to be about the boy Darik finding his place in the world and who he was. I don’t say this to be disparaging of it, just that it felt like it was being billed as more than what it was.

Of course, there are issues with the main focus being on Darik and his struggles. The biggest one is that Darik was a pretty passive protagonist. On the one hand, I kind of like the fact that he wasn’t the big hero, that he was secondary to the larger characters. That works well in some stories. It didn’t really fit with this one though.

The best example I can think of where the protagonist wasn’t the hero was The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford. With that book, the hero was Xenophon, while the protagonist was more of an aid. That book also stuck with one point of view. We saw the events solely through the protagonist’s eyes. The Dark Citadel follows multiple points of view. This makes Darik’s story weaker because we spend just as much time with the actual heroes, with actual power, that we don’t really need Darik’s experience. He is usually just along for the ride.

Of course, there is also the elephant in the room of Chantmer feeling like a Saruman rip off. Powerful wizard, turns evil, betrays his order. I mean, reading the book, my image of Chantmer was of Christopher Lee wandering around the desert.

Despite all of that, the books are fun. Yeah, they end up being a tad formulaic. Yeah, it follows a lot of the epic fantasy tropes of put everyone in the worst situation for a last-minute save, but it was still a fun journey. Ultimately, I recommend The Dark Citadel and the Free Kingdoms. The last three books you can read if you want.

I award The Dark Kingdom and The Free Kingdoms the Iron Stash (4/5) and The Golden Griffin, The Warrior King, and War of Wizards the Bronze Stash (3/5). I award the Dark Citadel Omnibus the Bronze Stash (3/5).

Let me know your thoughts. And remember that I mustache y’all to stay fantastical.

Book Review – Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett

Book: Eisenhorn

Author: Dan Abnett

Genre: Fantasy, Thriller, GrimDark, Warhammer 40k

Part of a Series: Yes, Eisenhorn

Spoiler Warning.

Eisenhorn is a trilogy by Dan Abnett that follows the life and career of Imperial Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn and set firmly within the Warhammer 40K universe. It begins with Xenos and the investigation of a mass murder on a remote planet in the Helican Sector. Using his position as Inquisitor to inspire fear and gather information, Eisenhorn tracks the clues of the murder back to the capital planet of Gudrun. There, he uncovers a plot by the ancient family Glaw to resurrect one of their ancestors, Pontius, through dark rituals, and their efforts to make contact with an alien race in order to secure a copy of an ancient text of destruction. Along the way, Eisenhorn gathers a team of companions to aid him, fights a daemon from the warp, and eventually saves the day. The dangerous and heretical text is destroyed, the Glaw family is broken, and Pontius’ soul is still trapt in a mystic orb.

The second book, Malleus, sees Eisenhorn come under a charge of heresy. The daemon he fought with in Xenos returns to wreak havoc while dropping Eisenhorn’s name to another Inquisitor. Eisenhorn learns of this after surviving another mass murder and assault on Thraxcian Prime. In attempts to track down the perpetrators of that assault, he uncovers another daemon as well as the evidence of what was assumed to be long dead Inquisitor attempting to perform a grand act of heresy. With Eisenhorn also labeled heretic, he must track down this rogue Inquisitor alone. This forces him to turn to Pontius Glaw in order to learn the secrets of the daemons and their weaknesses in exchange for creating Pontius a robotic body. With the help of a friend from the Adeptus Mechanicus, Eishenhorn fashions a staff that will amplify his psychic powers. Armed with this new weapon, Eisenhorn obliterates the second daemon, severely weakens the first, and kills the rogue Inquisitor. He is found innocent of his heresy and reinstated as Inquisitor. The book ends with Eisenhorn in secret possession of a dark text for controlling daemons and creatures of the warp as well as the first daemon trapt in Eisenhorn’s bunker.

Hereticus is the final book in the trilogy. While presiding over a trial, Eisenhorn learns that the man who killed a friend of his was on the planet. Eisenhorn abandons the trial to track the man down only to find himself confronted with a battle titan. With very little time or good options, Eisenhorn summons the daemon he trapt to kill the titan. While recovering from the event in his home on Gudrun, his entire organization is attacked by mercenaries. He manages to escape with a handful of his people, flees the planet, and pieces together the fact that the attack was conducted by non-other than Pontius Glaw. Glaw seems to be searching for some hidden treasure of a daemon king and wants the dark text Eisenhorn saved while also eliminating all evidence of Glaw’s continued existence. Through much sacrifice and the loss of friends, Eisenhorn is able to defeat Glaw with the help of his daemon and disappears from Imperial record.

