Cover Love: #SPFBO 2016
8 May 2016
Filed under #SPFBO, Book Reviews
Tags: #SPFBO 2016, Cover spotlight, Mark Lawrence
I’m currently taking part in the SPFBO 2016 challenge organised by Mark Lawrence. My introductory post with details of the event here.
As part of this I wanted to first of all post all the covers for the books that have been selected for my batch. There’s some impressive covers this year so it would be a shame not to spotlight them all. (Apologies: I haven’t at this stage linked these to Goodreads but when I choose my batch of five each month I will do so). I must admit that I’m really looking forward to getting started! Feast your eyes on these lovelies:
What Remains of Heroes byDavid Benem #SPFBO
What Remains of Heroes is another of my SPFBO books and I must say it’s a good tale and well written.
This story takes us to a medieval style world where the forces of good and evil are once again pitting their wits. Told from multiple point of views we are immediately introduced to the key players.
Lannick is a disgraced army captain, formerly a hero. His family are dead and he now spends the majority of his time staring at the bottom of the tankard. Lannick was a captain in the army but he actually has another role and his captaincy was a secondary fiddle really. This will all become clear and so I don’t want to elaborate.
Bale is a cleric, timid and book loving. He’s going to find himself taking on a much bigger role than he’s comfortable with. Really pushed outside his comfort zone! He will be sent out on his own to try and locate a key figure, a Sentinel. Sentinels are like lesser Gods, if you will and during the course of this book – one of them has gone missing under mysterious circumstances which I won’t elaborate on.
Karnag is a mercenary, well actually an assassin for hire. Hard bitten, totally unforgiving. He likes his line of work – you could say he’s more a ‘live to work’ type of guy rather than a ‘work to live’ one. He’s been hired for a very lucrative job and he and his motley crew are in search of their prey.
The plot – well, there’s no shortage of action. There’s a plot to overthrow the king who remains without heir. At the same time an invading force are attacking and working their way across the land. The forces of evil are once again stirring with the shadows becoming places to fear and Karnag and his band of assassins are in search of a man who is pivotal to the safety of the country.
Now, what I really liked about this is that the author manages to not get stuck in the usual ruts. His characters don’t go down the path you at first expect. There’s no immediate cure for Lannick. He doesn’t just snap out of his morose alcoholism to become a hero overnight. He pretty much continues to wallow around. Bale. Well he starts off a bookish unlikely hero and he pretty much continues in the same fashion and Karnag – well, his role is usurped completely by Fencress, one of his assassins. Obviously he still makes an appearance but Fencress, I thought, pretty much stole the show.
I must say that I got off to a really good start with this one. The writing is good, the author sets the scene well and the characters are unusual on top of which there is some very good imagination going on here.
What brought this novel down a little for me were a combination of things. Firstly, there was a little bit of repetition with the characters. For example, Bale was constantly thinking that he wasn’t the right man for the job and so was Lannick! I can understand the self doubt to be honest because of their individual circumstances but I felt like the author kept reinforcing the point which wasn’t really necessary. There was also quite a bit of info dumping during conversations which ended up making them seem quite unwieldy. Lastly, for some reason that I really can’t put my finger on and could simply be a ‘mood’ factor was that I lost my focus during the latter third of the book. I don’t know why but my interest just really dipped. I really don’t know why but it made my enjoyment of the book wane a little.
On the whole I think this is a good read with some very intriguing elements. I would be interested in reading the second book not only to see if my reading of this was affected by mood but also to see where the author takes the story next.
#SPFBO Finalist: The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden
The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden was one of my SPFBO reads and in fact is the book I’ve put forward to the next round. I really enjoyed this, not without some reservations, but on the whole I thought it was well written and entertaining and a good start to a series that I will definitely continue to read.
I’m going to try and be brief with the plot – to be honest with you this story is set on an epic scale and so to really do it justice here would probably take too much time and eventually turn into a short story in itself.
The setting is Esmoria, which has known more than it’s fair share of conflict but is finally being ruled by one king (or at least they were until his death) – not, however, without a fair share of resentment on the parts of the other two races outlined in the story.The Bloodmarsh are the conquerors – the king-that-was had visions of a great empire living in peace, his death leaves a great void, felt even more by his people as the Prince is also missing (believed dead). In their place serves a regent known as Bokrham. The court is becoming a difficult place to rule though and trouble is brewing.
