Review: Age of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

In Age of Myth, fantasy master Michael J. Sullivan launched readers on an epic journey of magic and adventure, heroism and betrayal, love and loss. Now the thrilling saga continues as the human uprising is threatened by powerful enemies from without—and bitter rivalries within.

Raithe, the God Killer, may have started the rebellion by killing a Fhrey, but long-standing enmities dividing the Rhune make it all but impossible to unite against a common foe. And even if the clans can join forces, how will they defeat an enemy whose magical prowess makes the Fhrey indistinguishable from gods?

The answer lies across the sea in a faraway land populated by a reclusive and dour race who feels nothing but disdain for both Fhrey and mankind. With time running out, Persephone leads the gifted young seer Suri, the Fhrey sorceress Arion, and a small band of misfits in a desperate search for aid—a quest that will take them into the darkest depths of Elan. There, an ancient adversary waits—an enemy as surprising as it is deadly.

My feelings for Age of Swords in a nutshell: good, but not as good as Age of Myth, and that’s because all the myth is gone.

Review: The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution.  As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation – the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan’s new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion’s gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion’s destruction – and its possible salvation. But can she and her ragtag band of followers survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

I have a complicated relationship with Hurley’s work – or with The Woldbreaker Saga, since I haven’t read her other stuff. On one hand, it helped me realize what kind of story I like, which in turn helped me on figuring out the stories I want to write – The Mirror Empire, the first book of The Worldbreaker Saga, and N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season were, in all honesty, the only books that made me go, damn, I wish I was the one who wrote that because they are exactly the kind of stuff I love.

On the other hand, though, I always felt a bit iffy about how Hurley deals with gender. Or rather, with non-binary genders. I won’t talk much about it here because this isn’t a review of the The Mirror Empire, but I wasn’t impressed with the Dhai’s five genders (four of which seem to be related to one’s personality, of all things, and none of which is ever brought up again in the narrative) and the lack of non-binary main characters in the first book besides the one whose body changes from “male” to “female” without them wanting it to do so and whose pronouns change to “fit” the body. So when I read the blurb of The Stars are Legion I was both excited and wary.

I’m afraid to say I was right in being wary.

Review: Assassins: Discord by Erica Cameron

Kindra’s moral compass has never pointed north, but that’s what happens when you’re raised as an assassin and a thief. At sixteen, she’s fantastic with a blade, an expert at slipping through the world unnoticed, and trapped in a life she didn’t chose. But nothing in her training prepares her for what happens when her father misses a target.

In the week-long aftermath, Kindra breaks rank for the first time in her life. She steals documents, starts questioning who their client is and why the target needs to die, botches a second hit on her father’s target, and is nearly killed. And that’s before she’s kidnapped by a green-eyed stranger connected to a part of her childhood she’d almost forgotten.

Kindra has to decide who to trust and which side of the battle to fight for. She has to do it fast and she has to be right, because the wrong choice will kill her just when she’s finally found something worth living for.

Rating: ★★★½

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Being completely honest: I wasn’t expecting a lot from this book. I’m not the biggest fan of assassins in modern days so I went into Assassins: Discord with very low expectations. And well, I was surprised (at first, at least).

Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives.

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin.

The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…

 

Rating: ★★★½

On one hand, urban fantasy isn’t really my thing. On the other, I’m always 100% here for latinxs in ANY kind of fantasy. It doesn’t even matter that they aren’t Brazilian (well, they never are), I get excited anyway.

That’s why I picked up Labyrinth Lost as soon as I could and for the first 40% or so I couldn’t put it down (really – it was almost 2am when I finally gave up and decided to finish it when I woke up). The reasons for this are many: the mythology is really, really interesting, the plot is gripping and I loved Alex’s family’s dynamics.

But the story loses some of its steam around 60%, a little after Alex and Nova enter the magical world of Los Lagos. I couldn’t see Los Lagos like I wanted to, and it wasn’t because it isn’t interesting or whatever (I mean, a river of souls? A rainforest that sets itself on fire?), but because of the writing, mainly. Everything happens so fast in Labyrinth Lost that I couldn’t help but not feel much for what was happening. The obstacles Alex & Cia have to fight are too easy and in one occasion really, really cliché. The climax is also too easy/rushed, and the story falls somewhat flat because of that.

