Book Review: Dawn of War III by Robbie MacNiven

This image of the cover was taken from Amazon.com for review purposes.

Spolier Free Summary: Dawn of War III by Robbie MacNiven is a novel from the Warhammer 40,000 series. A wandering planet approaches the normal universe. A prophecy of a great spear, which can be found on this planet, brings Space Marines, orks,  and eldar into an epic clash. Most want the spear, but a special few realize that spear can never fall into the wrong hands. Even they don’t know what the weapon truly represents. This was my May Book Cover of the Month winner.

Character:  I was at a severe disadvantage jumping in on this book. With so much going on, there wasn’t a lot of character in this book. Don’t get me wrong, there were a ton of characters, but there wasn’t much development. I don’t know how many I can name without help.  To me, this is a sign of a book with weak characters. While I assert any book should strive to help the readers connect with the characters, I do understand that these particular characters have probably already been established. I only finished reading this a few minutes ago as I type this, and I can only name Macha, the eldar. The Space Marine was a real bad ass, but all he did was pretty much Hulk smash through the whole book, which is cool if I’m watching a movie, but it’s not so great in written form. My instincts say 1) fans of the series are going to hate me, and 2) My opinion on this subject would be vastly different if I were to start at the first book in the series.

Exposition:  This was great. We got what we needed, and I’d argue that every single speck of exposition was carefully analyzed. What I remember reading couldn’t have been done another way in my opinion.

World building:  This had some of the same issues as the character had.  I’ll say I thought this was better, as MacNiven laces details about the world into every aspect of his writing. I’m not sure about most of it, but as I read, I know what I need to know. I’m not emotionally invested in the information, but I did gain a solid view on how the universe worked.

This image of MacNiven was take from his website forever purposes.

Dialogue: Neither disappointing nor impressive. It flows well. It’s a little limited for my taste, but I think I view novels differently than fans of this series.

Description: This was fantastic. Every action had a level of detail that added something to the scene. This is especially true during the (many, many) fight scenes. Still, I’d say this is MacNiven’s strongest skill.

Overall: This was pretty much non-stop action and mayhem from cover to cover. It didn’t have much in the way of character development, which means it’s probably a great part of the series, but it’s not a good book to start with. If this were Anime, I’d love it. The action and description is perfect for fans of the video games, so if you’re more interested in hack and slash, this is the book for you.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket Starts Now!

Hello all and Happy New Year!

I’ve been building to this for quite some time, and I’m so excited to kick things off. This is it! Twelve Book Covers of the Month join four Wild Card Book Covers to comprise a sixteen-book tournament to determine which one will rule them all!

If you like, you can take a look at each book cover’s winning announcement: December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and The Wild Cards.

346 book covers. 43,724 votes. All leading to this tournament! The covers were ranked 1-16 by the number of total votes each received. That means the cover that received the most votes (Loveless) is going up against the Wild Card that received the fewest votes. (The Girl Who Could See), and so on and so forth.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

It’s been fun, but, as I mentioned when I announced the Wild Card Winners, I’d like to end this tournament on a high note. I’m trying to get 10,000 total votes. Please, tell everyone. Get people to vote. I want this trophy to mean something, and it’ll frankly mean more as more people vote.

Also, if you’re wondering where the 2018 December’s Book Cover of the Month bracket is, worry not. That bracket will kick off RIGHT after the BCOTY ends. So this month will be pretty full and by the time we get to Feb. 1, people might be pretty tired of it. I’m not sure what else to do about it, so I’m open to ideas, but this is what I got right now.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Announcing the May Book Cover of the Month!

The May Book Cover of the Month bracket has just wrapped up. It was truly an amazing bracket with a record-breaking 6,133 votes total. That crushes the last record, and I have you all to thank for that.  But enough about me and my beaming pride. You all picked a winner, so let’s see it!

The May Book Cover of the Month is…

This image and all associated images are used for review purposes under fair use. The intent is to draw attention to the product.

 

Dawn of War by Robbie MacNiven! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

Dawn of War took the lead about a week into the bracket and never looked back.  He won a total of 81 total tournaments, which helped him beat The Lost Travencal by C.M. Jobe.

War received 581 total votes, which is 100 votes more than the second place vote earner The Other One by Amanda Jay (who received 433 total votes).

The good news is that Jobe and Jay finished second and third respectively, which means they receive another chance to be the Book Cover of the Month in the June bracket.

That said. MacNiven is the winner this month, so let’s look at his book.

Amazon blurb.

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

Set in Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 universe, this novelisation features characters and events from Dawn of War III, the third game in Sega and Relic Entertainment’s phenomenally successful RTS franchise.

Every 5,000 years, the accursed world of Acheron emerges from the warp. Drawn by its legend, three factions – Space Marines, eldar and orks – battle each other to possess the great weapon that is said to reside there. But when the weapon is finally revealed, a terrible threat rears its head. Can the three warring armies do whatever it takes to put aside their differences and defeat the ultimate evil?

(END BLURB)

This image was taken from Mr. MacNiven’s Twitter page. It’s provided so viewers may meet the author of a book with a great cover.

As always, I’ve purchased the book and added it to my TBR. (For those who are new to the deal, I buy the Book Cover of the Month to read and review in the future. I bought Manning’s cover, Howard’s cover, Deyo’s cover, Jones’s Cover, and Hubert’s Cover, and they are also on my TBR. (I’m reading Deyo’s book now.)

Here’s the Dawn of War Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about it.

I don’t know who did the cover art for Dawn of War, but I intend to ask the author so that I can attempt to do an interview and tell you all about another great cover artist.

