Later
Put this book down, turn around, and walk away as fast as you can. The first 2/3s of this book is just an info dump of where Earth went from the last book, which, by the way, was so long ago that I forgot I read it. The last third is the “climax” that comes out of nowhere. One minute we're rebuilding on Earth and planning to wipe out the Hegemony, the next we're on some alien planet. There's no prep at all for this jump. Actually, the authors looked like they were setting up the finale to be the ravaging of the Shongair planet. That would have been connected in a real way to the main narrative (it's definitely not a story).
This has all the problems of Weber's Honor Harrington series and none of the charms. It's long-winded with descriptions of things that just don't need describing. There are a lot - A LOT - of words that don't form a cogent narrative.
Murder at Hogwarts and a muggle PI comes to investigate?! I'm in. Unfortunately, it's a fine story that didn't live up to my expectations. I think the character, worldbuilding and plot are the key things in any story. The characters were not memorable or interesting. Ivy (the main) is fleshed out a little, but she was very one-dimensional. She's really the only one that got any kind of personality. The worldbuilding was minimal. It was pretty much “magic exists, but most of the kids use cell phones anyway.” The plot... that was a little interesting. I really did like the murder at the magic school and only the no-maj can figure it out. I, mostly, liked the resolution, and I really liked the reason. Ultimately, I won't warn anyone away from this book, but I won't be recommending it either.
This was so good I was a little upset when it ended because there was no more to be had. John Sclazi writes in such an easy to read manner that the words just fly by. There were some surprising developments. I think I love Kiva Lagos. The character is hyper-sexual and incredibly foul-mouthed, but she's very true to life, I think.
The timing of this book couldn't have been better. Either from a standpoint of needing some new Scalzi to read or how well it accidentally ties into the pandemic.
I wish I had quit this book halfway through when I wasn't feeling it. Instead, I persevered, and now I feel like I wasted a week reading something I didn't like. The concept of a Phoenix Wizard is interesting, but this story is not really about him, and he ends up being a forgettable character for someone that the book is named after. I really didn't find the main character, Tessa, all that interesting. The book was a combination of light urban fantasy and teen girl romance, and she didn't stand out as a character in either sense. She also displays some hacking and martial arts skills in the last 1/3rd of the book that were never even hinted at before. Very deus ex machina, and very annoying. Also, it feels horribly unfinished, like nothing at all was resolved. I finished, but I won't read the next book.
A little slow going getting into, but once I got into it I had a hard time putting it down. It's a pretty decent adventure story. Boy meets stranger. Boy gets mission. Boy meets people to help with his mission. All of it taking place in a USA that has been blasted back to the Steam Age, maybe, by invading insects (Gants) and dragons.
I want to live in the OASIS.
Any time I want a light easy read or need a pick-me-up I turn to Ready Player One. The words are always the same, but the adventures of Parzival, Art3mis, and Aech never disappoint me. I love all of it. The impossible odds, the love story, the puzzles. Every single bit is a piece of magic. The references to old video games, movies, television and everything else are like pieces of my past dripping off the page.
I cant' stress this enough. If you're wondering “should I read this book?” the answer is an emphatic YES! Everyone I've suggested it to has loved it.
The only complaint I have is that I know the answers to the puzzle as soon as I read the clue, but that's what happens when you read a book over and over.
If you want a special treat, check out the audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.
This review is for the EARC.
I have to say that this is ultimately an anti-climactic ending to this arc Honor Harrington's story. I don't believe for an instant that this is the last we'll see of Honor. In fact, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the fight with the Solarian League was supposed to be Raoul's and Katherine's story, and I have to believe that David Weber just shifted some plans so that they can be front and center in dealing with the Mesan Alignment.
Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert: The whole Mesan Alignment thing is not resolved by the end of this.
Some good things about this book. First, there are essentially two climaxes (well, two big ones and a little one). One happens about halfway through and is pretty awesome. The other happens about three-quarters the way through, and while it's gripping, it's pretty horrifying. Second, when Honor is in it, Honor is IN it. Third, the Solarian League finally learns what it means to piss off the Salamander.
That being said, there are also some things I didn't like. There's way too much talky-talky. I like the politics of the series, but there's just too much of it going on. For a book named after the main character of the series and for a mainline book of the series, the title character isn't in it very much. Frankly, she's not in either of the big climactic moments. She's the star of the third and final climax, but that one is way overshadowed by the other two. Oh, and big character death and un-death revelation fell kind of flat. Who didn't see that coming?
Ultimately, nothing I say here is going to make a difference in whether you read the book. If you've made it through 13 books in the Honor Harrington series, you're going read book 14. I just wouldn't expect to come out of this one completely satisfied. A bunch of storylines are wrapped up. A bunch of hints are dropped for the next series. I can't wait to find out more about Raoul, and he's not even two years old yet. But the nasty Mesan Alignment is still out there with whatever nefarious plan they have.
I'm always looking forward to more in this universe, and I don't see that changing. I just didn't love this one as much as I should love the ending of Honor's arc.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, although it took me 3 false starts before I could finally get more than a couple of chapters in. Unlike several books in these later stages of the series, I didn't notice any outright cutting and pasting from other Honorverse books; however, it's been a while since I've done a read-through. If there are complaints to be made (spoiler alert: there are), I have two major ones. First, I couldn't be more annoyed by some of the chapters if they had just been written entirely in Polish. Second, as much as I understand the need to set the scene, this book needed twice as much in the way of Manticoran or Havenite point of view and half as much from rebel leaders that we're probably never going to hear much from again.
