Friday Face-Off: Playing Cards
Posted on March 3, 2017 22 Comments
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well”
~ a cover featuring PLAYING CARDS
Mogsy’s Pick:
Planesrunner by Ian McDonald
When I saw what the theme was for this week, my mind immediately went to the US cover for this book, mainly because Planesrunner is never too far from my mind. It’s an amazing novel, the first of a Young Adult series called Everness, but don’t write it off just because of the YA tag — this is a smart, unique, and entertaining universe-hopping steampunk adventure like no other, and I’m glad to finally get the chance to gush about it. I just wish I knew whether or not Ian McDonald is planning on writing more for this series, because book three was the latest one to come out and that was in 2013.
Anyway, let’s take a look at some of book’s covers. Interestingly, the Pyr edition has two versions, one for the hardcover and one for the Kindle, with only slight differences between them:
The Russian edition is the only other cover to feature playing cards. The rest show the eponymous airship Everness in all her glory.
From left to right, top to bottom: Bulgarian (2015) – French (2013) – Italian (2017) – British (2012) – Russian (2013)
Winner:
This was a tough one. My eye for aesthetics went immediately to the Bulgarian edition, because damn, that’s just beautiful. At the same time though, my heart refused to relinquish the Jo Fletcher Books UK cover, and all because that’s the edition I own. Oh well, stubborn hearts win out in the end!
What do you think? Which one is your favorite?
Novella Review: Idle Ingredients by Matt Wallace
Posted on March 2, 2017 11 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Idle Ingredients by Matt Wallace
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Book 4 of Sin du Jour
Publisher: Tor.com (February 7, 2016)
Length: 224 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Put on your chefs hats and smocks, because it’s time for another crazy adventure starring the ragtag crew of New York’s most exclusive kitchen and catering company. And if the first three books of the Sin du Jour series can be considered the early courses of a meal, then with this fourth installment we have come to the entrée—the meat of this story arc, so to speak.
The last we saw these characters, Lena had just dropped the big news on everyone that she was leaving Sin du Jour. As we would soon discover at the start of Idle Ingredients, however, her so-called bombshell of a decision ultimately led nowhere, for it didn’t take long for Bronko to track her down, pluck her up from her new place of work, and unceremoniously drop her right back into his kitchen line. That’s because it’s all hands on deck again for their next big assignment, catering a series of campaign events for the underground supernatural community’s upcoming elections. Bronko has even brought on a new liaison named Luciana Monrovio to help him streamline Sin du Jour’s operational processes and salvage their reputation after their last few disastrous gigs.
But instead of improving things around the place, Luciana ends up driving a wedge between Bronko and his staff. Jett, the event planner, is one of the first to be pushed out. Then Ryland loses his home as his trailer is towed away. Boosha ends up comatose in the hospital after a mysterious accident. Lena becomes infuriated after she is banned from the kitchen, reassigned to work with Nikki on deserts and pastries. Darren and his new boyfriend James are inexplicably sent off on vacation in the middle of this busy time. The Stocking and Receiving department, a mainstay of the company, gets ordered off the premises and put on call. Worse, the women seem to be the only ones noticing these odd changes, since the men seem to be unnaturally smitten with Luciana, like they’ve all suddenly come under a spell. Something is seriously wrong at Sin du Jour, and it’s up to the ladies to figure it out and put a stop to whatever’s happening.
While it’s true that Pride’s Spell was an improvement over Lustlocked, this installment might finally be the one to bring the complexity and substance I feel has been sorely needed since Envy of Angels. Granted, the introduction was a bit weak due to the considerable time spent getting the team back together again (cycling through all the characters in order to catch up with every single one of them took up the entire first quarter of the book) but still, it’s probably safe to say Idle Ingredients is my favorite addition to Sin du Jour so far.
