Ricky Pine's Blog, page 26

Review: Stars and Smoke

Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s rare, I think, that I read a book by one of the best and most under appreciated writers in the business, Marie Lu, and I’m not super jazzed about what I’ve read. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Lu is still one of the best in the business for a verifiable ton of reasons, including her ability to write books that demand to be read in one sitting (as my old reviews of the Warcross duology can attest.) Stars and Smoke is,...

Review: Last Violent Call

Last Violent Call by Chloe Gong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bridging the gap between the two duologies of Secret Shanghai, as well as the gap between the two books of the second duology, is this collection of two beautifully bound novellas from Chloe Gong, sold in a lovely box set that apparently is too tall for the shelves at Barnes & Noble (at least, the newly opened and oddly very small store at Cascade Station in Portland.) The two stories focus on a pair of couples who...

Review: Rust in the Root

Rust in the Root by Justina Ireland
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Though it’s not a spin-off of her signature alternate historical horror series Dread Nation, Justina Ireland says in the acknowledgements for this standalone novel that her research for those two books led her to a digitized Library of Congress archive of photos of Black Americans in the Depression era, which helped catalyze her into writing this novel. These photos are featured between chapters, much like Miss...

Review: Bonds of Brass

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’ll be honest, this is a generous two star review. I vaguely remember when this book first came out and there was some buzz because it was kinda sorta basically a FinnPoe fanfic when everyone from Oscar Isaac on down was salty at Disney for not giving that m/m ship the time to sail. In practice, while the book does draw pretty heavily on the instant bromantic humor and chemistry of Finn and Poe’s copiloting adve...

Review: Song of Silver, Flame Like Night

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s good to see that far from the attempt to cancel Zhao before she even got published in 2019, she’s already got one completed trilogy under her belt, and this promising start to a new series that’s very well rooted in the stories of her ancestral land. Picture, for this book, an alternate China where European-coded colonists have taken over sometime paralleling the 20th century, but there sti...

Review: Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies

Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't been keeping up so well with the Rick Riordan Presents lineup of late, but when Stacey Lee puts out a book that's so different from all her others - middle grade with a boy protagonist in modern day San Francisco - you know I have to stop and read it. And when Lee weaves in Chinese creation myths which I remember from the books I used to assign students at the tutoring center where I worked in...

Review: Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy

Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For a while now, after writing three unique and thought-provoking YA novels set in Garden Heights, Angie Thomas has been hinting that she would pivot to middle-grade fantasy. Now, that day has finally come, with the first in a planned trilogy of magical Black kids kicking monster butt in a world that exists at right angles to the America we know. Alongside Thomas's real hometo...

Review: Promises Stronger Than Darkness

Promises Stronger Than Darkness by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charlie Jane Anders sticks the landing in the third and final novel of the Unstoppable space opera trilogy, now with higher stakes than each of the first two books combined and an even wider variety of POV characters. Not only do we get Tina (at last, back in the spotlight!) and Elza and Rachael returning from previous installments, but also the likes of Kez (now openly genderfluid, so their ...

Review: Untethered Sky

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After several years and a few delays as she wrote the Green Bone Saga and assorted short stories thereof, Fonda Lee expressed relief, in her launch appearance this week at Powell’s in Beaverton, that she was pivoting to something much smaller. And yet, the worldbuilding must still be as detailed as that of her larger work, even if there’s much the reader doesn’t get to see. Set in an empire inspired by pre-Islamic Anci...

Review: Discordia

Discordia by Kristyn Merbeth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kristyn Merbeth’s synthwave packaged space opera trilogy ends with yet more neon bisexually lit cover love, and of course an ending about as good as can be expected. Corvus and Scorpia, our sibling protagonists, still have much to deal with thanks to the endless machinations of their family, but after two adventures and much havoc and destruction, here the story ends at last. Now, as I declare ave atque vale to Nova V...