Reading Lamp

Anime Review: A Place Further Than the Universe

This is totally out there even for me. Another review that *isn't* about a new/recent novel? Sorry about that. I've just finished Michael R. Miller's The Dragon's Blade: The Last Guardian, so that should be coming this week. Please hold onto your butts until then.

Usually I don't write Anime reviews, though admittedly, I did post a review of that painfully mediocre Final Fantasy XV movie here before. However, despite Anime being pretty disconnected from my usual review content, and this one certainly not being dark, serious matter, I just *have* to write this post.

Because A Place Further Than the Universe, or originally Sora yori mo Tooi Basho, is the best Anime I've watched in years. Week after week for its 13 episode run this past Winter Anime season, I was looking forward to it. Every episode brimmed with energy and passion to the point where it got admittedly tough to hold back tears at various points - not necessarily because of sad scenes, but out of sheer joy.
From the overall plotline of the show over graphics and sound design and the actors' deliveries, everything felt so spot on, it drew me in to the degree few shows manage to. I adored every step of the way. As such, I cannot, will not keep myself from recommending this Anime to anybody who would listen.

The Story:

"Filled with an overwhelming sense of wonder for the world around her, Mari Tamaki has always dreamt of what lies beyond the reaches of the universe. However, despite harboring such large aspirations on the inside, her fear of the unknown and anxiety over her own possible limitations have always held her back from chasing them. But now, in her second year of high school, Mari is more determined than ever to not let any more of her youth go to waste. Still, her fear continues to prevent her from taking that ambitious step forward—that is, until she has a chance encounter with a girl who has grand dreams of her own.

Spurred by her mother's disappearance, Shirase Kobuchizawa has been working hard to fund her trip to Antarctica. Despite facing doubt and ridicule from virtually everyone, Shirase is determined to embark on this expedition to search for her mother in a place further than the universe itself. Inspired by Shirase's resolve, Mari jumps at the chance to join her. Soon, their efforts attract the attention of the bubbly Hinata Miyake, who is eager to stand out, and Yuzuki Shiraishi, a polite girl from a high class background. Together, they set sail toward the frozen south.

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho follows the captivating journey of four spirited girls, all in search of something great."

The Review:

A Place Further Than the Universe is, at its core, a coming of age story of adventure, friendship and plenty of emotion. It is unique in so far as that it takes the journey to Antarctica, which should be the most unlikely place for a couple of teenage girls to end up. It is a story about overcoming obstacles, making opportunities happen by sheer perserverance and forming unlikely bonds.

In a sense, it is a series about overcoming not just obvious hurdles of logistics, but also the barriers in one's own mindset, breaking out of monotony and making dreams happen. While many shows, especially Anime, regurgitate the Follow Your Dreams(tm) mantra over and over, this one handles the matter in authentic ways, with hard effort and courage more so than deus ex machinae or mindbogglingly silly fantasy solutions. As a result, the series manages to feel refreshingly honest and relatable. The struggles are heartfelt and play on the audience's capacity for empathy more often than not.

Of course, all of it is packaged in a hugely entertaining way, with a cast that just clicks so well, I found myself laughing out loud a lot at their antics. In many ways I consider the cast of Kimari, Shirase, Hinata and Yuzuki to be perfect as far as character dynamics go. They strike a perfect balance between goofy and serious determination and competence.

While they are all strangers at the outset of the series, they quickly grow to learn one another's quirks and habits, and wonderfully play off one another's oddities. From Kimari's airheaded enjoyment of her newfound life of adventure, to Shirase going bonkers whenever spotting a penguin, real or not, to Hinata making of pseudo-philosophical quotes and Yuzu's general social awkwardness, the quartet, to me, form an idealized friendship of the kind I believe everybody would wish for. Their friendship is the core of their journey to the Antarctic.

I am not joking when I say that this series made me weep multiple times throughout. There are obvious tearjerkers towards the end, which the series builds up to very neatly, but even just random moments of overflowing energy had me on the brim with just how well executed they were. Not just the delivery of dialogue, but also the visual accompaniment, "camerawork", sound cues and insert songs running in the background. There is so much life here, it almost seems crazy for a show about going to the coldest, most devoid of life place on the planet.

Speaking of the locations, I was truly impressed by their presentation as well. A lot of research went into getting them just right not just on the matter of visuals but also overall feel for the environment. From the obvious starting point of Japan, with school life and what not, over to Australia and down across the ocean and into the harsh ice, I think A Place Further Than the Universe managed to take the audience to these places in a way few other shows do. We are party to the girls' journey and every step of the way feels significant and evocative. It is a true masterpiece in getting the viewer to commit to the journey and, in the end, this will be as close to Antarctica as we are likely to get in our lifetimes.

That this was an Anime Original production with no novel or manga basis amazes me, but is also part of the reason why this show excelled the way it did. There are no missed beats, no moments where the viewer will feel like they're missing out on something between scenes, between lines, that was elaborated on more in the original work. SHAFT's movie trilogy adaptation of Nisioisin's Kizumonogatari for example had so much content and character stripped from it, that I absolutely hated the results. Every time a series gets adapted into an anime, you can be certain that people will be complaining about x or y being cut for time and pacing reasons (sometimes to a degree that even Hollywood novel adaptations don't often see). With A Place Further Than the Universe, the pacing is on point in every single episode. Everything is sketched out well and belongs right where it is, with the animation choices, camera angles and visual effects underlining things. There is not a single scene I thought didn't need to be in there, and by the end I felt the series achieved all it set out to and, honestly, didn't need to go any further just to pad things. On top of that, every episode deals with its own set of problems and usually resolves them in a satisfying fashion while opening the door for the next stop on the trip. I have nothing but respect for the production team and director for making such a polished, well-put show.

