The Unspoken Name – A Maze Of Mystery

February 20, 2020 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 1 Comment

Yesterday we posted our first 2020 Dark Horse Initiative list, but you might have missed it because we put it out on an unusual day for us. The reason for this is I was dead set on getting my review of The Unspoken Name, by A. K. Larkwood, out today, and it felt weird to review it before including it as part of our DHI. The Unspoken Name is a powerful, unusual, and extraordinary debut that will likely be the talk of the town for many months to come. The book is not at all what I expected from its back blurb, but I think that may be the point. This story is mercurial, untraditional, engrossing, and occasionally a little rough. But, above all else, it is a beautiful story that is worth reading and a debut that promises that Larkwood is an author to keep an eye on.

The plot follows Csorwe, an orc priestess of the titular god of “The Unspoken Name.” Her job, for a short period, is to be a conduit for communication between the god and supplicants who come with offerings. She is supposed to serve this role for a number of years, starting as a young child, and eventually be sacrificed to the god at a certain age. She knows that her death is marked on the calendar from day one of her service, and she reacts accordingly, becoming a sullen, fatalistic, and incurious person. What is the point of exploration and discovery when you know you will die soon? This all changes when a supplicant, a Gandalf-esque wizard, comes to The Unspoken and whisks her away right before her death. He enlists her in a bodyguard for a quest to reclaim his homeland and they travel Larkwood’s multiverse (a series of worlds interconnected by a giant maze of portals) seeing all sorts of wonderful things – and that’s about all I am going to tell you.

The story of The Unspoken Name is surprising. It doesn’t follow a clear path and often takes unexpected turns and twists into wonderful new directions. For a large portion of the book, Csorwe doesn’t really have a goal. She thought she was going to die, it didn’t happen, and she doesn’t have a plan for what to do now. She has some ideas, but not many, and a huge part of the story is her just trying things out and learning about the world. It is a beautiful and unique narrative style that I really enjoyed and gave the book a very pervasive atmosphere of whimsy and wonder. This is helped enormously by the fact that the world is just absolutely wonderful to explore. he magic and multiverse are convoluted and complicated by design to keep everything mysterious. However, what you do learn about – such as the race of giant snake philosophers who built the foundation of civilization as they know it – is wonderful. I also particularly liked how there are a variety of different magical races, but race politics was a very minor footnote in the story. For example, Csorwe is an orc and while that carries through into a lot of her flavor and general identity, there is very little attention and time given to it by the other races or people. The entire book projects this idea of a universe where people come in all shapes and sizes and that is very normal and not worth commenting on.

I ate up every second of the world-building and constantly found myself desperate for more. However, the world is more of a vehicle for the journey of self-discovery that Csorwe and many other characters find themselves on and it definitely plays second fiddle to the characters. The characters are absolutely fantastic. The protagonists mostly share the theme of growth and self-discovery and the antagonists are mired in a refusal to change or grow. It is a powerful high-level idea that plays out wonderfully in the character stories and the individual journeys of the cast are extremely satisfying to boot. I really enjoyed Csorwe. She feels so real and relatable it hurts. Her joy at discovering new things and skills is so sweet, and her mistakes feel like important moments that she learns from and grows. I don’t want to talk too much about the supporting cast for spoiler reasons, but they also share the same arcs and moments.

Despite all my lavish praise, I do think the book struggled in a place or two. In particular, the book can have slightly uneven pacing and some trouble with telling versus showing. While it’s wonderful that the book wanders, Larkwood occasionally seems to feel scared the reader will get bored if she lingers too much in any particular place and jumps from set-piece to set-piece. In a book about stumbling and finding your way, I didn’t think there was enough breathing room to occasionally take in and process things. In addition, for someone who has sheltered her entire life and has “inexperience” as a cornerstone of her personality – Csorwe has a weird tendency to just announce everything there is to know about a person in her head the second she meets someone. Meeting new characters often has Csorwe take one look at them and think things like “he was a cruel man, who seemed like he had a troubled youth. He wasn’t respected by his peers and spent his life trying to live up to the expectations of his father. He didn’t call his mom enough.” I kept waiting to find out she secretly possessed psychic powers or some sort of keen insight, but by the end of the book, it seems like the story just suffers from a little too much telling.

