The Dark Healer #2 by Alex Toxic
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's an okay story. Nothing too special about it except it has all the Godfather vibes with old magical families trying to bring this upstart (ha) down. But clan building time was still fun, so hey.

At this point, I'm losing a little interest. The beginning was better. I'll continue on a bit and see.

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The Dark Healer #1 by Alex Toxic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Simple concept, easy story. Necromantic lord wakes up after a thousand years to arrive in modernity and completely dominates. Oh, and electricity is corruption and healing people of the effects of that corruption makes them all feel better. And btw, the worst corrupted people in the modern age are douchebags.

See? Simple concept, easy story. Kill people, others feel great, and we get that fine old noblesse oblige feeling for killing the fake nobles.

Truly, I find nothing objectionable about it. It's a true eat the rich scenario--just as long as we ignore this dude being the biggest and baddest of all the baddies. After all, he's hot and it's super easy to get rich with this scheme.

I told you, right? The story is EASY. Like, it writes itself. lol


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When Wizards Follow Fools by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been enjoying all these books for exactly the same reason. It's nerdy. Artificing, hacking magic to get the right effects to trounce your enemies, and a bit of light adventure within a grand story arc. But mostly, because it's nerdy and hyper-focused on getting stronger by hacking the rules and using a bit of elbow grease.

This one is no different than the rest. And honestly, that's exactly what I want. Comfort food with smart components and a bit of social awkwardness to go along with brilliant battle scenes showing off all that early preparation.

I had fun, and I don't apologize for it. :)

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The Pilot by Will Wight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The chaotic good space opera just got a lot more chaotic neutral. Even the gray got a little bit muddy. But hell, what can you expect when family is involved, right?

Whole worlds dying, an entire civilization at risk, games designed by epic toys threatening galactic collapse? Nothing in comparison to revenge, right?

Right.

Being mad is boon. Ah, those mad pilots.

Fun stuff.

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The Knight by Will Wight
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid, but perhaps I didn't quite like it as much as the first two. But mileage varies. Specifically, if you like the story of the ultra honorable warrior who whips out his gigantic magical gundam unit when it gets too dicey for his sword, then this is definitely for you.

Plenty of action and bigger action later, but I particularly loved the new additions of Zenith weapons.

Of course, never trust intelligent weapons, right? That's a thing. A thing that people ALWAYS TEND TO FORGET because, hey! SO POWERFUL. lol

Fun stuff.
Very Magic. Very SF. Very Huge.

Simple, light, adventurous fun.

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The Engineer by Will Wight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After book 1's impressive space opera setup, I had high hopes for the second book. Finding that engineer is super important, after all. And it really paid off.

Not only is she a mad scientist, but she's the main villain in a TON of protagonist's tales. A real thorn in their side. And being their maker, and all, there's tons of pathos, too. I almost want to say it's Dragonball Z Cell level mayhem. And maybe it's even worse.

Muahahahahaha

I'm so glad they're aiming for top-quality help.

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The Captain by Will Wight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You know, I was a little cautious upon starting this. It just FELT like pulp SF schlock no matter how I looked at it.

And it absolutely f'n is.

It's not Star Wars. It's literally a collection of all the best, most OP magical tropes like collecting all the memories of re-lived lives, becoming versions of multiple arch-mages, and then setting off to right all the most horrible mistakes across the galaxy as an ultimate space-wizard--with the specific addition of a world-killing world-mind-powered intelligent spaceship that levels up based on the quality of the crew it... um... consumes.

So, yeah, adventure happens. On very, very schlocky scales. Legions of foes destroyed. Whole systems. And the captain and the ship still needs to find more crew.

Muahahahahahahaha

I admit I was a bit worried--at first.

But the balance of the narrative Force was maintained. :)

It absolutely helps that the author knows his genres and all the things he's borrowing and even nods at them as he makes one hell of cool SF pulp space opera his very own thing.

It's no high literature. But it IS very fun. OP fun. The good guys defeat the bad guys. Ahem. Reminds me of something someone said about how we should always fear the Hero. Heroes kill more than any villain ever could. :)

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