REVIEW: Grim (Reaper's Redemption Book 1)

Rating: 5 out of 5

A while back, I reviewed a fascinating literary novel titled “Anomaly” that chronicled a few days in the life of a tortured gender-fluid character named J. The book completely surprised me, and I fell in love with it. (Unfortunately, that particular title is no longer in print, so the world has lost out on reading it…for now.) So when I found out that the author of that little gem, one Thea Atkinson, had pivoted her peculiar talents toward Urban Fantasy, I just HAD to pick up a copy of “Grim” and see for myself how someone with a unique voice such as hers would tackle the genre.

And let me tell you, she tackled it perfectly.

“Grim” is a gem of a book. It is the story of Ayla, a young girl on the cusp of womanhood whose life has been anything but easy. As a child of the foster care system, she has all the insecurities and hang-ups of someone who’s shuffled from home to home. Her distrust lingers even now that she’s found relative safety living with her grandfather in the town of Dyre (great naming there). She’s a contradiction, as most real people are—flawed yet idealistic, fragile yet brimming with inner strength.

Atkinson doesn’t waste time, as the story starts with a bang, an encounter with a strange, tattooed killer in an old gothic church. It is this initial confrontation, and all the horror that goes with it, that begins a breakneck two days for our young, ornery heroine. There are secrets revealed almost immediately, both supernatural and otherwise. The author sure knows how to frame a fight scene, and the action is excellently paced. When reading this book, there really is not time to stop and catch your breath, which only adds to the urgency of the tale.

As with “Anomaly,” Atkinson shows off her biggest talent: the depth of her characters. The story is told through Ayla’s eyes, so obviously she is very well developed, but the rest of the cast, from her grandfather, to Callum the young and seemingly conflicted firefighter, to Ayla’s witchy friend Sarah, leap of the page in real-time. All three of them are complex individuals disguised as genre tropes, which makes them at once relatable and utterly mysterious.

And oh, the mysteries! One of the areas that I’ve seen most authors struggle with when creating any fantasy world is makeup and definition of the world itself. World-building, if you will. Here, Atkinson shows an almost saintly amount of patience. Even though we learn almost immediately of what Ayla’s big secret is, the functionality around that secret, the rules of engagement, and the underlying mythology are doles out bits and pieces at a time, sprinkled here and there throughout the narrative, slowly building the universe like a puzzle.

Being the first book in a series, of course that puzzle isn’t completed by the time the last chapter comes to a close. But what’s revealed up until that point is more than enough to have the reader pining to get to the next book. Which, really, is what the opening volume of a series is all about.

So yes, “Grim” is a great little book, and way more than it seems at first blush. The earnestness that drips like viscera just below the genus of the common is more than enough to make me honestly say, “More, please, and right freaking now.”

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Review: The Black God's War: Splendor and Ruin Book I by Moses Siregar

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

(Reviewer’s note: I received this book as an ARC from the author)

Spirituality and religion. These words have been the salvation and bane of human existence since we first formed coherent thought. From the tribal convictions of the earliest African nations to the ancient Greeks to the world as we know it today, we have celebrated them together, found solace through their teachings, fought and killed each other over their differences.

What Moses Siregar has sought to do in The Black God’s War: Splendor and Ruin Book I is show the dangers of intransigent religious belief, to do for literature what Aqualung by Jethro Tull did for music: demonstrate how spirituality and religion are projections of our own thoughts, fears, adorations, and prejudices, that desires propel our convictions rather than the other way around.

The Black God’s War tell the story of two warring peoples – the Rezzians, modeled after early European culture (Celtic in particular) who believe in a covenant of ten gods, and the Pawelons, whose principles and appearances mirror a more eastern, Buddhist/Indian ideal. We are first introduced to Lucia, the daughter of the Rezzian king Vieri, at the birth of her brother Caio, who, by the way of markings on his hands, is proclaimed the people’s Haizzem, or savior. It is here that Lucia is first haunted by Lord Danato, the god of the underworld according to Rezzian myth. He kills her mother and sets in motion a series of nightmare experiences that will forever alter the makeup of this innocent young girl.