For one thing, I like how this series has settled into a rhythm—and no, that does not mean things have slowed down or become stuck in a rut. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. We seem to have found what works, and now Matt Wallace is building upon those foundations with this fourth installment. Apart from the intro, the story in Idle Ingredients was fast-paced and consistent, focusing on some of the most interesting characters like Lena, Bronko, and Nikki. The plot was tightly woven and we didn’t waste much time with distractions, instead diving straight into the main conflict. Even though there wasn’t as much cooking when compared to the previous three books, I thought Sin du Jour’s catering job in this one—providing food for a party of elementals during a Sceadu candidate’s campaign speeches—was their coolest assignment yet.
I hope we’ll keep seeing these “big picture” plots, because as much as I’m enjoying reading about Sin du Jour’s action-packed and insanity-fueled adventures, I think I like following the characters’ relationships even more. As their personalities continue to grow and develop, the books also seem to be getting better, and Idle Ingredients is evidence of this upwards trend. Besides, with a teaser like that in the epilogue, how can I not feel excited for the future of this series? Thank goodness the next book Greedy Pigs is already on the horizon, because I can hardly wait.
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of Envy of Angels (Book 1)
Review of Lustlocked (Book 2)
Review of Pride’s Spell (Book 3)
Waiting on Wednesday 03/01/17
Posted on March 1, 2017 25 Comments
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick
The Core by Peter V. Brett (August 15, 2017 by Del Rey)
Reading the last few books of this series has become increasingly like watching “Days of Our Lives in The Hollow”, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to quit. Say what you want about these books, but damn it, they’re addictive as hell. I must know how it all ends.
“For time out of mind, bloodthirsty demons have stalked the night, culling the human race to scattered remnants dependent on half-forgotten magics to protect them. Then two heroes arose—men as close as brothers, yet divided by bitter betrayal. Arlen Bales became known as the Warded Man, tattooed head to toe with powerful magic symbols that enable him to fight demons in hand-to-hand combat—and emerge victorious. Jardir, armed with magically warded weapons, called himself the Deliverer, a figure prophesied to unite humanity and lead them to triumph in Sharak Ka—the final war against demonkind.
But in their efforts to bring the war to the demons, Arlen and Jardir have set something in motion that may prove the end of everything they hold dear—a Swarm. Now the war is at hand and humanity cannot hope to win it unless Arlen and Jardir, with the help of Arlen’s wife, Renna, can bend a captured demon prince to their will and force the devious creature to lead them to the Core, where the Mother of Demons breeds an inexhaustible army.
Trusting their closest confidantes, Leesha, Inevera, Ragen and Elissa, to rally the fractious people of the Free Cities and lead them against the Swarm, Arlen, Renna, and Jardir set out on a desperate quest into the darkest depths of evil—from which none of them expects to return alive.”
Book Review: The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
Posted on February 28, 2017 23 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Horror
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Gallery Books (February 7, 2017)
Length: 384 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Don’t you just love it whenever a horror novel lives up to its promise? No joke, I actually had to stop reading this book at night because it was getting too disturbing and creepy for me, and you know I’m not one to scare easily. If this is what I’ve been missing out on for so many years, I wish to hell I’d started reading Ania Ahlborn much sooner.
In the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon lives a ten-year-old boy named Stevie Clark. Ostracized by the other kids at school because of his speech impediment and the missing fingers on one of his hands, Stevie has no friends except for his neighbor and cousin Jude Brighton. Whether it’s watching true crime shows on TV or building a secret fort out in the woods, the two of them do everything together and have been inseparable for years.
Then one day, Jude goes missing. The entire town mobilizes to try to find the boy, but after his bloody sweatshirt is found, the whole mood of Deer Valley seems to shift. To Stevie’s frustration, no one seems to think they’ll find his cousin alive anymore. After all, the search has already been going on for three days with no luck, and the locals all know the story about Max Larsen, another boy who met a gruesome end in these woods years ago, after disappearing under similar circumstances. That story doesn’t get talked about much though, not unlike the reports going back for years about the dogs and cats that go missing from their owners’ yards. There’s a good reason why there are no veterinarians in Deer Valley.
