The Crossing is an apocalyptic novel which has humanity in a slow decline precipitated by a disease spreading among the population that starts killing off the elderly but is slowly progressing through the younger population, and a world war that is killing off the younger people. Dodging the draft, twins Tommy and Virginia Matthews, after having gone through foster home to foster home throughout their young lives, go on a trip to Cape Canaveral to witness a rocket launch to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.
This novel had some good and some not so good in it. What I especially liked was the writing style. Jason Mott is a talented author who has a way with words. I also thought the characterization was particularly strong not just for the two main characters, but also their foster father, who is ostensibly the antagonist in this story, but really isn’t a villain. He is presented as someone who is, although not perfect, guided by conviction of right and wrong and is doing what he sees as his duty.
What I didn’t like about the novel were many of the side stories with nameless, faceless characters that didn’t add anything to the story except to the word count. Really, this is a novella, not a novel, which had a lot of fluff added to it to fill pages. The other thing that bothered me was that this is a first person novel told by Virginia, who has a didactic memory. The author violated the logic of this storytelling method by having her narrate parts of the story that she isn’t in, providing what everybody said and thought in those scenes. It’s an illogical way of telling a story. There is a throw away line at the end to explain it all, but that rang hollow to me and didn’t come off as credible. The ending was also more of a whimper than a climax. Overall, I did enjoy this story but it could have been better.
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is yet another addition in the slow decline of the Marvel franchise. It’s been a while since the lords and masters at the Walt Disney company have produced anything worthwhile with Marvel (Spiderman No Way Home doesn’t count since it was produced by Sony). This movie was just lackluster in so many ways.
For starters, it was confusing and hard to follow. I felt as if they were just throwing out as many weird things as they could without any rhyme or reason or explanation. Half the time, I didn’t know what the heck was going on, and I felt the writers and director didn’t feel it was worth their while to provide a proper explanation.
Another thing that annoys me about recent Marvel ventures is that they use a popular character (Dr. Strange) and put them next to an unknown character (American Chavez) in order to get them over with the fans. It doesn’t work. American Chavez was a poor character who I couldn’t possibly care less about. This movie could have used more Wong and less American Chavez.
Finally, when I first realized that Scarlett Witch was the villain in this movie, I knew exactly how it was going to end. Spoiler alert: it was the same exact way that Wandavision ended. It was both completely predictable and utterly unsatisfying. I just feel that the Marvel universe under the reigns of the evil overlords at Disney is saturated and has run its course. They no longer seem capable of making good movies and shows. I should just pull the plug on watching these movies, but I am sure I will keep coming back for more.
I was never able to get into The Unfinished Land, and as a result the novel fell flat for me. There were a few reasons for this. One is that the writing was archaic. I understand that the novel is set in a period during the height of the Spanish Armada, but that’s not a reason to make this story hard to read. The author could have more elegantly worked with the time period to make it feel authentic yet increase the readability of the novel. Second, the novel is slow to develop. The author presents the story in drips and drabs, which results in a very slow pace and an overall dull read. Finally, the main protagonist, Reynard, is a passive character. The action happens around him. He is almost there observing. He does very little in the story, and as a result, is not a particularly interesting character.
This novel was hard to get through. It just wasn’t particularly compelling even though the description of the story sounded like it would be a good read. The concept of the story is a decent one. It was the writing and execution of this concept that was subpar. As a result, I would suggest passing on this novel.
Fray, the second novel in the Unraveled Kingdom Series, fell short of the first novel in the series and my expectations. This novel continues where the other one left off. Now Sophie Balstrade no longer owns her charm/clothing shop and is set to be married to Theodor, the crown prince of the kingdom. They are set to make reforms to their nation’s feudal system of government, but are facing stiff opposition from the nobility who want to maintain the status quo.
Where this novel falls short for me is that it was overly long, and in some cases very dull. Mainly the middle part of the novel where Sophie and Theodor are traveling to Serafin for a meeting for trade among the Equitorial States was dry and often not very interesting. That’s not to say that there weren’t interesting parts in here, but much of that section should have been cut and edited down. I get the impression that the since trilogies are the order of the day in fantasy, the author and publisher wanted to make this a trilogy, but there doesn’t seem to be enough material here to make it a trilogy and keep it entertaining throughout. There also wasn’t much progression in Sophie’s and Theodor’s characters. In fact, Theodor seemed to be less interesting in this novel than he did in the first novel.
The pace of the novel picked up toward the end, and that part was more enjoyable. I’m invested enough to want to keep on reading to complete the trilogy, but with a bit less vigor than before.
I was a bit lukewarm about this novel when I first started reading it, and it took me a while to get into the story, but the more I read, the more I enjoyed this fantasy novel. My hesitation is probably that I like my fantasy novels that are a little more epic in nature with fighting and journeys and the like. This novel is lacking in those areas, but had its own appeal.
In Torn, the main characters is Sophie, a seamstress with magical abilities. She lives in a society where the nobility oppresses the common people. Revolution is fomenting, and one of the key figures is her brother, Kristos. When Sophie’s magical charms catch the attention of some of the nobility, she gets wrapped into their society and wants nothing to do with the revolution, even though she agrees with some elements of it in principle. Further complicating matters, she becomes romantically entangled with a duke. When her brother is kidnapped, she is coerced into helping the revolutionaries.
The novel was slow at first, and that was part of why I wasn’t so into it, but it built up in intrigue as it wore on. I wouldn’t exactly call it riveting, but it held my interest and had a fair bit of tension. There was even a sword fight or two, but it wasn’t particularly well described and not the strongpoint of the novel. What was a strongpoint was character development, and the ability to show merits on both sides of the opposing forces in this revolution. The natural tendency would be to side with the revolutionaries, but the nobility was presented in a sympathetic light as well, and there was a good dichotomy. This is a novel that I would recommend and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
