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

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Review: The Librarian Gladiator: Book One of the Tallindran Trilogy

The Librarian Gladiator: Book One of the Tallindran Trilogy The Librarian Gladiator: Book One of the Tallindran Trilogy by Dustin Bilyk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

A slightly different twist on a classic trope

Despite the somewhat provocative title, it was the dark world building premise that I found interesting enough to pick up the story … of course, high stakes, tourney style combat has been done before; but I had not yet encountered one where the penalty for the loser was the sacrifice of the entire family line and I was interested in how the author would implement this. Over all, this was a pretty entertaining story, first introducing our “librarian” hero as one of the selected four (4) before cramming a ton of action, adventure, mystery and surprises into the few days before the combat. 

The characters were well developed, if prone to some of the typical navel gazing that drives me to distraction (oh no I don’t want anything at all to do with that mysterious power that guarantees I can not die today cause it is just too scary or evil or what ever). The story does throw in a few good monsters that actually become an important part of the plot and a solid resolution at the end … with an obvious lead in to the next book (but this story is reasonably complete). All in all, the story would be a good 3.5 and the solid narration makes it easy to round up.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheLibrarianGladiator #TheTallindranTrilogy #FreeAudiobkFacebkGrp #KindleUnlimited

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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.