The Lazarus Gambit: Book 1 of the Lazarus Cycle by Jon_Compton My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Different Approach Jon Compton has taken a different approach in this slow-burn, conflict-driven story. Much of the narrative is epistolary: reports, summaries, transcripts, that paint a picture of a bureaucratic military beholden to the lessons of the past, facing an enemy that uses their knowledge of this dogma to inflict heavy defeats. Be patient. In between the reports, Jon brings us into the lives of very real characters, facing impossible choices. For good or bad, external forces shake the hierarchy, splintering the power structures, hobbling and retarding the military’s strength just when it needs to present a cohesive whole. And as an added bonus, Jon writes a fabulous space battle that would do credit to E.E. Doc Smith. https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/39915868-craig-miller View all my reviews
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A gifted young master of ceramics never expected his hands—trained to manipulate clay—to be called upon to wield sorcery. But when Ross Cambridge is thrust into contact with the Quathiels, the elemental beings who choreograph events, he is given an impossible choice: learn their sorcerous arts or lose the woman he loves. For centuries, the Quathiels and human sorcerers have warred for control of the fertile north. After the Blessed Plague shattered the old empire, surviving sorcerers were isolated in the frozen south—desperate to reclaim the land and status they had lost. Ross lived far from the borderlands, but a sorcerer on a quest for a lost artifact destroyed his village, burned its homes, and enslaved many of its people. Among them was Ross’s betrothed—pregnant and now sorcerously Bound. Legend says that only death can free the Bound. Refusing that fate, Ross pursues her captor across the western wilds, working with the Quathiels for the means to remove the spell. But sorcery come...