Steven William Hannah (Author of Icebreaker)

Steven William William rated a book really liked it Plaguesongs Crowsongs Ghostsongs by James Osmer	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Sleep Paralysis Man Befriends Crows This is one of those really unique books, in a genre I am calling Psychosis Inducing Literature. Out the gate, I have to commend the poetic prose and the brilliant setup. Our MC is told that when next he sleeps, he' ...more
Aug 28, 2026 12:16AM · 1 like · like · see review
Steven William William rated a book really liked it Skyfold (The Archon Saga) by T.J. McKay	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Free Solo meets Warcraft Star-crossed lovers attempt to free-solo a floating city in a sky-heist, attempting to break the grip of the giant death angels that rule over them. Skyfold is my first foray into Tim Mackay's imagination, having only known hi ...more
Jul 31, 2026 01:46AM · 4 likes · like · see review
Steven William William rated a book really liked it Candle and Claw (The Witherclaw Trilogy #1) by Stephen James Taylor (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Fantasy Cop Drama Candle and Claw may seem at first like a classic fantasy novel, but in actuality it is more a police-procedural with very tasty fantasy flavourings. Better yet, it's a really good police story. It's really competently written, with l ...more
Jul 11, 2026 01:01PM · like · see review
Steven William William rated a book it was amazing Feral Bloom by H.M. Read (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
28 Years Later X Roadside Picnic This one had me turning pages every spare moment I had until the ending (which I'll talk about after the spoilers warning), and went immediately into contention for my 2026 Read of the Year. Think 28 Years Later meets ...more
Jun 27, 2026 11:26PM · 8 likes · like · see review
Steven William William rated a book liked it The Flow of Power by David Aumelas (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The Prestige X Lost The Flow of Power - David Aumelas Having now read both The Triangle Age and The Flow of Power, I think I've pinned down what it is that I love about Aumelas' writing. It has a tendency to keep it's focus small and personal whilst gr ...more
Jun 25, 2026 09:50AM · like · see review
Steven William William rated a book really liked it Hostile Contact (Weapons of Choice, #1) by Nick Snape (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It's XCOM Hostile Contact asks the question - what if some modern day soldiers had to fight the Elites from Halo? It's a fun tactical romp with enough realism and technical talk to scratch a mil-scifi itch, with enough weird, broader ideas to keep thin ...more
May 15, 2026 04:00AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Hostile Contact by Nick Snape. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Hostile Contact by Nick Snape <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Steven William William rated a book really liked it Petition (Resonance Crystal Legacy, #1) by Delilah Waan (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Psychic Murder Mystery/Tournament Arc Evocative and efficient are my two pillars when I'm weighing up someone's writing, and as I read the first few chapters I noted both qualities constantly. Petition opens strong - sympathetic MC, interesting settin ...more
May 02, 2026 11:04AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Petition by Delilah Waan. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Petition by Delilah Waan <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Steven William William rated a book really liked it The SEPA Project (The SEPA Series Book 1) by J. Moody (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Severance Vs Handmaids Tale The SEPA Project swung between high highs and kinda medium lows for me. The concept is what initially gripped me - a post-apoc enclave that uses memory-wiping and monitoring tech to send highly trained clones into the waste ...more
Apr 23, 2026 09:43AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The SEPA Project by J. Moody. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The SEPA Project by J. Moody <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Steven William William rated a book it was amazing The Shadow Over Psyche Station by Yuval Kordov (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Lovecraft meets Ad Astra Beautiful and distinctive, disturbing and uncomfortable. Kordov has a way of putting you in the head - and in this case, the spacesuit - of his leads, and in this story it was not an easy place to be. Lovecraft-in-space is alr ...more
Apr 17, 2026 08:12AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Shadow Over Psyche Station by Yuval Kordov. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Shadow Over Psyche Station by Yuval Kordov <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Steven William William finished reading Virtual Rebel: A Sci-Fi Action Adventure (The Haven Trilogy Book 1) by J.Z. Pitts	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 10, 2025 04:46AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Virtual Rebel by J.Z. Pitts. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Virtual Rebel by J.Z. Pitts <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Steven William William rated a book really liked it

Plaguesongs Crowsongs Ghostsongs
by James Osmer

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Sleep Paralysis Man Befriends Crows

This is one of those really unique books, in a genre I am calling Psychosis Inducing Literature. Out the gate, I have to commend the poetic prose and the brilliant setup.

Our MC is told that when next he sleeps, he' ...more

Steven William William rated a book really liked it

Skyfold (The Archon Saga)
by T.J. McKay

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Free Solo meets Warcraft

Star-crossed lovers attempt to free-solo a floating city in a sky-heist, attempting to break the grip of the giant death angels that rule over them.

Skyfold is my first foray into Tim Mackay's imagination, having only known hi Free Solo meets Warcraft

Star-crossed lovers attempt to free-solo a floating city in a sky-heist, attempting to break the grip of the giant death angels that rule over them.

