Monthly Archives: April 2015

The Warlords of Antares (First Contact) by Brian K. Larson – Review

Title – The Warlords of Antares (First Contact)
Author – Brian K. Larson
Genre – Fantasy/Science Fiction
Length – 298 Pages
Publication – 10th April 2015
My Rating – 4/5 Stars

Synopsis

Betelgeuse star went supernova 640 years ago. The explosion opened an unstable wormhole to Earth. It took all those years for the corridor to stabilized. The Warlord’s Emperor sent a scout to investigate the newly discovered life forms, and to bring back specimens for their arena games. Their Antarian blood lust must be quenched…and the Antarian Boreshog beast they must face, has never been defeated.

The benevolent Eridonians’ mission is to prepare the people of Earth for the coming onslaught. Join Navy Captain Jedediah Fitz and USMC Major Race Jennings on their quest to fight Earth’s newest enemy.

Prepare yourselves, the Warlords are coming.

Review

I must admit combining genres like Science Fiction and Fantasy work well for me.

The story is pretty straight forward, good guys & bad guys with added aliens, wormholes, nukes and blood. Pretty good mix if you ask me.

So to start with we learn about two races of aliens the warlord Antarians and the Eridonians. The Eridonians don’t like what the warlords do and want to stop Earth from being invaded.

A wormhole the Eridonians have been monitoring is now stable enough for the warlords to traverse and it leads straight to Earth!

Now the Eridonians have been watching us for some time and now they show themselves to us and enlist the help of the Earths forces to defend the planet from invasion

Things never go to plan and our heroes end up traveling through the wormhole to rescue some crew members who’ve been taken hostage.

We learn a lot more about the alien races at this point and learn about the bloodlust of the Antarians and the games they hold in their arena.

I don’t want to give the whole plot away but there’s an interesting tale being told with the bloodlust and the challenges our heroes face.

I’m a fan of Brian’s work anyway. His books suit adults and young adults as well. I think this is mainly due to his writing style as all his books flow well with a decent chapter length and you don’t get bogged down in too much detail.

The author manages to give the main characters some depth throughout the story and you may find out you like someone you initially thought you wouldn’t.

Now if you want me to be picky I felt the jump sequence used to travel space was a bit long. You hear it used throughout the book so i would have probably shortened it but that’s just me.

I guess my only complaint about the book which really isn’t a complaint is that it left me wondering what happened next.. I felt the ending of the book was good but i wanted more. Am i being greedy??

Overall i really enjoyed the book and i hope you do as well. Do i think the book is worth the money? yes definitely. Keep em coming Brian and i’ll keep buying!

I was never the best reader in the world..

3 Replies

I thought it might be interesting for you to find out how i came to setting up this blog and how I’ve found the authors i have. I would be very interested to hear your own story’s

As a child i struggled with printed format, my eyes would get tired and blurry. Even after getting glasses i still struggled.

Up until a few years ago i basically never read any books other than what i needed to get by in life, instruction manuals etc.

One day i decided to treat myself to a tablet for twitter/emails and so forth. I found the kindle app and decided i might as well give it a go. I travel to work on the bus so have plenty of free time.

Not being a big reader i decided to look at the free books listed on Amazon under the genres i liked. I thought this was a good starting point and it introduced me to authors like David Dalglish and Michael R Hicks. Both authors offered the first book in one of their series for free and i liked the idea of getting into a series on books rather than just a stand alone novel.

Next i found Robert Southworth, I’m a massive fan of Spartacus and he had recently released a story about him and it had me hooked. This then led me to Gordon Doherty and his Legionary series

From there i headed to twitter, followed these authors and all of a sudden other authors were following me. I took the time to look at some of their work and have found some authors who managed to capture my imagination perfectly and surprising quickly.

I plan to do a write up of some of my favorite authors so far so keep and eye out for that 🙂

Now after getting sucked in by these authors i found myself enjoying books for the first time in my life. Because of this i decided to create this blog so i could interact with other readers but also to show these authors that their work is appreciated

I don’t know why it took me so long to get into reading but i’m glad i have

As always i welcome suggestions on books/authors i should acquaint myself with so feel free to drop me a line either by commenting below or send me an email davidsbookblurg@gmail.com

Cheers

Twitter Profile for David’s Book Blurg

Spartacus III: The Pharaoh’s Blade (The Spartacus Chronicles #3) by Robert Southworth – Review

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Title – Spartacus III: The Pharaoh’s Blade (The Spartacus Chronicles #3)
Author – Robert Southworth
Genre – Historical Ficton
Length – 254 Pages (Kindle)
Publication – 4th April 2015
My Rating – 5/5 Stars

Synopsis

Empires clash as they hunt for a fabled blade. Spartacus and his friends fight for survival, amidst men who will stop at nothing to hold the legendary weapon. Danger threatens from the shadows, as old and new enemies emerge with violent intent. Spartacus and those he loves will stand together and even the Gods are undecided upon their fate.

Review

So this is Rob’s third and final Spartacus story and wow, what a great way to end it.

The story starts well with the back story into a legendary dagger, it is quickly shown to us that this dagger is not one you want falling into the hands of the wrong person. so much so Thutmose who currently holds the dagger send it away from his land as he knows the in wrong hands it could caused disaster.

Fast forward a bit and now we find ourselves back with our hero Spartacus along with his friends Cassian and Plinius,

Our friends are approached while returning from war and thrust it to one last war to secure the peaceful life they wish so much for. Crassus their enemy will do anything to get this dagger and its up to Spartacus to make sure this doesn’t happen

The book quickly moves from battle to battle, each side incurring loses and we see our hero’s deal with this loss

I really don’t want to give too much away as I think you should read the story for yourself and I hope like myself you won’t be disappointed with how the book ends. I knew Rob wouldn’t be able to keep this series going forever but I really do think he tied the series up nicely.

Rest assured if you’ve read the pervious two books you will love this.

Since reading the first two instalments I can see the editing has improved, I think I noted only a couple spelling/grammar errors but nothing that stopped my reading progress or spoilt the story

Overall I can’t think of anything that I didn’t like about this book, I felt the story progressed at a good pace so you didn’t get bogged down in fight scenes. The new characters fitted in well and the story line itself was intriguing. I found I read this book pretty quickly as Rob kept my interest throughout the story

Honestly if this is your type of genre then you should definitely read this series

Keep the books coming Rob!

David's Book Blurg

Book reviews from a guy up north (UK)