However, while my recommendation is admittedly glowing and universal, I will stress here that I do not think this series should be watched dubbed, if it ever gets dubbed to begin with. The voice actors' performances across the board are brilliant and half of what makes this series work. Even with supposedly increasing dub quality by English publishers, I have little faith that they will be able to maintain this level of quality. Even if you don't understand a word spoken by the cast, the emotions their voices deliver are palpable, audible, even to the untrained ear. They go hand in hand with their expressions and the general mood of every single scene, above and beyond what I've seen in any Anime dub to date. The voices of Hanazawa Kana, Minase Inori, Iguchi Yuka and Hayami Saori are integral to the experience. Though I will admit that I dearly hope for a German publisher to license it for a dubbed Bluray release over here, so I can force my family to watch the thing...

Thankfully, the entire series is available on demand via Crunchyroll with various subtitle languages, so whether you are a native English speaker, German, Spanish, French, Italian or Russian, you'll be able to enjoy this series entirely subtitled, and even for free (in 480p) or with a Crunchyroll subscription. I'm not going to sell you on one of those, but I will say that this anime looks glorious in Full HD, which you get with the subscription (or a Free Trial, go for it).

To put my own gushing into wider context, some stats:
On Crunchyroll alone, the series scored 5 star ratings across the board for each episode, at well over a thousand ratings each. The entire series stands at 5 stars with about a hundred votes cast, and only 7 stray voters (5 of which rated it with 4 stars). On MyAnimeList, the great aggregator, the weighted score sits at 8.64/10, with around 25,000 votes, and just made its way up out of the 100+ range onto the #61 ranked position on the entire site, which is bound to go further up as more people finish watching the finale over the coming days.
While I don't intend to go all ad populum here, I think it worthwhile to point out that the overwhelming majority of people watching this show adored it, despite many having initial misgivings about following a "moe" show, as they tend to be quite bland and pointless, if entertaining. This one is still entertaining, but anything but bland and pointless, thankfully.

On top of that, the entire first episode appears to be available on Youtube, in HD, on Crunchyroll's Youtube Channel, so you're free to dive right in and decide for yourself if you enjoy the tone of the show. I'll embed the video below for your benefit.

All this said, I truly believe that A Place Further Than the Universe is currently the strongest contender for Anime of the Year (though admittedly, we're only a quarter into the year with four more seasonal blocks still to come). This show has left me so completely satisfied with it, that I had no hesitation at all to rate it a perfect 10/10 and call it a Masterpiece of the genre. I hope you'll find at least some sense of the same appreciation for it as I did, should you choose to give it a chance.

A Place Further Than the Universe on Crunchyroll

Review: Cult of the Spiral Dawn by Peter Fehervari

First off, I apologize for all the radio silence. It wasn't my intention to stay away for so long, not in the slightest. Things have been weird in life, moving stress and what not, and I made the (possible) mistake of starting Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (and am halfway through that monster). I'm almost 20 entries behind schedule on my Goodreads challenge too! Anyway, I hope to get back into the groove soon. Stay tuned.

For now, however, I feel the need to make this post here. It is a repost of an earlier review. Today the long overdue paperback edition of Peter Fehervari's Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults finally went up for order, under a new title: Cult Of The Spiral Dawn, which is massively better than Genestealer Cults. If only the cover was as unique as the novel itself, I'd be all-round happy.

Since the title and cover changed, I had the choice between a) changing the original review accordingly and b) reposting using the new info. Since the former would involve problems with people looking up the original release (which they still are!), I figured reposting with this disclaimer.would avoid confusion better.

Apart from the updated technical info, the review remains unchanged from its original October 2016 version. Please note however that the paperback edition here also includes the additional prequel short story Cast a Hungry Shadow, so even if you've read the ebook or original hardcover, this edition will be worth picking up. And I'd sincerely urge you to do so because I'm a massive Fehervari fanboy at this point. It even made it onto my Highlights of 2016! Incidentally, you can find out why by reading Cult of the Spiral Dawn ;)

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This is a difficult review to write, and probably to read. I've tried to keep things vague and abstract to not spoil the fun of the book. To put it bluntly: I'd highly recommend the novel. It is a great read with a lot of flavor and thrilling scenes. I certainly loved it and believe it is one of the best things to come out of Black Library's printers in quite some time.

The Story:

"Members of a seemingly loyal cult devoted to the Emperor make a pilgrimage to the world on which their order began. But what they find there puts all they believe into question…

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms. The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence. As tensions between the serene congregation and the superstitious Guardsmen mount, the new arrivals begin to unravel the dark secrets concealed at the heart of their faith."

This novel was previously available under the title Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults. This edition also includes the additional short story 'Casts a Hungry Shadow'.

The Review:

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults, despite its highly generic title and cover, are anything but. The hint is in the author's name: Peter Fehervari.

While this is only his second novel for Black Library, he has a host of short stories and a novella under his belt, all of which share a common theme: The Dark Coil, which, at this point, seems synonymous with Fehervari's trademark atmosphere, sense of hopelessness and spiralling descent into madness, unravelling the characters to the core.
The "grim darkness of the far future" is something that is invited with every Warhammer 40,000 story, but barely any of them nails that as well as Fehervari. When you pick up his stories, you're in for tightly-knit nets of implications, revelations, and psychological horror, rather than the all-out bolter porn a lot of 40k stories devolve into.
You're in for well-crafted characters who are on the brink of breaking, walking a knife's edge between revelation and damnation. You're also in for inhospitable worlds, whether they be the thick deathworld jungles of Phaedra, the eternal night of Sarastus, the frozen surface of Oblazt or, with Genestealer Cults, the volcanic and ash-tainted claustrophobia of Redemption. A lot of thought goes into the stages for Fehervari's stories, and they always seem to strike you with a feeling of isolation and imminent danger.

