Sent 12/04/2025
Jacob Gamber here . . . It seems I’m behind on everything. Accordingly, I decided to bundle all the reviews that I was behind on from this summer and fall into this email. So it might be a tad lengthy. (As it turns out, I should have just kept my author emails and reviews together.)
Personal Updates
I broke down and bought a Macbook Air on a Black Friday sale . . . I’ve been considering getting a new (that is, usable) laptop to allow me to go portable with my writing, and Apple has been looking better and better for that. Microsoft has not been doing a good job of retaining me as a user (though of course I’ll primarily stick to it at this point), and Mac offers quite a few features and exclusive apps that are tempting for writers. So we’ll see if it’s as good as they say. I may even give Scrivener another shot, otherwise I’ll get Atticus, as I think my time with Microsoft Word as my main word processor is drawing to a close.
Luna Updates
Luna will be delayed, as I’ve mentioned. I’m juggling a lot of balls at the moment, and I really want to make sure it’s as good as can be—not rushed out the door, forever to be criticized (though one never does know). I’m currently looking at March–April 2026, though I’ll post the new official release date to Goodreads soon.
Royal Road
Gaea is still uploading daily on Royal Road, so be sure to head on over there and read for free. We are making waves on there, though still relatively small ones. In excelsis Deo gloria! If you want to see these stories succeed, drop a few chapter comments and rate/review the fiction. That helps a ton with algorithm visibility, and it’s also just encouraging to see people’s feedback regardless. Enough engagement can get it onto fiction lists like Rising Stars and Trending, the former of which Gaea has been on once or twice but only briefly. We’re up to 120+ followers and almost 12k total views, which is awesome!
Tales from the Earthen Sky just released Chapter 10 of Act II, as I was a bit late due to a hectic Thanksgiving week. I’m having a blast with it so far, and am currently introducing our main cast to the magical mineral system harnessed and fought over in the many Strata of the Earth, soon to return to some more familiar faces . . . . You can read it at this link, or find it ad-free on this very website. I recently got my first comment on this story, and it totally made my day. 24 followers so far, so that’s certainly something. Maybe the new cover helped? I’m still not satisfied with it, but Gemini’s NanoBanano did an impressive job nonetheless . . .
Reviews
Oh boy. No, I did not abandon reading, I just kept delaying writing my separate book review emails. My next newsletter will include a few more Royal Road stories as well, as I’ve been getting back into reading on there. I like to support fellow indie authors, and that is a very organic place to do so and interact with fellow creators. Anyway, here we go:
★★★★☆
The Road to Grace by Richard Paul Evans. This was a sweet and touching book. Very different from my usual fair. I’m familiar with this author via his recent(ish) popular YA series Michael Vey. This is realistic fiction based on a plethora of research into local tourist attractions and claims to fame across a diagonal segment of America. This novel works as a standalone, and was recommended by a friend. I want to be clear that I don’t consider it a bad book at all. The author is quite capable at vivid, specific description, colorful characters, and including lots of interesting filler. But it felt a bit formulaic and even rote at times, despite the attention to detail. Not boring, but overly repetitive and unbelievable for my taste.
Yes, I know, I read Fantasy, but in this case I’m speaking of a long string of coincidences. Every person is helpful. Every backstory just comes out neatly and naturally. (Also, for some reason the main character is constantly praised for his looks and intelligence, which got on my nerves.) The author leaves us with many small takeaways: philosophical, social and theological ponderings, though they often feel shoehorned in—e.g., small arcs or side characters which show up solely to provide a lesson and vanish, or as a vehicle to showcase the research done for the book. Another small personal gripe is that I wish it had been written epistolary, instead of regular first-person.
At the end of the day, I give it four stars, because it’s a solid novel.
★★★★★
Shades of Black I: In Darkness Cast, by Jonathan Shuerger. This one surprised me. It is a classic sword-and-sorcery fantasy tale quite unlike my normal fare, and refreshingly dark in the brightest way. Or perhaps the reverse. Let me explain:
Shades of Black is a tale of a boy who always wanted to be a hero, and then got his wish only to realize it wasn’t like he thought. He prayed for the strength to save people, and God (the God of this fictional universe) sent him an immortal, cynical, prideful, ruthless Dark Lord… who happens to be looking for a trainee. It’s a metaphor for the Marines, wherein the author derived the inspiration for the novel, and for whom it was written. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as dark and brutal as the world is. It’s compelling, fun, and surprisingly deep.
Note that, if this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, it probably isn’t. It’s grim, it’s graphic, and unapologetically so. But I had an absolute blast, even going in blind and not expecting much.
★★★✮☆
The Witcher: The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski. And yes, I can totally pronounce that name. Back in 1992, did he know his books would go on to be cult classics in the form of video games and a TV series? Don’t know, don’t care. They’ve never appealed very much.