The Unspoken Name is a stroll through a garden of wonders in book form. It is filled with whimsy and wonder and tells the story of a woman finding her place in the world after rejecting the role fate placed on her shoulders. It is a wonderful book that surprises and delights from the first to the last page. A.K. Larkwood has crafted an absolutely stellar debut that only has a few minuscule issues. I cannot wait to see where the story goes next, though I have absolutely no idea where Larkwood will take us next.

Rating: The Unspoken Name – 8.5/10
-Andrew

Dark Horse 2020 – Jan to June

February 19, 2020 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 4 Comments

After the success of last year’s Dark Horse Initiative, we knew we were going to do it again this year. For those of you just joining us, the DHI is our attempt to sift through all the relatively unknown debuts coming out in a year and bookmark a handful to check out and review just based on their descriptions. However, when we were building the lists this year we realized that we had A LOT of books on it – so we decided to make two. We are splitting the DHI into two lists, one for each half of the year. The following books are our picks for books coming out from January 2020 to June 2020, and we will have a second list for the back half of the year in July.

As mentioned, each of the following 12 books (in no particular order) is something that caught the eyes of one of our reviewers. We will do our best to read and review all of these, but there are only so many hours in the day so no promises we will get to all of them. Regardless, each looks like a promising new story and we are very excited to check them out! Happy 2020 everyone.

Fortuna – It Favors the Bold, Also the Bad (But in a Good Way)

January 23, 2020February 2, 2020 / Alex Tas / 1 Comment

I know it’s not exactly the best way to get excited about a book, but I was immediately attracted to Fortuna, by Kristyn Merbeth, when the eighties synthwave cover was revealed. When Orbit threw in a blurb likening the work to that of Becky Chambers, I was done for. No need to complete the chokehold with a synopsis about a family of space smugglers, but it was there anyway. Fortuna is a great book with a rollicking character-focused story that succeeds in emotional depth but reaches a little too far when it comes to large-scale destruction.

Fortuna is a nice mix of action and character driven narrative. It follows the Kaiser family, a small group of smugglers raised and managed by Auriga Kaiser, the biological mother of the crew. The main characters are Corvus, the eldest brother, and Scorpia, the second oldest. Upon hearing that Corvus is returning to the Fortuna(the name of the ship) after finishing his third year of service within the Titan planetary military, Scorpia hatches her latest plan to make her mother proud so she can take the captain’s reigns and continue the Kaiser legacy. However, Scorpia is not as competent as her confidence suggests, and the system itself has other plans that muddy the Kaiser’s ability to maintain their smuggling business. Amidst the family drama, resources become tight and rumors of war circulate as the planets begin to become more isolationist.

I want to start off by highlighting Merbeth’s exceptional writing ability. The chapters alternate between Corvus and Scorpia, both sides written in a first-person perspective. I normally have issues with first person, because I generally do not like how things are described from that perspective, but Merbeth really knocked it out of the park here. Not only do the two characters feel distinct as people, but it comes through in how they describe the people around them, or the environments they are in. Scorpia comes off as a confident, whip-smart, smooth operator who acknowledges she might drink too much and often looks at people in a buddy-buddy way. Often her descriptions feel as if they are pulled out of hat. Corvus, on the other hand, is reserved, disciplined and all too aware of himself. He constantly feels distanced from those around him, regardless of how close they are. His distance is often self imposed, exemplified by the directness with which he speaks to himself and those around him. It was very distinct and kept me pulled along through the whole ride.

In a similar vein, the characters are fairly deep even though some are built on recognizable foundations. Fortuna shines because of its characters and their relationships with each other. The Kaiser family feels alive, and they have a deep history with each other. They have been through a lot and it shows. Corvus’ return feels monumental, even though it’s subdued and carries a lot of baggage. Merbeth does an excellent job of revealing the experiences and motivations of characters in such a way that their interactions feel natural and uncontrived. I think a lot of people might feel beaten over the head with Scorpia’s flaws, but I think Merbeth nailed it. Scorpia is inconsistent, juvenile, and brash but wants to do what is best for her family and will go to whatever length she feels is necessary to keep them safe and happy. Her alcoholism runs deep, and it takes her a while to deal with it, while the rest around her see it day in and day out. Her flaws, as deep and heartbreaking as they were, were made endearing by her better qualities. Merbeth straddled the line of unbearable and loveable with Scorpia, and it made the book more engaging.

