Sravika's Books - Reviews and Other Trivia

 Somewhere in Time  By Richard Matheson  Published Year: 1975 Page Count: 263 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Fantasy, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Romance, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 💝💝💝💝💝 What a beautiful book! I forgot time and kept flipping through the pages until I realized I was at the end. The prose is so beautiful and engrossing. The pacing is fast and world is beautifully set within a hotel in California.The times change between years 1971 and 1896.  A man, diagnosed with terminal cancer of brain, travels to a hotel in California. There, as by coincidence or through divine intervention, he sees a picture of an actress from the past. He falls desperately in love with her and becomes obsessed with the idea of traveling into the past to meet her. He finds some ledger from the past date of 1896,  in which he sees his initials signed as a guest at this hotel.  Confirming his notion that he did indeed travel to that past date of...

 Words of Radiance  (The Stormlight Archive #2) By Brandon Sanderson  Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 1303 pages  Medium Used: Paperback [Mass Paperback Edition] Genre : High Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Magic, 2025-read.  Rating : 4/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳 Some Spoilers Ahead !!  Jasnah and Shallan are traveling on a ship that is carrying them to the Shattered Plains. Jasnah makes a match between Shallan Davar and Adolin Kholin, cousin to the king and son of Dalinar. They are also about to reveal some major findings from their research into the nature and return of Voidbringers and the magical city Urithiru. But enroute, pirates raid the ship and Shallan escapes presuming Jasnah to be dead. She uses her Lightweaving capacity to reach the Shattered Plains and  later on to become a trusted member of a shadow group Ghostbloods. She learns of the secret desires of Brightwood Amaram to bring back voidbringers and desolation into the world.  Dalinar is intent on se...

 Sign of Chaos  (The Chronicles of Amber #8) (Amber: Merlin Cycle #3) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1987 Page Count: 220 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Science Fiction, Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Multiverse, Shadows, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 The pace is fast as with the whole series. I couldn't put it down or take a break because the turn of events kept me on an unbreakable edge.  Merlin is summoned by Rinaldo into a dream like reality without even using a Trump card to do it. Someone has fed him LSD, hallucinogens before letting him loose to navigate the shadows. As the story unfolds, we learn that Merlin's cousin from the Court of Chaos, Jurt, is trying to murder him so that he could clear up succession challengers to the throne. He has sent a fire eagle after him for this precise purpose. It found him in the imaginary shadow world and is killed by Merlin. Merlin has Jasra as his prisoner and knows about the reason for Dalt's rev...

 Blood of Amber  (The Chronicles of Amber #7) (Amber : Merlin Cycle #2) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1986 Page Count: 215 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre: Action, Adventure, Shadows, Multiverse, Sorcery,Magic, High Fantasy, Amber Family, 2025-read.  Rating : 4.5/5  There is a lot going on in Merlin's world and his stream of consciousness is an endless flow of experiences, analysis and conclusions. This book is longer than the others in the series so far. There are many special incidents in the book that need memorization, in order to follow what might come next.  Following from the 6th book in the series, Merlin is locked in the blue crystal cave by Luke/Rinaldo, his cousin. All ways and means of escape are barred him. He has been languishing within the cave and wishing for an escape when it comes in the form of Jasra, Rinaldo's mother. He beats her and escapes to Amber, into the security of his family palace. A group of hooligans attemp...

 The Empire of Darkness  ( Queen of Freedom #1) By Christian Jacq  Published Year : 2001 Page Count: 306 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Spirituality, Ancient Greece, Hyksos Invasion, Action, Adventure, War, 2025-read.  Rating : 4/5 🌟 😎 😀 🤣  I couldn't put this book down. It seemed like a small book but the pacing is fast and the script is utterly un-boring.  The Hyksos army comprising of men from various ethnicities like Annancites, Cyprians, Syrians etc, catch the Egyptians unaware, coming on their novel horses and horse drawn carts, weilding sophisticated artillery, defeat the naive,gentle folk and establish their tyrannical rule which is called the empire of darkness. All the provinces and major cities of the Egypt are brought under their thumb. Only Thebes remains free and independent. It is tolerated by the Hyksos emperor Apophis, to ensure that people don't fall into complete despair and desolation over their future. Minor and ma...

