Tag: Tom Lloyd

God of Night (God Fragments #4) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 16 Comments


This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Librarything & Bookype by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: God of Night
Series: God Fragments #4
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 421
Words: 145.5K



Synopsis:

When the Cards released the seals on Magic, not only did more magic enter the world, thus stirring up all the creatures that used and fed on magic, and not only did it make mages more powerful, but it also had the side effect of making the god fragments even more powerful. One of the Militant Orders has figured out that if they can bring enough god fragments of their particular deity together, it might just resurrect it. And with a resurrected god on their side, they’ll rule the Riven Kingdoms as undisputed masters.

Does anyone think the Cards are just going to sit back and let this happen? Of course not. When they discover that one of their mages of Tempest has the ability to destroy god fragments merely by touching them, they hatch a plan, a daring plan to capture as many of the god fragments as possible and destroy them. Doesn’t matter that most god fragments are housed in the Militant Orders most secure locations, nothing is going to stop the Cards.

Using double and triple dealing, backstabbing, betrayals and general kick assery, the Cards manage to destroy the majority of fragments from 3 of the 4 Orders. The last Order is the most powerful however, and it’s cache of fragments is located in a duegar stronghold underground and is currently being overrun by magical underground creatures.

Once they’ve gotten into the Stronghold, the Cards find out that the gods were using a chained creature of magic to siphon power from. Now that the gods fragments are being destroyed and the magic has been released back into the world, this elder god is awakening. The Cards must therefore defeat the final god fragments, which are reassembling into its god AND defeat a creature so powerful that it made gods from mere duegar hundreds of millennia ago.

Tons of people die, the Cards succeed and Lynx is elected the new leader of the Cards because Anatol was one of the people killed. There are still god fragments in the world and the warlord of his people is still alive, so Lynx figures their new mission will be to invade So-Han and kill the warlord. Thus the book and the series ends.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this but by the end, with some realizations, was glad this was the end of the series.

The fights were awesome. Realizing what the Militant Orders were up to was even awesomer. Finding out there was an elder god involved and that the Cards were going to kill it was the awesomest of all! The final massive battle in the Duegar ruins between the Cards, the remaining Militant Order personnel, the magic monsters and the elder god was everything I could have asked for. Magic galore, flintlock fantasy bullets and grenades by the metric ton and a monster so huge and gruesome that it made the monster from the first book look like a teddy bear? How could I not like everything about that? Even the ending was good. Lots of the Cards die. Important Cards die, like Anatole. Lynx becoming the new Master of the Deck slotted in perfectly with the series.

Unfortunately, and this is ALL me, was that I was used to the god fragment bullets and the grenades and bombs, etc. They didn’t have the same impact on my as they did in the first book. I also realized, after finishing reading, that Lloyd had worked in some homosexual characters without playing it on a trumpet. I suspect if I were to go back and re-read the other books, I’d be finding more understated circumstances like this. Hence why I’ll be done with Lloyd from here on out.

In regards to the series overall, I really enjoyed my time reading each book and short story and thought it was about 100 times better than Lloyd’s Twilight Reign series. I’d recommend this wholeheartedly if mercenaries using dead god bodies to power their flintlock guns sounds like your kind of thing.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Currently Reading & Quote: God of Night

~ Bookstooge ~ 13 Comments

‘Don’t expect a lot of sense from those shitweasels. Why do you think we’re on your side? Fucking Charnelers are crazy. If your lot have any snipers, have at ’em. Otherwise, this is the good bit.’

‘Good?’ the young soldier echoed.

‘Better’n the killing,’ Lynx asserted. ‘Screams, blood, shit and terror. Don’t you worry though. We’ve got the high ground, siege weapons and a whole bloody mage sanctuary to resupply us. The bad bits are mostly reserved for them that’s outside the walls.’

The armies stared at each other in silence. It was some subtle strategy to unnerve the defenders, Lynx guessed. Unfortunately, the Cards were too hungover to spell disquieted, let alone feel it without a long run-up and coffee.

