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jazzrizz's review against another edition
5.0
This one takes place out of wartime. The 6th is on an escort mission for a scholar expedition. Cleasby arranges for a small group of soliders that did not leave base for leave.
This was a very action packed book. You could see the danger coming ... and really didn't know if the boys could handle it or not. Headhunter comes along ... and he's just plain awesome.
I really liked this one ... I hope Correia continues with this series soon.
This was a very action packed book. You could see the danger coming ... and really didn't know if the boys could handle it or not. Headhunter comes along ... and he's just plain awesome.
I really liked this one ... I hope Correia continues with this series soon.
fratnanny's review against another edition
5.0
I absolutely adore this duology and I wish Mr. Correia would go back to it. The Malcontents and especially Lt. Cleasby are just fantastic. This second book delves into things that go bump in the night and the Malcontents' survival tactics to go home safely.
I really miss Madigan each time I re-listen to this series, but Larry Correia keeps him alive in thought. Amazing.
I really miss Madigan each time I re-listen to this series, but Larry Correia keeps him alive in thought. Amazing.
reanne's review
4.0
Review crossposted from my book review blog.
Larry Correia has kind of a reputation for writing tough, manly-man books about manly things like action and men being manly and shooting big guns and killing each other and/or monsters. And . . . well, yes, that’s true. But it’s also so much more. If that was all it is, I wouldn’t be interested, because those are by no means my favorite parts of his books. Yet he’s one of only two authors on my list of “read every book this author puts out, ASAP” (the other is Jim Butcher). Even though I may not love all of them, I haven’t disliked any of them yet.
Into the Wild is the second book in a series set in a mini-gaming world called the Iron Kingdoms . . . or Warmachine . . . or both. I’m not really clear on that. And I don’t have to be. I know nothing about the world this is set in, but I’m able to understand what’s going on with no problem because everything I need to know is adequately explained in the books themselves. So they’re totally accessible to people who aren’t fans of this one niche fandom. Though, since this is book 2, I’d really recommend you first read book 1, Into the Storm, which is also excellent.
This story has a lot of cool stuff going for it. The tech and magic is very cool and explained well enough to really give the reader a feel for it without there being too much focus put on it. The storm armor that the knights wear is well-described. When wearing something that huge and heavy, it makes sense that it would have an effect on how a person moved and what they were able to do, so all the description of that really helped put me in the scene. The storm blades—swords that shoot lightning—are very cool, and they’re used in multiple exciting ways in this story. The stormjack is probably the most fun bit of technology, a giant war machine that has kind of a violent, bloodthirsty personality.
The dominant feature of this story, other than the cool fantasy stuff, is the action. There is so much action in this story, and it’s all very well written. If you’re a fan of fantasy action, you should check this book out. My favorite part, though, was a duel at the end of the book which, as it’s being set up, seems like a hopeless cause and I was wondering how the character was going to make it out—or if he would. And I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way it went was highly entertaining. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that should be funny, but it was.
There was actually a pretty good amount of humor in the story. It’s mostly wedged in and among the action, all incidental kind of humor, but there’s quite a lot of it. For an action story, at least.
Although this is an ensemble story, the main character is the leader of the Malcontents, a guy with the deliciously nerdy name of Kelvan Cleasby. When we first meet him in the first book, he’s exactly the uptight paper-pusher you’d think, but over the course of that book he turns into a strong leader and soldier. In this book, we see that even though he’s a different person than he started out as, he hasn’t lost his love of learning or his scholarly bent. Cleasby is a great example of Correia’s ability to write characters that I just cannot express enough love for. He takes a guy who is initially utterly nerdy, somewhat obnoxious, and yet immediately likable, and turns him into a cool, strong, smart, respected leader of a band of dangerous and not exactly law-abiding warriors. And it’s a believable transition, Cleasby’s actions are always in-character even as he learns and grows and adapts. That’s all in book one, but you can see the results in this book and, through his interactions with people he knew in school, see how much he’s changed. Seriously, I love this character. Nerdy warriors are the best.