Last year I read and was a little disappointed by the book Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay, another horror novel with “a boy goes missing in the woods” main plot. Somehow I can’t help but think The Devil Crept In is what that story should have been. Ahlborn’s take on the premise is the real deal, the way a true horror of psychological thrills and supernatural suspense should have played out. It is a creepy tale worthy of the campfire, containing all the right ingredients: a small town with a big secret, a terrifying local legend that holds more truth than meets the eye, and a young innocent boy that no one takes seriously because of his disability.
Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from the start; like any good scary story, this one required a bit of setup. I would describe The Devil Crept In as a novel of three parts. Ahlborn uses the first to establish our main character, a boy who lives a troubled life. Stevie’s father walked out on his family when he was younger, and his mom remarried an abusive man who beats him while she looks the other way. Stevie also often feels frustration at his own speech disorder, unable to get his thoughts across without losing control of his words. He is the target of the worst bullying because of it, not only by the other kids but by his own older brother and some adults as well. So you can imagine how horrible it is for a someone like Stevie to lose his only friend, which means too that the entire first part of this book is taken up by his obsession with finding Jude, with the dogged determination you would expect from a ten-year-old. In my opinion, the introduction was a little too drawn out, with Stevie’s chapters becoming repetitive after a while.
Fortunately, that was probably the only point where I felt this book faltered. Ahlborn follows up with a second part that brings about the full-on creeps. The transition was a little jarring at first, as the narrative veers off into a completely different direction, starting over with a seemingly unrelated tale about a woman named Rosie. I’m not going to talk too much about her, as that would spoil the story; all I’ll say is that I quickly became riveted by the horrifying details of her tragic, disturbing life—like witnessing a bloody car wreck where you just can’t tear your eyes away. It might take some time for this part to make sense with the rest of the novel, but once it clicks into place, you’ll see how it all the pieces fit the big picture. The third and final part of The Devil Crept In is where all this magic happens, as elements from Jude’s disappearance and Rosie’s tale begin to gradually come together.
The results are eerily satisfying and really hit the spot. Note to self: no trips out to the woods anytime soon. For a straight-up entertaining and chill-you-t0-your-bones good read, I really can’t recommend this book enough. Mark my words, The Devil Crept In might be my first novel by Ania Ahlborn, but it certainly won’t be my last.
Book Review: Thunderbird by Chuck Wendig
Posted on February 27, 2017 16 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Book 4 of Miriam Black
Publisher: Saga Press (February 28, 2017)
Length: 400 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Chuck Wendig is one of my favorite authors, and to date I must have read more than a dozen of his books. But whenever someone asks what I think is his best work, my mind always comes back to Miriam Black.
Oh Miriam, Miriam, Miriam, “my fair fuckin’ lady” Miriam. From the very start she had me with her snarky spitfire devil-may-care ways, though in truth it is her secret power that makes most people sit up and pay attention. With no more than the slightest touch, she can tell you when you’ll die and how it’ll happen. All she needs is a bit of skin-on-skin contact, and the visions will trigger and she will know.
But is such a power more of a gift or a curse? Very few people actually want the knowledge Miriam can glean, and her abilities have brought her more pain than anything else. Imagine foreseeing hundreds of deaths, many of which can be pretty disturbing or gruesome—accidents, car crashes, illnesses, murders, and suicides. Imagine seeing how those closest to you will die, but knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it or change it.
So Miriam has decided that she doesn’t want anything to do with death anymore. Thunderbird is the fourth novel of the series in which our protagonist begins to take the necessary steps to get rid of her powers. Last we saw her, she had just gotten a name of a person who might be able to help, so now she’s on her way to the Southwest to find the psychic known as Mary Scissors. Unfortunately, Mary is proving to be a hard woman to find, and soon Miriam and her friend Gabby are getting mixed up with the Arizona drug gangs and crazy militia cults.
Technically, it is possible to read Thunderbird on its own without having read the previous novels, though I have to say it’s probably not ideal. The story here is a culmination of everything that happened before, and knowing Miriam’s past will make it easier to understand why she has come to a point where she feels she has no choice but to get rid of her curse. There are also characters and references to events from the first three novels, and the significance of some of these appearances and mentions are going to be confusing if you haven’t read them yet. Even I had a few stumbles along the way because I couldn’t remember all the details of what happened; after all, it has been about three years since the last book came out, and it was a wait that felt like an eternity at times, given how much I adore this series.
