Review: The Thirteenth Hour

The Thirteenth Hour by Trudie Skies
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review which is a fair estimate of my experience with the book. I picked it up because it was a SPFBO finalist. That contest generally provides some good reading.

I'm not partial to steam punk, but this book had a ton of potential. That potential was wasted.

In this world, everyone is tied to one of 12...well 13...gods. Their lives are ruled by the whims to those gods. When they die, their souls return to the gods who then are able to experience those "human" lives.

There is a hub that is called Chime. Each of the domains of those 12 deities is tied to Chime. In theory, the gods cannot meddle in Chime. In theory, the humans (sort of) can be "recalled" from Chime back to their deity by praying to that deity and thereby attracting the deity's focused attention. This recall is called "death", because that is what happens.

There are other rules. I guess they make sense within the context of the book.

Chime is split into three levels. The top level is reserved for the upper class. The mid-level is reserved for the upper class and associates. The lower level is reserved for most everyone else. A lot of lower class folks want to dissociate from the gods.

As the title suggests, there is a 13th god. The book is the tale of those lower class folks, how they seek to liberate themselves from the gods, and the discovery of the 13th god.

The story is pretty good. There are a few plot holes. Two major ones being the focus and tolerance of class-based biases by everyone involved, and the fact that no one leaves Chime for the hinterlands. They all just accept that they have to stay close to Chime.

No one opts to ignore classes. No one opts to head for the hills.

Other plot holes include the invisible

The book leads off with a strong anti-capitalist vibe that suggests that capitalism causes slavery (or some sort of compulsory servitude). Capitalism is the single strongest motivator against slavery.

The book also features a bit of gender identitarian nonsense. It isn't enough to get in the way of the story, but it's still there.

If you like steam punk, acceptance of class-based structures, and a surfeit of tea, then this book is probably for you.

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Review: Mushroom Blues

Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review. I'm categorizing it as a plain "DNF" rather than a full on Dorothy Parker DNF.

This book came in second in SPFBOX. I read the winner. It was much better than this.

The premise of the book is that humans have conquered a world populated by mushroom people. They are just like humans except they have various fungi growing out of their skins including a huge mushroom on top of their heads. Everything is made of something fungal. They eat fungal foods. They build with fungal bricks and cables. They communicate partially via fungal spores. And the author reminds the reader of this fungal basis for life every other paragraph.

The book begins early on with heavy doses of racism, colonialism, and sexism. The subtext bleeds over the text pretty quickly. The native mushroom people exude a sort of language and culture that reads as "Asian" which as odd choice for people that would otherwise have no contact with an Earth Asian culture.

Within the book's narrative, there isn't any explicit reason for the humans to have conquered this planet. The impression given is that humans just love to conquer other places. There aren't any specific resources of interest nor any motivation due to expanding populations. The Terran presence on this planet is an excuse for humans to beat up on a native population...for fun?

The plot centers on a detective story. Our "hero" has a serious case of fungal-phobia and is assigned to solve the mystery of disappearing and murdered fungal children.

One feature of the story is that humans and mushroom people can make babies. How a species could evolve based on a fungal-centric biology that would be genetically compatible with humans is never explained. Do mushroom people have all the same sexual organs as human? If so, why when fungi reproduce via spores.

I made it 37% through the book before giving up. I might have lasted longer if I preferred detective stories. Belief is supposed to be suspended, not terminally broken.



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SPFBO Champions League

Now that SPFBO has completed 10 competitions, Mark Lawrence has started a "Champions League" where each of those winners will be ranked against one another.  The competition has concluded with the winners announced on Facebook and on Mark's blog.

I've read most of the winners, but not all.  With that in mind, here is how I would rank these champions.

I've segmented this into tiers as there are some books that far outshine the others.  And other books that...welllllll.  You get the point.  Links to my reviews are included where available.  Included in the comments is where the book ended up in the competition.