While this novel is noticeably shorter than Fire Caste, in line with Black Library's short novel policy these days, I didn't feel that it detracted from the book. I would certainly have wanted more content - why wouldn't I? - but Fehervari did very well with the space he was given, and even snuck in a lot of references and parallels to his other works - something that I've come to expect from his works. Specifically, the novel features characters from Fire Caste and his Fire and Ice novella, printed in Shas'o / The Tau Empire (get the latter in paperback, it includes the former plus an additional novella), along with multiple short stories by him. Generally you can read any of his stories on their own, but the more you get involved in his sub-mythos, the more you'll be able to take away from his works.
This is especially true with Genestealer Cults. It straight up sees characters with ambiguous fates return to the fold, while introducing a load of new angles at things he previously talked about.

The Black Flags, this story's Astra Militarum regiment, is even made up of forces from across worlds previously named, and offers a natural way to reintroduce old friends. It is made up of stragglers and remnants from other regiments across the Vassago Abyss, reshaped into a somewhat coherent force with very peculiar mental tendencies. A lot of them are broken men and women, including their Witch Captain or Colonel Talasca, who often retreats into his tower to scribble madly at his walls. Everybody has his ghosts here, defying their past, present and future.

The primary protagonist of the book, Captain Cross, is a newcomer to the Black Flags. He freshly arrives on Redemption at the start on the book, alongside an imperial cult's pilgrimage to the shrine world. He feels that all the Sacred Spiral hogwash is fishy and doesn't trust it, prompting him to accompany the pilgrims, and Ariken Skarth, who he shortly befriended during his voyage. He gets involved in matters despite his better judgement, and the coil twists and turns til he is irrecoverably drawn into the unfolding holy war on Redemption, and the machinations of higher authorities.

Ariken herself is a strong character as well. A healer by trade, she joined the Spiral Dawn pilgrimage to Redemption yet isn't as firm in her beliefs as most others. She is, in many ways, a driving force in the Black Flags' resistance, and her character develops heavily throughout. She was presented as intriguing, caring yet also increasingly ruthless as the stakes increase. Ariken, too, is drawn deeper into the spiral to the point of no return to ignorance.

But all that praise basically comes down to one thing: Peter Fehervari was the perfect choice for writing this first, defining novel about the modern incarnation of the Genestealer Cults. His skill set is focused on subterfuge, insidious plots, ambiguous characters and spiralling madness. This makes him the ideal pick for presenting the insidious nature of the Genstealers' indoctrination and the cult's inner workings. He touches on psychological aspects far more than any other author writing for the publisher, and that is exactly the close-up that this faction needed to flourish on the page. He dives right into the cult's activities while maintaining a front of ignorance on the side of the imperial troopers, up until the point of escalation.

Few things on Redemption are clear-cut. The Black Flags are made up of ambiguous figures, and from the beginning it is clear that there is more than meets the eye on the planet. While we, as the readers, are aware from the start that, hey, a Genestealer Cult is at work on the world, Talasca and co are oblivious as to what is going on. They suspect the Cult of the Spiral Dawn of treachery and danger, but the cult's fascade and stealthy indoctrination of their own troops, keeps them in the dark until it is almost too late. The initial reveals of hybrid monstrosities hit home, showing how out of their depth the loyalists are. Where they suspect the taint of Chaos, the reality of the situation is quite different.
However, the Genestealer Magi actively use the fear of the regiment to turn them on one another, and sway further soldiers to seek refuge in the Spiral. It really was nicely put together, and highlighted the psychic manipulation of the cult, and showed why these xenos infiltrators are as successful at undermining whole societies as they are.

From the first page on, up til the very last, the Genestealer infestation is showing its magic. In fact, right in the prologue we get to see the first steps in the Patriarch's evolution through the first infection on Redemption. They grow their strength and even penetrate the sanctity of the local Adepta Sororitas abbey! The whole prologue and later sections dealing with the more alien hybrids and aberrants are utterly inhuman and as close to the Tyranid psyche as you're going to get.

Honestly, this is the most difficult type of review to write for me. There are so many cool scenes and characters in here that I cannot really touch on without spoiling hugely enjoyable parts of the book. Across all of Fehervari's stories, the sense of mystery and satisfaction of discovering twists and turns and connections between stories is one of the things I cherish most, and I'd be doing any potential reader a disservice if I were to address them directly. So I have to talk in the abstract far more than I would like.

To give you a more direct example of how grim, gruesome and terrifying the Cult is depicted here, let me quote you one snippet:

[character a] sighed. ‘The last time I saw [character b] she was two months pregnant, though it looked closer to six. Their spawn grow fast.’ He shook his head. ‘She was overjoyed because she’d been honoured by the cult Iconward.’

Yep. That really twists your stomach, doesn't it? I know it did mine. And I loved the book for it. It doesn't try to hide the utter perversity of the infection. It hits right where it hurts, on multiple occassions. Not a single major character here is ever safe from the cult's influences and attacks. They can die in droves, just like that, without big acts of heroism or the often criticised plot armor. Fehervari was never afraid of getting his original characters fall to madness or an enemy's (or ally's) guns, and this is true here as well.