Ahhh, that’s the Lynx I’ve learned to love in this series! It feels good to be back reading this final volume.

Unfortunately, that cover isn’t living up to previous ones and I’m feeling cheated. If I was one of the mercenary Cards, I’d probably go kill someone over it. Good thing ol’ Tommy boy is 3000 miles away.

The Dusk Watchman (Twilight Reign #5) ★★☆☆½

~ Bookstooge ~ 6 Comments

duskwatchman (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Dusk Watchman
Series: Twilight Reign #5
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 853
Words: 232K

 

Synopsis:

In the previous book Isak, using the power of the crystal skulls, forced the gods to remove the name of the Menin General from the world. This had the affect of cutting the heart out of the Menin army and allowing the Farlan and King Emin to survive to fight another day against Ruhen, aka Azeur the Shadow.

Azeur continues to collect more crystal skulls, as do Isak and Co. It is also revealed that Azeur has the Sword of Life and that he has some sort of plan for becoming the god of gods. It is up to Isak and Co to stop him.

Isak sets out on a quest to recover the Sword of Death, to counter Azeur’s Sword of Life. At the same time Emin raises the last army in the lands to go against Azeur and stop whatever ceremony he has planned. Unbeknowst to them all, Azeur has had this all planned out from the beginning and the recovery of the Death sword and the massive death toll that a battle will entail is exactly what he wants.

After several betrayals by supposed Allies everything culminates as Azeur tries to go from being just a shadow to a god of gods. Isak has realized his weakness, as a shadow, and uses that against him. Isak sacrifices his own life and binds Azeur to one of Isak’s allies, who dies. The ceremony goes through and makes Azeur the most powerful being, but since he is still a shadow attached to a human, it is more of a symbiotic relationship. This tempers Azeur’s control over the gods and allows the land to heal.

 

My Thoughts:

I wasn’t really paying attention when I started this book, so I couldn’t remember if it was the final book or if there was one more after it and I was too lazy to go look it up. (for the record, it is the final book) Part way through though I decided that if there was one more book that I wouldn’t bother reading it. I was bored and plot was overly convoluted and not particularly well executed.

That might very well apply to this whole series and it took me until this book to come to grips with it. This book wasn’t worse than the previous, even though my rating plunged. It was the accumulated burden of it all crashing down on my shoulders.

Boring and convoluted are the best descriptions I can come up with. Lloyd doesn’t write well enough to convey clearly what he is intending, or well enough that when he does reveal something that you realize what it is that he has revealed. I have to admit that I’m still very confused about the ending and how what Isak and Mihn (the guy who gets bonded to Azeur) did accomplished what the author said it did in the epilogue. Plus, Mihn was supposed to have died earlier in the book. How did he survive and get to where Isak and Azeur were? It was just a lot of little dots that were missing between the big dots that left me confused on how to connect them all.

After finishing this series, I wouldn’t recommend taking the time to read it. At over 3K pages and 1.1million words, the pay off just isn’t worth it. There are too many head scratching moments and poorly constructed sentences that left me going “huh?” to tell others to read this.

On the other hand, I do recommend the God Fragments series by Lloyd. Smaller in size, scope and characters, it is tighter writing and what THIS series should have had done to it. There are still awkward sentences but Lloyd seems to be getting over that, thankfully.

★★☆☆½

 

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Knight of Stars (God Fragments #3) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 8 Comments

knightofstars (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Knight of Stars
Series: God Fragments #3
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 472
Words: 128K

 

Synopsis:

The Cards have taken a small, easy job for Toil. All they have to do is bust into a small headquarters which owes a banking consortium some money and hold the place until the banking soldiers can establish control. It is easy as predicted and now everyone can relax in a city made up of islands. Of course, it is also Teshen’s old stomping grounds (he’s the titular Knight of Stars) and back in the day he was a big to do. He was exiled after a failed coup and him coming back is not something people want.

