Chris Eicher

Relatively fun book, very fast paced with lots of action. Interesting magic system that ended up going much deeper than I thought at first. The world building has its moments. Past that, this is a quite derivative work. I'm far from the first to point this out, but this is Will of the Many and Red Rising just mashed up. The prose specifically is very similar to the staccato style we see in Red Rising, which at least personally I'm not a big fan of.

Very much a page turner, however I also find that after I turn that final page I look back on it and I'm not sure what I got out of it. This is the book equivalent of empty calories.

I was ready to love this book. Curse of Chalion was my favorite book I read last year, and Ista was probably the character that most intrigued me aside from Caz. I quite enjoyed Paladin of Souls, but did not love it unfortunately.

While Curse of Chalion has supernatural elements, certainly, it does not really have much if anything in the way of "magic." The almost complete lack of magic is in many ways core to the theme of that book. And perhaps I'm just trying to force that same theme unjustly onto this one.

I'll be curious to spend some time thinking about this and likely re-reading it and perhaps my estimation will grow.

This is not a 'bad' book, but definitely wasn't for me. I very nearly DNF'd this one halfway through due to the amount of names. The number of named characters in this book would make Tolkien or GRRM blush. I played a 90 second clip of this book for my wife and she started laughing and told me to turn it off after we got to something like the 12th gobbledygook name over such a short period of time. Around 3/4 of the way through the book I more or less knew who all the, at least major, players were. I ended up liking this book, but I can't say anything more than that. I think the prose is (setting aside the overabundance of names) really quite good and feels unique in a good way. The characters are interesting and Maia is easy to root for, if a bit flat. I did find it hard to believe several of the turns in this book. I understand this is 'cozy fantasy' and it should be read in that frame, since if you don't, there's no way you could imagine the court not absolutely tearing Maia apart. I guess I'd finally come to the conclusion of: this book is frustrating because much of it I really enjoyed, combined with a lot that I really didn't, and ultimately I come out slightly positive but feeling I definitely wanted more. I read a review that this book is "zoom meetings, the book" and it's a lot of good zoom meetings I suppose, but it's still zoom.

Aliens show up on earth, and they're Catholic. What a fantastic premise.

Really excellent little novel by first time author M. R. Leonard. I expected some interesting ideas, and this really delivers in regards to that. There's a midpoint reveal that makes you stop and reconsider everything about its implications. Our main character is this very interesting mix of pathetically selfish and well meaning. And the world this book imagines is interesting, if a bit underdeveloped. That's really my only problem with this book overall. It's just a little slight. What's there is fully cooked, it's just not a big meal of a book and therefore sometimes leaves certain plot elements, or world building elements, really glossed over.

Overall really enjoyed this one.

Overstuffed. Still, very good overall, and considering how much is shoved in here the pacing is incredible. Going to be rough waiting for the next installment.