Review: The Rook

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The only reason this isn't getting a 5star from me is because I'm not sure about its re-readability. If I ever re-read this, and like it as much as I did this time, I'll be bumping it up to 5.

The writing was clean and tight. No spelling gaffs, or grammatical errors or awkward sentence structures to pull you out of the story. this was written well, then even better, EDITED well. with the influx of indies, good editing shows, sadly.

The story. Mysterious, engaging, cool, neat and wraps up well. Thankfully Mr. O'Malley doesn't spend time on WHY the Rook has lost her memory, it is just an event that catapults the story forward.

The humor. I was grinning for a lot of this book. Not laughing out loud, or rolling on the floor, but grinning. Wise-ass humor was rife and I loved it.

"Oh thank God."Not to worry, it's not a weird monster. It's just three rotting dead people. Page 290 ebook edition

How can you NOT love humor like that?

Characters. Good, bad, mean, nice, nasty, innocent, naive and disgusting. They were all there and nobody was a cookie cutter throwaway. Given, some characters had more facetime and were developed on a deeper level, but everyone felt like a real person, not just a name with some actions attached to them.



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Review: Warrior Wolf Women of the Wastelands

Warrior Wolf Women of the Wastelands by Carlton Mellick III

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Filthy, dirty, disgusting, perverted Vor.



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Review: Queen of Demons: The second book in the epic saga of 'The Lord of the Isles'

Queen of Demons: The second book in the epic saga of 'The Lord of the Isles' by David Drake

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The full title for this edition is Queen of Demons: The second book in the Epic Saga of 'The Lord of the Isles'. The story is as pretentious as this title.

Which considering that everything in this series is big, bigger than life, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is still pretentious though.

Now, the overall plot revolves around Garric becoming Prince Garric, titular heir to the Islands. Along the way the group gets split up and faces various trials and horrors. A nice cast of side characters are served up, just waiting to be killed off, which they mostly are in various ways.

Around page 400 [of roughly 600] I realized that I was ready for the story to be over. The side journeys were continued much longer than they needed to be.



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Review: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A collection of 6 stories by Dahl. Sadly, not a funny collection, more of a rambling fiction'y whatever...



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Review: War Against the Mafia

War Against the Mafia by Don Pendleton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



If Marvel didn't base their character of the Punisher on Mack Bolan, then I'll eat my shoes.

Sniper trained, Vietnam vet, family lost due to the Mafia, personal war, etc. Bolan ends up taking out one branch of the Mafia, while dodging the police and making to love to prostitutes, extra busty prostitutes and a supposedly innocent school teacher. Yeah, a school teacher. Who he then leaves at the end of the book.

This was extremely violent. And considering that I've read, and loved, [a:Neal Asher|56353|Neal Asher|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1207862001p2/56353.jpg] and [a:David Drake|19472|David Drake|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1207164263p2/19472.jpg], that is saying something.



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Review: The Pale Horse

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Whenever the occult is part of a novel, I never like its inclusion.
I wasn't sure where Christie was going with this, so I was uncomfortable right up to the last chapter.
Still enjoyed the mystery...



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Review: Daughter of the Sword

Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I thoroughly enjoyed this "Special Swords" book.
The 4 storylines, [1 current, 3 historical for each of the swords], eh, I wouldn't have minded if the story had been all in the 21st century, but the history gave us the background and depth needed to make the current storyline have some "oomph".

Samurai, swords, cops and killers. If the author writes more, I'll be reading...



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Review: Slag Attack

Slag Attack by Andersen Prunty

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



This was disgusting material to read. I am not a fan of dystopian stories as it is, but this went beyond dystopia and into drug induced incoherence.

Death, debauchery,, betrayal and no hope.

Not my thing at all...



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Review: Orphanage

Orphanage by Robert Buettner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Part of being a good author is having a good story to tell. That, Buettner got right.
Another part of being a good author is having the grammatical and literary skills to tell your story, not only accurately, but engagingly. And Buettner failed at this.

Basically this is a coming of age story for a boy who has lost it all and spirals downward self-destructively, only to come back up and turn into a man through the military. Aliens on Ganymede and meteors all play their part as well.

The core of this book is good. But the outerlayer is just horrific. Get an editor for goodness sake, not your brother's nephew's grandmother's cousin's kid.
I would like to read more in this series, but I am not willing to subject myself to sub-par writing...



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Review: Myth-Ing Persons

Myth-Ing Persons by Robert Lynn Asprin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Skeeve has to rescue Aahz, outwit a world of vampires and lose a hot chick to a some annoying con artist.
All in one book.
Fluff-a-roo...



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