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Book Review: The Librarians and the Pot of Gold

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The Librarians and the Pot of Gold
The Librarians #3
by Greg Cox
read by Therese Plummer

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Fantasy adventure

The Librarians and their guardian are put on the trail of a member of the Serpent Brotherhood, who is trying to track down a pot of gold that went missing in Ireland in the 5th century, right about the time that St. Patrick banished all of the snakes from Ireland. Can they outwit a serpent, a banshee, and some leprechauns to save a life and solve a centuries-old mystery?

Let me start by saying again, as I did for the previous books in the series, that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. I’m glad to be able to read these books, though I wish they were a little more clear about where they fit into the series. This one pretty clearly happens after the end of season 3, though beyond that, I can’t say for sure. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Knowledge of the movies isn’t really necessary for this book.

Now to the story itself. I liked that the Librarians mostly worked together in this book; the way they play off each other is a big part of why the show is so good. I didn’t care for the first chunk of the book that dealt with the end of an ongoing case. While that kind of thing is common in an episodic format like this, it seemed to drag on way too long. I just wanted to get onto the main story. Something I noticed more in this book is that the characters aren’t coming through all that well. I think the reason I thought they were before was simply because I’d watched the show recently and could apply the recent memories of their personalities to the book. But the further I get from watching the show, the more I realize that, absent of knowledge of the show, the characters are fairly 2-dimensional. Add to that the way that the audiobook narrator tends to make everyone sound like they’re almost always scared or unhappy in some way, and it just wasn’t a very enjoyable read. In the end, the next time I go back through the Librarians movies and series, I’ll probably read through these books again along the way; however, I’ll most likely read them myself, instead of listening to the audiobooks. Though the books aren’t as good as the show overall, I do think that fans of the show who are sad it’s over might enjoy having the extra “episodes” from these books.

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Book Review: Fool Moon

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Fool Moon
The Dresden Files #2
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard available for hire in Chicago and is sometimes called on by the police to help solve crimes where magic is involved. So when a series of murders that happen around the full moon show other signs of involving werewolves, Harry is on the case. But will it prove to be too much for him to handle?

I was not as big a fan of this second book as I was the first in the series. I’ve read that the series gets better after you get into it (though how far into it varies widely), but while this one started off similarly enough to the first, it did not have as much of interest to me. It wasn’t so much a mystery as it was police procedural, and even after the case was basically solved, there was a lot of book left, which turned out to be mostly fighting. It doesn’t help that I usually find werewolves boring in any iteration. I did appreciate that there were various types of werewolves, but since I was listening to the audiobook and couldn’t easily go back to remind myself of which was which, it mostly confused me.

I’m finding some formula in the series that I really hope Butcher steers away from soon enough—like how Murphy keeps believing Dresden to be a bad guy (not that he helps the situation by not telling her the full truth, but she can’t manage to be understanding of how his hands are tied) or how Harry just gets beat up…so…much. Still, I enjoyed some humorous moments and lines, and there was a bit of a twist at the end involving one of the werewolves. Overall, the book just felt like it dragged on, but I’m still looking forward to continuing the series. I can’t pretend that I’d recommend this book in general, but it shouldn’t be enough to dissuade anyone from trying the series, especially if you’re a fan of mystery and detective noir novels, and enjoy or at least can tolerate the addition of supernatural elements (and the content warning below). In particular, if you like to listen to audiobooks, I recommend the narration by James Marsters.

One final note, something that was worse in this book than in the previous—there is quite a bit of sexual content. After my husband finished the audiobook, he commented on how, with the couple of female werewolves, every time they were in a scene, whether they were fully clothed or not (one of them was naked in at least 75% of her human-form page time), the narrator felt the need to remind us that they had certain female parts. And he was right…they were referenced often. I really hope this doesn’t remain at this level. There’s also some language, but not actually as much as I anticipated. And there’s certainly some violence, much more than the previous book (werewolves are beasts). My tolerance on things like these is fairly low, especially compared to the average reader, and while I do plan to continue, I really hope the level of sexual content, at least, doesn’t stay this high.