First Tier - Must Read
Book	Author	Dann's Rating	Brief Comments
	J. Zachary Pike	5 Stars	Solid mix of humor, old-school, hack-and-slash AD&D, economics, and the financial crash of 2008. Our hero is an adventurer in the old school D&D sense.  He assembles a team to go acquire treasure.  Along the way, he learns how his expedition gets monetized and how the adventuring system creates victims unjustly. [Came in second in the competition.  Great book, great series.]
	Jonathan French	5 Stars	A bunch of half-orcs are charged with defending civilization (read humans) from predation by full orcs.  This is a surface level "guys" book that includes an important subtext about questioning the accepted narrative.  A "must read" for any fantasy fan. [Came in 8th in the competition.  I'm not sure why.  I may have to read the judges reviews.]
	Morgan Stang	4 Stars	I should not like this book.  It combines a Cthulu-esque mythos, with a Sherlock Holmesian protagonist, with a steam punk vibe. But I love this book.  Our hero and her sidekick are engaging and entertaining.  The mystery takes time to resolve and kept me guessing.  Lots of dry British humo(u)r. Well worth the time to read. [Came in 7th in the competition.  Again, I'm baffled, but to each their own dentifrice.]
	M.L. Wang	5 Stars	The book is a tour-de-force of Asian inspired fantasy storytelling.  Our protagonist isn't supposed to be good with a sword.  Turns out she is great with a sword. Lots of culture/norms busting subtext included with a main story and characters that are engaging and thought provoking. [Came in 1st in the competition.  This is a worthy victor and well worth your time.]
Second Tier - Good Books, Solidly Entertaining
	Olivia Atwater	4 Stars	[I haven't formally reviewed the book.]  This is one of those "cozy" novels that have become popular lately.  Great characters.  The storyline is mostly OK and would be great were it not for the unforeseen resolution that smacks mightily of Deus ex machina, literally. It turns out that angels and demons really do live among us.  And sometimes they do miracles.   [Came in 4th in the competition.  It's a good book.  If you like "cozy" coupled with "don't think too much about it", then this is a great read.]
	Justin Lee Anderson	4 Stars	I'd almost put this book above "Small Miracles".  It was a well told story with engaging characters.  At the end of the book, there is a big reveal that causes you to reconsider all of the other actions in the book.  A real mind-bender. [Came in 5th in the competition and 6th on my list, so pretty close!!]
	J.L. Odom	4 Stars	While I enjoyed this book and wish the author, a fellow Marine, great success, it just left something out.  Mostly this is the first book of a series and it largely sets up the later books without really resolving any issues in the first book. [Came in 3rd in the competition.  There was a lot of great writing and worldbuilding in the book.  But it isn't a complete story.  And the fantasy elements were minimal.]
Have Never Read - I'm working on it.
	Michael McClung	--	I haven't read this, but I've heard lots of good things about it. [Came in 6th in the competition.]
	Rob J. Hayes	--	I haven't read this one either.  But the author is well known in the self-publishing and Grimdark communities. I'm reading this book right now.  Not the best first few chapters.  I thought this was going to be a DNF for a while.  It's picking up.  Unless it sticks the landing, it will end up in the Second Tier, above. [Came in 9th in the competition.]
Last Tier
	J.D. Evans	2 Stars [2.5 Stars]	This is a romance novel smeared with a layer of fantasy-ium.  Our protagonists smash for no good reason.  The magic and political intrigue is stated but never really shown.  There are the bones of a good story here that are occluded by "romantasy". [Came in 10th.  I agree!!]

Review: Orconomics

Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a 5-star review.

I rarely give out 5 star reviews. This book is something special.

[I failed to write a review when I read the book in 2019. So this will not be as detailed.]

The world of Orconomics is the world of old-school, hack-and-slash, raid dungeon for gold Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The only good version of AD&D, in my opinion.

The sub-text of the book is the story of Wall Street trading in stocks, derivatives, and other financial tools. There is, to my layman's eyes, a pretty solid critique in this book to the activities that led to the financial collapse of 2008.

Back to the story, our hero assembles a team of adventurers to go get the McGuffin. In the process of hacking and slashing their way to the McGuffin, they learn that the whole system is a bit of a Ponzi scheme that gets adventurers to rob nominally peaceful non-humans (i.e. orcs, etc.) in order to fulfill investment contracts.

