Niall

Forty miles of bad road

Reviewed: 12-11-17

If you're a fan of wishing the characters in a book would wake up and start using their brains, this book is for you. I found it hard to listen to the angst-riddled text at times. I knew Rachel was doing something stupid, so did everyone else in the book. So, how come she does it anyway?

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Enjoyable, but not quite up there

Reviewed: 07-11-17

I enjoyed listening to this one. Amanda Ronconi voices the book with her usual skill.

The story I didn't care for quite so much. This isn't meant to be another Half-moon Hollow book and is clearly set in a different universe, but there was a more serious atmosphere to this one. There's more humour to the Half-moon Hollow books which I missed here. The actual supernatural mystery story in the heart of this book is fairly good, though if anyone reads this expecting a different ending from what we get, I'll be massively surprised.

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1 person found this helpful

Short but sweet

Reviewed: 26-10-17

Not a long book, but entertaining. Lots of seasonal mayhem and the gang's all here. Really, this is setting up for the next book in the series, but it's a worthwhile story in itself.

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Awesome London urban fantasy

Reviewed: 30-05-14

If it wasn't for poor Leslie, this might have got 5 stars, but you'll have to read the book if you want that story.

Basically, this is the tale of a young, mixed-race constable in the Metropolitan Police who discovers that he has a talent for magic and ends up investigating supernatural problems in London. The setting is believable: it's a hidden magic setting, but it's quite apparent that more people know what's really going on, especially among the police, than it first appears. Either the author has police experience or he did good research; the cops in the books seem remarkably well drawn, though I thought I detected one error (which could be my own reading being wrong).

Plotwise, this story mingles a pair of tracks regarding the (embodied) spirits of the rivers of London, hence the title, who seem to be having a few disputes, and some rather violent murders which appear to have no natural reason for happening. The resolution is satisfying... mostly.

The humour level is great, the suspense is well done. Aaronovitch appears to like the kind of humour I do, always a plus. I laughed aloud at times, which is embarrassing when you're listening to an audiobook. There are still many things to uncover in the setting and I suspect I'll be looking up some more of these books.

I listened to the Audible version, so a note on the reader: excellent. Just that: excellent.

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Pretty good, better if you're geeky

Reviewed: 30-05-14

Actually, this probably deserves a little more than 3 stars, and on Amazon (where the scale is different) I'd give it 4. With the style settled, I suspect that the future novels in the series might be a little better. For the first time in a couple of books I am inclined to consider finding out.

On the plus side we have a feisty, geeky heroine who discovers that magic is real (and weird) and sets out on a quest to save people from forced suicide (and there's a twist, of course). I liked Rhi. I liked the conception behind it all. I liked the role-playing game references.

And there-in lies my issue. I didn't think it was going to be an issue, but damn it if I didn't find myself wondering whether White Wolf had considered suing over copyright. There have been other works of fiction which have sounded like someone lifted them right of the the pages of Mage: The Ascension (The Matrix, Dark City), but Geekomancy is pretty much a novelised version of the game. That is both awesome (it's a great game) and annoying.

In short, well worth a read, especially if you get all the pop-culture references. I'm very much hoping that Underwood's style will settle a little for the follow-ups, which I'll very probably put on my waiting list.

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Could be better, please try harder

Reviewed: 11-03-14

What to say...

Superheroes lend themselves to clichés, and this provides them in spades. If you really, really love the old 60s Batman TV series and the really old, black and white, Superman, if you think Man of Steel is a pale and inglorious shadow to Reeve's Superman, then you might like this book more than I did.

It has some good bits, it really does. Unfortunately they are outweighed by the bits where the story clicks along quietly and you really wish the author would get on with telling the story of the interesting characters. Sadly, I don't think those are the ones he thinks they are.

So, not too bad, but despite the supposedly cliffhanger ending (which comes over as intensely badly written stodge), I doubt I'll bother with any sequels.

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Audio classic

Reviewed: 24-02-14

Knightfall is one of the classic Batman stories and this BBC Radio production is a very good adaptation, well acted, and generally very good.

And the blooper reel at the end is hilarious.

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A little short, but sweet

Reviewed: 24-02-14

Not one of the longest or best Batman stories, but this is one of the wonderful BBC productions and they are always well done.

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Fascinating if not for audio

Reviewed: 20-02-14

The primary issue with these books is that they don't really make great audio books. While interesting, and worth the read, this is a textbook with a clever theme. Listing to someone read a list of two pages of phobias is, frankly, not good. Almost certainly better as a reference book (ebook or paper) than an audiobook.

Obviously the "story" sucks, but it's an interesting thing to read anyway.

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1 person found this helpful

Scottish Accents Not a Strong Point

Reviewed: 14-02-14

While I generally liked the performance on this one, Dina Pearlman can't do Scottish accents for toffee. I'm inclined to believe she's reading the written down accent however, since the author doesn't know what a Yorkshire Pudding is.

I liked this, but it did seem to have more text than story; ie. it was a little long, as in elongated for word count. Kris suffers from that most unfortunate of character conditions, not seeing the bleeding obvious until 5 minutes after the reader. However, the plot is pretty good, the action is realistic, the spaceships actually use a form of Newtonian physics (at least as far as sublight travel is concerned), and Kris is a likeable character.

One of the strongest points of the book is also its weakest. Mike Shepherd was a Navy brat according to his bio and the book is jammed full of naval jargon which is very authentic-sounding, very atmospheric, and requires you to look up half the words before you can figure out what gives. Kris is a Boot Ensign; I spent the first 5 minutes of the book looking that up on Wikipedia. There's such a thing as too much authenticity.

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3 people found this helpful