The islands are also home to the lands most powerful mages, which gives the islands their name, Mage Island (how original huh?). Toil wants to find a source of god fragment bullets as the stunts that were pulled in the previous book means that the main source of god fragments won’t be supplying her city. To accomplish this she dangles the marked Cards (those who all got a leaf mark from the magical tree construct) in front of the mages. She also takes up a contract with another mage to have her Marked Cards work on a duegar artifact.

The magical tree artifact from the previous book turned out to be a plug that the duegar used to seal a lot of magic out of the world. With the Cards having activated it, more magic is now available in the world. Do they learn their lesson though? Of course not. They proceed on their merry way and get a bunch of the lesser mages marked and powered up with this new artifact and release even MORE magic. Which has a lot of unintended consequnces. Like stirring up a double handful of the monsters that eat magic from the first book.

After a humongous battle in which they wipe out the monsters but the island is pretty much wiped out too, the Cards are forced to leave the Island as the inhabitants all want to kill them. They take several of the marked mages to be new Cards and return to Toil’s home city.

 

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not as much as the first book but I think that one, with Lynx as the main character, is simply going to be the high point of the series. I saw on devilreads that Lloyd stated there will be one more book in this series. I’m good with that too. Sometimes a series needs to just tell one story and then be done. I’m glad Lloyd has chosen that route instead of dragging this out forever, even if I am sad that he’s not going to be writing more about Lynx.

Each of the books’ titles has referred to one specific character within the Cards. First we had Lynx, then Toil and now Teshen. Sadly, neither of the latter hold a candle to Lynx. I’m glad that Toil and Lynx have hooked up simply because it means we get to hear more about Lynx than if he was just one of the main named characters.

I liked that the setting was very different from the previous 2 books. Both of those dealt with Duegar underground areas, while this was out in broad daylight on some tropical like islands. Of course, that doesn’t stop the monsters from being totally bad-ass and destroying everything they can. Lloyd can write some seriously awesome monster fight scenes. The Cards are as Black Company-lite as ever and come across as drunk, curmudgeonly and greedy, just like they are. It is fun to be honest.

The reason this gets 4 stars and not 4.5 or 5 is because Lloyd flirts with the idea of same-sex relationships without actually inserting it into the story. That is part of why I’m glad he’s ending this when he is. I’m a touch concerned that he’ll cross the line and I’ll have to stop reading him. This way I can finish the series and he can do whatever the frell he wants to in other stories and both of us, one as writer and one as reader, are happy.

★★★★☆

 

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The Ragged Man (Twilight Reign #4) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 22 Comments

raggedman (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Ragged Man
Series: Twilight Reign #4
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 612
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

At the end of the previous book Isak killed the son of Lord Styrax, the most powerful man in the world. In his rage, Styrax did not just kill Isak, but sent him directly to Ghenna (hell) to be tortured forever. Isak had dreamed about this scenario and he and his friend Mihn, the failed Harlequin, had set in motion a plan. Mihn had covered himself in magical tattoos of invisibility to both physical and spiritual entities. With the help of a witch, Mihn travels to Ghenna and recovers Isak. Upon their return though, Isak is a thoroughly broken man and it is up to Mihn to nurse him back to some normalcy.

Styrax is a broken man by the death of his son and heir and it takes the child Azeur to snap him out of his funk and to begin leading his Menin army again. Azeur posits a passive coalition with Styrax without revealing it’s actual goal and Styrax agrees. Styrax forces a non-aggression pact with the Farlan since Lord Isak is dead and half their army destroyed. They accept since if they refuse they’ll face civil war. This allows Styrax to concentrate on the one man who might be able to stop him, King Emin.

Azeur has set in motion its plans for the Harlequin nation and has recruited them to act as preachers and messengers for it. They begin by slightly changing their stories to make the gods appear more buffoonish or tyrannical or any extreme than originally intended. The Harlequins also begin preaching about a child savior that will lead the entire land without any interference from the gods. King Emin sees the danger of this and hires men and women to kill these preachers. Many Harlequins are killed but almost nobody understands what is going on, as Harlequins have always been neutral parties before this.

