Trey Stone's Blog, page 26

Book Review: Illidan by William King

Warcraft is the best fantasy series I’ve ever read!

For those of you who have paid any attention to this blog and my other Warcraft reviews, you’ve probably heard me say it before. And I’ll probably say it again.

It doesn’t hurt that I love the games, and know a lot of the lore and histories behind the universe inside and out. But I think anyone who loves fantasy will enjoy these books. I’m not sure what the term is for this kind of fantasy. It’s very fantastical. It’s not “Medieval kingdoms fight for power”-fantasy, it’s more “elves, and orcs, and demons, and other words, and powerful creatures and lots of magic”-fantasy. And it’s amazing!

This book is all about Illidan, who’s a bit of an important person in the Warcraft universe. A former Night Elf, altered by demonic magic, he’s a complicated person to understand. He’s been through a lot, done a lot of things, committed many crimes, and been punished for a lot of it. This book  aims to unravel a lot of it, but focus on his later years. It’s very much a story of What Happened? to Illidan, a story I didn’t realize I didn’t know. It filled in a lot of blanks between the more famous tales.

As far as I know, this is the first of William King’s Warcraft novels. Having a bunch of different authors write books in a series can swing both ways, but King definitely did a great job! I like his style, his pacing, and he seems to have great grasp of the universe.

The book feels very similar to Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden, which is by far the best Warcraft book.

I’m happy a bit disappointed at how some side plots and side characters kind of just disappeared out of the story. Some things where revealed to have happened by the end of the book, but we never got to read about it. Then again, Illidan is the focal point.

Another great book in the series, and one I’d highly recommend to any Warcraft and fantasy fan!

Book Review: The Dead Zone by Stephen King

Since I’m on a King binge that I just can’t seem to quit, I carried on with The Dead Zone, on someone’s recommendation. I’d never heard of this book before, at all, and was surprised to find out that it’s one of his earlier works.

Again, going in blind makes King’s books not feel so long for some reason. With IT, The Shining, The Dark Tower series and various other, the fact that I know something about them makes me want to rush ahead. With this one I was just along for the ride, and it was a pretty good one.

The short version of the plot is that John Smith ends up in a coma for several years and when he wakes up he has powers. The more I read of King, the more I realize he loves supernatural powers that start with tele. Whether they are -pathic, -kinetic, -portation or anything else, he loves it. I kept feeling like I was reading both The Shining and Carrie while I read this, and I liked it. The premise is strong and he does a hell of a good job of building a story around it (as usual).

The ending however, sucked. I’ve heard a lot of people say that King writes terrible endings, but this is the first time I’ve agreed. I was very surprised when what I thought was going to be the main plot just fizzled out somewhere around the 40% mark. After that, it kind of felt like King didn’t know what to do, so he just kept on writing for another few months until he quit.

So far, this is at the bottom of my list of King books. Disappointing.

Book Review: Malice by John Gwynne

A friend of mine gave me this whole series (four books in total) and recommended that I read them because he was sure I would love them. So far I’ve only gotten through this first one, but he’s not entirely wrong.

The plot is one you probably feel like you’ve heard before. In a fantasy world full of warring kingdoms and magical creatures (giants among some), weird things are starting to happen. There’s talk of prophecy, of a change coming. A war.

Of course there is some young protagonist – Corban – who finds himself in the middle of all of this, while he at the same time keeps busy with growing up and becoming a soldier. You know, the usual stuff fantasy protagonists do.

I liked Gwynne’s book. Enough that I want to carry on with the series. The next book is ready and waiting. At the same time, I agree with what a lot of reviews are saying: it’s very slow. At least the first half. It picks up after that, but the first half is almost boring. Not only is it slow of pace, but it just doesn’t seem to be driven by much. It starts off with a prologue (that I didn’t like it and wrote about over here) and then it just kind of dilly-dallies around the place, with some talk of prophecies that no one seems to care about. I feel like he laid all of these things on the table and then just forgot about them for the first half of the book.

But then the plot picks up, and I really loved the second half. I’m also very excited to start book 2.

