Ricky Pine's Blog, page 130

Supergirl Season 1: All Love To The Angel Of Krypton

It's been no secret for the last six months that I'm hugely into the one and only superhero show on CBS - Supergirl.

It's been no secret that I'm hugely, hopelessly crushed out on Supergirl herself. Like all my favorite superhero actors of recent years (Andrew Garfield on The Amazing Spider-Man, Grant Gustin on The Flash, Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man, etc.), Melissa Benoist owns the role of Supergirl so much, she is Supergirl. And what better heroine to be, amirite or amirite?...

Review: The Steel Kiss

The Steel Kiss by Jeffery Deaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nice to see Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs back in action...and speaking of action, this book has quite the eye-popping opening, which oddly echoes a recent episode of Damien in its deadly escalator-induced damage to a poor guy's meat suit. This is just the beginning to a diabolical plot that would have felt quite at home on CSI: Cyber - involving death by technology, which in this case has crept into so many different objects just wa...

Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The prologue to this book gives it a magnificent start as it describes Ronan's power, which gives the book its title. It reminds me very strongly of Inception, one of my favorite movies ever...



...but unlike Dom Cobb, Ronan can take more than just ideas from dreams. He can take solid objects, and solid objects he does take. Plenty of them.

The rest of the book's first half feels a little more aimless after that, and at first I was...

Review: The Elf Queen of Shannara

The Elf Queen of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was afraid the previous Shannara book would be the start of a serious decline in quality, because I remember more of its cons than its pros. Thankfully, however, Elf Queen reverses course and improves on its predecessor by shying away from some of those cons - the most notable of which, I think, was the simply bizarre names of certain characters (I still have a laugh every time I remember that one of the most important char...

Review: The Insider Threat

The Insider Threat by Brad Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of Taylor's most memorable books in quite a while, largely because of its combination of a currently topical threat (ISIS) with a few international settings that come straight out of James Rollins (no spoilers, but the bad guys in this book attempt to pull off a scarily believable, if simultaneously so out-there you can't think they'd possibly do the job, terrorist attack.) Also helping to make this book memorable - Shoshana, who...

Guess Who's Coming To Instagram?

Yeah, I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I've finally figured out how to make sure my parents don't find out I've signed up for it...

...so now you may find me on Instagram, @redrainricky!

It's under construction yet, but hopefully I'll soon find plenty of cool peeps to follow... :D

Harry Potter Book Tag

So, I found this book tag thing posted by Joey @ Thoughts and Afterthoughts, and while he didn't specifically tag me, he did post at the end of his long, long list of tags, "...and you! (Tagging everyone is difficult.)"

I assume that means I'm free to take part? I hope so...because that's exactly what I'm about to do. It's a Harry Potter book tag, which basically means I need to do this, stat.

Ready? Here we go:


FLAGRATE - A book with an interesting premise but you'd like to rewrite it...

Review: The Stars Never Rise

The Stars Never Rise by Rachel Vincent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ever wonder what'll happen if religious fascists take over this country? It might look a little something like this book's horrifying post-apocalypse. Here, the Church is empowered to hurt and/or kill anyone who breaks their inhumanly strict rules, like the second coming of the Spanish Inquisition. But unlike the real-life Salem, where I'm inclined to believe the theory that all the witch hunts were the result of the Puritans re...

Review: The Bunker Diary

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read a couple of Kevin Brooks books in my time. I liked iBoy but wasn't quite so enamored with Black Rabbit Summer. The Bunker Diary, however, is the best Brooks creation I've read so far - not to mention the darkest and most devastating. It's no wonder Adam Silvera recommended this book - like his More Happy Than Not, it's a gripping sci-fi-inflected read that, unless you have no soul, will tear your heart out.

Seriously. Once you...

Review: Shadow Wave

Shadow Wave by Robert Muchamore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

And so, the adventures of CHERUB agent James Adams come to a close in this book. It's not the end of this universe, not by a long shot (and I'll have to look into whether or not any libraries around here have the Henderson's Boys series, or the remaining CHERUB books with Lauren as the main character.)

But at least this book was a nice end to the original series, especially with its increased insight into Kyle's past as he gets a lot of...