While the intense character drama drove the narrative, I felt that the plot was a little inconsistent. I enjoyed the smuggling and the politics between the different worlds. I also enjoyed that the smugglers were the connections in some sense between the worlds as they all slowly began to close their borders. My biggest issue with the plot was its sense of scale. The amount of destruction that occurs alongside the family drama felt unreal and made some of the arguments the Kaisers had a little garish and cartoonish. Pair that with the fact that a lot of it happened off-screen (for reasons that are apparent within the story that I want to avoid spoilers) also diminished the attachment. Merbeth did a good job in terms of set up and in explaining why the different members of the family would be affected by the events in the way that they were, but the events just felt too big. The planets, while fairly fleshed out, did not have a sense of scale. With the family drama in the forefront, it was hard to appreciate the threat, and just how much of an effect it had, and how the Kaisers were involved. I enjoyed the story and plotting of events in general, but I felt that some of the consequences were too big for a small family of smugglers.

In the end, I had a blast with Fortuna. It was a good ride with a lot of heart, and heavy family drama that felt well built within a well-realized world. The characters were likeable in the long run and felt distinct despite their rough beginnings. The book had its inconsistencies, but like its characters, the better qualities shone all the brighter because of it. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series. If you are looking for a small-scale drama among the stars with heavy consequences, then Fortuna by Kristyn Merbeth is for you.

Rating: Fortuna – 8.0/10
-Alex

Blood Of An Exile – Missed Gems Of 2019

January 9, 2020 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 2 Comments

Alright, I am going to be honest here; I did Brian Naslund a disservice when I judged his debut book, Blood of an Exile, by its name and cover and shelved it for later. Although I hated both title and art, after finishing the novel I have to admit that they suit the book perfectly, and I am just being a judgmental ass. Released back in August of last year, the book is the start of the Dragons of Terra series and definitely would have been a contender for my top of 2019 list had I actually got to it in a timely manner. I apologize, Brian Naslund, and hopefully this review will slightly make it up to you.

Blood of an Exile is a book with powerful characters, a rich world, and a fairly inventive plot. Ostensibly, the story follows our protagonist Silas Bershad the Flawless, a man who was sentenced to exile as a dragonslayer for crimes that are revealed throughout the narrative. To be a dragonslayer is a death sentence, and they are forced to roam the land helping towns and cities kill dragons until they die (usually very quickly). However, Bershad refuses to go down and has managed to make a name for himself as the most famous and successful dragonslayer in the world. Very soon after we meet Bershad, he receives a task from the man who exiled him with the promise of freedom should he complete it. Using his status as a famous dragonslayer, Bershad is to sneak into a neighboring country that is gearing up for war, kill a king and save an innocent child in captivity, and then make it back alive with the child in hand. To fail would mean dying an exile, to succeed would mean saving the country that hates him and his freedom.

Initially, this book was looking a bit trope-y and I was concerned I was going to read something I had already experienced hundreds of times before. However, Naslund rapidly disabused me of this notion by showing Blood of an Exile is more than meets the eye. First off, while Bershad is our main protagonist, the story is actually told by four major POVs, an alchemist, an assassin, a princess, and Bershad himself – each of which holds a key piece of the narrative that slot nicely together. The major themes of the book are nature, ecosystems, and how destroying key pieces of any environment can greatly upset the balance. Multiple of the POV’s (including Bershad) are dragon lovers. While they recognize that they are dangerous animals that can cause great harm, dragons are common in this world and are a key piece of every ecosystem they are a part of. While Blood of an Exile is very much an action-packed adventure fantasy, it is also a story about amateur scientists desperately trying to keep humanity from destroying the Earth for fiscal gain – an angle I was not expecting and loved in equal parts. There is a huge focus on the study of dragons and the understanding of their nature. This does a very powerful job of painting them as real living and breathing creatures.

The world-building is phenomenal, with the various political entities feeling like they have clear and memorable identities that aren’t just cut and pasted real-world countries. The cast are all fantastic, even down to the side characters. Even the villains aren’t motivated by the simple goals and are engaging to read and think about. The book does an incredible job exploring how the quest for the betterment of civilization can cause horrible unforeseen problems if you aren’t very careful. Naslund does a very good job using a magical fantasy setting to get you to think about your own waste and usage in the modern world, so expect to be a little uncomfortable.

