Bryce O'Connor

Actual Rating 4.5
Well written with immediately likable characters, Shadows of Ivory is an unusual fantasy in its archeological focus and it utilizes this focus to good effect and degree without it ever crossing over in the boring or the too much.
Or MC, Eska, is likable, complex, and wonderfully intelligent and you fully understand how she commands the loyalty she does throughout the book. She confront a great variety of challenges, perils, and conflicts throughout and resolves them in a show more variety of ways. I also particularly enjoyed her friendship with the librarian (who's name escapes me) and I wished we had more of these.
The secondary characters are equally solid and well conceived.
The world building is solid and promises to be better as we unearth more of the magic and the history as the story continues.
The plot is excellent and well paced, and does a good job of varying itself up and presenting the readers with curve ball or sudden shifts. A potentially criticism is that it does not achieve a whole lot though; one minor plot point is introduce and resolved, and the rest is mostly just settling the readers into the larger plot. show less

While I found this installment a quick, enjoyable read, I can't help but feel frustrated by O'Connor's insistence on giving way too much of the story away in the chapter forwards. I do have a brain, dear author... I don't need you to spell out every little detail for me far in advance of it's turn. So be wary, when reading, and perhaps do what I've started to do, and skip all chapter forwards so you can enjoy a well-told story without having to shake the feeling that the author thinks you a show more dolt.

Go for it! show less

I decided to read this one for the self-published/indie square for Reddit's r/fantasy bingo for 2023. I've had this one in my library for a minute, so it was a good opportunity to cross if off the TBR list. I have a handful of self-published books in my TBR list, and have read a few, but in general, I tend to stick with the traditionally published stuff, so its good to expand my horizons a bit. And it was only 260ish pages, so it should have been a quick read, right? Well....about that....

It show more started off fairly well with the introduction of the main characters and setting up Raz's outsider status amongst his human family and his birth people. Raz is an atherian, a lizard-like humanoid who is physically stronger than most humans, and after a slave group leaves him for dead, he is rescued by a nomadic tribe of humans and raised as one of their own. We have a vague prophecy about Raz and another character that had potential to lead to an interesting plot. The desert setting wasn't the most original, but it was interesting enough to be to keep my interest. But what it didn't have was a strong hook. The plot essentially just follows Raz as stuff happens and he reacts to it. This is not a plot-driven story, but a character driven story, so it became a slog towards the end. I found myself less and less interested in continuing the book because we are just following the character around as he goes different places and kills various of his enemies, and I didn't feel like the stakes were properly established. This whole book felt like set-up, or backstory. Unfortunately, I am not interested enough to continue the story because a vague prophecy is not that interesting as a hook without more of a plot to go along with it. This book was just not for me. show less

Good world-building and engaging characters. I particularly like that the protagonist is a sort of "scientist hero" whose trade skills are as much use to her and in driving the plot than are the more traditional adventure tropes. The plot was absorbing and made good use of the interaction of characters, landscape and history. Only quibbles were some of the dialog feeling unnatural, and (specific to the print edition) a weird kerning issue with the "a" characters throughout which left a gap show more which looked at times like a word break. I look forward to reading the next volume! show less