The other two races that we meet in this story are the Curahshar – a desert people with fierce warriors. They are ultimately ruled by a Grand Johalid who reigns in The Heart of Sands (a sacred city that lies deep within the desert). The Curahsar seem to be cursed by a strange plague which attacks their warriors leaving them vulnerable, weak and confused and which ultimately led to their defeat.
The Hinnjar live in the Silver Mountains. They were conquered after a protracted siege where starvation became their biggest enemy.
That’s the make up and lie of the land in a nutshell – albeit a tiny nutshell for the purpose of this review.
Now to the characters, of which there is no shortage. The four main pov characters are as follows:
We start off reading about Jeina. After being caught stealing Jeina has been sent to a mining camp (where silver is sought to help fund Prince Tobin’s exploits (Tobin is Hinnjar and has dreams of retaking his throne). Life in the camp is hard, cold and lonely. Jeina spends the majority of her day crawling through tiny tunnels looking for the telltale signs of silver – that is until she makes a scary discovery that results in the mine being closed indefinitely. Jeina is going to meet with an unexpected opportunity to escape – she will be followed however and by something quite unspeakably evil.
Next we meet Nicolas, an engraver’s apprentice whose livelihood is threatened by the strange seizures that he sometimes experiences and which now seem to be occurring with more frequency. His life is about to be changed irrevocably by a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger who wishes to buy out his bond.
Xasho is a Curahshar warrior. Accompanied by a small band of warriors and their captain Boskaheed, they’re about to try and reclaim one of their lost cities – an enterprise that frankly goes horribly wrong. Xasho manages to escape but becomes confused along the way and comes across a strange place where he finds a pair of short swords that possess strange magic and start to control the way in which Xasho fights. At this stage we have no idea whether this magic is good or evil but we share the visions that Xasho is now experiencing and that will eventually tell the story of these weapons and their previous owner.
Bokhram is the regent currently taking the reins over the Blood Marsh. Court politics and internal bickering are becoming more of a problem by the day whilst the nobles fight for position. Some of them directly claiming rights to the throne. Bokhram is barely keeping control and not knowing just how tentative his position really is is about to make something of a dubious deal himself.
Obviously there are more characters. We spend time with Tobin – a very unsavoury character who enlists the help of a blacksmith named Isic. Tobin and Isic both have their own ambitions and between them they’re about to release something dark and sinister from within the mines – not just to release either – but to try and control. We have the strange character that Nicolas’ fate has become entwined with and we have Jeina who manages to find help from a character called Fezi.
All of the four pov characters are about to set off on their own journey, a couple of them meet up during the course of this story and I suspect that they may all finally meet at some point. In the meantime we have a great combination of battles, championship jousts, court politics, intrigue, evil creatures who have the ability to control minds, escape, and, well, more.
This is a very readable story and it’s well written. I’m totally intrigued with where it will go next and will certainly continue the journey to see where book 2 takes me.
In terms of criticisms. Well, whilst I think the characters were well thought out I think I would have liked a bit more spark from them as at the moment I’m not sure how I really feel about them. For example Jeina. She’s a contradictory type of character who goes from an almost death situation to being helped by a kind stranger to then making demands – and this is something that she does tend to do quite often. I also felt that she lacked something somehow. She’s just kind of buffeted along and relies quite heavily on others. However, I also have the strange feeling that there’s more to her that we haven’t yet discovered and I wonder if, even unbeknownst to herself, she has some sort of magic that allows her to compel people to help her or bend them to her will – I guess we’ll see. I do think the characters are well done but I think maybe some sharper dialogue or banter would have brought them more to life somehow. That being said I do think the characters showed improvement in that respect as the story moved forward. There is also very much a set up feel to this story – it’s not something that I mind to be honest because there’s a lot going on here (plus no shortage of plot and action) and I’m glad that the author takes the time to properly line things up.
On the whole I really enjoyed this. I think the writing is very good. It’s a big book and yet I never had the inclination to put it down and leave it to one side in fact I think that there is nothing wasted in the writing at all – it kept me entertained throughout and compelled me to keep reading.
Books and travelling with Lynn 