octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I'm enjoying this series so far. They're total popcorn reads, but they're definitely entertaining. In this volume, the focus shifts from Russian to Celtic mythology. I know more about the latter than the former, so it was perhaps not quite as interesting in that respect, but the reeves were sufficiently creepy to make up for it.

I'm in two minds about the continual hinting at Kate's real background, though. On the one hand I'm interested to see where it will go, but on the other it seems as if her continued upswing in power is taking away from the part of her which I most like: that of a seemingly normal person caught up in this weird world of competing magic and science. I mean, she's not entirely normal, being raised the way she was and being part of a mercenary guild and the Order and so forth, but I tend to be more interested reading about normal people in general than I am those with superpowers, essentially. Still, I'm entertained enough to go with it for the moment.

The story continues, and Kate's back story gets fleshed out a bit more. This is also the point where the series turns into paranormal romance, I think. Kate's relationship with Curran was always heading in this direction, and it seems they've both finally realised it, which is something. Perhaps the antagonism between them will get toned down a bit now. I hope so, because the romance aspect is the part of this I'm least interested in; I enjoy romance, but I tend to prefer romances where people are nicer to each other. The constant squabbling is meant to denote sexual tension, I know, but I always end up wanting to send them to their (separate) rooms until they grow the hell up and start being less, well, juvenile.

Magic Strikes is, on the other hand, particularly strong in one aspect I really enjoy but which I don't always find in urban fantasy: a well-developed cast of supporting characters. The care that's been put into the setting has come out here as well, and each book in this series seems to add to the social setting as well as the physical/magical one. I particularly enjoy the addition of Andrea, the reluctant hyena shapeshifter who becomes Kate's best friend. I tend to roll my eyes at protagonists who have no mates (doubly so when the protagonist is a woman with no women friends) and so the increasing focus on the supporting case is something I find really appealing.

This is the most enjoyable Stephen King book I've read in ages! I still think it's too long (though it's only half the length of The bloody Stand) but I was riveted throughout. I wonder if it's the setting... there's something about the idea of a tropical island that lends itself to lazy days and meandering. Of course, being a King book, there's something dodgy going on at this particular island, but it didn't affect the setting so much - more the people inhabiting it. And being creative myself, I enjoyed Edgar's working process, and his thoughts about art. Admittedly, I have just about enough artistic skill to draw a stick figure, but reading about other writers tinges on the masturbatory, I've often thought, so having the protagonist be a painter was just distance enough. But, as always, creativity lends itself to disturbance. That's the danger of it, and if mine doesn't come with drowning and creepy ships and statues, it's familiar nonetheless.

I got this book for fifty cents at a library sale, I think. I was going to read it and then toss it, as the cover's kind of half destroyed. But I enjoyed it so much I think I'll keep it...

I don't know what I expected from this, but... more, maybe? I haven't read it before, or Huckleberry Finn for that matter, and all I knew was a kind of nebulous idea of the books as classics, and that the latter had a river in it. I'll read that soon enough, I expect. But for all Tom Sawyer is a likeable enough book - and I did like it - I'm finding it hard to see how it ascended to classic status, to be honest. I know nothing about the history and publication of it, but it puts me in the mind of Dickens... so episodic that it could almost have been written in installments for a newspaper.

That said, the children here do come across like children, which is more than can be said for some kids in classics. They are imaginative, adventurous, petty, spiteful, both selfish and compassionate, and they are perhaps stronger than the plot, which is essentially a series of boys-own adventures in which the crucial parts (escaping the cave, confessing to lawyer) tend to get skipped in favour of a retroactive glossing over. That was slightly irritating, but there's still a real sort of nostalgia present here. Which is slightly odd, as I've never been in the same kind of setting or community, but I suppose some things trickle through.

The first book read in 2021! There's an anthology call for stories based on Verne coming up later this year, so I thought I'd brush up on some of his work before submitting. I've read this before, I think, if years and years ago, so the twist at the end was not a surprise. It's a fun story, though I have to admit I'm in two minds about Phileas Fogg. Yes, he is cool-headed and brave and principled, and those are all admirable things, but I just cannot get over his absolute lack of curiosity. That's kind of a dealbreaker for me. The man may possess admirable qualities, but anyone lacking in curiosity can fundamentally never be more than a bore. I'd feel sorry for Aouda except that, given the alternative was being burnt alive, he probably looks good to her. Well, in her place he'd look good to me too. I expect she's willing to swap a life of stultifying conversation, if any, for someone who doesn't play with matches.

One of the better of the Boxcar series so far, this has a really strong environmental focus, as the kids come up against the owner of a polluting factory. Notably - and the most interesting thing about the book - is that the kids of the factory owner, who are about the same age as the Alden kids, are solidly against what their dad is doing. They're performing science experiments to prove the ill effects of pollution on the local environment, they're picketing their dad's demonstrations, and if he's terrible for the planet he's at least raised kids with a sense of right and wrong, which is more than can be said for many of the polluting industrialists of today.

