Under the Pendulum Sun | Jeannette Ng

*Image and book provided via NetGalley for an honest review.

Summary:

Catherine Helstone has gone to Arcadia, land of the Fae, in search for her brother Laon, a missionary who has failed to follow up with her or his church in some time. Considering the mysterious death of the previous missionary to the Fae Lands, she is anxious to find him. Unfortunately, her long stay in Arcadia is riddled with riddles of a dangerous variety. She must find a way to navigate them while holding onto her own soul. 

Review:

Let me start out by saying: Holy wah. Holy wah! Holy WAH! This book was an amazing read! I can't remember the last time I was tempted to take a day off work just to finish a book! There were so many things to think about and work through! I generally highlight parts of a book that make me think, or to look up later, or that might be clues for the overall story. Usually I highlight just a few things overall. I swear I highlighted almost half the book just because there was so much that struck me! 

You can tell Jeannette Ng has done the research on this. Not just because she has her Master's in Medieval and Renaissance studies (by the way this book takes place in 1800's) but also because of her mastery of the language. She uses the terminology these characters would have used in their time, in their place. My favorite part was that the Fae tell how long it takes to get somewhere, not with time or distance, but stories. For example, the Pale Queen commented to the Salamander that it had been too long since they'd last seen each other.

The Salamander bowed deep, her wet-seeming scales glistening. "It has been as long as it takes to tell a tale, neither long nor short."

And this really gives you an insight into the Fae mindset. If one doesn't measure time by seconds and minutes or distance in feet or meters, it really affects your interpretation of the world around you.

The best part, for me, is that everything ended up making perfect sense. When I got to the end of the book and saw the full scope of this story my jaw dropped in awe. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I will say that the Mastermind of it all has much more power, influence and insight than I had EVER thought to give them credit for! I was floored by how little I had comprehended! Don't get me wrong, the story's only told from Catherine's perspective, but still! I ended up falling into the same thought trap that she did and I almost never do that! I was so caught up in this story that I was unable to predict, unable to see, except as hindsight. IT WAS AWESOME!

I'll admit, the dark, gothic fantasy genre isn't for everyone. If you are interested in true fairy tales, like the original dark Brother's Grimm stuff, you'll probably like this. There's a lot of theology mixed with mythology that does such a wonderful job of tickling one's curiosity.

I am so in love with this book that I'm pre-ordering it (click the picture above to go to the book's page). I happily give this book 5 hoots and look forward to more books from Jeannette Ng!

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Mogworld | Yahtzee Croshaw

Summary:

The first time Jim died, he was a magic student at a low quality school that got invaded by the barbarian school next door. He went to a place where he felt happy and content. Then he and a horde of others get brought back to life as zombies by a Lord Dreadgrave who employs them to protect his tower from adventurers. While Jim finds the work easy enough, he still keeps attempting to find ways to die again, even converting to almost every religion he can find out about and then killing himself. This routine gets thrown out, however, when Deleters come in and completely delete Dreadgrave, his tower, and all but three zombies from his horde. Jim, Meryl and the priest zombie must now figure out why the world is so messed up: Adventurers are getting hit with the Syndrome, normal people are unable to die, and Barry is following the word of Si-Mon and destroying everything.


Review:

I picked this book up because I enjoy Yahtzee's YouTube channel with my husband. I will say that it was very easy to read the entire book in Yahtzee's voice and greatly added to my enjoyment. I'm sorely tempted to buy the audio book, especially after hearing the sample, and I don't like audio books! It also really helped me to prepare for Yathzee's sense of humor. There were so many things in this book that made laugh. I've highlighted more passages from this book than any other in the past year.

"This was the second time I'd been asked to justify being afraid of gnolls, and I still couldn't fathom why. It was like being asked to explain why old people should wear clothing."

This book is high fantasy. You've got sorcerers, undead, clerics, adventurers, etc. At the same time, it's as much about high fantasy adventure as Sean of the Dead is about zombie movies. It's a delightful combination of strong story and satire. As much as this book made me laugh, it was the characters and the story that kept me from putting the book down. Each of the main protagonists is endearing in their own way. Though I will admit I may have liked Slippery John more if he didn't keep referring to himself in the third person. That got very annoying very quickly, but it was quite consistent with the character.

At the same time, I appreciated Yahtzee's less obvious jokes. At one point a character gets called out on saying the word "little" a lot: "Did you know you use the world 'little' an awful lot?" Then he proceeds to use words like "small", "tiny", "diminuitive", "miscroscopic" etc. When I picked up on what was going on, I laughed even harder! And there are so many jokes like this, ones where you really need to pay attention. They payoff is totally worth the focus required.

Yes, some of the big reveals were kinda predictable, but the story and the characters are so worth reading. And the ending was so satisfying! It wasn't the ending I thought I wanted until I read it. I happily give 5 hoots and have already added more of Yahtzee's books to my TBR!

