This was definitely pretty intense. At times it was hard to follow what was going on with the story. The artwork was good, but the layout was disorganized, which detracted from my rating considerably. Constantine is definitively anti-heroic in this volume. He makes an ugly, mean choice that makes him the de facto bad guy to parties concerned, even if he believes it's for the greater good. I asked myself a few times if I agreed with his decision and on one level, I can't see it working out better the other way. That doesn't make what he did any better. I didn't understand the magic at all, but maybe that's good. I am sure that I don't need to know how to do sorcery anyway. I am studying Revelation at my Bible Study and we just finished Revelation 9, in which the angels are sounding the trumpets, and Constantine makes a reference to that. Who knew I'd have this kind of crossover in this week?

This is still not my favorite New 52, but I keep picking it up. That must count for something?

I can't get over how disturbing the evil twins of the Justice League are. I mean just the Triad is bad enough. Ultraman is a sleazy, psychopathic, cruel bully. Owlman is like a demon-possessed Batman (or maybe if Batman was the Antichrist). Superwoman is a little more developed in this than in Justice League, Vol. 5: Forever Heroes, and I what I know, I definitely don't like. She's playing Owlman and Ultraman off each other, and I think she hates both of them (but feels more lust for Owlman). She's sadistic and psychosexually deviant. Yeah, it's just bad. More disturbing is that Earth 3 is the opposite of Earth 2. Evil is the predominant value, given free reign.

I think that the science seems too implausible (or at least was so nebulously explained, I didn't believe it was plausible), and I didn't get how the day was saved in the end. I feel that Crisis on Two Earths Justice League movie (which I suspect this is based on) explains the situation a lot better. It's worth watching as an adjunct to this graphic novel. I re-watched it again last night and I liked the further insight into the characters.

It was pretty good, and kept my interest. Surprisingly adult and dark in content. It's kind of fun if you want to see the dark side of the triad of the Justice League and Lex Luthor as a good guy.

Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.

What first must be said about The Sword and Its Servant is that this is very much “High Fantasy Sword and Sorcery.” Good and evil is a large part of what the book stands for, though the whole concept of “gray areas” is a strong underlying theme. To be honest, I had thought that, being a “YA” book, that the violence would be minimal. And I would have been very wrong. This first in a six-part series is, in a word, nightmarish, with nightmarish scenes that would discourage me from recommending the book to the under-18 crowd.

With that said, this is indeed a very good book. There is an undercurrent of the horror genre that drew me in right away, as we first meet Johannes, whose nightmares we enter upon our first introduction to the story: He groaned as the terrible vision of a giant wolf chased him through his dreams. Dreams are an inherent theme throughout the book – though one would more easily say nightmares. Glowing eyes, shining in the dark . . .

The Sword and Its Servant is something more than a book. There is a whole world set up around the book series, the world of Grauwelt. Online, the Grauwelt follower is immersed into an experience well outside of the novel, as readers can immerse themselves into a whole world, including a role-playing game, Grauplay, on the publisher’s website. Apparently based upon a “Dungeons and Dragons” style platform, the site takes the storyline of the book series and pulls the reader even further into the storyline, and the world, of Grauwelt.

If you are a High Fantasy aficionado, with a penchant for horror, this is absolutely something you should check out. While the author and publisher say that the reading audience is “15 and up” I would, however, not recommend the book to those under 18. But then, maybe I am just behind the times. I know that bloody shoot-em-up, whack-of-body-parts violence is available to the younger set, but there is quite a bit of disturbing imagery in the book.

I received a copy of The Sword and Its Servant from the publisher in return for a realistic review. Personally, I will not continue the series, but for the proper audience, this is an exceptional read.

I had an imaginary tormentor. He was made up by my parents whenever we would go on holiday to Porta Pollensa. He was `The Vampire Man’. He lived in a house with round windows, and my parents told me that, if I didn’t behave, he’d feast on my blood. When I go there now, I still cross to the other side of the road to avoid that house. I’m a 27 year-old man. – By Toby Manhire In The Internaut

My niece was around 6 years old but could talk really well. She grew quite fond of this imaginary character named Donney or Donee. She said he would only show up whenever Mommy and Daddy went to sleep. He said she would play with her and s***.

Well, one night she was in the living room resting on the couch when I walked in the door. She shot right up looked at me with the most dead but evil filled stare ever and, I quote, said, “Donney, no! Don’t hurt him! No!” then went back to a comatose that would be followed by screams of horror. This is where it gets real interesting.

