Ricky Pine's Blog, page 106

Review: The Hammer of Thor

The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Magnus Chase returns in his second adventurous trip through Rick Riordan's madcap vision of Norse mythology. While the first book had a few certain similarities to The Lightning Thief with its depiction of a boy discovering his connection to a supernatural world of gods and monsters, The Hammer of Thor feels a little more similar to TLF in its focus on the hunt for a lightning-themed MacGuffin - in this case, the signature weapon of...

Review: A Torch Against the Night

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, it's about time I get to read this one...for whatever reason, my library is always A) really slow to acquire copies of Sabaa Tahir's books, and B) never picks up more than three or four of each, which means the waiting list can get super-duper long, super-duper fast.

Like a few other fantasy sequels I've read in my time, A Torch Against The Night has a tendency to focus more on travel to the next important setting than on...

Coming Soon: Orange Crush

Going to church again, even if it was just for Christmas Eve, made me feel depressed and stuck in Hell for another hour I could have spent writing instead. So I made the most of it and thought about what else to write for the Red Rain series. My brainstorming continued into Christmas Day, while my parents drove us to my grandparents' house, and the hellish visions continued. Hellish visions that wouldn't fit into Black Mirror or Peppermint.
So I've decided to extend the series, again...

Review: Cold Days

Cold Days by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A perfectly timed read in this winter season, the follow-up to Ghost Story gets absolutely frigid as Harry Dresden is forced into yet more faerie work as the Winter Knight. Freshly-revived beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

Once again, it's an example of Butcher delivering a massive 500-page-plus piece of fantasy awesomeness. And it's an example of how he can take forever to give us new material in a timely fashion...but it's Butcher, so once...

Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the almost three years I've been building my own science-fantasy multiverse in my writing, I've written a couple of characters named Jason and Daniela (though they go by Jay and Dani, respectively), who paired up together before the events of the series begin. Sheer coincidence, then, that I discover this book by Blake Crouch and find a couple named Jason and Daniela in it - though Crouch writes adults and I write teenagers. Given the q...

Review: Bad Boy

Bad Boy by Elliot Wake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Lie awake in bed at night
And think about your life
Do you want to be different?"
-30 Seconds To Mars, "A Beautiful Lie"

Let's face it. This is the book Elliot Wake was born to write.

It's barely 250 pages, but in those 250 pages, Wake gives us his most psychologically raw and intense material yet. He gives us his best protagonist yet, too, in Renard Grant - a vlogger documenting his gender transition (some of his vlogs form interludes in the story...

Review: The Obsidian Chamber

The Obsidian Chamber by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love how the latest Pendergast books have gone for a color scheme not unlike my own Red Rain series, although with the first three colors being in the opposite order from what Preston and Child are doing. The fourth, however, is a black-themed title just like my fourth Red Rain book. After the ending of Crimson Shore, this book, I expected to be the darkest and most horrifying Pendergast yet.

Turns out it was a bit damaged by...

Review: The Prisoner of Cell 25

The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember reading this book a few years ago and initially dismissing it as a Percy Jackson knockoff. Recently, however, a kid started coming to the tutoring center where I work, and he has very similar tics to those of Michael Vey - blinking, gulping, etc. Though I can't say for certain whether or not this new kid has Tourette's, I had that in mind when I decided it was time I took another stab at this book.

Safe to say a...

Review: Boy Robot

Boy Robot by Simon Curtis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I have this human heart
My mother told me so
She said, 'This shit can go to pieces, boy, be careful...'"
-OneRepublic, "Lift Me Up"

Enough book bloggers were raving about this book that after months of my library not ordering it, I finally special-ordered it from Sacramento. Worth it.

It's a commanding read, completely unputdownable, even when the story shifts into horrifying violence - which it often does, especially when digging into the backs...

Review: The Wall of Storms

The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's amazing how Ken Liu was able to first put out his debut last year, then grace us with a collection of short stories (which I haven't read yet) and this brick of a sequel only a year later. Unlike a few other fantasy stalwarts I can name, Liu appears to be quite the workhorse, delivering high-quality reading material in a short amount of time.

I'm not sure if they invented the term "silkpunk" just for Liu's story, but it seems like ju...