Tim Gerard Reynolds

When the 3rd Thomas Covenant series started I was ecstatic. I pre-ordered the hard cover version of the first book, The Runes of the Earth, and upon its arrival I instantly dove right in. Unfortunately, I quickly began to feel like this book was written to take financial advantage of my love for the Land rather than to tell me a good story. The book was full of uber-beings that supposedly always existed in the Land but had never revealed themselves before. These powerful beings had always been there but never surfaced even when the Land was on the brink of annihilation. WTF? My beloved Giants, which were so memorable in the first two series, had now become bland, expendable and boring. The same could be said for the stalwart Haruchai who were now corrupted and uninteresting shadows of themselves. It appeared that Donaldson had done what Lord Foul never could and desecrated the Land. Now I had become the Unbeliever.

I have enjoyed every book in the 2 Riyria series (Riyria Revelations and Riyria Chronicles) and wrote a review 6 months back where I heartily recommend both of them. It is hard not to like any book with the main characters of Royce and Hadrian so the Death of Dulgath was an eagerly awaited addition to my audiobook library. With Tim Gerard Reynolds at the mic doing yet another excellent narration, listening to him voice Royce and Hadrian made me feel like I was back with old friends that I had not seen in a while. A welcome place to be.

Pierce Brown creates a dystopian future where mankind has populated the solar system and created a hierarchical caste system of colors. Strict rules and roles are assigned to each color, some of which are: Reds who provide the manual labor, Pinks who master the arts of pleasure, Blues who pilot the starships, Obsidians who fight the wars, Silvers who run the businesses, and Golds who rule society. Darrow is born into this society at the bottom of the totem pole as a Red who works in the mines of Mars. As a Helldiver he risks his life manning a drill in the dangerous helium-3 mines but he accepts his role without question. He knows that mankind has ruined the Earth and helium-3 is needed to terraform Mars to provide humanity with a new home. He is proud of his work and understands that the Reds are sacrificing themselves to save humanity. There is only one problem - it is all a lie....

The Riyria series has an interesting publishing history that is not very typical. Michael J Sullivan self-published 6 books in this series on his own and they were successful enough to land him a publishing deal with Orbit Books. These 6 books were then re-packaged into a trilogy containing 2 original books each and known as the Riyria Revelations. This is a great trilogy that has a strong story arc containing well written and entertaining characters and it all wraps itself up nicely at the end. What more could you want?