I loved Sins of Empire, if you haven’t read that one yet I would read that review/book first before reading this review as there will be spoilers for I loved Sins of Empire, if you haven’t read that one yet I would read that review/book first before reading this review as there will be spoilers for Sins of Empire. I listened to this via audiobook and received it via NetGalley/Orbit – thank you! Spelling goes out the window with audiobooks, so, keep that in mind.
This book picks up where the last one left off – the Dioneyes are invading Fatrasta with a mind to take back their old city, and find their lost artefacts – the most important being the God Stones. They are landing all around the coast and seem to come in waves that don’t end and things are getting very tense.
Tanniel and Karpole are still calling the shots and putting their pieces in their places without the pieces knowing what the end game is. Despite being a very old friend and ex-fiance, even Vlora doesn’t know what Tanniel’s core motives are and what his end plans may be… or if she can even trust him not to get her killed. Tanniel’s determined to get to the God Stones before the Dioneyes, and part of making that happen is keeping his undercover contacts safe. He wants Mikel to find his Dioneyes informant and get her out of the city before she’s found out and killed. The problem is that Tanniel doesn’t even know what this woman looks like, all the info he gives to Mikel is that her name is Mara. Mikel is trying to find this woman while the Black Hats are hunting him, he’s been caught meeting with Tanniel and therefore outed as a spy. All of his safe houses and resources are lost when his cover is blown, forcing him to make unlikely allies to survive long enough to complete his mission. He has a sneaking suspicion that Tanniel knows that this is a near suicide mission. I thought it was interesting that despite his cover being blown, Mikel continues to talk and argue with himself, I found his dual personality fascinating in the first book so it was funny to see this tick continue.
Meanwhile, Styke is working for Vlora taking over her cavalry unit, commanding them in the field against the Dioneyes. What Stykes doesn’t know is that he’s being hunted down by 6 Dragonmen who were recently freed from prison, with the promise that if they bring their master the head of Styke that they will be set free. Ben is busy hunting down the men who betrayed him which lead to him being forced into a slave labor camp and trying to keep Vlora’s men together. Styke is also paired up with Karpole for a while, and their two strong-willed but polar opposite personalities make for some entertaining scenes.
Vlora is being squeezed from all sides, the Fatrastans are angry with her, the Dioneyes have a debt to settle with her, and she’s trying to escort hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing the cities to safety. She’s overwhelmed and overworked with no money to pay her army, she’s working off promissory notes against her personal account and things are wearing thin. Tanniel is insisting that she help him find the God Stones which is a dangerous task in itself, let alone everything else she has going on.
The main POV’s from the last book are the same for this book, which lent itself to the faster pace of the book, there’s no slowing down to learn a bunch of new people. The relationship between Styke and Selina continued to be a highlight of his chapters for me, it creates such a stark contrast to the rest of his persona and rounds him out so nicely. It’s also interesting watching a young girl growing up in a labor camp where people kill each other regularly right in front of her, over something as trivial as bread. And now she’s watching Ben take vengeance on people who have wronged him in the past, she takes a neutral almost academic like stance on Ben’s killing, wondering why he kills some and spares others. The fact that Ben does show mercy at points helps make him a character you can continue to root for, I prefer when characters are less bloodthirsty.
In my opinion, this book was faster paced than the first one. Sins of Empire was all leading up to the events of this book, it was a slower burn up until the Dioneyes arrived and laid siege to the city, which is right where this book picks up. Everything is coming together and I absolutely blew through this book, I couldn’t stop listening to it. The audiobook remains fantastic, I’m probably going to seek out other SFF by this narrator.
The writing continues to be great, but it also continues to use that fake curse word “pit” which always rubs me wrong when I hear it. I think it especially stands out in the audiobook since he sort of spits the word out.
The tone was very tense through all of the POV’s, the stakes are higher than the first and every one of the characters is in a fair bit of danger. There’s war, there are assassins, there are spies and counterspies all of which created an atmosphere bordering on anxiety.
The world building shifted away from The Depths which was a little disappointing, but also totally understandable given that city is under siege and Vlora is no longer stationed outside of it. I miss that place because it was so creepy, but we do get introduced to more of the world since the armies are marching.
Overall, I think Mr. McClellan hurdled himself over the “second book syndrome” where things can drag on and on in the second book only to pick up again in the third installment. Wrath of Empire was highly engaging and just as great as the first one.
