2019 Reading And Blogging Goals VIII: Star Wars

At the beginning of the year I posted about my 2019 Reading And Blogging Goals. I listed ten things I wanted to do this year. Wow ten. I didn’t realize it was that many until I counted it. Huh. Anyway, I listed ten things I hope to accomplish this year:

• Get caught up on my reviews
• Open the blog to review requests again
• Read more Self-pub/Indie Books
• Another Self-pub Fantasy Month?
• Finish up series I’ve started
• Dragonlance
• Warhammer 40K
• Star Wars
• Clean up the blog
• Reduce the size of my TBR

Because this isn’t simply a book review blog (I mean mostly yeah but not completely), it’s also my thoughts on books and reading and the blog in general, I’ve decided to take some time to address each one in more detail because I know you’re all riveted by it. OK, truth be told this is really to help me keep on task. Anyway, here’s the sixth deeper dive into my goals.

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Seven Blades In Black Review

Author: Sam Sykes
Series: The Grave of Empires Book 1
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date:  April 9, 2019
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 704 (661 + Extras)
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher.

Seven Blades In Black is the dark, gritty, sarcastic, epic, guns, swords, and sorcery revenge story you’ve been wanting, even if you didn’t know it.

2019 Reading And Blogging Goals VII: Another Self-Pub Fantasy Month?

At the beginning of the year I posted about my 2019 Reading And Blogging Goals. I listed ten things I wanted to do this year. Wow ten. I didn’t realize it was that many until I counted it. Huh. Anyway, I listed ten things I hope to accomplish this year:

• Get caught up on my reviews
• Open the blog to review requests again
• Read more Self-pub/Indie Books
• Another Self-pub Fantasy Month?
• Finish up series I’ve started
• Dragonlance
• Warhammer 40K
• Star Wars
• Clean up the blog
• Reduce the size of my TBR

Because this isn’t simply a book review blog (I mean mostly yeah but not completely), it’s also my thoughts on books and reading and the blog in general, I’ve decided to take some time to address each one in more detail because I know you’re all riveted by it. OK, truth be told this is really to help me keep on task. Anyway, here’s the sixth deeper dive into my goals.

Monthly Reading Goals: April 2019

Nicole over at Thoughts Stained With Ink talked me into trying out this post topic back in January and after running with it a couple of months I’ve decided to keep it going. For now at least.

This isn’t something I usually do because I hate locking myself into a specific reading list. It just never works out for me. As my previous Month In Review posts reveal, I rarely stick to what I set out to read. I might read more, less, or switch books out for others. Rarely to I finish the month as I intended.

So my ongoing rule for this topic will be…

Month In Review: March 2019

March has come and gone here at Off The TBR! Spring has come (sort of) and with it the year is kicking into gear. This is the point where I start to get a sense for how busy things are gonna get from now through summer now that baseball season and spring ballet season has arrived (my kids extra-curricular activities). All in all March was a good month here on the blog. I did pretty good with my reading and I can’t complain about the number of reviews I posted. I did have one off weekend but that couldn’t be helped. I also managed to read some really good books. So without further ado here’s what happened…

Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City Review

Author: K. J. Parker
Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date:  April 9, 2019
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 384 (350 + Extras)
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

I was sent a copy of this book for review by the publisher.

When I first saw Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City I was intrigued. Before this I’d never read anything by K.J. Parker and honestly didn’t know much about him. Somehow I’ve been living under a rock because he’s written a crap ton of books either under this name or as Tom Holt, and more than one twitter/blog follower commented how much they loved his books. The premise was one I was instantly drawn to, a medieval siege with little hope for success; a city whose defenses are led by an engineer not a regular army commander. And this colonel of engineers is a “liar and a cheat” who has issues with authority? Add to that the medieval themed cover design by Lauren Panepinto (I’m a sucker for cool covers) and well of course I wanted to read it.

2019 Reading And Blogging Goals VI: Read More Self-Pub Books

At the beginning of the year I posted about my 2019 Reading And Blogging Goals. I listed ten things I wanted to do this year. Wow ten. I didn’t realize it was that many until I counted it. Huh. Anyway, I listed ten things I hope to accomplish this year:

• Get caught up on my reviews
• Open the blog to review requests again
• Read more Self-pub/Indie Books
• Another Self-pub Fantasy Month?
• Finish up series I’ve started
• Dragonlance
• Warhammer 40K
• Star Wars
• Clean up the blog
• Reduce the size of my TBR

Because this isn’t simply a book review blog (I mean mostly yeah but not completely), it’s also my thoughts on books and reading and the blog in general, I’ve decided to take some time to address each one in more detail because I know you’re all riveted by it. OK, truth be told this is really to help me keep on task. Anyway, here’s the sixth deeper dive into my goals.

Grey Sister Review

Author: Mark Lawrence
Series: Second Book Of The Ancestor
Publisher: Ace
Publication Date:  April 3, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

I love this series! That’s probably an understatement but it’s easily become one of my new favorite series in fantasy fiction. There’s just something about it whether it’s the story, the compelling baddass nun characters, or Mark Lawrence’s writing. I stayed up late to finish Grey Sister and I’m still not sure I’ve digested it all but I’m giving it a go.

Beware, as this is the second book in a series there are bound to be minor inevitable spoilers in this review if you haven’t read book one. If you haven’t read my review of Red Sister you can find it here. For this review I’m going generally follow the same format I did for Red Sister with some technical stuff first then overall comments at the end.

2019 Reading And Blogging Goals V

At the beginning of the year I posted about my 2019 Reading And Blogging Goals. I listed ten things I wanted to do this year. Wow ten. I didn’t realize it was that many until I counted it. Huh. Anyway, I listed ten things I hope to accomplish this year:

• Get caught up on my reviews
• Open the blog to review requests again
• Read more Self-pub/Indie Books
• Another Self-pub Fantasy Month?
• Finish up series I’ve started
• Dragonlance
• Warhammer 40K
• Star Wars
• Clean up the blog
• Reduce the size of my TBR

Because this isn’t simply a book review blog (I mean mostly yeah but not completely), it’s also my thoughts on books and reading and the blog in general, I’ve decided to take some time to address each one in more detail because I know you’re all riveted by it. OK, truth be told this is really to help me keep on task. Anyway, here’s the fifth deeper dive into my goals.

Astute readers will notice I didn’t post anything with a title of Reading And Blogging Goals IV. This is because the goal of opening up the blog to review requests again I accomplished before getting around to writing about it as a goal. So it didn’t happen with the title format of the rest of these posts.

And I’m still going out of order…

Something Different: Comics

A few years back when my kids started getting into The Avengers and Guardians Of The Galaxy and all things MCU, I started collecting comics with my eldest son. I didn’t know a whole lot about comics and didn’t know where to start but it seemed like something fun to do as a way to spend time together. You know father/son bonding time.