There are other cool characters in this story, too, though they didn’t get as much time as I’d have liked. There was so much focus on action that I feel like spending time on character and relationship development took a backseat, which was disappointing to me. While in the first book, there was loads of character development (especially with Cleasby), there wasn’t a whole lot in this one. Pretty much everyone was the same at the end of the book as they were at the beginning, with a couple having learned one lesson or figured out one thing. I’m all about the characters, so I do hope the next book maybe eases up on the action enough to give us more character stuff.
It was too bad that a couple of the major characters who died in book 1 weren’t here. I mean, obviously they weren’t here because they died, but I just mean it’s too bad they died because they were cool and it would have been nice to keep reading about them.
One thing that I don’t like is how they keep putting Acosta on the cover. This book and the first one. That guy, while an interesting and entertaining character, is not the main character, nor is he even one of the Malcontents, which is the name of the series after all. So, I don’t get why they did that, other than I assume they figure he’s the badest-ass of all of them and therefore should be on the cover. I think Madigan should have been on the cover of book 1 and Cleasby on the cover of book 2. Meh. I feel a little grumpy about that. It’s probably partly because large, bald men do nothing for me and the others would have been more pleasing to my eye.
Now I have to talk about the audiobook.I thought the audiobook of book 1 was pretty much perfect. The narrator, Ray Porter, did a fantastic job. But this one . . . dang, someone really dropped the ball. It’s mostly fine. Mostly as good as the first book even. But it suffers from a problem that I haven’t seen in any of the other audiobooks I’ve listened to (and I’ve probably listened to hundreds). With one of the major characters, Rains, Porter uses two entirely different voices. He inexplicably changes the way he reads that character for several sections. Different accent, different pitch, everything. It’s just a completely different Rains. And he goes back and forth. I could not figure it out. Why on Earth did he do that? How did the editor not catch it? I’m completely baffled how that error could have happened. For an audiobook, the way a character sounds is critical. It would be like an author changing a character’s name entirely at certain random points of the book. It’s like watching a movie and sometimes when one of the major characters shows up, he’s played by a short white guy and other times he’s played by a tall black guy and no one notices or mentions this difference and the audience is sitting there like, “. . .What?” I simply have no idea what was going on with those parts. And Rains was the only one I noticed, but other reviewers mentioned this problem with other characters. So yeah, as much as Ray Porter is normally one of my favorite narrators, I can’t recommend the audio version for this reason. UPDATE: I got a notification from Audible that they've corrected the audio. I haven't listened to the new version yet, but if this is corrected, then I'd definitely recommend the audiobook, as Ray Porter is an excellent narrator. And I am super impressed that Audible would pay enough attention to reader feedback that they'd go to the effort of correcting that.
I do recommend the book, though. I didn’t love it as much as book 1 because it seemed to me like there was so much action that Correia ran out of room to have very much meaningful character development/moments. But it’s still very good. It also sets up some stuff that I’m guessing will probably be relevant in the next book.
Quotes
“Pangborn, take this.”
Pangborn took the satchel by the straps. “What is it?”
“A bomb.”
The mechanic’s eyes widened. “Thanks?”
.
Even in their current state, Cleasby was by nature an inquisitive man. Curious, he poked the creature’s face only to discover the skin was far too soft. It ripped apart at his touch, as if it were now made of damp tissue. “They were far more resilient before. The dermis is decaying at an alarming rate.”
“That’s what I said,” Rains proclaimed. Acosta looked at him, incredulous. “Well, with fewer big words, and I may have blamed witchcraft.”
Larry Correia has kind of a reputation for writing tough, manly-man books about manly things like action and men being manly and shooting big guns and killing each other and/or monsters. And . . . well, yes, that’s true. But it’s also so much more. If that was all it is, I wouldn’t be interested, because those are by no means my favorite parts of his books. Yet he’s one of only two authors on my list of “read every book this author puts out, ASAP” (the other is Jim Butcher). Even though I may not love all of them, I haven’t disliked any of them yet.
Into the Wild is the second book in a series set in a mini-gaming world called the Iron Kingdoms . . . or Warmachine . . . or both. I’m not really clear on that. And I don’t have to be. I know nothing about the world this is set in, but I’m able to understand what’s going on with no problem because everything I need to know is adequately explained in the books themselves. So they’re totally accessible to people who aren’t fans of this one niche fandom. Though, since this is book 2, I’d really recommend you first read book 1, Into the Storm, which is also excellent.