This is one of those books I finally read and just kind of . . . wonder how it ever caught on. It must have hit the right market at the right time or something. It’s an episodic collection of adventures about one Geralt of Rivia, witcher (monster hunter), which are essentially retellings of well-known folk tales you’ll recognize. They conveniently tend to involve some beautiful, vulnerable, and often young girl(s), often taken advantage of by some twisted guy who’s not “really” all that bad . . . Our brave hero Geralt, of course, often finds himself playing the chivalrous savior or even a straight-up women’s rights activist—all while being, far as we can see, a scoundrel and a lecher. So yeah, he’s . . . morally complex? I do like the theme of his logical and detached critique of different scenarios, centering on “the voice of reason”. The stories themselves are often quite intriguing, notably deep and multilayered and philosophical. But then there’s that one with the silent priestess to whom he just talks—literally just straight dialogue—for an entire chapter. And sadly, whatever way with words the author may have had in the original Polish was . . . lost in translation. I have to agree with the many reviewers who have said as much.
I’m torn on what rating to give this, because the actual monster-hunting sequences—actual hunting, actual preparation—were fabulously done and a blast to read, and most of the stories were both entertaining and deep, but there’s a lot of bad weighing against the good . . .
★★★☆☆
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey, book one in the Dragonriders of Pern series. I’ll be honest, I thought the whole dragon-mate-intertwined-romance thing started with Fourth Wing, or at least shortly before, but uh . . . no, Anne McCaffrey started that way back in 1967. Sadly, this aspect of it is . . . as twisted as they say, maybe more because I didn’t realize just how sexualized this whole book is. It kind of scares me to think how many people I’ve heard say they read these books and loved them as kids, because this is not young-adult material. I got the whole first four books in a Kindle bundle, but I probably won’t be finishing it at this rate.
Which is a shame, because the overall story and world is fascinating. Anne really knocked it out of the park in the worldbuilding department. Her dedication to practicality in world structure and character focus is impressive, especially for (no offense meant whatsoever) a female writer. I say that because female authors are known for focusing more on character, emotion, and the feeling of the prose where men focus on world, plot and action. Not a one-size glove, I know, it just stuck out here and I’m personally a fan of it. And honestly, I have to side with the author on this being a Sci-Fi novel, not Fantasy. Apparently that’s a long-running contention . . .
Anyway, the strange origin of the dragon-rider fantasy books revealed to me . . . and probably never touched again. I don’t know . . . the story was getting pretty cool. I give it a 3 because of how magnificent certain elements were, and how competent the novel was at large.
★★☆☆☆
Song of the Forever Rains, by E. J. Mellow. I was so excited for this book. I think the second (of three) had just released on Amazon, and this book had only a couple hundred ratings at the time (it now has 13k). I’d been wanting (but also dreading) to dip my feet in the romantasy genre just to see what all the fuss was about and form my own opinion. For most of the read, I was pleasantly surprised, aside from any time even an ounce of action showed up on page, because the action sequences were bad. All-in-all, decent YA read with fun characters, though a bit twisted in the morals just for twisted’s sake. Great pacing, fun but shallow plot, and writing that is beautiful but usually not quite too flowery. Sometimes it was.
It was all going great until around 80% of the way, when I was affronted by a graphic sex scene. It was like a whole chapter long and came out of nowhere. After skipping through it, the rest of the book just tasted very bad in my mouth. All the romance leading up, which was so wholesome and genuinely had no love triangle (none! It was awesome!), suddenly felt fake and empty, the characters more hollow. I double-checked the Amazon listing and was reminded that the book is marketed as adult, so kudos to the author for that at least. But most of it felt very YA. I don’t know, it left me feeling confused and disgruntled, frankly. Also, the resolution and ending was pathetic. What was going to be a solid thumbs-up tipped over into a big thumbs-down pretty quickly.
★★★✮☆
Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas. I had to read one of her books someday, and it sure wasn’t going to be one of the recent ones, s’il vous plaît and thank you. I don’t think I could stomach that new-wave romantasy. This was back when it was good. Or . . . you know, “good”.
Celaena Sardothien. Ohhhhhh yes—meet the assassin, the one and only 18-year-old (beautiful) girl in the empire who can wield any weapon better than any man and spits curses against the empireyet falls for a slimy prince who romantically desires every female thing that breathes. And stuffs her (gorgeous) face with gifts of chocolate. And geeks out about fashion. And doesn’t see or hear people coming. And has little situational awareness. And just . . . isn’t an assassin? An assassin is not a weapons-master with flashy skills and tight pants, I’m sorry. She’s basically just Yor Forger with pants (and beautiful, don’t forget that part). Furthermore (fantasy writers take note), the combatant who wins in a fight is not the one who is a little more skilled. Watch competitive fighting—there are these things called weight classes, and they don’t match women against men because they’d lose very quickly. Sorry, folks. Them’s the breaks. For those who would object to this, I’m especially referring to a certain character who is described as a massive hulk of pure muscle, barbaric and deadly and also mysteriously gaining more strength throughout the book—that guy. She’s consistently shown as being on his combat level, for no reason at all.
