Title: The Blood Mirror
Series: Lightbringer
Author: Brent Weeks
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: October 25, 2016
Format: Paperback
Pages: 704

 

In a lot of fantasy series, the 2^nd-to-last book is usually the weakest one. Most of the time, it’s more of a preamble for the final book than its own thing. That was not 100% the case with The Blood Mirror. While it does heavily focus on setting up the 5^th and final book, it’s not boring. There’s not as much pause in the drama and action as expected. Yes, (some) characters focus mainly on making plans and putting them in motion but there’s a war on; everything can’t just go on pause. And with the characters as scattered as they are at this point, who’s where and doing what is a major element in The Blood Mirror.

So, we’ll start with arguably the main character, Kip. Clearly the person who’s had the most character development in this series. He’s gone from a smart but unwise village boy to an accomplished military leader. And it actually works. His plot (mostly) doesn’t feel contrived and it very easily could have. Of course, now he has Tisis to balance him out a bit and she steps up a lot after being relatively undeveloped in the last book. Their relationship seems kind of forced but fits everything else well enough that it can be looked over.

Gavin…well, if you remember how he spent the last book it’s more of the same here. His contributions to the story are more about the past than the present. This helps but considering where Gavin started, the shift in his role has been almost the opposite of Kip’s. Maybe that was the point.

Karris, like Gavin, is delegated to “keep doing what you were doing” in The Blood Mirror. Her storyline marches forward at a slow and steady pace. Although she does get a few cool moments, namely the points where she interacts with Teia.

And on that note, Teia. Oh, my goodness, poor Teia. Her storyline has probably become my favorite in this series. It’s so refreshing to see a character brought in after book 1 who becomes central to everything. The things she has done and keeps doing have far greater consequences than this young woman could have ever imagined. Consequences that will change her forever as she further explores the web she’s caught in.

Polar opposite to Teia, even more so than how Gavin sort of reflects Kip, is Liv. She really seemed like the female lead way back in book 1. And it kind of feels like Brent Weeks just suddenly decided, “Nah” and popped Teia in as Liv’s replacement. Liv’s whole Join The Dark Side story would feel a lot more impactful if she’d actually done stuff before switching teams.

Anyway, everyone spends the whole book moving their pieces into place for their final game. And no one is going to play fair. With one book left, it’ll be fun to see who’s left standing and who ultimately wins by the end.

Title: The Short Victorious War
Series: Honor Harrington
Author: David Weber
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Baen
Release Date: April 1, 1994
Format: Paperback
Pages: 376

 

I’ll preface this review by saying I’m a sucker for space operas. If I wasn’t, this would probably only be a 3-star book.

So, in any military series there comes a point where the books start to be less about the main characters and more about the conflict. The Short Victorious War is only book 3 is a very long series (and that’s not even taking all the spin-offs into account), but we already see hints of it here. Now, Honor is still the main character. But there is not as much focus on her here as in the last two books. The reason is that this is where the war actually starts. There were military conflicts in the previous books, but there wasn’t an active state of war. This is where that kicks off, so the book leads into “the conflict is the main focus” territory kind of by necessity.

Aside from the shift of tone, this book is very much your dictionary definition of space opera. Honor is the epitome of a badass, which we know from books 1 & 2. So, we know what to expect from her in that regard. That same sentiment is true in pretty much all other regards to her personality. And the story. Basically, if you’re familiar with how space operas play out, there are no great surprises here. Characters and plot all head in the direction you would expect.

Another big thing for David Weber is the worldbuilding. My god, there’s a lot of worldbuilding. Every piece of sci-fi technology and military protocol gets explained. Which I, personally, love. I’m totally into that stuff. But for readers who aren’t, it seems like it can get repetitive fast. If you just want to see the good guys win and don’t care too much for a detailed explanation into the why and how, that aspect of The Short Victorious War is probably going to be a turn-off.

Like the previous books, there is a lot of borrowing from real-world history. Manticore is very much just Space Britain. Haven is Space France. And the vast distances of space, coupled with how the sci-fi tech works, essentially turns spaceships into old wooden navies in terms of function. And that’s fine. They say history repeats itself so it’s not really that much of a stretch.

