octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

The most appealing this about this is the art. It's pretty great, with muted, watery tones. I'm less interested in the story, which is odd as I feel I should be interested. Part of me wants to say that the first issue of a comic has extremely limited page space to set up a longer story, and in all fairness a lot gets done here: the main character's being haunted by the ghost of a little boy, and he gathers together other psychics because he thinks they're in danger of dying terrible deaths (and indeed they seem to be). That's a lot to get across in two dozen pages or so. Another part of me - and this part is winning out - wants to say that, single issue or not, clarity is key. I don't expect every question to be answered, but the opening sequence is so vague that it comes across as less artistic than it does annoying. 

Just tell me what the fuck is going on, please. If the main character is this devoid of personality, I need a clear, compelling plot to make me want to keep reading. (I mean, I have the five issue set. I'm going to keep reading. But still.) 

This book's slow as a wet week! I still enjoyed it, but I'm glad to read that Aubrey and Maturin are on their way home, because the extensive voyage that's taken place over the last several books has honestly dragged on a bit. I was actually glad to get to a battle here, that's how slow things were.

I don't know. I've really got nothing else to say about it. I'm interested for Maturin to get home and see what's going on with his wife and daughter, and the hope of that kept me going through most of this. Which isn't to say that there weren't interesting bits: Martin's something of a duffer, but his guilt-ridden, disastrous self-medication was reasonably compelling, and I enjoyed Maturin's South American sojourn, if only because seeing that Andean bromeliad, Puya raimondii, is now on my bucket list. What a fascinating plant!!! 

I have to admit that, through no fault of his own, Peter David had an uphill battle with me on this one. I didn't much care for "The Squire of Gothos" episode that this novel's based on, and in general I have very little interest in stories about spoiled brats getting apocalyptic powers and going all libertarian on the rest of us. It didn't help that he decided to underline this by adding in yet another snotty little brat, the twelve year old son of alternate-universe-Troi-and-Riker, who was so consistently obnoxious that I just hoped he'd get spaced. Alas. I don't know what it is about TNG kids that's so goddamn unappealing... Jake Sisko and Nog and Naomi Wildman all managed to be likeable, realistic characters.

Anyway. Despite the brats and the love triangle I couldn't care less about, the advantage here was the pacing. I've read several Star Trek novels by David over the years, and his pacing consistently works for me. It zips along, and even relatively long novels like this one seem to fly by. There's so much flipping between timelines here that it might have been easy to get bogged down trying to distinguish between them, but it's all managed very well. (I hate to imagine the drafts! There must have been arrows and notes and reconfiguration galore...) 

So, yeah. Generally fun, but I hope to god Tommy Riker and Trelane never turn up again. They're unbearable. I did like Nurse La Forge, though... that'd be an alternate universe thread I'd love to read more of. 

It's been decades since I read this! I think I must have been about twelve, and I have the vaguest recollection of one of the sequels... but the plot of this book stayed very firmly embedded. Often I read stories and forget about them, especially after so much time has passed, but I remembered nearly every point about this. Which is strange, really, as I don't think it's so much as passed my mind in the intervening years. Then I saw it at the library and felt nostalgic - or as nostalgic as anyone can feel for such a horror of a story.

If there's one thing gothic horror does well, and that haunted house stories do well, it's that sense of creeping corruption. The mother here didn't start out evil, but there's compromise after compromise, hidden away in the background, until she's as monstrous, if not more so, than her own terrible parents. And for so long, the only one who can see it is her own young daughter. One of the things I don't remember, that I certainly experienced now, was the sense of frustration at how Cathy's suspicions were always brushed aside, by her older brother and by herself. She'd always talk herself out of them, and it's not fair to blame either of them - they're only kids - but there were times I want to shake the brother, especially, to see if the scales would ever fall off. They do (and they were only lightly attached for so long, but survival meant complicity), but of course it was too late by then.

I'll have to make sure I read the rest this time round! I want to see if anything happens to that terrible mother... 

What a horrendous little book. If ever there is an argument for independent journalism, Southern Horrors is it. It is very clear, from the many quotes from other newspapers included here, that reliable, unbiased journalism cannot be expected from sources unwilling to address their own vicious bigotry. Wells makes it plain, citing many a contemporary source as she does so, that the so-called reasoning behind lynching in the American South was nothing more than barefaced lies. 

It's a very short book - only a pamphlet. It does not need to be longer. I'm selfishly glad that it isn't, because the sheer revulsion I felt... well. It does not compare, I'm sure. 

Reading these books, I begin to wonder if Watch the dog is still alive. He's always left behind, and the kids spend so little time at home that he really could be taxidermied and left in a corner and how would they even know? I will say, though, that whenever animals turn up in these stories the kids are always solidly on their side, so even if they don't realise that their own dog might actually be dead, they do good work looking after the targeted animals here. Although why they're always hanging about that little monkey when they could be helping out with the elephants I don't know... 

I am actually pretty upset that this, volume four in the series, is the last. I want more Blossom! Alas... her time travel into ancient Egypt is the end of it. I should instead be grateful that these books existed in the first place, and that I managed to stumble across them (albeit three decades after I should have). They're wonderful. Consistently entertaining, and Blossom herself is the sort of narrator who, in a different fantasy world, would grow up to be Granny Weatherwax. It's no real surprise that she took over as protagonist from Alexander, who was the narrator of the first book. He was pretty clearly overwhelmed by his more entertaining sidekick, and the result is a joy to read.

I'll be poking around secondhand book shops until I find my own copies of these - actually, no! It looks like they're still in print. Either way, I want them. 

This was outstanding. I want a copy for myself so I can admire it whenever I want! 

Technically, it's about a stone. In reality, it's about all the animals that experience the stone as part of their habitat, and given the differences in those animals - their size, their diet, their role in the ecosystem - the stone plays a different role in their everyday life. It's a story of shifting perspectives, and that would be excellent enough without the art. I love the art. I'm not very arty myself so I don't know what this technique should be called... is it mixed media? Crayon and paints and collage, with bits cut out and stuck on so some of the animals have a three dimensional effect. The moose!!! I love the moose. The raccoons and the otters come a close second, but the moose is the best.

I'm off now to rave to my writers group about this wee picture book. It's incredible. 

I do like these "day in the life of an animal" picture books the Smithsonian puts out; they're excellent examples of science communication for kids. In this one, a box turtle goes hunting for food, escapes a raccoon, and lays some eggs. I did have to laugh at the caveat in front of the story, in which kids are told that just because the box turtle eats random mushrooms it doesn't mean that they should! Good advice, but I await the day I come across a Smithsonian Backyard book about mushrooms.

I'm not particularly enamoured by the illustrations in this one, though. Usually they're excellent in this series, and the drawings in Box Turtle are certainly competent. They do seem a little blurry compared to the other books, though, a little less sharp-edged. It probably doesn't help that the colour palette is fairly murky. I know a lot of the book takes place at night, but even so. 

This wasn't bad, exactly, but it wasn't as good as the last few I've read. This is largely down to the fact that it's pretty repetitive - it feels as if the bulk of the story is the kids going back to the same amusement park and going on the same rides over and over. And as much as I appreciate the consistency of "you meddling kids!" in children's mystery series - no villain wants to be out-thought by a bunch of pre-teens - having the villain here try to target the kids in the middle of the amusement park, where everyone could see their villainous actions and come running to help... Let's just say it wasn't well thought out on their part.

I mean, Benny's not even a pre-teen. He's six. And I'm pretty sure even he's got more brains than that.