I have been on a roll lately and not in a good way. It seems like nearly everything I’ve read the past two months or so has been somehow disappointing. I’m very pleased to announce that the losing streak is over thanks to The Rook. And what’s better, the sequel, Stiletto, is coming out in a matter of weeks (June 14 to be exact)! I’m so excited!! Myfanwy (she pronounces it to rhyme with ‘Tiffany’, although the authentic Welsh pronunciation would be different) Thomas suddenly […]
The British in the Sky with Dragons vs Napoleon
After reading and loving Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, I decided to check out her other series. While the first Temeraire novel does not have the level of clever dialogue and characterization of Uprooted, nonetheless, His Majesty’s Dragon is a decent adventure/historical fiction/fantasy. The basic premise is that a British naval captain Will Laurence captures a French ship that has on board a dragon egg about to hatch. In a nod to Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series, the dragon must bond with a human almost immediately after it […]
A Book Without Character(s)
I don’t understand how it is possible for a novel about time travel back to the Middle Ages can be so boring. And not just dull, but hard to read. Doomsday Book is supposed to be a classic work of fantasy that gets realistic with its presentation of the Middle Ages. An Oxford student (Kivrin) wants to visit the Middle Ages for study which have finally been made available for study, having been previously been deemed to dangerous (plague, wars, bandits, etc.) Her mentor Dunworthy […]
Don’t read the Apollo series before the Heroes
There are 2 problems with Rick Riordan’s latest: you have to be familiar with both of his previous Greek-myth based series for everything to make sense, and the narrative viewpoint of Apollo turned human gets annoying too often. I have only read the Percy Jackson series, not the Heroes of Olympus books, so there were a lot of references to previous events and character relationships that I’m pretty sure I was supposed to understand but did not. Making a god spend time as a mortal […]
Meh: The Book
Welcome to Night Vale the book is the same but different from its original medium (the podcast). There are 3 main perspectives that tell the story: Jackie the eternally 19-year old pawnshop owner, Diane, mother of shape-shifting Josh, and the local public radio host, Cecil. In addition to learning some of the ways in which Night Vale works (mostly from Cecil’s reports), there are way 3 mysteries/problems that Jackie and Diane eventually realize concerns them both. First, Josh wants to know who his father is; […]
Did you know the Hound of the Baskervilles was half mechanical?
The final volume (#3)of The Baskerville Affair series, A Study in Ashes, opens about a year after the events of the previous volume A Study in Darkness. Volume 2 was awful. It was almost entirely angsty romance with slight paranormal and steampunk colorings. Blech. I hate it when a story sets me up with expecting adventure or mystery, but turns out to be a romance in the end. This even ruins the expanded roles for Sherlock and Mycroft, and explanation for Jack the Ripper. Jack […]
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