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Reviews

Traitor’s Hope by Virginia McClain – Review

October 16, 2017 by Nick Bryan

This is part of the blog tour for Traitor’s Hope, the new book from Virginia McClain. Much like myself, Virginia is a Jukepop Serials alumni who spun her webserial from that site off into a series of self-published novels.

She’s good people, always very supportive of the Hobson & Choi series and her books are reliably fun (here’s my Goodreads review of the first one if you like context) so I jumped at the chance to get involved with the sequel’s release. Let’s do this.

Traitor’s Hope – a short essay

Here, then, we return to the pseudo-Japanese world of Gensokai, where lifelong friends Taka and Mishi – the heroes from the first book – are discovering that keeping the peace might be almost as hard as winning the war. Like many second-books-in-series, there’s a greater focus on character-building here, a little willingness to let the people breathe and talk to each other rather than rushing headlong into the story.

It also provides a chance for more world-building and a greater sense of the wider universe, which helps contextualise some of the more out-there fantasy elements. The magic system remains one of the best parts, well integrated into the world, story and combat. But perhaps most importantly of all, it gives the author the chance to describe really cool stuff. One element that’s definitely remained consistent between books is McClain’s gift for a visceral action scene.

The characters other than Taka and Mishi also benefit a lot from the extra space, and supporting cast member Kusuko in particular gets a lot of interesting development – she’s probably the break-out character of the series, at this stage. Certainly, I know seeing what happens next to her is probably my biggest incentive to come back for the next one.

This second-book task of expanding on the world means the plot isn’t quite as propulsive as the first one, but I think that’s expected. It means that when the faeces hits the fan again – and it definitely will – we care all the more about what happens to the cast. Mishi’s worries over her violent nature become a little laboured over the course of the whole book, but if I had genuine reason to believe I might flip out and kill my friends at any moment, I’d probably worry about it a lot too.

In short – a strong continuation to a good series. Builds upon the strength of Blade’s Edge, makes the world of Gensokai deeper and more interesting and keeps the characters moving forward. I’ll definitely be back for book three.

Hot Chunky Information

Want to know more about the book and/or blog tour? Here’s all the words you could possibly need, or click here to go to the website of the company running it.

About the Book:

Title: TRAITOR’S HOPE (Blade’s Edge #2)
Author: Virginia McClain
Pub. Date: October 14, 2017
Publisher: Artemis Dingo Productions
Pages: 284
Formats: Paperback eBook
Find it: Amazon, Buy The Paperback, Goodreads

Traitors lurk around every bend. Mishi’s mind is betraying her, and she fears her kisō and katana will betray her next. Taka’s heart abandons her for a person she cannot possibly trust. Now that the two friends are obliged to help re-establish peace in the land of Gensokai, the only question is where the next betrayal will come from and if Mishi and Taka will have the strength to survive it.

About Virginia:

Virginia thinks dangling from the tops of hundred foot cliffs is a good time. She also enjoys hauling a fifty pound backpack all over the Grand Canyon and sleeping under the stars. Sometimes she likes running for miles through the desert, mountains, or wooded flatlands, and she always loves getting lost in new places where she may or may not speak the language.

From surviving earthquakes in Japan, to putting out a small forest fire in Montana, Virginia has been collecting stories from a very young age. She works hard to make her fiction as adventurous as her life and her life as adventurous as her fiction. Both take a lot of imagination.

She recently moved to Winnipeg with her husband (a Manitoba native) and their dog.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Tour Schedule

Week One:
10/9/2017- Two Chicks on Books– Interview
10/9/2017- Blushing Bibliophile– Review
10/10/2017- Arvenig.it– Guest Post
10/10/2017- Bibliobakes– Review
10/11/2017- Kati’s Bookaholic Rambling Reviews– Excerpt
10/11/2017- Ashley M. Delgado– Review
10/12/2017- A Dream Within A Dream– Excerpt
10/12/2017- Don’t Judge, Read– Spotlight
10/13/2017- BookHounds YA– Guest Post
10/13/2017- Adventures Thru Wonderland– Review

Week Two:
10/16/2017- Novel Novice– Excerpt
10/16/2017- Nick Bryan Dot Com– Review
10/17/2017- Books at Dawn– Guest Post
10/17/2017- YA and Wine– Excerpt
10/18/2017- Fire and Ice– Spotlight
10/18/2017- A Gingerly Review– Review
10/19/2017- My Nook, Books & More– Excerpt
10/19/2017- Jena Brown Writes– Review
10/20/2017- Seeing Double In Neverland– Interview
10/20/2017- Ramblings From An Alternate Reality– Review

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: blog tour, book review, traitor's hope, virginia mcclain

Top Ten TV Shows 2016! (Up now on the MFV website!)

