Behind Blue Eyes

The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung My rating: 4 of 5 stars This was a fun read. It was quick and full of twists. With the first person narration, this read much like a noir detective type book, only set in a fantasy world. Lots of fun and great potential to set up the series... View all my reviews

Widdershins by Alex Alexander My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine Widdershins begins in the slums, where we meet our protagonist Niclas. It’s difficult to call him hero, as he’s a pretty simple lad and if we’re being honest, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. He means well and tries to do the right thing, but he’s just not cut out for great heroics. What’s unfortunate for Niclas is that he’s thrust into a series of situations where if he can’t be heroic, at least he is around others that can. The first thing he does is bungle a pickpocket assignment he’s given as a rite of passage into the top slum gang, the Crimson Men. But after he lands in prison, he’s rescued by a talking cat named Balthazar. “It was the first time Niclas had seen a cat smile. The majority of it is in their eyes – their narrow, mischievous eyes.” The city of Laburnum is ruled by a monarchy, but the real power is the Academy, whose laws are ...

Plight of Madness by Jesse Teller My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine Plight of Madness is Book Three of The Madness Wars , the penultimate volume of this epic sprawl covering a massive military conquest of the warrior nation Drine over its refined and cultured neighbor, Tienne. Continuing on the previous reviews of Onslaught of Madness , and Wrath of Madness , I found myself immersed in the struggle not only between these two nations, but a resulting series of conflict within each. War is Hell, and takes its toll on everyone involved, whether they’re winning or not. As with the previous volumes, Plight of Madness is split up into chapters with shifting point-of-view from a variety of characters. Continuing from Wrath of Madness are the chapters told from the perspective of Rextur and Aaron the Marked, who have been with us since the first book. Also continuing from the previous entry are Tarana and Saykobar, and we’re giv...

Dune: The Duke of Caladan by Brian Herbert My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine As the classic novel Dune by Frank Herbert opens, we’re introduced to the noble family of House Atreides, as they’re moving operations from their homeworld of Caladan to a new holding, the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. We can immediately see that this family will be the source of our upcoming story, with the young protagonist Paul Atreides taking center stage. While it’s easy to pull for Paul and his family from the outset, it would have been nice to get to know these people a little before their great journey began. Dune: The Duke of Caladan gives us that experience. Set in the year leading up to the novel Dune: The Duke of Caladan centers on House Atreides before they embark on their voyage. Duke Leto and his concubine Lady Jessica have been together for some time, coping with the struggles that the Imperium forces on their relati...

Forgotten Island by Kristi Belcamino My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the second entry in the Gia Santella series, and was as enjoyable as the first. By the end of the first book, Gia had inherited a company and put in charge of a lot of money, and was witness to how the homeless of San Francisco are often buried under the political machines that drive the city's economy. Now that she has some wealth and influence, she has decided to build a new apartment complex to assist the homeless of the area in housing and job placement. Problem is, someone is killing off the homeless under the radar. And a journalist that Gia is friends with is kidnapped when she investigates the happenings in the neighborhood. So here's Gia to see what she can do to fix these problems.... View all my reviews

Afterland by Lauren Beukes My rating: 3 of 5 stars DNF @ 61% I was provided an e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. This book is well written and interesting, it just isn't my cup of coffee right now. I'm trying not to force myself through books I'm not enjoying, as that will only bog down my overall reading and make it a chore to do so. If the blurb of this one looks good, I'd recommend giving it a try. It'll hit the right chords for someone, just didn't for me this time around. #ItsNotYouItsMe View all my reviews

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones My rating: 3 of 5 stars DNF @28% I was provided an e-copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. This book is well written and interesting, it just isn't my cup of coffee right now. I'm trying not to force myself through books I'm not enjoying, as that will only bog down my overall reading and make it a chore to do so. If the blurb of this one looks good, I'd recommend giving it a try. It'll hit the right chords for someone, just didn't for me this time around. #ItsNotYouItsMe View all my reviews