In addition to these three books, there are also two short stories of various adventures and investigations Eisenhorn had. They are fun and fine for what they are, but as a whole, they are not necessary. These stories merely explain some of the plot points of the following books. The explanations are not necessary for understanding, but including them in the main texts would have likely killed pacing and been non-important.

First things first. I know that there are going to be some Warhammer fans who are going to disagree with calling this book fantasy. Just because it is set in space doesn’t make it sci-fi. It has all the trappings of a fantasy story. Like Star Wars, it is fantasy in space. This is not to detract from the book, and at the end of the day, label the genre however you want.

That being said, I have long been fascinated with the lore of Warhammer. It is a dark world where millions can die in a cold, unforgiving universe. The works of The Black Library, Warhammer’s publishing house, are proof of the fact that when anything is an existential threat to society, any means are permitted to eliminate that threat.

This philosophy is exemplified in the Inquisitors. Agents of the Holy Emperor, they have near unlimited social power. Many of them are extremely strong psychics. Through the use of the law, fear, and psychic will, they impose the moral right and fight against the corruption and heresy that would destroy mankind in whatever way they see fit.

Eisenhorn is a great case study. He says he begins as a puritan, but in reality, he is more of a moderate. True, Eisenhorn destroys the first dark text in Xenos, but even other moderates within the Inquisition agreed with him on that. As he progresses through the stories, Eisenhorn makes decisions that pull him more in line with the radicals and closer to a true heretic. The trilogy ends with the reader wondering if he is still the hero that they have followed or the threat that was shown in Malleus.

There are some thematic oddities to this trilogy, however. First, it is definitely a thriller. The mystery aspect does not feel like it is played well enough to warrant calling it that. Yeah, the surprises can be figured out, but they aren’t what provides the underlying drama. The tension and threats are. It also feels very strongly of a noir type story. A private detective in search of truth in the world of corruption.

The problem is that those stories work best when the detective is just outside the system. Everything Eisenhorn does is within the scope of his authority. Sure, he spends long parts of one book labeled a heretic, but that did not affect how the rest of society saw him. To the world outside the Inquisition, he was still an Inquisitor. With the sheer enormity of the universe presented, the ability to disappear and still maintain one’s lifestyle does little to impart the impact of the character’s decisions on his fate.

All in all, though, these books are a fun romp. They are tense, well-paced, and tell a continuous story. The details are interwoven well and despite the massive size, over 770 pages, nothing is really out of place or forgotten. Eisenhorn is great if you enjoy a good thriller or intrigue, as well as a non-threatening introduction into the world of Warhammer and its books. The generally depressing nature of so many people dying so unceremoniously does make it hard to give universal recommendation. And so, I award Eisenhorn with the Iron Stash (4/5)…(really a 4.5. Like I said, tough to give more when I can’t tell everyone to read it.)

Book Review – The Completionist Series 1-2 by Dakota Krout

Book: Ritualist, Regicide

Author: Dakota Krout

Genre: Fantasy, LitRPG

Part of a Series: Yes, The Completionist

The Completionist Series by Dakota Krout is an ongoing LitRPG series following Joe as he navigates the political intrigue and dangers of a new virtual RPG after he is paralyzed in an attack while deployed. Once in game, Joe completes a series of tests to unlock his “true potential” and is able to choose the rare class of Ritualist. With this class and a need to keep his nature hidden, Joe randomly completes various tasks for the non-player characters until he stumbles upon influential friendships and a guild appointment.

Joe quickly progresses through the early levels of the game and helps his new guild to achieve “noble” status. During the course of this adventure, he learns that he has attracted the attention of the AI running the game, gained the favor of the in-game “god” who he follows, and learned that the game is essentially a type of race battle. In the first level, only the humans or wolfmen can survive.

So the first thing that jumps out from this series is the completely pointless and unnecessary prologue. An oil drilling accident causes a midlevel employee to be fired. This employee renames himself, creates an online payment company, an electric car company, and a space company….plus other bad Elon Musk jokes. Skip it. It does nothing and doesn’t matter. The closest thing to importance in this prologue is the fact that a mysterious object is found that seems to have a mind of its own. This object is what powers the AI for the virtual world Joe lives in, but doesn’t make another appearance in any meaningful way.

