Hey all!
This week's reviews will put two trilogies (one realistic fantasy and one epic fantasy) into their crosshairs. The trilogies are:
Godblind by Anna Stephens (@AnnaSmithWrites) and Winternight by Katherine Arden (@arden_katherine). I've decided to review the two of them because they were both unique in their own way. They captured my attention and didn't let it go and I even missed some video gaming time to read them.
I'll talk about Winternight first.
The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden:
Winternight starts with The Bear and the Nightingale. This came out in 2011 and it has taken Katherine Arden about seven years to finish the trilogy. The Bear and the Nightingale. I'm reasonably sure you've all heard of it by now. If not - this is your chance. Buy the book. Read it. It's definitely worth it. Then buy the other two and read them as well.
The story of Winternight begins with some background (but it's by no means boring) about how a witch girl was born and the first few years of her wild life in 14th century Russia.
As the rest of Rus starts believing in a God and the monks who tend to this God the (hearth-)spirits/devils/demons (called chyerti in plural) of old Rus are forgotten more and more... which makes them fade and become powerless. But not in Vasya's family. Vasya (the descendant of an ancient line of witches) has the sight and makes it a point to deal with chyerti just as she would with any human ally. They are her friends.
Trouble arrives in the form of the Bear - the king of chaos - and Morozko - the winter king and king of death. I don't want to go too deeply into either of the storylines but suffice to say they divide into a really beautiful romance (albeit not so much in the first book) and a harrowing and uncaring enemy. In the second and third books (The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch) these villains and lovers are elaborated on and more dangers are introduced. Rus has to fight foes both religious/spiritual and worldly if it is going to survive.
Let me first of all say I'm not into romance. At all. I dislike the cringey YA romances where everything is perfect and a kiss is treated as if someone found the holy grail and I also despise the usually epic fantasy romance which is a) overdone and b) smarmy and rather fucked-up most of the time. However. I really enjoyed the romance in the Winternight trilogy. It's not obvious (at first) and it's subtle throughout. It doesn't make the (female) main character go crazy with besottedness. It is a partnership between two strong people and neither one takes crap from the other.
The second reason this trilogy is so beautiful is the story itself. You could say it meanders a bit - but at the same time the plot is razor-sharp without fluff. It meanders in the way that you're sucked into a magical kingdom and neither want to nor can leave. It's beautifully written and 100% worth the hours you'll spend on it. (And I don't say this about many books). It is truly a masterpiece of combined Russian folklore with... beauty.
Heck. I don't even like horses (at all! I'm serious!) but I really loved the horse-characters in this book. THAT is saying something considering all other books I've started that had talking horses were swiftly dropped.
Don't believe me still what a masterpiece this is? Buy it and see for yourself.
The next books we're taking a look at is Anna Stephen's Godblind trilogy.
The Godblind trilogy by Anna Stephens:
I'm not usually someone who likes 'THIS IS ALL PROPHECY' kind of storylines, and I still don't, but Anna Stephens must have done something right. I could put neither book down while reading them and it's still in my mind two weeks later.
The story was just incredibly well-written (with several POVs) and I just really wanted to know what happens (and what will happen in the third installment) at all times in the book. That being said... I disliked a lot of the characters. There are some whose only purpose seems to be to 'be there' (prophecy) and others who just change their personality in the blink of an eye. Then again this isn't really a problem per se. It's just how it is and my preference (and nothing is 100% perfect). I'm sure there are people who like Dom.
This trilogy then is completely different to Katherine Arden's Winternight. It's an epic fantasy whereas Winternight is more historical fantasy set in the 'real' world. The only reason they're in the same post is because they're both fantasy and I really enjoyed both of them in the last two-three weeks (and none of the other books I read was as good).
