My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Review: Starship's Mage: Omnibus

Starship's Mage: Omnibus Starship's Mage: Omnibus by Glynn Stewart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked this up through kindle unlimited and I freely admit to inflating my rating on this series because it was just so much fun to read (and is a step up from the typically stuff you get on kindle unlimited). I basically binged this series over about 1 weeks time.


I like Hard Sci-Fi
I like Fantasy

This series gives you both. All of the SciFi stuff that typically gets a tech hand wave as being so advanced it appears to be magic (I am looking at you FTL and Antigrav devices) actually IS magic ... and it is awesome. IMHO the author does an amazing job blending these two elements into his stories and I simply love the world building (plus 1 star for something I have only seen in more of a steam punk genre instead of SciFi).

The stories are more of the cookie cutter, classic hero's tale that simply makes you feel good when you finish it. The good guys are very good (and relatable and easy to like/identify with). The bad guys are actually reasonable intelligent and provide a decent foil for the protagonist with enough humor to make it a fun afternoon read (you get another star there). It is never going to be a classic ... but it will be one of the few stories that I plan to re-read.

I so wanna be a "Starship's Mage" now!!!

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.