Short Book Reviews // A Time of Dread by John Gwynne

The older I get, the more selective a reader I become. As a teenager, I read almost everything I could get my hands on, waded through every shelf in the local library, except the horror and mystery sections. I also had a principle to finish every book I've started. I forbade myself from picking up a new read before I'd finished the previous one. Although even that rule had an exception: I am yet to finish The Brothers Karamazov by Fjodor Dostojevski, which my friends gave me for my eighteenth birthday. Nowadays, I don't think twice about giving up on a book partway through if it doesn't seem right up my alley, though I try to read more than one or two chapters before doing so. 

I started A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) by John Gwynne (for background information, check the author's website, as I still don't write summaries or copy+paste information that anyone can google themselves in three seconds) in the late summer and was about to give up on it before I finished the first chapter. Because I had done that to several books during the summer, I forced myself to keep reading, thinking that at this rate, I'll never finish another book in my life. The first ten or so chapters felt like trying to consume a cooled-down cup of coffee, merely because throwing it away is against my principles. I felt utterly detached from the world and characters, even though Gwynne puts up just the kind of fantasy setting I like best, and there is more than one main character to find your favourite among. 

At the beginning of September, I actually put A Time of Dread aside to read The Alchemist. Then my dog died, and reading anything at all was the last thing on my mind for a while. I returned to books about two weeks ago, finished The Alchemist and decided to give A Time of Dread another go. I gobbled down the remaining forty-plus chapters in three days and can't even begin to comprehend anymore what felt so off-putting about the book when I started it.

Quite a long way to say you shouldn't give up on a book only a few pages in, not even only a few chapters in, but read at least twenty percent of it before you do. It's not always worth the time, but sometimes patience is rewarded.

A Time of Dread certainly turned out worth the second chance I gave it. Though the level of gore is a tad too high for my liking in general, I enjoyed the story immensely. Gwynne's writing style is something that I needed some time to get used to, but it works very well for this type of fantasy that's heavy in action and battle scenes. The characters that I couldn't relate to at all on my first attempt to read this book became so dear to me that towards the end, I struggled to continue reading because I didn't want to see them get hurt. That's something that hasn't happened to me in a long time, not after I listened to The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which I very nearly didn't finish simply because I felt I couldn't bear the inevitable unhappy ending. 

To keep this short as the title promises, I am captivated by Gwynne's world and will definitely read the whole series, Of Blood and Bone, and probably give The Faithful and the Fallen a go as well. I am a person who picks up books at random, without doing much research beforehand, and it occurred to me only after I'd finished A Time of Dread that I might've been wise to start from The Faithful and the Fallen, as Of Blood and Bone is technically a sequel to it, although designed so that it can be read as a standalone series. 

If you enjoy multi-POV epic fantasy jampacked with suspense and bloodshed, A Time of Dread is for you. The pool of blood is deep, the island of mauled bodies in the middle is high, so if you're sensitive to gore (as I was back in the day before watching The Game of Thrones, after which any amount of violence in fiction hasn't affected me), you might want to keep a bucket within arm's reach while reading it. Sounds like I'm joking, but I'm actually (all but) serious, because the scenes that include violence are so well written that I could smell the stench of death and fouler things. It's not all blood and spilt guts, though. There are quiet moments, too, and deep bonds between the characters, interesting and adorable creatures (I love the talking crows of Dun Seren, though usually I find talking animals in what I deem as adult fantasy off-putting), and a world that unfurls as the story progresses. Also, even as it's an epic fantasy, A Time of Dread isn't overly political, nor does it contain info dumps. Definitely a book worth adding to your to-be-read list.

What is it with these middle-aged, bearded men that they're so damn good at writing fantasy? And why, oh, why can't I be a middle-aged, bearded man, because if I were, perhaps my book would have a few readers, too. 

Currently Reading: The Broken Tower by Kelly Braffet...

...and a few words about me as a reader

I've been complaining in my recent reviews that the characters feel non-relatable. Once I finished Nyphron Rising (Riyria Revelations Book Three), I wondered whether the problem is in me rather than the books. To find that out, I picked The Broken Tower (The Barrier Lands 2) by Kelly Braffet as my next read, and now that I'm halfway through the story, I can safely say it's definitely me. 

I remember listening to the first book of The Barrier Lands, The Unwilling, as if it were yesterday, because it aroused such potent emotions in me -abhorrence and grief, mainly. I felt the characters' pain and desperation as if they were my own. The Broken Tower does not have the same effect on me, but the book isn't to blame. I've been binge-reading it, enjoying every word, but I feel nothing. The characters are as fantastic as in The Unwilling, the plot as gripping and haunting, but I could as well be reading the day's weather forecast for what emotions any of it arouses in me. 