As for negatives, there are only a few. Although I found the book to be an exciting and compelling read, I felt as though there was a small mismatch in the narrative style and strengths of the book. The characters in Blood of an Exile are treated as tools to move the story along. They are picked up and put down as needed only when their POV makes sense to further the narrative. What this means is that it can sometimes feel like certain characters were getting uneven page time. This felt a bit odd, given that the characters of this book are so strong that I would have been happy to just spend time in their head. The aforementioned princess POV is one of my favorite protagonists, and she shows up as a POV only in the back half of the book with little to no warning. I would have liked a little more even pacing with my time with each character. The book is also fairly crass; which isn’t a problem for me, but it’s something others might take issue with.

In the end, Blood of an Exile was a surprising gem of a book that went unnoticed by many in 2019. It brilliantly combines exciting action, sympathetic characters, smart themes, and a deep world to create a coherent and unique story. It is always rare when you find a book that is both smart and fun at the same time, and Blood of an Exile has both in spades. Brian Naslund should be very proud of his debut book, and I can’t wait for the sequel, Sorcery of a Queen, which comes out this year.

Rating: Blood of an Exile – 8.5/10
-Andrew

An Illusion Of Thieves – A Garden Of Larceny

December 20, 2019 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 1 Comment

I am disappointed that I was unable to get to An Illusion of Thieves, by Cate Glass, sooner – as it likely would have made our best of 2019 list. The first book in the Chimera series, this (ironically) sneaky book has slipped under the radar for many this year, which is a shame. While this debut book has some issues, it is also a fresh and fun take on the heist genre and looks to be building to something incredible. With a little upfront investment and trust, you will soon find yourself in love with the cast and story.

Thieves has an interesting start that is both explosive and slow at the same time. An enormous amount of life changes happen to our protagonist, Romy, in the first few pages. She is a courtesan of a powerful lord in a corrupt city, but her younger brother Neri robs someone and is caught – shaming her into banishment. All of this is set up to place Romy and Neri in the slums of the city where they must both learn jobs to survive. Also, they are both sorcerers who are being hunted for their innate magic. That’s right, welcome to another round of “magic is super outlawed and we must hide our dark secrets”! I tease because it is an overdone trope, but I actually liked how the ban on magic contributed to the set up of this story. The first half of the book feels almost like watching someone play through a well-written life sim. Romy and Neri both struggle with learning basic skills that will keep them from starving to death and allow them to contribute to society. It sounds boring, but it’s actually really engrossing watching them slowly carve out a life together. That being said, hoooo boyyyyy, did I want Neri to die horribly for the first third of this book. A huge chunk of the first part of Thieves is devoted to the evolution of the relationship between Romy and Neri. While it ends in a really compelling and satisfying place, there is a lot of Neri being the absolute worst and Romy having to clean it up for the first 100 pages. Glass is definitely an older child because she has captured the worst frustrations of having a younger sibling perfectly. However, once you make it past the midway point in the book – something interesting happens. The plot and purpose of the book take a drastic, and fascinating, shift.

In the course of building up their meager lives, Romy and Neri meet a large cast of compelling characters who both help and harm them. As the story continues, the magic system in the world is slowly expanded upon more, and you learn that most sorcerers have a unique kind of magic that they can use to influence the world. Romy, for example, can implant memories in people and Neri can walk through walls. The siblings also eventually meet two magic users, who I won’t spoil, and eventually start to explore their powers. And then a catalyst changes the direction of the tale. A character approaches Romy and basically puts her in a difficult situation – she can either rob a very powerful and well-connected person, or watch the city burn down around her. And when placed in a position of helping the greater good at massive personal risk, she creates a super awesome crime-fighting band of super thieves. I cannot express how awesome this was.

One thing you see in a lot of heist novels is a short and colorful introduction into the crew before rapidly moving onto the stealing. Glass takes a much more leisurely and organic route and slowly brings this crew of people together naturally over the course of their lives. It is masterfully done and when push came to shove I honestly found myself thinking “I mean, of course, they are going to form a group of magical super thieves, it absolutely makes sense.” In addition, when An Illusion of Thieves wraps up, you learn about a new world-ending problem that only this crew of magical do-gooders can handle, and they immediately set out to go handle this new problem (which is the set up for book two). Look, if you don’t want to read an episodic series about magical Robin Hood saving the world through larceny than we don’t have a lot in common.

