I put off reviewing this one because I didn’t want to get my first full intentional Cannonball with a mild disappointment. I’d picked it up because I wanted something to read on a trans-Atlantic flight but ended watching Moana (cute although the songs weren’t as awesome as advertised) and Assassin’s Creed (wow, was that a bad movie) instead. I picked it up to read a few days later because the premise sounded interesting and it was billed as the first installment of a best-selling series. […]
Splash down with Ninteenth Century Evil Science
The basic storyline is thus: a group of daughters/creations of infamous literary scientists band together for self-protection and sisterhood, have adventures, and solve crimes. We have Mary Jekyll, the leader, Diana Hyde the wild and bratty little sister, Beatrice Rappaccini the beauty, Catherine Moreau the fierce one, and Justine Frankenstein the strong one. They are assisted by Mrs. Poole the housekeeper, Alice the maid, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as themselves. Their main target of investigation is Société des Alchemistes, a shadowy organization to […]
If Princess Leia got corrupted and Vader was absent, would you still like Luke?
Ink and Bone (first novel) was really interesting with a great concept and an interesting group of characters. Book 2, Paper and Fire, was also pretty good, since it added backstory and complexity to several characters and to the narrative scenario overall. I don’t like the third installment of the series, Ash and Quill. The first half is filler, scheming around but nothing really being said or done. In fact, some of the key characters become irritating or questionable to the point of unlikable. The […]
More space than fantasy is not as much my thing
I loved Ready Player One, so when I saw another book by Ernest Cline, I grabbed it. Armada is very similar, but not quite as great. It’s got the fun mix of characters, a good geeky premise, and adventure, but it just doesn’t quite have the sparkle that the other story does. I wonder if maybe I didn’t love Armada as much because I was comparing it to its predecessor, and the significant parallels between the books make that really easy to do. Both books […]