A bit more about the Godblind prophecy:
A lot of Godblind and Darksoul relies on it. Prophecy here, prophecy there, and one of the main characters is a prophet, and another (ok, more than one others) the CHOSEN ONE. As a result, a lot of the events in the book are caused by prophecy (at some point in Godblind even inexplicably, as in, it didn't make a lot of sense to happen this way), and yet, while reading it, it doesn't feel bad/like 'book explains everything because of prophecy' (cough Harry Potter). Indeed, the characters are very headstrong, and each have their own will, goals, and desires, and the prophecy part... Is not actually very very relevant at all. I'm guessing there might be another series after this is completed to make sense of the prophecy, or the prophecy itself is some kind of... 'It could apply to anyone'/'There are multiple peolpe it could apply to' plot.
Anyway. Godblind and Darksoul were the first really cool books I've read since Tim Pratt's The Dreaming Stars. I can guarantee you'll be sucked in and not let go once you start. In this case, the sucked in part also comes from the writing style itself. Anna Stephens doesn't muck around with endless description and boring fluff, but goes straight into action every single scene. It reads almost like a thriller, but it's definitely epic fantasy, and I'm really hoping the author will write more books in this world because I'm curious about all those countries mentioned which doesn't feature in these books.
The only caveat of the amazingness of these books I'd have to mention is the gore. The author's writing style makes it easy to read even when someone's getting nailed to a cross BUT the violence/blood/gore IS there. If you're a bit twitchy or faint-hearted this might not be the good for you. Then again. I usually don't read this kind of stuff and GOT was too much for me (I had to skip over a lot of writing/chapters while reading it) but as I've said above Anna Stephens has a very clean writing style which can put some distance between you and the book. It's almost sterile sometimes and definitely not as raw as GRRM's GOT but still quite immersive.
Does this sound like something you'd like? Read it and let me know in the comments what you thought! I'd love to get some input!
WriteBot.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Reviews of three aquatic horror/sci-fi books
Hey everyone!
This week's reviews will focus on aquatic horror! I've always loved the ocean and water and therefore wanted to read something scary connected to it. I wanted horror... I got sci-fi and stories that mostly just fizzled out. Here are three ocean-themed books in short review:
(Note: I'm not going to include blurbs. Those are easy to find on google or if you click on the titles of the books in this post.)
The Swarm by Frank Schätzing: This was arguably the best aquatic horror/sci-fi I've read in the last few weeks. There is a reason it's a bestseller even though it's about 900 pages long all in all. This book is set in the real world although with sci-fi elements (in the form of intelligent bacteria) who are making a mess of the planet. It's not creepy and horror-ish per se but has a sort of slowly building 'terrible tension' instead. A lot of characters die - and all of their deaths are justified. There isn't much needless information (or red-shirt death) in the book and everything serves a purpose. The writing is sometimes a bit too philosophical for me (I'm not into long monologues about the state of the world, ethics, and morals) but for most of the book incredibly sharp with no words wasted. However, there are a lot of explanation scenes, where one character will be ignorant, and another the 'teacher'. These are quite obviously included to clue in the reader... which would be fine if it weren't so obvious and always handled the same way.
Character A: 'Do you know about this?'
Character B: 'Uh... no...'/'Uh... it would be good if you refreshed my knowledge!'/'Uh... I only know the basics.'
Character A: 'Here we go! A three-page tirade on THIS VERY SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC SUBJECT.'
It's not terrible and a lot of it is useful but I'd still argue it isn't strictly needed to advance the story. Of course... if you're a science buff then this is right up your alley.
All in all the book was amazing and the whole of the 900 pages only took me some three days (not even reading the whole day) to finish simply because it was well written (I should probably say translated because I read it in English and it's a German book) and without fluff. I definitely recommend reading this!
Sphere by Michael Crichton: Here is a book that started well and ended disappointing. In a lot of instances Sphere is marketed as horror - but it's really not unless you're already afraid of the ocean and the creatures living in it. It actually is almost pure thriller with some sci-fi (could have guessed that by Crichton's other work). And because it is a thriller the writing drew me in immediately and didn't let me go until the end. I even did more than thrice my usual 30 minutes of stationary bike exercise while reading it. Hello 100 minutes of hard biking!