One thing I struggled with (which maybe led to my dislike of the first half) was Gwynne’s awkward writing style. (Or lack of editing, call it what you will). Below are four examples (of many more) where I struggled with the way he phrased himself. These are taken directly out of the book as they are, except that I’ve put the ‘He‘ into sentence 2, 3 & 4 (in place of character names).

1 – “The huntsman crashed to the ground, slowly began to rise.”

2 – “He lurched to one knee, reaching awkwardly to pluck the arrow from his shoulder. With a grunt it pulled free and he dropped it clattering on the stones, grasped his sword hilt.”

3 – “He had staggered, was clutching at the black stone of the battlement.”

4 – “He surged into the room, stood frozen for a moment.”

This is completely off to me. It feels like he’s edited these sentences after the initial draft, and then forgot to fix them completely. At first I thought that it was just that, a case of poor editing, but there’s so many. More than those I’ve listed here.

But once I got past that, the book was good, and I’m intrigued by the series. It’s the kind of series I hope can measure up to George R. R. Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ (because we’re all waiting for the next book in that series, aren’t we?) At least these books are all written.

Recommended for fantasy lovers!

 

 

Book Review: Ghoulslayer by Darius Hinks

Pure, undeniable fantasy. I loved it.

This is the first warhammer book I’ve read, and I got it for two reason: 1) it was on offer, and 2) I love warhammer and everything about. I never used to play much other than a few stints while I was at uni, but I loved the models and I used to collect them when I was younger. I still have a few in the attic somewhere, and I’ve played a lot of the video games from the series.

But I’d never read any of the books, so I didn’t know what I was in for.

You might be able to tell from the cover that this is a ‘Gotrek Gurnisson novel’. He’s the beefy guy with the mohawk, and he’s awesome. This is evidently a book in a series, about him, and when the book starts we’re kind of in the middle of a whole series of adventure. He’s being followed by a couple of people, two of which make it very clear that they don’t want to be there, and Gotrek is trying to find Nagash, a God that has promised him his doom. Gotrek wants to die.

In one sense, jumping into a book in the middle of a series like this was a bit confusing. On the other hand, it was amazing. It was so pure, so fun, so entertaining. I had to pay close attention to pick up all the details that I probably should already know, who people were, where they come from and all the world building and stuff, but once I did, it was amazing.

There was a feeling that this novel didn’t waste any time. And I’m not just talking about the pacing and the flow of the plot, it was more of you’re either in or you’re out, sort of feeling. It was great.

Highly recommend this for fantasy lovers and warhammer lovers alike. I think I’ll be on the lookout for more Gotrek Gurnisson novels. He’s pretty awesome.

Book Review: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

BETTER THAN THE SHINING!

I finally get it. I went in completely blind with this. Hadn’t heard a thing, other than that it was the follow-up to The Shining.

Now, if this is what it feels like to read King novels when they’re new and unknown, when your expectations aren’t painted by years of hype and talk, then I get it. This was amazing.

King does what he always does. It’s massive book with that familiar slow pace and page upon page of tension-building. There’s backstories within backstories, and it feels like it’s going to go on forever.

At the same time, this book didn’t feel long to me. Not like so much of his other stuff. But it was amazing. I kept finding myself having a hard time putting it down.

I’d read The Shining right before this. You can find my review for that here. If you haven’t read Doctor Sleep and are planning to, then I’d recommend not reading The Shining before you do. You get enough drips and hints and throwbacks to those events anyway.

The story was amazing. It was exciting to see where Danny Torrance had ended up, to see where The Shining had taken him, and to see how he turned out.

As with many of his other books though, I didn’t find it scary. A lot of his books claim to be horror and I rarely find they are. This is a supernatural thriller, at best. Still great though.

As soon as I’ve read some of his other classic, I think I’ll turn my focus to his more recent books. It’s amazing to be going in completely blind.

Living Apart and Staying Productive

A few weeks ago I tweeted about my wife going back home. You see, we live apart (we have for a while) and because of Covid-19 we got to spend a lot of time together because she basically became stranded where I live.

Those tweets always gets loads of response, which is really sweet. I like that people care so much.