Skyfold is my first foray into Tim Mackay's imagination, having only known him in his capacity as a (very good) editor prior - this has been on my TBR for a loooong time.

It feels a bit like a fairy tale - and in retrospect, no spoilers mind, that makes perfect sense. Skyfold is its own tale with its own setup and payoff, but it serves a larger purpose to set up a much deeper story with much deeper stakes. In that regard, its a solid introduction to a very-high-fantasy world.

I say very-high-fantasy because it's literally set on floating sky islands, protected from the dangers of the dark world below by the titular Skyfold, and ruled by Sovereigns (who feel like the final bosses of a Diablo game), giant fiery winged beings who embark on an annual war against the outside world.

The energy between the two main characters, Cabbott and Riven, is the heart of the tale. I was rooting for them the whole time. The setting is richly imagined, full of weird materials and magic technology whose workings have been long forgotten. It has that sense of time and age to it that makes a setting feel alive, and the feeling of impossible power disparity between the Sovereigns and ordinary people is vast and feels insurmountable. Fertile ground for a kind of uprising, or in this case, a death-or-glory heist.

It ticks a lot of boxes, and keeps the story very much on the human relationships in the shadow of these unkillable tyrants. Parts of it feel very Warcraft, which I mean as a compliment.

Any criticism I have is about how a bunch of potentially cool details are kinda hand-waved, and the style was occasionally a little too vanilla for me. That, and the mortal sin of pulling away from a tense, fraught moment to deliver a chapter of back story. Minor things, and very much problems that are specific to me and the style of writing I usually like.

A solid, short fantasy romp that sets up a very high magic world for its sequels, with some plot twists that truly caught me off guard and highly likeable main characters (and highly dislikeable villains). Also the concept of Pragos speaks to me on a deep level.

4 stars. ...more

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Candle and Claw (The Witherclaw Trilogy #1)
by Stephen James Taylor (Goodreads Author)

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Fantasy Cop Drama

Candle and Claw may seem at first like a classic fantasy novel, but in actuality it is more a police-procedural with very tasty fantasy flavourings. Better yet, it's a really good police story.

It's really competently written, with l ...more

Steven William William rated a book it was amazing

Feral Bloom
by H.M. Read (Goodreads Author)

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28 Years Later X Roadside Picnic

This one had me turning pages every spare moment I had until the ending (which I'll talk about after the spoilers warning), and went immediately into contention for my 2026 Read of the Year.

Think 28 Years Later meets 28 Years Later X Roadside Picnic

This one had me turning pages every spare moment I had until the ending (which I'll talk about after the spoilers warning), and went immediately into contention for my 2026 Read of the Year.

Think 28 Years Later meets Roadside Picnic/STALKER: the plants are trying to kill us, the dogs have unionised and are hunting people in huge packs, and there's a fog in the air that knows your name. We're deep in the post-post-apocalypse where literacy is a rare skill and the coast is the only safe place, where people are marked for what job they are assigned (and breeder is one of them). It's a bleak setting, with a simple story: take this girl who can read into the heart of a ruined London and bring back information on what actually happened to the world.

The prose is purposeful and sharp, sparse and efficient, violent where it has to be and rhythmic when it matters. The dialect adds a nice bit of seasoning. Maybe the landscape is described as basins and rises a little too often, but it works. There was one scenario I struggled to visualise, but after learning about [SPOILERS] I have a sense that this was very deliberate.

The characters were a little thin at first (literally, everyone is kinda starving), but the cast came together with brilliant chemistry by the 25% mark. Temlyn, Braska and Faron in particular. Easy to root for despite being fairly unpleasant people - the world does not allow much in the way of niceness.

There's a lot of implications left to the imagination, be it in setting, character, or the mystery at the heart of the story - and just enough breadcrumbs that I'd managed to put together a fairly accurate sense of what happened to the world by the time the ending came. Solving that mystery myself was the precursor to the ending, which is unusual in that it's essentially a lore-dump of what our protagonists actually learned, put together in the style of a scientific report, but boy howdy was that well earned and much needed after the rip-roaring tension and pace of the story that precedes it.

Thematically tight, brutal and merciless, psychedelic and dreamlike in just the right amount. Honestly, if you liked my Interloper trilogy or Paul Jameson's Nightjar/Life of Maggot then you'll probably love this.

5 stars, I couldn't put it down. An epistemological apocalypse that doesn't flinch away from our nature, extremely fresh and original. ...more

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The Flow of Power
by David Aumelas (Goodreads Author)

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The Prestige X Lost

The Flow of Power - David Aumelas

Having now read both The Triangle Age and The Flow of Power, I think I've pinned down what it is that I love about Aumelas' writing. It has a tendency to keep it's focus small and personal whilst gr ...more

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Hostile Contact (Weapons of Choice, #1)
by Nick Snape (Goodreads Author)

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It's XCOM

Hostile Contact asks the question - what if some modern day soldiers had to fight the Elites from Halo?