December 30, 2016 by Nick Bryan

Hello universe!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and other such exclamations. Usually around now, I post my Top Ten TV Shows of the year gone by, but since the Moderate Fantasy Violence podcast is now my main outlet for the pop culture chat, it’s up on that blog instead.

Still, hopefully that won’t discourage you from clicking here and having a look at what I liked (and in what order) in the year gone by!

And if you want even more year-in-review type action from me, we also did a full-on 2016 talk-down podcast episode where we met up in person for the first time in MFV history and chatted about our favourite films, television and other recommended stuff from the year.

And that’s all this year’s recaps! See you in 2017, when I imagine I’ll do a fuller blog post about the fact you can now buy this comic anthology I contributed to on Comixology.

Filed Under: TV Reviews Tagged With: best of 2016, best of year, mfv, moderate fantasy violence, podcast, podcasts, top ten tv

Ben Reilly And Me – New Spider-Man Clone Saga blogging!

December 10, 2016 by Nick Bryan

After a too-long pause with no new writing on the internet, I have written a post about my childhood enjoyment of the Spider-Man Clone Saga and Ben Reilly, which you can find over at the Moderate Fantasy Violence website.

Moderate Fantasy Violence, in case you’ve forgotten, is my fortnightly podcast about pop culture type stuff which I do with my friend Alastair JR Ball. It’s still going, our new episode just came out covering The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch (the new Rivers of London book), new Top Gear copy show The Grand Tour, Doctor Who spin-off Class and me finally watching Taxi Driver. You can search for it on iTunes (and hopefully most other podcast providers), or get it directly from the podcast website.

Filed Under: Comic Reviews Tagged With: ben reilly, blogging, comics, mfv, moderate fantasy violence, Spider-Man

Blood Will Stream Video #3 – Five Favourite Books I Had On My Bookshelves

September 27, 2016 by Nick Bryan

So, my attempt to do some authentic YouTubing to promote my upcoming book about a YouTuber being murdered continues! First, I filmed a broad intro to the book, then I unboxed my print proof.

Now my third video is here, and I thought it’d be fun to talk about some authors other than myself this time. So, in the end, I decided to do the my five favourite books I have on my current bookshelves! So excluding all ebooks and everything I’ve left at my parents’ house for space reasons!

An odd criteria, maybe, but I’m pretty pleased with the five I found. Click the video below to see what they are and what I said about them, including a brief anecdote about the one time I met Neil Gaiman. (Yes, he’s on the list.)

And, video messing aside, today marks one week until the release of Blood Will Stream! So that’s pretty nerve-wracking. Pre-order now to make me feel better about it all! Links to available pre-orders can be found in its entry on the main Hobson & Choi page!

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Buy My Work Tagged With: buy my stuff, buy my work, hobson & choi, Hobson And Choi, video, writevlog, youtube

Love Interests of Flash/Arrow – an essay elsewhere!

May 19, 2016 by Nick Bryan

Today, another link to a blog post I’ve written somewhere else – this time on the Moderate Fantasy Violence website about how Flash and Arrow have dealt with introducing new TV love interests whilst working on a pre-destined comics canon. How have they done? What can other properties (such as Captain America: Civil War) learn from it?

All that and… well, that. Basically, no deleted scenes from the podcast this fortnight, so I’m doing this instead. Enjoy, hopefully! First long-form bit of pop culture writing in a while, must admit I quite enjoyed it.

Filed Under: TV Reviews Tagged With: arrow, blogging, captain america, captain america: civil war, flash

Moderate Fantasy Violence #1 – A new pop culture podcast co-featuring me!

February 17, 2016 by Nick Bryan

Hello!I don’t have time to write 1000 words on this right now, sadly, but you may be interested to hear that I am back in the field of podcasting, after a couple of years in the wilderness. The show is called Moderate Fantasy Violence and is a vehicle for myself and Alastair JR Ball of Nimbus Space to discuss the geek/pop culture world.

You can download the first episode from this link right here or use the player below. You can also subscribe via iTunes if you want to get it pushed straight to your iThing. What’s in it? Well…

In their first Moderate Fantasy Episode, Nick and Alastair discuss the new Deadpool movie (plus the importance of humour in superhero movies and which Deadpool comics are terrible), the #RIPTwitter algorithmic timeline kerfuffle (plus the inevitability of Vine porn and if anything good will ever happen to anyone) and their verdict on Netflix’s Making A Murderer (plus the omnipresent evil of John Luther and whether true crime documentaries are the same as gladiatorial combat).

Our as-yet-unnamed recommendations feature shows up at the end and waves.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: alastair jr ball, deadpool, making a murderer, mfv, moderate fantasy violence, podcast, twitter

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