Tag Archives: fantasy

Book Review of The Wrong Dead Guy (Another Coop Heist #2), by Richard Kadrey

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I borrowed an audio copy of The Wrong Dead Guy, by Richard Kadrey, through Hoopla. I chose it because I also happen to have a physical copy of it sitting on my shelf. I figured, if I wasn’t going to get round to reading it anytime soon, I might as well listen to it. Two birds, one stone and all that.

Description from Goodreads:
In this fast paced sequel to The Everything Box—the second entry in Richard Kadrey’s comedic supernatural series—chaos ensues when Coop and the team at DOPS steal a not- quite-dead and very lovesick ancient Egyptian mummy wielding some terrifying magic

Coop, a master thief sort of gone legit, saved the world from an ancient doomsday device—heroism that earned him a gig working for the Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome top secret government agency that polices the odd and strange. Now Woolrich, Coop’s boss at the DOPS, has Coop breaking into a traveling antiquities show to steal a sarcophagus containing the mummy of a powerful Egyptian wizard named Harkhuf. With the help of his pals Morty, Giselle, and a professor that’s half-cat, half-robotic octopus, Coop pulls off the heist without a hitch.

It’s not Coop’s fault that when DOPS opened the sarcophagus they didn’t find the mummy they were expecting. Well, it was the right mummy, but it wasn’t exactly dead—and now it’s escaped, using a type of magic the organization hasn’t encountered before. Being a boss, Woolrich blames his underling for the screw up and wants Coop to find the missing Harkhuf and make it right, pronto.

Digging into Harkhuf’s history, Coop thinks the mummy is hunting for an ancient magical manuscript that will help him bring his old lover back to life.

Which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t a warrior sorceress hell-bent on conquering the world with her undead armies.

Coop would very much like to run from the oncoming chaos. It’s one thing to steal a mummy, but another to have to deal with head-hunting bureaucrats, down-on-their luck fortune tellers, undead mailroom clerks, and a rather unimpressed elephant. Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to run. If he wants the madness to stop, he’s going to have to suck it up and play hero one more time. But if Coop manages to save the world AGAIN, he’s definitely going to want a lot of answers. And a raise.

Review:
I thought this was ok. It was funny (as it was meant to be), but it felt like it went overboard into slapstick, almost stupid-funny. And stupid-funny isn’t really my cup of tea.

Also, I didn’t realize was a sequel when I picked the book up. I was able to follow it just fine—it basically stands alone—with the exception of any sort of character introductions. Maybe I’d have been more invested in them if I hadn’t had to figure out things like Jizelle being Coop’s girlfriend on my own. But honestly probably not. They were too busy being pithy to be relatable.

All in all, I’d call this a middle of the road read for me. I liked it well enough, but didn’t love it. Oliver Wyman did a fine job with the narration though.

The Black God's Drums

Book Review of The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark

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I received a copy of P. Djèlí Clark‘s The Black God’s Drums through Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Creeper, a scrappy young teen, is done living on the streets of New Orleans. Instead, she wants to soar, and her sights are set on securing passage aboard the smuggler airship Midnight Robber. Her ticket: earning Captain Ann-Marie’s trust using a secret about a kidnapped Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper keeps another secret close to heart–Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, who speaks inside her head and grants her divine powers. And Oya has her own priorities concerning Creeper and Ann-Marie…

Review:
Man, Tor.com has put out some stellar novellas lately! (And those covers, so pretty.) This was short, true, but it packed a mighty punch. The language, world-building and characters grip you and it managed a full story in 110 pages. I do generally prefer longer works and I think this would have lent itself to being longer. (Though I realize Tor specializes for shorter works.) All in all, two big thumbs up from me. I’ll be looking for more of Clark’s writing.

The Last Wish

Book Review of The Last Wish (The Witcher, #1), by Andrzej Sapkowski

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I borrowed a copy of  Andrzej Sapkowski‘s The Last Wish from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
Geralt of Rivia is a witcher. A cunning sorcerer. A merciless assassin. And a cold-blooded killer. His sole purpose: to destroy the monsters that plague the world. But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good… and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

A collection of short stories introducing Geralt of Rivia, to be followed by the first novel in the actual series, The Blood of Elves. Note that, while The Last Wish was published after The Sword of Destiny, the stories contained in The Last Wish take place first chronologically, and many of the individual stories were published before The Sword of Destiny.

Review:
I have a confession to make. I didn’t really read the description of this book before I read it. I picked it up on a recommendation to read the series and chose this thinking it was the first book. Turns out it is actually a collection of short stories published after the series itself (though set before the timeline). In a sense I’m relieved to discover that, because I didn’t love them and the series is supposed to be so good. It’s a relief to discover that this book isn’t the one I should have been reading to get a real sense of the series. It’s disappointing, of course, that I read it and didn’t love it. But now that I’ve been set straight I’ll read the actual first book.

Now, setting aside my little fumble, lets talk about the stories. I think I’d have liked them a lot more if I had read the series first. I think a lot of what felt vague and shallow to me would have had context. But I did think there was a lot of humor and I liked the character a lot. I was a little annoyed with womens’ apparent habit of falling into his bed with no effort on his part (and their tendency to be villains or faceless/voiceless) and there is some anachronistic language that annoyed me. But all in all, I didn’t love it like I’d expected to but I didn’t hate it either. It’s about what you’d expect from decent early 90s epic fantasy.