The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book. The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it. King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him. Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave. But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys. His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail. But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...
Libba Bray
One summer night, I decided to immerse myself into a comfortable fantasy book: The Diviners by Libba Bray - bound to be a good read. Despite its 608 pages, I managed to read this in - yes - one night.
Evie O'Neill, a true 1920s flapper girl, is "banished" from her home in Ohio to her uncle's museum in New York. New York, the city of risk (risqué), love, stars, and pretty much everything Evie could hope for. Then, when a flurry of occult murders occur, Evie (and her uncle) are determined to catch the killer. Evie is not unprepared - she has a certain secret that can help her catch the killer - but the killer is not what anyone expected, and far more dangerous than Evie can handle.
I only had two problems with The Diviners: it started off quite rocky; a party where the bored hostess takes out an Ouja board and summons a spirit. Basically, the beginning was boring. Not promising at all. It was meant to be scary, but completely and utterly failed. It only succeeded in making me notice the atrocious spelling mistakes (there are a surprisingly high number of errors in this galley - some are almost hilarious). The second problem was that Evie was completely unlikeable to me. She was always doing the predictably stupid. She would do everything you'd see in a teen horror flick - open the closet door, not run when she hears strange noises - and meanwhile, you're sitting there, yelling, "Don't do that, stupid! Idiot, the murderer is there!" That was extremely irritating.
Otherwise, the plot was decent, the setting was fantastic (Oh, the parties! the music! the drinking! Bray captured the spirit of the 20's perfectly.), the characters were okay, and there were countless unresolved subplots. If they make a sequel (ooooor a movie), I'd read/watch it. I'd give this book a 3.9 (the little things bothered me too much to give it a better score), and it's a dry steak. It's delicious by default - it's a steak, after all! - but it wasn't delicious. It was okay, in terms of steaks.
Evie O'Neill, a true 1920s flapper girl, is "banished" from her home in Ohio to her uncle's museum in New York. New York, the city of risk (risqué), love, stars, and pretty much everything Evie could hope for. Then, when a flurry of occult murders occur, Evie (and her uncle) are determined to catch the killer. Evie is not unprepared - she has a certain secret that can help her catch the killer - but the killer is not what anyone expected, and far more dangerous than Evie can handle.
I only had two problems with The Diviners: it started off quite rocky; a party where the bored hostess takes out an Ouja board and summons a spirit. Basically, the beginning was boring. Not promising at all. It was meant to be scary, but completely and utterly failed. It only succeeded in making me notice the atrocious spelling mistakes (there are a surprisingly high number of errors in this galley - some are almost hilarious). The second problem was that Evie was completely unlikeable to me. She was always doing the predictably stupid. She would do everything you'd see in a teen horror flick - open the closet door, not run when she hears strange noises - and meanwhile, you're sitting there, yelling, "Don't do that, stupid! Idiot, the murderer is there!" That was extremely irritating.
Otherwise, the plot was decent, the setting was fantastic (Oh, the parties! the music! the drinking! Bray captured the spirit of the 20's perfectly.), the characters were okay, and there were countless unresolved subplots. If they make a sequel (ooooor a movie), I'd read/watch it. I'd give this book a 3.9 (the little things bothered me too much to give it a better score), and it's a dry steak. It's delicious by default - it's a steak, after all! - but it wasn't delicious. It was okay, in terms of steaks.
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