There is a ton of humor in the story. The characters are highly relatable. The economics sub-text informs rather the story rather than surpassing it. This is a solid book that is worthy of your time.

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Review: By Blood, by Salt

By Blood, by Salt by J.L. Odom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review. Probably closer to 3.5 stars would be my experience.

Our hero is Azetla who is the member of a desert race/tribe that is oppressed by the dominant culture. He maintains fidelity to his religion via prayer and ritual. His habits risk his life as the Emperor hates his people and they can be killed almost anywhere for almost any reason. There are holiday celebrations where members of Azetla's tribe are ritually murdered to appease the dominant deities of the Empire.

By the start of the book, he has made himself valuable enough that he is second-in-command of a combat battalion of hardened troops.

The intrigue begins with the Emperor's cousin lending credence to a group plotting a coup. The cousin is lacks any real spine, but he has been talked into participating.

The one group that the Emperor hates more than Azetla's tribe are the devils that live in the deep desert. The Emperor's cousin finds himself "leading" the battalion on a mission into the desert to capture a devil. They do. The captain of the battalion is killed in the process and Azetla finds himself in command. That is the first third of the book.

The rest is imperial intrigue, the movement of the battalion to a remote city, and the maneuvering of Azetla to stay alive. The most "fantastic/fantasy" element is the devil who seems to be super fast, tough, and quite accurate with a bow. She is captured and held in bondage until Azetla is in need of her fighting ability.

He turns her loose. At that point, she could run away at almost any time. And yet she stays. Supposedly a captive, but held without bonds and without any person promise to not escape. It's kind of weird.

This tale is barely getting started by the end of the book. It is clear that the story will take at least another book or two to complete.

The world building is complex. The characters are engaging. The premise is promising. But I'm not sure it is enough for me to continue.

I bought the book because it won the SPFBO competition this year. I my experience, SPFBO winners are almost always great reads. This is a good read. Give it a chance as it might suit your tastes more than mine.

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Review: Murder at Spindle Manor

Murder at Spindle Manor by Morgan Stang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4-star review. Call it a weak 4.5-star review.

Murder at Spindle Manor is an entertaining melange of Agatha Christie, Lovecraft, and steam-punk seasoned with some bits of Monty Python-esque humor. Or "humour" as the whole thing has a decidedly late 19th-century British vibe.

This eclectic mixture of elements shouldn't work and yet it works almost perfectly. I don't read many murder mysteries as I find the big reveal less than satisfying. Perhaps that is something I bring to this experience.

Anyone who enjoys movies such as The Naked Gun or any Monty Python shows will find this delightful. The author has somehow managed to meld a pretentious, stuffed-shirt, murder mystery with the farcical version of the same tale.

This book won the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off in 2023. I have read most of the SPFBO winners and found them (with one exception) to be very rewarding experiences. Murder at Spindle Manor continues that trend.


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Review: Reign & Ruin

Reign & Ruin by J.D. Evans
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review. My experience would be closer to 2.5 stars.

This book won the SPFBO this year. I have read every winner since becoming aware of the competition. Those books have been uniformly fantastic...until now. The grammar and spelling were fine. The pacing was fine.

But I spent the first 15-20% of the book wondering if I was going to toss it across the floor in disgust.

The book is centered on a princess/sultana who is slated to marry whomever the powerbrokers want her to marry. Her father's memory and grasp on reality have fractured to the point where he really doesn't know what is going on. She is working to protect him and to protect her country from an aggressive nation to the north. Naturally, she disapproves of this marital arrangement and is working to get out of it. (as a reader, I sympathized with the Sultana) The Sultan's dementia is a result of employing his specific type of magic.

There are six magic houses. Each has a different skill (i.e. air, fire, water, etc.) and each has a different color. I had no real idea of how that worked after reading 15% of the book. There were some indications on some of the houses, but no real establishment of how magic works.