It's a fun tactical romp with enough realism and technical talk to scratch a mil-scifi itch, with enough weird, broader ideas to keep thin ...more

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Petition (Resonance Crystal Legacy, #1)
by Delilah Waan (Goodreads Author)

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Psychic Murder Mystery/Tournament Arc

Evocative and efficient are my two pillars when I'm weighing up someone's writing, and as I read the first few chapters I noted both qualities constantly. Petition opens strong - sympathetic MC, interesting settin Psychic Murder Mystery/Tournament Arc

Evocative and efficient are my two pillars when I'm weighing up someone's writing, and as I read the first few chapters I noted both qualities constantly. Petition opens strong - sympathetic MC, interesting setting and magic system that is shown rather than told, and immediate stakes that feel relatable and personal. The line by line prose is great too, full of imagery and sense. It's one of those books you can kinda smell. It smells like the sea and it tastes like salt. Little things like the idioms people use build up a very real world.

Part magic school tournament arc, part psychic murder mystery, Petition delivers solidly on almost all of what it promises.

The world building and setting are part of what I enjoyed so much, and it's dripfed really well. The magic system isn't particularly intuitive and I wasn't quite able to follow why some things worked whilst others didn't, it felt a bit too abstract or convenient at times for my liking, but it had flashes of really dark brilliance and implications I'd be interested to dive deeper into. The real sense of danger from powerful mages was a really scary idea I wish had been used more.

The characters are distinct and true to themselves, if diluted somewhat by the sheer fucking quantity of names and Houses to remember. There's a lot going on. That's all forgiveable thanks to the great character work, though, and so my only real complaint is that Petition occasionally dives deeply into stuff that has little importance, whilst skimming over stuff that deserves to be dwelt on. Also there's a fair bit of good luck and convenience helping our MC succeed, but given how terrible her luck is otherwise I didn't mind so much. The climax of the murder mystery, however, did fall a little flat for me.

I'm 50/50 on reading the sequel - there's a lot more to explore and implications of a much grander threat. I think once the third book is out I'd be more inclined to carry it on.

What it does well, it does very well indeed - but I was more pleasantly entertained than blown away. Solid work, executed pretty well. ...more

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The SEPA Project (The SEPA Series Book 1)
by J. Moody (Goodreads Author)

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Severance Vs Handmaids Tale

The SEPA Project swung between high highs and kinda medium lows for me. The concept is what initially gripped me - a post-apoc enclave that uses memory-wiping and monitoring tech to send highly trained clones into the waste Severance Vs Handmaids Tale

The SEPA Project swung between high highs and kinda medium lows for me. The concept is what initially gripped me - a post-apoc enclave that uses memory-wiping and monitoring tech to send highly trained clones into the wastes without compromising their own society. Top marks, sign me up - and it does deliver on that premise from chapter one.

It's heavy on themes of identity and memory, colonialism and power, and the de-personing of outsiders (especially women, Jesus Christ some really horrific things happen to the women in this story). Those beats it lands brilliantly, and whilst the first half takes its time to set up a vast scaffold of political intrigue and conspiracy, the second half delivers repeated emotional body blows and so many twists that I felt a twizzler. If you can get me to whisper "good lord" at a chapter then you get an extra star, thems the rules.

The middling lows I mentioned are found in two flavours. The first is during the first 50%, which has to set up a lot of lore and relationships and establish stakes for a huge cast of characters, and I think at least 4 POVs, maybe 5. The two characters whose POVs I enjoyed kept me going through the ones I didn't, and those got better with time, but it feeds into my issue with the other half; as we approach the climactic finale and are treated to revelation after revelation, the POVs end up retreading the same information that the reader already knows because the characters are hearing it for the first time. It takes the wind out of a finale which I thought might be more bombastic.

The character work is largely good - especially Hui, the ten year old. Making me like a ten year old character's POV is pretty tough. The prose is serviceable, occasionally brilliant.

I'm glad I checked it out, I liked it - just not enough to read the sequels. If high concept, character driven sci-fi with a focus on intrigue, human suffering, and interpersonal relationships (with a complex family tree that grows arms and legs) is your jam then I reckon you'll love this. ...more

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The Shadow Over Psyche Station
by Yuval Kordov (Goodreads Author)

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Lovecraft meets Ad Astra

Beautiful and distinctive, disturbing and uncomfortable. Kordov has a way of putting you in the head - and in this case, the spacesuit - of his leads, and in this story it was not an easy place to be.

Lovecraft-in-space is alr ...more

Steven William William finished reading

Virtual Rebel: A Sci-Fi Action Adventure (The Haven Trilogy Book 1)
by J.Z. Pitts

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	Icebreaker (Interloper, #1) 4.48 avg rating — 88 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The First Rule: The Blind Age 4.73 avg rating — 40 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hundredth Question (Interloper, #2) 4.66 avg rating — 35 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Under The Oak (Interloper, #3) 4.56 avg rating — 32 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Rain That Makes The River: The Blind Age - Book Two it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Shadow of the Statue 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kingdom: The Complete Series 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Prince of Broken Glass 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Steven’s Year In Books

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