W. Swardstrom

Great and intriguing stories

Revisado: 04-24-25 El oyente recibió este título gratis

A few weeks back, I was lurking around on Reddit and found myself on the audiobook subreddit. Now, I do love me some Dungeon Crawler Carl, but Reddit is obsessed with the book, especially on the audiobook threads. Post after post about Carl and/or Donut, but then I saw someone talking about Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Two. I’ll be honest and say my expectations were not super high for the collection of 22 sci-fi and fantasy tales.

But my expectations were met and exceeded -- Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Two was a treat and has more than a few hidden gems littered throughout. Editor Dustin Bilyk put together a fine collection that is worth your time. Now, before I go on, I need to note the narrator for the genre anthology, Kevin E. Green, really brought the stories to life, providing great variation to his tones and inflections, had a fantastic range of voices and accents, and really made the experience of 22 vastly different stories a joy to listen to.

I have not read the first volume of the Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy series, but I don’t need to and neither will you. The stories stand alone and in fact, many of the authors are different in one volume to the next (and there is a third volume out there as well -- I’m hoping to get my hands on both in the next few months). I really love a good short story collection. I wrote many stories myself years back for the Future Chronicles sci-fi anthologies and find them to be a nice change-of-pace to the reading of massive tomes from authors like Sanderson, Abercrombie, and the like. But, as I've come to realize over the years, a good short story collection has so many things that can go wrong. One bad story can really derail a good book. The book needs an editor (in this case that’s Dustin Bilyk) with a keen eye and the ability to know what works and what doesn’t for the collection.

In this case, there is no set theme, so there is a wide variety of stories about dragons, time travel, fae, underground dystopian societies, and more. And honestly? I dug it. I had no idea what the next story was so the whiplash of going from a tragic human/robot romance to a humorous fantasy quest from one story to the next was part of the fun.

Now, when I review anthologies, I like to pick a small handful of stories to highlight, so here are my faves from Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Two.

From Days Immemorial by Gustavo Bondoni
There is a lovely twist to this short tale, so I don’t want to give too much away, but the story starts with a man on a quest for revenge. He wakes with visions of fighting a dragon and knows the visions are of his future since he has never before fought a dragon. In the end, he achieves victory, but at what cost?

A Coward on a Quest by Sam Muller
This isn’t an original story to this collection, but it’s still super fun. We’re seen twists on the familiar Disney princess stories over the past few decades and this one has familiar tones to it as Fairy Medhavin is visited by a prince that she cursed as a baby years before. He is on a quest and his curse is hindering his path. But you might think he was there to reverse the curse, but instead the story turns out much different in a new and fun way.

Homecoming by William Schwarz
I was thinking about this one for a while after I read it. It’s an interesting story about power and martyrdom and who we put our faith in. The ending was great and creepy in a memorable way and made me think about some current events that definitely could be analogous to the small settlement Schwarz wrote about here.

And while that’s just three, I really struggled with that top three…I think there are another half-dozen that might be #4 for me at any given moment. I honestly had a great time and only a few stories didn’t strike my fancy, but even then the low points of the collection were shallow divots as opposed to deep canyons that you might find in other short fiction collections.

I’d definitely recommend Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Volume Two for your reading and particularly your listening pleasure.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Cinematic and Epic

Revisado: 02-24-20

Wow. So...I said the word "Cinematic" in the title of this review. While I can see the play out on the Big Screen, that isn't *quite* what I meant by using that word.
What I meant was...this book is like "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds" crossed with "The Prince and the Pauper" with a dash of "All The President's Men," "Night of the Living Dead," "The Departed," and "Three Days of the Condor."
OK...I get that seeing all that might make this book seem manic and scattershot, but it's far from it. What Bruno and Castle do here is remarkable...setting a book in an alternate history 1960's where the arrival of an alien species coincides with the Russians sending Yuri Gagrin to space in the height of the Cold War. What happens from there was a great read made only better by one of the best narrators in the business - Ray Porter.
I bet this book was a hoot to write...taking actual historical figures like JFK, J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon, Nikita Khrushchev, and Neil Armstrong and putting them in dramatically different circumstances yet finding fun historical Easter Eggs along the way.
I thought "The Luna Missile Crisis" was a riotous good time and I can't wait to see what these guys have up their sleeves for their next alt-history installment.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 13 personas

DOOOOOOOM SLUUUUUUUG!!!

