Dan Abnett's Horus Rising

I have a confession to make. This is my Science Fiction and Fantasy Review blog. I've had it for eight whole years now. I like to consider myself an expert in all matters Science Fiction and Fantasy and, if you're not one, I can probably fool you into believing it, too. One of the reasons I say "fool" is that, before very recently, I had only a concept of the whole "grimdark" sub-genre. I mean, the name is pretty much self-explanatory but I hadn't actually read any of it for myself.

When considering what I should read to acquaint myself with such a sub-genre a pretty obvious candidate arose: The Warhammer 40k universe is the original grimdark universe and it is very easily available, as long as you don't mind robbing a bank to get it. I mean, it's not as expensive as buying the minis, but I've never played the game. I just know what the books cost. But that led me to another problem: 40k is a freaking gargantuan universe. I mean, I've seen bit universes before. I'm a fan of the Four Horsemen Universe. I love pretty much any Dungeons & Dragons fiction, but I'm  a bigger fan of Dragonlance than pretty much anything else and the amount of fiction in that universe alone can be just a  bit daunting. Neither of those, both of those put together, don't come near the amount of fiction in the 40k universe. I didn't want to randomly select whatever. That's just not me, so I went researching.

In researching my choice of a starting point, the one constant suggestion was The Horus Heresy, but the one thing every person who made a list recommended not reading was also The Horus Heresy. Apparently, fifty-four books (plus, I gather, a few more anthologies) is too much for some of these lightweights. But not Jimbo. Oh, no. The 4HU is almost that size now, and Dragonlance is even bigger. BRING IT!

So, off I went in search of tasty treats to my local Amazon website and found the first book: Dan Abnett's Horus Rising. It wasn't hard to find. Type the name in, up it pops, there goes my money and BAM! I'm lost in space riding along with the feared Luna Wolves on their mission to make planet Sixty-Three Nineteen compliant with the edicts of the emperor. 

What followed was a lot of fun. If you're as into giant space battles and armored troops charging face first into gunfire, you can't miss this book. If you look a little bit of political intrigue to spice things up you can't go wrong. If you look for the bond between brothers that have faced combat you're in the right place. I was carried along right from the beginning and finished the whole book in basically three days. It was amazing.

What I hadn't counted on was the way Horus Rising and its author, Dan Abnett, dealt with the moral implications of making war. There is a lot more to this book than its awesome action sequences. The Warmaster, the aforementioned Horus, has a collection of captains under him which form the "Mournival", a group of men which act as advisors and the collective conscience of the Luna Wolves.  I was a bit surprised by this. It had an almost Japanese air to it, like an idealized samurai drama, only the code of the Legions is nowhere near the Code of Bushido. It's more like the warrior-philosopher thing, the feeling that the code makes things right  and that it's what a warrior should live for.

The warriors, the Luna Wolves and their brothers in the other Legions, are dedicated to the truth as they see it. This is a philosophy of pure science. It is openly derogatory toward religion and I can't say I was all that happy with it. I'm a Christian, after all, and Christianity is no more welcome in the Legions or on Terra than any other religion. I can live with it though, because it's fictional. Still and all, it led to a bit of a villainous air to this story's heroes. I kind of like that though. Even the good guys aren't good. That's grimdark, right?

Missing from the first novel were the references I had gained from others. The Luna Wolves travel through space to fight a fierce enemy upon receiving a distress call but I don't remember any reference to "psykers" (assuming that I spelled that right) being burned alive. Clearly, there is more to this story and I need to keep reading, but I'm okay with that.

I've heard people wonder if it's possible to enjoy 40k fiction without playing the game. I can honestly say that I've never sat a 40k table and I've never read a single one of their rulebooks, but I loved Horus Rising. There is so much here. I don't feel like I've missed a single bit of background necessary to understand what's going on. I do feel like Abnett went out of his way to make sure he included what was there, but he does it without making his worldbuilding overly obvious. Some would refer to this as "Heinleining" in the details and they're not wrong.

I have to admit that I have seen several posters with 40k troopers carrying swords and chainsaw swords alongside their guns. I always thought that was leaning heavily on the goofy side, but if you read Horus Rising it suddenly makes sense. These are troops that use their weapons effectively and their swords are no exception. If some of them seem to like sword work a little too much that's okay. I enjoyed that part of the story and it's not like they don't have other ways to combat the enemy when a sword isn't what's appropriate.

I'm forced to admit that I can't wait to get and read the sequel. It's my understanding that this is a shared universe, but I've read plenty of those (to include the 4HU and Dragonlance) and that just makes me enjoy a series more. There is something about reading a long series by a single author that I really enjoy, but a new voice keeps things fresh. I'll be headed to download False Gods soon. I can't wait.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Cracked Carapaces

Horus Rising
Dan Abnett
Black Library, 2016

Horus Rising is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Horus Rising

Travis Baldree's Bookshops and Bonedust

 

It's time, once again, for a relaxing ride down Fantasy Lane with Travis Baldree. He refers to his latest release as Bookshops and Bonedust  and, I have to say, it's a worthy prequel to his previous work, Legends and Lattes. In this latest release, our heroine, Viv the orc, is forced to take some time off to rehab a leg injury and comes across a new friend who owns (you guessed it) a bookshop.

The Viv of Bookshops and Bonedust is much younger and more action motivated than the older, retired (from the adventuring life at least) Viv of the original novel. She gets her wound in combat because she won't listen and stay where she's supposed to. She gets out too far out in front and gets herself surrounded because she won't listen to older, wiser people who have been there before. I like that though, because that's pretty much the standard text-book definition of "young orc." This is a Viv who still craves battle and loves the adrenaline rush that comes with it. I can still see enough of the Viv I know and love to recognize her, but she reminds me a little too much of me when I was a teenager and used to speed around the outside of the mall so I could hit the hill by the bank and catch air. (Thankfully, my mom doesn't read my blog so I'm safe revealing that here.)

This time, instead of former comrades looking for treasure, Viv's crew has a new target, a necromancer. The astute reader may believe that the "bonedust" reference comes from there, but I'll never tell.

Anyway...

Baldree knows his shtick and he knows his audience. Bookshops and Bonedust is nowhere near a carbon copy of Legends and Lattes, but it does contain a whole bunch of what made the first book a success; a relatable main character, a business to be built back from basically nothing and a supporting cast of stars with just enough of an outside threat to spice things up  a bit. The type of business he uses this time just adds to the fun.

I don't care who you are or what you looking like, there are three types of readers in the world; the type who wants to own a bookshop, the kind who wants to be a librarian and the undecideds who want both (for the record, I'm number three) and Baldree taps into that desire here. Viv doesn't actually own the bookshop in question but she gets to spend the day there helping out and reading for free. It sounds like a good life to me.

If you've read the first one (and if you haven't your wrong. Hie thee off to Amazon and pick up your copy.) then you know that the central problem of the story is Viv and her attempt to open a coffee shop in a town that has never heard of coffee. She shows a surprising level of business skills for a person who had led an adventurer's life before opening her place. I hadn't thought about that before, but Bookshops and Bonedust is where she learns those business skills, slowly and by guessing mainly. 

Fern, the owner of Thistleburr Booksellers (and why does the word Thistleburr remind me of Drangonlance character Tasslehoff? I mean, other than that he'd definitely have "borrowed" some books from there.)  is not doing as well as she might wish she was and Viv finds ways to help her out. It's a lot of fun, but it also lays the basis for what comes later the way a proper sequel should. Bookshops and Bonedust also reveals why Viv was in such a hurry to get pastries set up in her coffee shop later. I like that part.

There is a hint of a romance angle here, but it's a pretty relaxed one. When I think of romance literature I think of smut and there is none of that here. It's enough to make one's mind wander, but it's subtle enough that I would have absolutely no problem recommending Bookshops and Bonedust to my twelve year old daughter. Seriously, what's there is there but it fits with the relaxing theme of the book. 

Being a cozy fantasy, there's not a whole lot of violence. That's not the point. Don't get me wrong. I've been known to read Warhammer novels. I don't have a problem with mass battles and extreme violence but this isn't that kind of book. There is, however, a bit. The story starts with the fight where Viv gets her wound and there is a bit of a dust up at the end of the book. It's well done and easy to follow but Baldree keeps things where they belong and manages to keep the feeling of this thing cozy regardless of what little bits of fighting jump out at you.