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Hellboy: On Earth as it is in Hell | Brian Hodge

Summary:

When the Vatican archives are attacked by Seraphim looking to destroy a document that could cause a rift in the Church, the BPRD are called in. Hellboy, Abe and Liz seek to protect the document by taking it to BPRD headquarters, but get attacked and left for dead along the way. They soon find out that, not only are they working against demons who seek to release the document, but also an extreme sect of Christians who seek to destroy the document by, literally, any means.

Review:

I'll be honest, I'm generally the first person to praise the Hellboy novels, but this one kinda fell short for me. There were demons, ghosts, and the Leviathan, but I still found myself feeling bored for a lot of it. I'm not entirely sure why I felt bored, maybe I found the action-to-exposition ratio to be off. Maybe this just wasn't the book for me.

Hodge gets the world of BPRD right and keeps true to the heart of it. There are monsters in both human and demon form. There are pocket worlds where terrible things happen. None of it was particularly scary or mind bending for me. If it weren't for the actual inclusion of the demons and seraphim, this entire book could be an action thriller with an entirely human cast. Maybe that's what makes the book fall flat for me, the monsters and supernatural creatures feel secondary to the philosophy and human nature. And I like my monsters.

Still, if you're interested in thrillers and don't mind the supernatural aspects, you'd probably enjoy this book. As for me, I'm still gonna read Hellboy novels, but this one just doesn't work for me. 3 hoots!

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Prince: Legacy of Darkness | Phoenix Garrett Wright

*Book and image provided by NetGalley

Summary:

This book follows the story of Lucifer (a separate entity from Satan) the first vampire, and former seraphim. In the 2060's, a decade or so after the War of Immortals, the witches become bolder in their attacks on the vampires who, led by Lucifer, prefer to be left in darkness and out of humanity's reality, except for when it's time to feed. Lucifer must keep his fledglings in line in an attempt to show a united front against the army of witches and humans with UV light based weapons.

Review:

This is a very long book. If you intend to read it, be sure to set enough time aside for it. To be fair to Wright, I'm not sure how this book could have told the story he wanted while being a shorter book. There is a lot of content here with a fairly good balance between exposition/story telling and action.

Fair warning about the action, this book is not for the feint of heart or stomach. Several scenes involve copious amounts of blood. Then there are the depictions of Hell that left me feeling nauseated. I won't go into details, but  you have been warned. 

I have to admit, I probably won't read the next installment. I read all 600+ pages of this book and never felt emotionally or intellectually invested in any of the characters. The entire book is told from the perspective of Lucifer and it's no surprise he used to manage the Gate of Pride in Hell. He's arrogant and prideful to a fault, but clearly such is the nature of the character. I never feel that any one group, humans, vampires or witches are in the right. They all seem like they're doing the wrong thing, especially when the story is from the perspective of someone who thinks they're all inferior anyways.

Probably my biggest complaint about this book is that there are so many typos and punctuation errors. It may have just been the Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) I received, but there were so many spelling and editing errors that need to be cleaned up. 

To be honest, I can only give this book 2.5 hoots. I appreciate what the author was trying to do, and the first half or so of the book was plenty entertaining, but after that it was just all downhill and I just wanted the book to end.

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Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? by Consolmagno, SJ and Mueller, SJ

I was delighted to get to review this book. While I never have been, and never will be, Catholic, I'm always appreciative of books that show the compatibility of religion and science.  Both authors are Jesuits who work for the Vatican Observatory and they are presenting 6 of the most commonly asked questions they get and they discuss the different answers and ways to answer them. More importantly, to me, they also discuss WHY people ask these questions.*

The entire book is written as a dialogue between Consolmagno and Mueller. I haven't read a non-fiction book like this since getting my BA in Philosophy. It was definitely a nice change of pace and I greatly appreciated the humor the two shared and their interactions. This made the discussion of the big questions seem a lot more manageable. It also makes this a less reference heavy read. It's just a discussion. There really aren't any footnotes to distract you or make you feel like you're reading a textbook.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is having their own struggles with religion/science. I also recommend that you recommend this book to anyone who claims the two can't work together. And I happily give this book 4 hoots!

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*This feeds into the whole science-religion-compatibility thing I was thankful for.
**I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Angeli: The Pirate, the Angel & the Irishman by Amy Vansant

I'll admit, this book kinda caught me by surprise. I'm not a fan of books that center around love stories. Fortunately for Angeli: The Pirate, the Angel & the Irishman there  is enough other stuff going on in the book to keep it interesting. Yes, there's sex. Yes there's a LOT of "he's not good enough for you". But you've also got warriors taking down infected angels who have fed off human energy, you've got knife fights, you've got pirates, you've got chaos, etc. 

This is definitely not a character driven story. I really felt nothing for the characters. Though I did find myself fascinated by the bad guy of the story, he takes up so little of the book.The rest of the characters, I dunno. They just kinda fell flat for me. 

I like the world this is based in. Arch Angels in charge of Guardian Angels who are susceptible to an illness that makes them destroy humans instead of protecting them, Sentinels to destroy the infected. It's definitely an interesting world. But the story line we're given in this world? It could have been better. 

Overall, I'm going to give this one 3 hoots.

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*"I was provided with a free copy of this book so I could give an honest review."