Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Nerds around the world unite! This is your book!

If you love video games, 70’s and 80′ pop culture, fantasy, cyberpunk, dystopian lit….then this is the book for you and even if you don’t love those things, you will still find something to love in this book.

18 year old Wade Watts live in the year 2044. The world is a wasteland. The earth’s resources are diminished and society is spiraling out of control, the only thing positive in this dismal world is the OASIS.

The OASIS is the internet to the 10th power! It’s a virtual utopian world where you can be anyone or anything you want to be. Each person has their own avatar and you can create your own planets and worlds where you live, play, meet friends, and even fall in love.

When the creator of the OASIS, James Halliday, dies he leaves his vast, multibillion dollar fortune to anyone who can find his ‘Easter Egg’ by playing the ultimate video game in the OASIS. Halliday leaves on clue to get people started, a riddle. OASIS users around the world work to solve the riddle.

Continue reading “Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline”

Review: Mine to Take (Matrix of Destiny #3) by Dara Joy

Mystical galaxies, wizards, shapeshifters, aliens, adventure, and sizzling romance lurk in the pages of the para-romance novel, Mine to Take by Dara Joy. 

The beautiful Jenise is more or less a prisoner in her own home. The evil Karpon desires her and yet also wants to kill her. Jenise longs to be free of him before he can conquer her making her his wife.

As luck would have it, Karpon holds a fierce Familiar (shapeshifter) in his dungeons. If Jenise can some how free the Familiar, she too might be free of Karpon.

The Familiars are a wild and sexual people, therefore Jenise bargains with the captive using the only thing she has in her favor….her virginity.

Continue reading “Review: Mine to Take (Matrix of Destiny #3) by Dara Joy”

Review: Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) by Charlaine Harris

The Southern Vampire Mystery Series prepares to meet the true death.

In the latest Sookie Stackhouse installment, Deadlocked, writer Charlaine Harris seems to be tying up a lot of loose ends in preparation for the final installment due out next year (2013).

The last few books have sort of dwindled in excitement and interest for me….particularly All Dead in the Family (Book 10) and Dead Reckoning (Book 11) so I’ll be honest I didn’t have high expectations for this installment.

I was pleasantly surprised with the way Deadlock unfolded. I didn’t feel the need to devour the book rapidly…though I did finish it quickly, I didn’t feel like every page was soaked in blood and action.

When the series began, the first 4 books were solidly written and action packed. Then books 5-7 got a little weird for me, but still fairly well written….books 5-7 seemed to be more about the supernatural than the mystery though which was a hard transition for the audience I think. Continue reading “Review: Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) by Charlaine Harris”

Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Richard Mayhew has no idea what awaits him in London on the eve of his going away party in Scotland. His friends pitch in to get him a going away gift, a white umbrella with a map of the London Underground.

He can’t help but stare at the umbrella with an eerie omen of impending disaster….little does he know how right he is.

For three years, Richard’s life is more or less normal. He works in business and he is engaged, but he still can’t help but feel disenchanted. One night, Richard’s life changes drastically….he encounters a girl bleeding on the streets of London.

With his decision to help her, Richard is propelled into a dark, gothic urban fantasy set in the Underground–better known as London Below.

London Below is an alternate reality–a strange world of Underground railways, tunnels, and sewers, which is home to a host of eccentric and unique characters. Continue reading “Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman”

Review: Timeless (Parasol Protectorate #5) by Gail Carriger

Agent Blue Bonnet here with a transmittal from the Parasol Protectorate secret society: Timeless by Gail Carriger is finally out! I discovered this series last year while I was participating in the Steampunk Reading Challenge over at Bookish Ardour. I absolutely loved Soulless (Book #1) and it has been an interesting series to watch evolve overall.

Timeless is Book #5 in the series–which seems to be the last installment I am sad to say. The first four books take place in rapid secession but this book is set two years after Book #4. Alexia Tarabotti AKA Lady Maccon, is settling into her new life–as best she can considering she is married to a werewolf and boasts a metanatural daughter.

Alexia is what is known as a preternatural, meaning she is born with no soul–she cancels out the supernatural abilities in other creatures and sets them ‘free’–in other words she gives them the ‘true death’–thus she is know in the supernatural sect as a ‘soul-sucker’. Her daughter, Prudence, is a metanatural which means she can absorb supernatural power on contact–earning the name ‘soul-stealer’. Both terms don’t bode well for the Maccon family. Most supernaturals fear both them, but others long to be free of the ‘curse’–immortality. Continue reading “Review: Timeless (Parasol Protectorate #5) by Gail Carriger”