wolvenbolt's reviews
255 reviews

This was an unexpected pleasure!

I LOVED this book!
This book played with stereotypes and the conventional to subvert them in mind fucky ways, and I am SOOOO here for it!
It wasn't perfect, but it's an awesome beginning to a series.

I have to say though, Alin, FUCKK ME HE'S SO ANNOYING 🤬
I know it's deliberately done by Wight, but it's too affective. The guy is an arrogant, glory-seeking, insecure, attention-seeking little prick.
He reminds me of Homelander from The Boys, Alin is so insecure and wants everyone to love him and think he's amazing, and he's willing to do anything to achieve that.

The guy nearly killed a bunch of kids while starting a battle that could have easily been talked out, because he wanted to look like a hero, and in situations where people are trying to genuinely save lives, he takes it as a competition and get pissed off at the person who did the saving because it wasn't him looking like a hero.

I genuinely think the character has traits of psychopathy and sociopathy.

So if I'm right, that means the prophesised Savior-Of-All, is actually a psychopath.

I believe he'd create or cause a disaster just to swoop in and save it and be seen as a hero and have everyone throwing flowers at him and worshipping him.

As for Leah, I don't know what her deal is, but Will Wight took the age-old story of a kid with a crush willing to go to the ends of the earth to save a girl, to the extreme. Not one, but two boys went through shit to save her.

And then, jokes on them, because she didn't need to be saved as she's undercover or something and is a princess and could have left at any time.

Oh, and then, turns out the bad guys might actually not be the bad guys, and might be the guys forced to do bad things to stop the even bigger bad guys from coming along and destroying the world, similiar to Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire.
So now the bad guys might not be the bad guys and the good guys might be the worse guys.

All I know is I'm rooting for the main character Simon. The guy saves people, even when he doesn't know why, he just feels like it's the right thing to do, and that's a man I'd follow. So, whoever goes up against Simon in the next book, they're the bad guy to me 😂

As for the magic, there are elements I see from Cradle and the Abidan, as this trilogy is connected to a wider shared universe.
So far I'm not a huge fan of the magic, the whole gate stuff is interesting and like your own little pocket universe that you draw power from, but so far I'm not a huge fan, so we'll see if that improves with the next two books.

Kai was a funny character, but given how he talks, acts and is physically described...I have suspicions he's

Ozriel from the Abidan

, but I have doubts on that being the case, I think it might just be a coincidence and the fact Travis Baldree did the same voice and performance for both characters. 
As for the dolls.....I don't know what to say about them, it's a bizarre addition to the story...so...yeah 👀

Also, the ending, 😟😦😧😯😲😱🤯
Overall, I really enjoyed the book.
The pacing was good, except for Alin's parts, which were boring and annoying.
I'm excited to continue with The Crimson Vault!

Edit:
After reading book 2, things I thought in this book was clever setup, I now realise was actually just laziness disguised as mysterious setup.
So I've lowered my score from 4.5 to 3.75, because it's not as good as Cradle book 1.

So this book was a collection of short stories related to Cradle, not always set on Cradle, sometimes in space with the Abidan, sometimes on other worlds, but always related to the characters from Cradle.

There were some stories here that I was just indifferent to. There were stories about characters I truly didn't give a shit about, that explained what went on with them during the events of other books or after. Maybe other readers liked those characters and cared, so that's for them, but for me personally, I'd have preferred more stories of the Reaper Squad and how they were doing after ascending from Cradle.

I wrote notes about how I felt per story, so I'll share them here but I'll mark some of them as spoilers:

The First Uncrowned King:
Didn't like it all that much. It was about Reigan Shen and a snapshot into his past and how he was crowned the first Uncrowned King.
Pretty meh.
If you're going to do a story from the perspective of the bad guy, I'd have preferred more depth to him. Instead it was just "I'm bad because everyone else is weak and I will be the best, because reasons" 🤣

A Light Chat in a Dark Place:
A fun little conversation between Eithen and the echo of Ozmanthus in the Labyrinth. Nothing amazing and nothing shit, just an interesting exchange between a modern and past self.

Anagi's Regret:
Probably a 7/10, I liked it as it went on.

Loved how Eithen spared her and later Lindon saved her because Eithen let her go.

Testing Northstrider:
My favourite so far, it was really interesting.
It was nice seeing how Northstrider still had the arrogance of a Monarch but trying to adjust to this new world where he is no longer top of the food chain.

A Bloody End:
The first half of the chapter was super confusing, I'm thinking "What the hell does this have to do with Cradle?", I started thinking it had to do with the Traveler's Gate series set in the same universe which I have not read yet.

So then the second half of the chapter got interesting, as we saw the main character, Zeth, use magic. His magic was interesting as it seemed like he was using Authority from Cradle, but in unique way. It was literally self-gaslighting magic 😂 He had to lie to himself and then believe it, and then it became reality. Once I realised what it was, it made me laugh so hard, gaslighting magic 😂 It reminded me of the quirky funny magic from Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Vs the Evil Librarians series 😂

Overall, I liked it, but only in the second half, it was confusing as fuck in the first half.

The Wolf and the Reaper:
Liked this as much as the Northstrider chapter, loved seeing Fury and Mercy's interactions and loved seeing how they work in the Abidan.
The enemy was a little interesting, but I do think the chapter ended so suddenly,

I thought we'd see Mercy figure out a way to destroy it and save everyone and show her path and how it's different than the rest of the gang, instead Ozriel just showed up and killed it, sorta anticlimactic.

Threshold:
By FAR the best story so far!
Absolutely brilliant!
I want an entire book about all this!
I want a new series from Wight featuring the Cradle gang in space!

Daughter of Dread:
This was fun and interesting, not one of the best but still alright.

The Return of the Prince:
This was just a little story about Seishen Daji returning home after being a prisoner of the Akura Clan for betraying them and getting a bunch of their family killed. He was "tamed" and returned home. I could have lived my life never reading this honestly, wasn't bad nor good, it just, exists?

A Day in the Life of Pride:
It was sorta funny and interesting seeing Pride, being the weaker power-wise of the characters, trying to grow.
What's pissing me off is how the Abidan are trying to use Pride to fuck with the Reapers, fuck off you fuckers, leave Pride alone, he's a softy beneath his grumpy surface and he shall be protected 🖕♥️

Harness:
Great story, makes me want a full book or series.
This world felt like a mix of His Dark Materials and Pokemon, with little monsters partnered with people.

The Gang Creates a World:
A fun story and an awesome exploration into more of the possibilities of working with the Way.

Homecoming:

A lovely little ending that made me smile so hard ☺️ Lovely seeing everyone back on Cradle again, even Larian, who is as charming and annoying as ever 😂

Alternate endings for the series:
I legit can't stop laughing this shit is ridiculous and so funny 😂
It's going through all the books and Will Wight is giving funny alternate endings, like Poor Seishen Kiro in Underlord bumping into Lindon, and each time Lindon just pulls out a cannon and shoots him, knocking him unconscious. And everytime Kiro politely tries to speak with him, he pulls out a cannon 🤣

A neat little story set in Cradle.

This was akin to a fable, folk tale or moral story.
Elements reminded me of Andrej Sapkowski's Witcher world, the main character Kal was similar to a Witcher, and this felt like a side quest from the Witcher 3 game.

Moral of the story, don't be a dick, and don't go into places warned not to. Oh, and if a Sword is seeping in blood and death aura...put it back...you gobshite smh 🤦‍♂️🤣

AND THE TRAIN HAS ARRIVED AT IT'S DESTINATION!!!
And boyyyy was the journey, and the destination, amazing!!! 😭😭😭

This was one of my favourite books of the series and in my top 10 favourites of all the books I've read.

I'm struggling to express how incredible this was.
Do you know of the Sanderlanche? The last quarter of a Brandon Sanderson book where so much stuff lines up and all the action happens and it is impossible to put the book down? That Sanderlanche? Yeah, this entire book was a Sanderlanche. The whole thing.

I was 40% through this book, feeling like it was near the end because the scale of events happening was so big and near the conclusion...then it kept going, and bigger things were happening, and then things were happening outside Cradle and with the Abidan, and then we got to see Lindon grow so goddamn powerful and flexing his power and learning more and more and more about the world.

I had shit to do today, I had chores and responsibilities, but fuck me did this book make my life so much harder the past 2 days 🤣
Do you know how HARD it is to have a life when reading this book? 🤣 I'm gone out to do something and my mind is on Cradle, I've gone to the post office and I'm thinking of Cradle, I go to shower and I have to have the audiobook playing so I can know what the hell is going on in Cradle.
This book had me so hooked I was OBSESSED 💀

I do, however, have some criticisms.

The death of the Mad King? It was rushed,
and shit.

