Ricky Pine's Blog, page 40
March 20, 2021
Review: Chain of Iron
Chain of Iron by Cassandra ClareMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
600 pages and a beautiful, beautiful cover? OMGGGGGGGG YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
As is normal when I see something new from Cassandra Clare.
Now, though...here we are at a point where I've completed a full reread of Clare's work to date, topped off with her latest, and here I am wondering...when will we actually get her upcoming trilogy conclusions? We don't have covers, let alone release dates, for The Black Volume of the Dead ...
March 16, 2021
Review: Super Powereds: Year 1
Super Powereds: Year 1 by Drew HayesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Literally the first book I read in Oregon...well, no, but my roomie Justin is a big, big fan, and he played the audiobook on much of the back half of our all-day drive from the Bay Area to Hood River last month. Starting in Eugene or so, and only stopping once we got to Portland and it really started to snow...but in all that time, the amount of book we were able to cover was barely a seventh of it, according to ...
March 14, 2021
Review: Infinity Reaper
Infinity Reaper by Adam SilveraMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think, like with the first book of Silvera's first official series - thankfully not another duology, though he sure as hell took his sweet time announcing the upcoming third and final novel - Infinity Reaper will get a 3.5 star rating, rounded up to a 4. Though the world-building feels a little more solid than the first book's rather nebulous, not-super-explained effort (having a full list of characters and biographi...
March 11, 2021
Review: Wings of Ebony
Wings of Ebony by J. ElleMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Having heard about J. Elle and her debut while watching the virtual launch of Sabaa Tahir's A Sky Beyond the Storm, I'm glad I was able to get ahold of this book from my library - and then, once I finally opened it, it proved pretty unputdownable, demanding to be read in one sitting. Neatly bridging the gap between its imagined island of the gods (somewhere off the southern tip of Africa, though the geographic description ...
March 3, 2021
February 24, 2021
Review: We Free the Stars
We Free the Stars by Hafsah FaizalMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took a little more time for Hafsah Faizal to conclude her debut duology - a combo, I think, of pandemic-related production problems, the size of the book (nearly 600 pages!), and the pressure of bringing it all to a strong, satisfying conclusion. Well, let's just say that Faizal absolutely delivers on that front once again, bringing us another high-stakes, high-speed fantasy adventure that gets into some of the d...
Review: The Scorpion's Tail
The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas PrestonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson return in their second adventure together, this time taking the reader to a different part of the West and a different part of history. This time, we go down to the New Mexico desert, a setting not out of place with the Gideon Crew series (particularly the second of that series if I remember correctly) and dealing with more deep-historical cold case material. In this case, deaths li...
February 22, 2021
February 19, 2021
Review: All the Tides of Fate
All the Tides of Fate by Adalyn GraceMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Maybe I'll round this one up to a four star read eventually on a second go-through, but for now, my first impression of Adalyn Grace's second half of her debut duology is a 3.5 rounded down. A lot of that may owe a bit to my general confusion as to why duologies are still a thing, because in this case, it's absolutely an example of the series not feeling like two books were enough to really cover everything the ...
February 12, 2021
Review: Remote Control
Remote Control by Nnedi OkoraforMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't realize until very recently that Nnedi Okorafor had a new book out, so I put it on my library ebook list with barely a second's glance. Then I got it, and I realized, wait a second...this is a novella? Damn, but once again Okorafor gives us a bite-sized Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist (I went and looked up to confirm that she didn't use the label "Afrofuturist" for her work, and while I hadn't heard that s...
