Book 2, The Pen and the Sword: Destiny's Crucible

The story slowly proceeds from where book 1 ended. Written in the same style, a bit more is happening. If you like book 1, you like book 2.

I do hope the protagonist starts using his brain a bit. He keeps talking about attacks from the sea, so why does he stick around at the coast? And for aliens not caring about his fate and worried about the impact his presence will have on the culture and technology, he happened to land in the exact right spot...

This is an interesting tale of a man taken from Earth and put on another world that's at an early 1800's technology level. Unfortunately, while it is interesting, the fact that the story jumps around to follow different people was a bit of a drag. Especially since some of the narrative characters don't have an immediately link to the main character and his story. They are far away in the world and don't appear to be joined to the main tale.

Other than that the story is solid, if predictable. The villains are perfectly gray for the readers who like that. Yes, they are slavers and work to conquer a people who have never attacked them, but the deliberate looks over the shoulder of the leader of the villains are used to humanize them. Understandable, but it also makes the tale lack punch. The end result of this war is telegraphed a bit and takes away the immediacy.

The romance is similarly telegraphed and lacks passion.

So in the end I found this story to be solid, interesting, but just not as vibrant as it could be.

A few typos, fairly well written, worth the $3 I paid. I'm not a fan of books that skip around between numerous characters, especially extremely minor characters who make little to no impact on the overall plot; sure, it helps with world building but too much of it makes me start to feel like the author was trying to meet a certain page number. That said, I like the story enough to continue reading the series.

So some authors do all things well and others have obvious short comings. This author has created an interesting world, does great at keeping it plausible, and the MC is not a Gary Stu. Plot following the MC is engaging.

However, the characters themselves are sooooo boring that any POV without the MC, I had to skip. The villains in this series are simply painfully dull. The poor character writing extends to Maera, the love interest, who declares herself to be clearly more intelligent than the MC (despite having shown no evidence of this). The characters are full of the "bad writing 101" where we're told, not shown.

Despite this, the series is worth reading for the plot. Assuming you can stomach the dull supporting POVs.

2 books and I still have no idea how they keep their beer cold! That may sound like a stupid complaint but in a world of 1700's technology and reading over and over how they have icy cold beers, it really starts to get your wheels turning after a while. I wondered to myself constantly how the main character who wants to bring about change can have cold beer/food and not see the obvious advantages to refrigeration and freezing, in a society that doesn't even have electricity. I really liked this series but this book broke the cardinal rule of DON'T ANNOY THE READER. I found the spelling and grammar problematic (again) but seeing as how the writer is new and probably doesn't have a real editor made me power through it ( I was being understanding). This book has MAJOR continuity issues! (Spoilers Ahead!) The timelines don't match up at all! There are times when characters talk about when the attack/invasion is expected and they basically agree to start it in 4 months. Then in book 2 two years have passed and none of the Narthoni plans have come to fruition. The women in this story seem wrong to me. I know that it is within a Victorian type of society but still they are not believable. There's one woman who just wants to get laid, another who just wants to get pregnant, and the main characters wife has no positive view of sex, nor does she think women enjoy it other then it's for procreation and seems personally ambivalent. There has never been a society on planet earth that didn't have foreplay, but low and behold foreplay or anything other then straight up sex is out of the question on cadellium. The characters are faced by an empire which wants to take over their island and although there are some industry ie; metal working, gunpowder processing, ethanol etc. The main character seems to be a complete moron when it comes to way's he can use these things against the empire. His specialty is chemistry! How hard would it be to build a damn hot air balloon and drop pipe bombs on a fixed enemy whose muskets couldn't reach a balloon's height? I thought of dozens of different ideas that the main character could have done that would be more effective then the things he has done. The fact that I was thinking about this stuff made me realize that even with the problems in this story I still enjoyed it. I will read book 3 when it is released but I really hope this author gets some professional writing help on the next in the series as well as a real editor. Nothing annoys me more then paying for a book that has spelling and grammar issues.

