May 11, 2019: Graven is nominally a superhero story, which I’ll admit was a turn-off for me at first. There are technically superheroes, and there is even a superhero team featured in the story. However, this is pretty much as far as you can get from superheroes and still be in the genre.

Really, it’s more of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure, featuring a cast of broken, diverse characters forced to come together to fight a mysterious, world-ending threat. Graven is set in a world [more . . .]

May 6, 2019: Wayfaring Princess is Greek fantasy. It’s got a definite historical vibe — most evident in the dialogue, which feels stilted at first but once you’re used it, has an appreciable tinge of verisimilitude.

But I think the best genre descriptor for Wayfaring is one you don’t see discussed or tossed very often: epic.

There’s a sort of character design you see a lot in modern fiction, and it’s what most of the [more . . .]

Apr 17, 2019: Orphans follows four adolescent students at a martial arts temple where they have lived their whole lives. The twist is that this temple specializes in psychic ability as well as kung fu—in fact, the psychic aspect predominates. Our foursome have to use their powers to find out why they’re there and why the temple seems to be gearing up for war.

The mental powers have multiple elaborate applications, as well as broader implications for the story’s society. All very good, what [more . . .]

Apr 14, 2019: Urban Reverie is a collection of delicious ingredients being cooked for a recipe both completely unknown and completely worthy of examination. The enigmatic Joaquin Saavedra has a few flaws in the storytelling department, grammatical or typographical for the most part, in addition to resorting to explaining certain magical apparatus as “it’s just not possible to understand!” a tad more often than advisable. However, the only other things which I’ve looked at and considered as potential defects constitute matters of taste; considering the collective taste of the work, which I find [more . . .]

Apr 6, 2019: It’s not high art. It won’t teach you any grand lessons about the human condition. As the self-described amateur author’s preface admits, it isn’t even particularly well-written. But you know what? That’s okay. It knows what it’s trying to do, it does it, and it doesn’t put on airs. That’s worth something.

What we have here is essentially Harry Potter with a female Neville Longbottom as the hero. It’s a wizarding school without the shadow of Voldemort; the drama so far [more . . .]

Mar 28, 2019: I’ve always appreciated finding something unique and promising, and it’s even more enjoyable when said thing is found by complete chance.

This cannot be more true in a more recent story, Pyrebound, which presents itself as a innocuous fantasy tale that ends up being rich and involved in its characters, world and conflicts.

First off, the story has a fantastic size and scope, with particular details being the world itself. In this [more . . .]