The majority of Bookshops and Bonedust is set in the town of Murk and it kind of feels like a cool little port town. You know, it's that one town you wish you had homebrewed for your Dungeons & Dragons campaign and didn't. It feels just right with the docks, and the inn and all of the other little businesses thrown in, right down to the pain in the butt town watch captain. (And, trust me, every town needs one of those, either to drag your players into a fight they don't want to defend the town or to be a thorn in their backside when they're just trying to mind their own business and buy some spell components.) Honestly, given the fact that Hasbro/Wizards allows others to profit by releasing D&D related content, I could see a module featuring Murk as its setting bringing in some decent loot. Seriously, if Baldree ever decides to start a D&D podcast set in one of his towns I'd love a chance to run a character there. I'm just sayin'...

The one thing I was hoping for and didn't get was Viv's first drink of coffee. Granted, it's not the town where Viv ordered her coffee from in the first book (the name of which I'm drawing a blank on, but it was a gnomish town that doesn't get much screentime but feels like it would be a lot of fun) but it still would have been nice to see our friendly neighborhood coffee fiend with fangs take her first sip.

I don't want to spoil too much, but there is something that happens in the book which leads me to believe there will be a sequel. I can't wait to read it, if so. If not, I'm going to go into my bedroom and pout and suck on my thumb. I might even chew the nail a bit. So, anyway, here's hoping.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Satchels

Bookshops and Bonedust
Travis Baldree
Tor, 2023

Bookshops and Bonedust is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Bookshops and Bonedust

Disgardium Books Two Through Twelve by Dan Sugralinov

It's no longer very often I get carried away in a series and just can't put it down. I've gotten a bit jaded in my old age and being a book reviewer I try to skip around between authors and end up not coming back to a series I swore I was going to finish because not it's eight authors later and I've got a ninth to read and well...

You get the idea.

The fact remains that I love to get swept away by a series. I just spent an entire month reading Dan Sugralinov's Disgardium series. I loved every minute of it and I will get back into this one when the next books come out this su...

This s...

Thi...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

IT'S NOT FAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR!!!!

I thought that this was a twelve book series. It's supposed to be a twelve book series. It said it was a twelve book series. It almost is a twelve book series. But...

But...

Book Twelve, appropriately titled Unity, got too long and it got split into three parts and now I have to wait till this summer for parts thirteen and fourteen. I'm gonna freak out here. I can't wait that long to find out how this thing ends.

I mean, it's not like it's my first time here. I've been following David Weber's Honorverse since the reign of Bush the Younger and I've had some fairly significant waits there. Don't get me started on how long I had to wait for the end of Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children or what I had to say about the last book afterward. But dude...

I thought this thing was going to end at twelve. I was prepared for the big denouement and it didn't come. I feel like I just went on the most awesomest date in the history of ever, go the girl to her front door, leaned in for a kiss and she was like, "Totes wanna kiss you but I gotta pee. Hang out here for a sec." and then took off and left me holding her purse.  I mean, I know she'll be back but the suspense is killing me.

I reviewed the first book, Class A Threat, here.  An awful lot has happened since then and most of it is only good in the sense of how entertaining it is. The main character, Alex Sheppard AKA Scyth - his character in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game known as Disgardium, is one tough kid. And yes, I do mean kid. He starts the story as a fourteen year old and by the end of the twelfth book is only sixteen. At that age though, Alex is hardcore.

He does battle against everyone and everything in the game world of Disgardium and that's a game where the players have in game pain transferred into their real life bodies. He also faces massive challenges in the real world both from people who wish him harm and from those who wish to bribe him. He's an honest man though, and he manages to not fall by the wayside. I like this kid. He could date my daughters. Well, maybe my oldest. My youngest is only twelve so she's still a bit young.

Alex, as the name of the first book Class A Threat implies is a Threat in the game of Disgardium, meaning that he has a highly imbalanced power that can change the whole game. How that works/what it means in precise terms is a spoiler. Go read the books if you want to know. What it also means is that he has to hide his status to protect himself from others in the game who would kill his character in order to collect a bounty. It also endangers him in real life, as players and the Snowstorm, the creators of the game, can control his character and how he uses his powers if they can control him.