The next chapter is just as bad, but for different reasons. It is Joe in the real world leading up to his injuries. The soldier interactions ignore rank and customs, a soldier claims another soldier used too many acronyms despite the fact that the Army uses acronyms for everything and no one cares, and is just bad. I still haven’t read a lot of LitRPG, but it seems to be a staple of the genre for anything set in the real world to be garbage.

Once the virtual adventure starts, the book gets so much better. The leveling feels fine, though the skill progression and skill assignment seems random as hell. It is still fun. It is definitely a good entry into the genre if you are curious about LitRPGs. Joe is a fun and relatable character. It doesn’t go super in-depth into the gaming aspect, so there is little worry about getting bogged down in the minutia of gaming.

The story is well paced if a little fast. Joe moves from situation to situation with a quickness, but it never feels so fast that you can’t catch your breath. The conflicts seem somewhat random at times, but they do get resolved.

All in all, the Completionist is a fun series and worth checking out if you are curious about the LitRPG genre. I award the series and both books the Iron Stash (4/5).

Book Review – The Land 1-7 by Aleron Kong

Book: The Land 1-7

Author: Aleron Kong

Genre: Fantasy, LitRPG

Part of a Series: Yes

The Land is a Literary Role Playing Game (LitRPG) series by Aleron Kong. There are currently seven books out with the eighth due at some point later this year.

The story follows Richter, a gamer from the Earth’s near future who is transported to a fantastical place called The Land. He is deposited in the River Peninsula with nothing more than his wits, a bow, and the ability to learn any skill without penalty. In a short amount of time, he gains a new friend, a sprite named Sion, his own village sitting atop a Place of Power, and an ever-evolving to grow stronger to protect his people and his new home.

So, full disclosure, this was my first look at the LitRPG series. I’ve seen several people talking about it on various writer forums, and it seemed like it would be interesting to me. Instead of following a traditional fantasy format, this genre borrows from the RPG genre to provide levels with set experience required in order to advance. On the one hand, this is nice. One of the hardest things about traditional fantasies is understanding the power of the magic. Despite the best efforts of authors to establish rules, how do you really describe something as alien as magic in real and tangible terms? The LitRPG genre has the advantage that spells are clearly ranked, have level requirements, and need so much mana. These are all concrete figures that the characters know about themselves.

Of course, the downside to the LitRPG genre is the downside to most RPGs…the side quests. There are so many side quests in these books. There are a bunch of main quests too. It’s a little crazy how much can be going on at any one time in this story. Dangers are constantly looming. Richter’s village is nestled in the middle of a forest, surrounded by mists, and he has an army of bear creatures on his doorstep, a lich king hiding around, a blood oath to avenge his village from the first attack otherwise he becomes cursed, and a goblin army that can at any time threaten what little peace he has between these other major events. There is a lot going on, even in seven books.

Despite all of this, the storyline is actually pretty good. The characters are fine if a little sophomoric. The main plot is pretty engaging. I do enjoy it.

There are some big issues, however. First off has to be a genre convention of LitRPG. The author spends so much time on status screens and character sheets. Richter is constantly checking his current stats. Worse, it is always a block table that shows every bit of information and is rarely formatted well for e-readers despite the fact that the books are in Kindle Unlimited. Tables are constantly cut off, forcing me to either adjust my font size or open the table in a separate view. It is so hard for me to care about the constant spell and character checking as I only cared about that stuff in gaming when I leveled up. Once I assigned my points, I moved on, only to check before a particularly hard looking fight. This constant checking means there are pages that can be skipped with no consequence.

Worse than that, though, is the exposition. In addition to tables that describe the spells, their costs, and their effects in detail, they are also explained in detail in the text as the spell is used. The explaining of new concepts and how the world works I understand and get and am fine with, even if it is done in the most boring way possible as a straight up lecture. The spells are recapped every time they are used, as well as their cost. Characters are given most of their backstory over and over again in the same book.

These books are also massive. Normally, I wouldn’t complain too much about that. After all, I do like Robert Jordan and he wrote tomes as well. But these books have so much in them that could be cut or explained more efficiently. I don’t know if it is a case of the author not paying for an editor or not listening to the editor because Amazon pays per page read and longer books make him more money, but the story could definitely be streamlined. This would have fixed the massive amounts of exposition, the duplicate exposition in the same story, and the random changes of character point of view that adds nothing to the story.