Styrax and his army marches on the kingdom of Narkang and begins razing it to the ground. Isak and Emin concoct a plan, one throw of the dice, where all will be won or lost. Emin confronts Styrax and his army at a castle and a huge battle ensues. Isak catches Styrax in a trap because he doesn’t try to kill him. Isak forces the gods to help him and they strip all memories of Styrax from the land and take Styrax’s identity from him. Styrax is now the Ragged Man, a legend of a man who lost his soul and now kills in the shadows to try to get it back. The Menin army falls apart without any memory of Styrax but Emin and the kingdom of Narkang have paid for this victory in more blood than they can truly afford.

Azeur can begin its plans in earnest now that Styrax isn’t around to keep it in check.

 

My Thoughts:

You know, I’ve said it before, but I am watching Lloyd’s writing skill increase right before my eyes with this series. The first 2 books were pretty rough but now, things are flowing smoothly. His skill in handling multiple points of view no longer leaves me stumbling about and the awkwardness from before is almost gone. It’s not perfect, but it is noticeably different. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever noticed such a skill increase from an author before? Maybe I never started with one that was so amateurish though. But whatever, this was good!

Mihn’s journey to hell and back was a bit slow and not very action oriented. It had me worried that the entire book was going to be like that. Thankfully, once the main story switched back to Styrax and King Emin, things got moving. The battle at the end of the book was massive. It was enjoyable. It was everything I wanted from a big epic fantasy book.

While I had serious reservations about recommending this series based on the previous books, I’d now recommend this series as long as you’re willing to deal with Lloyd’s lack of skill in the first couple of books. I realize that is a back-handed compliment, but it’s the truth. But even with that, I’d still recommend starting with Lloyd’s God Fragments series. It starts off, skill-wise, where Twilight Reign ends.

★★★★☆

 

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Grave Thief (Twilight Reign #3) ★★★☆½

~ Bookstooge ~ 6 Comments

gravethief (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Grave Thief
Series: Twilight Reign #3
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 548
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

With the fall of Scree, the gods have been enraged at what the Shadow has done. Unfortunately, all this has accomplished is to make the priest of various gods more warlike and to incite them against their own citizenry. This in turn places a huge strain on the Kingdoms that are trying to oppose Styrax and his Menin, who are taking city after city.

Styrax’s goal is to take all of the crystal skulls and to become a god himself. He is studying a puzzle at one of the conquered cities and unearth’s another skull. He also happens to set free its guardian, a very big and very cranky dragon.

While this has been going on, Isak has been trying to keep his kingdom from tearing itself apart. The priests are out of control and have hired their own mercenaries to act as their law. Eventually Isak declares a Crusade against Styrax and his godless Menin. This accomplishes getting all the nutjob priests out of the way and allows Isak to oppose Styrax and hopefully slow him down before he reaches Farlan.

At the same time, Azeur the Shadow has been born in human flesh. He attaches himself to a duchess of one of the soon to be conquered cities so as to remain under the radar from King Emin and Isak. He sets priest and citizen against the other so that at the right time they will look to him as a savior. He is growing at a rate of years in months time and at the time Styrax takes his city is about 5 years old.

Some of the gods, the lower hierarchy, realize that this time is an opportunity for them to rise. As such, they begin bonding with mortal humans and creating a new level of human power structure. Duke Vesna, one of Isak’s closest allies, is one such human. How it all plays out and what the final cost will be is yet to be seen.

The book ends with a battle between Farlan and Menin. Isak knows he can’t best Styrax so he follows a plan (that is unknown to us the readers) hatched by his Secretary of Everything. Isak kills a huge amount of the Menin with magic and then kills Styrax’s only son. Styrax kills Isak and sends him to hell using the power of his crystal skulls.