By the time Caio is nineteen, the war that has begun (for nefarious reasons disguised as virtue) between the Rezzians and Pawelons has been raging for ten years. Lucia does all she can to fulfill her father’s wishes for victory, though she sometimes has a hard time telling what is real and what is a dream because of Lord Danato’s nightly visits. Caio, on the other hand, is gentle in nature. He wants peace, to use his uncanny abilities to heal people, not fight a war he doesn’t believe in. But being the Haizzem, it is his sacred duty to lead Rezzia’s army, so he does so…reluctantly at first.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Rao, the only remaining prince of Pawelon. He has become a sage, the most powerful sage in the history of Pawelon, and he takes it upon himself, along with his best friend Aayu, to travel from his homeland and assist his father, the Rajah Devak, in defense of their country against the invading Rezzian army. Like Caio, he wants peace – but unlike the Haizzem, his father, though brutal, is a generally fair man, and is allowed the courtesy of his own convictions. In almost every way this makes him the better of the Haizzem, one whose ability to love and forgive is below no other.

As the story progresses, we are thrown into multiple “coincidental” scenarios that are seemingly set up by the Rezzian gods. At least, this is the way things are presented on the surface. If one looks a little deeper, they will see that all the gods did was point the way. Every decision made, though sometimes predictable, was solely the result of the free thoughts and actions of the characters. They are all bound by their upbringing and nature, and it isn’t until they realize this that all the major players begin to actually change. And the nature of the gods, themselves, are brought into question as well. Are they timeless deities or a result of the combined subconscious power of the people? It’s a question the story asks often in the latter stages, and it’s one that really makes one think.

I won’t go any further on the plot other than to say the battle rages on, the gods get involved in some rather surprising ways, and eventually there is a rather brilliant climax that left me grinning from ear to ear.

As a novel, The Black God’s War works on many levels. For sheer entertainment value, we have many epic battle sequences. As a love story, we have Lucia and her brother’s protector, Ilario, as well as Rao and his lover, the young, beautiful, and precocious Narayani. As a spiritual tome we have many segments discussing the nature of spirituality and its effects on the people who practice it. And it’s also a tragedy, in by which only through sacrifice and understanding the nature of balance can the issues presented ever be truly resolved.

And that’s really what the book is about, when it all boils down to it. We have two differing opinions, western pre-Christian (that looks very much like early Christianity, despite the numerous deities), and the nature-loving eastern “godless” peoples. In some ways this book could be looked at as a fantasy retelling of the Crusades, as the lily-white forces descend on the dark-skinned masses, trying to “enlighten” them by basically killing off a whole gamut of folks. How one could ever read a spiritual text and think the murdering of a whole ethnic group because they don’t believe in your god is justified is beyond me. But it happens, and just as in this tale, the results are always disastrous.

Siregar does a fantastic job of painting both faiths in a kind light, though the Pawelon’s, by the nature of their not having started the war, obviously fares better in presentation. It allows for almost every character to come across as sympathetic – Lucia especially. Her tormented nature shines through in everything she does, from her conflictions to her anger to her confusion over the role she has to play in the grand scheme of things. She is the main character of this novel, and more than lives up to it.

That being said, if Lucia is the main character, Rao is the one who steals the show. With his compassion and understanding, his willingness to take risks and ability to see through the veil of righteous deceit, he comes across as an individual who could one day be a spiritual leader strong enough to lead his people to enlightenment. He is young in this book – about the same age as Caio – and yet we see a glimmer of the man he could be, the man he is well on his way to becoming. It really is quite beautiful.

And do you know why it’s beautiful? Because as a character, Rao is balanced. And as I said, this is the main point I think Siregar is trying to make. When his prose speaks of the nature of life and death, of the scales that must always be adjusted, he’s talking as much about the cosmos in general as he is any religious belief. The concept of Karma, after all, can be boiled down to a scientific principal – for every action there is an equal opposing reaction. We see it in nature, we see it in the universe, we see it in people. For every (perceived) evil in the world, there is an equal (perceived) good. I write “perceived” because, just as Siregar presents in The Black God’s War, evil is subjective, not quantifiable on any realistic scale. This book has no evil characters, even though the characters themselves often think their opposing party is such. And in order for their war to end, each individual must come to their own conclusions and make choices – yes, choices, free-thinking choices – about what is right, what is wrong, and what path will best lead to a sense of harmony, both between their respective peoples and within themselves. Some make this discovery, others don’t. You’ll have to read it to find out which is which and what happens when their choices are made.