Some other general assessments include that the characters and worldbuilding are good, but a little inconsistent. I felt Glass did an amazing job bringing the city where the book is set to life – but the world didn’t feel like it extended beyond its walls. Similarly, the smaller cast of characters that the book focuses on had a ton of life and depth to them, but some of the side characters occasionally felt like they were mannequins just there to progress the plot.

Overall, I really enjoyed An Illusion of Thieves. It requires a little work at the start, but it rewards your dedication with a one of a kind heist novel with a ton of great character growth and magical fun. It is original, well written, relatable, and stands out amongst a lot of powerful books that came out in 2019. I am really hoping the Chimera series is more than a trilogy because I would enjoy reading many more books about this band of misfits saving the world through the power of crime. This debut is definitely worth your time, please come join me in watching this team of lovable rogues save the world.

Rating: An Illusion of Thieves – 8.0/10
-Andrew

Dark Horse 2019 – Derby Download

December 19, 2019May 28, 2020 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / Leave a comment

So 2019 is rolling to a close and we have started eyeing books coming out in 2020 to build our to-do lists. However, while building our reading schedule for next year we realized that we should probably do a wrap-up on our Dark Horse Initiative 2019. P.S., you may notice we have changed this list slightly from our original – that is because we somehow missed that two of our books (Priory and Sixteen) were not actually debuts and have replaced them with other debuts we read. So, below you will find a mini-list of all of the debut books and authors we specifically sought out and read in 2019 in the order of how much we enjoyed them. In addition, given that we have already put out a list of our favorite books of 2019 which contained many of these, we thought we would also spend some time highlighting a few specific books for their contributions to their genres. While we didn’t love all of them, almost all of them brought fresh new ideas to the fantasy and sci-fi genres and should be applauded for trying something new. First, the list of Dark Horses in 2019:

Books worth additional discussion:

The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling – What can I say that I haven’t already said about this wonderfully creepy and ambient debut. The limited perspective is engaging, reducing the amount of information the reader receives, heightening the tension. The danger feels ambiguous and ephemeral, making the reader question what is really happening. On top of that, the character to character interaction is sparse, dense and unreliable. Starling does a brilliant job of capturing so much humanity within such a small story. If you’re put off by galaxy-spanning epics, but still want to read something that captures the human condition as it extends to new planets, The Luminous Dead should help light the way.

Famous Men Who Never Lived, by K Chess – Famous Men Who Never Lived offers a heartbreaking slice-of-life story with a healthy smattering of sci-fi. Days after reading, I contemplated K Chess’ story of being the “other,” and the book helped me understand concepts I’d never fully grasped before. As I said in my review, Famous Men isn’t an action-packed adventure. Rather, it skews our perception of our own reality by presenting us with a new one and urges us to explore the implications of immigration and racism. It’s a true sci-fi gem that transitioned from dark horse pick to hard-hitting sci-fi favorite.

Gods Of Jade And Shadow, by Silva Moreno-Garcia – I didn’t love this book, but a lot of people will. My problems with the novel were all due to stylistic clash; its campfire story style bored me and failed to pull me into the story. However, there will be many who rightly love this style and list Gods of Jade and Shadow as one of their favorite novels. Moreno-Garcia’s debut stands out as a unique voice, for better or worse, among the endless dross that the fantasy genre produces each year. Her mix of Mexican heritage, evocative prose, and romantic storytelling are absolutely worth checking out so you can assess it for yourself.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone – This Is How You Lose the Time War is not the book that you think it is. It certainly wasn’t the book I thought it was when I initially opened it on a plane ride back into the states. The few hours I spent within the world that El-Mohtar and Gladstone described were some of the most magical, whimsical, and heartrendingly beautiful I’ve had in recent memory. The story told about Red and Blue is at times terribly romantic, beautifully horrifying, and is constantly dripping with intent and craft. As multifaceted as poetry but with the unrelenting pace and drive of prose, everyone needs to give This Is How You Lose the Time War a try.

Titanshade, by Dan Stout – Hogwarts P.D. is certainly fresh. Titanshade blends two genres that I absolutely did not think could be blended: buddy cop shows and epic fantasy. You might think that just sounds like urban fantasy, but Titanshade is so much more with its completely original fantasy world – with a modern setting. Titanshade has some flaws, but it did a great job showing that fantasy need not be limited to historical European settings. While the book was both grim and dark, the modern setting allowed it to function as both a drama and escapism tool. The second book in the series is coming out next year, and you better believe I am going back for more.

