Tag: fantasy

Joe Abercrombie, The Wisdom of Crowds (2021)

On By Ola GIn books, fiction, Ola, reviews51 Comments

Author: Joe Abercrombie

Title: The Wisdom of Crowds

Format: paperback

Pages: 520

Series: The Age of Madness #3

I know that times are tough. Pandemic, a looming economic crisis, people do what they can to make ends meet, churning out books like there’s no tomorrow, with less than usual regard for logic or excellence. It’s hard, and I understand, and Abercrombie is certainly not the first one to fall into this trap. But that knowledge doesn’t lessen the disappointment much. For this is the first First Law World book that unequivocally sucked for me. 

My disappointment is twofold, and I’ll try my best to separate the technical, rather more objective one from the bitterly personal ;). 

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Better late than never, or #Narniathon21 finally coming to Reenchantment

On By Ola GIn books, fiction, Ola, reviews, silva rerum19 Comments

When Chris announced the great re-read of Lewis’s classic series for children back in 2020, I was a vocal supporter of the idea. I wanted to revisit Narnia for some time, having read all of the books at least twice over the period of some twenty years, and wanted to check if the ambivalent feelings of my former encounters would still dominate my reading.

But life intervened, and while other Narniathoners are already reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in preparation for the February 25th discussion, I’m here, discussing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in conjunction with Prince Caspian. Well, better late than never 😉

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Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball Z (1989 – 1995), part 2

On By Ola GIn art, books, fiction, graphic novels, Ola, reviews14 Comments

Here we go, as promised months ago, in the first part of the review ;). My enthusiasm for Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z hasn’t changed a bit, even though since then I’ve read loads of other shonen titles: Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto, Kaijuu no. 8, My Hero Academia, Bleach, One Piece, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba… I still consider Toriyama’s opus magnum the best ;). Though that doesn’t include the most recent run, Dragon Ball Super, which is so bad I refuse to acknowledge it as canon ;).

So, without further ado, here’s my second part of the highly emotional journey through Toriyama’s famous manga. There are tears, and fist pumps, and everything in between ;).

Dragon Ball Z, vol. 12: Enter Trunks!

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5.5/10 stars

The first third, concluding the fight between Goku and Freeza, is simply amazing. Loved every bit of it! All stars!!! And it’s actually the only reason this got five stars instead of one.

Because after that first part… well, to be fair, it was probably impossible to top the Goku-Freeza showdown with anything, really. But the rest of the volume is a disappointment, a major slump in terms of both emotional and martial content, with the coincidental return of Freeza and Goku, over a year later, to Earth, just as a setup for the appearance of a mysterious warrior from the future. Trunks must save the day in the absence of Goku, and while the reveal of Trunk’s parentage was a really fun part, the ease with which he dispatched Freeza and his nasty dad was rather jarring. And then we get the forewarning about evil androids soon to be made by a mad scientist, and the decision to wait for them and train hard just doesn’t make any sense. Aargh. That’s just so lazy.

Honestly, I hoped we had seen the last of the Red Ribbon Army a long time ago. Not to mention that the new Terminator vibes are somehow way less alluring than the old Superman vibes 😉

One of the weakest volumes to date, I’m afraid. Still moderately enjoyable, but nowhere near the usual levels I came to expect from Toriyama’s DB and DBZ.

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K. Eason, Nightwatch on the Hinterlands (2021)

On By Ola GIn books, fiction, NetGalley, Ola, reviews42 Comments

Author: K. Eason

Title: Nightwatch on the Hinterlands 

Format: e-book

Pages: 416

Series: The Weep #1

An opening to a new series set in the Rory Thorne universe, Nightwatch on the Hinterlands is a fast-paced SF noir mystery inspired by WH40K and D&D, featuring a duo of unlikely allies embroiled in a conflict that starts small but grows exponentially – and quite satisfyingly – throughout the book. 

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Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber: Subtle Architecture of Treason

On By reenchantmentoftheworldIn books, fiction, Ola, Piotrek, reviews, Two-shot54 Comments

This is our post for Witch Week 2021: Treason and Plot, organized by the inestimable Chris of Calmgrove and Lizzie of Lizzie Ross. Witch Week is a yearly event happening in the last week of October, in tribute to Diana Wynne Jones’s third Chrestomanci book focusing on all things fantastical. This year, however, instead of concentrating on Halloween and thereabouts, we’re taking a closer look at the history of the Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot, the British tradition of Bonfire Night, and various treasonous activities causing rot in states, real and imagined.

We chose Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber as our topic for this year’s Witch Week for two reasons: first, Zelazny’s untimely death in 1996 caused a curious silence around his works, so that he’s no longer a well-known author and his novels have been slowly sliding into oblivion in recent years. He remains an author’s author, mentioned here and there by the new generations as a source of inspiration, but in our opinion he deserves wider recognition. Secondly, The Chronicles of Amber, a series of ten books that can safely be classified as fantasy, though discussions can be had whether it’s epic or urban, or something else altogether, is a wondrously complex latticework of betrayal, double dealing, plots within plots, lethal mysteries and hard-bitten protagonists somewhere between noir detectives and medieval knights.

Ola: Well, there’s a third reason. Both Piotrek and I love Amber, and needed little excuse to return to this fantastic world ;). Zelazny’s a great author in general, though uneven at times. But his best works are among the best the genre has to offer, and even his mediocre ones boast of unique imagination, propensity for audacious literary experimentation, and sensitivity to language that’s at once precious and highly uncommon. Incidentally, a novel perfect for a Halloween reading, and also containing a lot of treason, backstabbing, and plots to conquer the world, is his A Night in the Lonesome October.

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