Still, a part of me also has to wonder if the long hiatus affected my experience with this book, because there are certain aspects that feel a little different about it. One thing that first made me fall in love with the Miriam Black series was the sheer horror aspect of it; I still remember certain scenes from Blackbirds and Mockingbird that were so violently and gut-churningly graphic that I almost couldn’t bear to read anymore. And yet, I also once wrote how Wendig’s writing can make you desperately want to keep turning the pages and be scared to do so at the same time, and that is why I love these books.
Thunderbird, however, probably didn’t hit me as profoundly or affect me as viscerally. Is Miriam Black getting soft? I certainly hope not! But this book did strike me as being a little more conventional and having fewer sharp edges as the first three. One simply has to compare the villains in this story to the likes of those that came before (Ashley Gaynes? Shudder! The Mockingbird Killer? GAH!) and it’s easy to see why this one felt less terrifying and lacked a certain punch in that regard. I also had some mixed feelings about the interludes. Let’s just say they can be…tricky. Time jumps can be tough to pull off, and personally I didn’t think they worked all of the time. I enjoyed those flashbacks that dropped at appropriate moments, giving us important details or building up the atmosphere, but I didn’t like them so much when they disrupted the momentum and took away from the developing suspense.
That said, while this probably wasn’t my favorite book of the series (that distinction still belongs to The Cormorant, the previous one) I still think it’s great because of what it does for Miriam. Wendig has done an exceptional job developing her backstory and personality in Thunderbird, and in spite of all her faults and damaged psyche, I just love everything about her character. Beneath that sarcastic badass persona is a woman with a bigger heart than she would probably like to admit, and over the last couple installments we’ve been able to see that part of her emerge.
There really is no one else quite like Miriam Black, so if you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her yet, what are you waiting for? I highly recommend picking up this series, and if you can, definitely start her story from the beginning. I promise you won’t regret it.
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of Blackbirds (Book 1)
Review of Mockingbird (Book 2)
Review of The Cormorant (Book 3)
Book Review: The Seventh Age: Dawn by Rick Heinz
Posted on February 26, 2017 17 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Seventh Age: Dawn by Rick Heinz
Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Book 1
Publisher: Inkshares (January 17, 2017)
Length: 429 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
The Seventh Age: Dawn certainly knows how to kick things off with style. In fact, the very first page opens with us standing twenty-one floors up above the city of Chicago on an I beam with our protagonist Mike Auburn, a man with a death wish. Rather, he is obsessed with death; everyone he has ever loved has crossed into the great unknown, and now Mike flirts regularly with it in the hopes of glimpsing the ghosts of his past on the other side. As it happens, Mike’s penchant for death defying stunts and near-death experiences also catches the attention of a group looking to recruit a candidate of his skills and interests.
Before long, Mike finds himself joining forces with a mysterious organization led by a man called O’Neil, enlisted into the war against the coming apocalypse. Soon our hero is battling demons, staving off the encroaching forces of the Unification whose aims involve resurrecting a powerful being named Lazarus so that they can usher in a new age where magic will once again reign supreme. After devouring the heart of the monster Golgoroth, Mike transcends his own humanity, becoming the key to an age-old conflict between the realms of supernatural beings.
I enjoyed The Seventh Age: Dawn for the most part, though I’ll also be honest and say that there were times where I really struggled. It’s an ambitious book for sure, though it also suffers occasionally from excessiveness and bloat, a common issue for first novels where you get the sense that the author is trying to cram as much as possible into their debut effort. Rick Heinz throws in everything but the kitchen sink: angels, demons, warlocks, vampires, ghosts, shapeshifters, and I’m sure there are quite a few more creatures that I’m forgetting. I believe therein lies part of the problem. There was simply too much to process such a short time, and in the end I felt like I was only able to absorb a small fraction of the information deluge.
