Smorgasbord Fantasia

"Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that first originated at  Breaking the Spine  but has since linked up with “Can’t Wait Wednesday” at  Wishful Endings  now that the original creator is unable to host it anymore. Either way, this fun feature is a chance to showcase the upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on! RJ Baker's Wounded Kingdom trilogy pits him as one of the finest talents in fantasy to have emerged in the recent years. [Note to myself: Finish that damn trilogy! I read the first book, Age of Assassins and was very impressed!] Now, from the dependable stables of Orbit comes his next series, Bone Ship - that seems every bit as interesting as his previous series or even better! Battleships, Dragons and a hundred-years war!! Shiver me timbers, lads.  A crew of condemned criminals embark on a suicide mission to hunt the first sea dragon seen in centuries in the first book of this adventure fantasy trilogy. Violent raids...

With Crowfall , Raven's Mark series might have just risen up to be one of my all-time favorite grimdark series. Ed McDonald , take a friggin' bow! Crowfall tops off this incredible series, culminating in a delirious high with the last outing into the Misery for Captain Galharrow and his friends. For people not familiar with the brutally bleak world that Ed has created in the Raven's Mark, I have one advice - go back and pick up the first book, Blackwing. Much of this review is going to focus on events only from the third book and it will be difficult to keep what happened in the first two books out of this narrative, so to build up the right continuity. Crowfall starts six years after the cataclysmic events of Raven's Cry and we find that the Blackwing Captain Ryhalt Galharrow is a possessed man, given in to a mad dream that only the Misery can help him achieve. He has spent most of this time, wandering the wastelands of the Misery, getting further and further...

Some of you probably know that Mark Lawrence had kicked off the SPFBO [Self Published Fantasy Book Standoff ] vying to unearth some of the best self-published books that begs for a much wider audience and readership and greater acclaim. Aching God by Mike Shel  came to my attention through the SPFBO. Was one of the 2018 finalist novels and came highly praised by fellow bloggers. An epic fantasy novel styled as a classic D&D quest by way of spine-chilling horror? Definitely sounds like my cup of tea. So I picked up the audio book version, which again came highly recommended, narrated by Simon Vance. (More about this at the end of this review, he's phenomenal!) Aching God is the first part of this series Iconoclasts set in a medieval European/ Anglo setting and mainly features a semi-retired adventurer named Auric Manteo and his band of adventurers on a quest within abandoned crypts and temples of a lost civilization. It has been termed as LitRPG by many but after ha...

Malayalam film industry is a touch above the rest of Indian cinema when it comes to making original stories of the soil, come alive in myriad colors. It's a bold statement but when watching movies like Kumbalangi Nights by Fahadh & Friends , this claim clearly doesn't seem outlandish and I am convinced this is the right direction, we should be moving in. This movie is a fascinating portrayal of the cracks and fissures spider-webbing through the thin patina of a sleepy backwater tourist haven. Kumbalangi Nights rips through the concepts of dysfunctional families and even the toxic masculinity that has been the focus on many a malayalam movies for long. Aided by a fabulous, perceptive script[ written by Shyam Pushkaran ] debutant director Madhu C Narayanan brings to life, the lesser aspects of the idyllic life on a fishing hamlet, going beyond the happy facade presented to the tourist. Delving deep into the uninspired and almost wasted lives of a family of brothers. S...

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, then you know that I am an unabashed fan of Blake Crouch . If anyone knows how to write thrillers that will have you guaranteed reading up late into the night, feverishly turning the pages to find out what happens next, terrified beyond measure - then that is Mr. Crouch. Wayward Pines has been my favorite series of his till date [ And the most popular blogpost till date!] With Dark Matter , Blake blew my mind off. How do you top something like that, wondered I? And then along came  Recursion . Which by the record, is the buzziest release by the best-selling author who, by the looks of it, is spinning out enough and more material for the TV and Hollywood adaptation of grim alternate realities. If the  last time it was alternate universes, then this time Blake goes a step beyond and plays on memories and how intimate is it, to the human psyche and how we measure time through memories. I mean, wow! Recursion is your perfect ...