Ricky Pine's Blog, page 53

Review: The Philosopher's War

The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A year and a half after Tom Miller debuted with The Philosopher's Flight, here he gives us a look at the Great War as fought by empirical philosophers abroad. The result is a little like the 2017 Wonder Woman film, a post-steampunk war movie with villains trying to take the chemical weapons we know were used in our real history and make them even worse - a scarily easy proposition given how, in this universe, the earliest smokecarver...

Review: Dark Age

Dark Age by Pierce Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bloodydamn goryhell, Pierce Brown, you really are an Apex Asshole.

Perhaps one of the longest-awaited books of the year - any year, really, especially considering that it's been delayed at least an entire one before it eventually came out - Pierce Brown's fifth novel is one he rightly describes as a "mental twister" and a "Frankenstein." Over 750 pages long, loaded with some of the most intense action in sci-fi history (the prologue owes soooooo...

Review: Fire Boy

Fire Boy by Sami Shah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After years of me not reading this book despite Aimal Farooq's ravings about how awesome it was, I've finally gotten around to it. Well, I think part of the problem might have owed to the fact that, since this book was published in Australia, most libraries in the Bay Area didn't carry it - nor did any of the other California libraries I can potentially special-order from. But at some point recently, I think Aimal brought the book up again, or may...

Review: The Chosen

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

Taran Matharu's told a pretty great story in his Summoner series, and now, he returns with a whole new kind of fantasy, one that, in my head, harks back to a lot of British YA novels from around ten years ago or so. Like, for instance, the TimeRiders or Escape from Furnace series. And also some of the most iconic YA stories like The Maze Runner or The Hunger Games. Or some truly otherworldly adventures like Predators or Land of the Lost or C...

Review: Eliza and Her Monsters

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book: depression, social anxiety and isolation, suicide.

I picked up this book on the kinda sorta recommendation of Lisa Moore Ramée, because she told me that there's a manuscript she's working on that someone compared to this book. Other than that, I have no idea what Ramée's got in mind for her story, but if Eliza and Her Monsters is comparable to that one, I'd say it's in good company. Eliza herse...

Review: Spellslinger

Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After several years of seeing the name of Sebastien de Castell on fantasy shelves, it finally took Brett Michael Orr reading this book to get me started doing the same. And when I read this, I immediately wondered, why the heck does my bookstore shelve this in the adult fantasy section instead of YA where it pretty clearly belongs? I mean, it's like the second coming of Codex Alera, centered on a teenage boy with a certain inability...

Review: I Wish You All the Best

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book: assorted forms of queerphobia, parental rejection of a child coming out, parental emotional and/or physical abuse.

Mason Deaver's long-awaited #ownvoices nonbinary debut leaps high as one of the most groundbreaking YA books of the year, and sticks the landing pretty well. They write Ben, an eighteen-year-old enby forced to move in with their estranged sister (though she takes them in, no questions...

Review: Patron Saints of Nothing

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book: death of a loved one, racist aggressions both micro and macro, allusions to drug use, allusions to prostitution, allusions to human trafficking.

Randy Ribay returns with another gripping story, this one largely set in his native Philippines, and dealing with a little-known issue in the West - Duterte's drug war. Though Duterte is pretty notorious for a lot of reasons in this country - just look at t...

Review: We Hunt the Flame

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Much hyped for months if not years, Hafsah Faizal's Arabian-inspired fantasy debut, We Hunt the Flame, is about more than just the sands of Arawiya. It's also about the snows of Demenhur, the one caliphate where instead of the land being hot and lively, the encroachment of a cursed forest leads to a uniquely chilly desolation - and also leads to Zafira becoming the one Hunter brave enough to scavenge to provide for her people, while...

Review: The Dating Game

The Dating Game by Kiley Roache
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Trigger warnings for this book: deportation, slut-shaming, objectification of women.

Following up on her topical and engrossing debut in last year's Frat Girl, Kiley Roache now gives us a second Warren University novel that she began working on while a student at Stanford, the obvious real-world inspiration for Warren. Reading this one, I feel that this might have been an earlier manuscript that she put on the back burner while getting Fr...