The actual story started out great as well. There's something at the bottom of the ocean and it's presumedly alien in origin. How cool is that! I'm sure there are more books with the premise (The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham comes to mind... but that was also a disappointment) but let's give Crichton a try! It was good until about 70% in. I'm beginning to think a lot of books are. Then it became weird in a bad way. The premise of the alien spaceship crashing into Earth's oceans (with perhaps an alien prisoner trapped in the prison 'sphere' of the book's title) and weird/creepy shit happening while people are trapped in a submarine station at the bottom of the ocean is really cool... But then it turns out that while the sphere might be alien the spaceship really isn't. Instead it's human and from the future. Huh? A first red flag. Time travel stories usually don't work. But this is time travel PLUS some weird alien junk being deposited in 'the past' (the book's present). It gets more disappointing from then on. There are no aliens. The prison sphere doesn't have a prisoner. The predator who's been hunting the trapped-undersea people and killing a lot of them is the figment of one human's imagination. The prison sphere isn't a prison but some sort of voodoo ayurevedic The Alchemist -style 'you can make anything true if you just believe in it' yogi shit. It gives people the power to make THINGS true! And some people just have creepy horror ideas in their heads that haunt the whole expedition.
Zzz...
And then comes the ending... which is neither logical nor reasonable. The main characters (including a power-hungry woman) agree to 'forget' about the power they've found which in effect makes the power cease to exist. That would be ok all in all (since the book's disappointing conclusion has already been established) but doesn't make sense. Why would forgetting you have the power to do something remove all the physical evidence of the source of that power (as the book suggests)? Well. It doesn't. And there are hints that at least one of the characters retains the power anyway. Anyway. I don't recommend this book. It simply doesn't live up to its awesome premise and all you'll feel after reading it is let down.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire): The book started out well. The beginning was creepy and tense like a proper horror and had me all high-strung with anticipation. I was very excited for the rest of the book. The first two thirds of ItDD lived up to that promise. Things became direr and direr the more words were read. The horror premise of face-eating mermaids in the Mariana Trench was paying off! Then suddenly around the 75% mark everything... fizzled out. The plot became boring and gratuitous. The main characters were in no danger whatsoever. Of a whole of six main characters all six survived. The rest of the cast (supporting characters and red shirts) were dying in troves and getting their faces eaten off but the main characters had so much plot armour (I'm guessing because the author really really wanted to have a happy ending to the book) the whole book was ruined. The only characters who died were the assholes every reader wants to die anyway. The story lost approximately all of its credibility when ALL the good main characters survived and ALL the bad guys died. Had the author not been trying so hard to keep her darlings alive the stakes might have been higher and tension up until the end of the book. As it was it was quite evident McGuire was afraid of killing her darlings (even though at least a few out of the six should have died) and therefore this book doesn't get a recommendation from me.
Have you read any of these books? Let me know what you think! I'd love to know your opinion on these books!
WriteBot.
This week's reviews will focus on aquatic horror! I've always loved the ocean and water and therefore wanted to read something scary connected to it. I wanted horror... I got sci-fi and stories that mostly just fizzled out. Here are three ocean-themed books in short review:
(Note: I'm not going to include blurbs. Those are easy to find on google or if you click on the titles of the books in this post.)
The Swarm by Frank Schätzing: This was arguably the best aquatic horror/sci-fi I've read in the last few weeks. There is a reason it's a bestseller even though it's about 900 pages long all in all. This book is set in the real world although with sci-fi elements (in the form of intelligent bacteria) who are making a mess of the planet. It's not creepy and horror-ish per se but has a sort of slowly building 'terrible tension' instead. A lot of characters die - and all of their deaths are justified. There isn't much needless information (or red-shirt death) in the book and everything serves a purpose. The writing is sometimes a bit too philosophical for me (I'm not into long monologues about the state of the world, ethics, and morals) but for most of the book incredibly sharp with no words wasted. However, there are a lot of explanation scenes, where one character will be ignorant, and another the 'teacher'. These are quite obviously included to clue in the reader... which would be fine if it weren't so obvious and always handled the same way.