For a first-time author, Siregar surprised me with the strength of his voice. It’s consistent, and he knows what he wants to say. However, it’s not perfect. He can be a bit wordy at times, and a couple of his major characters (a Pawelon sage and the Rezzian king) are a bit one-note. Normally I wouldn’t make a huge deal out of this, but with the other characters being so fleshed out, complex, and believable, the presence of these less-than-satisfactory entities was all the more obvious. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but something I feel I have to mention. As it stands, the author isn’t quite up to the level of Salvatore, Dalglish, or Pyle, but he’s not too far away. This book is proof of that.

In conclusion, The Black God’s War is a unique experience. The plot is intricate, the characters even more so, and the message is one of beauty. By the time you flip to the last few pages, I hope you have the shivers just as I did, which is how I know that Moses Siregar is going to be around a long time, and his voice, one of unity, passion, and loving sensibilities, is important – in the world at large as well as literature.

So bravo, Mr. Siregar. You wrote a damn good book. You should be very proud.

Plot - 9

Characters - 8

Voice - 9

Execution - 9

Personal Enjoyment – 10

Overall – 45/50 (4.5/5)

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Review: Night of Wolves by David Dalglish

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

What does friendship mean?

Is it sticking up for your cohorts in time of need? Is it putting aside differences and trying to find a common ground? Is it a solemn smile or a firm slap across the face when the other starts to stray? Is it setting aside your own fears and convictions, even though everything about you says to get away, because deep down you just trust this person, for better or worse?

These are the questions David Dalglish asks in Night of Wolves, the first book in his new Paladins series.

With this series, it seems Dalglish is going down a Memento path when it comes to his characters’ stories – aka going backward. This particular book is the tale of Jerico, the paladin of Ashhur we first met (and fell in love with) in The Death of Promises. Wolves takes a few years before the events in the Half-Orc series, and introduces a major plot point that those who’ve digested Dalglish’s work might find unbelievable.

A friendship between paladins of the two polar gods, Ashhur and Karak.

Jerico, it seems, has befriended a young man named Darius while both are stationed in the farming town of Durham, preaching the messages of their particular religions. Theirs is a relationship built upon mutual respect – they learn from each other, protect each other, help each other grow…the gods be damned. And when the wolf-men from the Vile Wedge start crossing the river, threatening the lives of the townsfolk, they must work together even more so than before, which causes just a few moral dilemmas within each of them. But work together they do, because they both realize that without their combined strength, the good men and women of Durham don’t stand a chance.

There are interesting threads all around in this book, such as a new leader rising to lead the pack of wolf-men: Redclaw, a powerful foe with the desire to pull a Moses, bringing his people out of the dead landscape of the Wedge to enter the lush, bountiful forests that lie just out of their reach. There is also the fall of the Citadel, which occurs from afar, the repercussions of which are hinted at, and are haunting. Finally, there is the concluding battle, as the wolf-men gather together and assault the human forces in what is a greatly realized battle sequence.

But none of these threads can compare with Jerico and Darius. They steal the show, and as often happens in Dalglish’s novels, their quiet scenes together are magical. These are two men who grow to love each other over the course of the book, and that brotherly bond is something beautiful to behold. As usual, the author’s asking a philosophical question that not many others do – in this case, can we ever shove the veil of faith out of the way and see our brothers and sisters for what they truly are: fellow human beings, just as deserving of love as any other.

There are many surprisingly tender moments to be seen, and these aspects are what I appreciate the most. On the bad side, some of the battle scenes early on are ho-hum, to the point where I had to fight the desire to skim and turn the page, saying, “Just give me more Jerico and Darius, dammit!” However, I can’t decide if that’s because they really are subpar, or if it’s because the interplay between those two characters is so brilliantly done that everything else seems unimportant. No matter, though, because as I said, Dalglish pulls it out in the end, and the attack (and defense) of Durham is truly a sight to behold, equaling (though not surpassing) those more tender moments

Reading Night of Wolves is a fantastic experience. It’s short and to the point, filled with just about everything I love about the author’s work. It’s dark yet filled with hope, brutal yet compassionate. The words he weaves captivates, pulling us in and making us care about these people. The story is chock-full of metaphor, of the questions of what moral belief is correct, if there’s a correct one at all. This is one point I’m not going to harp on in this review, however, for I’m sure I’ll have plenty of things to say on that very subject when the next book comes out in a couple months.

Once again, I fully recommend Night of Wolves. You’ll enjoy seeing friends and enemies, old and new, and be intrigued by just how the ungodly mess Jerico and Darius have gotten into will resolve itself. It’s an oddity: an edge-of-your-seat fantasy thrill ride and quiet literary piece all rolled into one.

You’d be hard pressed to come up with a better read.

Plot - 9

Characters - 10

Voice - 10

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)

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Review: Blood of Requiem (Requiem Fire I) by Daniel Arenson

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

When I like an author, I read books by that author. Sound like a simple statement? Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when you have a review blog to run. There are many books out there, by many different talented (and some not-so talented) writers, and you want to believe that, as a reader, they each deserve equal time under your eyes.

Well, the truth is, I have my favorite authors, but sometimes I feel the need to push aside the books these fine scribes send me in order to give everyone a fair shake. Yet there are also instances when doing so is a detriment to the book I choose to read, because from the moment of that decision onward, that book will be compared – perhaps unfairly – to the one I postponed.

This is why when Daniel Arenson, one of those aforementioned “favorite authors”, asked me to beta read his new book, Blood of Requiem, I gladly set everything else down and picked it up. He needed it finished by a certain date, you see, which took the decision of what to read next completely out of my hands.

I’m SO glad I did.

Blood of Requiem is the sad tale of the Vir Requis, a race of humans with the magical ability to become dragons. Sounds interesting already, right? And it is. At the very start of the book, we’re introduced to the fact that the Vir Requis are on their last legs. They’ve been hunted to virtual extinction, and they make one final stand against an army that far outnumbers them. The Requis are killed off, one-by-one, leaving seemingly only one survivor – Benedictus, the king of his people. Their home, the land of Requiem, is left in ashes.

From there, the story jumps into the future, where Dies Irae, the leader of the army of griffin-riders who destroyed the dragons, continues his reign of terror. It seems that there is another survivor of the Vir Requis genocide – a boy named Kyrie, now a teenager, who was rescued from the battlefield, injured and dying, by Mirum, a kind woman whose family was slaughtered by Irae and their land taken. Kyrie has grown up living in fear while locked away in a tower, hidden from sight. On only rare occasions does he brave the world and spread his wings, but it is because of one of these voyages outside that his reality – and safety – is shattered.

Dies Irae discovers him and seeks him out, and Kyrie is forced to flee. He traipses across the land in search of Benedictus, who most have written off as dead.

Kyrie eventually finds Benedictus, finds out that the old king’s wife and daughter are still alive, and together the four of them flee the searching Griffin hoard. There is great tension here, including a kidnapping and a search for the “true dragons” embarked upon by Kyrie and Benedictus’s daughter, Agnus Dei. The imagery is fantastic, the world the author built is wonderful and full of strange, dark forces, and the Salvanae, the “true dragons”, are a wondrous sight to behold. It all adds up to become a magnificently subtle world, with shades of Martin’s bleakness and Pratchett’s ingenuity.

But once more, with Arenson’s work (and the work of the other authors I admire), it is the premise that quivers just beneath the surface of the tale that brings it to life, battle scenes and melodrama be damned, and it all centers around the principal villain of the story, one Dies Irae.