Fortunately, after a few false starts I managed to fall into an easier rhythm, though I also can’t help but feel that “rhythm” might be a wildly inaccurate term to describe the nature of this book. The plot is complicated and rather dense, and the reader is dropped hard into the thick of things straight from the beginning. To the novel’s credit, at no point does the story slow down as we’re thrust into one frenetic situation after another. There’s really nothing soft or predictable about it.
That said though, for an urban fantasy, it’s a bit on the heavier side for my tastes. This is my go-to genre from straight-up fun, not to wrack my brain teasing out multiple impenetrable layers of hidden agendas or trying to work out who’s who. A book with so much action should not feel tedious, or else there’s something not right going on, and I just feel that the story tries to do too much at times and things can get very messy especially with the overabundance of POV characters. The constant shifts and back-and-forths made it nearly impossible to connect with any one person, and trying to keep all the names straight was one reason why I had difficulty getting into this book early on. Another issue is wordiness. In my opinion, there are quite a few scenes that could have been cut down or omitted altogether.
Still, the overall concept is a good one, even if the execution was a little shaky. For all the pomp and zeal that The Seven Age: Dawn tries to pack into its 400 or so pages, the overall plot is relatively light on substance, though that could change in the next installment. Rick Heinz may have tried to cover too much ground in this series opener, but there’s no denying that he’s created an interesting world that I wouldn’t mind exploring further. I also enjoyed the gritty dry tone he established for the rest of the series, a style which reminds me somewhat of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim. Perhaps I just need to spend more time in this world to form stronger attachment to the characters and to get a better sense of where things stand.
Mogsy’s Bookshelf Roundup: Stacking the Shelves & Recent Reads
Posted on February 25, 2017 42 Comments
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every other weekend which fills the role of several blog memes, like Stacking the Shelves where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, as well as It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? where I round up what I’ve read since the last update and what I’m planning to read soon. Mostly it also serves as a recap post, so sometimes I’ll throw in stuff like reading challenge progress reports, book lists, and other random bookish thoughts or announcements.
Received for Review
Thank you to the publishers and authors for the following review copies received. For more details and full descriptions of the books, be sure to click the links to their Goodreads pages!
Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts – Bastards gotta stick together. That’s what a group of court children who were born on the other side of the sheets learn when they stumble upon a crime they were never meant to witness, and now they’re all that stands between the kingdom and treachery. I don’t know about you, but this one sounds awesome! My thanks to Disney-Hyperion for the ARC!
Worldshaker by J.F. Lewis – My thanks to Pyr for this beautiful finished copy. That’s some seriously gorgeous cover art, which is a considerable improvement from the ARC edition if I’m remembering right!
Etched in Bone by Anne Bishop – I was also really excited to receive this fifth and final novel of The Others series. I’m actually a little nervous to read it because I still can’t quite believe it’s all coming to an end, but hopefully I’ll get to start it sometime next week. With thanks to Roc.
Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey – Much love to Tor for sending me this keeper copy! In case you missed my review for this book, you can find the link below. I loved it, but then it’s Jacqueline Carey and she never disappoints!
A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab – The wonderful folks at Tor also sent me a finished copy of this third and final novel of the Shades of Magic trilogy. This series has been growing on me and I find myself really looking forward to see how the finale will play out.
Eleanor by Jason Gurley – This book made some waves when it came out last year, and now its paperback release is on the horizon. I still really need to read this! With thanks to Broadway Books.
The Devil Crept In by Ania Ahlborn – A great review of this from Jennifer over at Book Den convinced me to request it and give it a try, and I’m so glad I did. I already read it and it was creepy as hell! My thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley.
Borrowed Souls by Chelsea Mueller – Thank you to Talos for this e-galley which I grabbed as soon as I saw it pop up at Edelweiss. Borrowed Souls is on my list of most anticipated debuts of 2017 and I can’t wait to check it out.
