Ricky Pine's Blog, page 78

Review: War of the Cards

War of the Cards by Colleen Oakes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a strange case, this book. I really don't know why I gave the first Queen of Hearts book five stars anymore - I mean, I liked the book, I thought it was fun, but five stars' worth of fun? More like four, maybe. Certainly not as down in quality as the sophomore slump that was Blood of Wonderland. And now, here we get the trilogy's conclusion in War of the Cards, which, like its predecessor, actually lacks a little in what its tit...

Review: Supergirl: Age of Atlantis

Supergirl: Age of Atlantis by Jo Whittemore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pairing nicely with Barry Lyga's middle-grade offering The Flash: Hocus Pocus is this, Jo Whittemore's Supergirl: Age of Atlantis, a relatively bite-sized piece of fun geared for a middle-grade readership, but easily digestible for Supergirl fans of all ages. I actually liked this book somewhat more than Lyga's book, though, because even while Lyga made a few improvements on the various Flash characters compared to their TV...

Review: Nyxia

Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Actually more of a 3.5 on this one, but the flaws are just pronounced enough that I'm rounding it down. Not that Nyxia is a bad book, and certainly not a bad debut. Certainly not with the level of diversity Reintgen writes in, especially appropriate given the futuristic setting. (And while I'm at it, wasn't there some Twitter nasty showing their ass over the diversity in this book? But I digress.) Perhaps the greatest issue I had with this boo...

Review: The Philosopher's Flight

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

The comparisons to Deborah Harkness and especially to Lev Grossman make a lot of sense for Tom Miller's debut, for which I was lucky enough, in my duties as a Stanford Bookstore associate, to have acquired an ARC. Though less romantic than Harkness and (mercifully) less grimdark than Grossman, The Philosopher's Flight is a well-crafted piece of alternate history that nevertheless doesn't feel quite so alternate. More like reflec...

Review: The Empress

The Empress by S.J. Kincaid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a little while, after picking this book up at long last, to recall some of the details of its predecessor, The Diabolic. Between looking at my own review and others, I was able to pick enough up to go forward in this book, which is a good thing because while The Empress is its own beast of action and intrigue and thrills, you do kinda need to have read The Diabolic first.

However, while this book does tend to flag just a bit in...

Review: The City of Brass

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Aimal Farooq told me this book exists, I was confuzzled because my friend Skies is working on a book of the same name and putting it up on Wattpad. But no, this book and Skies' book are most certainly not the same.

And given Aimal's penchant for scary djinn stories (the Aimal Specials, I call them), I absolutely needed this book yesterday. If my library hadn't ordered it in time for me to put a much-needed advance hold, I mig...

Review: Arrow - A Generation of Vipers

Arrow - A Generation of Vipers by Susan Griffith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The conclusion of the two-part crossover begun in The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen, Arrow: A Generation of Vipers is jam-packed with story threads. Not only does it have an all-new storyline centered on Oliver Queen and his team - early Season 4 vintage, roughly, so we pretty much get all Ollie, Dig, Felicity, and, thankfully, Thea as well - trying to recover an important artifact from the castle of an evil count...

Review: Angelfall

Angelfall by Susan Ee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4000 five-star reviews on Amazon (according to the back cover blurb) can't be wrong. Well, maybe they can be wrong, but not for this novel. It takes the Silicon Valley that I've lived near for so long and turns it into a disaster zone of epic proportions, and stars a pair of unforgettable characters - Penryn Young, being a Katniss Everdeen-type but with martial arts instead of archery, and Raffe, the sarcastic, de-winged angel who feels strongly...

Review: The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen

The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen by Susan Griffith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks so much to my dear friend Ariel for clueing me in to the existence of this book and its sequel, Arrow: A Generation of Vipers, which I'm to read ASAP now. Maybe this one's more of a 4.5 than a 5, being a tad bit bogged down by overwrought prose and a few of my favorite characters not being present due to the book taking place roughly around the start of Season 2, meaning no Harry Wells or Wally West, boo h...

Review: Made for Love

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the bookstore, my friend Harry told me about how amazing this book was, and encouraged me to pick it up myself as soon as possible. Which I did, and while I expected a lot of humor just from the promise of a woman learning about her dad's creepy life-size sexbot (hence the title, huh?), I sure as hell didn't expect this book to be as smart and critical as it was. And that's a good thing, that Nutting was able to subvert my expectati...