The Viscount and the Witch is a short story set 11 years before the events in The Crown Conspiracy. I have the other novels in the Riyria Chronicles already and enjoyed reading them.
Hadrian and Royce are great characters. Royce is a reluctant good guy while Hadrian is a reluctant bad guy. The whole barn scene with the viscount was hilarious.
Michael J. Sullivan has a fairly laid back style of writing that appeals to my funny-bone. He also keeps up the pace and throws in actions scenes where they are appropriate. Excellent writing and a great world for my taste.
I started off reading Prelude, which isn’t a prelude but a continuation of Bone Dust & Beginnings. I couldn’t get a grip on what on earth Alexa was and felt annoyed at myself for not getting it. That made me splurge on USD 1.99 for BD&B.
This is young adult fiction. The author warns about mature content, but come on – the only thing US citizens thinks of as mature content is sex and there isn’t any explicit sex in this novel. There is violence but not of the mature kind.
Bizarrely enough, Alexa happens to be a descendant of Jesus Christ. She and other Descendants have been hidden from the public by the “Government”. If only they had been allowed out into the open, the world could have experienced peace. Instead people have used the Descendants for their own selfish agendas and this was a major part of why the world has become the bombed out place it has.
Alexa’s mission is to find her father, rescue the other Descendants and save the world.
Alexa seemed like an unknown after finishing BD&B. Her background was filled in, but something was missing. The novel itself was well-written with few editing issues. Bone Dust & Beginnings was a fairly good novel. I do not think I am its intended audience.
First of all I want to say thank you to Lee Carlon for sending me a reviewer’s copy of The Godslayers’ Legacy.
I liked book no. 1 of the series: A God-Blasted Land and had hopes for the rest of the series. I wonder what it must be like to be an author writing a series/serial??? I imagine the pressure you put on yourself to perform well the second time around must add to the stress whenever you feel lost in your own work. The excellent writer is like any excellent performer out there. We as a public aren’t supposed to guess how much work goes into their art. They get the tears. We get the pleasure.
Lee Carlon is turning out to be such a writer. To me he writes in minor key and plays those black tangents on his keyboard like an expert.
When Avril Ethanson decided he would fight Lord Obdurin’s bond, he did not know it would be so difficult. His reins are not as tight as those of the other cadres living up on Frake’s Peak, but they are nevertheless reins. Ronara enjoys being able to live there but she does not have to fight the bond that Lord Obdurin has tied between himself and Avril.
Not only Ronara and Obdurin add to Avril’s conflicted feelings. He is first sworn of his cadre and feels the need to seek out his other cadre members. For some reason Lord Obdurin wanted a semi-independent cadre to play his games with, and Avril’s is it.
We get to meet four of the other cadre members in this novel. Telling all of their names would only be a spoiler, but one of them is safe to share. Dune d’Turintar is on a mission to kill Lord Obdurin. Doing so is bound to bring her within reach of Avril.
Newterra is a bleak place. The world has been left in ruins by the Gods and the Gods pretty much rule the world. Who and what the gods are will probably be revealed later on, but I’m guessing Gods aren’t it.
humanitysdarkerside 