Ricky Pine's Blog, page 119

Review: Ashes of the Innocent

Ashes of the Innocent by Gavin Hetherington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me an agonizingly long time to read this book after beginning it on Wattpad...six months ago? Of course, the book itself was very long, and I had so much crammed into the old schedule...but today, I've finally finished it, and let me tell you, the final three or four chapters or so validate the length with their unending twists and up-to-eleven gore and puke. It's pukey horror in-universe and out. High Octane Nausea...

Top Ten Tuesday: Anticipated Fall 2016 TV Shows

Today, Joey of Thoughts and Afterthoughts put up a "Top Ten Tuesday" meme about his most anticipated new TV shows for this fall. Naturally, I just have to follow suit with my own Top 10 list, which (while a little less cable- and/or web-inclusive than Joey's), if it doesn't get you interested in these new shows, I'm probably not the same species as you. (But we already knew that, LOL.)

This list, of course, counts only brand-new shows debuting this fall - which means no gushing about The...

Review: The Countdown

The Countdown by Kimberly Derting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was a huge fan, taken, as it were, with The Taking way back in the summer of 2014. Last year's sequel, The Replaced, was still good, though slightly underwhelming, especially on the romance front.

At last, I've read the conclusion to the trilogy, which proved to be quite the mixed bag. The first half was a little slow-moving, and more often than not had me scratching my head, probably because it's been over a year since I read The R...

Review: Fool Moon

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beware. The werewolves are out to play.

Just like Storm Front, rereading Fool Moon helps remind me of the good old days when Jim Butcher didn't take forever to put out his next book, and when the books were a little more simple and straightforward and not loaded full to bursting with crazy Fae. (Though I didn't get into this series until after the Fae started really coming to the forefront, and then I had to spend a while catching up...but let...

Review: Cam Girl

Cam Girl by Leah Raeder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elliot Wake's first three books each use some kind of art form as a recurring motif - film in Unteachable, creative writing in Black Iris, and now, in Cam Girl, the sort of art you would find in museums. This leads to what has to be one of the most striking opening sentences I've seen: "A car crash is a work of art." And from there, our new narrator, Vada, launches into a more detailed description using so many famed art movements of the last...

Review: The Mime Order

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The sequel to The Bone Season takes Paige and all her squad back to London, deep in the heart of Scion territory, where instead of Bone Seasoning, we're getting geared up for another big sorcerous event of major importance - in this case, the aptly named "Scrimmage." The Scrimmage, I think, may have served as a pretty major inspiration for A Gathering of Shadows, actually. I'm a little bit disappointed that The Mime Order takes its...

Review: Genius: The Game

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up because I recognized the name of one of James Patterson's many collaborators - who, most recently, has been working on the CBS adaptation of Zoo. Is this Gout's first solo work? It's the first I know of, anyway.

The intro feels like classic Max Ride, being presented in the form of a letter demanding your attention, and then we jump into the story itself. It alternates between three very diverse POVs of talented b...

Review: The Bone Season

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So the third book in this series, The Song Rising, is going to finally hit shelves in about six months or so, and having all but forgotten what happened in the first two books, I've decided to reread both The Bone Season and The Mime Order.

Good thing too, because looking at this first book, I realized that in the two years it's been since I read this last, I've managed to forget just about everything that happened. Even some of th...

Review: Storm Front

Storm Front by Jim Butcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Harry Dresden is a wizard who occasionally consults for the Chicago PD. He looks and acts a little bit like Nicolas Cage's character in The Sorcerer's Apprentice - dark and sarcastic. He's under threat of the Doom of Damocles, meaning any perceived breaking of the Seven Laws of Magic could result in his instant execution. Which seriously impedes his investigation in a very bizarre magical murder.

Hooked? I hope so.

Four years ago, I read this...

Review: Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The comparisons to World War Z and The Martian aren't entirely off, as this book contains elements of the former's style (a rough literary equivalent to found footage, consisting entirely of journal entries, interviews, news reports, and the like) and the latter's Twenty Minutes Into The Future setting and even a bit of its sense of humor (from the book, that is - I didn't like how the movie cut down on the laughs, and yet somehow wo...