Smorgasbord Fantasia

Clay and Susan Griffith’s first book in a new series, Vampire Empire is now perhaps a couple of years old. I know that the third book has just come out recently and I had almost missed out on this delightful series because of my ever growing TBR pile.  But here I make amends and stand absolved of that mistake, I tore through the first book Greyfriar. An absolutely delightful read. Been long since I read a book that is so much fun. It’s not heavy on your senses and takes us on a flight of imagination through an alternate course of world history still thriving on Steampunk technology and cleaved into two halves, the human empire and that of the vampires.  In 1870, the year of the Great Killing, Vampires took over the Northern half of the world and laid to waste the entire human settlement who fled to the southern hemisphere. Now two great super powers exist in the human world – the Equatorial empire and the American republic. At the beginning of the story ...

Guess who just joined the rank of reviewers at vaultofbooks.com? Howzzzaaa!!! So my first review copy was the conclusion to the wildly successful YA fantasy epic known as Gatekeepers by Anthony Horowitz - famous for his Alex Rider series, the fifth in the series called Oblivion. A decent read especially if you're looking to immerse yourself in a fast paced action filled adventure ride from sleepy hamlets of England to the barren wastelands of Antartica. Personally not a big fan. Find my entire review hosted at vaultofbooks : http://vaultofbooks.com/anthony-horowitz/review-oblivion-anthony-horowitz So looking forward to more books now :D

I am yet to join the legions who swear by Brandon Sanderson’s name when it comes to creating something new and thought-provoking in the Fantasy scene. ( sorry – couldn’t help it =, had to sound smart and use that word “Legion” – to my mind, the word brings alive a thousand troops trampling across a dusty dry earthen field marching towards their death on the battle-field. What image does the word Legion conjure up for you?) Anyways – a lot of people agree that Legion may not be Brandon’s best work, but the sheer powerhouse of talent that this man is, is pretty evident by the time you finish this book and shake your head at the ingenuity of the ideas presented here. Way of Kings has been on my wish-list now, like forever. I got my hands on the mist-born trilogy but for some reason, never really got around to reading it. Yeah spank me. Apparently he’s written a novella based on the game series, Infinity Blade – I’ve played the game but mind you, only after I came to know tha...

An extremely trying read - didn't like it one bit. So will keep this short. City of Dreams and Nightmares is part-one of City of Hundred Rows trilogy and is touted to be a page-turning adventure set in a multi-tiered metropolis called Thaiburley where rats and the poor guys live at the bottom, while the rich magistrates and demons live at the top. It follows the fate of two street-kids as they discover they are cogs in the wheels, set in motion by a sinister ploy that threatens to consume the city itself.  So much for the premise, I remember having read this premise a long while ago and having got excited over it. I usually get my hunches right in terms of books. I went for it and dug into this one. But sadly, the plot never got going for me and I was always putting it away when another interesting book presented itself to me. So yesterday forced myself to hunker down and finish it off finally. So the positives aspects, first as always. Ian Whates has an extrem...