Revisado: 02-19-20

I can't wait until Book 3 is released...and from Brandon's upcoming schedule I can see it will be a little while, so I guess I'll just have to re-read Skyward and Starsight a few times until then.
I LOVE Sanderson's fantasy (Mistborn and Stormlight), but his youth sci-fi is really great as well between these books and the Reckoners series. I know Brandon doesn't put something into the story if he doesn't intend to use it, but I thought Doom Slug was doomed to be an extra character without any use. Boy was I wrong...and I'm glad for it.
Listen to this book. It's fantastic.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Good Beginnings

Revisado: 12-13-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

James Eggebeen's Foundling Wizard is a fun start to a series reminiscent of other fantasy works by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson or Terry Goodkind. I enjoyed the book a lot and I look forward to listening to other installments, especially if Joe Hempel will be providing the voice work on them. By far, I found that Joe made up for a few of the shortcomings in the novel.

I did enjoy the story of Lorit and his journey towards becoming a full-fledged wizard with awesome powers. However, the author could have fleshed out a lot more backstory and world-building and this could have been an amazing story. The bones are all there and they're fantastic, but at times the details are left to the audience's imagination. We have a fairly good sense of who Lorit is and where his story began, but there is a bit of a lack when it comes to any secondary characters and their motivations as the book moves along.

But perhaps some of my concerns and questions are addressed in future books, so I'll look forward to the continuing journey of these young wizards as they find their place in this world. I think Eggebeen has a good sense for what makes a good epic fantasy story and I will be checking out more of his works.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

A Good Continuation of Hall's story

Revisado: 12-11-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

At the end of the first book in the Sky Realms Online universe, Troy Osgood was setting up Hall to the be the new leader of a town, so when this story set off in a completely new direction with a story away from his new home, I was intrigued. Ultimately, I thought Osgood got a little bogged down with a story in places, but I still loved Silverpeak and the directions that he's taking these characters.
I can see Osgood stretching the characters' and their POV's a little here with a few moments throughout straying away from Hall's first-person, and I really think that's going to be necessary as he expands these stories. There is still a lot of backstory for each member of the party that we can be clued into and now that it appears there is a larger story at play, I'm really fascinated by where Osgood goes next with this series.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Really great start to a new series

Revisado: 12-11-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I got a copy of Troy Osgood's Grayhold book, not really sure what to expect. I've read a few LitRPG books the past couple of years and ultimately I wasn't that thrilled with most of them. After listening to Pavi Proczko narrate the world of Sky Realms Online, I'm down for whatever Osgood has up his sleeve for this universe.
I was a huge fan of Sword Art Online as an anime series and this mirrored that a lot in how the player gets stuck in this world, but from there the stories diverge. This seems a little more grounded than SAO, all while adding that fantasy element of a great RPG game. I loved this book and eagerly checked back time and time again for when Osgood would put out the second book in the series.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great Performance for a Fun Book

Revisado: 05-01-18

Would you consider the audio edition of Hush to be better than the print version?

While I haven't read the print version, there were definitely things in Hush that made it a fantastic audio book, from Jake's narration to a few bits here and there that I just imagine would work better in audio than print.

What other book might you compare Hush to and why?

I haven't done a lot of fantasy, but there are some reminders of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive in there.

What about Jake Urry’s performance did you like?

I really appreciated his performance and how he tried to give each character their own personality, not just a different inflection but a true personality.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

To be fair, I think it worked for me a bit better listening to it a couple hours here and a couple there. Once I started, I wanted to finish, but I liked how I read it.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña