Well done story so far. This is the second story in this series and I highly recommend y’all to read the first one first.

I really adore the relationships between two of the main characters, they go together so well. It’s incredibly rare to see two lesbian characters in a story like this. So I’ve been really enjoying this story because again most wlw stories tend to focus more on the relationships or interpersonal conflict, which don’t take me wrong are delightful too. I also adore the attitude of the main character herself, its nice to read a story where the pairing isn’t all soft butch lesbian or w/e. Those stories are fine too I love them as well but like they say variety is the spice of life.

The author does a good job of slowly exposing you to more and more detail of the world while still keeping lots of the magic hidden for future reveals or up to your imagination.

Read More

4 days and I've caught up from never having heard of it to now needing more in my life this is an amazing book loving it it's got a Cultivation meets Fantasy meets Steampunk vibe that just hits that niche you didn't know was there but love every second of.

Read More

This entire series is great with setup and establishing a plot that might look unrelated eventually coming together. Now, I am saying this because I read the first part "Rising from the war of fog" which conceptualized similar writing style and story development.

Now, I'd very much recommend it to you if you don't mind any slow-burn series where the story takes a while to pick up while you can sit back and enjoy and see how it all develops.

And yes finally, Zel and Zef are such a great cast of main characters and you can't help but love their dynamics you can definitely feel the progress from what it was in the first part - RFTWoF, or you can search for Retribution Engine ARC 1 as I feel the author changed the name, and I recommend reading the ARC 1 first as this is a continuation of that and you definitely can't find head or tail if you skip it.

So, yeah, give it a go and you definitely won't regret it.

Read More

So having read the first one, I decided to give this one a go. Let me start by saying that I liked the first and was often confused, but imagined how much things had changed from book one to 2. This book is worth the binge, I sat down and read it from start to finish in a day or so. I loved the clearly illustrated ideas and themes and how none it feels tropey. It's all a refreshing and living world meshed with tech and cutlivation and fantastic systems that are just too wonderful to ignore. I didn't even know how some of them worked and yet loved every second of their description. So I dont know what you're waiting for go read it!

Read More

To be honest "retribution engine" is perfect imo. Yea the characters need a bit more development, but there is plenty of time left for that. From the action to the world building down to small interactions between characters, everything just works really well together

Read More

A continuation from "Rising From the War of Fog" written by the same author. 

If you have read the 1st novel in the series, the writing quality, story telling, world building and characters are just as well written in this one so far. 

The lore of the world continues to grow, new challenges and problems to overcome arrive and the relationship continues to bloom for the main character.

Read More

The sequel picks up right after the events of the first book, so if you haven't read it you'll want to give it a read.

The character development continues strong, each new and old member of the cast feels unique.  A few of the characters have their own PoV's or mini-arcs that shows the decisions they've made or actions they've taken that continue to shape them.

In many novels I find myself getting bored when the story shifts away from the MC to another character for more than a couple chapters, but the author has done an amazing job of making it feel worthwhile to read.

If you enjoyed the first book, this one will be right up your alley.

Read More

It's really good. 5/5 as of ch.138.

Continuation of Raising from the Fog of War. 

Well written characters. Characters. Not some plain dolls with cliche personality. And those characters develop.

Interesting story which grips you.

World&Lore are jewel. Interesting mixture of cultivation and steampunk I guess? Have lots of history it seems. That, which were revealed, were really interesting and enjoyable. And from there are a lot to come it seems.

Overall very enjoyable and interesting novel.

Read More

The story is quite good, but there's a jarring degree of what appears to be neo-conservative author tract far beyond the in-story depictions of nationalism.

I guess the general sense of "don't tread on me" mixed with sort of QAnon adjacency kind of makes it hard to suspend disbelief. It takes me out of the flow of the story sometimes, but not enough to dock points.

It's definitely enough that I can see people outright dropping the story over it though. If it was a worse story I certainly would have and I think that speaks to it's quality.

I also feel like that and a few other aspects of the story are getting a bit out of hand in how extreme they are. The relative number of people described as being covered in scars and/or disfiguring war wounds has vastly increased as the story goes on for instance. 

I feel like that's gone from being believably post WW1 equivalent to full on author tract as well.

Read More