The cover for this Open Media edition of Greg Keyes' Footsteps in the Sky was so fascinating that I requested it without actually knowing what the story was about. In some future, humans have left earth in search for other inhabitable places. A group of Hopi end up on Fifth World, a planet that seems almost too ready for habitation. After a while with internal struggles, the original 'owners' of the planet show up.

While the premise was fascinating I had a hard time focussing on the story. The characters never felt alive to me and I had to force myself to pick it up. When finally reading it was nice, but was missing something special. Thinking of everything else I have still to read, I wouldn't immediately pick up more books by Greg Keyes.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The storyline of The Briar King is fantastic. I enjoy fantasy plots with a doomsday prophecy and characters who have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. There are the stereotypes that one comes to expect in this sort of novel: stubborn, hot-headed princess, naive priest, brave knight, cynical woodsman, etc. However, I think there are quite a lot of unique elements to the story, and the imagery of the Briar King thoroughly creeped me out. What really sold me at the end was how everyone’s stories start fitting together.

Despite this, I found this book extremely difficult to get in to. The writing gets progressively better throughout the book, but the beginning was tough going. It reads like a middle-grade novel instead of adult fantasy. There’s very simplistic narrative, unrealistic dialogue (and a lot of it!), and many of the characters aren’t likeable at first. At about three-quarters of the way in, the plot gets moving and the characters get better. I think it’s because they have to deal with real problems instead of whining about trivial things.

I’m not sure if it’s worth investing in this series yet, considering that it doesn’t become good until the later part of the first book. There are three more books, and if these three are anything like the last part of The Briar King, I think it will be worth it. The ending of this book is definitely enough to keep me reading more, but the sequel has to be very good for me to continue with this series all the way.

THE END OF EARTH WILL NOT BE THE END OF US

From acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Triology, Inception), this is the chronicle of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage. At stake are the fate of a planet... Earth... and the future of the human race.

This book was very underwhelming in comparison to the movie which I really loved.

While I usually like reading books based on films / film adaptions to see the difference between the movie and the book it just can't compare this time around.

The book doesn't compare to the greatness of the film, the book doesn't depict Coopers personality as well as Matthew portrayed it. Which is expected but still I favor the film to the book this time around.

Greg Keyes

Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews purchased a print copy. All thoughts, comments and ratings are my own.

Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews purchased a print copy for personal collection.

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I am a huge Planet of the Apes fan.. I've got all the movies.. old and reboots. There is just not enough Apes in my opinion.. so when I heard about this book I had to read it. If you have seen the reboots, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Rise of the Planet of the Apes then you were probably as confused as I was. What happened between the two. There was just too much of a time jump between the Apes escaping and the start of the war between the humans. So Firestorm helps that out. It was well written, used enough background so you didn't have to have seen the movies if you didn't want to (not sure why no one would not want to). I'm glad I found the book and would recommend it to anyone who loves the Planet of the Apes movies. 

This was the final book in the four-book Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series. This was an epic fantasy series that started off with a seemingly-generic storyline, but good writing and interesting characters. However, the story took some interesting turns as the series progressed and it grew increasingly more detailed and complex. Meanwhile, the characters remained interesting and the writing remained strong. The author really did a good job of fleshing out the world he had created.

There were quite a few twists in this final book. Some were things I had suspected might happen, and others took me completely by surprise. There were some dark and/or unexpected turns for some of the characters and not every character I had followed through the series made it to the end. However, it wasn’t the bloodbath I feared it might turn out to be at one point and I was pretty satisfied with where things ended up by the end.

I think my only complaint with this book is with the last couple of chapters. Most of the characters' climatic moments happened at the same time, so a lot of things were happening very quickly and all at once. The author provided fewer details at this point in the book, I guess to make things seem more fast-paced and exciting, and sometimes it wasn’t clear how characters had gotten from point A to point B. There were a couple of times where I had to stop and re-read a section to try to wrap my head around what had happened. I thought that hurt the pacing more than if the author had slowed down a bit and maintained the same level of detail as in the rest of the story. I started to lose my mental picture of what was happening and it felt sort of like watching a TV show with sound only – you can understand what’s happening, for the most part, but you’re missing out on the visual details and clues that let you fully appreciate the story.

Things were still feeling a little ambiguous to me at the end of the last chapter, but there was a nicely-done prologue set a little ways in the future. It briefly revisited all of the remaining characters and cleared up questions about what had happened to them and what they were up to after the events in the series.

I do very little re-reading, because I don’t have enough time to read all of the new things I’m interested in reading as it is. However, if I were inclined to re-read, this is probably a series I would re-read in the near future. The story and the world it’s set in is so full of depth and nuance that I think I would gain an even greater appreciation if I read it again with the full knowledge gained from my first read-through.