But a lot of people also question it, which I understand. They question the long distance stuff, they ask why we’ve chosen to do this, for how long, how it’s going and wonder about lots of different stuff. (The answers to which are: for work, for at least another year, and we’re great at it).

And last time, someone asked me how I managed to stay productive.

I was confused at first.

Did they mean while my wife was with here with me, thinking we spent all time just holding each other (which of course we did), or while we were apart, thinking I spent all my time missing her (which of course I do)?

They said they meant both. Or either. Anyway, the point was that they figured it must be difficult to have your whole life situation change like that. Sometimes you’re together, and you have one set of routines, and suddenly you’re apart and it all changes.

For me – or I should say us – it’s easy for both of us to stay productive.

When we’re apart, it’s a way to pass time. I work a steady job and do my writing on the side, whereas my wife does multiple different projects all the time that constitutes her full-time work. So she’s constantly working.

When we’re apart, we try to spend that time together, over some kind of video conference thing. We don’t always talk much, but we’re there, me working on my stuff, her on hers. The hardest part of that is really just scheduling it, but other than, it’s very easy to stay productive.

Luckily, we’re still in the same time zone, so we don’t have to do a whole thing with that, which means that we can make time to do our hustles together.

When we’re together, especially the last time we were – at the height of Covid-19 – it’s slightly different. I was lucky enough to be able to work from home, which meant that I’d do my 9 – 5 (actually my 8 – 4 (who the hell starts work as late as 9?)) and then we’d continue hustling.

Of course we’d “lose” more time in being together (and of course that’s not really lost time), going out for social distant hiking, having movie nights, making some special dinners and stuff like that, but still, it was pretty easy to just keep it all going.

I suppose it’s easy for us because we’re two about it. I don’t have to find time to do my writing outside of my wife’s schedule (not that I couldn’t if I wanted to), but she also has stuff she does right there with me.

And when we’re apart… well, we got to have something to do while we pass the time.

Why I Sometimes Don’t Like Prologues

Let me preface this by saying I always read a prologue, if it’s there. I’ve realized that some people dislike them so much they’ll just skip them altogether, and that’s not where I’m at. If I’m reading a book, I read all parts of the book.

Also, I don’t mind them. There’s nothing inherently bad with a prologue. If you write them I read them and I don’t want people to stop using prologues for my sake.

But I sometimes don’t like prologues.

I’m not saying I hate them, but I think they should serve a purpose. I realize a lot of people find this notion strange, which is why I decided to write a post to explain my viewpoint. This whole post was inspired by a book I’m reading at the moment, which I will discuss below, but first, two things that I think a prologue has to do to work:

1  – A prologue must be able to not be Chapter 1. To explain: if you can swap Prologue for Chapter 1 in the heading, and it still the same book in essence, then it’s not a good prologue.

And here some people will argue, “But why does it matter what we call them? It’s just a word, after all.” Then, I ask you, why call it a prologue to begin with?

A prologue (by the definition I’m used to at least) is a separate introductory section to a work, that establishes context and gives background details. If it’s just the start of a story, then what is it introducing?

2 – A prologue needs a purpose. It needs to be necessary.

This is in essence what sparked the whole post. I love a good mythological world-building prologue. You know the whole backstory of how world came to be, Resting on the back of a turtle floating in the eye of a giant sleeping in the nether, that kind of stuff. That can be really useful to present the history of a world and explain where we are at the point of the story. Another useful type of prologue is the, If we do this thing now, nothing will ever be the same. Forty years from now, the consequences will be dire! and then chapter 1 starts off forty years from now and the consequences happen.

I’m reading a fantasy book at the moment that has this kind of prologue (I won’t mention the author or book, because I don’t want to spoil anything). It’s short, only 4 pages long, but basically it’s about a guy who seeks out some evil powers. It becomes very clear that this is what he’s doing, but then, he tells us why.

I re-read this section, because I couldn’t understand why the author would do that. Now that I’ve gotten a little bit into the story, and I’m seeing this character again (18 years later), I know that he’s done evil things and harnesses some evil power. Even when the author drops subtle hints about what happened ages ago, I know exactly what he means, because he told me. So while he’s foreshadowing and slowly revealing the backstory about this character, he’s already told me far too much (in my opinion) about him already.