You see, it turns out that Irae was born into Vir Requis royalty. He was Benedictus’s older brother, the rightful heir of their father the king’s throne. Yet the unfortunate Irae was born at a disadvantage – the magics that allowed the Vir Requis to take wing and fly were absent in him. He was abandoned by his father, left to live his life as a joke passed down upon their family. Stripped of his birthright and constantly told how worthless he was, of course Irae grew up to be a damaged person. Even the only one who loved him – Benedictus, his younger brother – treats him with a certain amount of pity rather than true love, as if he’s a charity case, not blood. He sees everything his brother has been handed, from the throne to his future wife, and despises the “Poor guy” attitude his admittedly supercilious brother displays.

Taking this into account, is it any wonder that Irae turned out to be such an asshole?

In other words, even though this novel does have a hero, in a twist that I appreciated greatly, there are really no true heroes to be found. All are tainted, either by pain or anger or despair. The great enemy that Kyrie, Benedictus, Lacrimosa (Ben’s wife), and Agnus Dei are fleeing from is a monster of their own creation, or at least the creation of their people. This is a pertinent aspect of storytelling for today’s world, especially those in the States, what with virtually every enemy the U.S. now faces being individuals who we nurtured and helped bring to power. Now, I’m not saying the author is making any judgments on this particular facet, just saying that he recognizes it exists. And that makes what the story brings to the table that much more important.

But even greater than this is the theme of hate spread through lies and fear. It’s everywhere in the book – the people of the land hate the Vir Requis because of the lies they’ve been told, just as Gloriae (the daughter of Benedictus, kidnapped by Dies Irae as a young child and raised as his own) is. This is such a heartbreaking development, and one that Arenson milks for all it’s worth from all angles, from the parents to the kidnapper to the child, herself, who has grown up with this hate imprinted on her soul and wears it like a badge of honor. And then there is Dies Irae, who honestly believes that his quest is justified and good because he’s convinced himself, through his own lies and deceit, that it is so. I’d go on about how much this line of thinking means in modern society, but I don’t think you have to look too far to see examples sprout up all around us. They’re everywhere, from the Middle East to fundamentalist churches to backwater towns and so many other places. It’s frightening, it’s disheartening, and it’s real, which gives the book that much more potency.

Blood of Requiem is an outstanding first book in a series, and by the end, when both the heroes and villains have been put through the absolute ringer, we see how much farther this story has to go to reach its conclusion. Sure, there is a major victory won, but that victory does not come without a dire price.

In all, this is a fantastic book that I couldn’t put down, and I can’t wait for the second volume to be released, because with all the loose threads, both emotional and dealing with the plot, that Arenson has left hanging, I know the intensity of the tale will only heighten. This is a special book with an original premise and a dark and gritty storyline, a book that will excite you and make you feel something.

And that, folks, is what it’s all about.

(Note to say that as a beta reader, I find it unfair to post my usual rating breakdown, so I’m simply going to give Blood of Requiem 4.5 stars. And it deserves it.)

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Review: The Venom of Vipers by K.C. May

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Science fiction many times comes down to en exploration of what it means to be human. When done well, it serves as an organic metaphor, breaking down the societal systems we exist within and revealing, through conflict, the best and worst of us. Sometimes it shows how far we’ve fallen, how our creations have ended up stealing a bit of our souls, bringing us to the brink of becoming slaves to that which we’ve created or, worst of all, regressing into a form of pre-humanity that is both untrustworthy and violent. In other instances, these works allow humanity to rise above, to demonstrate the goodness and ingenuity we all know is possible. And then, we have those works of literature that accomplishes both. It takes a talented author to break through this final barrier, to approach their concepts with an innate balance that shows good and bad, hurtful and helpful, and brings us out on the other side with at least a modicum of hope.

With The Venom of Vipers, K.C. May has proven herself to be in that rare class.

This is the story of humanity on the brink of extinction. A terrible new plague has gripped the globe, called moliomyositis (or molio for short). It is a disease for which there is no cure, and science has, in a way, resigned itself to the possibility that humans will cease to exist over the span of only a few short decades. To combat this, they have created a new human subspecies by splicing human and reptilian DNA. The resulting life-forms, dubbed Saphers, are immune to the virus, but they offer no magical solution to the outbreak. One might ask, if there is no help to be found from them, why did we create them in the first place and why are we keeping them alive? The answer to this I found most interesting, and philosophically poignant: to bring about a species that will carry on after we’re gone, to have the memory of our existence, our legacy, live on through them and, just maybe, they’ll progress enough to bring humanity – regular humanity – back some day.