One day I was sitting watching the television when she looked at me and said, “Sometimes, when I’m playing with Donney, we take of our clothes an jump on the bed.” I decided to ask her what Donney looks like (no, I didn’t have a clue what I was ******* doing) and this is exactly what she said, ” He’s tall, with black and red skin. He has worms crawling out of his eyes. He also has black teeth and black hair. He wears black clothes.” – An Ask Reddit reader

What is a girl to do, when her imaginary friend is plotting to kill her? When we first meet Valerie this is a very serious consideration for her – because Sanguina, the imaginary “friend” that has tracked her all her life isn’t a friend at all. And she is setting up Valerie’s foster brother, Daniel, to die. Sanguina, Valerie’s very own personal tormentor, who doctors considered proof that Valerie was truly, certifiably schizophrenic. And to make things worse, every time Sanguina shows up, Valerie has a seizure – and now, one more of these seizures and Valerie will die.

But things are about to get much worse – because Sanguina has a partner – and he is very, very real.

Pham has made me eat my words. Yep. I have said repeatedly that I am not a `Young Adult' book reader. I have found that there is a lot more `teenager' in `teenage' books than I can handle. Well, imagine that! LOL

Really, when you think about it, excitability and end-of-the-world histrionics is what being a teenager is all about, and the proliferation of `Young Adult' books on the market today is, in my mind, a wonderful thing. It not only encourages teens to read, but gives them an outlet, an ability for even the shyest to realize that they are not all alone, that what is happening to their minds and bodies is natural.

So, as I was saying, Pham has changed my mind about not enjoying YA with her book, The Society of Imaginary Friends. Yes, there is a YA feel overall, with it’s compliment of temper tantrums and attitude. But this is a lot more, a testament to the strength of a young girl and her friends as they begin a fight which ultimately will become a war – a war of magic and terror, of hatred and pain which will change the fate of not one world, but two – and possibly that of the universe itself.

There is much to like about Pham’s first in The Conjurors series. The characters, Valerie, Thai, Henry and Cyrus are all well written, well-developed characters. They are brave, but not too brave. Smart, but not too smart – they feel real. Through heartache and joy, they work together to do what needs to be done in order to not only survive, but to thrive. Society is a book filled with magic and wonder – and a lot of terror and madness as well.

I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. All thoughts are my own. Highly recommended.

I read this back in March, right before my life fell apart, and fortunately wrote most of the below at the time. I'm finally playing catch-up now, so:

I swore I wouldn't request any more books from Netgalley for a while, and I had a lot in queue in front of this book – but I couldn't help it. Having finished something wonderful (a Dorothy L. Sayers), I sifted through all the books that have been sitting neglected on the Kindle, and opened something new from Netgalley instead.

I don't know how much sense this will make, but for some reason A Corner of White felt like a book written in the present tense. It's not; there's nothing so gimmicky about the writing: alternating third person points of view, switching back and forth between Madeleine here in the World (in Cambridge, England) and Elliott in Cello, a different world altogether. Maybe it was the immediacy of the writing that felt like present-tense, or the first lines, chatty as they are: "Madeleine Tully turned fourteen yesterday, but today she did not turn anything.

"Oh, wait. She turned a page."

It's a swiftly flowing story, about Madeleine finding a note tucked into an out-of-order parking meter (and a good thing too that the London traffic department is in this universe so lax about fixing out-of-order meters), and replying, and of her reply being found on the other side of a crack between worlds by Elliott Baranski, in the back of a broken tv which has been incorporated into a sculpture. It makes sense, trust me. It's all about perception – Madeleine's perception of Elliott, and vice versa, and also how both of them see their own worlds and their own lives. Both their fathers are missing from their lives, and the reasons for that which everyone around them keeps assuring them are true may not be correct.

One of the only things keeping me from a five-star rating for A Corner of White is a huge gaffe that I can only hope was/will be caught in a final edit before publication. The small stuff – botched punctuation and formatting and such – is, as has often been said, par for the course, and this was after all an "uncorrected proof", so lamentable as it is it doesn't count toward the rating. But the mention – a couple of times – of the "original" colors consisting of red, blue, and green … That was not good. Primary and secondary and complementary colors are something I learned about in my first months of art school. That is, I'm sure I knew the basics before that, but it was well and truly drilled into our heads early on, being, I think it's obvious, rather important. Since green is made of blue and yellow …

A useful trick to remembering complementary colors was to think of them as holidays – red and green, Christmas; blue and orange, Halloween (blue standing in for black to make it work), and (vitally, for Elliott) yellow and purple, Easter. Just putting that out there.

Apart from that, it was wonderfully enjoyable. And they'll fix that, right? Right?