zeph1337's reviews
320 reviews

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

I already established that I found a new favorite author in Robert Jackson Bennett and well this is the third book by him this month (and there are sure a few more coming next month!).

Foundryside was my first book of his and I just didn’t have any type of special expectations but then I got totally blindsided by how much I enjoyed it. Shorefall was great as well but it did kind of miss that wow-factor that Foundryside gave me.

I thought the plot was the weakest part of Foundryside and that certainly picked up in this one. It’s pretty fast moving, keeps you guessing and it gave us a pretty ridiculous climax that really shook all the power dynamics around and could be a great setup for the final book in the trilogy. Also loved that we got another prolonged, planned and executed heist and just in general this book keeps tension high throughout much of the whole page count. 

On the character front it was a bit hit and miss. I loved that it focused a lot on the MCs romantic relationship because both of those characters are just really fun and they make such a great team. I also really enjoyed the Mystery surrounding the villainous and/or obtuse characters and how it sometimes keeps you guessing about their loyalties. 

However both of the main male characters had more of a questionable path and I’m not sure I like where they ended up at the conclusion of this book. The character dynamic I loved the most in Foundryside (mainly because of the humor) got very little screen time in this one due to one half being absent for huge chunks of the book but I am hopeful that this one gets a lot more attention in book 3. As a result I didn’t nearly laugh as much in this book as I did during Foundryside. 

The fast pacing of this book also kind of left the fun worldbuilding and discovery part of the first book behind. There were so many cool things in discovering how this magic system meets technology meets hacking works in book one and it felt like there wasn’t time for it here because the characters were constantly being rushed.

Still potential to be an all time great trilogy though. I hope the finale knocks it out of the park!
Empire Of The Damned by Jay Kristoff

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is shaping up to be one of the greatest reading months ever with another amazing book. It’s one of the easiest 5 stars ratings I have ever given and certainly an early candidate for book of the year and most certainly also an all time favorite.

It’s been a while since I read the first book in the series and while I thought it was very cool, especially with the whole “Castlevania-type” ambience I wasn’t fully invested and felt like the book had certain lengths and boring parts. I was holding off on reading the sequel for a long time because I wanted a physical copy (with paperback being my preferred format) because of all the cool illustrations (which were fantastic again in this book) and it just took a long time to get a hold of it.

Luckily the book starts you off with a really cool and atmospheric recap that just details what happened to each major character in book one (EVERY author writing a longer series needs to do that!). This already got me pretty pumped about diving into this really dark and gory world ruled by the Dead. A world without sunlight where you live in constant terror and humanity being more or less completely thralled by ancient and truly terrifying vampires. 

Combine those things with some pretty edgy humor and you have a recipe for success in my book. Also for vampires to work in a story they either need to be really silly or absolutely terrifying. Luckily these books give you both of those things!

This series also has the framing narrative of an unreliable narrator, probably the concept most famously featured in The Name of Wind / Kingkiller Chronicle and that is just a storytelling device I really dig. 

However this book ran into the same issue I had with the first one with it all feeling a little same-y and just getting a tad boring. But that all changed with the beginning of part three (~40% in) where the author pulled off an amazing twist on the unreliable narrator and that one reeled me back in so hard.

From that point onward I felt like the book just shifted into another gear and just didn’t let off the gas pedal until the end. Also all of that probably has immense reread value where you could dig out certain subtle clues. It was pretty damn genius. 

For a really thick Fantasy novel this one also has a ridiculously fast pacing especially in the later parts of the book.
 
The climax / final battle in itself was a roller coaster of emotions that left me breathless and in tears and afterwards there was such an intriguing epilogue that leaves you speculating and just wanting more of this story. 

I’m glad that the final book of this trilogy already comes out this year and I probably won’t be able to hold off on reading it until I get a physical copy.  
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Robert Jackson Bennett, the second! After being quite frankly blown away by Foundryside could have not been much higher for this one and while I still thought that this was a highly enjoyable book I just didn’t love it as much.

For someone who likes mysteries in his stories, I’ve never been that much into the murder mystery subgenre and that this essentially what this one is. It probably has something to do with the sheer abundance of procedural crime dramas that exist and just lame and same-y cop shows in general. So the term murder mystery certainly comes as a turn off for me and a story like that needs some other hook to make me interested. Luckily I already know that I like the author and he certainly doesn’t disappoint again.

First of all, the worldbuilding in this novel is excellent again. RJB is really creative in how he creates this world and especially the weaving in off all the important nature elements (like walls built from strong plant material, giant mushrooms as air filters…) paints such vivid pictures and they are also super relevant to certain aspects of the plot and that just gets you super engaged into this world. Also the constant threat of being attacked by giant sea creatures gave this one a nice cosmic horror like touch.

In terms of characters I didn’t feel this instant attachment I had with Foundryside. The 2 main characters clearly have these Sherlock/Watson vibes going on with the main character being the 20 something Din who is enhanced to be able to perfectly recall events and as a result does most of the actual investigating and the much older Ana who is the genius crime solver in the background. 
They have a very fun dynamic and their bantering is also where most of the humor comes from but I also felt like we got too little of that and just that they were too often apart from each other. Maybe some wasted potential and I hope we get more of that in future books.
Ana is great though. Love how foul-mouthed she is. Reminds me of Avasarala from The Expanse. Aside from our two protagonists I didn’t find any of the side characters to be particularly interesting. 

For the actual murder mystery: Yes, it was twisty and fun (and the ending was actually great) and it keeps the plot moving at a pretty steady pace but I also wasn't hugely interested in its continuous unraveling. 

Overall this is still another hit in my book and I will continue to explore RJB’s works. 
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This one caught me completely off guard in how much I just loved it. It’s been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and I don’t remember when or why I bought it, so this was just such a delightful surprise. 

Just about everything about this book totally resonated with me. First of all I am a huge fan of dark supernatural Mysteries that don’t take themselves too seriously / can also be incredibly silly at times. TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural come to mind and I feel like this absolutely hits this itch. This book is dark, funny and gory in all the right ways. 

It starts off like a mix of Mistborn and Lies of Locke Lamora (two books series I also adore) but quickly develops into its own thing. It actually feels very much like a cyberpunk story set in a Fantasy world. This becomes most clear with its (hard) magic system that pretty much is very similar to programming. 

They are scriving instructions into objects that make them defy rules of physics and as a result just make them do insane things. In contrast to circumvent this magic certain characters have the ability to “hack” into those commands altering how they function. With programming also being a big part of my job, I really enjoyed this. That also counts for every other part of worldbuilding (dark city ruled by big merchant companies) in this book.

I loved the characters in this one. The tough and damaged protagonist and her inner struggles are a joy to follow along and the supporting cast is also just very well fleshed out. They all just felt like such an adorable bunch of misfits that you just can't help but have to root for.  

I also have to give another praise for the humor. This book just put a huge smile on my face constantly and had me laughing out loud multiple times with some of its character interactions and just funny dialogue. Just pure joy. Like if this is how Robert Jackson Bennett writes in general, I wanna read everything that guy has ever written and I might have discovered a new favorite author. 

There were some parts about the plot that felt very predictable, for example to me it was pretty obvious who the main villain of the story was gonna be, but I just had such a blast that I didn’t care for that much. Overall it felt like the weakest part of the book for me but I’m still gonna give this one my first 5 stars of 2025 and a big fat seal of approval!

Will definitely continue with the Founders series shortly but due to the second book not arriving in time I already started The Tainted Cup by the same author.  
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I am a bit behind on my reviews mainly due to some minor health problems but I’ll try to make up for it. 

After reading A Song for Arbonne this is my second book by GGK and I must say that this just resonated a lot better with me. Yes, this is also Historical Fiction which is not my favorite thing but I just immediately vibed more with fictional historical Spain than with France. Pretty sure my subconscious is just biased that way because I had to learn both languages in school (speaking neither really today) and while I hated French class I actually quite enjoyed Spanish. 

But let’s talk about the actual book. The main thing that made this book feel much smoother to me was its pacing. While Arbonne was quite slow at times I felt like there was almost always something major happening here and it just kept propelling me forwards into the story. 

The book tells a story about a divided country and its three major cultures, each one with a different religious belief system. And while religious themes are not my favorite in general, I felt like the core message of this book was way more about trying to overcome those differences, tolerance in general and just trying to find peaceful solutions instead of warring with each other over different ideologies. 

This mainly gets reflected with our 3 main POV characters (there are quite a few others but these are the most important ones), each from one of the different cultures. 
They are a military captain, a doctor and a poet / assassin and I really liked following all three of them, finding out about their backstories and just all their interactions with each other and just in general how they learn to care and respect for each other despite of how the were raised or let to believe by their respective societies.  It just paints a very beautiful picture

GGK also is a very talented writer and his truly evocative prose just adds to the overall great experience. 

The ending came as quite a bit of a surprise for me but it definitely felt fitting and totally in line with the core themes of the book.  