I guess it never hurts to complain about the incomprehensible numbers being thrown around in the battle chapters. I skim those, but it still hurts my brain knowing they're there.
On the plus side, it's good to see that some characters are still kicking around. Loved that Scotty Tremaine was there captaining the RMS Alistair McKeon. Add in the others from the Saganami Island series, and you get a nice cast of familiar characters.
I don't know if I'll ever read this one again, but I'm glad I finally got through it.
What I liked: Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? What the hell is going on here?
What I'm mixed on: The magic system. Essence is meh, but Kan seems pretty cool. Shadows are cool, but the reasons they become shadows kind of sucks. And why do the people seem to hate the people that can't do magic so much more than they seem to hate the people that can do the magic they hate? I don't want to spoil things for you, but when one character meets Malshash, interesting times begin. It's very mixed because some stuff worked for me, but some explanations did not.
What I didn't like: Arbitrary, poorly thought-out limitations on magic users. The entire general setting of the world grated on me.
The first three-quarters of this book is amazing, then it kind of goes downhill. There's a romance in here. It's very obviously telegraphed and it reads a bit like bad fanfiction. There's a shift in the tone of the writing from a ‘tough-as-nails' heroine to a softer ‘girl-in-love' child. It's jarring. Unfortunately, when it starts heating up everything else is derived from it, and if you're not buying that romance you're probably not buying what's going on with the end.
The bad guy is a bit telegraphed too. I called that one immediately.
That being said, there are several things I really like about this book.
1. The world and technology: I love that it takes place in a not so distant future from our own with technology that we almost have now. And I like the few details we get about that technology. I'm definitely not a Neurologist, but I can totally buy the description of how Warcross works.
2. The ‘bad guy': He's not bad just because he's evil and has unfathomable motivations. He has motivations that we understand or can at least relate to.
3. The action: I'd read a book just about the action.
A very good book about the end of the world. You have to buy in that some sort of “event” made some of the laws of physics change, but once you resign yourself to that it's smooth sailing. I'm not a huge fan of poetry in my prose or trying to puzzle out how to pronounce a foreign language not even remotely related to my own, so Juniper's parts were sometimes daunting. The other “main” character, Mike, is a bit of a Gary Stu, but even he has exceptions.
The first 3/4ths of the book are fantastic, exceptional, amazing. Then the last quarter starts and it's a slog through WTF-ville. All of the plot build-up, all of the prior history of the universe, all of the potential, and Feedback leaves us with an ending that is bizarre, disconnected, and disappointing.
Man, I really liked this book. I was desperate for something good and light to read, and this filled the bill perfectly. Isaac is a great protagonist, the magic system is just a geek's dream, and the story is a great cautionary tale about what could happen if magic was real and the government got involved. Jim Hines deserved to be mentioned in any discussion about great urban fantasy books of the 21st century, and this one left me feeling just as good as if I'd read something by Jim Butcher. I can imagine Magic Ex Libris story continuing, but this is a good place to stop if the author wants to explore something new. Whatever he decides, I'm in for the long haul.
In general I'm not a big fan of Alan Dean Foster's writing style. It seems very old school, like something written in the 1980s. I haven't been a fan of his other Star Wars work either, and his original work has never spoken to me. This is almost more of a review of the author than the book.
The novelization didn't add much that wasn't in the movie, which is good for the future and all but not that great for the book. I can't take anything away from him for the plot, since it wasn't his. Most of the dialogue was exactly the same as the film, which helped a bit since I could imagine Adam Driver's almost lazy, emotionless voice delivering the Kylo Ren parts and the weirdness that is Maz Kanata. There are no big reveals in this. You don't get additional hints that Rey is Luke's daughter/Obi-Wan's granddaughter/Han Solo's secret love child/whatever theory you're currently buying into. Captain Phasma has no unshown hints of badassery. You could honestly just save a few hours of your life and watch the movie again.
There's no such thing as a bad entry to the Mistborn series. This one has some fantastic action. The development of Wax, Wayne, and Marasi were all well done. I especially like Wayne. Nice little mystery included in the epilogue, which I'm sure will be at least partly explained in Bands of Mourning or The Lost Metal.
It took me a while to get into this one, but once I did it a race to find out what happened next. I loved the character development in Shallan. Kaladin was a bit frustrating to me until the end. In the next books we're supposed to get more than just an interlude of Szeth, and that can't come quick enough. At some point how this series and all the other Cosmere series tie together is going to make sense to me. I can't wait for that.
It's not Ready Player One, but I didn't expect it to be. I'm not a reader that tries to figure out what's going to happen before it happens, but some of the main plot points were telegraphed a mile away. The ending was only ok, but I wasn't a fan of the obvious doors opening for a sequel.
Ready Player One is my go-to book for when I need a light-hearted read. I LOVE RP1. Armada isn't going to take over that place any time soon. I still enjoyed it, and I went through it pretty quickly. I loved the premise. I was afraid reading the summary that it was just going to be a Last Starfighter redo, but I should have had more faith. Yeah, there's some Last Starfighter elements to it, but there's also a nice Ender's Game-y feel. Some of the usernames Ernie came up with are fantastic. IronBeagle, RedJive, AtomicMom... Loved the interaction between IronBeagle and RedJive.
