Re-Visiting Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

With the movie finally hitting screens and since my sf/f bookclub picked it for our next book, I’ve revisited Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. This time around, I decided to give the audio version a whirl. And while Wil Wheaton is spot-on in bringing the book to life in audio, I still found myself coming away from the novel feeling a bit satisfied.

While most of the geeky 80’s references hold up fairly well, I couldn’t help but feel like this book with all style and no substance the more I listened. While I enjoyed the references, I found myself yearning for something more to the novel that what I walked away this time. This time around, the novel reminded me of books I read based on several InfoCom games (they gave us Zork and other interactive text games back in the day). They were fun, but not necessarily all that filling. And in the end, they left me wanting to go back and play the games again rather than continue reading the novel.

Ready Player One feels like it’s all style and little substance here. And this time around, I couldn’t help but feel like it was a bit too predictable for its own good. (Some of this could be that I’ve read it before, but honestly I’d forgotten a lot of the specific story points in the seven or so years since I last read it). I’m not sure if this says more about me as a reader or the novel itself. Or it could be a bit of both.

I was struck this time by the predictable nature of the plot, the lack of any real depth for the characters, and the glaring lack of any strong, female characters in the book.

Again, I can’t say that I didn’t love it back in the day. I did. But I probably should have let my memory continue to cheat into remembering how much I’d enjoyed it then. Instead, I’ve come away feeling that this novel was one that had so much potential that just wasn’t realized.

If you want to visit my original review of the book, you’ll find it HERE.

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Review: Victor Boone Will Save Us by David Joel Stevenson

There were times reading Victor Boone Will Save Us that I couldn’t help being reminded of The Tick. Both stories take the tropes of the superhero genre and deconstruct them a bit. But while The Tick goes for the funny bone, David Joel Stevenson uses Victor Boone to tug on the heartstrings.

Victor Boone is everything a superhero should be — good looking, dressed in spandex, able to fly, and seemingly impervious to just about anything criminals can throw at him. But what the world doesn’t know is that Victor doesn’t actually have any more power than the rest of us. The powers comes from Robby, an introverted friend of Victor. Robby does the heavy-lifting, Victor takes the credit. That is, until Victor is killed in a bank robbery, leaving Robby at a loss as to what to do next.

Things aren’t help when an old friend from college begins to dig into the death of Victor and Robby’s connection to it. Showing up at his place, the friend begins to ask some uncomfortable questions. It doesn’t help Robby’s shyness that she’s one of the prettiest and nicest smelling journalists he’s ever met.

Review: What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan

While spending a normal Sunday evening at the local park, Rachel Jenner allows her son Ben to run ahead to the tire swing. Upon arrival at the swing, she finds no trace of Ben. Things escalate when Ben’s clothes are found and the police begin a search to find the missing boy.

What unfolds over the course of the next week quickly evolves into a nightmare not only for Rachel but also for the police officers assigned to the case. Rachel and the police are put under the microscope by social media with every move they make being questioned, debated, and dissected in the court of public opinion. Things aren’t helped when Rachel decides to go off script of broadcast appeal to whomever has kidnapped her son.

At each turn, the pressure builds and builds with the reader knowing the case had negative ramifications for all parties involved. The prologue lets readers in on the fact that something bad happened in the course of the investigation and there were negative outcomes for many of those involved. But just how negative is something that is kept hidden until the final chapters.

Movie Thoughts: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Why is every property a candidate for film franchise these days?

For all the strengths and weaknesses of this new adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express may have, the biggest takeaway I had was the feeling that since Sherlock Holmes didn’t spawn a new franchise of films , why not try with Hercules Poirot now?

And if we are to have a Poirot series of films, I guess Orient Express is a good starting point. It’s arguably one of Agatha Christie’s best known stories featuring the Belgian detective and his mustache (more on that later).  But, it’s still a story that’s had multiple adaptions on the large and small screen.

I’ve never seen any of the previous adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express.  However, I have read the original novel, so I knew the solution to the mystery before I sat down to view the new version that hit theaters last year.

Audiobook Review: Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet by Gerry Davis

For some reason, I missed reading Gerry Davis’ adaptation of his and Kit Pedler’s script for “The Tenth Planet” during the height of my reading and collecting the Target novels. It could be due either to that fact that I didn’t appreciate the William Hartnell serials as I do now during my initial viewing of Doctor Who or it could be that this one just didn’t show up at my local bookseller.

A pivotal story in the history of Doctor Who, “The Tenth Planet” features two huge firsts — the debut of the Cybermen and the first time the Doctor regenerated.

You’d think that for a story this pivotal to the long-running history of the show, the Target novelization would be more to write home about.

Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas & Ms. Marvel, Vol. 8: Mecca

A good book can take places you’ve never been.  

A great book n only takes you to places you’ve never been, but has those places linger in your thoughts after the final page is turned.

In the past couple of months, I’ve read two books that have taken me outside my typical worldview and have lingered in my thoughts long after the final page was turned.  The first was the much (deservedly so) lauded The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and the other, as unlikely as it may seem, was a new collection of Marvel’s Ms. Marvel comic book, Mecca.  

Review: The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

About two-hundred pages into The Wife Between Us the unreliable narrator notes that there are three sides to a marriage — his side, her side, and the reality of the situation.

This thought occurred to me long before Vanessa pointed it out to her readers. I also found myself wishing that the cover blurb and marketing materials hadn’t teased that there were twists contained within the pages of the story and that we’d question everything being related by the narrator. It would have made the surprises much more unexpected when Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen begin pulling the rug out from under us and playing with our assumptions.

After her husband divorces her, Vanessa is left trying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. She is apparently obsessed with the woman who will soon be marrying her husband and will do anything in her power to warn his next wife of the secrets she hid before, during, and after her marriage. Vanessa teases tidbits to come that led to the demise of her relationship as well as the truth of what was really happening in her life and her marriage.