Attack the Geek

Excuse me, but SQUEE! More Ree Reyes! More Drake! More Eastwood and Grognard! Yes, more Geekomancy!

Michael Underwood is back with a delightful novella and if I have ANY complaints, it's that this is a novella instead of a novel. That's just because I am a greedy fangirl reader. The story itself is fully developed, and the novella is exactly the right format for it.

Attack the Geek definitely isn't the place to start in the series, as it relies on previous knowledge of the characters and the universe, but if you've read the previous novels, you will NOT want to miss this installment when it is released on April 9.

Now I'm left hungry for Ree Reyes #3, though!

Disclaimer: I received a eARC from netgalley in exchange for this review.

I love the Geekomancy series. Smartly written, filled with tons of pop culture (and geek!) references, each story is just a delight to read. And when I got to read this story I squealed. I knew we'd be in for a treat. And I was right, this “side quest” was fun.

I've seen other reviewers give this story weird and mixed reviews; saying that they didn't get this story or how it fits into the series. The key to understanding this narrative is in the description. “side quest.” Like a small interlude of a D&D campaign, Attack the Geek, gives us a rip roaring good trip through the world of Ray Reyes. The world in this tale broadens to include many of the other supporting characters. They all come together to snark, fight, and work together to defeat the quest's “big bad.” And Ree, Eastwood, Grognard, and Drake survive and manage to take it down.

However, like all side quests, this story does have it's twists and turns, and I wonder how the revelations in this book will play out in the greater series for Ree and her stalwart companions.

Bottom Line: Geeks rejoice. Crossing geek references and urban fantasy magic, Attack the Geek is a heck of a good story. Read it and smile along with the references for this side quest isn't just a short story!

Described, appropriately enough, as a “side quest”, this is a half-length book sitting between the second and third novels of the Ree Reyes geekomancy series. Unfortunately, compared with its too predecessors, it falls rather flat.

The problem is that there's very little plot. The story consists almost entirely of one long slugfest, albeit against a range of different opponents. The geeky references are still there in full force, and the characters that we see are well-written and generally appealing. But with nothing much to do other than fight things, they don't get any real depth, or, at least in the case of the main characters, any significant development.

Overall, it works well enough as what it's presumably intended to be, as well as serving as an intro the third novel (which is not yet out at the time of writing), but it lacks the variety to be truly interesting in its own right.