OK, rant over. Unironically, this was a decent novel overall. I can’t pretend it wasn’t. I enjoyed most of it. Of the many things she was trying to do with this debut, Maas delivered on quite a few. Particularly, I have to give her credit for writing in a very digestible style and astonishingly good action sequences. Seriously, credit where credit is due—for a romantasy author, I wasn’t expecting such good action writing and attention to detail (minus the whole teen-girl-ninja-warrior thing). But while Celaena’s suspenseful trials with the other potential champions was interesting, there were some rather janky turns the story took near the end, particularly in the romance department. The whole thing could have been written without any romance and it would have been far superior. Better yet, delete Prince Whathisface and make Chaol just a tad less wimpy, and we would have had a fine romance. You don’t need a love triangle if you’re just going to mess it up. I kept waiting for her to ditch the slimy lecher prince, and then (not to spoil the fantastic ending), it’s just kind of . . . resolved? In a way that felt extremely unsatisfactory.
All-in-all, competently written aside from a few bloopers and the trash-fire romance. Like with the above title, it was specific things (though pervasive) that held me back from loving it. But on the whole, I had more fun with this than I expected. Celaena’s character was genuinely not too annoying to me. With a couple tweaks, I would have really liked her, but she’s 20,000 leagues below a heroine like Vin from Mistborn for a host of reasons.
★★★★★
The Strength of the Few, by James Islington. I was so pumped for this book, since before even reading book one earlier this year—because I knew it would be amazing. I am pleased to say it did not disappoint. Wow, is this a crazy adventure. Brilliant novel. Some will say he bit off more than he could chew, but it’s ambitious in the right way. If you’ve read The Will of the Many or his previous series, The Licanius Trilogy, then you’d know that Ambitious is his middle name . . . This second installment takes it even further. I really don’t want to say too much, other than just go read The Will of the Many if you haven’t yet. What are you even doing? If you don’t like to read, then go get yourself an audiobook copy on Audible. I listened to both of these, and Euan Morton is an outstanding narrator. One tip with this series, though: If you listen, make sure you find the spelling for in-world names online, because it will help you out a lot. If you read it, then vice versa, find the pronunciations. I can see why some folks like to do both at once. Anyway, I can’t say enough about this book . . . but I also can’t say too little, because I don’t want to spoil anything.
★★★★★
Mother of Learning, by Domagoj Kurmaic/nobody103. (Web fiction, even after being officially published, tends to be known by the author’s internet username). If you ever log in to Royal Road, the web fiction site that’s been rising in popularity for good reason, you will see Mother of Learning at the top spot of the Best Rated list. It’s been that way for a while, and will continue for the foreseeable future. From what I gather (without spoilers), this is 100% deserved. Thus, I endeavored to see for myself.
And . . . I’m halfway through Arc II of IV, and I can confidently say this is a masterpiece. It’s not perfect, but it’s really good. Highly unique, and shockingly well told. It’s essentially “Harry Potter meets Groundhog Day”, but with Eragon-style magic instead of witches on broomsticks and a Mana resource whence all magic is derived. The story revolves around a teenage boy named Zorian, who gets sucked into a time loop after one month into his third year at the Cyoria magic academy . . . following a near-cataclysmic event. “Repetition is the mother of all learning” . . . so for a motivated mage student with now-unlimited time on his hands, even the impossible may eventually be done. From this description, you may not take this this all seriously, but trust me, the story certainly does—and it’s a wild ride. It’s neatly written, extremely clever, and packed with characters and worldbuilding that feels alive. The author is very committed to taking bold narrative steps and then going even further than you ever thought he would. It is the best time loop story I could ever imagine—on top of an expansive web of magic systems that are as detailed and well-implemented as you could possibly ask—and it will blow your mortal mind.
To highlight something specific that has absolutely captivated me in this story, of which I’ve enjoyed every moment . . . one branch of magic explored in great detail is telepathy. “Mind magic.” The only other story I’ve seen that explores this idea would be Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle. And Mother of Learning goes into way more detail, just as it does every other branch of its magic system. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil anything because it’s such a wonder to discover, but there are certain non-human characters who utilize this magic to great effect, and they’re my favorite part ] so far. The way the author implements them into the story is just sheer genius.
Content Warning: While pretty PG-13 overall, there is some foul language, but it’s very sporadic. I recall about four F-bombs in Book 1. The story also discusses some pretty heavy topics at times, mostly in passing, but in a very mature way.
Well, this took a lot longer to type up than I thought. Have a great Christmas, everyone, and I’ll write again after we’ve celebrated our Lord’s advent. Go read some books!
— Jacob Gamber