Posts tagged with adventure
Misfit City, Issues 3 - 8, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
When I reviewed the first two issues of Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten's 8-issue miniseries Misfit City, I groused about the flimsiness of the plot, but felt the characters and setting made up for it. Unfortunately, as the series progressed and less of each issue...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Misfit City, Volume 1, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
This week we're going to be reviewing issues 3 through 8 of the comic book miniseries Misfit City, so our Book Giveaway pick this week is the graphic novel compilation Misfit City: Vol. 1, which includes the first four issues. Our review of the rest of the series will be up shortly...
Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
New comic series Misfit City sets out to recapture the oddball charms of 80s kids' adventure movies (specifically, The Goonies), but my favorite thing about this story is the way it depicts living in a real town that's best known as a nostalgia-driven tourist trap...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Misfit City, Issues 1 & 2, by Kiwi Smith and Kurt Lustgarten
Our latest Book Giveaway is the first two issues of Misfit City, a new comic series written by Kirsten "Kiwi" Smith and Kurt Lustgarten. The story features a lot of tributes to classic 80s kids' movies (particularly The Goonies), so if you're a fan of the kind of film that, looking back, you cannot believe was ever marketed to children, congratulations: you're in luck...
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
First published in 1873, Around the World in Eighty Days is Jules Verne's most popular work. It's the story of Phileas Fogg, an enigmatic, unflappable Englishman who bets a group of his wealthy peers that he can circumnavigate the earth in eighty days. Accompanied by his bewildered valet Passepartout (and pursued by a detective who incorrectly believes Fogg to be a notorious bank robber), Fogg sets out...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
In an effort to erase last week's disastrous choice from my brain, this week's Book Giveaway is a classic: Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. It's been entertaining readers for nearly 150 years; I'm hoping it will be enough to wipe The Darkest Torment from my "recently read" memory bank. A full review will follow shortly...
Island in the Sea of Time, by S. M. Stirling
This is super, super nerdy, but I mean it in the most complimentary of ways: S.M. Stirling's novel Island in the Sea of Time is like a mash-up of Sid Meier's Civilization and Harriet M. Welsh's “Town” game...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Island in the Sea of Time, by S. M. Stirling
Today's Book Giveaway is S.M. Stirling's 1998 novel Island in the Sea of Time, the first book in his "Nantucket" trilogy. Clearly, the late 90s were not a great time for cover art, but thus far the story is Dan Simmons-level ambitious. A full review will follow later today...
A Darker Shade of Magic, by V.E. Schwab
V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic is plastered with encomiums that make it sound like the second coming of Dune—it's described as “compulsively readable”, “ingeniously clever”, and “an exhilarating adventure”. This breathless enthusiasm struck me as distinctly overblown, but Schwab's story is undeniably thoughtful, imaginative, and action-packed...
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer, by Rick Riordan
If you've read any of Rick Riordan's books for young readers, you've pretty much already read Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer. It's funny, exciting, and comfortingly familiar—but it's a little stale, too...
Bad Magic, by Pseudonymous Bosch
As I read Pseudonymous Bosch's Bad Magic, I had a bizarre feeling I was reading a junior-division version of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. Bad Magic is a lot less creepifying (thankfully), but it covers similar ground—a mysterious, isolated place, a half-explained plot, and a weird blend of fantasy and reality...
The Living, by Matt de la Pena
Matt de la Peña's The Living has gotten a lot of praise for its supercharged premise, its sympathetic male protagonist, and the way it touches on class, wealth, and social injustice. Most of that praise is well deserved, and only one thing prevented me from wholeheartedly enjoying it: the discovery that this is actually the first book in a series, and (of course) nothing ever gets resolved in a first installment...
The Dark Between, by Sonia Gensler
Apart from an overly poetic opening sequence that compares the heroine to a “leggy foal contorted in the womb” (seriously), Sonia Gensler's novel The Dark Between is an enjoyably atmospheric and unpretentious historical fantasy-adventure story...
Raiders' Ransom, by Emily Diamand
Raiders' Ransom, the debut novel from writer Emily Diamand, was the winner of the inaugural London Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition, and it's easy to see why: Diamand's blend of ...