Ink by Jonathan Maberry My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine The concept of a dream thief, or a stealer of memories is fascinating. A creepy villain with the ability to sneak in and access the mind of victims, especially in such a way as to be unnoticed, is quite scary. What Jonathan Maberry does in Ink is that, but he takes it to a higher level. In Ink the method of the villain’s access is as intriguing as the theft itself. He gets in by way of the victim’s tattoos. Several characters from different walks of life come together in the small town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania. This is a town that Maberry has had as the central location for some of his works before, but it’s not necessary to read those first (I haven’t). There is a good bit of background, but the essentials are provided in story to cover the reader’s lack of experience. Monk Addison is a skip tracer, a private investigator specializing in tracking down those who h...

We Men of Ash and Shadow by HL Tinsley My rating: 4 of 5 stars #SelfPubFantasyMonth Review now live, at Grimdark Magazine We’ve all heard the phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and I’d have to say this is good advice. The best artwork in the world won’t make a story engage the reader. What a great cover can do is catch the eye and stand out in an unending sea of books. We Men of Ash and Shadow did this for me, as one evening I was scrolling through social media and my attention was caught by the wonderful book cover. This got my attention enough to read the blurb, and I was immediately hooked. “It was the most highly recommended venue the city had to offer. It was called the Ring O’ Bastards and it had the lowest patron to murder victim ratio in a five mile radius.” That’s the opening paragraph to this fine novel. Within moments, I knew I had stumbled on something special. HL Tinsley didn’t disappoint me as I read further. Right away we are ...

The Original by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I received a copy of the audiobook from the publisher through NetGalley. This was fun. I've been a fan of Brandon Sanderson for years, though I'd never read anything by Mary Robinette Kowal. As a collaboration, this was great.. In a not-too-distant future, we follow the story of a recently revived Holly. She can't remember what happened, but soon learns that she was a clone. Her Original apparently murdered her husband, and the authorities wanted Holly to track down her Original to bring her to justice. By justice I mean kill her. Holly's reward would be then to replace her Original and settle back into "normal" life. As expected, this is a grand adventure as Holly pieces together clues and uses her personal enhancements to survive and learn the details of this strange case. Of course, it's not all in black and white.... Oh, I almost forgot to mention it, but I lo...

From Cold Ashes Risen by Rob J. Hayes My rating: 5 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine All good trilogies come to an end. It’s something that we are sad to see, yet we can’t turn away from that final entry in a series even if we wanted to. From Cold Ashes Risen is no different. We’ve come a long way in the saga of Eskara Helsene and while we can’t wait to see how it turns out, it’s a bit bittersweet that it will be over soon. And in the case of our narrator, Eska, a little scary too. “I could feel the fear, and it was delicious.” In my review of The Lessons Never Learned by Rob J. Hayes, I made a comparison to The Empire Strikes Back , in that as a middle-of-trilogy installment, it was a somewhat uncommon occurrence that it didn’t lag in the middle. In many (if not all) ways, Empire was the best of the (original) Lucas trilogy, and I felt that Lessons could be that in The War Eternal . I was half right. My original comparison holds...

Ash and Bones by Michael R. Fletcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine Smoke to Ashes, and Stone to Bones… Here we go again, continuing the saga where Fletcher introduced us to the world of Bastion in Smoke and Stone . Ash and Bones is the second novel in his City of Sacrifice series, and here we start to see a little more of the sacrifice part of the series title. In my review for Smoke and Stone I went into how intrigued I was with the unique worldbuilding and magic system employed by Fletcher. He certainly continues that, digging deeper into the mythology and the machinations of the Gods that rule Bastion. “…those who blasphemed against Bastion’s sacred laws would be offered up to the gods. The gods fed well.” Once more we get the shifting point-of-view chapters from our two characters on opposite ends of the struggle, Akachi and Nuru. They survived their first squaring off at the end of Book One, where Mother Death...