To my delight, there are various plot points left open for the future. While the plot itself is wrapped up as well as one can expect, Fehervari leaves the door open for themes and characters to feature in his future works, carrying on the Dark Coil's legacy. Thus the spiral turns again, deepening the overarching mysteries while delivering a damn fine read in its own right.

Genestealer Cults is one hell of a novel. It kept me awake at night, staying up longer than I should have, just to finish one more chapter, one more chapter. I ended up taking a few days off from reading more, just to let it simmer a little and not burn through it too quickly. After all, I waited years for Fehervari's next novel, so why cut the experience short. But even when I got back to it, I was drawn right into the thick of Redemption again, as if nothing had happened. The book does a fantastic job staying interesting and engaging all throughout, without any dull downtime, and when the cold war escalates and the Spiral Dawn reveals its true nature and purpose, things never let up again.

I'd highly recommend this novel to anyone with even a passing interest in Genestealer Cults as a faction, or anybody really who wants more out of the 40k IP than just numb bolter action flicks. I'd call Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults one of the best books to come out of Black Library this year - and they had a lot of pretty good stuff this time around...

Cult of the Spiral Dawn on Goodreads

Review: A Time of Dread by John Gwynne

I've been wondering when best to post this, as the book's official release won't be until January 2018. But then, I've had a very early review copy, and could gush about it for days. If you're reading this now, it means my excitement won against my patience. Either way, I'd recommend this novel wholeheartedly, with the caveat that if you have not read John Gwynne's The Faithful and the Fallen series, you damn well should do that first. There's still time to pull it off and be ready for launch!

Beware! With A Time of Dread being set well over a century after the conclusion of The Faithful and the Fallen, there will be spoilers in here. Come back once you read the rest of John's books!

The Story:

"The Ben-Elim, a fierce race of warrior-angels, burst into the Banished Lands over a hundred and thirty years ago. They were in pursuit of their eternal enemy, the Kadoshim demon-horde. On that day a great battle was fought, the Ben-Elim and Kadoshim joined by allies from the races of both men and giants, and a great victory was won.

Now much of the Banished Lands is ruled by the Ben-Elim, who have made this world their home, extending their influence and power as they swallow ancient kingdoms into the protective grasp of their ever-extending borders. But peace is fragile within the realm and the Kadoshim that remain are now amassing on the edges of the empire....

Threats long in the shadows are about to strike."

Disclaimer

I loved John Gwynne's The Faithful and the Fallen series and reviewed all four books. John happened to like my reviews and messaged me on Goodreads about whether I'd be okay with him forwarding them to his publicist, Don Shanahan. That was way back in April 2017. In late September, Don emailed me with an offer for a very early review copy for A Time of Dread - this book right here. Of course I jumped at that offer, considering Wrath was my favorite novel of 2016. I received my copy in early October. Despite getting to read it for free this early, I still have the retail paperback edition preordered anyway, because it was just that good and I actively want to vote with my wallet.
Make of that what you will, I'm just trying to be transparent about how this came about and how much I love John's works to date.

The Review:

A Time of Dread is a fantastic novel through and through. It feels immediately familiar if you've read The Faithful and the Fallen - which you should - while being more focused than the former, due to a simpler political landscape and fewer point of view characters.

There are no slow or dull chapters in Dread, which should excite readers who thought that the previous series' opener, Malice, meandered a bit too much and switched points of view too frequently. The count of point of view characters is down to a mere four, whereas Malice had seven. On top of that, the characters feel more and more connected to the ongoing core plotline, whereas in the early TFatF books, things felt more separate for a time and the hero and villain of old prophecies did not actually meet until very late in the series.

A Time of Dread sidesteps those growth problems by virtue of having a central threat from the start: The Kadoshim, the dark lord Asroth's brood. On the flipside, the Ben-Elim of Elyon have made the Banished Lands their new home, and despite their angelic appearance, they have been turning the various kingdoms into a nation of their own, while intent on hunting down what Kadoshim remain in the world. This, in turn, causes tensions as they conquer old, independent nations and exert tithes from their flock to maintain the war effort against their dark cousins.

There are three important factions in this one, rather than the various kingdoms of the previous series, from Ardan over Cambren, Isiltir to Tenebral. Instead, the Land of the Faithful, the Ben-Elim's domain, covers about half the map to the east, whereas the west hosts the kingdom of Ardain, which has good relationships with the Order of the Bright Star, founded by Corban after the events of The Faithful and the Fallen.
As a reader of the previous series, you'll find a lot to love here, although we don't see much of Dun Seren, the Order's home, just yet. A lot of details made me very nostalgic, though, and there are even some surprise cameos.

As you might imagine from TFatF, the Order and the Ben-Elim aren't on the greatest terms. Despite their shared enemy, the Kadoshim, they are filled with mistrust for one another, which is also independently reinforced here through a shared battle, which three of the four point of view characters connect to. Yes, this time around there's more connective tissue between the primary cast, whether they're aware of it or not. Either way, I really enjoyed reading the various tellings of said battle from different sources. It added depth to a conflict we only hear about, while providing different, biased perspectives to reinforce the ongoing strife.

The last faction of note are, obviously, the Kadoshim and their cultists. While they have been in hiding for a long time, their presence is still felt throughout the Banished Lands, both through the terror they project on villages and travelers and via the way their mere existence in the physical realm provokes the Ben-Elim into establishing a (benevolent) tyranny. Sometimes it was hard to really decide whether the Kadoshim really are the worst thing the world has to offer now... until characters you've grown to love start getting hurt. And it isn't like the Ben-Elim don't have their own troubles here either.

