Review: Steelstriker

Steelstriker by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not unlike Warcross and Wildcard before it, Skyhunter and Steelstriker exist to prove that as much as I typically find something irksome about the trend of YA duologies that's gone on for years and years, Marie Lu is damn good at actually justifying the two-part story - and this one, a blistering anti-imperialist (and anti-conservative, like the nightmarish scene where the Karensa Federation's map now covers the whole land in red instead of the one free blue holdout of Mara) critique and world-class post-apocalyptic SFF thriller, loaded for bear with twists as the heroes and villains collide in their many-layered gambits. And, of course, for the first time since the original Legend trilogy, Lu goes back to giving us two excellent first-person POVs - Talin, forced into servitude at the hands of the Karensan premier's threats to kill her friends and family, and Red, wanting so much to save her but plagued with uncertainty and anxiety and depression. It's a genius feature on Lu's part to not give that negative inner voice of Red's a distinct formatting - it embeds itself much more thoroughly and insidiously into the narrative that way, as depression is wont to do. But this book concludes the duology with Lu's finest signature aplomb, and to this world I now bid ave atque vale while eagerly awaiting her next work, which Lu's been teasing lately with particularly great promise.

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Review: Empire of the Vampire

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's a reason why Jay Kristoff's one of my faves, and it's because he's one of the most bloody rockstarinest writers in the biz. But you know what the bloody hell else he is? Like Pierce Brown, he is an Apex Asshole, capable of plundering the depths of his imagination and holding a mirror up to the world in the darkest of ways, and taking us readers on a long, perilous journey through a fantasy world where the sun won't rise and vampires rule.

Review: The Champion

The Champion by Taran Matharu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Taran Matharu brings his second trilogy to a terrifying, bloodydamn fast-paced, unpredictable, thrilling close in The Champion, in which I'd have a very hard time believing that Matharu didn't read at least one of Matthew Reilly's Jack West Jr novels for inspiration for this one. HIstorical figures from all over the world, and their long-lost, long-storied tombs, play the most important part of all in Cade and company's quest to defeat the sinister Abbadon once and for all, even as this strange parallel world also fills with lost nukes from all across the 20th century and beyond. Weapons some see fit to use no matter the consequences. But Matharu, as always, doesn't let up for even a page, to the point where the only time you get to breathe again is when the acknowledgments come and you can finally bid the series ave atque vale...unless Matharu decides to go the route of the Summoner series with a prequel novel in the next year or so? Who bloody knows.

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Review: Bloodless

Bloodless by Douglas Preston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the 20th Pendergast novel, Preston and Child bring things up to a level of quality I haven't seen from them in a few years - the best Pendergast novel since at least 2015, and certainly one of the best in the current era of Pendergast partnering with Agent Coldmoon. Though it does feel at times that the D.B. Cooper prologue is far less connected to the main plot in Savannah than it should be, leave it to Pendergast (after a fashion, including a trip up to the Mount Adams Wilderness region not far from my new PNW home) to piece together all the clues and come up with a truly terrifying twist or two as the story wraps up. Though of course it all ends with a couple of cliffhangers as far as ongoing storylines are concerned, but Bloodless is just another Pendergast book for which I wish I still had a bookstore job...

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Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings: Studies In Duality

 **NO SPOILERS FOR SHANG-CHI, BUT MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU FILMS  - ESPECIALLY IRON MAN 3 - ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.**

Despite the world (at least, in certain areas already predisposed to it) largely returning to past levels of Covid caution, I'm fortunate enough to still be able to go to the movies with all necessary precautions, and especially now that Disney has decided not to follow suit with the pattern set by Black Widow and do a hybrid release for their next Marvel tentpole. Whether it was because they were afraid star Simu Liu might take a page from Scarlett Johannson's book and sue for lost profits (though as outspoken as Liu can be, I doubt this would be a battle he'd pick) or because they think it might hasten a cultural return to normalcy (a sentiment I might be able to appreciate even if many around me wouldn't), who knows.

But for this second of four MCU movies to drop in 2021, Marvel pulls out all the visual stops in such a way as to justify the cost of the theater tickets.

Ten rings, but at least ten times as many distinct powers.