That’s it for our Dark Horses of 2019! If you liked this mini-project of ours, I have some good news: we will be back in early January with our Dark Horse 2020 to-read picks. See you then!

Kings of Paradise – An Epic Beach Read

July 23, 2019 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 2 Comments

Self-published books are a huge mixed bag of quality, but occasionally you can strike gold. Kings of Paradise, by Richard Nell, is one of those books. An epic fantasy novel about a tropical empire, this book has the makings of a modern classic. If you are involved in the self-published fantasy scene, you have probably already heard of this book. It has been gathering its own fan club for a little over a year now and I have been getting more and more recommendations from other reviewers I know. I may be a little late to the party, but let me be the next in what is sure to be a long chain of people to lend my voice to the fact that this book is worth your time. Kings of Paradise has some issues to be sure, but they do little to dampen the great time I had with this book.

Kings of Paradise has a number of POVs, but is focused primarily on the stories of two boys/men: Ruka and Kale. These two are both extremely interesting protagonists, though I favor Kale massively because I find Ruka to be a bit unsavory to read about. Ruka is born malformed and ugly into the southern snow-covered wasteland of the Ascom, where he grows up with only his mother for company. When the strange politics and machinations of the land strip him of his mother, Ruka is consumed with hate for those who’ve wronged him and sets out on a quest for vengeance. Although Ruka was born ugly, he quickly grows into a behemoth of a human with a keen mind. Across a vast sea to the north is the white-sand island paradise of Sri Kon, where Kale is the youngest son of the Sorcerer King. Kale is seen to a degree as the family disappointment and is forced into a series of magical schools to learn discipline. To avoid spoilers I will not reveal what the second two schools are, but Kale starts in the navy and goes to two very different institutions following his naval training.

Our story follows the progression of these two characters, Ruka on his quest for vengeance and Kale on his quest to make something of himself. I found Kale immensely easier to relate to, as Ruka is somewhere between an anti-hero or an antagonist. Although Ruka’s motivations feel relatable, his methods and actions can be brutal to the point of revulsion. A number of the additional POVs in the story are from the perspectives of individuals whose lives Ruka shatters in his quest. However, Ascom and Sri Kon are interesting foils of one another in the story. One is a land of brutal survivalism and the other opulence and wealth as far as the eye can see. The comparisons do a great job of humanizing Ruka and enhancing Kale’s sense of immaturity in the grander scheme of things. You will have scenes where Kale is whining about his crush while Ruka is trying his best not to starve to death as he hides in the woods because he is being hunted for his appearance.

The worldbuilding in the story is fascinating, but I found it a little uneven. Sri Kon is a fascinating land with a number of cool customs and a culture I wanted to immerse myself in. Ascom is a hellish wasteland that I thought had a few interesting ideas but failed to capture my interest or imagination in the same way as Sri Lon. There are only so many dimensions to “survival is king,” and I have seen a number of them in other books before. The magic systems were also a great time, with both Ruka and Kale discovering different talents. However, I do think that magic did not get enough exploration.

My major complaint against Kings of Paradise is that the pacing of the book felt a bit tumultuous. The start of the book, in particular when Ruka is a child, can feel slower than paint drying. You get entire chapters devoted to shattering the naivete of children and I felt the same themes could have been achieved in shorter pages in a punchier manner. On the other hand, the end of the book moves insanely fast. The last 50 pages see a ton of huge climactic events happening in mere paragraphs when I would have liked to see them strung out across entire chapters. The book also ends with a huge shift in tone as well, which leads me to worry that I will like book two less, but I won’t be able to tell until I actually read it. However, I am definitely going to read book two, Kings of Ash, as soon as my schedule frees up.

Kings of Paradise is an impressive debut with a ton of potential. The two protagonists and their mirrored stories add a ton of depth to an already engrossing story that I couldn’t put down. With an interesting setting and memorable cast, this was one of my top books I read this summer. If you are looking for a new epic fantasy, a new beach read, or an epic fantasy about beaches – this is the book for you. We wholeheartedly recommend Kings of Paradise by Richard Nell.

