enbygojira's Reviews (815)

Guerra do velho é difícil de avaliar. Não por não ter qualidade, mas porque sinto que foi um livro mais... divertido do que objetivamente bom... dá pra entender? E não tem nada de errado com isso, de verdade. Claro que não posso falar da escrita do Scalzi, uma vez que li a tradução,¹ mas o enredo não é muito elaborado, e depois da metade as coisas ficam um pouco episódicas. Certa vez, me disseram que a história parece mais uma introdução — uma boa introdução —, e acho que é bem isso. John Scalzi criou um cenário e escreveu uma aventura nele, sem muitas pretensões. É uma leitura legal pra caramba, cheia de ação e de personagens bacanas, mas não vai muito além. E isso é okay. Tá tudo bem. Nas palavras de Lindsay Ellis, it's fine (ad nauseam).

¹ Que achei... formal demais pro tipo de história, mas segue o baile.

Much like Cavendish's The Blazing World, this is more interesting than entertaining, and you probably shouldn't read it if you want something thrilling and/or adventurous. It does have, however, a plot, though it takes several chapters to get there. Some, if not most, of the social criticism is very current, and the prejudices presented in Abbott's fictional society reverberates with the prejudices we have today.

There's one thing I don't like about Rick Riordan's mythology-based books, and that is how he keeps on retelling and repeating mythology stories with his characters. It makes them look... dumb, kind of, because it's already happened before. I understand why he does it, mind you, but how is that effective in the overall story—although I'm not his target audience, am I? So who cares, really, and let's get to the review.

The Ship of the Dead was hella fun, as always. At the very beginning, I could not... remember things, though? from the previous book? Really, Magnus mentioned stuff and I was like, "has that really happened? was it like that?" So I guess I'm getting old, but soon we picked up speed, and everything was great. My favorite character for life, Alex Fierro, shined through in this one, and I was mostly happy with how

Spoiler

their relationship with Magnus was developed, including a bonus kiss while Alex was presenting themselves "as a boy"

. Magnus

Spoiler

and Loki's flyting

was better than anything I could've imagined, and I might have teared up a little at that. This here is a great departure for a nice, fun series that will be missed.