The Heart of Stone by Ben Galley – I’ve wanted to read Ben Galley ever since last year’s SPFBO, so when he emailed me earlier this month asking if I would like to review his upcoming book, I said absolutely! Next month Ben should also be stopping by for a guest post, so stay tuned for that.
Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson – Audiobook, courtesy of Audible Studios. I only learned of Snapshot recently, but it’s Sanderson so of course I have to read it! Apparently this novella takes place in the same universe as The Reckoners, though I’m not sure how it all fits together yet. Can’t wait to listen and find out.
Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig and The Wanderers by Meg Howrey – More audiobooks, courtesy of Penguin Random House Audio. Of course I have to see the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy through, and The Wanderers was a book that caught my attention recently, when I saw a blurb describing it as Station Eleven meets The Martian.
Greedy Pigs by Matt Wallace and Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones – More novellas from the generous Tor.com team! I’m very curious about Mapping the Interior and I just finished Idle Ingredients so I should be all set now for Greedy Pigs!
Reviews
Here’s a summary of my reviews posted since the last Roundup. For this week’s highlights, I want to bring attention to a couple of excellent reads: The Grey Bastards, which I read for SPFBO; and The Valiant, an amazing YA novel about female gladiators in Ancient Rome.
The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French (4.5 of 5 stars)
The Valiant by Lesley Livingston (4.5 of 5 stars)
Death’s Mistress by Terry Goodkind (4 of 5 stars)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (4 of 5 stars)
Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey (4 of 5 stars)
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire (3.5 of 5 stars)
Freeks by Amanda Hocking (3 of 5 stars)
Gilded Cage by Vic James (2.5 of 5 stars)
Roundup Highlights:
What I’ve Read Since the Last Update
Here’s what I’ve read recently, with a couple reviews already posted. The rest to come soon!
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured this week? What caught your eye? Any new discoveries? I hope you found something interesting for a future read! Let me know what you plan on checking out. Until next time, see you next Roundup!
Friday Face-Off: Aliens
Posted on February 24, 2017 29 Comments
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“Aliens–if they exist–are little green men with big eyes and spindly arms…or giant insects or something like a lumpy little creature”
~ a cover featuring ALIENS
Mogsy’s Pick:
Sundiver by David Brin
For this week’s theme, I’ve decided to go with an oldie but a goodie. Sundiver is the first book of The Uplift Saga, a series featuring the central theme of “biological uplift”, a term used to describe the process of transforming a certain species into more intelligent beings by other already intelligent beings. In this universe, humanity is an anomaly – a species that apparently got to where they are with no patron race. But is this truly the case? Or did a mysterious race begin the uplift of humankind a long time ago before abandoning them? The matter is one of fierce debate.
Let’s take a look at the following selection of covers from around the world:
From left to right, top to bottom: Bantam Spectra (2010) – Little Brown and Company (1996) – Bantam (1981)
Spanish (2010) – Romanian (2013) – Polish (1995) – Spanish (1993) – French (1995) – German (2014) – Czech (1995) – Russian (1995)
Winner:
I hate to admit it, but some of these older covers are just way too goofy looking for my tastes, so simple and elegant wins it for me this week.
What do you think? Which one is your favorite?
Book Review: Gilded Cage by Vic James
Posted on February 23, 2017 33 Comments
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Mogsy’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 1 of Dark Gifts
Publisher: Del Rey (February 14, 2017)
Length: 368 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Rarely have I read a story where my thoughts at the end are such a complete turnaround from my thoughts at the beginning. When I first started Gilded Cage, I was beyond pumped–the excellent writing, solid world-building, and strong portrayals of the main characters all made me think this book was going to have everything I wanted. Yet by the time I finished, I could barely even put my feelings into words. I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t hate it. The whole thing just left me cold.
In the alternate world of this young adult dystopian, Great Britain is nation starkly divided along class lines. The Equals are the ruling elites who run the government, live on sprawling estates, and enjoy the power granted to them by their magical gifts. Then there are the commoners, who may be the majority, but they have no representation and are expected to submit themselves to a mandatory ten-year term of service to the Equals. This period is called their “slavedays”, in which they will have all their rights stripped away and no longer be considered citizens.
