Ricky Pine's Blog, page 38

Review: A Patriot's Tale

A Patriot's Tale by Nicole Pierman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nicole Pierman gives us a new historical look at the Revolutionary War, one that naturally calls to mind a lot of previous fictional dramatizations on that segment of American history. Most notably, the Southern setting of The Patriot and the subtle machinations of Turn, with an engaging young woman protagonist who takes on a man's persona to finagle her way into the ranks of the army, the sort of Joan of Arc the Re...

Review: Mouth Full of Ashes

Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a Bay Area boy, I unfortunately was never lucky enough to get to visit Santa Cruz. Except in movies like Us, and movies with fictional counterparts to NorCal's most famous beach town. Santa Carla in The Lost Boys, Sunnydale on Buffy...and now, with particular inspiration from the former, Briana Morgan's new novella and its setting of Neap Bay. Blessed with a beautiful cover art and a haunting story that packs a...

Review: Ashfall Legacy

Ashfall Legacy by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of the reviews I see here seem more disappointed in the audio version of this book, so I'm glad I didn't go for that one. Pittacus Lore may be the most infamous ghostwriter in all the loopy-loo YA biz, but I'll be damned if he doesn't pen a good story, and this latest look at a decidedly different kind of alien space opera is no exception. Doing a damn finer job of exploring worlds beyond this than even I Am Numb...

Review: The Bronzed Beasts

The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since Roshani Chokshi isn't ending the Pandava series from Rick Riordan Presents with four books as was the original plan, this now marks the first time I'm completing one of her series, and it's a pretty wild ride all the way to the end in this one. Perhaps a little too wild, because then the ending feels surprisingly anticlimactic in a few ways. But given the ways the first two books ended, I'd say we who've st...

Review: Steelstriker

Steelstriker by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not unlike Warcross and Wildcard before it, Skyhunter and Steelstriker exist to prove that as much as I typically find something irksome about the trend of YA duologies that's gone on for years and years, Marie Lu is damn good at actually justifying the two-part story - and this one, a blistering anti-imperialist (and anti-conservative, like the nightmarish scene where the Karensa Federation's map now covers the whole land in...

Review: Empire of the Vampire

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's a reason why Jay Kristoff's one of my faves, and it's because he's one of the most bloody rockstarinest writers in the biz. But you know what the bloody hell else he is? Like Pierce Brown, he is an Apex Asshole, capable of plundering the depths of his imagination and holding a mirror up to the world in the darkest of ways, and taking us readers on a long, perilous journey through a fantasy world where the...

Review: The Champion

The Champion by Taran Matharu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: Bloodless

Bloodless by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the 20th Pendergast novel, Preston and Child bring things up to a level of quality I haven't seen from them in a few years - the best Pendergast novel since at least 2015, and certainly one of the best in the current era of Pendergast partnering with Agent Coldmoon. Though it does feel at times that the D.B. Cooper prologue is far less connected to the main plot in Savannah than it should be, leave it to Pendergast (a...

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings: Studies In Duality

 **NO SPOILERS FOR SHANG-CHI, BUT MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU FILMS  - ESPECIALLY IRON MAN 3 - ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.**

Despite the world (at least, in certain areas already predisposed to it) largely returning to past levels of Covid caution, I'm fortunate enough to still be able to go to the movies with all necessary precautions, and especially now that Disney has decided not to follow suit with the pattern set by Black Widow and do a hybrid release for their next Marvel tentpol...

Review: The Night Has Claws

The Night Has Claws by Kat Kruger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me too many years before I finally got around to reading the second book of Kat Kruger's Lycan Code series, in part because when I finished Book 1 on Wattpad and immediately moved ahead to Book 2, Kruger only had a tiny little sampler available to entice readers to buy the books in full. At the time, I couldn't really afford to do so, but now I'm finding my way to completing this trilogy and putting it in my ...