Character A: 'Do you know about this?'
Character B: 'Uh... no...'/'Uh... it would be good if you refreshed my knowledge!'/'Uh... I only know the basics.'
Character A: 'Here we go! A three-page tirade on THIS VERY SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC SUBJECT.'
It's not terrible and a lot of it is useful but I'd still argue it isn't strictly needed to advance the story. Of course... if you're a science buff then this is right up your alley.
All in all the book was amazing and the whole of the 900 pages only took me some three days (not even reading the whole day) to finish simply because it was well written (I should probably say translated because I read it in English and it's a German book) and without fluff. I definitely recommend reading this!
Sphere by Michael Crichton: Here is a book that started well and ended disappointing. In a lot of instances Sphere is marketed as horror - but it's really not unless you're already afraid of the ocean and the creatures living in it. It actually is almost pure thriller with some sci-fi (could have guessed that by Crichton's other work). And because it is a thriller the writing drew me in immediately and didn't let me go until the end. I even did more than thrice my usual 30 minutes of stationary bike exercise while reading it. Hello 100 minutes of hard biking!
The actual story started out great as well. There's something at the bottom of the ocean and it's presumedly alien in origin. How cool is that! I'm sure there are more books with the premise (The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham comes to mind... but that was also a disappointment) but let's give Crichton a try! It was good until about 70% in. I'm beginning to think a lot of books are. Then it became weird in a bad way. The premise of the alien spaceship crashing into Earth's oceans (with perhaps an alien prisoner trapped in the prison 'sphere' of the book's title) and weird/creepy shit happening while people are trapped in a submarine station at the bottom of the ocean is really cool... But then it turns out that while the sphere might be alien the spaceship really isn't. Instead it's human and from the future. Huh? A first red flag. Time travel stories usually don't work. But this is time travel PLUS some weird alien junk being deposited in 'the past' (the book's present). It gets more disappointing from then on. There are no aliens. The prison sphere doesn't have a prisoner. The predator who's been hunting the trapped-undersea people and killing a lot of them is the figment of one human's imagination. The prison sphere isn't a prison but some sort of voodoo ayurevedic The Alchemist -style 'you can make anything true if you just believe in it' yogi shit. It gives people the power to make THINGS true! And some people just have creepy horror ideas in their heads that haunt the whole expedition.
Zzz...
And then comes the ending... which is neither logical nor reasonable. The main characters (including a power-hungry woman) agree to 'forget' about the power they've found which in effect makes the power cease to exist. That would be ok all in all (since the book's disappointing conclusion has already been established) but doesn't make sense. Why would forgetting you have the power to do something remove all the physical evidence of the source of that power (as the book suggests)? Well. It doesn't. And there are hints that at least one of the characters retains the power anyway. Anyway. I don't recommend this book. It simply doesn't live up to its awesome premise and all you'll feel after reading it is let down.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire): The book started out well. The beginning was creepy and tense like a proper horror and had me all high-strung with anticipation. I was very excited for the rest of the book. The first two thirds of ItDD lived up to that promise. Things became direr and direr the more words were read. The horror premise of face-eating mermaids in the Mariana Trench was paying off! Then suddenly around the 75% mark everything... fizzled out. The plot became boring and gratuitous. The main characters were in no danger whatsoever. Of a whole of six main characters all six survived. The rest of the cast (supporting characters and red shirts) were dying in troves and getting their faces eaten off but the main characters had so much plot armour (I'm guessing because the author really really wanted to have a happy ending to the book) the whole book was ruined. The only characters who died were the assholes every reader wants to die anyway. The story lost approximately all of its credibility when ALL the good main characters survived and ALL the bad guys died. Had the author not been trying so hard to keep her darlings alive the stakes might have been higher and tension up until the end of the book. As it was it was quite evident McGuire was afraid of killing her darlings (even though at least a few out of the six should have died) and therefore this book doesn't get a recommendation from me.
Have you read any of these books? Let me know what you think! I'd love to know your opinion on these books!
WriteBot.
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