The Book Rookie – The Gentleman Bastards Sequence

"Nice bird, arsehole." Out of context, that quote is just fun to say. In context, nestled into the pages of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, it's one of the single funniest lines in any book I've ever read. The Gentleman Bastards series holds countless laughs among its pages, and the story is more fun…

Mad Max: Fury Road — Blossoming In The Desert

If there ever was a piece of media that acted as my editorial/sexual awakening, Mad Max: Fury Road would be it. It wasn’t the first film to make me think critically about movies and their themes and messages. But It was the first one that made me really want to understand media (be it books…

The Unique Fantasy Appeal Of Survivor

Are you a fantasy die-hard? May I introduce you to Survivor? In 2001, families across America glued their eyeballs to the screen as Survivor revolutionized reality television. 16 Americans hopped off a boat and onto a beach, where a full production crew awaited and Jeff Probst introduced the very first season of the show that…

The Book Rookie – The Kingkiller Chronicle

Welcome back to The Book Rookie, everyone! Last year, we kicked off a series aimed at getting me, the eponymous Book Rookie, up to speed with some of the biggest fantasy and science fiction books available. We started off the series with Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. Here are the first three installments of The Book…

Your Guide To The Great Book Of Amber Part 2: The Merlin Cycle

Welcome to part 2 of The Quill to Live’s roadmap to Amber, a guide to reading The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelazny. If you are just joining us for the first time, we highly encourage you to take a look at part 1, which covers the first five installments of The Great Book…

An Open Mind is… Well You Can Finish the Rest

Joe Abercrombie is an excellent writer. I welcome dispute, but I think you’re playing a losing hand if you disagree. He’s one of the easiest examples to point to when people mention Grimdark, and the only other king I recognize in that field is Glen Cook. They both write delightfully gritty fantasy stories about power…

The Book Rookie – The Hero of Ages

We're back with another installment of The Book Rookie! This time, Alex and Andrew join cole to discuss The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson's thrilling conclusion to the original Mistborn trilogy! Just catching up? Listen to our discussions about Mistborn and The Well of Ascension before you dive in. And enjoy our shiny new musical…

The Book Rookie – The Well Of Ascension

We are back with part two of The Book Rookie - Mistborn. Today we're talking about the second book in the series: The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson. Unlike our discussion of the first book in the series, this discussion inherently needs to have some spoilers - but we tried to minimize them as…

The Book Rookie – Mistborn: The Final Empire

Today, we kick off a new series: The Book Rookie! The Book Rookie is essentially a book club in which Cole (the eponymous rookie) reads flagship fantasy and sci-fi books, then discusses them with readers who have more experience with the genre. This isn't a book club for niche reads. We're talking big series: The…

Fantasy Cop Throw Down – A Triple Review

I’m switching things up today and reviewing three books at once. Why? Because I accidentally read three fantasy cop stories in two weeks and I don’t think I have it in me to review each one separately, but I want to talk about all of them. So the question of the day is this: which…