Through the resurgence of the Kadoshim's nefarious activities, we follow Sig of the Order - a giant who should be familiar already -, Bleda, taken in by the Ben-Elim as a child to force a peace between the rival tribes of Arcona, Riv, a young White-Wing aspirant living in the Ben-Elim's capital city of Drassil, and - my personal favorite of the four - Drem, son of a trapper in the northern Desolation, whose life gets a lot more complicated very quickly.

All of these characters are, of course, accompanied by other interesting people throughout their plotlines. Drem's father, Olin, for example, has a lot of life lessons to teach and his relationship with Drem and their circumstances living in the north are some of my personal highlights. There is real emotion here, along with the catalyst for future greatness. Interestingly, Drem shows signs of compulsive behavior and is, if anything, naive. He's probably closest to filling the farmboy-bound-for-greatness trope, as he starts with very little and throughout the novel learns more about the world, past conflicts and his place in all of it, while showing compelling personal growth and initiative.

Riv, meanwhile, is born into a strict regime built on faith and obedience. She aspires to filling the shoes of her mother and sister by becoming a White-Wing, the elite of the Ben-Elim's Land of the Faithful. She knows where she wants to be in life, yet struggles with her own wild emotions and the sneers of her peers. Riv is a bundle of energy and ambition. Her plotline was, to me, the most predictable though - which I cannot point out as a flaw, however. Gwynne managed to foreshadow her destination pretty well and it all connected satisfyingly while leaving many mysteries for the following books. Her's is the last scene in the book, and damn me did it make me want to read on already.

Bleda, in contrast, is basically a hostage of the Ben-Elim. Where Riv revels in dreams of serving the angelic host, Bleda is all too aware of his status as a ward in Drassil. He is being groomed, alongside his tribe's rival clan's heir Jin, as a pawn of his hosts, taught the ways of Elyon and history yet kept as a hostage to keep the clans of Arcona under control. Next to Olin and Sig, Bleda and his companion Jin offer the most critical view of the Ben-Elim - and the most direct one. Where Riv's chapters often depict the Ben-Elim's rule as natural and a good thing in general, Bleda's presence allows the author to show us the downsides of their reign.
Bleda's tribe values a lack of expression outside of the comfort of family, and even then, which puts him at odds with the White-Wings at times. His dynamics with both Jin and Riv ended up pretty interesting and I can't wait to see how his values will be tipped over the coming books.

Lastly, Sig the giant hunts the Kadoshim to the west and is accompanied by Cullen, an overeager descendant of a certain Bright Star, a huntsman with his wolven-hounds and, at times, a speaking crow called Rab. This one's a working team already, despite Cullen's rashness and desire to prove himself. Sig has seen it all, so this is where we get a bunch of soft flashbacks. Her role throughout makes a lot of things clear about the past century and more and does a good job bringing the reader up to speed on things. And yes, she rides a bear.
This bunch of heroes, young and old, really grew dear to me quickly. They're exciting to read about and hold some key roles this time. I also admit that I loved the easter eggs / references to the old series that this point of view character allowed for - I couldn't get enough of it! Sig's presence as a focal character also contrasted nicely with the three youngsters who have barely begun their adult lives. She unmistakenly fills the mentor role this time, reminding me of Gar and Brina in some ways. There are a bunch of really touching moments here, too.

I honestly struggle to find things wrong with this one. The pacing was steady from start to finish, it held my attention well enough to get me through some lengthy waiting room hours sitting at the doctor's, and all plotlines flowed well and complemented each other. Things quickly fell into place as details and perspectives added up to provide me with a full view of the ongoing conflict.
Even the internal conflicts of the protagonists are believably written and close to heart. I believe I actually teared up twice while reading, too. John managed to make me care for the entire cast really damn quickly and all of the four major characters had their own arc to pass through and a satisfying climax.

The antagonists are, in my opinion, creepier and even more inhuman than when we last saw them, showcasing just how bad having the Kadoshim in the world actually is, even when their liege-lord is effectively dead. There are a bunch of horrific scenes this time around, making it clear that the agents of evil are out in force. Where The Faithful and the Fallen had the antagonists slowly building up their power and influence, A Time of Dread starts with the long game almost at its conclusion, effectively skipping the preparation phase that the preceding series went through. The dangers of this new war feel more immediate and terrifying than the God War, where much of the early conflict was entirely human in nature.

A Time of Dread had a lot to live up to, with Wrath being my favorite novel of 2016. I crashed right through Malice, Valour and Ruin in record time in early 2016, too. It could have messed up the time skip - 130 odd years are no little thing - and changed too much, or felt like too much of the same. It could have banked too hard on fanservice. It could have had boring characters or conflicts. Yet it didn't do any of those things. It was gripping, felt familiar where it needed to while presenting new ideas and new landscapes, offered exciting new characters who felt like real, relatable people, and managed to focus its scope in an excellent way.

You can easily tell that John Gwynne's improved his skills when it comes to opening novels to a series in general. And if the plot hooks left for the sequels to explore are anything to go by, this trilogy will be a bloody good time for me, as a reader, if not necessarily for the protagonists...
If I had anything to complain about, it'd be that it is "just" a trilogy this time, rather than a four novel series, and that the novel was a bit shorter than a Faithful and the Fallen book. Which, of course, goes hand in hand with a lot of things I praised so far.

I am yearning for the next installment already. A Time of Dread officially releases on January 9/11, depending on your region. I'm already resigned to the fact that Amazon.de will, once again, mess up my preorder of the retail edition (because of course they will!), but at least this time I got a headstart... Not that it makes me any less impatient for the following two books of the Of Blood and Bone trilogy!

