Ricky Pine's Blog, page 115

Review: The Siege

The Siege by Mark Alpert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The sequel to The Six no longer has The Six, but even with fewer team members, it's still every bit as white-knuckle a book as its predecessor. The sheer inventiveness of this bite-sized piece of awesome never stops, especially given that the enemy is such a dangerous AI always going all-out to tear our heroes apart by any means necessary.

After a couple of less-than-stellar other reads, I'm happy to say I've finally found another five-star st...

Review: The King Slayer

The King Slayer by Virginia Boecker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I liked the first book in this series, but this sequel left a lot to be desired. Other than a few isolated snippets of action off and on throughout the story, nothing much appears to be happening, and it was extremely hard to follow without needing to go back and see, "Wait, when did that happen again? Or was it in the first book? And why don't I remember that?"

Such a shame - this looks like such a unique series, like The Bone Seas...

Review: The Third Option

The Third Option by Vince Flynn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Okay, so I really enjoyed the two prequel novels, but in comparison, the first two Mitch Rapp books that Vince Flynn wrote are long, sluggish, and seriously lacking in the action department. This book, in particular, has so little of Rapp, and so much of all the other, less interesting characters, that it might as well not even be a Rapp book. Honestly, I'm on the point of giving up on the series entirely, but knowing that Flynn's craf...

Coming Soon: Hurts Like Heaven

Sam Ayers, better known by her Wattpad name of @Whisperingwater, has done it again. She's designed me a new cover for the sequel to my ongoing SuperFlash KareBear (and Superman/Wonder Woman too!) fanfic, Adventure Of A Lifetime. That sequel goes by the name of Hurts Like Heaven.

Behold the two covers, side by side!


Why yes, they're both named for Coldplay songs. And why not? Coldplay's a great, great band, and don't let anyone tell you any different!

Plot details for HLH will remain under w...

Review: The Warrior

The Warrior by Victoria Scott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dante Walker's story comes to a completely wild and crazy - and endlessly twisty - ending. I do mean "endlessly twisty," too, especially in the second half or so when everyone and their mother starts betraying and backstabbing to get ahead in this little supernatural war.

One thing I loved about this series overall is its occasional similarities to my own books - particularly the tendency to bring the dead back to life with supernatural p...

Review: Death Masks

Death Masks by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The best way to describe this is with the original working title of the novel: "Holy Sheet." Naturally, of course, that proved to be a little too on-the-nose for the publishers, and in any case, it didn't exactly gel with the "same number of letters in each word" naming convention Butcher usually uses for the Dresden Files books. But hey, when the fabled Shroud of Turin is involved, let's just say it might interfere with Harry's usual polic...

Review: The Liberator

The Liberator by Victoria Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second Dante Walker book took a little longer to read than I would have liked, and in the middle, it started to feel a little bit slow, with the plot not going places like I was hoping it would.

But then a favorite character of mine came back from the dead. And that was just the beginning of The Liberator starting to find its footing again. Dante may have a new job, and he may have love in his heart now, but he's no less dangerous f...

Review: Summer Knight

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even more misadventures in Faerie abound in this fourth Dresden Files book, with Harry learning that his fairy godmother has essentially sold his debt to another powerful Sidhe, the infamous Winter Queen, Mab. Ostensibly, she just wants Harry to help clear her name after a murder rocks the Summer Court...but of course, it's a Dresden book, so nothing is what it seems, and for all 400-plus pages, you'll be left guessing what the hell is co...

Marvel Monday: Grading What I've Seen

As a reader, writer, and fanboy, Marvel movies and TV shows are required viewing for me. I've not seen them all, but I will damn well do my best if it kills me. So, in honor of this Marvel Monday (unofficial and declared pretty much only by me though it may be), I'm going to give a long list of (mostly mini) reviews for all the Marvel stuff I've seen in my time.

Ready? Strap in.

Blade (1998) - B

The earliest Marvel movie that I've seen, to my knowledge, is also one of their most stylish and eye-...

Review: Tales of the Peculiar

Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Folklore and folktales have been a little ruined for me lately, on account of my having taken a particularly dreadful folklore class last spring that promised an interesting anthropological look at the genre, only to turn into so much of the professor relying on crappy PowerPoints, creepy NPR podcasts with Fred Armisen or someone talking about how calamari is really pork bung (of course he'd have you believe that, so I don't), an...