Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll be entirely honest. After reading the first book in this series, I was extremely, unreasoningly, annoyed with the many, many direct references to Dune. This has nothing to do with the seemingly epic-fantasy FEEL, the kind of slow pacing between action sequences, or the modern novel sensibilities that are nothing LIKE FH's Dune books on actual analysis.

It was all the stolen names, or maybe they're just obvious nods, and the machine gods that feel like a further nod to the extended Dune universe.

I *WANT* to just say, "Yeah, this is pretty decent fan-fiction for the franchise."

BUT. I'm doing the first and the second books a slight disservice by saying that.

In actuality, it's slightly above average space opera in the tune to Pierce Brown's Red Rising and further on, and I even laughed to hear the nods to THOSE names, too.

I won't say I'm unimpressed with the many, many nods everywhere. I also won't say that I didn't have a fairly good time with the actual tale. Because I did. It's long, has lots of twists, takes its time to build the war, lay much groundwork, and give us the full space-opera payoff.

I just hope people understand how much this stands on the shoulders of giants.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to DM requests. I think it's about time I get some eyes on them.

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