Derek Bailey's Blog: DB Books and Reviews, page 6

REVIEW: THE SWORD OF KAIGEN

Long live the emperor...THE SWORD OF KAIGEN is widely lauded as some of the best that Indie Fantasy has to offer. I'd heard so many wonderful things about it, that I stupidly splurged for the gorgeous Wraithmarked Kickstarter edition even though I'd never read this before. Thankfully that purchase paid off in the end. HOW I RATED IT 5/5 M.L. Wang's acclaimed novel is one of the few

JUNE READS

June was a pretty light month when it came to stuff I actually finished, but I made a lot of progress toward several awesome reads that will all be wrapping up in early July. Book of the Month: Quaint Creatures A delightful and charming 5/5 !The masterful Andrew D. Meredith strikes gold again, this time in the cozy fantasy subgenre. Charming characters, a creatively

REVIEW: QUAINT CREATURES (A SIDEWAYS TALE)

A cozy creature feature...Andrew D. Meredith is an author whose work I've come to enjoy a great deal. I've made my way through pretty much his entire back catalog at this point and was ready to immediately scoop up his first foray into the cozy subgenre.HOW I RATED IT 5/5 As someone who hasn't really read any cozy fantasy before, I didn't fully know what to expect with QUAINT CREATURES,

MINI REVIEW: THE HOBBIT AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS BOX SET

One does not simply reread The Lord of the Rings... I'd treated myself to this box set quite some time ago, but after far too long a delay, I finally decided to start rereading this wonderful series at the start of the new year and have been making my way through it month by month.  HOW I RATED IT 5/5 These incredible stories were well worth the purchase on their own, but

MAY READS

May did not include a massive list of completed books, but I made some awesome progress in my Stormlight Archive journey and also wrapped up my reread of The Lord of the Rings. On top of that, I even got around to a little poetry!1. Who Am I When I'm Not Watching? Even though I don't read much poetry, my reading experience with this was 5/5 !Written by a friend of mine who kindly

MINI REVIEW: WHO AM I WHEN I'M NOT WATCHING?

Who are we really, when we're not watching?... I always think about working more poetry into my reading, but I never really know what to turn to in order to do that. Fortunately, I have a friend who's a poet and he was kind enough to give me a copy of his book. HOW I RATED IT 5/5 I don't read a ton of poetry, but I had such a nice time with this short, moody, and reflective

REVIEW: DAWNSHARD (THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE # 3.5)

Those who do not sleep...After being absolutely blown away by OATHBRINGER, I had no choice but to dive right into the follow up novella, DAWNSHARD. The fact that it happened to be included with Audible Premium's rotating list of freebies made this an even more perfect way to kickstart my reading month. HOW I RATED IT 3/5 Although this novel-length "novella" has some high

APRIL READS

April was a much more productive reading month in terms of volume, largely thanks to the inclusion of a shorter story and a graphic novel. 1. OathbringerThis somehow managed to top the already 5/5 experience I had with the prior bookAll of my fears that this would be a huge letdown after how much I loved Words of Radiance ended up being completely shattered. While I would still

REVIEW: CHILDREN OF TIME (CHILDREN OF TIME #1)

You're not even my monkeys...I've heard a lot of praise for Tchaikovsky and his unique storytelling concepts. After having picked up CHILDREN OF TIME during an Audible promotion, I've been waiting for the mood to strike for me to give this a try.  HOW I RATED IT 4/5 While very strange in a lot of ways, this book certainly delivered on a unique premise and excecated it in a way

REVIEW: OATHBRINGER (THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE #3)

Say the words...I took a bit of a break from this series after reading WORDS OF RADIANCE partly because I wanted to broaden my audiobook experiences and partly because I was genuinely worried that nothing would be able to properly follow up the incredible experience that I had with it.  HOW I RATED IT 5/5 While I didn't think it was possible to top WORDS OF RADIANCE, this