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher My rating: 5 of 5 stars 4.5 stars. It wasn't perfect, but it was the Dresden Files. After so long, that just felt good. As usual, James Marsters and his narration was spot on. View all my reviews

The Lessons Never Learned by Rob J. Hayes My rating: 5 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine The Lessons Never Learned is Book Two of the War Eternal trilogy, that began with the fantastic Along the Razor’s Edge . “Opinions are like children. Those who have them want them to be special, rarely realizing they are just as dumb and ugly as all the others.” With this in mind, I’ll go forth with my review. Now, before we start to worry that The Lessons Never Learned will suffer from middle-book syndrome as so many bridge novels in trilogies seem to do, let me state right here that this is not the case. I would actually compare this more to the classic Empire Strikes Back level of middle-books, the perhaps rare case where the bridge is better than the ends. I don’t know (yet) if it’s better than Book Three, but I would venture to say that if you enjoyed Book One, you will like this at least as much. Eskara Helsene and her companions have esc...

Along the Razor's Edge by Rob J. Hayes My rating: 5 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine “Handshakes are a dangerous business in some parts of the world.” This quote from Along the Razor’s Edge stuck with me, though Hayes meant it in a different light than how it pertains to most of us in this Covidic world right now. Still, it was no less deadly, as it turns out. Our protagonist in this novel, Eskara Helsene, is quite the anti-heroine. She’s one of the world’s most powerful battle sorcerers, yet as our story gets underway, she’s as helpless as a baby mouse, and not much bigger. See, Eskara was on the losing side in a great war and through her defeat by treachery, she has lost access to her power Sources and has been cast into the Pit, where thousands of “scabs” toil alongside her in their unending task of digging. Digging deeper and farther, and to what end no one knows. Of course, it’s not that simple. There are politics and power ...

Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence My rating: 5 of 5 stars Review now Live at Grimdark Magazine . “Sometimes being wrong is the right answer.” That’s a great lead on the blurb for this book, and only makes sense after the experience has completed. Dispel Illusion is the third and final installation of the Impossible Times trilogy, and it truly brings everything full circle. I reviewed Book One, One Word Kill and Book Two, Limited Wish last year at Grimdark Magazine. I was blown away by how Lawrence pulled me into the story and kept surprising me throughout. Book Three is no different, and I simply had to read it and line it up on the site behind the others. Dispel Illusion takes us and our characters some six years forward from where we left off in Limited Wish . No, we haven’t shifted in time; that’s just how long it’s passed since the conclusion of Book Two. Our heroes have all “grown up” and started careers, though they still get together peri...

Wrath of Madness by Jesse Teller My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine . Wrath of Madness , book 2 of The Madness Wars begins where the first book left off, the conquest driven nation of Drine pushing through on their campaign of conquering the neighboring country of Tienne. The Madness is out of sorts. Rextur, the warlord general of the Drine forces, has suffered a surprising defeat at the hands of the boy king Peter Redfist. But Rextur hadn’t developed the reputation of being the world’s finest strategist for nothing. He is regrouping and taking another shot at the resisting forces led by Peter and the clans that he has under an unsteady truce. As with the previously reviewed Onslaught of Madness , this book takes the reader in for the long haul. We get a variety of point of view narratives from players on both sides of the conflict. Joining Rextur’s POV on the side of Drine are new characters. Strick is an elite soldier, on...

Of Mice and Minestrone: Hap and Leonard, The Early Years by Joe R. Lansdale My rating: 5 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine . Thank you to the fine folks at Tachyon Publications for providing a review copy of Joe Lansdale’s Of Mice and Minestrone . I have read several Joe R. Lansdale stories over the years, but it’s only recently that I’ve been making a conscious effort to seek out his work. I have reviewed his new documentary, All Hail the Popcorn King for Grimdark Magazine, and I’ve also reviewed an earlier collection, Driving to Geronimo's Grave and Other Stories at my personal blog for NetGalley. While Lansdale’s work is as varied as the regions of Texas, there is one common link through all of it: his brilliant storytelling. I had only dabbled in the world of Hap and Leonard before this, but it’s safe to say that after reading this collection, I’m hooked, and will be reading more of these stories sooner rather than later. Esta...

