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I spent £600 on one book. Was it worth it? - My experience with The Folio Societies Limited Edition of The Hobbit

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The day has arrived. My precious is here. The magpie within me has won its battle for shiny books and my copy of The Hobbit from The Folio Society has arrived. When I started collecting books back in 2012 the thought of spending more than £50 on a book seemed alien to me, but I’ve bought and sold bits and pieces of my collection over the years to the point where yes, I have decided to spend £600 on a single fine press book, and today I’m going to talk about it. So the book itself is the very definition of fine press. I’ll list the specs below for anyone interested. Limited to 1,000 copies​ Quarter-bound in Spaccato Di Montone leather with art silk sides. Front board has an inset label printed with an illustration by Alan Lee Limitation label is printed letterpress and signed by the illustrator​ Typeset in Dante with display set in Testament​ 344 pages print in 2 colours​ Numerous black & white line integrated illustrations​ 28 colour illustrations, hand tipped as plates within bord

An Indie Review - The Thirteenth Prince - Joel Glover

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Firstly I’d like to thank Joel for sending me a copy of The Thirteenth Prince on the vague promise that I would get to reading it ‘this year at some point’ and for waiting patiently while I took until November to read it.  The Thirteenth Prince has a lot going on within what feels like a relatively simple plot. In short it’s a bit of a buddy cop novel, but the cops are accountants working in a fantasy setting, and one of the accountants, our protagonist Gene also seems to have some form of Synesthesia that causes him to see patterns in numbers. While working as said fantasy accountant they uncover a nefarious plot and set on their way to stopping it, and all of this is happening in a world where males are seen as the weaker sex, and where an entire collection of cities thinks they’re the next chosen one. Like I say, there’s a whole bunch going on and it feels a bit mental written down in one place but it does work, just trust me.  The first thing I noticed about this book is Glovers wr

Indie Edition Review - Gunmetal Gods - The Ultimate Collectors Edition - Ft. Zamil Akhtar

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 I was recently lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of the Ultimate Collectors Edition of Gunmetal Gods, Zamil Akhtar's first foray into self published luxury books. I say I was lucky, I was lucky in the sense that I backed the Kickstarter, bought an additional slipcase paid for international shipping but my partner wasn't home when it arrived to give me that withering look and ask me if i'd bought "another REDACTED book".  This book particularly is the reason I started a blog. Zamil was bold with his mission statement, but it was simple. 'I am determined to deliver an edition that surpasses the wildest expectations'. It set my juices flowing and I thought it would be fun to write about whether I think Indie Fine Press will ever be a thing, or even if it's already a thing. So that what we'll do, strap in and be ready to pick apart my thoughts as they fall out of my brain onto this laptop. I was also lucky enough to chat with Zamil himself about

A Review - Stay In The Light - A.M.Shine

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Firstly, I’d like to thank A.M. Shine, Head of Zeus and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Stay in the Light in exchange for an honest review. Secondly, I’d like to apologise to A.M. Shine, Head of Zeus and NetGalley for the incoherent mess that is about to unfold. I loved this book, I loved it like I loved The Watchers. I’ll admit I was apprehensive going into this as so often horror books lose their scary edge once that initial climax has been reached and faded again in the first book. There’s no denying that the book does have a slow start but that isn’t without reason as we start to unpack just how the events of book one have impacted the lives of Mina and Ciara. If you find the start a bit slow for your tastes I would implore you to persevere, it’s around the 25% mark that things start to ramp up, and boy do they ramp up. A.M. Shine has developed the perfect concoction of horror for me, it has all the insurmountable terror of superhuman killing machines, the horro

An Indie Review - Deathless - Rob J Hayes

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This is how you build a world. This is how you develop your lore and your history. This is just so, so good. If you’ve been following any of what I spill mindlessly into the void of the internet then you’ll know I’m new to Rob’s work, and that I loved Demon. This is of en equal calibre whilst being completely different. Demon was a very obvious good vs bad narrative and I loved the book because of how strongly it made me feel things. Deathless however plays with the greys of morality and how easily people are willing to part with that morality when power is on the table. This book very much character driven, focusing more on the changes in Ertide Hostain than any clear story, though this book does set the story up wonderfully. Once again Rob nails his characters in an impressively short period of time, particularly Moon who became really memorable in a short amount of airtime. I will say is that this doesn’t feel like a full book, it feels like part of a book that realistically could b

A Review - Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov

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I have a love hate relationship with this series. I love the setting, I love its unending sense of mystery and tension, I love how it keeps me on my toes, never knowing who to trust (more so in second foundation than any other book) but the series has some things that just don’t work for me. Asimov is a master of building tension but really struggles when it comes to the crescendo. The story arcs build and build to a point where you’re expecting something to happen, only to find a short summary of the events stopping just short of a “and they all lived happily ever after”. His characters also don’t work for me as the series progresses, I understand the short, fast episodic nature of his work but he’s proven in Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow that he can write interesting characters, he just doesn’t do it consistently and it’s a huge shame. This book is the second strongest of the three in my opinion with Foundation and Empire being the weakest and Foundation being miles out in front. Th

A Review - Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov

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Ahhhhh this was so disappointing. I really enjoyed the first book. It’s short, pacey episodic style really suited me and I was hoping for more, but Asimov changes the formula pretty much entirely here. The series has gone from a pacey, suspenseful, political sci fi thriller, to a slow meandering political mystery chess match. The book is far too short to adopt that style in my opinion. The book feels a lot more padded than the first book too, with excessive boring passages that don’t feel even remotely necessary. Foundation and Empire does remedy my one complaint of the first in that we now have a consistent cast of characters, the only problem being that the cast of characters that have stuck around are by far the worst. The book picks up three stars mainly as it carries over momentum from book one, in really hoping for a turnaround in book 3.