I still loved it, in a way, though. I’m not Mexican or Puerto Rican or Ecuadorian, but I still could recognize some of my culture in Labyrinth Lost. In fact, what made me rush to pick it up was a post by the author where she explained who are the brujas of Latin America (in countries that speak Spanish, that is) and I realized that we have the same thing here in Brazil, but with other names: razadeiras and benzadeiras. I’ve already visited some even, thanks to my mother’s (really big) family and their (well, our) traditions. And speaking of family, it was nice to see one that looked a lot more like mine than the average white American family do. I chuckled during the Deathday scenes (before everything went to shit, obviously) because it was so much like what happens in my grandma’s house in São João.

So, I still keep reading this series. I love the world & the mythology, and the characters are nice enough. I just wish the writing was stronger. 3.5 stars.

PS: I’ve seen people say there is a love triangle in this book but I don’t really think so? Also, Alex is bi and her relationship with Rishi is precious.

Review: Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

Rating: ★★★½

At first I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish this book.

The writing wasn’t really my thing, to say the least. I’m not fond of writing styles where to me it seems like the author is trying too hard to be edgy or poetic. It’s not that I don’t like when the writing is beautiful and evocative (of course I do)… I just don’t like when I realize the author is trying to do something like that. Does it make sense?

The first 25% of Nevernight was a chore for me because of that. I just couldn’t deal with how annoying the narrator was (the story is told by someone who knew the protagonist), and the initial scenes almost bored me to tears (literally a sex scene and a murder scene, being told at the same time). The flashbacks were also really annoying, and I wasn’t interested in them.

The footnotes were a really nice idea though, but since I read the e-book they were all at the end of the chapter, and by the end of the chapter I didn’t remember what hell they were referring to anymore. So… useless for ebook readers, I guess?

Thankfully, things got better around the 25-30% mark, or when Mia arrives at the Red Church, but that’s also when I realized this book wouldn’t give much beyond its original world. The plot isn’t strong. To be honest, the middle of Nevernight is just about Mia and the other acolytes trying to stay alive to become Blades of the Red Church, and while some parts of it were very interesting, overall nothing about it was new or groundbreaking.The other characters are nice and I even like Mia and Tric’s relationship, but none managed to feel really alive for me.

I guess I was expecting a lot thanks to the hype and to the world the author created, but the story didn’t deliver. If it wasn’t for the ending the questions it raised, Nevernight would probably get only 2 stars from me. But I am curious now. I want to know what Mia really is, what are Mister Kindly’s (her shadow not-cat) intentions and how she got her powers – or how her powers were created in the first place. I’m not that interested in her revenge or even her future, but I’m a sucker for mysterious stuff, bet it powers or just forgotten history.

I’m going to read the sequel, but I’m not expecting much. 3.5 stars.

Review: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London—but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her ‘proper adventure’.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive—trickier than they hoped.

Rating: ★★★½

It’s been some months since I read this book, but its sequel, A Gathering of Shadows, just came out and I’ve read it already, but it wouldn’t make sense to post a review of it without writing about ADSOM first, right?

Review: Ravenhearth by Lotus Oakes

In a world covered by a deadly miasma, humans survive by way of the protection of powerful mages known as Keepers. In the town of Ravenhearth, the Keeper requests a companion every ten years. What happens to them after those ten years, no one knows, for none has ever returned.

Ash is a young orphan who dreams of learning magic. When the newest request for a companion is posted, he volunteers. Upon his arrival, he finds the Keeper’s home is nothing like the fearful whispers shared around the village. Instead, he slowly grows to become part of the close-knit family of the Keeper’s castle—and falling for Giles, the butler of Ravenhearth, rather than the mage he’s been sent there to attend.

Rating: ★★★½

Ravenhearth is a good book that suffers a little due to not so well developed secondary characters and a not so strong middle.

Review: Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble—as two desperate young women know all too well.

Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It’s a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially amongst the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires.

Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her—but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi’s hotheaded impulsiveness.

Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship’s captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

Rating: ★★★½

I was expecting a lot from this book, and in the end that might be what made it fall flat for me. It is by no means a bad book, but in my opinion it isn’t a great one either.