Ricky Pine's Blog, page 22

Review: The Rot

The Rot by Siri Pettersen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first book in this trilogy promised a huge shakeup for Book 2 with its diabolical cliffhanger ending, and now here we are on that second book with a distinctly divided narrative. Rime's POV keeps one side of the story rooted in the ymish world where the series began, but Hirka is now stuck in modern day Europe - England, to be exact. Though Hirka does quickly adapt to the strange ways of the modern world, it was her ...

Review: The Faithless

The Faithless by C.L. Clark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second book in this planned trilogy proves to be full of surprises, especially for a reader like me who had expected Clark to follow the Court of Fives fantasy-decolonial playbook pretty closely. But also, the way Clark wrote Luca harked back so much to Helene in An Ember in the Ashes, a very complex character ethnically linked to the colonizers but wanting to do better for her legacy, that I shouldn't have been so...

Review: The Unbroken

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

C.L. Clark at one point wrote an article for Tor.com challenging the trope of the "butch martyr" in SFF, citing specific examples of Gideon the Ninth and The Traitor Baru Cormorant. This, then, is her extended challenge to that trope, with lesbian leads and their complicated dynamics - but also adding to that complication, the colonial setting, heavily inspired by North Africa under French imperial rule (Touraine is Qaz...

Review: Odin's Child

Odin's Child by Siri Pettersen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found the second book in this series available for only one dollar at the Friends of the Library room in one of the libraries in Vancouver, and as it happened, the same library had the first book in the series available to request. But only the first book. Oh well, it looked interesting and different, so I bought that second book and put it aside while waiting to pick up and read the first book. This one is set in...

Review: The Legacy of Yangchen

The Legacy of Yangchen by F.C. Yee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Overall, it's pretty safe to say that for a legacy, Yangchen doesn't leave one nearly as iconic as many of the franchise's other Avatars - especially the likes of Kyoshi, Roku, and of course Aang and Korra. But with the conclusion to her duology, it's pretty clear that she's nobody's fool, although she has to put up with a lot more interpersonal conflict than Yee had previously depicted in the Kyoshi novels. Eve...

Review: Defiant

Defiant by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This hasn't been my favorite Sanderson series - hell, it started off with one of my least favorite books of his, since Skyward felt so derivative of Ender's Game until a last minute twist or two. It did improve over time, with Cytonic in particular standing out for its sheer weirdness, but then this book comes along and returns to a more basic style and storyline. It's a bit like Cytonic was the Last Jedi of this univ...

Review: Divine Rivals

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Normally I'm leery as hell when it comes to BookTok hype - Fourth Wing, anyone? - but this book lives up to the level of attention it's been getting these last few months. A little less spicy than most romantasy offerings, enough that Fort Vancouver Regional Library shelves it pretty confidently as YA instead of adult (or even NA, which is where I'd really categorize it myself), but it's definitely a hell of a lot ...

Review: The Innocent Sleep

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"'I hate prophecy,' muttered Ginevra. 'It's never a clear set of steps. It's like trying to assemble an IKEA bookshelf using an instruction booklet that's been translated from Swedish to Japanese to English without a human double-checking the translations.'

Reminding me of how Jim Butcher surprised the readers of The Dresden Files in 2020 with a double feature of novels, Peace Talks and Battle Ground, is the la...

Review: A Curse for True Love

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Stephanie Garber brings another dark fairytale romance trilogy to its end, and this time, while the returns have steadily diminished on this series too, she sticks the landing far better than she did with the original Caraval trilogy. It helps, I think, that she ended the second book in this series on such a mind-bending cliffhanger, which she builds off of so magnificently with this book as it becomes ve...

Review: My Effin' Life

My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"We're only immortal for a limited time."
-Neil Peart

There are three reasons why Rush is one of my all time favorite bands. Pratt the Professor, quoted above with lines from the underrated 1991 classic song "Dreamline" (which I've sung acapella and karaoke for various audiences in my time), was one of them. Lerxst and his wackadoodle antics are another. But perhaps none make as great an impact as the Dirk, the Deke, Ged...