Rating: Kings of Paradise – 8.5/10
-Andrew

Titanshade – Familiar Yet Fantastical

June 18, 2019June 18, 2019 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 2 Comments

Alright, I am back from my wedding and honeymoon where I read nine books on the beach – so I have a ton of new stuff to talk about and am excited to get back into it. Let’s see if I still remember how to write a review. The first book I want to talk about this week is Titanshade, by Dan Stout. It is a fantasy buddy cop book and one of our dark horse selections for this year. I was eager to tear into it for a number of reasons, the simplest being “can it do a better job at a fantasy buddy cop story than the train wreck that was Netflix’s Bright from last year.” The short answer is yes, it is much better, but that bar was extremely low and there is a lot of space between “terrible” and “amazing.”

As mentioned, Titanshade is a fantasy buddy cop book. The plot is fairly straightforward: our lead cop protagonist, Carter, is an excellent but unconventional cop with a troubled past that has mired his career in the cases that no one else will touch. He lives and works in the city of Titanshade, a Siberian industrial city that holds high esteem in the world because it produces most of the known supply of oil. The city sits nestled in a northern icy wasteland next to a mountain that contains a chained god who is constantly being tortured by devils (we don’t really know why). The god’s agony produces a massive amount of heat, warming the area and allowing workers to live in the shade of the titan. Unfortunately, Titanshade is running out of oil. The wells are running dry and the city needs to find a new source of income and power to remain relevant in the world. So when Carter stumbles onto a murder case that threatens upcoming talks to transform the cities industries he is assigned a young plucky non-humanoid partner to work the case and keep the city from metaphorically dying.

The murder investigation is fun and interesting, but if you are familiar with a cop or detective dramas the story isn’t really something you haven’t seen a million times before. Carter is assigned a young partner named Ajax, an adorable yet effective cop who serves as a good foil to Carter. He is this strange bug humanoid creature, and while he and Carter have a ton of friction at first they unsurprisingly come to trust and like one another over the course of the book. Titanshade’s plot doesn’t really stand out and does nothing to reinvent genre clichés that I personally find extremely tired. If you are hoping that this would be the new frontier of cop stories then you might be disappointed. However, this book still has a ton to offer readers if they have the right expectations.

In my opinion, the target audience of Titanshade is people who like both cop shows and fantasy and are looking for something that bridges the gap. While the plot isn’t innovative, the characters are extremely enjoyable and the world-building is fantastic. Carter and Ajax are just fun to read about, and it’s hard not to find yourself enjoying their relationship even though you know where it is going from page one. Originally I was going to say that the world-building is simplistic, but a more accurate adjective would be to say that it is streamlined. Titanshade’s fantastical elements are fairly subdued. There are a ton of different fantasy races, all cool and original, but all of them are essentially humans with very different physiology. There aren’t tons of psychological or cultural differences between the species. Additionally, although there are magic and fantastical things – they are incorporated to accomplish things that we already have in the modern world through the use of technology. Dan Stout has essentially taken our existing world, and stripped a bunch of the tech, and then replaced it with things that are powered by magic. The result is a world that feels both extremely familiar, yet exciting and fun to explore. It is a really cathartic read, giving you a tried and true plot that you are sure to enjoy – in an original setting that enhances instead of distracting from the plot. My only complaint with the world-building is that there were still some pretty big questions left unanswered from book one, that I can only assume Stout will answer in later books.

If you like cop shows and fantasy books, you will almost certainly like Titanshade. Although it doesn’t break a lot of new ground, the book is a wonderful reskinning of popular cop tropes with a lovable cast. Thank you Dan Stout for giving me an absolutely perfect beach read, and I can’t wait to check out what is next for Carter and Ajax. Go check out this debut book when you get a chance.

Rating: Titanshade – 7.5/10
-Andrew

The Dark Horse Initiative – 2019

March 5, 2019December 11, 2019 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 5 Comments

Every year the Quill to Live sit down in December to plan our collective reading schedule for the next year. It’s a long process, and it heavily involves combing through release dates of series we are following and, more importantly, digging into the hundreds of upcoming and highly anticipated book lists made by publishers, authors, other reviewers, and general fantasy and sci-fi fans. Through this process, we give our yearly reading schedules a little bit of structure – but one of the other benefits is picking out potential dark horses to keep an eye on. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a dark horse is a competitor who comes out of nowhere against all odds to win. In our case, we use it to refer to books that almost no one has heard of that we want to check out or keep an eye on. Sometimes this results in us reading terrible books that we might or might not review depending on how productive we feel our criticism will be. However, other times it results in us being able to champion new and upcoming authors who deserve more recognition.