Why? Because in the first 15% of the book none of these supposedly powerful mages does a lick of meaningful magic. We are told they are powerful (mostly by the Sultana who is the focus of the book) but there is no evidence of that power in their actions.

The author does not understand the principle of "show don't tell".

That is the primary flaw with this book. We are told there are powerful mages. We rarely see that power in evidence. We are told that there are some nefarious characters but rarely see them behaving in a nefarious manner. We are told there is a threat from the neighboring country to the north and they never show up in the book.

The Sultana ends up falling in love with a prince from the country to the west. The two nations used to be one nation hundreds of years ago but were split apart. The prince arrives on a diplomatic mission that is part of the Sultana's machinations to avoid a forced marriage.

The two fall in love. Why? She is pretty and he is handsome. They don't actually do much of anything to justify each other's love. We are told they are pretty and that's that.

Then there are the obligatory sex scenes that do nothing to advance the larger narratives of the various storylines.

The last few chapters were predictable. Very little of the consequences in the story are actually earned.

While I usually am enthusiastic about continuing a series that begins with a SPFBO winning book, I have no interest in continuing this series. If not for winning SPFBO, this book would have received the Dorothy Parker treatment after reading 15% of the book.

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Review: The Forever King

The Forever King by Ben Galley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That is an accurate estimate of my experience with this book.

The writing and general story structure were pretty good. However, the book had two significant flaws that were hard to overlook.

- there really wasn't much effort put into creating an emotional connection with any of the characters. The protagonists get victimized early on in the book with only a middling amount of character development to form the basis for an emotional connection.

- there is an inconsistent representation of power. On a related note, the balance of power is also inconsistent.

The magic users have lots of power, but they still work with ordinary fighters. Towards the end of the book, the fighters seem to be largely irrelevant to the ongoing fight while the magic users do all the heavy lifting. Equally, the protagonists have dragons that are quite powerful. There really doesn't seem to be that much of a need for normal infantry.

The first half of the book was really good, but the back half was a bit of a chore to finish. I don't have any plans to continue this series.

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Book Review - The Lost War

The Lost War by Justin Lee Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was the winner of the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off for 2020-2021. I always read the winner of that contest and have never been disappointed.

This book was engrossing. I read far too late into the evenings.

I'm giving it 4 stars because for the first 75% of the book, it was a pretty traditional fantasy book. A hero that is saving his country. Everyone is on edge from a recently concluded war.

Go here. Do the thing. Go there. Encounter bad stuff on the way. Get there. Discover something new. Break the king's orders. Go other places. Get the thing. Face the evil villain.

And then the book changes. The hero finds that they weren't really fighting for the right side. And the book really takes off from there.

Not getting more specific because this book is worth every penny you will pay. A very satisfying read.

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Review: The Sword of Kaigen

The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This story takes place in a decidedly Asian setting. Character names frequently evoke a Japanese culture.

The story centers around an influential family that runs part of an empire. Their clan, the Matsura, has long been known for their fighting prowess. However, they are also quite provincial; preferring to stay close to their mountain and quietly run things.

Young Mamoru is trying to be worthy of his family's reputation by learning their fighting style. His mother, Misaki, had gone away to school at a modern university where she learned to fight. Women were not considered worthy to fight among the Matsura clan. His father is aloof and emotionally remote. Living his life in fulfillment of the role he plays rather than in the enjoyment of his family.

Eventually, conflict comes to their mountain and all of the Matsura must fight. When the battle is won by the narrowest of margins, the Empire comes to wipe away any evidence of the battle. Families are denied the right to mourn as their tradition dictates.

What changes await the Matsura clan at the end of this conflict? Who lives? Who dies? And who learns something new about themselves as well as those around them?

This book offers a number of contrasts; rural vs. urban, men vs. women, old vs. young, individual achievement vs. government policies, tradition vs. change. Just as in real life, there are no easy answers with simple solutions.

This book is a tour de force piece of fantasy fiction. It was the 2020 winner of the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off and establishes M.L. Wang as a force to be reckoned with in genre literature. Miss this book at your own peril.

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