 

My Thoughts:

Much better. Now that I’m not floundering around trying to get adjusted to Isak as a character, I could concentrate a bit more on Azeur and Styrax. Of course, with Lloyd killing Isak right at the end, I’m not sure WHAT the next 2 books hold. I highly doubt Isak is “really” dead though. If he is, then I’ll be wicked pissed off in the later books.

I still have issues with Lloyd starting a chapter and not naming the character we follow until several pages in. It is annoying. Plus the character point of view shifts with only an extra line break still gets me. I’m getting better at picking up on those though, even if only subconsciously. I guess Lloyd is training all his readers to be his own personal cadre of Manchurian Candidates.

I didn’t like that some of the characters we’d really been invested in in previous books, King Emin, etc, were sidelined. I almost feel like I need to re-read the first 2 books just to place the new’ish characters like Styrax and his son into better context. I know I read about them in earlier books with all of my attention on the main character, what they did has slid right out of my mind. I think that comes down to the author not handling multiple characters and locations as well as he needs to.

There were also a couple of places where the words that were written weren’t the words meant. I can’t bring any specifics to mind but it is the kind of thing that needs a copy editor to look over and find.

On the positive side, what I am reading is reminding me and more of what I read, and liked, in the God Fragments series. The similarities in authorial voice are much more noticeable. Whereas the first book of this Twilight Reign series had me scratching my head over the fact that the same author wrote them, now I can see it. And I’m liking what I’m seeing.

★★★☆½

 

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Twilight Herald (Twilight Reign #2) ★★★☆☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 12 Comments

twilightherald (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Twilight Herald
Series: Twilight Reign #2
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 564
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Some city is a convergence point. Fell powers are gathering, whether crystal skulls or beings of power. It is all being orchestrated by some non-god, non-demon entity who hates the gods and wants to show mankind how powerless the gods are. It does this by enspelling an entire city to go mad and to kill as many people as possible.

Lord Isaak is there to gather up a spare crystal skull, or two, if he can manage it. Various characters from the previous book are also there on different pretexts, but it all comes down to everyone being manipulated by this being.

Where Lord Isaak was supposed to be the Savior of Prophecy but isn’t due to him breaking the chains of Fate in the first book, a new white eye is claiming the title. The same white eye that killed Lord Baal, Isaak’s mentor.

All the main characters survive the city’s destruction but alliances aren’t as strong and it looks like the New Savior is a protege of this Entity, the Shadow.

 

My Thoughts:

Enjoyed this but still had some serious issues.

The style choice for paragraphs. In a chapter there might be several changes between characters or location and this change is only shown as a new paragraph. The problem is that it is exactly the same paragraph style as when you stay with one character and you have multiple paragraphs. It is very disconcerting to be reading along and then realize that you’ve changed character, time or place with NO warning. There are multiple ways to accomplish, most of them quite easy, so I’m guessing Lloyd didn’t read his own book after he wrote it.

My other main issue is how big, epic AND mysterious this is trying to be. A lot of things are thrown at the reader with no explanation and where this worked for me in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series (due to excellent writing and just enough hints to keep you from falling on your face) here it feels like the author has just left crucial information out of the readers grasp. I was really struggling to figure out just what was going on. It doesn’t help that half the time I’m re-reading a paragraph or two to readjust my thinking about WHO I’m reading about now.

What I did enjoy about this book? Let me tell you.

A whole city going mad due to a malevolent spelled carved into the walls of a theatre and in the flesh of the playwright. Near the end Isaak ends up calling 5 aspects of Death to protect him and his allies and ends up having to face down several of the Aspects. The whole idea of a shadow entity working against EVERYONE for goals only it knows. A white eye that can kill legendary vampires and not blink twice about it.

This time attention is scattered around more and I wish things had focused more on Isaak. He’s definitely growing on me as a character and I’d like to see some real character growth, as he’s at the age where that happens quickly and shows quickly as well.