 Trumps of Doom  [The Chronicles of Amber #6] By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1985 Page Count: 180 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : High Fantasy, Multiverse, Shadows,Chaos, Epic, Action, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating: 5/5 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 I switched to reading from my kindle because the paperback omnibus only had books 1-5 in it. The narrator in this book is Merlin Corey, son of Corwin of Amber and Dara of Chaos. He is uniquely positioned to be the next ruler of Amber. He has walked both the Pattern of Amber and Logrus of Chaos. At the start of the book, we see him pursuing profession as an engineer in a shadow world. Every year, on April 30, someone makes a murder attempt against him and he has narrowly escaped multiple such attempts so far. This day is April 30 and he makes a decision to quit his job and go traveling. He wants to bid adieu to his ex girlfriend Julia and visits her house. He witnesses he death/murder by a dog that is from some place out ...

 The Courts of Chaos  ( The Chronicles of Amber #5) By Roger Zelazny  Published Year: 1978 Page Count: 150 pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Multiverse, Fantasy, Magic, Sorcery, Shadows, Action, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating : 4/5  This book continues from where the book 4 left off. The veil of shape-shifting is removed from Corwin's father and it is revealed that Oberon has been journeying and guiding his hand for a while. In the begin of this book, he sends a message through Dara to the family that they launch a distraction to the Court of Chaos so that it will help in his war against them. Amber and Court of Chaos are at war to establish their rule over the shadows/multiverse. Corwin and his siblings don't trust Dara immediately - given that she is a child from the Court of Chaos and her son (with Corwin) is also settled in the land of Chaos. As the story progresses, Corwin is informed that his father lost the war and is dead. A bird mystically...

 Ancillary Mercy  (Imperial Radch #3) By Ann Leckie  Published Year: 2015 Page Count : 300 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Space Opera, Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Ancillaries, Action, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5  Blew my mind. What a story. Anaandar Mianaai,the lord of the sprawling empire of Radch is split in two. She is at war with herself. She has destroyed the ship Justice of Toren and sent the only remaining Ancillary of the ship, Breq, to take control of and govern Athoek Station. This is one half of her which is good and located at Omaaugh Palace. The other half, situated in Tstur Palace and which comes towards the end of the story to fight Breq and take over Athoek Station is also Anaandar Mianaai.  In book 2, we have already seen how Breq takes control over the Athoek station and escapes a bombing attempt that was targeted to kill her. She comes to care for a couple of the station residents more than others. ...

 Ancillary Sword  [Imperial Radch #2] By Ann Leckie  Published Year: 2014 Page Count: 310 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW  Genre : Space Opera, Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Ancillaries, Action, Adventure, 2025-read.  Rating : 3/5  Having finished this book, I feel incomplete and dissatisfied. I wanted to read more and digest more but the end came abruptly. I feel a void within myself as to why so little of the Radchaai saga is covered in this book. Compared to the first book in the series, this one is a no brainer. This one doesn't involve much in the way of using AI or ancillaries and hasn't got any interesting twists, suspense moments at all. It is insipid and bland to my taste but the writing is good and prose is gripping.  Breq is given second name as Mianaai and sent to protect and take control of an Athoek station. The gates around the station are damaged and they find a Sword of Atagaris ship standing near a ghost gate. In contin...

 Sign of the Unicorn(#3 of The Chronicles of Amber) and  The Hand of Oberon (#4 of The Chronicles of Amber) Published Year : 1975, 1976 Page Count : 320  pages  Medium Used: Paperback  Genre : Magic, Sorcery, High Fantasy, Multiverse, Shadows, Awesome-Prose, 2025-read.  Rating : 5/5 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 The plot thickened and got better and better as I kept reading. I couldn't put the book down. Its a fantastic read. This is the story where siblings .. brothers and sisters ..  fight among themselves while playing a high stakes game with the end goal being the throne in Amber. The story continues from where it left off in The Guns of Avalon and adds more information to what has happened and also going forward using that knowledge.  There are three places where the family brood of Oberon, the king of Amber, can walk the Pattern to gain control over the shadows. These shadows are like multiple universes with Amber at its center. There is a Pattern in the under...