Review: Fire and Song (Sequel to Iron Prince)

Title: Fire and Song (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 2)

https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Song-Warformed-Stormweaver-Book-ebook/dp/B0CBT183CY/

Author: Bryce O'Connor

Rating: 4.9/5

Comments:  Iron Prince is really a great book.  I won't say one of my all time favorites, but that's more a factor of 40+ years of reading than anything else.  I really think Iron Prince was one of the reasons CBR got started.

I mean I really like Iron Prince, it has one of my rare Hall of Fame tags. (Review: https://curmudgeon-book-reviews.blogspot.com/2020/11/review-iron-prince.html)

Because I liked it so much I downloaded Fire and Song with no small amount of anxiety.  After all it had been THREE years since I stayed up until 4:30 reading Iron Prince.

Bryce really knocked it out of the park with Fire and Song.  I won't say I don't have my quibbles with it, and wouldn't change a single word, but the story is strong, flows just as well as book one, and has it's moments of emotional impact.  His rabid fan base on Reddit apparently was able to push it all the way to #3 overall on the sales list for Amazon on release.  That's astounding.

Well done Bryce, please don't let us suffer for another 3 years.

Bedroom Activities: FTB

================================

FTB/Explicit/None – Fade to black bedroom activities vs “Onscreen” vs No activities

Review: Mark of Kings

Title:  Mark of Kings (The Shattered Reigns Book 1)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R818YQ3

Author: Luke Chmilenko, Bryce O’Connor

Rating: 4.1/5

Comments

Mark of Kings is aimed solidly at the Fantasy Epic market and it mostly succeeds.  My issues with it are less about the story than how it’s delivered.  There are several POV changes which, in my opinion, do nothing to actually advance the story, but are just there to attempt to add emotional impact.  At least for me they generally fail in that unless they were aiming for the emotion of annoyance, in which case they succeeded.  I’m not being hyperbolic when I say one annoyed me to the point that I almost quit reading.  That entire chapter could be removed and it would actively help the story.

My other gripe about the story is that it seems to meander about for most of the book without accomplishing a whole lot as far as getting us into the story, but delivering us a whole heaping plate of history and backstory.  This is thankfully accomplished without massive infodumps, but I think they could have lightened them up without hurting the story, and it would have improved the pacing and flow, while simultaneously shortening the book.

I will most likely read the sequel, but I’m going to have to give myself a break.  Fortunately the cast of characters is fairly small (essentially three important characters), so a break won’t really be an issue.

Bedroom Activities:  None

 

Review: Iron Prince

 Title: Iron Prince (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1)

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Prince-Warformed-Stormweaver-Book-ebook/dp/B08KGT4CLQ

Author: Bryce O’Connor, Luke Chmilenko

Rating: 5/5+

Comments

This is one of those rare books where they accomplish POV shifts that actually help advance the main narrative rather than slow everything down.  This book is 1100 pages of “What happens next?  Holy crap.”  Repeat.  I was up until 4:30 a.m. the night I started it.

Bedroom activities:  None