The Child Thief by Brom

This may be stereotypical of me, but I love fairy tales, and I especially love new twists on fairy tales. This particular novel is a much darker version of Peter Pan than the one you see in Disney movies, although the original tale hints at some darkness as well.

Peter is quick, daring, and full of mischief—and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland.

Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose? 

There is always more to lose. 

Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries—one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils," Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children. 

There, Peter's dark past is revealed: left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

I don't think I've ever read a book written by an illustrator before, and The Child Thief has several of Brom's illustrations throughout the book, including the cover art. They're beautiful, and really help the reader picture the characters.

That said, the prose does not suffer at all. When I first heard that Brom was an artist first, I was somewhat skeptical about his writing ability. Oh how wrong I was. This book was a page-turner without having a simplistic writing style, and moved along without skimping on description. Without the illustrations, I still had a good idea what characters and places looked like and I was never bored.

The characters and the plot were where Brom shone, I think. The plot twisted and turned until I wasn't sure who to cheer for. By the end, it's unclear who is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy." Everyone (for the most part) thinks they're doing the right thing...but who really is? I love authors that are unafraid to deal with the sometimes ambiguous nature of morality. 

The world Brom opens up to the reader is dark, there's no question about that. From the beginning, the dregs of society are the center of our outside world. Peter brings children into Avalon from horrible situations, but that's not even the worst, most graphic part of the book. People are flayed alive, intestines are eaten out of live people, there are horrible descriptions of rape, torture, and one character is crucified. This book is not for the faint of heart, and this is not an uplifting book for the most part. Be prepared for main characters to be killed.

The book ends on a relatively good note though, though it may not be a happily ever after ending. I didn't walk away feeling depressed though...that's a pet peeve of mine with novels.

While the book was dark and gruesome, to the point where I thought about throwing in the towel a few times, it is definitely worth the read. I am so glad I kept reading. Brom's exploration of a tale that was already sort of creepy was amazing. I enjoyed the fact that I had to think about the subjective nature of right and wrong.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 4 / 5

Buy or Try? Try, merely because of the violence
More? Standalone

Content

Plot: 5 / 5

Setting: 4 / 5

Characters: 4 / 5

Style 
Pace: Fast 
Descriptiveness: Middlin'
Fantasy factor: Magical Realism to Low Fantasy

Amazon.com link

Angelslayer: The Winnowing War by K Michael Wright

The problem with obscure books is it's next to impossible to find a decent cover image. Nonetheless, I found one. I find the cover to be a little over the top, but I'd never heard of this author before and that doesn't happen very often with fantasy novels.

Set amidst an eerie and distant future, this novel tells the story of Etlantis-the mother city built in the shadows of Mt. Arom-and the possible end of the world. Believing in their right to rule the planet, the people of Etlantis sent ships to hunt the Western Seas. In them were the Nephilim-sons of Angels who had become addicted to human flesh and blood through the curse of Enoch. In the wake of their terror, the earth's human population has neared extinction. Unless the survivors can band together to destroy the monsters that ravaged their home, the end is all but certain. Featuring an imaginative range of characters and concepts, this is a harrowing vision of the line between heaven and earth.

I don't know about you, but I still don't get it the gist of the story from that description. Not to mention in my copy, it's partially covered up by a label. Still, everywhere I turned, it seemed like there was a positive review of Angelslayer, so I gave it a go.

I'm sure you noticed my last review was a full month ago. I've renewed this book 3 times, and I incurred a 20 cent fine. But I was determined not to put two books in the "could not finish" pile in a row...regardless of how slowly it dragged and how very much I wanted to read something else. Needless to say, this will be a short review because I spent way too much time trying to read this book already.


The writing style is very flowery. The scenes are gory. The cruelty and mutilation exhibited by the bad guys is...nauseating. Truly nauseating. And I'm a nurse. There are people who are drawn and quartered (and still alive and talking), nearly decapitated, drained of blood so it can be made into fine wine, stripped of all organs, bones etc and still alive, dead but kept alive by demons for organs...it's a horror book, really. Pure and simple. The story was confusing at best, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out who was fighting for whom and why they were fighting in the first place. I skimmed the last 200 pages or so, at least.


I think people who like Guy Gavriel Kay a lot might like this book. Also, people who like really gory horror or long drawn out battle scenes. I just did not enjoy it.

