Based on the description I expected Benjamin Medrano‘s Soul Bound duology to be similar to his Mantles of Power series. It’s not, featuring entirely different event developments and character archetypes. It’s far better overall and my only complaint is that the sudden appearance of the cultists toward the end feels overly manufactured.
K.D. Robertson‘s first Stellarforged novel is sort of a middle ground between Heretic Spellblade and Neural Wraith. This goes a bit further than either of those though in having the protagonist be literally the only man around (as a result of some questionable galactic medical technology that causes genetic defects in men). Currently I would say it’s notably inferior to both of them due to the mental gymnastics involved with the setting, but I’ll give it one more book to see if it can come into its own.