In conclusion, The Short Victorious War is a solid entry in a great series for lovers of military sci-fi. And space operas (especially space operas). I’ve heard kind of mixed things about where the series ends up further down the line, but so far it seems solid so I’ll keep reading.

Title: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 6
Series: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Author: FUSE
Genre: Light Novel
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: August 20, 2019 (English) | October 30, 2015 (Japanese)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288

 

Ok, so Volume 6 is kind of part-two of Volume 5. While that’s not technically how this book was marketed, it’s truer in a narrative sense. Volume 6 starts with the characters right where they were when Volume 5 ended, in addition to some neat little behind-the-scenes moments for us readers. This is basically the culmination point in this series. Every conflict that the characters have had to endure up until now is part of a greater plan. There has been a puppet master behind it all and the time for their endgame is now.

Now there is a lot more to this book than just the plot coming together. Before that starts to happen in earnest, we’re clearly shown how personal the situation has become for the characters. Their home has been attacked. Their friends have been killed. Someone is out there trying to use everything they’ve put their sweat and blood into building as a disposable tool. Rimuru and his friends are new players on the world stage and the old hands view them as pawns to be moved about and sacrificed. Understandably, they do not take kindly to this and have no intention of going down without a fight.

As is the case in many light novels (this series in particular), the first half of this book is the set-up. First, the book deals with the fallout from Volume 5’s events. Some of these are personal issues but others are political now that the characters are running a country. It’s a stretch to say this part is uninteresting, but it feels more like prep work than what comes next: the action.

The 2nd half of the book is where it shines. Again, everything in the series so far has led to this point. This is the end of the first major story arc. Which for any action-anime type series means a really big battle. More than one, in fact. And while I did complain in my review of Volume 5 about the power creep in this series, it thankfully gets toned down a bit here. Rimuru and co. aren’t depowered or anything like that, but we’re given a pretty clear demonstration that there’s always a bigger fish.

It was an extremely satisfying conclusion for the first arc. While How I Was Reincarnated As A Slime feels like it’s directed at a younger audience than most of the other light novels I’ve picked up, I continue to enjoy it just for the sheer quality of the story, characters, and writing. Hats off to the quality of the English translation too. And with the conflicts essentially resolved at this point, I’m excited to see how life shapes up for Rimuru and his friends going forward.

Title: Opening Shots
Series: Fierce Girls at War
Author: Mike Adams
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: February 6, 2018
Format: Paperback
Pages: 250

 

A copy of Opening Shots was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

So, I’m going to start by saying I haven’t actually read the first two books in this series. Normally I wouldn’t skip over books like that, but Mike Adams was kind enough to send me summaries of those two. After reading those summaries and Opening Shots, the best way I can describe this is the end of the prologue. Up to this point, the stage is being set for bigger and better things in future books.

Now, this is a fairly basic sci-fi setting. Humanity is just starting to colonize their first not-Earth planet. The colony has been established by this point in the story, but it’s still small. Unfortunately for humanity, aliens staked a claim on this real estate before they showed up. And instead of chasing humans off with a cease and desist order, the aliens plan to do it high powered weaponry. It reminds me a little bit of Halo in that way, but without all the religious overtones.

While the premise of Opening Shots is solid, the execution was a bit mixed. I, personally, am used to reading novels much longer than this one. Books where there is a higher page count to establish worldbuilding, develop characters, and all that good stuff. The faster pacing just threw me a little but that’s more of a personal pet peeve than anything else. But the thing that really stuck out was the characters. More specifically, the amount of named characters. There are points in here where 6 or more new characters might get introduced, by name, in a single chapter. It was just too much too fast to keep up with.

The limited page count made it hard for each character to do anything meaningful enough for me to remember who everyone was. And some characters are more significant than others. While there isn’t really a main character, some people are just name-dropped a few times while others are making major plot decisions. The one who stuck out the most was really the main male character, who seems to have gone through the same military graduating class as Zapp Brannigan. To the point where he casually suggests he was ok with sleeping with a minor. It was creepy.

Anyway, overall Opening Shots seems like a decent enough starting point but that’s really all it is. Just the preamble to the main performance. Not 100% my usual pick for a sci-fi series (I’m more for space operas) but there’s some potential here.