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Book Review: Ready Player Two

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Ready Player Two
Book #2
 by Ernest Cline
read by Wil Wheaton

My rating: 1 / 5
Genre: Science fiction, dystopian

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain spoilers for the previous book, Ready Player One.

As it turns out, Halliday didn’t leave just one contest behind in the Oasis when he died. He left a second one, which wouldn’t be triggered unless his heir found and decided to release a controversial, highly-advanced, game-changing technology to the world and the world then went crazy for it. And since, of course, that’s exactly what happens after the first contest is over, Oasis users are sent on another impossible quest that involves having unlikely knowledge of every single thing someone they never met loved and obsessed over. If it isn’t clear from my rating and from that synopsis I wrote, I did not like this book. To be fair, I didn’t expect to like it, and really didn’t plan to ever read it. But curiosity got the better of me.

To start with, I’ll state that I didn’t love Ready Player One. It was okay, but since I wasn’t won over by all of the 80s nostalgia, I was left with just the plot and characters, which were mediocre overall. So when the sequel was even more 80s trivia and even less plot and characters, it was destined to fail to thrill me. I think the nostalgia has to be the only reason that anyone really likes this book, since it’s otherwise poorly done. Though to be honest, I don’t even know how the pop culture references could be all that enjoyable for anyone, since they’re so shallow. I thought the same when reading RP1, but it seemed even moreso this time. It feels like Cline just really wants to showcase his pop culture knowledge in these books, except half of what we get is something that anyone with an internet connection could easily include in a story.

As for the story itself, there’s a ridiculous amount of exposition, usually dumped in huge piles, and often right when something exciting is about to happen. Seriously, when we’re told the first item for the contest has (finally) been found, we stop for a whole bunch of explanation before actually moving on to the item. And worse yet, sometimes the exposition is repeated. Cline wants so badly for us to know how certain aspects of this make-believe world within a make-believe world work that he tells us twice!

Wade, the MC, is a terrible human being masquerading as a compassionate guy who just doesn’t know how to deal with people. We went through a depressing time with him in the first book, when he pushed all of his friends away and became depressed, but at least we got a good ending out of it. But we have almost a repeat of that in this book, and it’s even more clear now that he’s simply a terrible person. I just can’t bring myself to root for him anymore. I didn’t care if he and Samantha got back together or not, and I really didn’t care about their conflicting views of how to best “save” humanity.

And then there’s the ending…I could not believe what I was hearing when I got to the last chapter. It’s astounding to me that anyone can truly think that the decisions that are made by this group of characters are a good idea. That they’re even remotely okay. That they solve anything! I guess it’s supposed to be a happy ending, but it sounds terrifying and depressing to me. I need to stop now, before the review gets any longer, but suffice it to say that I do not recommend this book to anyone, fans of 80s culture or not. If you really like John Hughes movies or Prince, you might be in heaven for 3-4 chapters of this book. For anyone else…read at your own risk.

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Book Review: The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase

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The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase
The Librarians #2
by Greg Cox
read by Therese Plummer

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Fantasy adventure

When the Mother Goose Treaty of 1918 appears to have been broken, nursery rhymes come to life, and they’re anything but whimsical. The Librarians and their guardian are sent in different directions to investigate these nursery rhymes, while Flynn Carson is nowhere to be found.

Let me start by saying again, as I did for the previous book in the series, that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. I’m glad to be able to read these books, though it’s frustrating to me that they’re so vague about where they fit in the series. This one seems to take place after season 3, but while there are plenty of references to Prospero (and a spoiler for the end of season 2) and definitely to Dulaque (from season 1), there aren’t any references to Apep from season 3. Plus, a major development for Cassandra that took place at the end of season 3 definitely doesn’t come into play in this book, so it seems it can’t have happened. Maybe it’s just supposed to be vague, but I would have preferred to be able to read it at the right time while watching the show. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Knowledge of the movies may not be necessary.

