roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

 Dreadful and I mean DREADFUL writing - Excellent Story

I was excited.  So so excited for my Full Murderhobo adventure and you know what I enjoyed this in spite of my instincts to hurl it right out the window.  The writing is ..... yeah well it's something else.  It's like a pretty face all done up in the worst makeup and then when the make-up is wiped clean - well would you look at that, a real beauty. (Okay so I got caught up watching vids of Korean Women removing the shackles of their makeup on YouTube.  Analogy stands though).  The story is bloody amazing under the atrocious writing.

Oh let's see just a few examples just from the opening chapters:
“He wouldn’t say. He just had this look like a hunted animal every time
it came up.”  hhhm okay nobody talks like this even in high fantasy.
Don growled, his voice layered with power. As the mob was forcefully influenced toward calm,
Taylor garnered droll looks from her friends.
Andre appraised her serious demeanor
she desperately ground out,

And then Taylor became Tay the gateway to the ninth circle of hell opened up. If there is a more annoying nickname out there, I'm still waiting.

Plot/Storyline:   The writing was ridiculous but the story was so far out there and entirely captivating that it just muted the train wreck that passed itself off as prose.
Characters:   The Murderhobo is pretty dope. 
Favorite Quote/Concept/Scene: I love the concept of the "True Bard" being a kind of sorcery - a telepathic mage.  It is unique in the world of mages.  A delight new concept.
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy (LITRPG) books 

 Nope.

Thou shall not cringe and yet cringe I did.

Dude kept saying my beauty my beauty. But that line about keeping her "cherry" safe and "ready" for him, had me laughing like a witch over a boiling cauldron ready to curse that idiot lumberjack. 

Waiting on the sequel like the people waiting for Al-Jahiz to return.

Steampunk set in Egypt. I was in Cairo for a total of 4 days, hadn't paid for the luxury tour guides that everyone suggested and I honestly regretted it. That Cairo that I visited was just terrifying for a solo female traveller. Still, I wanted to go back to Cairo even if it was just between the covers of a book. Enter A Dead Djinn in Cairo and now, Master of Djinn. The closest I've come to reading something even remotely in the same location was The Tower of Babel, Josiah Bancroft and dare I say I love both versions of Desert Steampunk.

If nothing else, this book has had the same effect as Marvel's Moonlight - a google search history littered with all things Egypt. I came away from this book certain of 2 things:

1. I really want to come face to face with a Djinn even if it would spell death - I'm a daredevil
2. I need to book a trip with one of those Luxury tour guides because I want to experience the cliched tourist-in-Egypt package.

The underlying theme in this book is the luxury of Old Egypt ... what could have been and what has been in the long lost past.

Plot/Storyline: Clark knows how to hook a reader - I was fascinated with the Djinn universe just from a little peak in a Dead Djinn in Cairo. The novella set the bar high and this book lived up to the hype

Characters: Fatma is endearing. Her androgynous look and her love for English suits in the middle of the desert is very punkish...punkesque?. Every Djinn was breathtaking, from the first one to the elusive Ifrit. The most captivating of the beings mentioned are the Angels who may actually be real angels. I call them the Faux-Angels. I love them all the same.

Favorite scene: The Imposter who could be the real Al-Jahiz takes on Fatma, Hadia and Siti and by the Old Gods, Siti is badass incarnate filled with the essence of Sekhmet with her gloves tipped in claws and yearning for battle. She goes toe-to-toe with an impressive Ash-ghul. Finally, there's Ahmad/Lord Sobek and his transmutation into a demi-crocodile-god is really horrifyingly beautiful

Favorite Quote/Concept: The Architecture and construction of this world. I'm dubbing it Djinn-Industrial Core - it is equal parts a marvel of ingenuity and luxurious.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Steampunk books

 

 Bingley Bongley Beep! don't forget to say memo!

Okay then. Memo: If there's one thing I just can't abide by it's the senseless killing of people with bread. You don't wield a fresh baguette, an extra weighty ciabatta, a brioche, nor do you hurl a foccacia, gluten free, sourdough or any other floury goodness bread and bash someone's head in. Dwarvish Battle Bread you say...oh well, in that case - you just don't.  What you do with bread is slather it with good salted butter, maybe a layer of cured meat or some chunky luxurious cheese, maybe a side of kalamata olives and then get a glass of wine or in my case some good drip coffee and you savor every bite. That's what you do with bread.

Geez. Whatever will they think of next over there on the Discworld.

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Plot/Storyline:- 1 It took about 100 pages to get the story moving, before that it was like wading through the river Ankh-Morpork ...murky and a bit boring with a hint of annoying stink.

Characters:  Too many characters. My favorites: Wee Mad Arthur, The Vegetarian Werewolf, Detritus the Troll, That Captain Charismatic (Carrot) and hmmm, maybe Vimes .

