Ricky Pine's Blog, page 24

Review: The 9th Man

The 9th Man by Steve Berry
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The first book of a projected trilogy (at least) spinning off from Berry's signature Cotton Malone series, I'm afraid this one doesn't give a particularly strong first impression of Luke Daniels as a character. By Berry's own admission, Daniels is like a younger and more impetuous Cotton Malone, but after years of reading Malone's stories, Daniels just comes off shockingly incompetent, the worst student Malone could hav...

Review: Six Sacred Swords

Six Sacred Swords by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ahh, here's a nice little change from Andrew Rowe. After two meaty paper bricks in the Arcane Ascension series, here, Rowe shifts focus to Keras with a sort of prequel spinoff, presented as a story which Keras tells while on a long ride abroad with Corin and company at the end of On the Shoulders of Titans. It's a much shorter book than the first two Arcane Ascension novels were, and is a hell of a lot of fun to r...

Review: Light Bringer

Light Bringer by Pierce Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No spoilers for Light Bringer, but spoilers for previous Pierce Brown books will appear herein. You've been warned.

"Our sun floats in darkness attended by moons made of trash."

And with that, Darrow once again proves himself the Imperator of Opening Lines.

Four years ago, we all thought Pierce Brown was only going to give us one more book after Dark Age in the Red Rising Saga, but after that book proved to be such a "F...

Review: On the Shoulders of Titans

On the Shoulders of Titans by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While seeing me read this second book of Arcane Ascension at work, my coworker Tory, who recommended this author to me to begin with, would go off on tangents about the various connections between this series and others from Mr. Rowe. After reading this book in its entirety, I can see why - the ending to this one is slightly more concerned, especially right on the last line, with setting up a spinoff more...

Review: The Clearing

The Clearing by Simon Toyne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ahh, now this is more like it. The second Laughton Rees mystery by Mr. Toyne dips slightly back into his fantasy roots, while also specifically going for the sort of folkloric West Country vibe that influenced Tolkien. (No seriously, there’s a lot of hobbit and orc jokes throughout this book, even in the internal monologue lament of an Earl whose historic house would require repair work from a very old fashioned blacks...

Review: Dark Objects

Dark Objects by Simon Toyne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

With each series he’s worked on in the last decade, Simon Toyne has shifted more towards realism than the intense modern fantasy thrillers of the Sanctus trilogy, a series that I’ll not soon forget. This book is the first of a new series with protagonist Laughton Rees, a young profiler with a terribly troubled past - like Barry Allen, she saw her mum’s murder, but unlike Barry Allen, she wound up so traumatized that sh...

Review: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson's third of his 2023 Secret Projects was also by far the quickest to reach me when the new quarter began. I guess the ongoing production and fulfillment issues at the Dragonsteel warehouse in Utah must have resolved themselves pretty well, and third time's the charm for the project which Sanderson has indicated to be his favorite of the Secret Projects. It's certainly my favorite from a...

Review: The Book Eaters

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I hadn't been aware that author Sunyi Dean was autistic, I'd have been very suspicious of her for writing a book where the main character's son, a rare monster among monsters, comes off like a grim allegory of how neurotypical people see autistic people as inherently creepy. That Cai, the mind eater character in question, is only able to adhere to what is typical for his people when dosed with a drug curiously kno...

Review: Fractal Noise

Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A lot of one star reviews for this book are flat out review bombing. I don't engage in such a practice myself. But while I did give this book a fair shake, I was absolutely not impressed. Even leaving aside the utter ridiculousness of Tor being caught using AI to create the cover art (allegedly by accident, since they simply took from a normally reputable stock photo source, so they said) and Paolini defending...

Review: Sufficiently Advanced Magic

Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My coworker recommended me this big old self-pubbed piece of fantasy, a sprawling litRPG kind of novel that makes me think of the time a certain fantasy author - mostly YA, but dipping his toes into adult fantasy these days - once asked me to try my hand at writing that subgenre with him, but I had to say no because I didn't think I could do it justice. Seeing this example of litRPG live and in person, I...