Ricky Pine's Blog, page 38

Review: Goldilocks

Goldilocks by Laura Lam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Due in part to the real-world horrors that marred the real-world release cycle for this book, it took me a little over a year to finally get ahold of it and read it (though it's absolutely one of the highlights of me having moved to Oregon so far, having found it in Klindt's Books in The Dalles, where the bookseller raved about it as I expected.)

It absolutely owes a lot to the likes of Mary Robinette Kowal in particular, a ble...

Review: I Come with Knives

I Come with Knives by S.A. Hunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Happy Pride Month, and to start it off with my first June review this year, some pretty slick and scary horror from S.A. Hunt - which I didn't get to read until almost a year after it finally came out, and soooooooo many years after Hunt made a name for herself on Wattpad with Malus Domestica, aka the future Burn the Dark...and now we're finally getting to see more of the world she's built, and more of the secret histo...

Review: A History of What Comes Next

A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



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Review: Unconquerable Sun

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I started this book thinking it was going to be a damn good one - a lavishly designed space opera in a pseudo-Asian setting, with the main character's nation being pretty clearly China-inspired (Elliott apparently got a lot of early readers across numerous Asian cultures, if the acknowledgments are anything to go by), and a lot of promising comparisons to Princess Leia, Alexander the Great, etc. But then, as the book...

Review: Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Andy Weir returns with his first novel in four years, his third overall, and to my mind, his best one yet. Long and sprawling and immense in its scope, Weir here channels a lot of Blake Crouch's penchant for twisty, nonlinear sci-fi adventure, as well as elements of The Expanse, Interstellar, and Arrival. And, of course, he keeps things light with protagonist Ryland Grace managing to be both a genius engineer who knows ...

Review: Realm Breaker

Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's been a minute since Victoria Aveyard - who established me as a lifetime passenger aboard her hype train with the Red Queen series - published a full-length novel, and once again, she shows just how many leaps and bounds she's made in her craft since she started publishing six years ago. Though this story has a few pebbles in its path, and does tend to feel a bit like so much Prolonged Prologue, it's still pretty...

Review: The Gilded Ones

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Picking this book up from the hold shelf at the White Salmon Library, the librarian told me that this wasn't the first time she'd seen this particular book cross her shelf. As well it shouldn't, given how well-done Namina Forna's debut is, following a lot of the most relevant trends in fantasy with powerful results. Rooted in a world with numerous cultural and ethnic groups that serve as parallels to real ones, protago...

Review: Burn

Burn by Patrick Ness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I guess I'd just missed that Patrick Ness came out with another book? At least I got to pick it up as one of the first reads I found at the library in my new hometown in Oregon, a town not too dissimilar to the fictional setting of this book in Frome, WA. Rooted in an alternate 1957 - Eisenhower is still president, and the book begins on the day of his second inauguration no less - Ness clearly takes a lot of inspiration from E.K...

Review: On This Unworthy Scaffold

On This Unworthy Scaffold by Heidi Heilig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a while to remember some key details from the second book of this trilogy given that it’s been a little over a year since it came out. But now the finale is here and, as with all things Heidi Heilig, it’s a story that breaks all the rules, dissecting history through a skillful world builder’s lens and experimenting with form at every turn, periodically switching to sheet music and stage script form...

Review: Aru Shah and the City of Gold

Aru Shah and the City of Gold by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Of course. Of course. I had to know that while Roshani Chokshi had first announced that the first series under the Rick Riordan Presents banner would be a four part series, of course she just couldn’t stop there. And so she doesn’t, not when the latest Pandava adventure delivers the most complex group dynamics yet among Aru and her fellowship (the LOTR references fly thick and fast at times, among othe...