★★★☆☆

 

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Stormcaller (Twilight Reign #1) ★★☆☆½

~ Bookstooge ~ 12 Comments

stormcaller (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Stormcaller
Series: Twilight Reign #1
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 516
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Isak is a white-eye, a special sort of human that tends to be bigger, faster, stronger, longer lived and more angry. White eyes are something either the gods created or magicians and are now simply part of life. Isak’s father blames him for his birthing killing his mother. Isak has been taken under wing by a retired “Ghost” soldier who has taken up the gypsy life and trained as much as a young man can be.

When the gypsy train is confronted by a high ranking White Eye, who claims to have come from the lord of the land, Lord Bahl, Isak refuses the summons but the gypsy train as a whole begins making their way to the Capital. Once they reach the city the men of the train work themselves into a drunken stupor and try to kill Isak for bringing them all to Lord Bahl’s attention. Isak makes it to the palace and is given refuge. Turns out he is supposed to be Lord Bahl’s heir. He is trained by a swordsmaster, given a magical suit of armor and a magic sword (from the elf warrior who started the revolt against the gods thousands of years ago and killed a bunch of them) and finds out that he might be the focus of a prophecy predicting the rise of the Elves, the fall of humanity and yet another round of god-slayings.

While Lord Bahl and Isak get along, they are both powerful white eyes and Lord Bahl sends Isak to a neighboring kingdom to learn as much diplomacy as is possible. Isak is beginning to surround himself with his own group of people so when the time comes for Lord Bahl to die, he can step in and rule the Land, with all the blessings of their god.

Mischief is afoot though and the neighboring kingdom is at the focus of several plots by powerful factions, all of whom want to control the Prophesied One. A coup is planned and while the king knows of the coup, he is counting on Isak and his soldiers’ help in overcoming it. Isak sees Lord Bahl cut down by a mysterious figure in black armor in a vision during the battle. He then gets the blessing of the storm god and uses that power to smash those attempting the coup.

He meets up with some rebel Knight Templars who believe the prophesied one is to be their ultimate leader. They present Isak with two Crystal Skulls, which are artifacts of great power that can kill even the gods. It turns out to be a trap and Isak must face down the mysterious knight in black, who is the original elf warrior. Isak defeats him and now that prophecy has been turned aside, decide where to go next.

 

My Thoughts:

First, I did enjoy this. This review probably won’t reflect that and neither does the rating, but there is reason for that. I am very glad that I started reading Lloyd’s work with his God Fragments before this. Those were well written adventure stories with fleshed out characters and well crafted writing.

This book, and I’m guessing the series, is a very much a first attempt. Too many instances of things being described that don’t advance the story and just bloat up the word count. I could tell the author was trying to flesh out characters or situations but it wasn’t done right and just made things feel long. Transitions between scenes was horrible. A double line break was all we got, within chapters. I don’t know how many times I had mental whiplash trying to get my head around that we were now on a boat where as in the last paragraph the whole group was riding horses and would be days into some vast plain.

There were a lot of names thrown about. Honestly, outside of the group of 4-5 people that Isak began surrounding himself with, I found it overwhelming. Especially so as I never knew until much later if this character was going to stick around or be central to the story or was just a one-off. The author tells a LOT of history and sadly, it is handled roughly and confusingly.

I don’t know if it was just the edition I had (I’m reading the omnibus edition ebook offered through Amazon) but near the beginning of the story there were at least 5 instances of a word missing and “[MISSING]”, all in caps just like that, inserted in its place. It felt like I was reading a scanned copy of a paperback version that had been OCR”d and then not hand checked.

With all of that being said, I did enjoy the book. The author can write great fight scenes and that makes up for a lot. I also like the core idea of the story and want to see where it all leads. Having read his God Fragments series, I know he doesn’t stay at this level of ability. I’d like to see if I can watch progress through the series.

If you want to check out Tom Lloyd, start with his God Fragments books. If you like those, then come back to check out these earlier works. Don’t start with these as they’re not representative of what he is capable of as a writer.

★★☆☆½

 

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The Man with One Name (The God Fragments 2.5) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 11 Comments

manwithonename (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Man with One Name
Series: The God Fragments 2.5
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 68
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Lynx is wandering and comes into a small town. He accidentally kills an employee of the local warlord. He is then made Reeve by an enterprising old woman and has to survive the wrath of Therien, the man he has bucked.