More GGK is sure to come in the future although the book club I started his books with put a halt on for now to read some other stuff but maybe we will get back to it. I certainly will. 
Immortal Moments by Selkie Myth

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adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Oh man, this series is not making it easy for me. During the first couple of hours of this audiobook I caught myself thinking multiple times that I should just dnf the book / drop the whole series. 

I actually cringed the most at the chapters titled “Sex talk” even though those didn’t turn out as bad as I thought. But the biggest problem is just the frankly quite terrible attempts at slice of life that the series keeps trying to pull off which most of the time just feel very uninspired and boring. And that comes from someone that went through literally millions of words of slice of life during The Wandering Inn which most of the time I adored. 

Doesn’t help its case either that there hasn’t been a single side character in about 3 books now that I actually liked. Aside from the animal companions, obviously, they don’t have to try as hard.

In stark contrast to all that comes the second half of the book which I just thoroughly enjoyed and had a great time with. 

The series does best when the tension is the highest and yeah it is at this point in the series where we already have this crazily power creeped up MC but it is always just an insane delight to see which ridiculous stunt Elaine is able to pull off next. Plus we also got some fairly compelling villainous characters in this one that work very well in contrast with Elaine's healing powers. 

So even though I pretty much hated much of the early parts of this book, I still give it 3 stars because I appreciated the direction it took and also the ending and prospect of the next book to see some beloved characters from the earlier entries in the series again also give hope that the series could be on the upswing again. If I’m wrong and the next book is gonna be a disappointment, I think that’s gonna be it. 
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

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emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I think I liked this book overall a little bit more than the first one of the series but not enough to give it a different rating. Overall I think this series is not for me. There were parts about the book that I enjoyed, mainly the Mystery aspect with discovering / researching a new alien species and how the society is at the brink of war with them just because of misunderstandings / misconceptions with each other and this also reflects well with the real world for me. 

It was baffling to get such a huge time jump between book one and two but I thought that was actually a good thing. Lot’s of opportunity to show how Ender has grown as a character and lots of opportunities for deep reflections.

On the other hand the quite heavy religious themes of the book really didn’t work for me and also I just don’t like Ender as a character that much, at least not enough to make me read more books about him. I thought his relationship with Jane was very interesting and I would probably like to see more of her but I don’t think that’s where this is going. 

I also felt like the book is quite slow paced with just not that much actually happening which left me bored quite a lot of times. 

So after another quite average reading experience I’m gonna bounce off the series. A friend who also read them told me that he actually liked the Ender’s Shadow series a lot more. Maybe I’ll give that one a try at some point. 
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

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dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I actually previously “watched” the movie adaptation of this book but the use of the quotation marks here is very deliberate since I watched it on a tiny screen on a plane and I fell asleep during it. I thought I didn’t remember anything from it but that wasn’t quite true. More on that later.

Overall I was not very impressed with this. It was just okay and I certainly had way higher expectations. I thought the book started out quite intriguing with the first few chapters but once the actual main part of the story got going, I felt myself losing interest more and more. 

I think a big part of that is because of the main character. He feels very much like a Mary Sue. During this basically very long training montage he just succeeds at everything. You also have to get over the suspension of disbelief that he is just the most talented 6 year old to have ever lived. Also I was more interested in his relationship with his siblings than anything else that happened during his training.

I was not bored with the book and it is moving quite fast. I also liked the various dialogue sequences in the beginning of the chapter where they talk about Ender and how he is this prodigy and last hope for humanity and how they plan to move him into the right direction.

What I liked most about the book was the ending. I think it is a very clever plot twist, however when we started to get there it dawned on me that I actually do remember something from the movie: It’s the plot twist! So yeah that totally lessened the impact of it. Obviously still a very cool idea but if you get caught by surprise, I can see this being totally mind blowing.

I’ll probably rewatch the movie just to see how it actually fares as an adaptation and since I already own book 2, I will read that one as well. After that I will make a decision if I continue on with the series.
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay

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emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was my first book ever by Guy Gavriel Kay and overall I would say that I am just slightly disappointed. This mainly comes from pretty much only hearing good things about the author and also this in particular beforehand. But I think a lot of it is just a personal preference thing.
First of all I’m not that big on historical fiction (or history in general, I guess), so the setting of this being fictional medieval France is just not that appealing to me.

I also didn’t really vibe with the writing that much and feel like that’s what GGK gets most of his praise for. You can’t deny that GGK is very eloquent and elegant with his prose and a lot of the descriptions were quite beautiful but on the other hand it also felt too wordy to me sometimes and made a quite slowly paced book feel even slower. 

