Book Review: Dream Student by J.J. DiBendetto

Spolier Free Summary: The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes is a the first book in The Ties that Bind series.  A knife for hire, a female blade master, and an Arbiter (religious traveling wizard), collide while pursing parallel paths to a common goal.  Two of them hate each other. Two of them are attracted to each other. The rest of the world wants them all dead. Their common enemy is someone who’s learned the dark secret of where the arbiters gain their powers, and why they have to guard that secret so closely.  This was my July 2017 Book Cover of the Month winner.

(CONTENT WARNING: This is dark, graphic and sexually explicit. Only for adults.)

Character:  In a story about a group of antiheroes, the trick is to give each of them a degree of sympathy. I think the arbiter (Thanquil) and the knife for hire (The Black Thorn) are fascinating character studies. Their flaws are real, and Thanquil’s core desire is admirable even if his job forces him into so brutal situations. I wasn’t such a fan of Jezzet, as her character seems oddly submissive for a blademaster, but I can say that submissiveness is a character arc she works with, so while I wasn’t a huge fan, I at least understood it was intentional.  This story bounced around with these characters quite a bit, and that got confusing and frustrating in the early chapters.  However, once I had everyone figured out, I could follow the story and connect better with each character. I’ve encountered this same problem in my writing, but I feel both I and Hayes made the right choice. The cost of confusion is worth the reward of sympathetic characters.

Exposition:  Most of this was hidden in the dialogue. It wasn’t overly noticeable. It might be a tad “infodumpy” (word copyright M.L.S. Weech) in a spot or two, but once the plot gets moving, the action makes up for any lag early in the story.

World building:  This element of the book had more promise than actual results, but as the first book in the series, I feel it was an intensional tease on the author’s part. We get just enough to make us want to learn how things work. I found myself wanting to learn more (especially about the magic system), but I was at least satisfied with what I did get. The author clearly did a lot of work prepping a dark, visceral world with many secrets to discover. If you can get through the content (or like that sort of content), you’ll love the depth this world offers, but book one is more a flash of how epic this world can be than it is a revelation of the world’s depth.

Dialogue: I may be the victim of the audio narrators on this part. Some of it seemed a bit forced, and it’s possible the narrators over-emphasized that. It wasn’t stilted or wooden by any means. It just felt  a little more caricature-like than I might have appreciated. That said, the raw nature of their dialogue (most of these characters are extremely flawed) comes out in the dialogue, and it supported the development of each character.

Description: Having been as long as it’s been since I read it (May 23), I remember less about it than I’d like.  The good news is I remember I didn’t feel overly burdened with minute details (something I don’t appreciate about some fantasy). What I do remember is actually wanting a bit more detail here or there. Not another 100,000 words of detail, just a bit more here and there. For instance The Black Thorn is burned, but I don’t remember much detail about the burns. It sort of reminds me of what people tell me is the blemish on Samantha’s face in Ready Player One which turned out to be quite minimized in the movie (I still liked the movie for the record).  What I mean is I know he’s burned, but I’m not really sure how badly.  Those little details are things I think I would have liked.

Overall: I can appreciate the writing and plot of this story. I would have been more captivated with it three years ago than I am now (I’m more sensitive to some content than I used to be). What I know is it took a bit to get into things (bouncing characters). Interesting world building and compelling characters made this a story that people can get into. It’s a great book one with a lot of teasing into some larger scope. Fans of dark fantasy with a lot of grit will probably enjoy this.

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 July Book Cover of the Month

Hello everyone,

The July Book Cover of the Month bracket has just wrapped up. This turned out to be the second-most voted on tournament in the nine-month history of the bracket. It was great to see all that participation, and fun to watch the leads change hand. We had 5,750 votes. I want to offer my thanks to everyone who got involved. We don’t get those kinds of numbers without a lot of people getting involved.

Five different books took the number spot at one point or another in the tournament, but one had the championship spot when the time hit 0:00:00.

The July Book Cover of the Month is…

 

The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes! 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!

History of how X won.

Hayes received 260 total votes. It actually finished fourth in overall voting, but it won where it needed to (the semifinal and final). He beat The Queen of Swords 26-14 in the Final Four, and he beat The Girl Who Could See 15-8.
The Girl Who Could See did manage to tie a record. First, she had the most votes in the tournament. Next, she finished as the runner up, which means she is only the second book ever to receive TWO extra chances to become the book cover of the month.

 

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

Amazon blurb.

