Review Archive

You may recall that I gave Mark Lawrence’s The Broken Empire trilogy some lofty praises last year in April. I warned you that the books were brutal, violent, enthralling, beautiful, and–perhaps most important–extraordinarily great reads. You may also recall that Mr. Lawrence is a research scientist by day, a fact that may be largely irrelevant when it comes to his fiction, but one that I nonetheless choose to mention because I think it’s rather impressive. It certainly stands as a reminder that no matter your work or home life, it’s possible to finish writing that damned book. You can do it, I can do it. So let’s do it. Bonus points for those of you with keen eyes who noticed that the quote on the cover is from none other than Peter V. Brett, whose novel The Warded Man I reviewed two Warbles since. Funny little coincidence, that. But, let us return to Prince of Fools, the opening

Brandon Sanderson is currently on tour, promoting Firefight, the second book in The Reckoners trilogy. I had the pleasure of seeing him at the Seattle Public Library, and I found his presentation to be absolutely riveting and inspiring. In fact, what he said lit a fire under me and I went home, wrote him a letter, and proceeded to put pen to paper on several new short story ideas. Before hopping into my review of Firefight, I’ll leave the last few lines of the email I sent Brandon here: I no longer fear to love the things I love, and I know I am a Writer, even if I haven’t gone pro yet. I have you to thank for that. I can’t thank you enough. […] Hopefully, some day, I’ll get to thank you properly, in one of my own published works. There’ll come a day on the Warbler when

Friend, you may have noticed a couple of small changes to this website since the last review was posted. Two changes, to be precise. Well, one is in two parts, but that’s neither here nor there. The first, is that I have rebranded! I’ve decided to go with “The Warbler” insert of “Collected Warblings.” I’ve added a little graphic to accentuate that change. Second, the links are now a beautiful blue! Wow. Talk about progress. Part of what spurred this change is that two of the websites I’m currently writing for on the side (www.2d-x.com and www.asktatjana.com) are both shutting down, and I needed to collect my posts from those sites for archiving purposes. While gathering those posts, I thought to myself: “self, maybe you should add some game reviews to The Warbler!”  Then I thought: “Hey, The Warbler is a way, way better name!” Good idea, self. Expect reviews

Folks, get ready, because it’s time for another edition of “praise Brandon Sanderson’s magnificent mind” here on the Warbler. I feel like at this point, I’d give a scribble he made on a napkin five stars, but hey, at least I’m being honest about it. If you’ve read my other reviews you know the spiel. Mr. Sanderson is a powerhouse capable of churning out massive, spectacular novels faster than I can walk from my bed to the desk. Words of Radiance is book two in what will be the 10-book epic Stormlight Archive series, and if the improvement over the already-fantastic first book is any indication, this will be one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. The best part? Brandon Sanderson is capable of putting out new novels so quickly that My hunger for his work is almost always satisfied. As I type this, a sequel to Steelheart

In my adventures as an aspiring writer, I find that I often read books that are incredibly similar to one another out of habit, which I think can be a detriment. It is advisable for me, therefore, to broaden my literary horizons in order to improve my vocabulary, both in literal and figurative terms. With more, and varied reading under my belt, new ideas will come to me, I will learn different storytelling techniques, atop which I get the added benefit of enjoying more books! This year, I set a goal for myself to read 30 books. I have included listening to audiobooks in that count, and I hope that none of you will qualify that as cheating the system. That being considered, I have officially read 32. #Win. Anyway… A series that came highly recommended by a friend was The Gentlemen Bastards, by Scott Lynch. It was described by

It’s amazing how time flies, isn’t it? My last post, which was in July, was written from my room in Oakland, California. Now, it’s late November, and I’ve quit my job, moved to Seattle, and completely neglected my book reviews, though I’ve still been reading with a voraciousappetite. (I managed to clear 30 books this year! Pretty proud of that.) Recently, I picked up Patrick Rothfuss’ The Slow Regard of Silent Things, being a novella set in the world of his magnificent Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy, of which I have read the first two, and deprived you, dear readers, of my lofty praises for his outstanding creativity and skill. The third (and final) installment of the Kingkiller Chronicles is forthcoming, and Mr. Rothfuss can take all the time he wants in producing a sequel, as far as I’m concerned. Many genre fiction fans are afroth with impatience, for more than just Mr. Rothfuss’

Well, this is an absolutely outstanding book. I couldn’t put it down, which lead to me going to sleep well past 3 am every night of my work trip to New York, the return flight from which I’m currently on. I’d been recommended Andy Weir’s The Martian by several friends (and even a few coworkers,) and the synopsis piqued my interest. An astronaut is thought dead, and left on Mars to fend for himself. Talk about an elevator pitch, right? Anyway, the thing that impressed me so much about The Martian was its seamless interweaving of character and plot with hard science fiction the like of which I’d never read before. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “hard science fiction,” it’s scifi that spends its time grounding as much as possible in scientific fact, and in explaining the science behind advanced technology. In the case of The Martian, we have a main conflict

In each of the places I’ve called home, I’ve studied the history of Israel. Detail and focal points varied considerably through each of those forays into the convoluted, delicate, and fascinating history of the country I’m proud to have had as a home, and I reentered that mental state at the encouragement of my father, who recommended Ha’aretz columnist Ari Shavit’s most recent book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. Shavit is well known–and sometimes disliked–by many for his critical eye of the matzav, the situation, in the Middle East. In my opinion, his perspective is a crucial one, and this book does an excellent job of remaining relatively even keeled in despite of the fragility of the topic, which grows ever more tense and fragile as the years go by. It’s an unbelievably difficult subject to discuss, and I will inevitably offend someone with this post,

Habits and hobbies have a way of arriving and departing in waves, do they not? Some months, I won’t be able to finish a single book because I can’t tear myself away from games long enough to read a few pages. Others, like May of 2014, I move from book to book so quickly that I don’t take the time to sit and jot down a few thoughts about them. I aim to rectify that egregious mistake here now. Last month, I read four books, and my thoughts on each can be found below. Redwall – Brian Jacques I had been told by several friends that Redwall would suit me, and they certainly were not wrong. Can one really go wrong in a world of anthropomorphic animals engaged in an epic helms-deep-scale battle, lead by a heroic warrior monk? I must admit, however, that I didn’t love the book as

Those who know me well have been on the receiving end of long-winded–albeit good intentioned–dissertations on the impact that reading Frank Herbert’s Dune series had on me as a high school student. I read them for the first time as a sophomore, encouraged by a close friend who read them simultaneously, and as we both had our inner sleepers awakened by their majestic scope philosophically stirring implications, I fell deeply under the spell of science fiction and fantasy, where you’ll find I still thrive today. The Lord of the Rings inspired me, too, but it didn’t have the raw force that Dune had for me. I knew Herbert had written other works, but hadn’t looked too deeply into reading them, as I had meandered rather deep into fantasy fiction and webcomics, and let my interactions with sci-fi diminish. Until relatively recently, that is. In reading Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, and