Of course, I haven’t read the entire book yet (or the 4-book series for that matter), so there could be some cool twist to all of this that I’m not seeing. Maybe things aren’t what they seem, and maybe the guy is actually good and did all of this out of necessity. And if that happens, then I’ll take back what I’ve said about the prologue being unnecessary…

BUT!

But if that’s the case, the author has also strung me along and made me make assumptions and have feelings toward this character in a way I would prefer he didn’t. Even if the plan is to finally reveal that he’s good, I don’t see the purpose in making a big statement about his evil in a prologue, when I’m already getting a lot of hints in chapter 5 (that are now useless because I already know/assume he’s evil.) If the author wanted me to assume he was evil, why not just stick with the slow build?

Is that pay-off of this prologue worth it? Maybe. I don’t know yet. But I assume not.

Anyway – prologues. They’re not bad. I’ll read ’em if you keep writing ’em. But they’re not always good.

In my opinion.

Book Review: Angel (Monster of Earth #2) by Patrick F. Johnson

This book follows on from Frank Ford’s adventures, after he’s been appointed by an alien race to be the custodian of Earth.

(You can find my review of book 1 here if you want to get caught up.)

In the second book, our focus is taken away from Earth and onto other exciting planets. The gang is still the same collection of Frank’s friends (from what I can remember at least), but there’s a lot of new ones joining us along the way. At the same time there’s some romance, some bromance, some coming-of-age and a whole lot of action.

For the last review, I described Johnson’s writing as light-hearted. That’s very much still the case. It’s fun, it’s action-packed and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s pure badass sci-fi action.

I would perhaps liked if it was a bit more serious at times though. This might be me showing a preference toward a certain type of darker storyline, but I sometimes wished I felt like there was a little bit more at stake.

When it really matters though, Johnson has the ability to turn to a darker, more serious tone. The kind of tone endings are made of.

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I’m intrigued to see where Frank’s adventures will take him.

And if you’re in the market for a fun, easy-going, almost super hero-like sci-fi series, then Monster of Earth is probably just the thing for you!

The Gatewatch – Book launch and interview with author Joshua Gillingham

The Gatewatch is a fantasy novel with roots in Norse mythology and it releases today! I was lucky enough to chat with author Joshua Gillingham about his exciting debut.

 

Hi Joshua. Tell me about your book. I can guess what it’s about from the cover, but what’s the story?

 

Hello Trey! Thank you for having me on. The Gatewatch is a troll-hunting misadventure inspired by the Norse Myths and Icelandic Sagas; it is my debut novel and I am excited to share that it will officially launch on May 17th, 2020. The Gatewatch is perfect for fans of all-things Viking ages fourteen and up. Here is a quick overview of the story.

Torin Ten-Trees and his closest companions, Bryn and Grimsa, set out to join The Gatewatch and become trollhunters. When a troupe of meddling dwarves throws them off course they are captured by trolls and taken as prisoners to a secret gathering deep underground. There they learn that an ancient giant has crowned himself king of the trolls and plans to utterly destroy The Gatewatch. Their perilous journey back to the land of sun and stars will stretch their strength to the limit, strain their wits, and demand an unspeakable sacrifice. But will it be enough to defeat the Troll King? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out…

 

That sounds exciting! Can we expect more books in the series?

 

Yes! In fact, I am already finished Book 2: The Everspring and am well into Book 3: The Elder Trees. Therefore the Saga of Torin Ten-Trees, as it currently stands, will be a classic fantasy trilogy. My hope is to release Book 2: The Everspring late in 2020 after it has run the long and bloody gauntlet of the editing process.

 

I love your cover. Did you have a hand in how it ended up looking or was that all up to the designer?

