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jackVillains, Inc
Second in the series of Wearing the Cape superhero novels. Does a better job than most of building a world where superheroes make sense. I like the second one more in some ways, where the protagonist has grown a bit and is a lot more proactive. Although I don't remember much else.
I was interested to realise, "Villains Inc" was not just a catchy name but a reference to Murder Inc, the name given by the press to the organisation that span out of various crime families in the american mafia handling a majority of their contract killing[1].
[1] Also see: http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/
Hanging Tree (Rivers of London #5)
I liked this more than almost any of the previous ones. The humour is firing on all cylinders. We stop discovering whole new tracts of supernatural beings surely SOMEONE would have mentioned by now, and return to the strongest topics, Peter's family, the rivers, Nightingale and the other magicians. There's almost none of Peter being an arse about women. We're still waiting to find out more about what happened to you-know-who, but we find out *something* about it.
Magnificent Seven remake
This was... ok. It had a few good moments.
The first 30 minutes of the Magnificent Seven were one of the best films ever made. An underwear salesman is trying to pay for the funeral of a guy who died in the street, but the funeral director won't take his money because no-one wants a black guy buried in the cemetery, even though it's full of disreputable people, murders, criminals, etc. The protagonists volunteer because why not, everyone watching chips in to pay for the wagon if necessary, for the spectacle more than out of the goodness of their hearts. There's an extended scene while they drive to the graveyard, shooting a variety of people who take potshots at them. Everything about it is just great. It's entertaining and tense. Even the minor characters are very memorable. It cements two of the major characters for you.
And the rest was ok, but not especially memorable. Writing is HARD, because you want EVERY PART of your story to blow people away, and it's really hard to say what makes that happen. And the same for the sequel. Nothing especially is wrong, it just all happens how you'd expect, and I never felt "Wow".
Stealing Light
The galaxy is de-facto ruled by the Shoal, the only species to have FTL. Humanity lives in the region of stars allocated to them. Now a human faction may have discovered an ancient pre-Shoal FTL ship.
I didn't really get into the book itself, but I really wanted to find out about the history and which races had FTL and how they interacted. I probably won't re-read it, but I may read the sequel.
Second in the series of Wearing the Cape superhero novels. Does a better job than most of building a world where superheroes make sense. I like the second one more in some ways, where the protagonist has grown a bit and is a lot more proactive. Although I don't remember much else.
I was interested to realise, "Villains Inc" was not just a catchy name but a reference to Murder Inc, the name given by the press to the organisation that span out of various crime families in the american mafia handling a majority of their contract killing[1].
[1] Also see: http://www.anarchogeekreview.com/
Hanging Tree (Rivers of London #5)
I liked this more than almost any of the previous ones. The humour is firing on all cylinders. We stop discovering whole new tracts of supernatural beings surely SOMEONE would have mentioned by now, and return to the strongest topics, Peter's family, the rivers, Nightingale and the other magicians. There's almost none of Peter being an arse about women. We're still waiting to find out more about what happened to you-know-who, but we find out *something* about it.
Magnificent Seven remake
This was... ok. It had a few good moments.
The first 30 minutes of the Magnificent Seven were one of the best films ever made. An underwear salesman is trying to pay for the funeral of a guy who died in the street, but the funeral director won't take his money because no-one wants a black guy buried in the cemetery, even though it's full of disreputable people, murders, criminals, etc. The protagonists volunteer because why not, everyone watching chips in to pay for the wagon if necessary, for the spectacle more than out of the goodness of their hearts. There's an extended scene while they drive to the graveyard, shooting a variety of people who take potshots at them. Everything about it is just great. It's entertaining and tense. Even the minor characters are very memorable. It cements two of the major characters for you.
And the rest was ok, but not especially memorable. Writing is HARD, because you want EVERY PART of your story to blow people away, and it's really hard to say what makes that happen. And the same for the sequel. Nothing especially is wrong, it just all happens how you'd expect, and I never felt "Wow".
Stealing Light
The galaxy is de-facto ruled by the Shoal, the only species to have FTL. Humanity lives in the region of stars allocated to them. Now a human faction may have discovered an ancient pre-Shoal FTL ship.
I didn't really get into the book itself, but I really wanted to find out about the history and which races had FTL and how they interacted. I probably won't re-read it, but I may read the sequel.
no subject
Date: 2017-06-12 09:44 am (UTC)