Man, I have been looking for another really good LitRPG, and I’m so happy to have gotten this as a review request!
Plot: The book opens with an elderly Man, I have been looking for another really good LitRPG, and I’m so happy to have gotten this as a review request!
Plot: The book opens with an elderly man making lesser Golems out of toys and stuffed animals, you watch as Threadbare is created and starts to come into consciousness. It’s actually a really neat way to experience a character, at first Threadbare has no real mind, he can’t perceive what he’s looking at or understand what or who he is – but little by little he starts ‘leveling up’ and as he does, the more he begins to understand about the world.
He soon makes enemies with the cat after a serious misunderstanding, and it was a riot to read about.
The first 15% of the book or so is Threadbare exploring his surroundings and getting to know his new ‘master’ – a young 11 year old girl named Celia.
After that, the real plot takes off – someone is after the elderly man and his secrets, they now he’s trying to create a Greater Golem which has the capability of becoming sentient and intelligent. A woman has teamed up with some demons to try gain access to his research to use it for their own devices.
There’s a lot of action going on, Threadbare seems to keep getting himself into trouble, good thing his Adorable Level is off the charts, and his Luck stats aren’t too shabby either 🙂
Final Score: 11/15
Character: Threadbare is a loveable main character, he’s so innocent and from the start he has benign intentions. Even when his ‘brain’ wasn’t fully formed and his thoughts were mostly instincts, one of the first things he does was try to help out another hurt Golem toy.
He’s made an incredible bond with his master, Celia – who is also adorable and spunky. Celia is the elderly mans daughter, and they live together in a cabin in the woods far away from anyone else. She’s rather sheltered but she’s sweet and smart and determined to show her father she’s capable of taking on big tasks. And she is, really, she’s resourceful and clever.
Pulsivar is the family cat, and omg do I love this character. Typical cat, he’s guilty of nothing, gets into trouble, and is overall a snarky ass even though he doesn’t “talk”. Pulsivar was there when Threadbare came into being, and after the elderly man left, the cat got into mischief and knocked over some shelving which landed on some toy Golems. Threadbare went to go help, and accidentally ripped the toy Golem in half in an effort to try and rescue him. Pulsivars reaction is as follows:
“Pulsivar wasn’t entirely sure of the particulars of this situation or whose fault it was, (definitely not his though,) but he was pretty godsdamned sure of two things; One was that he was stuck in this workshop until his human came back, so he couldn’t escape. Two was that he’d just seen that teddy bear straight up murder a fucker.”
Final Score: 14/15
World Building: This is a litRPG with moderate ‘stats’ in the main text, it’s not as heavy as some of the LitRPG’s – as Threadbare explores his world, he will gain INT when he figures something out, or STR when he lifts something heavy. It goes along with the text and doesn’t bring me out of the moment all that much. Some people really hate stats in LitRPG’s, in this book they are moderately heavy for the first 15% of the book, light for the next 15%, and then scattered a little bit throughout the rest of the book. For me, it wasn’t bad at all.
In this world, people level up like they do in video games, but life wasn’t always like that – it happened about 40 years ago and no one really knows why.
You can only choose a set number of life skills, so choosing your profession in life is a big deal. Celia’s father is very hesitant to teach her new things like Cooking, because she could click “Accept new Profession” and be stuck with that choice for the rest of her life – and she’s only 11.
There are other races in this world, Dwarves are mentioned, and you get to meet a family of Orcs/half Orcs. Celia’s mentor in learning how to be a Scout has married an Orc woman and has a few sons.
Dungeons randomly spawn as well, and if a dungeon gets too dangerous people are sent to shut it down and destroy it. The dungeons can spawn very powerful monsters and they can wreak havoc on the small towns in the surrounding area.
Normal animals have also mutated, there are giant birds that can snatch small kids, there are giant and territorial Raccants which are mutated racoons.
You level up your skills faster if you’re presented with real danger, rather than just practicing, and almost everything has levels. At first, when this new system came into the world people thought it was a blessing… but as time went on they realized that they eventually maxed out on their leveling abilities… but the monsters kept going. It presented a real problem for a long time until people learned that by combining certain “professions” they could “unlock” new things and continue to level up.
