Ricky Pine's Blog, page 128

Review: Half Lost

Half Lost by Sally Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Damn. I mean...bloodydamn.

Going into this, I was kind of wondering, why exactly are we supposed to hate Annelise again? I never had a problem with her, really, aside from her being quite underdeveloped as a character. But for what personality she had, I didn't think she was anywhere near the Hate Sink that the fandom (and, as of this book, Nathan) makes her out to be. So I found a copy of Half Wild and looked at the ending again to refresh my...

Review: Extreme Prey

Extreme Prey by John Sandford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The 2016 election season has been absolutely dreadful, and all we need to make it worse would be a team of radicals attempting to assassinate one of the candidates. That, I think, was the primary (no pun intended) inspiration for Sandford's latest Lucas Davenport thriller - in which right-wing racist radicals (exactly the sort who would vote for Der Fuehrer Drumpf) conspire to assassinate a fictional Democratic candidate loosely based (t...

Review: The 14th Colony

The 14th Colony by Steve Berry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of Berry's most thrilling books in years, this one encompasses American history from very close to its beginning (the War of 1812) to very close to the modern day (the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union), and manages to link them together in entirely unexpected ways. It's another one of those great stories that reveals a surprising and horribly plausible flaw in US politics - one even worse than the ones that have allowed thi...

The Flash: Dude Tears And Speed Force Feels

***SPOILER ALERT***

The Flash is my favorite show on TV because it knows how to balance all the best parts of all the best fiction - thrills, laughs, and feels. This week's powerful episode, "The Runaway Dinosaur," was no exception - because it provided us with proof positive, once again, that when Grant Gustin cries, angels' wings shrivel all across the universe.

Also, his tears are highly contagious.
The CDC's got a warning out.
Before last night, my favorite Flash episode was 1x15, "...

Novel Newcomers Interview

As part of a series of "Novel Newcomers" interviews for book bloggers who began in 2015, I've been selected for the latest pair of interviews. Naturally, I managed to slip in a couple of Red Rain references, as well as some of my usual Andrew Garfield jokes. And I may have said a little too much compared to my fellow interviewee on this one...but that's okay.

Come check it out here at ReadWriteLove28! :D

Review: The Raven King

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

***SPOILER ALERT***

The thing about this series is that each book has started off beautifully, lost a lot of steam in the end, and then ramped things up again going into the final 50-100 pages or so. The Raven King is no exception. I was afraid that the series would end quite underwhelmingly for a while, and then, boom, demonic possession and ley line magic all over again!

The writing's as beautiful as ever, and the magic's definitely...

Review: The Mountain

The Mountain by David Lynn Golemon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wish my library would get back to ordering the Event Group series, because of how perfectly awesome and perfectly ready for quarter-billion-dollar-budgeted movie adaptations they are. This prequel adventure, the origin story of the Event Group itself, is no exception. Set in the 1860s, an American crew (in the height of the Civil War, no less) travels to the Ottoman Empire to investigate the supposed landing site of Noah's Ark, Mo...

Civil War: High Action, High Emotion, High Thrills

***NO CIVIL WAR SPOILERS, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU FILMS AND AGENTS OF SHIELD.***

Nobody likes it when the parents fight. And when the family in question is the Avengers family? That's an extra-heavy dose of "from bad to worse."

Going into this movie, I expected nothing more or less than what my best friend called an "emotional horror show." Adding to that, I figured that, like the best movies out there, this one would go for a full-spectrum emotional experience. Many movies of the MC...

Review: Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold!

Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Here's a little something different from the horror-heavy action-adventure of Shannara - a much more lighthearted fantasy adventure from Mr. Brooks. It's certainly got a highly original idea going for it - can you imagine finding an entire magic kingdom for sale in a department store catalog? And then you'll find out that maybe it was for sale for a reason - it needed tons of outside help to bring itself back up to some le...

Review: Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By sheer coincidence, this is the second book I've read in a row that A) was written by an author native to the Bay Area, and B) includes a number of LGBT+ characters. Just as Pantomime was among the first books I read with an intersex protagonist, this was one of the first I read with an ace protagonist, as well as a trans male lead.

As for the story, it's a short but very sweet - and oh so very dark - exploration of a place no...