As a child and teenager, I was so sensitive that I was afraid of the Orcs for years after I saw the Lord of the Rings movies. When I had to go out after dark, I was terrified because I was convinced there was a patrol of orcs hiding in the hayloft of our barn. Even as an adult, I have pinched my eyes shut if a scene in a movie or an episode has started to seem too suspenseful or violent. I've never been a keen reader of detective stories, let alone horror novels, because the thrill's been too much for me.  

It seems I'm not that person anymore, and the change saddens me. Even though life isn't easy for a susceptible and empathetic person, I'd rather have remained that way than become this calloused shell of a human I am today. It is what it is, however, and what changed me cannot be undone. 

Let's return to the book I'm currently reading for a bit, though. I haven't finished it yet, but I can already recommend it as a magnificent work of fantasy. The Broken Tower is categorized as young adult fantasy, but it's definitely a go-to for adults, too. I'm halfway through the book, would've finished it by now had I not returned to working on my own series, and I can scarcely wait to find out how it ends.

Devouring Words

I've been reading like crazy lately. Since I purchased the tablet, I've used every spare moment to devour books. I'm currently reading Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan, and so far, The Riyria Revelations seems just my kind of series. I won't reveal more about my thoughts on the story until I've finished books one and two, though.

There are a couple of reasons why I haven't read much in years. For starters, I've been busy renovating our house, and working on Braenduir Chronicles has occupied most of my spare time. Also, my budget for buying books is extremely limited, leaving the local library practically my only source of new reads. Not too many fantasy books are translated into my mother language, basically only the best-selling among the bestsellers, so I rarely find anything on the library shelves that piques my interest.  

At one point, I listened to a lot of audiobooks because I could do that while doing something else, like household chores, or gardening, etc., but listening to a book isn't quite the same as reading it. If the story isn't highly intriguing, my mind starts to wander, and at some point, I perk up to realise that an hour or two has passed without my paying any attention to the book. That can happen while I read as well, for a part of my brain is constantly working on my own series, but I usually can resume my focus when it's time to turn the page. 

But let's return to the original subject. Now that I have a proper device for reading eBooks, I read while having coffee or a meal, in the evenings when I've finished whatever tasks I have for the day, and even when I stand in front of the stove stirring a pot of sauce or something. I generally tend to think that the development of technology isn't entirely a positive thing, but thank gods for the internet and eBooks! Not only are there billions of books within my grasp, but most of them are also affordable, even free (like my book The Heirs of Duty), allowing us who live on the fringes of the civilised world access to a much vaster selection of stories than we would have otherwise. 

So, plunge into the sea of stories and pick up your next read, for there's no excuse to not spend time with books. There's also no reason not to give a chance to something else than the most popular and best-selling works, because there are countless eBooks available for FREE on various platforms, including the first book of Braenduir Chronicles, The Heirs of Duty, which you can now download for $0.00 on Barnes&Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Smashwords and many other platforms via this link.

Short Book Reviews // Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

I finished Tress of the Emerald Sea, a young adult fantasy adventure/romance by American author Brandon Sanderson. The book is about Tress, a window washer who lives on an island called the Rock in the middle of an ocean of emerald spores.

When I acquired the book, I didn't pay attention to the fact that it's a young adult novel. I've nothing against those, but it became evident pretty quickly that I don't belong to the targeted audience. Nonetheless, I finished the book and found it enjoyable enough. 

The world Sanderson builds is intriguing. It's not a fantasy world I'd go for if I investigated the books I intend to read before purchasing them, but I don't. For instance, I never read any reviews of the book beforehand. And as often as not, I also skip the blurb. Yet, it turned out to be a world into which I wouldn't mind taking another peek. In short, the story takes place in a universe divided into several oceans of spores, each ruled by a moon of its own. The occupants live on islands, leaving which is difficult because the spores are dangerous.

The heroine of Tress of the Emerald Sea does leave her home island, however, to rescue her beloved, Charlie, who's been captured by the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea. Her voyage across the Verdant and Crimson Seas is captivating even for an adult reader, regardless of the plot being somewhat predictable and the characters being one-dimensional. As could be expected, the characters are either Good or Bad; there's not much of a middle ground. If this were an adult fantasy book, I would consider that a major failure, but as TotES is a young adult book, I'll just skimp over it. 

All in all, I liked Tress of the Emerald Sea. It's an entertaining, easy-to-read story. Not something that'll dwell in your head for years, or even weeks, but worth considering if you're looking for a light-weight adventure sprinkled with the hints of a romance.

As a curiosity, this is the first Sanderson book I've read. Would I read more from him based on TotES? Yes. What's funny about it is that if I were me back in the day, when I was a young adult, I would've given up on the book when the talking rat made his entry and condemned the story as childish and the author as someone whose work I won't be wasting more time on. The boundaries of my imagination have, fortunately, widened since then, allowing me to find a talking rat an asset rather than an annoyance.