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Showing posts from June, 2015

REVIEW: STORMDANCER (THE LOTUS WAR BOOK 1)

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INTRODUCTION I'm always a sucker for a good fantasy novel. As I get older and busier, I find I have less and less time for prolonged fantasy books so I tend to try and choose as wisely as possible when it comes to selecting the longer works of fiction that I do read. Jay Kristoff's STORMDANCER (The Lotus War Book One)  is a book that comes passionately recommended by some and fiercely chastised by others. While I normally don't see such a divide in opinions and was a little skeptical about this book for that reason, it sounded like everything I wanted in this type of plot-line, plus upon sampling some of the author's writing I knew this had to be at least a little good. HOW I CAME UPON IT In an effort to get my own book into the hands of people who enjoy reading and reviewing books, I started following the booktubing community on YouTube. This is a group of vloggers that makes videos about books, sometimes they deliver video reviews and other times they will just

REVIEW: INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US VOL. 2

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INTRODUCTION As I mentioned in my review of INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US VOL. 1 , I generally have a hard time getting into comics. I like it as an art form and I think it's a cool medium for spinning fictional tales, but it is also a really confusing and unapproachable form of entertainment, even with all of the re-branding DC has recently done in order to make their stories more inviting to new readers. So when I decided to try the first volume of the INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US comic series and found it delightfully well done and remarkably accessible, I of course had to continue on by picking up the Kindle version of the second half of Year One. HOW I CAME UPON IT Like I mentioned above, the first volume is what really sold me on picking up the second. INJUSTICE is kind of formatted like a television show in that it works in seasons (they refer to them as years). There is no mention of this being Year One until the very back cover in this volume, but that is probably because t

UPDATE: 7/1/2015

I didn't mean for this to update to be a Monthly Wrap Up / TBR, since that's more of a BookTuber thing than something bloggers do, but that's just kind of the way the timing worked out. Everyone Dies at the End , The Devil's Child, Injustice Vol. 2 , and Stormdancer all have reviews now up on this blog and it is time to switch over to a new reading cycle. I'm currently reading: This round will be a bit more fluid than the last in that I am aiming to blast through the first two Hunger Games books in short succession. Sinking will likely be read in a single sitting and Unstable Prototypes will be something I read at a steadier pace. The Hunger Games  (The Hunger Games # 1)  by Suzanne Collins  I have begun my re-read of the famed dystopia. I already know that I love this book, but will feel better about reviewing it if I have a more recent experience with it. This will also gear me up for the two sequels which I hope to have finished before the final movie

REVIEW: THE DEVIL'S CHILD

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INTRODUCTION  Melissa Silvey's twisted romance continues with a second installment. Based on the ending message of the book, there's likely to be at least one more of these, but this could also continue well beyond that. I reviewed the first in this series ( The Forbidden Fruit) , though at the time of my read-through, I thought it was a standalone title. My opinion of it was generally favorable despite it not really being within my typical genres of choice. I gave it a 4/5 and the author must have really liked my review because she sent me the second book entirely free of charge in exchange for another honest analysis.  HOW I CAME UPON IT  As I mentioned above, THE DEVIL'S CHILD was given to me in EPUB format by the author. At the time I had other things I wanted to read, but fully intended to get around to this at some point. Now here I am with a review for the follow-up novel. I may not have anticipated this read as much as I might my next SciFi or Fantasy read, b

WRITING INSIGHT: DIGITARUM AND THE UNOFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK OF THE WRITING PROCESS

It will be a little bit before any new reviews go up since I am still wrapping up my current reads. In the meantime, I thought it might be a good time to put up my first "Writing Insight" post. This one is a little silly, but it seems like a fun place to start before diving into sharing some of my more serious writing experiences.  The songs that follow aren't really a desired soundtrack to the book or anything like that. Rather, they are tracks that I  listened  to with particular frequency during the writing PROCESS. Music can be really helpful to me when I am trying to envision a particular scene/set of images or am just searching for a mood/feeling. I obviously  listened  to a lot more than the following fifteen songs, but these are the ones that flooded my eardrums the most and those that I found most helpful whenever I got stuck. They are listed in no particular order. Am I not Human?  –   Two Steps From Hell A heart-pumping instrumental piece that I d

REVIEW: EVERYONE DIES AT THE END

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INTRODUCTION  I'm not often one for the zombie apocalypse theme. I think it's overdone and all too formulaic to be of any real entertainment value. I also just don't find that zombies are a compelling type of villain. Vampires are scary because they are smart AND powerful AND eat people. Zombies just kind of eat people most of the time. Occasionally they are stronger or faster than average people, but a lot of the time they are actually slower. What makes a zombie apocalypse entertaining for most (I think) is generally how the world reacts to a global zombie outbreak. What usually does it for me though, is when the story is more of a spoof off of the ordinary zombie plot-line. Zombieland and Warm Bodies are perfect examples of this. I've yet to find any kind of more serious zombie story that resonates with me in quite the same way as these movies did. I do enjoy Plants vs. Zombies and Call of Duty Zombies mode ( Left for Dead was pretty good too) but those are game

UPDATE: 6/17/2015

I feel that the blog is well underway now. Previous content is posted and several new items were added including the reviews for Hollow Towns which was pretty great and Fade to Black which unfortunately left a bit to be desired. While I did not finish Stormdancer as part of this round, I will be making sure to get it read before my next reading cycle. I also managed to construct a set of trivia for Digitarum and rather enjoyed it so I will be creating more types of new content like that as time goes on. I'm currently reading: Unlike the last round I will be finishing ALL four of these before picking up anything else. Stormdancer  (The Lotus War Book 1)  by Jay Kristoff  I'm still working my way through Kristoff's Japanese (inspired) steampunk Fantasy epic. I'm about halfway through and really loving the imaginative world that has been created here. The only real reason this is taking me so long is that I have it in paper format so I am really only reading it wh

NEWS: Goodreads Giveaway for DIGITARUM

From now until July 6, 2015 one of three paperback copies of DIGITARUM can be won by entering the Goodreads giveaway at https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/142749-digitarum There are three chances to win and a lot of folks have already entered for it which is kind of blowing me away. NOTE: Goodreads selects the winners, I only supply the contest and provide the rewards.

REVIEW: FADE TO BLACK

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INTRODUCTION  Every now and then I like to try something a little different from what I normally read. Before I started using the Kindle app on my tablet, I was rather narrow in my choice of literature. If something wasn't required for a class or didn't fit my interests exactly, then I just did not give it a chance. Now that I am into using Kindle, I've found it a lot easier to get into things I might not have before since books are so much cheaper, and there are a bunch that are even free either from time to time or are the start of a series and always free. FADE TO BLACK by L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain is both the start of a series and was free for a couple of days so I gave it a try. HOW I CAME UPON IT  Right around the time that I started promoting DIGITARUM, I started getting a whole bunch of new Twitter followers from people within the indie scene. One of the authors of this book was/is among them and sent me a private message on Twitter saying something to the ef