After killing half of Therien’s crew, Lynx proposes a duel of mage pistols at dawn and Therien agrees, knowing that if he kills Lynx, he will then be the legitimate authority in the town. Lynx simply snipes him and heads out of town.

 

My Thoughts:

This was a story of Lynx before he joined up with the Cards. Honestly, I was expecting a prequel novella to book 3, much like Honour Under Moonlight leads up to Princess of Blood. Seeing what Lynx dealt with as an ex-Hanese soldier wandering around was enlightening and it definitely made him a slighter fuller figure (ha, yes, that is a pun on him being fat).

Knowing Lynx from the previous books and novella, I suspected that the ending would go the way it did. Lynx is pragmatic until it runs counter to his set of morals. Sniping a warlord who had used his underlings to try to kill him presented no moral qualms for Lynx.

★★★★☆

 

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Princess of Blood (The God Fragments #2) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 25 Comments

princess of blood (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Princess of Blood
Series: The God Fragments #2
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 545
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

The Cards head to another independent city state ostensibly as bodyguards for the Ambassador, but with Toil telling them to “be prepared”.

Some fool scholar has opened a mystery in the city of Jarrazir that leads down into a duegar maze of mythic proportions. Legends hint of a stash of god fragments, but that is odd as the duegar pre-date the fall of the gods.

Sotorian Bade, working for the Knight Charnel in his role as relic hunter, leads a force of knights underground to recover the fragments. General Faril is leading a very visible attack against the city to distract everyone from Bade.

But Toil isn’t distracted. She has a vendetta against Bade since he left her to die in the Underdark all those years ago. With the very reluctant blessing of the Nobility of Jarrazir, Toil and some of the Cards head underground, along with the surviving student of the aforementioned fool scholar. Now in a race with Bade, both groups will be tested to the utmost in all areas: magic, brains and brawn.

Bade successfully carries off the god fragments but Toil realizes there is a greater treasure and the 7 survivors are imbued with some sort of magic that ties them together. Once upon the surface, they must work together, with the remaining Cards and other mercenary groups to throw back the Knights Charnel. This they successfully do.

Now Anatim must figure out just what his Cards are becoming and if it’s something he still wants to be in charge of.

 

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this as much as the first book. On the plus, there were no “slow” times like I experienced previously. On the minus side, Lloyd goes into perverse immorality here. Sadly, I am letting my enjoyment dictate the outcome instead of dnf’ing this like I’ve done other books with such content. I’m sure it will happen again so I’m already preparing myself for stopping this series at the next such instance.

Lloyd likes to write a lot of setup. While the Maze opens in the first pages, neither the Cards or Bade actually go underground until after the 50% mark. It worked this time but there were times I felt like telling him to “get on with the story”. The maze reminded me of the movie Cube, just not quite so spectacularly violent and grotesque. I’m ok with that though. Sadly, the whole time in the maze felt a bit rushed. I do wish there had been more fighting or traps or monsters or something. Less backstory for that wretched Toil and more Maze death.

Lynx didn’t feel nearly as much the main character as he did in the first book. It seemed like Toil kind of bulled her way in and tried to take over. I don’t mind her as Lynx’s love interest or as a side character, but I don’t care for her as a main character. She’s simply “too much”. Lynx is a bit more believable. In a world where pieces of gods are used to make bullets I mean * rolls eyes at self *

We do find out a little bit of the history of this world and the fact that the gods might have been duegar. My initial thought on learning this was “what is this going to do to the psyche of the people if they learn their gods were nothing but jumped up dwarves?”. I have a feeling Lloyd is simply going to ignore that aspect of things. Just like he’s pretty much not written how the gods being dead and their carcasses being used affects people.

This does continue to get the profanity tag as well. F-bombs are used like mage bullets it seems.

★★★★☆

bookstooge (Custom)