Final Score: 13/15
Pacing: This book started out really interesting, I love non human POV’s and this POV is by far one of the most unique I’ve read. I loved getting to see how he developed from a non-thinking being into a sentient creature. There’s tons of action through the entire book so I just kept turning pages to see what happened next. Solid pacing from start to finish.
Final Score: 15/15
Writing: Holy shit this was a funny book, it hit all the right things for me, especially with the cat. It also managed to be warm and sweet as well, I adored Celia and her antics. There were a few grammar errors, but fewer than a handful and nothing all that glaring. This was a very fast paced straightforward way to write, which is typical for a LitRPG.
Final Score: 12.5/15
Originality: I’ve read a fair amount of LitRPG, and most of them have to do with online gaming, many many books actually have the title include “Online”. I love it when it’s taken in a different direction and a world is built out of it rather than a video game you get sucked into. The main character was totally unique, and the way it was written was also very original. I really liked this one.
Final Score: 13.5/15
Personal Enjoyment: You can probably tell from my review this one struck a chord with me. This book set out to be a funny and heartwarming book and nailed it. This is a “popcorn” book, but it’s the best kind of fancy popcorn.
Final Score: 10/10
Audience: Do you want a funny as shit LitRPG with a non-human POV? Do you want a fast-paced book with a lot of action and fight scenes? How about demons and villains trying to steal a recipe for a Greater Golem so they can build an army? Yes? Read this book.
If you're looking for a light and fun read that's also fairly informative, this was an audiobook i really liked.
It's not the most info packed historyIf you're looking for a light and fun read that's also fairly informative, this was an audiobook i really liked.
It's not the most info packed history book ever written, he is prone to going on tangents, especially towards the end - so that's why this is 4 and not a 5. He actually speaks fairly slowly, I had to speed up the audio to around 1.75X to really get things going.
He goes over 21 Americans who've really impacted our society in one way or another, artists, leaders, scientists, civil rights people etc.
He obviously has a LOT of passion for what he's writing about, you can tell in the way he emotes and gets all excited about certain topics. I loved his bit on Teddy Roosevelt - those two probably would have been bros. However, he did keep things evenly represented and went over the downsides of Teddy's ideologies - mainly his views on natives and women not being very....progressive. I do think he tried to show many sides to the same figureheads for a more well rounded look.
I got to the end and really enjoyed myself, I went to go rate it and found it had a 3.7 which is kind of on the lower end of things. I got curious and started going through the top 1 star reviews, and found that many of them site political differences as the main source of complaint.
"However, the rest of the book was Offerman ranting like a Facebook post while talking about how great he (Offerman) is and how horrible White America is." .... or .... "On one hand he touts the values and importance of hard work, then embraces victimization and liberal policies that fly in the face of free enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit"
So, go into it knowing that this guy is a Democrat, and did use several democratic/liberal people in his 21 greatest Americans. If that doesn't appeal to you, then go ahead and pass. If you don't mind that, and want a history lesson in the same entertainment vein as Drunk History then check this one out!...more
This is like reading an episode of a more "mature" Bill Nye the Science Guy episodes.
It was fun, and funny. It was light and quick to read, and if yoThis is like reading an episode of a more "mature" Bill Nye the Science Guy episodes.
It was fun, and funny. It was light and quick to read, and if you're not big into science this won't go over your head. I think the biggest takeaway from this book was how much this guy loved learning, and his passion is contagious, at least for me. This was actually more a memoir-ish book with a lot of anecdotes about his life. I def didn't know he was also a drummer and a safe-cracker.
I had this book on the backburner for so many years and I regret not picking it up sooner. I could have really used something like this back when I was in college and struggling with my work load and thinking maybe science/engineering wasn't going to pan out.
I really recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in the sciences.
Ok, I loved her first novel The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, it was fun, it was light, and it was a feel good book. UnfortunatelOh, my goodness.
Ok, I loved her first novel The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, it was fun, it was light, and it was a feel good book. Unfortunately, I do not come across many of those very often, the focus for most authors right now seems to be on super serious side of things with books having a "darker" tone. It's so refreshing to be able to smile through a book, yes a well crafted book that stabs you in the heart and cuts all the heart strings is a valuable read, but I think having fun while reading has become an underrated experience.
I didn't think it could get better, but she way out did herself writing his book.
