Hello everyone! I hope you all are well, and that your week has started in the best possible way! Today I am back with another review for the SPSFC2, or better, with two reviews! I finished both of these books recently, and since I don’t have a lot to say about them I decided to write two minireviews here and be done with it. And this is a bit strange, because I loved Percival Gynt. I had an amazing time with it! And yet, I don’t really have a lot to say about it, if not “go and read that book!”. But it would be quite short for a post, right? So let’s see what I could manage here!
Title: Percival Gynt And The Conspiracy Of Days
Author: Drew Melbourne
Pages: 356
Publication Date: May 24, 2018
The year is 20018. The famed magician Illuminari is dead, and his greatest illusion has died with him. Dark forces now seek the Engine of Armageddon, the ancient, sentient doomsday weapon that Illuminari hid amongst the stars.
Enter Percival Gynt, accountant and part-time hero, whose quest to find the Engine before it falls into the wrong hands may be our universe’s last best hope for survival. It is a quest that will take him from the highest reaches of power to the lowest pits of despair and through every manner of horror and absurdity between.
But beware. This accountant has a secret. A secret that may damn us all.
Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days is a sci-fi/fantasy adventure novel full of swashbuckling, math, dark secrets, space-faeries, obtrusive product placement, Nazis, beating up those Nazis, unlimited baked beans, zombie cyborg assassins, fate with a capital “F,” love, betrayal, wizards, jokes, paradoxes, a sentient doomsday weapon, eleven-dimensional space, clones, monsters, space-nuns, and at least one rat-chef.
(Only one rat-chef.)
If I have to summarize this book with only one word it would be fun. This was a ton of fun, from start to end, and for a lot of different reasons. It has banters, it has amazing humor, and such delicious irony, in the plot, with the characters, with everything. It is delicious.
And I loved every second I spent between these pages. I loved that our main character is an accountant, and I loved that he is sent on a very special and very important mission, with an agent named Um. And I loved everything that happened to our characters during their adventure to save the world.
If you love Douglas Adams’ books, this would be an amazing addition to your collection. If you love strange books like John Dies At The End, this would be right up your alley! (But this book is way easier to follow around than Wong’s one, and in my book, sorry for the pun, this is an amazing thing, too!).
And I don’t really know what to say here, even if, as I said before, it is quite strange, because even if it took me a long time to read this one I really enjoyed it. I had a blast and I was constantly smiling or laughing while reading! So if you are in for a weird and fun book, that would keep you entertained and would take you around an interesting universe full of different forms of life, and full of action and happenings, well… wait no more! This book is right there for you!
Also, I know it’s not much, since i have read only 4 out of the 10 books in the butch, but so far this is my favorite!
Title: Intelligence Block
Series: Talos June #1
Author: Kit Falbo
Pages: 290
Publication Date: May 18, 2019
In the far future. Performers battle it out as Wizards, Magicians, and Warlocks, using advanced technology to perform amazing feats for fame and fortune.
For Talos June, he is living the life he has wanted the most: competing, entertaining, working with the dangerous technologies that produce magic. When trouble finds him, he has to decide what he wants to do next and how to solve the new puzzle trouble has brought to him.
I have to say that while reading this one there was a moment that made me really want to just drop the book, because it made me so mad! And if it wasn’t for the contest, I would have dropped it without thinking twice about it, because it was just a really really big NOPE. Mind me, the book is good, and I enjoyed it. There are a lot of interesting things in there, and my overall opinion about the book is pretty good but… but even if I can’t really say what enraged me because it would be a spoiler, it was a thing that did not sit well with me at all, and I just have to say this before going on with the review.
We have an interesting mix here of magic and technology, and it was fascinating. I think this is the best feature of the book because it is quite original and well-developed. The second-best thing in there is the UIs. It’s like AI, sort of. They are AIs that assist people in their everyday life, they can have a lot of different functions, they could be specialized in things, and they have mechanical bodies. And they have personalities. And the ones we meet thanks to Talos, our MC, are pretty interesting and… fantastic! You really need to meet them.
And the plot is quite intriguing. For once I would really like to see something that does not put the whole world in peril, I mean, I love when we have high stakes, mind me, but here it was just a bit overdone: I mean, we have a nobody (Talos June is the man behind a small time celebrity, so maybe not really a nobody, but he is not really someone either) who is a magician (a really good one, with a solid knowledge in UI and military technology, sure, but this is simply not enough) and who discover something that made the future of the world hangs on the balance. It is just not so credible. Why the menace wasn’t more local? Or smaller? It would have made more sense. It’s not that it’s the world’s destiny or nothing at all. I mean, there are a ton of options out there!!
And another thing that didn’t work so well for me was the world-building. Here we have so many interesting possibilities, and the author implies that the Universe out there is full of life and wonders but… he does not develop it. At all. It was a bit maddening, to see the tidbits he leave us and nothing else. You know that there is so much out there, it is like an itch that you can’t scratch!
But, as I was saying before, my opinion of the book is not a negative one. Sure, it could have been way better, and there were some things that didn’t really work out for me, but the plot is interesting and the characters are not bad. I wasn’t bored while reading it, and it has some strong Dresden vibes (I am not a fan of the series, because there are quite a lot of things that just do not work for me in Harry Dresden’s books, but here it is just some vibes, and I appreciated them a lot!) so if you are a fan of that series and want something not demanding at all to take you for a ride and meet some interesting ideas while relaxing, you should definitely give this one a try!
And that’s all for today! Let me know what you think? Have you heard of these books before? Are you interested in them?? Tell me!
Happy reading!
S.
susyscozyworld.wordpress.com 
I’m glad you had so much fun with Percival Gynt! Unfortunately I’m not a fan of Douglas Adams so it might not work for me.
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If that kind of book is not for you probably this won’t be the best choice. Mind me, they are not the same thing, obviously (Percival Gynt is original and a solid book on its own) but the vibes and the humor are really alike so… Yeah, maybe not the best choice!
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