Favorite scene:  Ho!...where to even start.  Vimes dictating a memo to his clock/functional organizer imp - the one that can't do much right.  Well, at least this imp "recognizes" handwriting. Or What about Rat-DEATH and he SQUEAKS.  Wee Mad Arthur - all his scenes.  Any moment with Captain Carrot (Sigh sigh, ogle ogle,  blush blush)

Favorite Quote/Concept: Too many, so I'll go with the cameo by my favorite character in all of Discworld. I AM DEATH, not taxes, I TURN UP ONLY ONCE (Death on the Late Mr Hopkinson's inconveniently timed murder which he'd want to lodge a complaint about)

StoryGraph Challenges: 1800 Books by 2025 and Top 22 Male Authors
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy books and Terry Pratchett Series 

Rocky start and a Redeeming Third Act

The writing style changed in this installment of the series.  Not enough to be jarring but enough to be noticeable.  It felt like this Joey Harker was one from a different Earth and not the one from Interworld book 1 and Gaiman just forgot to mention it.  Sounded the same in many ways but it felt a little choppy and at times a teenie tiny bit juvenile (I mean he's supposed to be 16 years old but comes off as a 12 year old more often than not.).  It felt lessGaimanesque than the first one - could this be Michael Reaves voice?  I don't know.  I don't dislike it but I didn't love it.

There are a few missions mentioned in passing that should have been elaborated on. Of the top of my head, the senior officers heading of to a Hex world to rescue a Walker. In order to properly morn the Walker who dies, It would have been better to experience a mission with the walker because the character got so little page time in this installment.

Plot/Storyline: -1 The saboteur storyline I thought would come out in Book 1 actually takes place here and it's done well. But then a couple of things take place and it's a rinse-repeat of the first book with minor differences.
Characters: -1 The characters I had previously loved in the first book are forgettable in the second book which is saying something seeing as there page-time has decreased significantly. The new characters introduced are a shade of annoying (Acacia) and Glossed over (read character list page).
Favorite scene:  I wish the first two acts of this book had been in the same stratosphere as the first - not the pacing but something was missing or just off/different about the writing. Great Scene: the perilous training exercise comes to mind aa not a favorite but the scene that finally tipped the scales in whether Interworld was still Interworld. Another sabotage, another death and Joey Harker at the center of it all.  But lo and behold, it tipped right into an exhilarating final act.
Favorite Quote/Concept: Still Hue - he/it/creature ...mudluff
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025 / Top 22 Male Authors
Challenge Prompt: 150 Scifi books and Neil Gaiman Series or Standalone

 

 I wish Lexi Esme would write more full length books.  I fell in love with her characters in Wet Dream and I did the same here.  She takes what Kimberly Lemming does and gives it heart and deep emotion.  Both writers are wonderful and I love the fact that I get to add POC writers to my shelves - a new experience for me. 

This book is sensuous and tugs at you as you read.  I am indifferent to spiders and don't really pay them any mind.  They don't inspire terror in me.  So reading about the formidable and dangerous Sephti and his love for Rhianne was a welcome respite from my other books.

Spice level: 🌶🌶🌶
The intimate scenes sound very contorted.  One particular scene had me so curious about the mechanics I had to draw a diagram to see if it was even feasible let alone pleasurable. 

Plot/Storyline: Once again Lexi brings in elements of real world fear and mixes it with her paranormal layers.  This book has threat of assault as the opening scene and it is done so well and used as a tool to get us to understand the FMC and by proxy her reaction to the MMC.

Characters: Sephti is more human than he thinks.  He practically ghosts her post coital and if that isn't a trashbag-human trait - I don't know what is.

Favorite scene/quote: mwahaha .... that naughty scene in the kitchen After drawing a diagram to figure it out - I can say with certainty that it was spicy. 

 If your affianced isn't trying to kill you in a causality war and erase you from time - is it even love? I mean talk about a courtship for the ages. A time travelling homicidal psychopath meets a time traveling homicidal psychopath. Let the romance begin.

I cackled like a witch in Anhk Morpork! It started slow but let me tell you when we got to the crux of it I was listing a whole lot of Historical and Present-Day Bastard's names hoping they'd get drafted into the anti-arranged marriage war on a farm at the not-so-end-of-time.

