Posted by Kristen is making her way through the books assigned to her, so this is the first update from her! Actually, she sent me more than this and soon I’ll be posting reviews for books that are “safe” from her pile!
The Fractured God by Gerard Howard
I enjoyed my time with The Fractured God. The two main characters were basically fantasy adventurer archetypes. Snarky, impulsive, mysterious – that sorta thing. So I got along quite well with the main pair of characters. They go on a quest to rescue a princess (fantasy archetype again, right?) and then… we end up on a spaceship. In space. In a space worm that is traveling through space.
Unfortunately, this is where it lost me in terms of SPFBO. I was having a hard time staying into it around that same time because the pacing seemed to slow right down as well. I might go ahead and pick it back up and finish it just for curiosity’s sake later on, but for SPFBO it got just a bit too science fictiony for my fantasy contest judginess.
But Kristen, por qué no los dos? Sorry y’all. I love sci-fi, but I’m stickin’ to my guns here, however do pick this one up if you love some good snark!
Felix Chance by J. E. Pittman
This one didn’t keep me interested very long. It takes place in the present time, as things like DoorDash are referenced. I just personally found it a little confusing and hard to stick with. Give it a try though, it might be up your alley.
Obsidian: Awakening by Sienna Frost
This one starts off pretty dark. There’s two rival races, and one has pretty much enslaved the other. The ruler of the enslavers takes one of the enslaved as his wife and we go from there.
We see the story from the point of view of the children of the above ruler and his wife, as well as an assassin and former whore fleeing the city that enslaved him and into the desert where his people are from. Lastly we have the daughter of one of the high ranking desert people.
The prose was quite lovely, flowed really nicely and was never hard to get into or understand. I just didn’t… really ever care about any of the characters. I thought one was interesting, but even his parts didn’t seem to grab me and hold on, and so I ended up putting it down for other things. I’d definitely recommend you give it a try if you’re into epic fantasy though. My experience may not be your experience