Ricky Pine's Blog, page 7

Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There’s definitely something in the air in Washington state, with indie SFF authors getting the right amount of attention to hit it big. Repping Eastern Washington in this regard is Spokane’s Travis Baldree and his Legends & Lattes world, and now for Western Washington, there’s Matt Dinniman of Gig Harbor hitting it so big with Dungeon Crawler Carl that Ace bought up the seven books already published and have...

Review: Watch Me

Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tahereh Mafi is back to her signature dystopian saga five years after Imagine Me in the real world, and ten years in universe, and the superpowered shenanigans are giving me flashbacks to the glory days of Maximum Ride. Here, we have two new POV’s: Rosabelle, a young assassin raised at Ark Island, the last bastion of the Reestablishment, as well as James, Warner’s little brother, now all grown up and just as much a danger...

Review: The Second Rebel

The Second Rebel by Linden A. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The sequel to The First Sister is a 3.5 rounded down to a 3 largely because, unlike its predecessor, it tends to drag at times. Not only does that owe to the book being about a hundred pages longer this time, but also because instead of having three POV's (more a sort of 2.5 since Hiro's story was told in audio transcript interludes and therefore felt somewhat disconnected), this one expands with a fourth POV f...

Review: The First Sister

The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first in a trilogy that I saw recommended on r/RedRising plays out more like The Expanse and The Handmaid's Tale collaborated and presented a multilayered, action-packed thriller with a hyper-diverse cast of characters. The title character is one of three major POV's, stripped of her name and voice and forced to live as a "comfort woman" to various interplanetary military commanders. Interestingly, it's not...

Review: A Drop of Corruption

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 for me on this second mystery of Ana and Din, those foulmouthed investigators stepping into ever fouler territory. This time, the foulness comes less from creeper plants that like to infect and kill people, and more from the generally humid jungle atmosphere of the outlying city of Yarrowdale. Despite its English-like name and the pallor and green-ness of its people, Yarr...

Review: Platirius: Kikhani vs Platirius

Platirius: Kikhani vs Platirius by D.L. Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As promised, Hannah brings the first arc of her saga of sci-fi novellas to its conclusion with a third book that's almost double the length of either of its predecessors. Which is justified, because there's a lot of family drama to wrap up in this one while also setting the stage for at least two upcoming arcs, the Coldarius duology and a new Janius series, which I expect will be another trilogy, but...

Review: The Summer Guests

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The second book of The Martini Club is more local and personal for its cast of characters. Largely shifting away from the international intrigue of The Spy Coast, as well as its contrast between present day winter and past flashbacks to sunny Malta, this one takes place almost entirely in the present day, except for a brief 1972 flashback. Instead of the international intrigue, it's a smaller scope story, cente...

Review: The Scorpion and the Night Blossom

The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It will never cease to amaze me that despite YA Twitter’s attempts to shoot Amélie Wen Zhao’s career dead in the crib, she continues to publish beautiful new fantasy novels while most of those who targeted her have failed to catch on like they expected. And, even better, Zhao gives us increasingly Chinese stories to reflect her culture, and this time, she’s 100% correct: this is for the C dram...

Review: The Martian Contingency

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been waiting for almost five years to finally read the fourth novel in the Lady Astronaut universe, the third to feature Elma York as the primary POV. Unfortunately, this one is definitely a mixed bag for me, especially if it’s to be the last book in the series as Kowal has indicated. On the one hand, it’s still very technical in its approach, giving tons of reasons as to how the Martian habita...

Review: Emberclaw

Emberclaw by L.R. Lam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

L.R. Lam returns to the world of Dragonfall for the concluding entry of their duology. I think they were planning to make a trilogy at first, but for many personal reasons, they decided to conclude the series in this book instead. I don’t blame them - they took it very hard when the first book struggled at first in the face of poor online ratings, especially from people who couldn’t accept that book in its unorthodox, multi...