Alex is not, however, afraid to use his abilities as a Threat to treat himself to acquire some benefits in the game. He gains levels - a measure of how powerful his character is- at a breakneck pace. He brings in unbelievable amounts of in game money (gold) in the process and that's a big deal. In Sugralinov's world, anyone who has reached the age of majority (sixteen) and passed their citizenship exams can take their gold out of the game and covert it to phoenixes - real world money - and some get extremely rich in the process. With Alex's in game wealth, he can do exactly that IF he takes and passes his citizenship exams. 

And I'm not going to tell you if he did or how it went if so. Read the books.

Alex also manages to use his in game wealth to hire a bunch of non-citizens to work for him in-game. Most of them are of legal age and can cash out a small amount of their gold monthly. For most of them, Disgardium is their only source of income. Alex does right by these people and does his best to take care of them both in and out of the game. He takes on more responsibility at the age of sixteen than most people do in their entire lives and he thrives while doing it. Of course, this causes problems in the real world as well. Not everyone can be trusted and not everyone who sells him out means him ill. The world is a big, confusing place for me at forty-seven and this is a kid with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The fact that he can keep moving forward says a lot about him as a person. The fact that I can keep reading and so easily suspend disbelief says a lot about Sugralinov as an author. 

The worldbuilding here is impressive and leaves me a bit confused about Sugralinov's politics. There is enough here to anger members of both parties in the United States, but that's part of what makes it good. I slide back and forth with my reactions to what his characters think and do but they are always believable. Sugralinov appears to be a political writer with his own agenda and no one else's. Also, he doesn't harp on the politics for the most part. 

The action sequences in the real world in the book are intense and fast paced. They make me wince at parts and at many points trying to figure out how Alex and friends were going to get out of what was thrown at them. At least one thing had me convinced that the rest of the stories were going to be written about ghosts but they got out of it alive and somewhat well-ish. At least alive. 

His in-game action sequences are what really got me worked up though. I've played World of Warcraft and Everquest and have literal years invested in game time played. My WoW main had over eighteen months online all by himself. I haven't played in awhile, but Disgardium almost has me back into it.

Alex/Scyth are involved in some of the most intense player versus player combat sequences imaginable. I've fought encounters in WoW and raided cities. I've never done anything that comes anywhere near what happens in these books. I'd love to just see something like this happen on Twitch or something and I don't even watch Twitch. Alex and friends also do multiple instances and down multiple bosses for the first time ever. This guy has a gaming career that most players three times his age can't even dream of. These are probably the best parts of what would be an awesome series without them.

Disgardium is my new favorite LitRPG series. I can't wait for the last two books. 

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Rainbow Crystals

Apostle of the Sleeping Gods, The Destroying Plague, Resistance, Holy War, Path of Spirit, The Demonic Games, Enemy of the Inferno, Glory to the Dominion!, Clear Threat, Out of Play, Unity
Dan Sugralinov
Magic Dome Books 2019-2023

Apostle of the Sleeping Gods: Book Two of Disgardium is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Apostle of The Sleeping Gods

One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stories by Sam Robb Illustrations by Cedar Sanderson

(Listen folks, I'm going lazy on this one. I will grant you that I don't do many anthology posts, but that's  because they take too long to write. I usually do a brief review of each story. Here's the problem: It's Sunday night. My Lions are playing in less than two hours and have a decent chance to win their first playoff game in three decades. Last time they won one, I was a high school kid, working at the local grocery store and I missed the game because I was at work. The one review per story dog isn't going to hunt and I need to get this done tonight. So buckle up and put your hardhat on, sweetheart because we're on a trip trying to do this thing justice in less than the two and half hours I average for reviewing an anthology. No, that's not a typo.)

When Cedar Sanderson wandered by my email one day inquiring as to whether I would do a review for her latest work I was intrigued. Cedar is, after all, one hell of a writer and artist and I've reviewed a ton of her stuff already. That's because I enjoy it. She's really good at what she does. So of course I perked up my ears when she mentioned the word "experimental." Cedar works in a lab. I was excited. I thought maybe she used her powers of science and finally conjured up the evil spirits from the Nethervoid of the Shadowwalker and we were going to utilize the power of The Dark to level cities and invent popcorn that won't burn in the microwave or something...