Recently, we have been getting a lot of requests to describe the 2019 books we are excited about, in particular, the dark horses we have our eyes on. Thus, going forward we will put out a list of our annual dark horses in case you want to keep an eye on them as well. We will put this list out earlier next year, and while we will do our best to review every book on this list, the inclusion of a book does not guarantee we will be able to get to and review it. Here are the dark horses The Quill to Live is watching in 2019 (in no particular order). Goodreads links are on the pictures:

For The Killing Of Kings, by Howard Andrew Jones: As I mentioned we are a bit late on this list this year, so we have actually already reviewed this one. We loved it, check it out!
Sky Without Stars, by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell
The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling
The Lost Puzzler, by Eyal Kless
Perihelion Summer, by Greg Egan
The Priory Of The Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
Titanshade, by Dan Stout
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
Gods Of Jade And Shadow, by Silva Moreno-Garcia
Famous Men Who Never Lived, by K Chess
Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City, by K. J. Parker
This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Ruin of Kings – Reverse Goldilocks

February 28, 2019 / Andrew Mather - The Quill to Live / 1 Comment

Here we have one of the mega-debuts of 2019. Published by Tor, The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons has had one of the largest marketing pushes I have seen in years. I have seen advertising for this book literally everywhere, and it somehow already has a TV deal with Annapurna. As I picked it up it felt too big to fail, and I was extremely curious to see if this massive first entry would live up to the hype or fall short. After reading it, I feel like it surprisingly somehow managed to do both.

The Ruin of Kings is about Kihrin, a thief (sorta) with a destiny to bring ruin to kings (hence the title). Our story follows Kihrin in two timelines that alternate each chapter. In the first, we read about Kihrin’s present life as a slave and his attempts to escape bondage and death while pursuing his destiny with a mysterious order of magic users. The other timeline tells Kihrin’s backstory and explains how he ended up in his current predicament. The alternation of the timelines is one of the novel’s largest strengths, and I think Lyons did a very good job matching the two stories to feel relevant to each other at all times while evenly disseminating information about the world, characters, and plot. This is not an easy thing to do, and Lyons managed to instill a great deal of urgency in both timelines that make the book a fast read despite its 800+ page length.

The problem with the book is that despite its even storytelling, neither timeline has enough story, world, or character building to be satisfactory. The pacing of the book is extremely fast, often to the story’s detriment. Lyons moves Kihrin through the world at a breakneck pace, and I constantly felt like I didn’t spend enough time with any location or character to fully understand them. For example, we start the book in an interesting city with a famous slave market that Lyons builds up to be compelling and mysterious. Then before we can learn more about it, she ejects Kihrin via a metaphorical cannon into the surrounding ocean. Once there, he enters a giant maelstrom filled with enormous sea creatures that hunt him. We learn enough that I want to know more, but then quickly move past and never revisit. In the other timeline, we learn that Kihrin is part of an esteemed thieves guild, and get to see him go on a regular heist. However, we never get a sense that there is anyone other than him and one or two other members in this “giant” thieves guild before it is metaphorically burned down and Lyons moves on to a new plot point.

Lyons moves between ideas so fast that you never really get to sit with them long enough. The shame is I really like her ideas. Almost all the places and things she shows the reader are awesome. I just needed another 400 pages to slow the pacing down and learn more about these small pockets of the world. However, this segues into the other major issue that plagued me in this book: I really don’t like Kihrin. He is a spoiled, melodramatic, Gary Sue who whines so god damn much it is unbelievable. Look, I understand that this is supposed to be a coming of age story and that he grows into a better person, but 800 pages is a reallllly long time to put up with his annoying tendencies. He definitely improves by the end of the book, but I feel like there is still a lot of work to go.

I am actually glad that The Ruin of Kings is becoming a TV show because I think it has a fantastic setting that will do well in a visual medium. However, despite the river of creativity that Lyons has put to paper, the original source material leaves a little bit to be desired. I suspect that less picky readers will enjoy this book a whole lot more than me, so if it sounds interesting to you definitely give it a shot. As for me, I am disappointed that The Ruin of Kings’ fast pacing and exhaustive length greatly hampered my reading experience.

Rating: The Ruin of Kings – 6.5/10
-Andrew

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