When the story begins, we are introduced to a family about to begin their slavedays. Siblings Abi, Luke, and Daisy Hadley have been arranged to accompany their parents assigned to the Jardine estate, home of one of the most prominent nobles in Equal society. However, on the day the Hadleys are scheduled to depart, a misunderstanding occurs and 16-year-old Luke is instead separated from his family and shipped off to the slavetown of Millmoor. Feeling desperate and alone, he befriends a group of fellow slaves who teach him how to survive, which in turn makes Luke realize there are more ways to fight back than he’d previously believed.
Meanwhile at the Jardine estate, the rest of the Hadley family are exposed to all the political intrigues and scheming of the Lord and Lady Whittam, along with their three sons Gavar, Jenner, and Silyen. Nevertheless, Abi ends up falling for one of the noble-born young men against her better judgment, putting her in the terrible place of questioning her loyalties and having to decide between freedom and love.
Despite its hackneyed dystopian premise and the overly simplistic concepts, I really did enjoy the first part of this book. From Animal Farm to The Hunger Games, you see a lot of the same themes get used over and over for these types of stories, and yet I never seem to get enough. While the core ideas behind Gilded Cage might not be anything we haven’t seen before, I did enjoy seeing Vic James’ take on them and her attempt to inject a few twists. The prologue was a perfect ten what it came to capturing my attention, and what I read in first few chapters made me want to know more. The writing was also delectable.
So I was shocked when it hit me; somewhere around the quarter to midway point, all my previous enthusiasm had somehow drained away, and I hadn’t even realized it was happening. It just occurred to me suddenly that I was bored, I didn’t really care about the characters, and I was zoning out more and more. The feeling was ambivalence, also known as the death knell of a book under review.
Here’s what I think happened: 1) over time, the strength of the story began eroding due to too many POVs. I couldn’t help but feel the author was trying to emulating the structure and style of an epic fantasy, except, of course, Gilded Cage is not an epic fantasy. 2) The story got hung up on too many unnecessary details. Don’t get me wrong, though. Details are nice. Details are important. But when I find I can zone out or forget everything that was said for several pages at a time, and then have it make absolutely no difference at all in the end, that’s a problem. 3) The split storytelling between the Jardine estate and Millmoor was an interesting decision, but I’m not sure that it was carried out too well. While it was nice seeing a picture of both sides of the world, the ultimate effect was neither here nor there. I couldn’t form a connection to either storyline, and ended up shrugging off both.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m disappointed. What started off so promising ended up making me feel so…blah. Still, that’s not to say the book didn’t have it strengths. I recommend giving it a try if the description interests you. It has also been received very positively by a lot of other readers, and I encourage everyone to check out their reviews for another perspective because they do a fantastic job covering all of the story’s charms and high points. Simply put though, the strengths were not enough to overcome the ennui I felt for most of the book, which stumbled after a great beginning and unfortunately never recovered its momentum.
Waiting on Wednesday 02/22/17
Posted on February 22, 2017 15 Comments
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick
The Realms of God by Michael Livingston (November 7, 2017 by Tor Books)
Another great trilogy will come to an end this fall. While I look forward to seeing how things play out, I don’t know where I’ll be getting my Ancient Rome fix after this!
“The Ark of the Covenant has been spirited out of Egypt to Petra, along with the last of its guardians. But dark forces are in pursuit. Three demons, inadvertently unleashed by Juba of Numidia and the daughter of Cleopatra, are in league with Tiberius, son and heir of Augustus Caesar. They’ve seized two of the fabled Shards of Heaven, lost treasures said to possess the very power of God, and are desperately hunting the rest.
Through war and assassination, from Rome to the fabled Temple Mount of Jerusalem and on to the very gates of Heaven itself, the forces of good and evil will collide in a climactic battle that threatens the very fabric of Creation.
The Realms of God is the thrilling conclusion to Michael Livingston’s historical fantasy trilogy that continues the story begun in The Shards of Heaven and The Gates of Hell.”
The BiblioSanctum 