The two stories that are going on here mirror each other in such an amazing way.
The way she writes from a non-human point of a view is very uncommon, with most authors and people feeling like a POV that's not human would prevent them from being relate with them - but this was so incredibly well done.
I LOVED the backstory of Pepper and how she found out about 'language' and the 'world' after growing up in confinement around machines. Teaching her what the sky is, what planets are, and living through her as a child was so rewarding. It couldn't have been easy to write from that sort of perspective. I also really enjoyed the tone change from adult to child, it was exceptionally well done. Getting into Sidra's mind and watching her try and become a 'person' was unbelievable and creative.
If you haven't read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet you *probably* should before reading this book, but i think i would have gotten a lot out of it even if I hadn't. Most of the crew from the Wayfarer are not included in this novel, and what happened last time is touched on and summarized a few times so you'll get what you *need* to know about it.
I've read 13 books in January, and this one is hands down my favorite. It's just so nice to be happy while reading. I don't know if other people can see how long it took me to read the book, but 7 days was ONLY because I had a lot of real-life shit going down. This would have been crushed in 2 days or less if I had the free time available. ...more
The Half Blood Prince has one of the best reveals in the history of Harry Potter, and although the hints are laid out for many books, (basically from The Half Blood Prince has one of the best reveals in the history of Harry Potter, and although the hints are laid out for many books, (basically from the moment we're introduced to Snape) it still comes as a surprise for many readers, especially the younger audience.
This is when Harry Potter for me started to make it's shift from a book geared towards elementary/middle/and high school to something that's really geared more towards the upper-teens.
I was lucky enough to grow with the Harry Potter series. It came out when I was 11 and I'm born in the later part of summer. I have dark hair nearly black, a scar on the side of my face, and I did not grow up with my birth parents. I can re-read this series and take something away from it every time, and for anyone who loves audiobooks, Stephen Fry's narration of Harry Potter is my single favorite audiobooks series of all time. Bar none, hands down, wide margin, all of that. He won an award for the series and it's absolutely deserved, he's one of the very very few male authors who I would not trade in for a female narrator for female parts. He was THAT amazing. ...more
I read this book first before I read the Riyria Revelations and honestly I'm not regretting it at all. I get weird tid bits about what's come before wI read this book first before I read the Riyria Revelations and honestly I'm not regretting it at all. I get weird tid bits about what's come before while I read this series and it's been such a joy.
I also feel like I was introduced to Sullivan at some of his best writing. I am now reading through Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and Heir of Novron and I'm finding that this writing is better than what I'm currently reading. However, that's not at ALL to say Riyria is poorly written, it's just that he's getting better and better as a writer. I'm genuinely enjoying going back and reading what's lead up to this book. The world is well developed, the characters are believable, and although the tropes are abound, I don't feel exhausted by them.
The cover art captivated me, I picked up the book not knowing it was a part of a well developed world, and I have no regrets. ...more
This was one of the most refreshing books I've read in a long time. Full of British humor, this book made me laugh from the beginning to the end.
It'sThis was one of the most refreshing books I've read in a long time. Full of British humor, this book made me laugh from the beginning to the end.
It's a completely unique take on how the end of the world, through religious prophecy, could actually be modernized and humorous.
The characters were awesome, the plot was amazing, and the delivery of jokes was on point.
There's nothing to say other than READ THIS, you won't regret it.
If you're having trouble trying to find good audiobooks, do pick this one up. The audiobooks really made the british humor pop at you, if you're not British some of the jokes don't come across as jokes unless it's read to you that way.
I didn't think the second one could get better than the first, but it really was. Bits and pieces of the bigger picture are starting to fall into placI didn't think the second one could get better than the first, but it really was. Bits and pieces of the bigger picture are starting to fall into place and it's so exciting to see happen.
I really recommend this series to anyone who loves epic high fantasy with intense world building and structure.
The detractions are the same as the first, it almost reads like YA due to a complete and utter lack of anything sexual, and despite mild scenes of gore and violence there's not much blood/sex/cursing etc. I would have thought that would bother me a little bit, but I've gotten over it completely. If I want that kind of story I'll read ASOIAF.
I can't wait for the third book, if you go to BrandonSanderson.com he gives you a running update on all of his current projects, and right now Oathkeeper is on schedule for release early next year! Get pumped! ...more
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