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

 

This is the 2017 self-published re-release of The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes.

As any warrior will tell you; even the best swordsman is one bad day away from a corpse. It’s a lesson Blademaster Jezzet Vel’urn isn’t keen to learn. Chased into the Wilds by a vengeful warlord, Jezzet makes it to the free city of Chade. But instead of sanctuary all she finds is more enemies from her past.

Arbiter Thanquil Darkheart is a witch hunter for the Inquisition on a holy crusade to rid the world of heresy. He’s also something else; expendable. When the God Emperor himself gives Thanquil an impossible task, he knows he has no choice but to venture deep into the Wilds to hunt down a fallen Arbiter.

The Black Thorn is a cheat, a thief, a murderer and worse. He’s best known for the killing of several Arbiters and every town in the Wilds has a WANTED poster with his name on it. Thorn knows it’s often best to lie low and let the dust settle, but some jobs pay too well to pass up.

As their fates converge, Jezzet, Thanquil, and the Black Thorn will need to forge an uneasy alliance in order to face their common enemy.

 

(END BLURB)

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, Hubert’s Cover,  MacNiven’s cover, and Jon del Arroz’s, and they are also on my TBR. Manning’s review is here.  Howard’s review is here. I finished Deyo’s cover, but I haven’t posted a review yet. (About two weeks away.) Jones’s book is third on my TBR at the moment.

 

Here’s Hayes’s Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about him and his work.

I don’t know who the artist is yet, and I’m a bit behind with interviews, but I’ll get back on that soon since I’m nearly done drafting Repressed, a novella featuring Kaitlyn from Caught. 

The August bracket is still under development, but it looks good so far. It’ll kick of Sept. 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

The July Book Cover of the Month Halfway-Point Update

Greetings all,

With just about seven days left in this month’s bracket, I thought this would be a good chance to update you all on how things have been progressing. This has been a record-setting month in a few ways.

4,918 votes (at the moment) is already enough to make this month’s bracket the second-most voted on bracket in the nine months I’ve been doing this. I thank everyone for their support. It’s always great to see people support their favorite artists and authors.

We’ve had three books hold the lead so far.  Winged Hussars by Mark Wandrey started out in the lead. The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss held the lead for a day before A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden took it for a few days. The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson has held the number one spot for the last few days. The Heresy Within by Rob J. Hayes even held the top spot for about 12 hours. This is a very tight race, and with this format, anyone can win if they get a solid push near the end of the voting time.

Most Voted on so far: Swanson has the most round wins and the most votes overall with 276 total votes.

Least Voted for: The Light of Burning Shadows by Chris Evans currently has the fewest votes (81). Fans of Evans should rally to help this cover get at least a bit more credit than that.

The Elite 8 is the closest round so far. The top four vote-earners in that round are within eight votes of each other. Swanson is only four votes ahead of Oden in the final four.  So looking at each round of votes, Swason has a pretty solid lead in the first two rounds, but life gets a bit tough after that.

A quick reminder of how the tournament works. The easiest way to win is to have the most people vote for you in every round (like Swanson). The trick is you have to have the most people vote you through in each round, all the way to the final.  As an example, 21 people (the most) have voted Winged Hussars all the way to the championship, but that’s not enough because Wandrey can’t make up the 63-vote deficit he has to Swanson in the initial round. The last time I did one of these contests, I was worried because I thought a person could win the championship without winning a round. I had a problem with that. Further study of this bracket and the reports I have access to have put my mind at ease. It’s not as simple as a round by round, but it at least won’t allow a person to snatch a championship with only a few people voting for them. Just remember. It’s not total votes. It’s not simple championship votes. The winning cover has to have the most votes in each round of the competition.

This will be the only update for this type of bracket. It’s been an amazing tournament to watch thus far, and I hope readers continue to support their authors by voting, liking, and sharing the bracket with as many people as possible.  You can vote at this address!

I’ll announce the winner is just seven days!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

 

The July Book Cover of the Month is up and up and Running!

Happy first everyone! The shorter time for brackets means a longer wait for me, and I sort of miss the pace of the longer brackets. Then again, the additional time to write is much needed. It’s time for a new bracket though. If you’re curious or new, check out the Book Covers for December, January, February, March, April, May, and June.

July’s bracket has 31 plus The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson which gets a second shot at the title.

We’re doing another “vote all the way through” bracket. I put it back up to two weeks because I think the summer months are slow in a lot of ways. This gives people time to vote. 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.

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