Thanks again to both John Gwynne and Don Shanahan for getting this one to me a few months early! It is much appreciated.

A Time of Dread on Goodreads

Review: The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter by Michael J. Sullivan

I've been eagerly awaiting this one to become available on December 5th and finished it last night. I love Riyria and would recommend the series to basically everyone with a thing for fantasy. Be aware, though, that you might not find this book on Amazon just yet. The eBook and print are available directly through the author's website for now, and the Audiobook is available on Audible, but a wider release is still a few months out. This one's also a result of a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The Story:

"Caught between his partner’s moral compass and a father’s desire for vengeance, will Royce turn the rivers of Rochelle red?

When Gabriel Winter’s daughter mysteriously disappears and is presumed dead, the wealthy whiskey baron seeks revenge. Having lived in Colnora during the infamous Year of Fear, he hires the one man he knows can deliver a bloody retribution—the notorious Duster.

Ride with Royce and Hadrian as the cynical ex-assassin and idealistic ex-mercenary travel to a mysterious old-world city filled with nobles claiming descent from imperial aristocracy. Riyria’s job appears easy: discover what happened to the missing duchess and, if she lives, bring her home . . . if not, punish those responsible. But nothing is simple in the crowded, narrow, mist-filled streets of Rochelle, where more than one ancient legend lurks."

The Review:

The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter was a book I had been looking forward to since, well, since it was still titled Riyria Chronicles 4, unwritten and not even Kickstarted yet. Expectations were high, this being the 10th Riyria novel in total (6 Revelations and 3 Chronicles preceding it).

I still remember picking up Theft of Swords, the book collecting the first two novels, more on a whim than anything. The cover wasn't even that special, something that has changed since Marc Simonetti got to provide incredible art for The Death of Dulgath, Legends of the First Empire and now Winter's Daughter. Back then, I started listening to the audiobook of Theft of Swords while cooking dinner and found myself enjoying the first chapter of The Crown Conspiracy a great deal for how it introduced the heroes Royce and Hadrian in a somewhat whimsical manner while setting the stage for the world they inhabited. I felt comfortable with the duo pretty much immediately, and blasted through the entire 6 Riyria Revelations novels in short order.

Since then, I have read Michael J. Sullivan's first two Legends of the First Empire novels, Hollow World, and the four Riyria Chronicles novels so far. There has been no book that I haven't enjoyed in the lineup, and Winter's Daughter is no exception. Michael always says in his fore/afterwords of Chronicles that he writes them as stand-alone experiences and didn't want to drag the series out unnecessarily, but as long as people want more of Hadrian and Royce, there's room for sequels to the prequels.

I'm glad to say that The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter should easily secure at least a Chronicles 5, and is already poised with plot hooks for it. Nothing in this particular novel shows signs of Michael slowing down when it comes to the Riyria duo. From prose to pacing to interesting plot ideas, a fantastic cast of side characters and the ever-expected witty dialogue and squabbling between the two friends, Winter's Daughter feels once more like coming home. Or, to put it differently, like inviting two old friends back into your home, having waffles for breakfast and having awkward conversations about unicorns and polka dots. In yet other words, I loved it.

The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter takes our rogues to the city of Rochelle to bring down bloody vengeance on the Duke for possibly having murdered his wife, the daughter of whiskey baron Gabriel Winter. Things aren't quite so easily solved, however, and with conspiracies, revolutions and a race against time unfolding, Royce and Hadrian are forced to reflect not only on the living situations of Mir, elf-human mixed breeds, dwarves and Calians in an ancient gothic city raised on tradition, piety and superstition, but also on their own lives and choices throughout.

The book is chock-full with great moments, adds background to Hadrian and Royce alike, brings the couple even closer together and, to my delight, ties a few more knots to connect the prequel Chronicles to the Revelations. Michael J. Sullivan is a master at making his world of Elan feeling interconnected and dynamic, whether it be through small easter eggs or a wider mythology. I'm sure I even overlooked a few of these points of interest due to how long it has been since I read the Riyria Revelations - which only encourages me more to do a full re-read of the series. But even if you haven't read them yet in the first place, you'll eventually appreciate how much clever little foreshadowing happens here as well.

The new, and expanded on, side characters were honestly delightful as well. From Mercator Sikara, the Mir trying to find compromises and protect her people, over Evelyn Hemsworth, the old "hag" renting out her room to Royce and Hadrian and always, always added a motherly snark to a scene, to Duchess 'Genny' herself, the novel is stocked with interesting, dynamic and even inspiring characters. The villains, too, feel authentic and offer a proper challenge or three. There was never a dull moment, but plenty of laughter. It is incredible to me how well this entry straddles the line between being a depressing story about real oppression where even children may end up dead in an alley, and being a humorous adventure full of Jiggery-Pokery.

It is a rare series that, even 10 books in, with a 6 novel ancient-prequel series written and for the most part ready for publication, and a bridge series in the planning stages, can feel at the same time utterly comfortable and yet exciting and refreshing, like a soft spring breeze that manages to brush away the past winter's frustrations. With Riyria, I know what I'm in for before picking the book up for the first time; I know that I'll enjoy myself, the story and the characters and can just lean back and enjoy the ride. It puts me into an awkward position between wanting to finish the novels quickly and drawing them out as best I can, to have something to look forward to the following day as well.

In the end though, I really don't want to spoil the adventure. I'll just say that, whether or not you have read Riyria before, this book will entertain and excite you on its own merits, and if you have read other installments, you'll end up with even more to appreciate.

