Ooooh, just look at that cover!!!   Along with beautiful women in steampunk outfits — our favourite — the Kindle Worm Quality Control team did a quick survey of all the staff at morning tea break and everyone at Kindle Worm HQ agrees that a good dragon picture on the cover is always a good indicator of a really good book — apart from one who doesn’t like dragons so she was promptly given her final written warning for contravening article 16:a:ii of her contract: “Though shalt not be a curmudgeon in the work place”.

But does the story come up to the standard set by the cover?   I certainly think so.   As fantasy goes, this one’s got most of it: Cheftains, Priestesses, Wizards, Kings, Elves, Fairies, Malthropes, Dwarves, Humans, Dragons, Golems and, in a class of her own, Ether.

The Chosen are asked by the Elven King of South Crescent to visit and sort out a few problems for him and in doing so get him some popularity back amongst his people.   In return he offers the Chosen a cure for the blight that the D’Karon spells left upon the land.   And so, offered the chance to heal the land, the Chosen jump aboard a ship, along with Garr and Gustrim, and sail off to The Crescents for a wonderful adventure.

It’s a great piece of story telling, and, i think, is definitely one of the better books in this series.

The Story of Sorrel is quite important to have read before starting this as it gives a ton of background to this story.

Anyway, a great read from a great series.

At the time of writing this, this is the 13th book in The Book of Deacon series.

Joseph’s Page

#fantasy #josephrlallo

Isn’t that just the most awesome cover?

This book is supposed to be a side shoot from The Book of Deacon series, and while it is a fairly stand alone story, i do feel its quite an important part of the series and a definite must read if you want to fully enjoy the whole series.   It is best read right before The Crescents, as, although The Crescents is set many years in the future, The Story of Sorrel sets the stage for everything that happens in The Crescents.

So, what about the story?   Well, obviously from the cover art, we’re dealing with Sorrel, who is a malthrope, and a rather large dragon.   Yes, i admit it, i love dragons, and any good story about dragons always gets a big thumbs up from me, and this is a very good dragon story.   Malthropes are really interesting creatures that Joseph created for this series and mixing up a story with malthropes and dragons is, quite simply, wonderful.

I say malthropes, plural, because you will remember from reading The Rise of the Red Shadow that when Sorrel left she wasn’t alone, she had her two children with her.   So along with Sorrel’s story we also get to find out what happened to the children too.

So a completely new environment, a completely new dragon, fairies and malthropes, and maybe a few other things as well.   It’s Joseph at his best and absolutely essential reading for Deacon fans everywhere.

The 11th book in The Book of Deacon series.

Joseph’s Page

#fantasy #josephrlallo

The 10th book in The Book of Deacon series.

Wow, i really, really enjoyed this book.   The series just keeps getting better.

In this episode we finally find out how the D’Karon got into the world in the first place, and also why.   And so, once more, The Chosen have to get together and do their thing to try and stop it happening all over again, while all the time trying to prevent the war between the Alliance and Tressor from re-igniting.

And while all this is going on Myn’s found herself a boyfriend — awwww, sweeet.   This for me is the best bit about this book as, other than a brief time with Solomon who is only a handbag dragon, Myn has never met a real dragon before.   So Myn, not doing anything by halves, finds herself a big, manly, battle dragon to play with.   It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s everything a first crush should be — just with two rather large and very dangerous dragons.

And Ether’s having her own crisis of existence at the same time.

Brilliant stuff.   And now onto The Crescents.

Joseph’s Page

#fantasy #josephrlallo

The 9th book in The Book of Deacon series.

I really liked this book.   Desmeres is one of those characters that one just loves to read about.   He’s the best at what he does, he knows it, and certainly isn’t shy about letting everyone else know it either.   Now some might say they can’t abide him and his full of himself attitude and overbearing confidence, but isn’t that why James Bond is such a popular character?   Isn’t that why so many of us root for our favourite sports stars?   There’s that bit in all of us would just love to pile on through life with that attitude that everything will just work out ok for us because we’re so damned good at what we do, and everytime something knocks us down we’ll just bounce straight back up again and give it an even better go next time, and that’s the bit that we love reading about in characters in books, the bits that we struggle to find within ourselves.

So onto the story.

In The Battle of Verrel Desmeres had previously found himself at the bottom of a shit pit of his own digging when he did the dirty on The Chosen and helped the D’Karon for a while.   And so he found himself having to lend a load of his best weapons to the Undermine in an attempt to climb out of said shit pit.   But, whereas he maybe should have let them keep the weapons, Desmeres made clear that he would have them back once the D’Karon were defeated.   And so we begin this book with Queen Caya and the Undermine having all their weapons stolen back by Desmeres and in doing so getting himself firmly back down in the aforementioned shit pit of everyone’s disapproval once more.

So Queen Caya is left with no choice but to assign the Elite to hunt him down and bring him to justice, if for no other reason but to save face.

And so begin the hunts and evasions around the Northern Alliance lands, while all the time Desmeres is attempting to fulfill a plan of his own for his own redemption that requires him to stay ahead of the Elite.

And i have to say, this is a great story.   One of the best of the series.

Once again, as usual, great characters by Joseph, and a great plot with a few interesting and fun twists and turns, some expected and some not so expected.   A really good read.

And now onto The D’Karon Apprentice.

Joseph’s Page

#fantasy #josephrlallo

The 7th book of The Book of Deacon series, which essentially ends the first half of the series.   Yes, 7 books are just the first half, we’ve got it all to do again to finish the series.   So what was book 7 like?

Well, it was a bit of a roller coaster, and then some.   A relentless, none stop, too and fro between The D’Karon and The Chosen.   We’ve been informed several times that one of The Chosen isn’t going to survive this battle, so we kind of know the rest are, but it’s what’s going to be left of the world after they survive that is the question.   We also know that this is only the end of the first half of the series, so obviously something of The D’Karon is also going to survive as well, but as we don’t know exactly what The D’Karon is, or are, we don’t know much on what or who is going to survive.

It’s all pretty big, epic fantasy, and while i’m not big into all the fighting stuff, i still find it really enjoyable.   Well written, easy to follow, with great characters on both sides of the conflict.   You can really lose yourself for a couple of months in this series.

The next book is The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy, which, although set in the same world, isn’t part of the conflict and serves as a nice palate cleanser after all those nasty battles before we dive back into the next half proper.

Also available in The Book of Deacon Anthology.

Joseph’s Page

#fantasy #josephrlallo