User Profile

This was quite an interesting novel. It takes some familiar elements of fantasy, like druids, demons, dragons, etc but spins them around an intriguing magic known as spellwriting. The plot is fairly basic, but with some twists and turns and the characters are decent enough. The main selling point is the amount of detail spent into describing how the magic works and how it ties into everything that's going on.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2024/08/book-review-spellwright-by-blake.html

This was a fun book and opens up some interesting possibilities for more potential adventures in this universe. However, in my opinion its the weakest of the three books thus far. While parts of it are very cool, the big mystery of Imir is a bit too dense and drags on without a clear resolution until the very end of the book. Once it does, it's fine and very clever, it just takes too long to get there. I do look forward to seeing how the series continues, with the hope that some of the formula gets shaken up a bit.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2024/07/book-review-children-of-memory-by.html

This was a fascinating book, probably even better than it's predecessor, Children of Time. There is a lot going on plot-wise, and we do need a few sections of exposition, but otherwise it paints an intriguing tale of contact between civilizations. These new aliens are even more alien than the uplifted spiders and it's very interesting to see the characters struggle through to communicate with them.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2024/06/book-review-children-of-ruin-by-adrian.html

New York comes alive, through six human avatars, but something in the multiverse isn't happy. Explosively creative & often funny. Shares a deep love for the city & its people. Clever use of identity politics and gentrification.

This was a great book and I see why it has won awards and is generally regarded in a positive light. While the characters are basic, they are nonetheless interesting and the plot is straightforward enough to keep the focus on the setting. The setting is excellent and the way the two societies, one human, one spider, is explored is clever. I enjoyed both viewpoints and wish we had gotten more time after they merged together, but maybe that is a story for the second novel? I look forward to reading the other novels in this series and finding out.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2024/06/book-review-children-of-time-by-adrian.html

Overall this was a fun read. The world itself is quite dystopian, but the OASIS is incredible. It feels like a very natural evolution of today's online society, for better or worse. Some of the plot can feel a little sluggish with the exposition and the slowdown in the second arc of the book, but it has a good payoff at the end. The characters are OK, but not developed as well as the focus is almost solely on the main character Parzival and his obsession with the 80s, the hunt, and Art3mis. I think the concept behind this (and the nostalgia) was pretty good, though the narrative could have been better, both in terms of characters and plot.

For a full review, check out my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2024/05/book-review-ready-player-one-by-ernest.html