Right.

Like popcorn that won't burn in the microwave will ever actually exist.

But then she told me that she had a project with a guy named Sam Robb, whose work I am new to reading, and that it was really cool. I had known that Cedar had participated in Inktober (it's a challenge graphic artists take to do a drawing every day in October) and I was watching her post stuff on Facebook. What I hadn't known was that Sam Robb was doing a story every day based on whatever she drew and also the prompts (provided by fans. The process is explained in the book.) that she used to draw them. That sounded just crazy enough to work.

Which, admittedly was not assured. I mean, Klinger thought that wearing dresses was crazy enough to get him discharged, right?

Fortunately though, it did work. It really works well. It worked so well that I manged to read all of One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stories in one freaking day. I don't read entire anthologies in a day ever. They don't flow like novels and it's usually pretty hard to focus on the book when it keeps changing up on me like that. Here's the thing: These stories were so good it didn't matter.

There is a whole ton of stuff here. At least one story was heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft and written in the same vein as "Call of Cthulu." It was great. There was another about a girl who got an epic birthday present even if it wasn't quite what she expected. It had me chuckling though, even if her father wasn't, at least at first. I've got to admit too, I've never quite seen death portrayed as a wolf before. Although, there was a bit of Pandora (from Greek myth, not the music app) mixed in there as well. 

There is also a story known as "Coffee Failure". I don't want to spoil the story, but any picture with the word "decaf" written on the side of a coffee mug clearly deserves the name. I mean, seriously, who drinks decrappinated anything? Ok, so I bought a box of decrappinated tea bags once but that's because they looked like the good stuff. 

Of course, small planets need saving too, and that's the theme of one of the other stories. That's a crazy one because it sounds like the main character is almost bored by what he discovers before he works it out and finds out what's important. Seriously, it's clearly not meant as a Christmas movie but it has a sort of Miracle on 34th Street feel to it in a way. Kinda. Then there's the coffee shop story. That's touching. It's also cool because it involves a girl who reads books. Who doesn't love girls who read books?

Anyway...

Cedar's work is excellent as always. She has a definite style about her that really needs a proper art critic to describe it. I hate to disappoint you all, but this is Jimbo's and we don't have a proper art critic. I guess her defining things are a kind of sweeping strokes with lines that don't always finish. If you don't believe me about the lines try coloring one of her line drawings in Recolor. One click and half the picture is brown. I was kinda mad about that one because those baby dragons on that bookcase needed some color and..

I'm off topic again. That wasn't even one of the pics from One October Night.

I'm not doing her work just because I can't. Just know that if you're in to science fiction and, especially, fantasy artwork Cedar is worth checking out. I know she does covers and that's terrific but I almost like her daily stuff more. There's something about the simpleness of the work that just appeals. 

I did take an art history class once. You'd think I'd be better at this. It's not my fault. Words like "Byzantine" and "Baroque" just don't work here.

Whatever. Listen. There's a lot more to this book than what I'm showing here.

I never, ever in my life even think about discussing forewords in my reviews.

However...

Both Robb and Sanderson did forewords for One October Night and they talked a bit about the process of how they conceived the stories and images in the book. I almost skipped them (GASP!) but I'm glad I didn't. Reading those forewords changed the way I read the book. I didn't have access to the prompts, obviously, but I did stop at each pic (they precede the story they inspired) and try to figure out what the story was going to be about. I was wrong every time, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I got enjoyment out of trying to guess what was coming. It was like one of those assignments I had in school where I had to write about what happened next in the book we were reading except that it didn't suck and I didn't have to hide that I knew what was coming because I had gotten bored and read ahead. It was great.

So seriously, give this one a try. I'd like to see someone else try something like this in the future because I feel like this is the type of thing that could become a thoroughly enjoyable trend if we could get enough people signed on to do it. It's that much fun. 

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Sacks of Roc Food

One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stories
Sam Robb/ Cedar Sanderson
Sanderley Studios, 2023

One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stores is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

One October Night