There's still something very innocent about the conclusion, though. These are children's books, so unbridled capitalism hasn't quite crushed all hope, but the conclusion that Grandfather Alden will use his experience running factories to help lessen the pollution coming out of this one, making everyone happy, isn't as great as it appears on the surface. What would have happened had there not been an eco-friendly millionaire come to show the polluter the error of his ways? Nothing, that's what, because the little people's objections were from little people, and thus insignificant. Then there's the irony of a plastics factory leading the way in non-pollution, and Warner admittedly gets a pass on that one because back in the day I'm not sure they knew about the damaging effect of microplastics, for instance, but that's an aspect that hasn't aged well. I mean, it's a nice ending. Idealised. The environment is saved and workers get to keep their jobs, and wouldn't it be great if it happened that way in real life as well?

I'd never heard of the subject of this picture book bio, but he seems like an interesting man. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that this book entirely does him justice. It's somewhat scattered, pulling disparate bits of information together - types of harpoon hooks, for example - and this lack of focus doesn't exactly make for a compelling narrative. Which is a shame, as on bare facts it should be. Attucks, born into slavery and escaping that evil to work for two decades on a whaling ship, is killed in the Boston Massacre, one of the inciting events of the American Revolutionary War. Granted, I don't know much about that war either, living on the other side of the world as I do, but really this could have used a longer conclusion and some more in-depth questions. I know that young children are the target audience here, but still: how did Attucks feel about fighting for the right to freedom for people who would deny him his? He had to go by different names for years to prevent him being dragged back to slavery in chains. I mean yes, he clearly valued freedom enormously, but a lot of his fighting was on behalf of people who didn't... or at least they didn't value it for him. There's no real exploration of this, nor is there any indication of what happened after his murder, and that those soldiers who killed him were put on trial and largely acquitted.

It's mostly bare facts without a whole lot of context, is what I'm saying. I wonder if there's a bio for adults out there on Attucks though, because I'd be interested in reading it.

While there were parts of this I liked, overall it wasn't quite my thing. I tend to enjoy stories about female friendships - there's never enough of them - and while the friendship between the three central protagonists here is solid, it doesn't really make up for the fact that I was only interested in one of them. Admittedly, I'm not the target audience - it's been decades since I was a teen, but even then the only character I think I would have warmed to is Shane. Oddly, in a story set at a school she's the only one even remotely concerned with academics, and her storyline here is about coping with her workload in unhealthy ways and learning better. I sympathise with her journalist ambitions and she's the only one of the three who ever goes to the library, apparently, so of course I'm going to like her. Despite her bad decisions she's got a brain in her head and is trying hard to use it. The other two are primarily (and tediously) obsessed with squabbling about boys and status, though this leveled off a bit in the second half as that central relationship resurfaced.

Fun, easy read, very much of the Herriot type, in which an Irish vet talks about some of her cases. The animals treated are both farmyard and small domestic ones, but the former are the more entertaining, I think - partly because they're less familiar, and partly because (with the best will in the world) I don't feel the same tension about a sick sheep as I do a sick moggy. It's not fair, but we're emotionally invested in pets, aren't we? Even when they aren't ours. The story about the run-over cat was one I almost couldn't bear to read. Miraculously, it turned out to have a happy ending, and Hick received in the mail a photo of the cat being cuddled by the little girl who owned it, but they don't all turn out that way. I'm not sure I could be a vet, it seems so emotionally fraught.

Apparently there's a sequel. I look forward to reading it, as this (cat aside) was one of those light, appealing reads that requires very little from me and can thus be zipped through with enjoyment.

I've had real trouble deciding between two and three stars for this, and two-and-a-half just doesn't cut it. I eventually decided on two, for reasons detailed below. Basically, it had some enjoyable bits but I probably wouldn't read it again.

The good parts were honestly very good, though. Data in particular was portrayed very well - I was genuinely and surprisingly interested. I say "surprisingly" because I've always been largely indifferent to Data. I think Brent Spiner did an excellent job with him, but the Pinocchio type figure who wants to be human is a trope that I've never liked. I didn't like it as a kid, when I first watched TNG, and I don't like it now. This iteration of it, though, was pretty damn thoughtful, which I appreciated. I do think that Lorrah erred on the side of making him perhaps too emotional, but if I understand it correctly this book was written during the first season of the show, so the characterisation naturally had less weight behind it - under the circumstances, her interpretation is entirely forgivable, and anyway if you're going to err with Data, I'd prefer it to be on the side of emotion rather than anything else. The mutual friendship with Tasha was also appealing. When it comes to friendship, Data's most often paired with Geordi so it was nice to see a different duo, and have them be so consistently supportive of each other.

So, everything with Data was good. That just leaves Tasha... who has always been badly utilised in Trek and things don't much change here. It left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth to be honest, and is the primary reason for the two star rating. This book gives her some much-needed backstory, although I could really have done without the description of her gang rape as a 12 year old, and her pet cat being gutted in front of her by the rape gang (really, Star Trek? Really??? Was this truly necessary? I think not. You are meant to be the hopeful franchise and not the edgy tragedy porn one). But it's the romance with Dare that's even more off-putting. He's one of the Starfleet officers who rescues child Tasha from another rape gang. He takes her back to his starship, supervises her education and coaxes her into civilisation and eventually the Academy. It's made very plain that she totally idolises him as a mentor, has pretty much glommed onto him from childhood, and just before she graduates from the Academy they become romantically involved, because apparently she's grown up enough for it now (there's been no-one since the gang rape, age 12, and so of course the much older man who taught her everything else has to teach her this too). Now some decades back this might have passed muster, but now it looks horribly like grooming, and the whole thing is just gross. I'm sorry, but it is.