Yeah...okay i loved it.
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Plot and Pacing: -1 I was starting to mildly lose interest before Smantha and Wendel showed up. Bloody Twees from the future.
Characters Zoe! Hands down. Way to turn EVERYTHING on it's head. Aces dear founderess. Aces.
Favourite Scene: that epic every-murderer-for-themselves skirmish in a muddy field
Favorite quote :
Stalin and Hitler is cheating,” I say.
“I don’t see why. Achilles is cheating, he never even existed.”
“Says the woman with three Jack the Rippers.”
“Eh.” She shrugs. “You go to get a Jack the Ripper and he turns out to be some effete aristocrat who only really has the guts to butcher helpless women. So you go to a different shard and find another version, and he’s even worse and… before you know it you’re up to your neck in Rippers and they’re all a bit crap, really
(Zoe and The Founder on The War if The Bastards)
Storygraph Challenge:  Top 22 Male Authors
Challenge Prompt: Adrian Tchaikovsky Series or Standalone 

 Came for Jack, Stayed for Grim and Crow

The Jack novelette was recommended on the r/paranormalromance  sub and it came up again in the r/fantasyromance sub in a post about ...ahem phalluses that had us all blushing but not clutching pearls - rather, searching for water to hose down.  Anyway, I rushed to find the short story and found the collection. 
 
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Spice level: 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
I mean you can't even go into this setof stories even pretending it's anything but erotic.  The spice was high...high I tell you.

Plot/Storyline: The women in each of her stories have very real fears of abandonment except for Grim and Orc.  It's sad but very realistic.  In those intimitate moments one of them even thinks the MMC will just toss them aside once the deed is don and leave.  Did not expect that amount of realism in this.  Also, the Crow story is so heartbreakingly sweet.

Characters: They sold me on Jack but I bought Grim and Crow. 

Favorite scene/quote: Grim suspended in the air literally waiting for the FMC to plunge to her death so he can save her and scrape o his debt to Death the entity. 

 Murderbot oh Murderbot, wherefore art thou Murderbot.

Okay okay I jest.

But this sequel was a journey into the unknown for our little cyborgish binge-watching Murderbot. I got out my electronic pompoms and cheered on the sidelines and instead of orange slices - I offer Murderbot the full season of House Targaryen and just for kicks, every episode of Community because she/they are on a mission and it's a marathon not a sprint.
By the way - if Murderbot's mind has been theirs to control for 33 000 hours, calculating that a normal cycle is still 24 hours, would that mean that Murderbot is 1375 days old or it was rebooted after the malfunction and is now 1375 days without incident.  And then I am left to wonder how old the SecUnit is.  You see...Martha Wells there you go bringing out the nerd in me.  Love it
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Plot/Storyline: Murderbot needs to change in order to learn what it was before - why it "malfunctioned" before and change is such a key theme in this installment of the SecUnit's diaries. We all get comfortable and prefer to remain hidden in the shell we've created for ourselves.  ART - the transport unit with a big brain is the bestie who tells you off to help you - we all need one of those.
Characters: I believe it's pretty obvious I'm a big fan of ART

Favorite scene:  The Murderbot and the EXTRAGALACTIC transport aka ART watch tv together. Adorable: So we watched Worldhoppers. It didn’t complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor character was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on.

Favorite Quote/Concept: “I like parts of my function.” I liked protecting people and things. I liked figuring out smart ways to protect people and things. I liked being right. (Murderbot on it's apparent self-loathing as perceived by the sentient transport bot) 

 His Loyal Opposition has a story to tell - well, I mean, one of his minions.

So K.J.Parker has this way of writing that is both hilarious and disturbing. His Demonologist/Exorcist in Prosper's Demon was so morally dubious he might as well have been a demon. Lo! And...well ..behold. Part 2 of that duology rests squarely on the shoulders of a demon jumping from one monk to another in a monastery where monks are bought by rich folk as Pay-To-Pray-The-Sins-Away. 

But that's just scratching the surface of the shenanigans that are about to unfold.  Shenanigans I fully revealed in and enjoyed to the very last period, full stop.  Angels, fallen or not are DEVIOUS. Se magnifique!
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Plot/Storyline:  A demon left battered after an encounter with an exorcist he once possessed from the womb.  It/he/she/they waste their time away at a monastery causing distraction to the monks praying for the souls of the shitty dead to keep them forgiven in heaven.  I mean that alone makes for a luring tale.  Add in everything else that happened thereafter and you've sold me gold.

Characters: Is it weird that I really feel for the demon, the "Inside Man" and I'm a little annoyed if not fearful of the exorcist - but I also feel for him - but more for the demon.  Feels like a slippery slope to hell but hey...whatever.

Favorite scene: The Demon and the Exorcist meet again for "cooperation" not collaboration.  What goes on in the mind is fascinating. Also, I mean that exorcist is HELL.

Favorite Quote/Concept: Cry Havoc! And let slip the squirrels of War! (Demon on the lower level task of possessing a monk name Brother Eusebius)Also: I remember our ridiculously complicated attempts at security—how do you conspire against the Omniscient?—passwords and coded messages and passing secret information in plain sight. We were clowns. We deserved to lose.  (The Demon, on The Great Rebellion in Heaven and THE FALL)

StoryGraph Challenge: Top 22 Male Authors
Challenge Prompt: K.J. Parker series or Standalone