Review Archive

The Last Sacrifice – James A. Moore

What happens when the great antagonist, the villainous figure bent on destroying the world, is the divine? The Last Sacrifice, the first book in James A. Moore’s Tides of War series, places that conflict at its core. And while it’s an interesting question—what if the gods themselves are the enemy—the book invests a great deal of time in worldbuilding and stage setting, leaving the “meat” of the plot on the back burner while hopping between points of view. The Last Sacrifice is Grimdark, which is to say it’s brutal and gory, and deals with some of the darker aspects of human behavior. The inciting incident of the story, which pits the protagonist against the gods, asks about the lengths to which anyone would go to get revenge for losing their entire family for nebulous reasons. It’s a familiar concept—man loses wife and children, becomes enraged, goes on a rampage to

Read More »

The Echoes of Sin – Chris Philbrook

(Beware of spoilers, for they be plentiful below.) The concluding entry in Chris Philbrook’s Kinless trilogy, The Echoes of Sin, does a massive amount of worldbuilding. It reminds me a bit of Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire series, wherein after being taken on a wild journey through a fantastical world, we learn that it’s actually some kind of post-apocalyptic vision of Europe. Whereas Lawrence loosely explains it as a result of science growing too powerful for its own quantum britches, Philbrook leaves the gap between the “fall” and era of the story unfilled. I burn with curiosity as to the nature of the fall. I hope, nay, pray that he dig into it in some future date. The word ‘trilogy’ fills me with dread, however, that this story is done and that I’ll never find out more about the fascinating world Philbrook has built, where human souls manifest as spirits and

Read More »

Draftshares: Fantasy & Historical

Today’s the last day of The Warbler’s Draftshares coverage, after which we’ll be back to our scheduled programming. For now, these great Fantasy and Historical Fiction drafts ought to sate your thirst for book reviews. Makhaira: (Fantasy) Once a generation, a dragon slayer is sent off to save his people. None have returned. Now it’s Balfour’s turn. The Edge of the World: (Fantasy) A pirate captain abandons his crew to explore the edge of the world. Clockwork Charlie: (Dark Fantasy) Charlie just wants to work on cars in peace. Until a stranger arrives with news about her father’s death. He says she has a Gift, and she’s needed in a war that’s been hidden from the world for ages. Charlene has to find the truth-and make a choice. Electric Messiah – Lore of the Aos Sí: (Historical Fantasy) We were told it was man that was cast out of the garden of Eden. As mankind hurtles into the

Read More »