Category Archives: books/book review

drizzt generations covers

Book Review: Timeless, Boundless, Relentless – by R.A. Salvatore

This year, I’ve set a goal to read books from my physical shelves. I have a horrid habit of getting a book, even one I’m excited to read, then putting it on the shelf for later, only to forget about it. My shelves are overflowing (literally, stacks on the floor). So, in order to read R.A. Salvatore‘s Boundless, which I won a few years back, I borrowed Timeless and Relentless from the library. I reviewed them individually as I finished them.

drizzt generations covers

Synopsis:

Centuries ago, in the city of Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders, the City of Drow, nestled deep in the unmerciful Underdark of Toril, a young weapon master earned a reputation far above his station or that of his poor house.

The greater nobles watched him, and one matron, in particular, decided to take him as her own. She connived with rival great houses to secure her prize, but that prize was caught for her by another, who came to quite enjoy the weapon master.

This was the beginning of the friendship between Zaknafein and Jarlaxle, and the coupling of Matron Malice and the weapon master who would sire Drizzt Do’Urden.

R. A. Salvatore reveals the Underdark anew through the eyes of Zaknafein and Jarlaxle—an introduction to the darkness that offers a fresh view of the opportunities to be found in the shadows and an intriguing prelude to the intriguing escapes that lie ahead in the modern-day Forgotten Realms. Here, a father and his son are reunited and embark on adventures that parallel the trials of centuries long past as the friends of old are joined by Drizzt, Hero of the North, trained by Grandmaster Kane in the ways of the monk.

But the scourge of the dangerous Lolth’s ambitions remain, and demons have been foisted on the unwitting of the surface. The resulting chaos and war will prove to be the greatest challenge for all three.

my review

Timeless

Meh, I think there are circumstances under which I might have been more impressed with this than I was. For one, if I’d read it when I was younger. Two, if I’d initially realized that though it is the first in a series, it is, in fact, the first in a spin-off series, the original of which is currently at 30+ books. Unfortunately, I’m no longer a teen who is satisfied with a laundry list of cool creatures and extended sword fights, and the book barely stands alone.

Ultimately, this whole book felt both like the 31st book in a series I hadn’t read (with a million characters, event references, place names, etc.) and like an extended prologue. The plot doesn’t really become apparent until about the last 30 pages. Everything before that is backstory and endless character introductions. All that to say, I was really pretty bored, even if I did like the characters…or as much of the characters as you get to know. You’re clearly supposed to already know and love them before picking this book up.

Boundless

Considering I have not read the previous 30-odd books in the Drizzt series and picked up this spin-off series hoping it stands alone enough to follow, I enjoyed this second book significantly more than the first. I still feel like there are a million characters I don’t know (and none I’m really getting to know), and equally as many confusing past events mentioned. But I’m finally invested enough in the plot not to be dreading reading book three.

Relentless

This ended well and, thus, ended the series well. I think I just don’t have the patience for endless battle scenes anymore, and, as with the previous books in the series, there are just too many characters I felt barely connected to. Honestly, by the end, though I know Zak is supposed to be the main character…or the book is about Zak’s resurrection, anyway, I couldn’t tell. There are so many character POVs and so many plots in so many places, and it wasn’t even Zak who did the most important things at the end to save the day, so no one bubbled to the top as the primary one. The collective result was that I was borderline bored throughout.

Also, throughout the book (and trilogy, and probably the whole Drizzt series, I suspect) there’s a pretty clear women-in-power=evil, men=good (or victim) thing going on. Yes, I recognize Salvatore may be purposefully subverting tropes in this. But it started to feel a little misogynistic after a while. Made me think he probably doesn’t like women very much in real life. (Of course, you can’t judge an author on what happens in fiction, but it still left me with a poor taste in my mouth.)

All in all, I don’t regret reading this; the world is vivid and clearly well established, as you would expect from a 30+ book interconnecting collection of series. And there were some interesting explorations of religion, morality, and mortality. But I’m also glad to be finished and moving on.

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Other Reviews:

Robin Knabel: Salvatore

TL Branson: Salvatore

 

 

Book Review – Wolfish: Moonborne, by G.K. DeRosa

I believe I purchased a copy of G.K. DeRosa‘s Wolfish: Moonborne during a Facebook author signing event. wolfish cover

FATE HAS A WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR

When I was sixteen, I met the love of my life in magic school. He’d appear exactly once a year at the annual masquerade ball, then vanish…

Fast forward to the present: to the night I’m attacked and my hidden wolf emerges. As it turns out, I’m a freakin’ hairy, tail-wagging, shape-shifting werewolf so instead of returning to the human world after graduating, I’m dragged to Moon Valley to control my inner beast. Only problem is, I’m not just a wolf.

And someone wants me dead because of it.

When I meet the alpha heir, sparks fly, And bombshell– he’s my supposedly wolfy fated mate, but he’s nothing like the boy I loved. He’s cold, sullen, a total jerk but impossibly gorgeous. Of course. And he’s got secrets too. Despite hating him most days, I can’t deny the irresistible attraction… and neither can he. Even after he rejects me.

Little does he known, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself– maybe even capable of taking his claim as alpha.

my review

This is labeled YA/NA, but the character won’t even curse: “Chill the eff out,” for example. So, I’ll let you figure out where it falls between YA and NA. No, I won’t. It’s YA. Now you know.

It’s an OK story. I liked Sierra well enough. She’s a strong protagonist outside of being a mate-bound doormat when it comes to Hunter. But that’s the problem. You see almost no pleasant interludes between them, but she is still slavishly dedicated to him. In the end, I couldn’t root for the romance and didn’t even particularly like him. The side characters are fairly stock, but the world is interesting.

If I had the next one in the series, I would probably read it. But I don’t think I’ll bother buying it.

wolfish photo


Other Reviews:

Wolfish Series by G.K. DeRosa

 

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Book Review: Valor, by Casey L. Bond

I believe I won this copy Casey L. Bond‘s Valor somewhere in the wilds of the internet.

valor cover

Dragon. Warrior. Woman.

To honor her brother’s dying plea, Vayl Halifex carries a message that might prevent war with the location of their captive princess. Fortune and circumstance align in her favor and Vayl’s life is forever changed when an opportunity arises that only she can seize. With the help of a matchmaker, she becomes the emperor’s newest concubine. The new role affords her unfettered access to the gilded mountain stronghold, where the princess is rumored to be hidden away.

But she won’t take this risk alone. Her brother’s best friend, dragon warrior Estin, calls on the small army of elven assassins he leads to use their magic and might to flank her for the fight to come. The band of dragons takes Vayl into their fold and trains her as best they can before she’s whisked away to the palace.

Unbeknownst to the warriors, a dreadful magic simmers in the gilded fortress. With those fiercely protective of the emperor closing in, and the dragon assassins disappearing one by one, Vayl’s chance at escape narrows to a sliver, along with her hope of finding the princess or fighting her way out of the palace. With her heart entwined with that of the dragon warrior she was never supposed to love, she begins to fear the price of her treachery will be her life… or his.

my review

OK, first things first, I was disappointed to discover there were no actual dragons, just a group that calls themselves the Dragons. Not a deal breaker, but it still made me sad. After that initial disappointment, I thought that this was a fine (if unexceptional story). It is, in fact, a fine version of what it is. But that’s also the problem. It’s a fine version of a story that there are 47 gagillion versions of. There’s nothing particularly new. So, if you know you like new-adult (bordering on YA) stories of young women triumphing over adversity to save the day and falling in love on the side, you will likely like this one as much as any other.

Having said all of that, I find myself lately becoming more aware of and on guard against sneakily fundamentalist stories, and I have to wonder if this isn’t one of them. Sure, Vayl has a backbone and fights for what she believes in. But when it comes down to it, she takes all the power offered her and gives it to a man she barely knows so that she can go home and be a wife and, one presumes, mother (given the conversation she has with Estin toward the end).

Sure, she offers up a help-meet to that man…in the form of a mute woman. A woman, I might add, whom Vayl does actually know and trust, who would have made a good leader. Plus, the only other young woman of power left to her own devices goes rogue and evil over a man. I would argue this serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when women are allowed too much freedom and power. They can’t be trusted with it. Then, add the fact that with the exception the Fae queen, literally every other woman in the book is related to serving male sexual desires in some fashion (a matchmaker pimping out concubines, her assistants, concubines, a maid that is hinted to have been a past concubine, a fae assassin in a new and exciting sexual relationship with another fae assassin, etc.) When I really start thinking about it, it’s not even subtle.

valor photoNone of this is helped by the author thanking God, first and foremost, in her acknowledgements. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, obviously. But it does stand as a datapoint when one is looking at a (fantasy) story that so matches the fundamentalist agenda of seeing women as best serving in the home and as subordinate (silent) partners to men in positions of authority. I’m just saying.


Other Reviews:

Featured Review: Valor (Casey L. Bond)