And one more note on the audiobook release, since that was my go-to format for a Sullivan novel as well:
Tim Gerard Reynolds hits it out of the park yet again (making me even sadder that Haikasoru hasn't been commissioning him for Legend of the Galactic Heroes audiobooks lately, or rather, stopped doing them entirely, because then I'd be in for another ride with the man right now!). Tim has been one of my absolute favorite narrators for a while, and his chemistry with Michael's books is astounding. He is the voice of Royce and Hadrian and, even when reading an unrecorded short story, his voice rings in my head. With the entire series available on Audible, I'd encourage you to give his narrations a try if you have even a passing interest in having books read to you.

Now, I really just want to know about that sodding diary, so please, Michael, write Chronicles 5 plenty soon, alright?

The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter on Goodreads

Review: The Horusian Wars: Resurrection by John French

This one took me a while to get through, and a while to review. Like, you know, about everything these past six months or so. Apologies.

I'm not feeling too good about this review, to be honest. John French is a solid author overall and I've enjoyed most of his works. His Warmaster audio drama script is one of my favorite pieces of Black Library fiction ever. Reading over this review, I feel like a fusion of Negative Nancy and Debbie Downer. So I want to preface by saying that I still consider Resurrection worth reading, despite my many gripes.

The Story:

"Inquisitor Covenant and his warband go on the hunt for a traitor within their holy order.

War rages in the Caradryad Sector. Worlds are falling to madness and rebellion, and the great war machine of the Imperium is moving to counter the threat. Amongst its agents is Inquisitor Covenant. Puritan, psyker, expert swordsman, he reserves an especial hatred for those of his order who would seek to harness the power of Ruin as a weapon. Summoned to an inquisitorial conclave, Covenant believes he has uncovered such a misguided agent and prepares to denounce the heretic Talicto before his fellows. But when the gathering is attacked and many left dead in its wake, Covenant vows to hunt down Talicto and discover the truth behind the mysterious cult apparently at the heart of the massacre. In the murky plot into which he is drawn, Covenant knows only one thing for certain: trust no one."

The Review:

Resurrection feels like a tricky novel to rate and review. I was anticipating its release a great deal, it being one of the two new Inquisitor novels this year, and unlike Chris Wraight's The Carrion Throne with its original cast, John French's series promised to drag Inquisitor Covenant into the limelight. Covenant originally appeared in the Inquisitor specialist game by Games Workshop and, as a result, is about as venerable a character as Gregor Eisenhorn. Him and his henchmen deserved the best treatment possible, which I was sure John could deliver.

Sadly, I came away from it with mixed feelings all around. Resurrection was far from what I was hoping for, at times formulaic and at others pretty out there. Its biggest problem, especially when put up against the classic Eisenhorn: Xenos, is that it doesn't feel like a compelling, self-contained narrative. Many points set up future novels, like the sequel Incarnation, due in 2018. But in the process of setting up many branches, the core of the novel felt strangely out of focus. This I'd attribute mostly to how John chose to present "his" Inquisitor. Whereas Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy gives us a first person narrative from the man himself, and Wraight's Carrion Throne offers viewpoint chapters for Inquisitor Crowl, Resurrection places Covenant into an awkward position. He is a peripheral character in his own first novel outing, felt just beyond your field of vision, but rarely at its center. Understanding him as a character proves a difficult, nebulous endeavour - which I will assume was the author's intent. It just so happens that it did not manage to grip me as a result of that.

Now, I'm no stranger to having to puzzle things out on my own. Heck, that's one of the main reasons I adore Peter Fehervari's stories so much - they make the reader get involved and think through implications, hints and connect dots themselves. I just did not feel like French managed to pull it off here. There's too little to go on to form any halfway solid picture of Covenant. Even what is straight up said about him by his henchmen, like preacher Josef Khoriv, himself a character from Inquisitor, only gives the reader rough strokes while keeping his master mysterious. We find out tidbits about Covenant's past from second hand sources, biased ones at that, and everybody in his retinue seems to avoid discussing much of anything beyond the immediate action. What worked in short stories like The Purity of Ignorance, which I loved, or the Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies audio drama, didn't really hit home here. Covenant is not the hero of his own novel, and that is a damned shame.

Likewise, Covenant's retinue didn't really appear to have a proper connection to the master. Josef would probably be the most interesting and fleshed-out character of the bunch, having been with Covenant for long enough to care for him, and even Idris, to a great degree. His character arc felt a bit stunted, though. It was still satisfying, but I expected certain things to happen that never did. The book also ended without really exploring the changes to his mindset properly, which I assume will be a larger point in the sequel.
Sister Repentia Severita meanwhile was, as is to be expected, almost entirely defined by her own zealotry and I never warmed up to her much. Koleg, in the Dramatis Personae only described as "Specialist", was a character I often forgot existed.
At least the Von Castellan siblings Cleander and Viola were great to read about for how they juxtaposed Cleander's selfdoubts and feeling of being out of place in his own role with Viola's inherent competence and meticulousness. I hope their roles will stay as interesting in the follow-ups.

On top of the issue of characters never feeling fully formed throughout, the plot has some problems as well. At the center, Covenant is hunting a radical colleague who has been creating daemonhosts left and right and may be part of the Horusian sect within the Inquisition itself. The Horusians share their origins with the Thorians, which Covenant himself counts himself among, but their purposes follow far more sinister lines. Where Thorianism concerns itself with the resurrection of the God-Emperor and follows more puritanical philosophies, the Horusians are radicals working towards harnessing Chaos to create an unholy avatar for the Emperor's soul. Resurrection tries to play off these two sides of the resurrectionist coin, and doesn't do a bad job at it when it takes center stage, but I felt that it could've used more time in the oven.
In fact, the whole Thorian angle didn't get put into the open until almost halfway through the book, and the Horusians only got declared as such, and their methods elaborated on, until later still.