Bottom Line

(I am trying hard not to get wrapped up in the frustration of it taking so long to read and be objective)

Overall Rating: 1.5 / 5 

Buy or Try? Try
More? 1 / ? It's supposed to be a series. We'll see.

Content

Plot: 1 / 5 (lul whut?)

Setting: 2 / 5 (again, whut?)

Characters: 2 / 5 (Some weren't so bad I suppose.)

Style 
Pace: Slooooow.
Descriptiveness: Poetry
Fantasy factor: High Fantasy

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I just finished The Way of Kings about 10 minutes ago. Oh. My. God.

While I haven't reviewed them for this blog, I love love love Sanderson's previous works: Warbreaker (which you can get in ebook/pdf form for free here) Elantris, and The Mistborn trilogy. He has also written two Wheel of Time books, finishing the series for Robert Jordan.

I'm going to be fairly bold here and say that I believe The Stormlight Archive may prove to be his best work yet. I hesitate to say that it absolutely is, because I personally feel that the ending of a story is part of what makes a book great. However, naturally, this book's final pages are not the end of a story, but the beginning. This one isn't quite finished yet. From the book flap:

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths,

Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before Destination.
and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

Whenever I read Sanderson's books, my main thought is always "How the hell does he come up with this stuff?" Not in a bad way, in a very good way. I will admit that part of the magic in this book reminded me of Mistborn. One character can change the direction in which things respond to gravity. For example, he can "lash" himself to the ceiling and walk on the ceiling. Up becomes down to him. Then there's Stormlight, which seems to come from Highstorms, powerful and deadly storms that remind me of a hurricane on steroids. The winds can pick up boulders and rip a man to shreds. This Stormlight is present in their money, called spheres, and is also contained within tools called "fabrials" which can do various things, like providing heat or taking away pain.

I enjoyed the fact that the reader is just sort of "dropped" into the world, which is also fairly characteristic of Sanderson, but I found to be more noticeable in this book. We figure things out slowly, after being immersed in the culture, language, and events. It makes the reader a little confused at first...some of the words make little sense, and I found myself flipping for the expected index of characters/terms/what-have-you in the back (I'll go ahead and tell you there isn't one). I do feel, though, that it makes the book more suspenseful, because you're on pins and needles to find out what the heck is going on.

The characters are varied and numerous. Some characters only get a couple pages, other stories get a good chunk of the book. I would say the three main points of view are from Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan, as indicated on the book flap. For those of you who know who Hoid is, he plays much more of a role in this book than he did in any of the others. I appreciate Sanderson's skill with writing characters. It is very easy to tell who is good and who is bad, for the most part though. I don't particularly mind that, and in fact generally I enjoy it, but some folks believe that makes characters one-dimensional.

We are given a glimpse into something that may be evil for the greater good, however. There is also some discussion about morality, and whether something can be right without being moral. I imagine that this may be an overarching theme for these books.

I can see why The Way of Kings took a decade to write. The world is exquisitely described, planned out, and detailed. This is another area where I keep thinking "How the hell does he do it?" In addition to the descriptions in the book, maps are also included. There are drawings, sketches sometimes, at the beginning of every chapter as well. It would behoove the reader to pay attention to these, because they certainly add to the story and help illuminate some concepts.

The structure of the book is fairly typical of epic fantasy. There are 1005 pages, and 75 chapters divided into 5 parts. There is a prelude to the entire series at the beginning, followed by a prologue to The Way of Kings, and an epilogue at the end. Intermittently, there are "interludes," which contain stories from far off lands that are somehow connected to the events in the main story.

What makes this book special is the illustrations, which I already mentioned, and the text at the beginning of each chapter. Most, if not all, contain a quote taken from someone who is dying and seems to prophesy as their life ends. I find these to be inordinately creepy and intriguing at the same time. There is also an Ars Arcanum in the back, which talks about different kinds of fabrials and other bits of magical information. I would recommend waiting to read this until you finish the book, personally. It could contain some minor spoilers, and in the past I have found it is more fun to wait to read the Ars Arcanum, present in pretty much all Sanderson's books, until the end.

I really enjoyed The Way Of Kings. It was well written, and there was no "filler" as you would expect with a book that is over 1000 pages long. I had estimated that it would take me about 10-14 days to read this book, at the rate I usually read. It took me about 6. I really enjoy the way Sanderson writes. There's no pretension or meaningless description, but you are still absolutely immersed in the world he creates. I found myself thinking about "rotspren" as I was peeling peaches with some soft, overripe spots on them.