But the biggest sin this book makes are the pop culture references. You can’t even call them Easter eggs because there is no attempt at hiding anything. There is a carpenter named Rowan who is stoic with a large mustache and based completely on Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. There is an escort named Inara from Firefly. Almost every other sentence out of Richter’s mouth is from Tarantino or Rick and Morty or some other thing that was popular. At least Ready Player One had a reason for people from the future being obsessed with the 80s. This just has constant references that would be dated today but spoken from a character 50 years in the future. I get it author, I too have seen movies, tv, and read books.

To top it all off, Richter could probably be called a Gary Stu without you using the term wrong. He is good at everything. He has the ability to learn or do anything. Granted, that has to do with a special ability that he was given and there is some reason for it given in the narrative, but you don’t find anything like that out until about halfway through book 7. He is liked by everyone, but that can be explained by the charisma stat that is fairly high for Richter. The sex is equally ridiculous as it is as often as not multiple people with Richter. Luckily, those scenes tend to be fade to black as I cannot imagine they would have been written in an interesting manner.

But between Richter’s stats and plot armor, everything goes his way. Even fights that should kill him have Richter come out victorious, though at least the miracles that happen were foreshadowed or had elements laid out beforehand. Of course, the random surprises that do happen during the fight have flashback thrown into them that distract from the battle they are in the middle of.

At the end of the day, these books have a fair number of issues with them. They were my intro into the LitRPG genre, and I think I like this genre, but they are really hard to recommend. Only a couple of the books are worth it. I will probably keep reading as there is enough enjoyment in the main story for me, but also because I am a special kind of broken.

Overall, I give The Land as a series the Bronze Stash (3/5).

Book 1: Founding – Bronze Stash

Book 2: Forging – Iron Stash (4/5)

Book 3: Alliances – Iron Stash

Book 4: Catacombs – Bronze Stash

Book 5: Swarm – Bronze Stash

Book 6: Raiders – Iron Stash

Book 7: Predators – …part of me wants to give this a Copper Stash (2/5) but I did enjoy enough of it to give it a Bronze Stash.

There are probably better LitRPG books out there. I’ll try to find some and share. The first few books aren’t bad, but there does seem to be a decreasing quality. Not much, but it is there. If you are looking for a book that will last you a few days and you aren’t worried about finishing a series, give it a shot. Ultimately, however, it is a hard series for me to recommend.

Book Review – Dragon Slayer 1-3 by Michael-Scott Earle

Book: Dragon Slayer books 1-3

Author: Michael-Scott Earle

Genre: Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery

Part of a Series: Yes

Finally, a fantasy series to review. Dragon Slayer is a pulp harem fantasy series following Chicago firefighter Ethan Dapaolo. While at the scene of a blaze, Ethan gets trapped in a burning building and is pulled into a magic land by a mysterious guardian. He has been tasked with killing 25 dragons who threaten the people of this world while freeing the dragons’ magic for the guardians return.

So slight spoilers from here on out. Every time Ethan defeats a dragon they turn into a beautiful woman. It takes way to long for the series to acknowledge this, well into book 2 actually. We, the audience, know all the dragons are women after the first transformation, because it is a harem fantasy after all, but after the 3rd dragon, people are still surprised they are women.

Speaking of harem fantasy… Despite the name, these books aren’t over burdened with sex scenes. That’s great as they tend to get boring after a while. It probably works better if you don’t binge read the books, as they are decently spaced out, but if you read these all in one go, you are going to find yourself skipping scenes. It’s fine as the sex doesn’t add anything to the story. No new developments or growth, just titillation. The obvious exception is that the first time Ethan sleeps with a dragon who has been changed, she decides being human is great.

As for the story, it’s fine. The world is interesting. The author does a good job at organically expanding the scope of the conflict and the size of the world. The characters are also fun, even if they are surrounded by plot armor. The magical guardian who brought Ethan to the world is obviously evil and Ethan will obviously be protecting the world from it when he is done with the dragons. It is not hard to guess how everything in this tale will ultimately turn out.

At the end of the day, Dragon Slayer is just a fun, maybe guilty pleasure, read. It is not overly complex and does a good job at recapping the reader on key points. It is not high fantasy, but it is not trying to be. Overall, I give these books the bronze stash (3/5).