This story has a lot of cool stuff going for it. The tech and magic is very cool and explained well enough to really give the reader a feel for it without there being too much focus put on it. The storm armor that the knights wear is well-described. When wearing something that huge and heavy, it makes sense that it would have an effect on how a person moved and what they were able to do, so all the description of that really helped put me in the scene. The storm blades—swords that shoot lightning—are very cool, and they’re used in multiple exciting ways in this story. The stormjack is probably the most fun bit of technology, a giant war machine that has kind of a violent, bloodthirsty personality.
The dominant feature of this story, other than the cool fantasy stuff, is the action. There is so much action in this story, and it’s all very well written. If you’re a fan of fantasy action, you should check this book out. My favorite part, though, was a duel at the end of the book which, as it’s being set up, seems like a hopeless cause and I was wondering how the character was going to make it out—or if he would. And I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way it went was highly entertaining. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that should be funny, but it was.
There was actually a pretty good amount of humor in the story. It’s mostly wedged in and among the action, all incidental kind of humor, but there’s quite a lot of it. For an action story, at least.
Although this is an ensemble story, the main character is the leader of the Malcontents, a guy with the deliciously nerdy name of Kelvan Cleasby. When we first meet him in the first book, he’s exactly the uptight paper-pusher you’d think, but over the course of that book he turns into a strong leader and soldier. In this book, we see that even though he’s a different person than he started out as, he hasn’t lost his love of learning or his scholarly bent. Cleasby is a great example of Correia’s ability to write characters that I just cannot express enough love for. He takes a guy who is initially utterly nerdy, somewhat obnoxious, and yet immediately likable, and turns him into a cool, strong, smart, respected leader of a band of dangerous and not exactly law-abiding warriors. And it’s a believable transition, Cleasby’s actions are always in-character even as he learns and grows and adapts. That’s all in book one, but you can see the results in this book and, through his interactions with people he knew in school, see how much he’s changed. Seriously, I love this character. Nerdy warriors are the best.
There are other cool characters in this story, too, though they didn’t get as much time as I’d have liked. There was so much focus on action that I feel like spending time on character and relationship development took a backseat, which was disappointing to me. While in the first book, there was loads of character development (especially with Cleasby), there wasn’t a whole lot in this one. Pretty much everyone was the same at the end of the book as they were at the beginning, with a couple having learned one lesson or figured out one thing. I’m all about the characters, so I do hope the next book maybe eases up on the action enough to give us more character stuff.
It was too bad that a couple of the major characters who died in book 1 weren’t here. I mean, obviously they weren’t here because they died, but I just mean it’s too bad they died because they were cool and it would have been nice to keep reading about them.
One thing that I don’t like is how they keep putting Acosta on the cover. This book and the first one. That guy, while an interesting and entertaining character, is not the main character, nor is he even one of the Malcontents, which is the name of the series after all. So, I don’t get why they did that, other than I assume they figure he’s the badest-ass of all of them and therefore should be on the cover. I think Madigan should have been on the cover of book 1 and Cleasby on the cover of book 2. Meh. I feel a little grumpy about that. It’s probably partly because large, bald men do nothing for me and the others would have been more pleasing to my eye.
Now I have to talk about the audiobook.
I do recommend the book, though. I didn’t love it as much as book 1 because it seemed to me like there was so much action that Correia ran out of room to have very much meaningful character development/moments. But it’s still very good. It also sets up some stuff that I’m guessing will probably be relevant in the next book.
Quotes
“Pangborn, take this.”
Pangborn took the satchel by the straps. “What is it?”
“A bomb.”
The mechanic’s eyes widened. “Thanks?”
.
Even in their current state, Cleasby was by nature an inquisitive man. Curious, he poked the creature’s face only to discover the skin was far too soft. It ripped apart at his touch, as if it were now made of damp tissue. “They were far more resilient before. The dermis is decaying at an alarming rate.”
“That’s what I said,” Rains proclaimed. Acosta looked at him, incredulous. “Well, with fewer big words, and I may have blamed witchcraft.”
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