That's how you know an author has done his job well. At the beginning, you find yourself thinking "Well this is sort of strange..." and by the end it all makes perfect sense, and you wonder why the real world doesn't work that way.

Overall, I really don't have a single complaint, except that there's no publication date for the second one. :)

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 5 / 5

Buy or Try? Buy
More? 1 of 10 forthcoming in the Stormlight Archive

Content

Plot: 5 / 5 

Setting: 5 / 5 

Characters: 4.5 / 5 (bad guys are bad, good guys are good)

Style 
Pace: Fast
Descriptiveness: Prose
Fantasy factor: High fantasy

Amazon.com link

A Man Rides Through: Book II Mordant's Need

*some spoilers possible, since this is a second novel after all*

My first thought when I picked this up after Mirror of Her Dreams, and a continuing one as I slogged through this book was "Dear god, this is a long book."

I kept thinking that it had just been a long time since I'd read a series of novels (it has) or that I'm just not used to long books anymore (possible), but man. I became a slow, and rather reluctant, reader with this one.

I don't see any reason to post a description, since hopefully if you choose to read this series, you'll read the first before this book.

I found myself doing a lot of skimming with A Man Rides Through. My copy is some 600 pages long (it's a hardcover) and I was inching through it for a few weeks.

There were some moments where I was reminded why I was reading. I like the characters all right and I wanted to see what happened. The "battle royale" at the end was entertaining. I can't say it had me on pins and needles, but I read a bit faster and more thoroughly then. It seemed to take forever to get to that point though. There were some surprises, but the ending was fairly predictable and tied up neatly (not necessarily a bad thing at all). I also really liked the heroine's final confrontation, which I will spill no more beans about here.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 3.0 / 5 

Buy or Try? Try
More? This is book 2 of 2

Content

Plot: 2.5 / 5
Setting: 3.5 / 5
Characters: 3 / 5 (lots of redemption of characters in this book)

Style
Pace: Slow (sluggish in some places)
Descriptiveness: Fair 
Fantasy factor: Low

Amazon.com link

The Mirror of Her Dreams: Book I Mordant's Need

Someone asked me recently what I was reading. Being the brilliant wordsmith that I am, I said "Oh it's called The Mirror of Her Dreams. I know it sounds like a bad romance novel but it's really good. It's about um...um...this girl goes doubts she exists, right. And one day this guy comes through the mirror and takes her with him and....yeah. Some stuff happens. It's really good, I swear."

What I should have done is just read her the back cover and THEN told her what I thought about it.

The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life—until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land. Terisa is no champion. She wields neither magic nor power. And yet, much to her own surprise, when Geraden begs her to come back with him, she agrees.

Now, in a culture where women are little more than the playthings of powerful men, in a castle honeycombed with secret passages and clever traps, in a kingdom threatened from without and within by enemies able to appear and vanish out of thin air, Terisa must become more than the pale reflection of a person. For the way back to Earth is closed to her. And the enemies of Mordant will stop at nothing to see her dead.

That certainly sounds better than my stammering description, doesn't it? Nonetheless, this book is still hard to describe, and the back cover does not do it justice. Not to mention the cover makes it look like a cheesy romance novel.

I found this book to be very enjoyable overall. Donaldson writes very well, and his world is believable. The reader only sees a snapshot though, because for the most part the book is from Terisa's perspective, and there are things she wouldn't know. The picture seems sort of fuzzy around the edges.

A lot of the book is slow-paced, but the end had my nose glued to this book. I did some skimming, but I freely admit I easily lose patience with slower paced books books. Stick with it, the last half is worth the wait.

The system of magic is innovative, but I do feel as if I've seen it before. There is never an explanation of the mechanics of it, which leaves a little bit of mystery. The reader is in the dark as much as the Congery is.

My biggest complaint is that Terisa is so incredibly dense, mostly with regard to one Master she is totally inexplicably attracted to. However, while this irritated me, I could find reasons why a character would behave that way. Terisa was abused by her family, and is very naive and has absolutely no self-confidence. I find it plausible that the first man who pays attention to her might be irresistible and have power over her, given her background.

Bottom Line

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5 

Buy or Try? Try
More? This is book 1 of 2

Content

Plot: 3 / 5
Setting: 4 / 5
Characters: 2 / 5

Style
Pace: Slow 
Descriptiveness: Fair 
Fantasy factor: Low

Amazon.com link