O. Bender (Author of Ripper's Court)

O. Bender made a comment in the group Review Group — Group 397. General - Mod. E.K. topic " E.K. wrote: "Please can you email me a screenshot when you get a chance so I can mark you complete. Thanks" Done ...more "
Jun 15, 2026 10:32AM
O. Bender joined the groups Get Honest Book Reviews without Review Swaps, Review Group, and Free Books ARC & Beta Readers – New Authors
Jun 15, 2026 08:22AM
O. Bender rated a book really liked it The Strains of Malice (The Nessemiah, #1) by Andrew Beardmore (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
An ambitious, confidently written multi-POV epic with a genuinely original world and two memorably monstrous villains - its reach is both its biggest strength and its biggest structural risk, and as the deliberate opening movement of a tetralogy it a ...more
Jun 15, 2026 08:01AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Strains of Malice by Andrew Beardmore. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Strains of Malice by Andrew Beardmore <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
O. Bender and 12 other people liked Zoë Collins's review of Ripper's Court: "A Difficult But Remarkable Read When I started reading this novel, I expected a Victorian murder mystery set against the backdrop of the Jack the Ripper investigation. What it became was something far more ambitious: part historical mystery, part goth" Read more of this review »
Jun 12, 2026 06:15AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Ripper's Court by O. Bender. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Ripper's Court by O. Bender <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
O. Bender rated a book really liked it The Novice Wielder (The Wielder Series #1) by Franca Ogbonnaya (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A warm, imaginative undersea coming-of-age fantasy with a genuinely fresh magic culture and a likeable central pair. The world is the real protagonist. All four groups of people — the immortal undersea Dyhaeri, landlocked humans (Malaquey and Namira), ...more
Jun 09, 2026 05:10AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Novice Wielder by Franca Ogbonnaya. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Novice Wielder by Franca Ogbonnaya <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
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May 31, 2026 12:58AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Ripper's Court by O. Bender. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Ripper's Court by O. Bender <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
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May 31, 2026 12:58AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Makers and the Made by O. Bender. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Makers and the Made by O. Bender <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
O. Bender rated a book really liked it The Realm of Song and Battle by Michael Shank (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
For a beginning author, this is a solid piece of work - noticeably more cohesive than you'd expect, and virtually free of errors. The scenes hold together and the reader never gets lost in space or time, which is usually harder to pull off than it so ...more
May 30, 2026 10:46PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Realm of Song and Battle by Michael Shank. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Realm of Song and Battle by Michael Shank <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

O. Bender made a comment in the group Review Group — Group 397. General - Mod. E.K. topic

" E.K. wrote: "Please can you email me a screenshot when you get a chance so I can mark you complete.

Thanks"

Done ...more "

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The Strains of Malice by Andrew Beardmore

The Strains of Malice (The Nessemiah, #1)
by Andrew Beardmore (Goodreads Author)

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An ambitious, confidently written multi-POV epic with a genuinely original world and two memorably monstrous villains - its reach is both its biggest strength and its biggest structural risk, and as the deliberate opening movement of a tetralogy it a An ambitious, confidently written multi-POV epic with a genuinely original world and two memorably monstrous villains - its reach is both its biggest strength and its biggest structural risk, and as the deliberate opening movement of a tetralogy it asks the reader to invest heavily for a finale that is almost entirely set-up.

The world is original and genuinely thought-through. Thera is a globe ringed by an impassable continent and an uncrossable heat belt, its poles split from its tropics by the lethal magnetic Shield of Crenac. That single conceit does enormous work: it isolates the northern island-nations, it functions as an execution method and a daredevil sport, and - crucially - it turns the looming asteroid into an inescapable trap, because no one can flee to the other hemisphere. The 18th-century tech level (flintlocks, steam engines, observatories, safety lamps) is deployed consistently and knowledgeably.

Prince Magnus is a superb piece of work - charming, lazy, sadistic, and untouchable - and the book is brave enough to let his cruelty have real, irreversible consequences. The southern emperor Calidius mirrors him at imperial scale, so the book's central theme - the abuse of unaccountable power, "local" and "global" - is dramatized twice over rather than merely stated.

The book is structurally two books bolted together. The first half is an intimate, "A Song of Ice and Fire"-style palace-and-pursuit drama confined to Glennad. Then, around the midpoint, the canvas explodes outward: a second Roman-analogue civilization, a doomsday asteroid, an emperor, a slave-rebellion revenge arc. The reveal is exciting, but it's also a genre-shift that can feel like whiplash, and it relegates the early intimate threads to one strand among many.