The June bracket is ready to go and will launch on July 1.

I will continue to identify and select covers for each day from Amazon’s New Release section for fantasy and science fiction. If you follow and like my Facebook page, you can see what covers will make the bracket.

Thanks for reading

Matt

Four Days Left: A May Book Cover of the Month Update

It’s that time again folks.  I’m flying on a plan back to the place of residence, so my laziness combined with the fact that I actually sort of skipped an update lead me to post one now.

Usually with four days left, we’d be doing  the final four, so I’ll update you on how that’s going.  But first, this announcement:

I’m happy to report we’ve shattered the record for most votes in a bracket.  We’re currently at 5,524 votes.  I thank you all for your participation, and hope you’ll continue to support the Book Cover of the Month each time it kicks off.

Let’s get down to business.

As it stands right now, your final four are:

Dawn of War by Robbie MacNiven,

The Lost Travencal by C.M. Jobe,

The Other One by Amanda Jay, and

Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund.

The current top dog in terms of total votes is Dawn of War with a massive 528 votes.

The lowest vote-earner is The Empire’s Ghost by Isabella Steiger.

That being said, what matters most is that Dawn of War is in the lead because it won 72 total brackets, so you don’t need 500 votes. You just need 73 more supporters to choose the next four days to vote!

If the tournament stays this way, The Lost Travencal and The Other One would receive auto-bids into the June Book Cover of the Month, but Fate and The Acquisition of Swords by X can leap right over them if they can get their following to support them for one final push, but that’s true of all 32 books.  Anyone of these covers can have a final big day and steal the title for the month.

All you need to do is head over this website and vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

A May Book Cover of the Month Update

Greetings all!

Usually about this time (three days) would be when the Sweet 16 begins.  While we’re not doing a round-by-round bracket, I still think this is a nice time to update everyone on how things are shaking out so far.

First, another explanation on how this structure works.  Brackify says, “Rank results are calculated by how far an entry advances in the bracket based on match results, not total vote count.”

What’s that mean? Well, You can have a million votes, but they do you no good if you only get them in one round. What matters is how many voters vote for a certain cover to move on.

What I like about this format: This structure really does make it easy on voters. One vote and done. Also, we’re getting close to breaking the all-time voting record after less than three days. That’s wonderful! The best thing about this format is that no one is ever out of it until the very end.

What I don’t like about this format: It’s possible for a book that lost a round to still win the bracket. Let me try to explain.  Say Book 1 lost to Book 2 in the first round. However, if more voters selected Book 1 to go to the finals, Book 1 would actually move on unless Book 2 had a more dominant win in the first round. I’ve actually been monitoring that situation in this bracket. Tangled Echoes has a solid number of finalist votes, but it wasn’t until City of Miracles finally managed to over take it that Echoes fell from #1 all the way to #18 (as things stand as I type this).

Echoes doesn’t need a bunch of first round votes (though at this stage that would do the trick), it actually only needs one or two people to vote it back to the finals. I’m not sure what I think about a book being able to advance when it didn’t win a round. In this format, what matters is how far a book goes per bracket, not how many votes it gets. In my opinion, round-by-round is more demanding on participants, but way easier to understand. Please don’t misunderstand, I like all these covers. That’s why I featured them on this blog. If Echoes beat five other covers to win the day, then I’d have no problem with that. My problem would be if someone one the bracket after losing a round. To put your mind at ease, I’ve checked, and the current Sweet 16 all on their first round. So the current covers would have moved on in the original format. What are your thoughts?

Now that we’ve explained the process, let’s look at how things stand after three full days of voting.

The current top four are:

Dawn of War by Robbie MacNiven, The Lost Travencal by C.M. Jobe, The Other One by Amanda Jay, and Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund.

The next four contenders are:

Reaper Reborn by Bryan Davis, The Acquisition of Swords by Timothy Ray, and City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett.

Lead Cover:

As you saw above, MacNiven’s Dawn of War is currently in the lead.

Top Vote Earner:

It’s important to know that this bracket was never a popular vote. The top vote earner for each round always moved on, but there have been plenty of times one cover received a ton of votes in one round, but fell short in the following round. Winning a round still means more than getting more votes.  That said, it’s still cool to know who’s getting support.

The top vote earner so far is The Other One by .

Least voted on cover:

We have a tie in this regard. They are: The Wizard Killer Season Two by Adam Dreece and Immortals by . They each have 79 total votes, but they haven’t gotten enough votes to get them out of that first round.

There’s still 10 days left to show your support for your favorite cover. If you’ve already voted, but your favorite isn’t winning, please feel free to share the bracket on your respective social media platforms. The more people who vote, the better.

Vote by clicking this link.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

 

The May Book Cover of the Month Bracket Starts Now!

Happy first everyone! It’s time to kick off a new bracket.  If you’re curios or new, check out the Book Covers for December, January, February, March, and April.

May’s bracket has 31 new covers and last month’s runner up, Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund, has another chance to take the title home.

We’re doing things differently this month. In previous months, we had a round-by-round competition, which I loved. But it’s demanding on readers and fans. They have to keep coming back to vote each week, and I want this to be fun, with as much participation as possible. So this round is a one shot bracket. What this means is each person will only have to vote once for his or her own bracket. Instead of waiting a few days between rounds, you can vote all the way through the tournament. If this works better for people, and increases participation, we’ll keep this format going forward. It’ll still last for two weeks, and I’ll still do updates every so often, but no one will be out of the fight until the last day of the tournament.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

 

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt