Tag Archives: fantasy

Stone Cold Bastards

Book Review of Stone Cold Bastards by, Jake Bible

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I received an audible copy of Jake Bible‘s Stone Cold Bastards for review.

Description from Goodreads:
Only a rag-tag team of gargoyles stands between humanity and extinction.

Hell has released its ravening horde of demons, leaving most of humanity a puke-spewing, head-spinning mess of possession.

Humanity’s last hope? A team of misfit gargoyles—including a cigar chomping, hard-ass grotesque—come alive and ready for battle during the End of Days. They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains.

Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the Sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive.

All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last Sanctuary is about to fall.

Review:
I rather enjoyed this. I had a few complaints, namely that the human bodies in this book appeared to have a consistency somewhere between a ripe tomato and play-doe. I don’t generally have a problem with gore in a novel, but there was a lot in this book. And where it didn’t bother me on its own, the fact that grotesques (gargoyles…notably not gargoyles, but gargoyles for the linguistically challenged) seemed able to produce it in a manner that seemed to disregard physics and tensile, bodily durability grated on my nerves. I got seriously sick of heads getting ripped off, spines yanked out, skulls popped, etc. Not because of the gore factor, but because it was too clean, easy and pervasive.

Secondly, I didn’t think humans were represented well or realistically. They were all either weak to their flesh and causing devastation or cowering in a corner. They were almost all essentially characterless. Given the circumstance, I would expect a little more human resilience.

Beyond those complaints, I loved grumpy Morty and the rest of the sanctuary crew. I liked the idea of the demon apocalypse and the ending.

All in all, not a book that is going to make the favorites list, but not one I regret listening to either. Hays did a fine job narrating it.

Sensation

Book Review of Sensation (Kid Sensation #1), by Kevin Hardman

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I received an Audible credit for a copy of Sensation, by Kevin Hardman.

Description from Goodreads:
Like millions of other kids, Jim grew up wanting to be a superhero. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Jim actually had the goods: a plethora of super powers that would have been the envy of any meta on the planet. But when his tryout with the Alpha League – the world’s premiere group of supers – goes disastrously wrong, Jim basically becomes an outcast. 

Two years later, Jim is still bitter about what happened to him. However, he soon finds himself the centerpiece in an odd turn of events that gives him a second chance at his dream. But nothing is as easy as it sounds, as Jim soon discovers. Among other things, he’s made an enemy of a prospective super teammate, he’s being stalked by an unknown pursuer, and a shadowy cabal bent on world domination has identified him as the only obstacle to their plans. 

It’s a lot for one super to handle, even with a smorgasbord of abilities. But if saving the world were easy, everyone would do it…

Review.
Amusing, but about as substantive as the comics it is obviously modeled on. This isn’t wholly bad. There is a lot of humor here and obviously a large world has been envisioned, though we’re only given small glimpses of it. But the plot itself it fairly thin and predictable and I didn’t sense much growth in the characters. The main character, Jim, is a little too perfect to be believed and seems far too mature for 16.

Despite generally good writing, there is a lengthy and largely unneeded flashback that disrupts the flow of the story. The narrator, Mikael Naramore did a fine job too. I liked his reading, but not so much his attempts at accents. All in all, it wasn’t a total disappointment. I really think teens will enjoy the heck out of it. But I found it a so-so read (listen).

Book Review of The Guns Above (Signal Airship #1), by Robyn Bennis

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I received a copy of The Guns Above, by Robyn Bennis, through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
The nation of Garnia has been at war for as long as Auxiliary Lieutenant Josette Dupris can remember – this time against neighboring Vinzhalia. Garnia’s Air Signal Corp stands out as the favored martial child of the King. But though it’s co-ed, women on-board are only allowed “auxiliary” crew positions and are banned from combat. In extenuating circumstances, Josette saves her airship in the heat of battle. She is rewarded with the Mistral, becoming Garnia’s first female captain.

She wants the job – just not the political flak attached. On top of patrolling the front lines, she must also contend with a crew who doubts her expertise, a new airship that is an untested deathtrap, and the foppish aristocrat Lord Bernat – a gambler and shameless flirt with the military know-how of a thimble. He’s also been assigned to her ship to catalog her every moment of weakness and indecision. When the Vins make an unprecedented military move that could turn the tide of the war, can Josette deal with Bernat, rally her crew, and survive long enough to prove herself to the top brass?

Review:
This was a really quite enjoyable read. I liked the idea of the first female airship captain. I loved the banter and wry witticisms in the face of danger. The writing was wonderful and I liked all the characters (or rather, liked the ones I was meant to like and disliked the ones meant to be toad-like).

I would have liked to understand the characters as well as the battles. The book is heavy on detailed descriptions of air battles and light on the internal workings of the characters themselves. I liked them, but I wouldn’t say we get to know them well, Josette especially.

I would liked to compliment Bennis on having a man be attracted to ‘older’ (than him) women and not making it a joke. Allowing that women in their 50s (and beyond) can be sexy and sexual was a breath of fresh air.

Lastly, as an introduction to a series this works well. But it is just a slice of a larger pie. We meet the captain, crew and tag-along dandy. They bicker and fight a couple battles in a larger war. Then it ends, with the understand that there is more of the same to come. It felt a bit anchor-less.