Tom Lloyd (1) (1979–)

A copy of Fear the Reaper was received from the author in a giveaway.


An angel walks into a beleaguered inn and walks out with the bartender Shell. Having been strong armed into hunting down a demon of death, four unlikely companions (and I do mean unlikely) begin a quest packed with all the exhilaration of a Blizzard video game cutscene.


A full on angel with a flaming sword enters town and nobody bats an eye. The grim seriousness of heavenly characters colliding with the detached snark of jaded peasants is a juxtaposition that works incredibly well. These little interactions bring a great deal of life to distinct characters who deserve far more space than a novella affords. Their journeys are satisfying and complete, but it's a good sign to be left yearning for more.


There's also an abundance of heavenly magics, gloom and wit, Fear the Reaper is a little novella with a big adventure fit snug inside its pages. Would definitely recommend.… (más)

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Title: God of Night
Series: God Fragments #4
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 421
Words: 145.5K

Synopsis:

When the Cards released the seals on Magic, not only did more magic enter the world, thus stirring up all the creatures that used and fed on magic, and not only did it make mages more powerful, but it also had the side effect of making the god fragments even more powerful. One of the Militant Orders has figured out that if they can bring enough god fragments of their particular deity together, it might just resurrect it. And with a resurrected god on their side, they'll rule the Riven Kingdoms as undisputed masters.

Does anyone think the Cards are just going to sit back and let this happen? Of course not. When they discover that one of their mages of Tempest has the ability to destroy god fragments merely by touching them, they hatch a plan, a daring plan to capture as many of the god fragments as possible and destroy them. Doesn't matter that most god fragments are housed in the Militant Orders most secure locations, nothing is going to stop the Cards.

Using double and triple dealing, backstabbing, betrayals and general kick assery, the Cards manage to destroy the majority of fragments from 3 of the 4 Orders. The last Order is the most powerful however, and it's cache of fragments is located in a duegar stronghold underground and is currently being overrun by magical underground creatures.

Once they've gotten into the Stronghold, the Cards find out that the gods were using a chained creature of magic to siphon power from. Now that the gods fragments are being destroyed and the magic has been released back into the world, this elder god is awakening. The Cards must therefore defeat the final god fragments, which are reassembling into its god AND defeat a creature so powerful that it made gods from mere duegar hundreds of millennia ago.

Tons of people die, the Cards succeed and Lynx is elected the new leader of the Cards because Anatol was one of the people killed. There are still god fragments in the world and the warlord of his people is still alive, so Lynx figures their new mission will be to invade So-Han and kill the warlord. Thus the book and the series ends.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this but by the end, with some realizations, was glad this was the end of the series.

The fights were awesome. Realizing what the Militant Orders were up to was even awesomer. Finding out there was an elder god involved and that the Cards were going to kill it was the awesomest of all! The final massive battle in the Duegar ruins between the Cards, the remaining Militant Order personnel, the magic monsters and the elder god was everything I could have asked for. Magic galore, flintlock fantasy bullets and grenades by the metric ton and a monster so huge and gruesome that it made the monster from the first book look like a teddy bear? How could I not like everything about that? Even the ending was good. Lots of the Cards die. Important Cards die, like Anatole. Lynx becoming the new Master of the Deck slotted in perfectly with the series.

Unfortunately, and this is ALL me, was that I was used to the god fragment bullets and the grenades and bombs, etc. They didn't have the same impact on my as they did in the first book. I also realized, after finishing reading, that Lloyd had worked in some homosexual characters without playing it on a trumpet. I suspect if I were to go back and re-read the other books, I'd be finding more understated circumstances like this. Hence why I'll be done with Lloyd from here on out.

In regards to the series overall, I really enjoyed my time reading each book and short story and thought it was about 100 times better than Lloyd's Twilight Reign series. I'd recommend this wholeheartedly if mercenaries using dead god bodies to power their flintlock guns sounds like your kind of thing.

★★★★☆… (más)

I have a confession to make - I’m not the biggest fan of Tom Lloyd’s books. It isn’t the mythos, or the violence, or even the characters. There is something in the way that Lloyd constructs sentences that hurts my brain.

I realize that sounds petty and weak, and it is, but it makes reading a full length novel of his difficult. I’m sure listening to a narrated version would be fine - I’ve learned that lesson with a few other authors lately - but something in the word to brain translation breaks down and I begin to develop a book induced migraine. My internal critic screams at what seem like run-on sentences devoid of punctuation.

Which is why I’m as surprised as you now are to know I’m going to recommend the God Tattoo so highly. This collection of “Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign” follows the same universe as his other Twilight Reign novels, replete with White Eyes and magics and forces both terrible and dark. But somehow, distilled into these short vignettes, each chapter a story in itself, it was actually a really fun and entertaining read.

Of course, like any story collection, not all stories are created equal, and some are better than others. Fans of Lloyd’s will enjoy the collection, and fantasy readers interested in a collection of fun fantasy adventures will find something entertaining here as well. This companion book contains a well rounded collection of mysteries, gothic fairytales, and classic adventure stories - set in the world of the Seven Tribes.

Enjoy!… (más)