Beautiful writing is never a thing that can keep me engaged in a story by itself, so at points when the plot got less interesting or we had some characters that I wasn’t quite invested in I found myself drifting off sometimes which certainly is never great. That happened most frequently during the middle chunks of the book. I thought the first about 6-7 chapters were really good and then I also enjoyed the last like 3 chapters a lot. 

The plot in general wasn’t always great either. I thought it was pretty slow moving and also felt predictable at points. 

Worldbuilding-wise I thought this book was quite good. At its core we have two very different nations who are in conflict with each other and both of them are just being superbly realized, rich in culture (well one of them at least) and just interesting to explore. One country has this rich musical culture and especially all the songs that are being written add so much flavor to the worldbuilding and on the other hand with this very grim, misogynistic and militaristic country. And yeah just the culture shock you get from changing scenery is quite insane.

Save the best for last, I thought the characters were really well done. I especially loved the mercenary Blaise who even though this is a multi POV story I feel quite confident in calling the main character and I felt like every scene with him was just elevated but also other characters like Bertrand and Rosala were very compelling. 

So to quickly summarize this: It was a good book that got held back a little by the writing and the not always intriguing plot. 
Huntsong by Pirateaba

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Another one where my review of the first book in the series was probably or little (or maybe a lot) inflated but to be fair Gravesong was my first experience of an Andrea Parsneau narration and I was just over the moon about the quality of the narration that the book itself didn't matter as much anymore. 

I can absolutely say that Andreas knocks it out of the park with this one again. The range of voices this woman has is unmatched and she is just so good at bringing emotion into her narration. I think the only thing that’s debatable about the quality of her narration is how she does action. Just the way he she really speeds up during those parts, just delivering blow after blow can tend to make it a little harder to follow but I really like this stylistic choice as well.

Okay let’s get into the actual book. It starts off with introducing us to a new big POV character and also (afaik) a completely new character to The Wandering Inn in general, huntress Haeight. She is a young and very determined undead hunter that fights with two hatchets. And while I did like her, it also felt a little frustrating because I am here to get Cara’s backstory (I mean the series is also titled after her!) and yes we get plenty of her and when the two characters actually meet and the two storylines converge it was excellent but it did make the pacing feel off to me. 

There are also other POVs of returning characters from the first book which kind of amplified this feeling. Yes, you are used to slow pacing and a ton of characters with The Wandering Inn but I was under the impression that this series is more focussed, which to be fair yes it is because that’s not too hard, but I can’t help but feel that the pacing actually hurt this story a little bit. 

I think another big part of this is that the book just sets up a lot but very little actually gets resolved, except for the final chapter which does an excellent job of giving us a conclusion to one of the major mysteries that is being setup here, but then the book just ends. There is just so much left in the open which just kind of leaves you feeling frustrated. Maybe I just feel this way because unlike with The Wandering Inn I can’t just continue reading. 

I don’t know, probably kind of a weird rant overall and I make it sound much worse than it actually is. I still had a splendid time with this audiobook, so let’s get into that some more!

I love Cara as a character. Every time we got to see her in The Wandering Inn had me excited and I find it really intriguing to see how she discovers this magical world and tries to make a living in it as an upcoming singer/actor/performer. I love all the connections towards the main story and I especially enjoyed seeing the prologue of volume 2 from a different perspective (even though it was a very weird experience in the audiobook format) and I think the whole book gave me a lot of context of things I’ve felt like were missing from that part of the world within the main series. 

Another thing I always liked from The Wandering Inn is how stuff from our world is included into the story and we have plenty of that within Huntsong. 

What I especially enjoyed is how much more this series is leaning into the darker tones of The Wandering Inn. I certainly already knew that pirateaba can write horror but this one really exemplified it again. There are some bone chilling sequences in this one that just get you on the edge of the seat (obviously further amplified by Andreas narration) and also scenes of mental abuse/manipulation/deception that make you really uncomfortable in sort of the right way (if there even is one).  

All of this fits the very gloomy setting of this series and I just enjoyed more of the worldbuilding, which after all is one of the strongest qualities of pirateaba as a writer, of Noelicuts, the kingdom of shade. 

Overall I greatly enjoyed this audiobook, despite the pacing issues, and for fans of The Wandering Inn this obviously will be an auto include but to the rest of you: If The Wandering Inn as a whole is too intimidating to you maybe try to get a taste with this series I promise that at the very least the audiobook narration is gonna be something special. (and I very much plan to eventually do a TWI reread with the audiobooks. More Andrea Parsneau in my life can only be a good thing!)