This is the second book of the trilogy and it’s quite different from the first. In this book in fact, war strategy is the leading actor and most pages are dedicated to their description from both sides. The author shows a deep knowledge of war mechanisms both from the “technical” point of view, but also as regards the psychology that is below human contrasts, wherever they come from: Earth or Anyar.
I must say that personally I would have preferred a minor space given to these aspects, probably because it was quite difficult to me to read such details in a different language from mine, but still I cannot help but recognize the author capacity at this regard.
A puzzling aspect is the kind of relationship between Jozef Kolsko and Maera, his wife. It seems like the two shame of their feelings, although deep. The two met in the previous book and there was a romantic, “classical” approach, maybe because Maera was not in her place, and she felt free to show her feelings, given that she is the daughter of the hetman, thus a kind of the USA President’s daughter, that cannot show any kind of weakness when she is among her people. They meet again in this book, but this time in her place, where there are social constraints, and they seem to “decide” to get married because it is rationally good for both of them, and politically advantageous, and not because they are in love. Notwithstanding, they turn out to be very close one to another.
This book, differently from the first one, does not have a kind of the typical conclusion of a book, but is rather a second episode that leaves with bated breath waiting for the next.
I remain with my first impression that this trilogy might give rise to a wonderful Hollywood movie: I just have it in my mind on a huge screen!

Joseph Colsco, known as Yozepf Kozko finds himself becoming wealthy on the island on a planet in a different galaxy. When pirates attack his village his advice saves most of the town. Kolzko begins improving the islands weapons to keep his adopted home safe. A little bit of Mark Twain add James Clavel and you have a good read

This is way better than the first book, though I did still find myself skimming during the Narthani points of view on a few occasions. It's nice that point of view characters finally start to meet up, something I had expected to happen during the first book and was left hanging. My major complaint about the tremendous and boring infodumps in the first book is mostly absent from this one.

This book was just as fun as the first one in the series. If you enjoyed the first one you will like this one. I would recommend starting with the first one instead of diving right into this one. I don't understand how I came to love the characters as much as I did but it happened. I love how Josef builds up his businesses and adapts to his world and how much I hate the Narthani. The plot itself is pretty simple but I just find myself caring about the characters so much.

Joe's continuing adventures. The developments are well laid out and one has respect for the other side. As in the real world, they're humans with their own motives and group politics. I finished quite eager for book 3.

Usually second novels in this type of genre fall apart as the character becomes a god-king among men and becomes more successful at every little thing. This book avoided it (but book 3 hits a few snags). I liked it and read the whole thing inside 24 hours.

I've read books 1 and 2 now and am waiting for book 3.

The biggest issue I've had is keeping the timeline straight with still fitting everything being done into it. It was much harder in book two then book one because of the multiple POVs around the invasion plan.

The concept of the first book was compelling. A different twist on sci-fi. But in this book the plot moves so slowly and was totally predictable. I used a faster narration speed to get through the boring military part, which is about a third of the book. Too much repetition of explanations, especially near the end when the same battle is told from the different perspectives of those who fought it. The second book also has no female characters, except for the protagonist’s wife, who is not mentioned at all after they are married. There were some interesting moments, but none of them were fleshed out enough. I’m still debating about even getting the third book.

I enjoy this type of books. I found the book to be good enough after reading the first one to read this on my Kindle. I finished it and enjoyed the plot and the characters,. I am about to start on book 3 of the series.

Normally my review a are very short. However, this book and this writer have captured all the elements. It's been a while for me to used all my emotions as I turn each page. This series is doing that. Laugh, cry, anger are a few that come to mind. I find myself being really invested in all the characters. Great Read!!!

This series begins with an unusual backstory that lifts it far above the run of the "fell into a video game" mill. The premise of an ordinary modern American being suddenly dropped into a human society of warring clans at a roughly 1750 level of technology could have gone horribly wrong in so many ways, but is in this case quite well thought through. Placed in such a situation, even an intelligent, history-aware person is going to know about the existence of so many technologies that he would have no idea how to build. He would know that there will be steel ships the size of towns, but how do would you build one in a society of wooden-vessel sailors, not being a naval architect?

Thorensen does a good job of finessing how his protagonist would approach problems like this, given managerial skills to make use of local talent and a decent knowledge of history that lets him know what path we on Earth took to reach given technological goals.

I am going to enjoy seeing how this series plays out.