Cry of the Ghost Wolf (Chosen of Nendawen #3) (Forgotten Realms)

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Title: Cry of the Ghost Wolf
Series: Chosen of Nendawen
Author: Mark Sehestedt
Rating: of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: SFF
Pages: 311
Format: Kindle







Synopsis:
Hweilan escapes, fights, gets captured, brokers a deal, then has to deal with the demon lord and finally she has to deal with Nendawen himself. Because Nendawen literally lives to hunt, even outside of his own plane of existence.

My Thoughts:
The first 75% of this book deals with the hobgoblins and Hweilan. Not until the last bit does Hweilan face off against Jagen Ghen. That made this drag and made this feel very fluffed out.

The battle was anti-climactic, the interjection of Hweilan's father into the overall storyline was not well handled and felt like it was tacked on so Sehestedt "could" write another series if feasible. So while I rated all 3 books the same, I enjoyed the first book the most and each successive one less. That is not a good way to end a series.

Hand of the Hunter (Chosen of Nendawen #2) (Forgotten Realms)

Review:

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Hand of the Hunter

Series: Chosen of Nendawen

Author: Mark Sehestedt

Rating: of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: SFF

Pages: 304

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

Synopsis:

Hweilan is Nendawen's Chosen. But being a Hunter is about training as well as instinct.

If she can survive the training, can she survive the mountains of Highpass and the clans of hobgoblins living there?

Oh no's!

 

My Thoughts:

Book One was all about the setup. Just like in all cliched Quest/Revenge stories, you have to have a Training Arc.

 

This was the training. First Hweilan learns all about herbs and nature and stuff from a little green'ish goblin. Yep, Yoda makes his appearance in Forgotten Realms. Then she becomes all bad ass warrior'y with a fox warrior. Next she learns magic'y things from a Spider lady. Finally, she is hunted by Nendawen himself.

 

Now she can hunt down Jagen Ghen the demon and his brethren. But she rescues some knights, gets captured by hobgoblins and the book ends with them all in prison while the hobgoblin queen decides whether to turn Hweilan over to Jagen Ghen or not.

 

With that kind of ending, I immediately started the 3rd and final book. Not sure if I approve of that or not.

 

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1286786/hand-of-the-hunter-chosen-of-nendawen-2-forgotten-realms

Deathstalker War (Deathstalker #3)

Review:

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Deathstalker War

Series: Deathstalker

Author: Simon Green

Rating: of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: SFF

Pages: 532

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

Synopsis:

The time for Rebellion is NOW! With 2 more missions under their belt, the Rebellion moves things into high gear and begins its assault on the Empress herself.

Owen must decide if he will be a Force to be Reckoned With after the dust settles or just a historian again.

 

My Thoughts:

This was a lot of fun. 2 battles where the Empire is attacking its enemies and 1 battle right on Golgotha [the home asteroid/planet of the Imperial Court] between the Empire and the Rebellion.

That is a lot of fighting, and it was good.

 

This book wraps up the rebellion against the Empire and is a good place to stop if you've been on the line about these books. You get some resolution and a clear cut ending. For those of us who want to keep going, there are still all the Aliens, AI of Shub, Hadenmen and other boogly-wooglies to keep us interested.

 

This series has been a good pulp read more than anything so far. Nothing excellent stands out but on the flipside, nothing bad or negative sticks out as well. I am ok with the majority of my reads being like that.

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1285814/deathstalker-war-deathstalker-3

Straits of Hell (Destroyermen #10) DNF

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Straits of Hell

Series: Destroyermen

Author: Taylor Anderson

Rating: 0 of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: DNF

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

My Thoughts:

I had to quit at the 10% mark because it was obvious that things were getting bigger in scope instead of resolved.

 

I read my last Destroyermen novel last year and was on edge about continuing the series due to Anderson simply bloating things up with new groups of humans, all over the place. This time I quit at the French/Italian/German/something group that shows up to ally with the Japanese. I think these are the french nazi's from the previous book.

 

Just how many groups of lost humans have come to this world, why have they not connected before and why does Anderson do this to us? So I am done. I don't care how well written these might be, Anderson is out of control in regards to story and plot and I won't help him anymore by buying these.

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1285601/straits-of-hell-destroyermen-10-dnf

Without Warning (The Disappearance #1)

Review:

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Without Warning

Series: The Disappearance

Author: John Birmingham

Rating: of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: Action/Adventure

Pages: 576

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

Synopsis:

A "wave" of energy appears, covering American, Southern Canada and Northern Mexico. Every single human in that area is simply gone.

The world is in chaos, Americans abroad [citizens and military] are left without a country, trying to survive and figure out what the next step is.

 

My Thoughts:

We follow several military groups, a U.S Ranger turned journalist, an Engineer in the state of Washington and some sort of mysterious spy woman in France. At first I wasn't sure how having so many points of view was going to work but Birmingham was able to weave the story through each group and it worked. Nothing was confusing or jumbled up.