 

Ah yes, the cover! I did have a part to play in its design, but only a small one. The art is by the incomparable Hela Rosova, though many in the online Viking history community might know better by her DeviantArt username, Hellanim. Her artwork is absolutely stunning and the moment I saw some of her depictions of the Norse Myths online I knew I wanted her to design my book covers. We connected online (she is in Europe and I’m in Canada so we had to manage time zones) and we immediately bonded over our interest in the myths and the challenges of modern representations. It was incredible watching the cover take shape and, without a doubt, it exceeded all my expectations. Hela is so knowledgeable about the myths and has such an eye for detail that I truly could not have had better luck finding a cover artist for The Gatewatch. I am glad to announce that she is already designing the cover for the next book in the series!

 

May 17th is the Norwegian Constitution Day. It seems fitting for a book rooted in Norse folklore. Were you aware of this or is this by chance?

 

Yes, this was definitely intentional. The Gatewatch was actually slated for release on Leif Erikson Day (October 9th, 2019), but due to some publication delays it was pushed back a few months. When my editor at Crowsnest Books suggested a launch in May I knew that May 17th, or Syttende Mai as it is known in Norway, would be the perfect day to launch. I am personally quite new to this whole book marketing thing and so I’ve been learning a lot on the fly. There are some great articles online if you don’t have a background in such things and, of course, publishers are also a great resource because they are in the business of selling books and know it best.

 

Thank you for chatting with me Joshua, and good luck with the book. What are you hoping your readers are left with when they read The Gatewatch?

 

The Gatewatch was born of my fascination with the Norse Myths and with Viking history. I hope to have distilled some of that feeling into its essence in the narrative of the story. If readers experience a glimpse of that same awe and wonder then I have accomplished what I set out to do. Further, I think that a lot of modern Sci Fi and Fantasy tends towards a certain brand of amoral dystopic pessimism which can be quite corrosive to the human spirit. The characters in The Gatewatch face a dire threat but their response is not to give up or to view the whole situation as hopeless or to commit heinously immoral acts in order to save themselves while abandoning others. Instead, they use every ounce of strength and wit in an all-or-nothing gambit to save their homeland realm of Noros, an effort that requires both boldness and virtue. In that sense, I hope that readers finish the book with a sense of instilled courage which inspires them to be brave and face the ‘trolls’ that they encounter in their own life.

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https://www.joshuagillingham.ca/

Well, there you have it. The Gatewatch by Joshua Gillingham releases today, and sounds like it will fit right at home with any lover of Viking history and Norse mythology.

Book Review: The Fall – Reversion by S.T. Campitelli

Finally!

It’s been more than two years since I read the first book in this excellent series – the review of which you can find here – and I’m so happy to finally have this in my hand.

I remember when I read the first one, thinking it was one of the best indie book I’d ever read. I never knew indie books could be so awesome. The short rundown of the plot is that it’s the year 2052, and Australia has fallen to a virus that turns people into a kind of terrifying zombie-vampire monster. Those that haven’t turned, try their best to survive, and the majority of our cast lives inside the Kulin Wallcom, a great big safe harbor for the people of Melbourne (those that are left anyway).

I’m not going to say much more about what happens in book 2, because I don’t want to spoil the first one, but we pick up pretty much where we left off and it’s amazing.

It’s weird that I like zombie books so much, because I don’t care much for movies or TV shows of the same kind. But one of my favorite book series is The Passage by Justin Cronin, and this is a strong contender for the top of the list. Campitelli knows his stuff, no doubt, and there’s ton of research that has gone into this.

There’s also an incredible amount of world building, and Campitelli makes it looks so easy. Even when he has bits of modern technology that conveniently sorts out the protagonists problem, it’s done in an immersive and integrated way so that you don’t feel cheated. I love it.

The downsides, if there are any, is perhaps that I loved book 1 too much. The first in the series was so excellent, that book 2 has to work really hard to compete. It’s a good position to be in, albeit a difficult one, and it’s perhaps the reason I felt book 2 was a bit slow off the ground, to get the ball rolling so to speak.

I also struggle a bit with getting into Campitelli’s writing style (though I really like it), due to the amount of phonetics and Australian slang, but that probably speaks more of me than the author I guess.

I realize that this book might not be everyone’s cup of tea in the middle of Covid-19 and all that is happening in the world, but if you’re anything like me and find yourself drawn toward that kind of thing, then I HIGHLY recommend this book.

HIGHLY.