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was provided an eARC of this title by the publisher, Del Rey, through NetGalley. This was freakin' brilliant! I've read Max before, so I did come in familiar with his style of fictional non-fiction. That is, the story is told through a series of journal entries and interviews. This style adds quite a bit of realism to a tale that's otherwise rather difficult to believe. Or is it? Brooks backs up his narrative with science and a study of human behavior. It's a cautionary tale, to be sure, but frightening in illustrating just how close our society is to total collapse. It doesn't take much to send an area of citizens into complete chaos, stripping them of their modern day comforts. Brooks shows how fast people will devolve, and actually adapt, to these severe changes... In today's world, this novel shows us another side of w...

Dreaming City This is my latest review at GdM, for the music album by Glass Hammer

All Hail the Popcorn King This is my latest review at GdM, for the documentary about Joe R. Lansdale

Crisis of Fate by Jesse Teller My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live, at Grimdark Magazine Crisis of Fate is the latest book from Jesse Teller, who seems to have a knack for telling character-driven tales set in a world that's often brutal and unforgiving. Perilisc isn't a land for the fragile, that's for sure. While a standalone story at its foundation, Crisis of Fate also serves as a companion novel to the Madness Wars series, the events of the story occurring after the first book in the main series. Raendal is having a bad day. Her lover was murdered while having sex with her during a dream rendezvous, her thieves guild is being subverted against her by treason from those she most trusted, an army bent on destruction is on its way to her city, and she can't sleep for fear of reliving the nightmare of the murder in her bed chambers. What to do? Well, of course Raendal wants revenge. She'd like nothing more than to find and...

Black Stone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher My rating: 4 of 5 stars Review now live at Grimdark Magazine Black Stone Heart is the latest grimdark novel by Michael R. Fletcher. This is a brand-new series, The Obsidian Path , which is set in a bizarre new world unlike those of Fletcher’s other work. There were a couple of stories in A Collection of Obsessions , his short story collection, but this is the first full length novel. As with all of Fletcher’s work, Black Stone Heart does not shy away from a steady diet of comfort food for the grimdark appetite. His recipe is equal parts violence, gritty happenings, grisly humor, and a dash of bad luck for flavoring. Khraen just woke up, and he’s starving. He’s confused and disoriented and doesn’t remember much at all of his life before he’d been killed. All he knows now is that he is being drawn to the fragments of his obsidian heart that have been scattered about the world by whoever it was that murdered hi...

Neon Leviathan by T.R. Napper My rating: 4 of 5 stars First, the Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this eARC by the publisher of Grimdark Magazine. Though I often contribute unpaid reviews for the GdM blog, this fact does not influence my opinion of this particular book. I am publishing this review on my own personal sites, independent of Grimdark Magazine. Then, the review: Oh now, that was something special that doesn't come along very often. What we have here are 12 stories set along various years of a not-to-far future of our own world, mostly in this futures version of Australia, during and after a huge war with the conflict between China and an alliance including Vietnam and Australia. Of other countries, we are given little, but that there is no more America. This grim future is scary as it is plausible, as the 12 tales give us insight into the minds, such as they are, of those that survive during these times. There are drugs aplenty and t...

Miasma by Greg Cox My rating: 4 of 5 stars I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I've had this for awhile. My backlog stack got pretty high there for awhile when I went back to school and started having small grandkids in the house. That said, I really enjoyed this. I needed something different and short to pass the time on a Saturday night, and this was the perfect fit. Who doesn't love the original Star Trek . Set at some point after The Voyage Home , this story gives us what at first seems to be the typical Where No Man Has Gone Before episode of our original crew. The timing is important though, as we soon learn that Lt. Saavik is on helm rather than Sulu, and her part in the story is crucial. Aside from that, we can settle in and enjoy a never before seen adventure of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew. For a good bit of the early going I found this to be enjoyable but predictable, but then Cox threw that idea...