As a standalone, almost nothing resolves. This is the single biggest issue for me personally. By design, The Strains of Malice is the opening movement of a tetralogy: the asteroid's impact point is unknown, Magnus is humiliated but un-deposed, Will's fate is a cliffhanger, Draxaelen's revenge has barely begun, Madeleina's and Martha's threads have only just opened, and the book literally ends mid-vision. Only the Alicya/Gawain thread reaches a satisfying close. A reader finishing Book 1 is rewarded mostly with a promise. It's a perfectly valid strategy for the series, but it's increasingly provoking rejection from readers. ...more

O. Bender and 12 other people liked Zoë Collins's review of Ripper's Court:

"A Difficult But Remarkable Read

When I started reading this novel, I expected a Victorian murder mystery set against the backdrop of the Jack the Ripper investigation. What it became was something far more ambitious: part historical mystery, part goth" Read more of this review »

O. Bender rated a book really liked it

The Novice Wielder (The Wielder Series #1)
by Franca Ogbonnaya (Goodreads Author)

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A warm, imaginative undersea coming-of-age fantasy with a genuinely fresh magic culture and a likeable central pair.

The world is the real protagonist. All four groups of people — the immortal undersea Dyhaeri, landlocked humans (Malaquey and Namira), A warm, imaginative undersea coming-of-age fantasy with a genuinely fresh magic culture and a likeable central pair.

The world is the real protagonist. All four groups of people — the immortal undersea Dyhaeri, landlocked humans (Malaquey and Namira), the sea-nomadic Weltonians, and the monstrous Alkynaia sea serpents — each has its own theology, politics, and grievances. The same historical event (the founding of the Sea Treaty) is told two opposite ways by humans and Dyhaeri. That single scene when Kahl quietly corrects the propaganda Britea was taught in school does more honest world-building than most epics manage in a chapter, and it doubles as theme: who controls knowledge, and why.

The magic system has rules that matter. Wielding is tiered, costs energy, produces a specific side effect (novice euphoria), and carries specific moral line — never wield the elements inside a living body. That taboo isn't decoration: it's the exact crime the antagonist commits, which makes the magic feel ethically loaded.

What needs work

Line-level craft is the biggest liability. Across the manuscript there are recurring typos and slips: the male lead's name flips between "Matrell," "Mantrell," and "Martell"; "Mat" become "Matt" (also "swam"/"swarm," "ropes"/"robes," and I believe I've seen "Melina" instead of "Melania" at least once).

Reader onboarding is the book's other major weakness — and it's largely an editing/ordering problem, not a worldbuilding one. The 2nd edition opens with the prequel novella Betrayal of Blood, which begins in medias res on the Dyhaeri trial. Within the first page the reader is hit with Sle'niazza, Kallesezza, Dhyaeri, Jahlaniin, Alkynaia, and "Soilan bracelets" — proper nouns that are deliberately apostrophe-heavy, hard to even pronounce, and, crucially, attached to nothing the reader yet understands. This is the single most likely reason a reader bounces off the book early.

The frustrating part is that the author clearly knows how to onboard a reader gently — she just doesn't do it first. The main novel's Chapter 1 (Britea, the cat, the market, the village) is a model of grounded, human-scale entry, and it feeds the lore in by the spoonful through Britea's books and her questions to Kahl. The exposition problem is therefore as much about structure as prose: the 2nd edition front-loads the hardest, most context-free material (the novella) and reserves the welcoming material for later. Reversing the order — open with the novel, place Betrayal of Blood as an appendix/interlude once the reader can place these names — would dramatically lower the barrier to entry without changing a word of the actual content. At minimum, the novella needs a short grounding beat (a line or two establishing who the Dyhaeri are and what exile means) before the names start landing.

Some supporting characters are more functional than tangible. Carlina (the vain sister), Lady Selina (the snob), and several crew members play clear plot/thematic roles, but remain one-dimensional. Mat-rallenin is the most interesting of the supporting characters precisely because his hatred of humans is justified; the others would have benefited from a similar added dimension. ...more

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Ripper's Court
by O. Bender (Goodreads Author)

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The Makers and the Made
by O. Bender (Goodreads Author)

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The Realm of Song and Battle
by Michael Shank (Goodreads Author)

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For a beginning author, this is a solid piece of work - noticeably more cohesive than you'd expect, and virtually free of errors. The scenes hold together and the reader never gets lost in space or time, which is usually harder to pull off than it so ...more

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