Title: The Broken Eye
Series: Lightbringer
Author: Brent Weeks
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: August 26, 2014
Format: Paperback
Pages: 757

 

Holy infodump, Batman. The Broken Eye is not a short book. Despite that, it never feels slow. The massive page count notwithstanding, a LOT happens in this book. This isn’t some Shyamalan story where there’s just one big twist near the end. No, readers are constantly fed new information. And it’s not necessarily new information to the characters. It’s new to some characters; the ones whose POV we get throughout the story. So, young people. All these older folks who have been playing the Game of Thrones for a long time are already aware of this stuff.

It’s honestly kind of hard to review this book spoiler-free because of all that. So, let’s carry things over from my review of The Blinding Knife and talk about the characters. Everything The Blinding Knife did, which it did well mind you, The Broken Eye does better. With all the different perspectives, it’s really hard to nail down a single person as the Main Character. First, it seemed like it was Kip, but then Gavin started being a badass, and now we’ve focused more on Kip again. Plus, Teia’s time and influence in the story continues to grow.

Like I said last time, Kip’s character arc is very much a coming-of-age story. He started this series as a somewhat bright but uneducated and untraveled village boy. Now we’re starting to see what the clay that is his childhood will be molded into. A soldier, a warrior, a leader. And thank Orholam he got more mature. It becomes pretty clear throughout The Broken Eye that Kip has the potential to be a great man. He just needed the experience to grow into one.

Teia, on the flipside, goes through her own struggles. While Kip’s problems are mostly physical and emotional, hers are more mental. She’s living in the same world as all these other characters, but at the same time, she’s not. There are aspects of what’s happening only she can see. Dark secrets she stumbles into that could hurt her friends if they find out. And all the stress that comes with keeping such secrets.

While all this is going on, the other characters are still getting developed too. Some had more or less facetime than in the previous books, but no one gets neglected. Every character is just that, a character. Nobody gets demoted to being a background piece, which is fantastic.

This is the best book in the Lightbringer series so far. A very powerful middle point and one of the best in any series I’ve read to date. I’m a little skeptical about the next book because the 2^nd-to-last entry tends to be the weakest in series like these. But it’s come a long way from the initial skepticism the first book gave me, so we’ll see.

Title: The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 5: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat
Series: The Saga of Tanya the Evil
Author: Carlo Zen
Genre: Light Novel
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: March 19, 2019 (English) | January 30, 2016 (Japanese)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336

 

Abyssus Abyssum Invocat. One misstep leads to another. Literally translated as “hell calls hell”. A very appropriate title given this is the point where Tanya’s actions come back to bite her personally. The longer this war goes on, the worse things get for every side involved. But up to this point, Tanya has been fairly lucky. Volume 5 even pokes fun at this at one point, with the enemy believing they have intelligence leaks because no one is lucky enough to ruin as many of their operations as Tanya has. But the last book showed us that Tanya’s ego is starting to have consequences for the Imperial Army. Now those consequences affect her personally.

One of Tanya’s core flaws is failing to put herself in other people’s shoes. Now, this is not always a bad thing. Because she has knowledge of Earth’s military history, she is able to examine the current war with a unique viewpoint. But the flipside of that is assuming her preconceived notions are correct. When something happens that utterly and blatantly proves one of her assumptions wrong, it blindsides her.

Tanya has put trust in her instincts and experience up to this point, and for good reason. It can’t be said that she’s had zero setbacks before, but she has always come out ahead. Improvise, adapt, overcome. No matter what’s been thrown at her, she always manages to keep moving forward. But this time, she hits a wall. No one wins forever; everyone makes a mistake eventually. For someone like Tanya, who fears failure on an extremely personal level, having to confront that becomes a devastating challenge.

War is hell. Well, actually, war is war. Hell is hell. Tanya has never been disillusioned enough to not believe that. But success after success has conditioned her expectations. Volume 5 gives us the first time she experiences not a setback, but a complete and utter failure. It brings her to an absolute low point, the type of crippling negative emotion that can break people.

This is (most likely) the point in the series where the protagonist is at their lowest. They’ve been kicked down into the dirt and it will take everything they have to rise up again. But Tanya is as stubborn as she is anything else. And this being a war story, when she comes back with vengeance you know it will be bloody.