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A Review - Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

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By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. I adored this book. Something Wicked This Way Comes makes me want to be a better reader, a more intelligent reader. It’s the first book I’ve read since high school that’s left me with a desire to study literature. I’ve read multiple reviews for this book that complain the prose is inaccessible, or that this isn’t horror. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I wholeheartedly disagree. The prose is wonderful. Yes, it’s extravagant and mystical and in parts complicated, but it’s beautiful. This is a 247 page poem. A poem of good against evil, of love, life, fear, death, acceptance, family, accepting yourself and everything else you can personally find between the pages. Bradbury made me smile, cry and check behind my curtains, sometimes all in one sitting. As for the book not being horror, this is horror before the internet melted our brains. Its horror before gore and death was considered a pre-requisite for a book t...
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A Review - Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson

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I would like to start this review with a formal apology to Shallan Davar. I called you boring, I was not familiar with your game. I loved this book. I loved it even more than I loved The Way of Kings. With the world as we know it established in book one Brandon Sanderson sets about beginning to establish the recovery of a lost world we don’t understand. That is about as far as I can go with that before spoiling anything but as is the case with Way of Kings, this is beautifully and uniquely crafted, not just “built”. Character wise Dalinar is as brilliant as ever, but several characters such as Kaladin, Adolin and Shallan really see their development arcs kick on in this book. I can see which way the winds are blowing and I’m excited to set my sails along with it. It was also nice to see a couple of returning favourites make their way to Roshar from Warbreaker. The story is about as epic as epic can be and this is never more apparent than in the miniature crescendo’s laced throughout th...
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A Review - Carls Doomsday Scenario - Matt Dinniman

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Well, I’m tearing through these (audio) books faster than Carl and Donut could tear through a circus full of evil lemurs. This was an interesting direction to take the story on the back of the first book. Rather than continuing the grim, Dungeon Crawling style to the adventure Carl and Donut find themselves in an open world RPG style setting with a much more quest based approach to progression. I still really enjoyed it, I just didn’t enjoy the setting as much as the first book, hence the four stars. I think it was a necessary change to take the story into themed levels, and doing it before the novelty of traditional Dungeon Crawling wore off will probably prove to be the best approach as I read more of this. The story still focuses primarily on the buddy species duo of Carl and Donut with some really interesting character development as we go. It’s nice to see the human aspect to both characters as Carl starts to become Jaded with the game and the system, and as Donut shows she’s far ...
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A Review - Dungeon Crawler Carl - Matt Dinniman

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This book was the literal definition of a hype read for me. I didn’t know what I was going into, only that it had a silly name, a silly cover and people are going crazy for this series. I get it. F*ck me do I get it. For a bit of context as to how my experience was Dungeon Crawler Carl has gone, last week I was listening to Words of Radiance so I could keep pace with my Stormlight Archive reading while I travelled for work. I ran out of free hours on that and decided to finally start Dungeon Crawler Carl with the intention of reading it alongside my physical read, mainly for something to have in the car. I haven’t turned a page of Words of Radiance between starting and finishing this book. I was hooked, I was enthralled, I was thoroughly entertained. Yes, it’s silly, yes it’s unconventional but it isn’t one dimensional and it doesn’t rely on the novelty of it’s setting to carry the story, I care about Carl and Princess Donuts progression and stats, I care about the items they loot, I c...
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An Edition Review - My First Experience with Grim Oak Press

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When Grim Oak Press announced they’d be producing a limited edition of Malice I went through a roller coaster of emotions. Joy at the fact I would finally be able to replace my long lost Goldsboro copy that was sacrificed to become brake discs, sorrow at the financial ruin that was about to sweep across my bank account, fear that my partner would find out how much I paid for “another f*cking book”, before finally arriving back at Joy. I will state my biases early for anyone who doesn’t know me. Malice is my favourite book, ever. If I didn’t pick this book up in an airport back in 2012, I wouldn’t read books now. If I hadn’t fallen in love with the story and bought a copy of the limited Hardcover from Goldsboro, I wouldn’t collect books now. In fact as I write this, John Gwynne has a lot to answer for…anyway. My point is, sentimentally I have a lot more into this book than most but Grim Oak Press are known for their quality so luckily I feel like I can give this a fair review (if not, w...
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A Review - Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson

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I hadn’t really planned to read Warbreaker, in fact I was as stubbornly resisting the idea of getting sucked into the wider Cosmere. I read Way of Kings and changed my mind because I was told it would be essential reading to understand Stormlight properly and now here we are. Where to start? I wanted this book to be better. That isn’t to say it’s bad, it’s objectively very good and I did ultimately end up enjoying it as a whole but it was such a slow start and I started to find it tedious, it doesn’t keep you engaged through the lulls the way some of Sandersons other work does. I also didn’t particularly care for the characters. Vasher and Lightsong have fantastic conclusions to their development but again it just took so long to lift the curtain get there. Other characters, particularly Blushweaver were a bit cringeworthy in the way they’re written. Maybe I’m missing something really poignant but having your breasts and sexual promiscuity be your superpower doesn’t really make for goo...
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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...
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