 

I felt thoroughly "out of place" as any of the characters with what had happened. What made it even more so was the fact that we never find out what has caused the wave. The whole world doesn't know and it is creating chaos, as much as the world's One Super Power suddenly being gone. I enjoyed this and found Birmingham's portrayal of how things would go down exactly as I would expect it too.

 

The main thing that bothered me was the Secret Spy lady. She didn't fit into the story and for the amount of time garnered on  her, nothing was wrapped up. It wasn't a bad storyline and it showed the chaos in Europe really well but I was hoping for some sort of resolution.

 

*Spoiler for the Ending*

 

Having the wave simply disappear as the last sentence in the book? That guarantees that I'll be reading the sequel!

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1284977/without-warning-the-disappearance-1

Duainfey (Duainfey #1)

Review:

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Duainfey

Series: Duainfey

Author: Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Rating: of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: SFF

Pages: 496

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

Synopsis:

Rebecca Beauvelley is a ruined woman.

In a moment of girlish folly, she allowed a high-flying young man to take her up in his phaeton, not realizing that he was drunk. When he dropped the ribbons, she recovered them, but could not avoid disaster. The young man was killed. Rebecca survived, crippled, and with a reputation in tatters.

Against all expectation, her father has found someone who will marry her. Rebecca's life seems set, and she resigned to it. Then, Altimere of the Elder Fey enters her life—and everything changes.

 

My Thoughts:

The synopsis is straight from the book page and it describes how this book starts perfectly, hence why I used it.

 

This is a story of good people and bad people, of good fey and bad fey. Rebecca is one of the good people. Her soon to be husband is one of the bad people. Meripen is one of the good fey, caught and tortured by humans with his lover who sacrificed her life so that he could escape. Altimere is one of the bad fey, a high fey who will do whatever he wants to regain his High status.

 

Things start out pretty average with poor crippled girl being swept away by enchanting fey who promises to save her from a horrible future. Problem is, the future with the fey is even worse.

 

And that "even worse" is why I could only give 2 1/2 stars here. I loved the writing, the story, the "overall'ness" of this, but the domination of Rebecca by Altimere was not only magical, it was sexual as well. It was explicit enough that it went beyond the boundary of "part of the story". Also, Altimere uses Rebecca as a sexual lure for other Fey to steal their powers and she is raped, singly and by group and once again it was graphic enough that it turned my stomach. There are other ways to describe what happens without being sexually explicit.

 

I have enjoyed Miller and Lee's Liaden Universe books a lot and so was really looking forward to this. So to have the above dropped on me was unexpected, unwanted and disappointing. There were several times I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to finish the story. 

 

Thankfully, it wasn't all rape all the time. It was still a good story. I really enjoyed Meripen's story, a fey ranger. We come across him as he is awoken from healing sleep and slowly learn of his past while he must deal with the present. The present involves Fey and Human working together, something Meripen can't really comprehend due to what happened so many years ago.

 

I will be reading the finale to this duology but it isn't on my "must read" mental list and I won't be moving it up the line to read right away. Overall, my feelings are so mixed between the bad and the good that I'm not even sure of this middle of the road rating.

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1284216/duainfey-duainfey-1

Beyond the Deepwoods (Twig #1) (The Edge Chronicles #1)

Review:

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: Beyond the Deepwoods

Series: The Edge Chronicles

Author: Chris Riddell & Paul Stewart

Rating:   of 5 Battle Axes

Genre: Children's SFF

Pages: 290

Format: Kindle

 

 

 

Synopsis:

Twig, an unusual wood troll, finds out he is adopted and is sent off to live with a distant relative. He gets off the path and ends up having MANY adventures culminating in finding his father, a human sky pirate.

 

My Thoughts:

I didn't realize this was a children's book when I started it. I thought it was for teens. However, I realized my error right away and adjusted my thought process and expectations, hence allowing me to finish this without throwing a hissy fit.

 

Things happen. That more than adequately sums up how this books works. Several times I kept waiting for the main character to wake up and get back to where he last was only to realize that THIS event was in fact happening and it was NOT a dream sequence. I was ok for the first half of the book and then I started getting antsy and wanting things to wrap up.

 

I suspect kids would simply accept the abrupt changes in the story, as they can relate, ie, their whole world can change in an instant without any input from them or any kind of control. It is part of being a child.  As an adult I simply had enough. I'm keeping on through the series, but I am glad it will be quite some time before I revisit this series.

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1283226/beyond-the-deepwoods-twig-1-the-edge-chronicles-1

October '15 Roundup

 

 

 

15 reads this month. I'm pretty happy with that. Several DNF's, but more of that was due to illness than bad writing.

 

I am ahead of schedule and I keep wondering if I should up my challenge number, but then I remember how busy this time of year ALWAYS is and common sense wins the day.

 

Cheers to November being a good month as well!

Original post: Bookstooge.booklikes.com/post/1281980/october-15-roundup