Contrasting this with Eisenhorn again, where we saw various philosophies at play even in the first book, all feeling distinct and somewhat at odds with one another, all with their own methods, Resurrection felt relatively light on the matter. While it opens up with a great assembly of the Inquisition, telling us how everybody has his own perspectives, it fails to really show those ideas to the reader. It pays lip service to the concept, but doesn't spend the time to really drive the point home. Said assembly quickly devolves into rampant action due to a Horusian plot, forcing Covenant and co to make an emergency exit. Covenant also adopts his colleague Idris's acolyte Enna Gyrid in the process, as his old friend is lost in the radicals' plot.
This presents another problem to me, because we didn't get to spend much time with Idris and Enna at all, while the novel itself is overshadowed by Covenant's past alongside Idris. Again we learn very little about it all until absolutely necessary, which meant that I really didn't care as much about any of it as I should have.
While yes, I can see how fitting the lack of information would be in the wider shadow war theme within the Inquisition, it made for a bit of a frustrating read.

It didn't help that the initial action-heavy escape from traitor traps gets roughly repeated two more times throughout, one being at the very end. Every time we get close to some answers, some hints, some evidence, some revelations, things are cast in doubt again and force the protagonists to fight and run for their lives. In many ways, the book felt very reactive.
I don't mean to hold up Eisenhorn as the gold standard again, but both Resurrection and Xenos have their respective Inquisitors follow leads to uncover a great conspiracy. Both hunt their prey in their own ways, make alliances on the way, adopt new specialists to their retinues and have old friends and allies. Both end up in tough spots, but for some reason Covenant himself never really felt at risk to me. Gregor Eisenhorn got tortured in Xenos, while Covenant always seemed more or less aloof, in control, when I was hoping for more emotion even if he is a stoic bastard. Likewise, Eisenhorn hounded his quarry and got in its way on multiple occasions, figuring things out along the way. Covenant's findings seemed rather limited and most hints occured out of the blue, at the end of it all. He always felt just three steps behind his target until the climax. As a result, the Horusian antagonist felt even less substantial to me as the reader.

During the final chapters, there was also a big event taking place that, in the end, holds more implications for the setting as a whole than for the novel itself, and I am not entirely sure yet why it was in here to begin with. I assume it will be tied more closely into the resurrectionism theme in Incarnation, but right here, it felt like a jump from A to D rather than a more natural progression of events and character growth. It was one of the things that felt like they happened for some greater reason, rather than that the plot of this particular novel required it to be this way.

What I did like was how French managed to depict the inherent suspicion between colleagues within the Inquisition. Even Enna Gyrid isn't trusted into the inner circle, mind-probed by psyker Mylasa, kept at arm's length. Covenant's alliances with Lord Inquisitor Vult likewise are strained to the limit and riven by doubts. "Trust no one" really is the tagline here, and something that, thematically, Resurrection does better than Eisenhorn, where Gregor seems to have friends all around (outside of the more radical characters like Molitor). Resurrection showcases just how dysfunctional the Inquisition has become as an institution, how at odds with its own goals, how arrogant its members and associates. It presents us with the problems of giving a large group of individual agents nigh-unlimited authority while lacking a central, unifying purpose and code of conduct. In that regard, it is as grimdark as it gets.
I must also praise the use of "silver coins" throughout the book. Their symbolism wasn't lost on me, and gets only more important in hindsight. It is small details like these that add a lot of atmosphere to the book and underline the mystery without getting in the way of it.

But in the end, this is part one of what looks like it is going to be at least a trilogy, hopefully more. Many aspects here serve as setup for plotpoints down the line, and while that may prove to be a great strength as the series progresses, it hamstrings this particular novel as a one-off experience. I seriously enjoy the overall approach to the series that John has taken by spreading it out through various character-focused short stories, a mostly separate audio drama series in Agent of the Throne, and a core novel series. I just felt that the short stories did the nebulous mystery angle a good deal better than Resurrection, where I was hoping for a tighter, more insightful story.
Looking back once the series is over, it might turn out that my assessment isn't really fair anymore, in the broader scheme, but on its own, right now, I feel disappointed and disillusioned.

I sincerely hope that Incarnation proceeds to show us more, rather than handing us cliffnotes on the characters. I want to understand them on a greater level, get into their heads more thoroughly and anticipate plot developments a little better, rather than running up against twist A, B and C with little pretext. I wouldn't mind the sequel dialing back on action sequences either, as fun as they can be. Inquisition stories are most compelling to me when they focus on the investigations, the hunts, the philosophical dilemmas and individual conflicts between characters, be their friends or bitter foes.
Resurrection has a deal of all of this, but in my opinion needed to be tighter, more focused on making the cast feel real and well-rounded. It needed Covenant to stand up for himself more and dominate the pages rather than isolating himself in his office and remaining quiet and aloof. I have faith that John French will be hitting it out of the park with the sequel, now that the basics are mostly established, however. Growing pains, and all that. I'm sure that I will come to appreciate Resurrection more as John expands on his Horusian Wars in the coming years, and pieces fall into place. After all is said and done, it is undeniable that The Horusian Wars are going up against incredibly strong competition in its own niche of Black Library fiction, and doesn't do too badly in comparison either.

The Horusian Wars: Resurrection on Goodreads