That wouldn't bother me, as I wasn't super interested in that part of the series, at one point I thought it'd be more connected to the planet Cradle, but it was barely, and I realise it's connected to a larger connected universe known by the fandom as the "Williverse"
But the fact that storyline took up so much of all 12 books, makes me pissed off and like my time was wasted. A load of bollocks. But the book was so damn good that it doesn't affect my rating.

The end of the book was funny and wholesome. The main characters' plot lines were wrapped up nicely, bar a few side characters who weren't all that important.

So, what now? What do I do with my life?
Well, of course, now I know this series was part of an in-book universe of Wight's other series'....now I gotta start at the beginning 💀
But first, gotta read the rest of Cradle's short stories! Wish me luck! 🍀

CHOO CHOOOO! THE TRAIN IS STILL CHUGGING!

Can't believe I'm near the end of Cradle, this series has been a WILD ride! I can't believe Will Wight has managed to keep this fast-paced, gripping, exhilarating, beautiful, wholesome and dark world this good so consecutively in a row.

This is peak Progression Fantasy, Wight's a goddamn master of it! So now the main characters are overpowered, so how do we balance that out? Have them fight multiple foes of higher power!

We see the return of Dross!
I'm so happy he's back!
Loved his progression and loved the explanation of why he didn't return to his personality, I love how human he is.

I'm absolutely loving Ziel, I liked him before already, his backstory, his hardships and his warming up to the gang. It was so heartwarming seeing him trying to make Lindon and Yerin feel better after Eithen ascended, by jumping out of couches and scaring them, like Eithen would do.

Mercy has felt shelved away for the past few books and I've really only noticed how much now.
I could see Wight setting her up to being so far behind that when she soars and grows it will feel really satisfying

, and it sorta did.

While Lindon and Yerin and the rest of the gang advance through study, training and hardwork and determination, Mercy is advancing her character.

She has access to her book and can be archlord anytime she wants, she has the power,

but she needs to advance her person and reveal her true self, the Mercy that stands up to her mother.

And we saw that in this book, and it felt so fucking satisfying 🥳🥳🥳

This is one of my favourites, I'm absolutely dying to get onto the 12th and final book, Waybound 😍

...THE TRAIN PICKED RIGHT BACK UP AGAIN AND IS GOING EVEN HARDER NOW!!!!

To paint a picture of how thrilling this book was, I went to bed at 4am, I just finished the book now, it is now 6:43am. I couldn't put it down, I tried, I couldn't sleep, I needed to know what happened next, and now I do, and it was totally worth it.
Why?

Because ever since book 2, Soulsmith, I had a theory that

Eithen is Ozriel,

and I was goddamn right! Everything was lining up for me! Here are as many of the clues as I can remember:

It all made sense, I was convinced it was true, and it was EXTREMELY satisfying knowing I was right. And it proves that it makes sense for the story as I saw many little breadcrumbs from as far back as the 2nd book!

I'm so happy the book is heading in that direction 🥳 Let's keep the train going, onto the next book, Dreadgod!

The train has slowed down ever so slightly 👀
It was still amazing! But for the first 30 - 40% of the book it was pretty uneventful and meh.

It felt like the first half of this book was actually just DLC story extra from the previous book, and the other half of the book felt like a actual main book. 

So apart from the weird pacing and uneventfulness, the rest was as epic as usual.

The point of this book was to progress Lindon as a character and his power, reveal more of Suriel and the Abidan's story, and delving more into the Dreadgod's powers and past.

But now for the Abidan.
What's their reason for being created?
They're militarised, organised, and constantly recruiting. The whole purpose of Cradle is for people to rise high enough to ascend and join the Abidan army.

Heres my question though, why? 

The Mad King and the other Executives that betrayed the Abidan, before the Executives were created, the Abidan all followed the Way and were bound by rules and fate and thus couldn't turn on each other. So then who was their enemy? Nobody? So then they decided to make an Executive who didn't have to follow the rules and could interfere and change Fate. It betrayed them. They made another Executive, it betrayed them. And they kept creating more and more Executives and they kept and kept betraying them. Seems to me, they should have stopped making executives, right? Without the Executives, there was no enemy. So why were they this big galactic army before the Executives were even created??? Who or what was out in space that could pose a threat to them?

Edit:
I have just learned that the Cradle series is, in fact, part of a larger universe called the Williverse, and that there are 3 other series connected to Cradle and all feature the Abidan. So, I presume if I had started Will Wight by reading Traveler's Gate Book 1, I would have a clearer picture of the origins and purpose of the Abidan.