There is one problem with this theory, however. The Saphers can’t breed on their own. When they try, the females’ bodies reject the fetus before seven weeks is up. For a genus designed to carry on our legacy, this is obviously a huge problem.

Enter Katie Marsh, the daughter of the man behind the creation of the Saphers. As the story opens, she is returning to the center she grew up in. She is now a reproductive scientist, and she’s been added to the team in hopes of finding a solution to the Sapher reproduction “problem”. Her presence inside the facility is a tension builder in and of itself, for Saphers aren’t considered viable people by the government, and she’s had a lifelong relationship with one of them – albeit (mostly) plutonic. The character in question is a hotheaded yet supremely bright and protective Sapher male named Ryder Storm. (Ignore the soap opera name. It might be clunky at first, but after a while it grows on you.) Their relationship, revealed expertly through tiny bits of flashback and simple character interaction, drive the story. This is a pair you can root for, even if Katie doesn’t seem to realize at first how much they mean to each other.

There are so many conflicting plot points in this book. You have the disease wiping out the globe. You have the issue of failed reproduction. Yet even greater than that are the conflicts that occur outside the written word – we’re told about them, but don’t necessarily see examples until the very end. There are two warring factions fighting over the imprisoned Saphers. One is the Freedom for All Peoples, an organization much like PETA, who wants science to stop experimenting on the poor saphers and grant them human rights. The other is the Human Purification Initiative, a bunch of nearsighted bastards who want nothing more than to see these “perversions of science” wiped off the face of the earth. The opposing groups are examples of extremism. The fact is, both sides have a point, but they’re too obsessive to look at what’s going on around them with any sort of clarity. There needs to be a balance in all ideas, and May does a fantastic job of showing how unbalanced – and henceforth unstable – these people are.

Add to this a plot point where some of the guards at the center, who themselves have fallen to be less than human, scheme behind the scenes and pull off some rather perverse (actually, downright evil) acts, and you have a story so rife with drama and conflict that you want to hurry up and get to the next page, just to see if any of it gets resolved.

This book is such a satisfying read. It was emotional at times – especially when it comes to Ryder and his daughter – and the way author May delves deep into the subjects of sensuality, doubt, and survival instinct are fantastic. The characters – especially Katie and the chief guard, Nelson – are wonderfully fleshed out and believable. Ryder, who is a man of thirty who’s never been outside the walls of the foundation he grew up in and desires the freedom that’s been preached to him but never delivered, is successfully not presented as a cartoonish good guy. The way the author inserts snippets of morose metaphysical ponderings in to the text (Does humanity deserve to be saved? Do we have the right to play God? Are we fooling ourselves to think we’ve risen above our most base animal instincts?) is fantastic. I found myself wondering much the same things as I was reading, and I realized that the Saphers, themselves, were almost mirror for the people who cared for them. They feel the pain of losing a child, while their human captors treat them as just another failed experiment. To the guards, they’re annoyances and sexual playthings, while they experience every moment of hurt and torment levied upon them.

Humanity is the monster, and humanity’s creation is more human than we are. It’s a common thread in science fiction, and here it’s done beautifully.

I had only a couple problems with this book, and they’re small, at that. One was the dialogue. At the beginning, it’s stilted, as if the author couldn’t get a grasp on a free-flowing conversation. This ends after a very short time, however, and doesn’t miss a beat again for the rest of the book. The other is the (SPOILER ALERT) solution to the reproduction problem. It comes about by the end, but I didn’t understand the explanation for how it was accomplished. This may simply be my own problem, however, so I won’t let it hurt the rating much at all, and it shouldn’t effect anyone’s enjoyment of the story.

In all, I had a very, very good time with The Venom of Vipers. It’s a poignant and fast-paced melding of science fiction, drama, and mystery. KC May solidifies herself as a writer to look out for in the future. She has something to say, she’s not afraid to say it, and she’s damn good at telling her story.

I highly, highly recommend it.

Plot - 9

Characters - 10

Voice - 9

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment – 10

Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)

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