Now to the story itself. Overall it was decent. I didn’t mind the Librarians being separated as much as others did, partly because they still each had a counterpart of sorts to work with. I thought some of the story was weak, for example the nursery rhyme connection to the man in Florida was a major stretch, and for a while, I kept expecting someone to say they were wrong about which nursery rhyme they’d associated it with. The stakes were as high as they get, and there was a bit of a twist that I only figured out a moment before Baird did. In the end, there things I liked more about it than the previous book, and things I like less about it. This book had all the campy fun of the show, and I like that the characters’ personalities come through on the page like they do on the small screen. I still don’t care for the narrator’s breathy tendencies, and if I do re-read this series in the future, I’ll probably skip the audiobooks. Still, I’m enjoying this extension of the show.

Fact check: Jenkins explains that “Mother Goose” is more of a title, passed down through generations, the bearer of which is meant to guard the spells that end up being written down and distributed as nursery rhymes. Elizabeth Goose was her generation’s Mother Goose, and a real-life person, however her maiden name was Elizabeth Foster, and she married the Goose name, so it’s weird she was coincidentally that generation’s Mother Goose (and that this isn’t brought up in the book). Also, Jenkins says that “tourists in Boston flock to what’s claimed to be the grave of the ‘real’ Mother Goose, blithely unaware that she was actually only one in a long line of Mother Gooses, carrying on an ancient tradition.” But the grave in Boston that has become a tourist attraction is actually the grave of MARY Goose, unrelated to the woman whose rhymes prompted the publishing. Mary Goose was actually the first, late wife of Elizabeth’s husband.

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Book Review: Storm Front

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Storm Front
The Dresden Files #1
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard available for hire in Chicago and is sometimes called on by the police to help solve crimes where magic is involved. He also takes other cases, and when he’s asked to track down a missing person while also working on a murder case for the local PD, Harry is relieved that he might just be able to pay his rent this month. However, tracking down someone who kills with magic, which is not just illegal but also forbidden in the magical realm, requires more than a little investigating. And the missing person’s case turns out to be more involved than he’d thought or hoped, too. Suddenly, Harry has a lot more to be worried about than whether or not he’ll be evicted.

I am so glad I finally decided to give this book series a chance. I enjoyed so much about it and was interested from start to finish. The author drops the reader right into the middle of this magical world, which feels very real, due to the way Butcher mostly explains some of the magical mechanics almost off-handedly, rather than as a big info dump. It almost felt like I’d jumped into the middle of an ongoing series, even though this is book #1, but not in a bad way that made me feel like I was struggling to understand. I did have some confusion early on, but not enough to lessen my enjoyment.

The mystery/detective side of the story was interesting in its own right, but add in the vampires, fairies, and demons, and it was more of a thrill ride. I also really appreciated the wit throughout the story, which I picked up on in the first few chapters. And I have a feeling that Bob could become a favorite of mine.

I knew what I was getting into, as far as content goes, but for anyone who doesn’t really know—there is quite a bit of sexual content, though nothing gratuitous. Even when Dresden spends a decent stretch of time naked, the reader isn’t reminded of it constantly, and in fact, I forgot a few times that he was naked. There’s also some language, but not actually as much as I anticipated. And there’s certainly some violence, but again, it’s not gratuitous. All of these content issues together aren’t enough to discourage me from continuing the series (and my tolerance is fairly low, especially compared to the average reader).

I listened to the audiobook narrated by James Marsters, which I’ll admit went a long way to pushing me to finally start this series. I highly recommend the book in general, and his narration specifically. If you’re a fan of mystery and detective noir novels, and enjoy or at least can tolerate the addition of supernatural elements (and the content warning I gave), you should give this book a read.

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Book Review: The Librarians and The Lost Lamp

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The Librarians and The Lost Lamp
The Librarians #1
by Greg Cox
read by Therese Plummer

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Fantasy adventure

In 2006, Flynn Carsen, the lone librarian, is sent to keep Aladdin’s fabled lamp from falling into the hands of The Forty, a criminal organization that has been searching for the lamp for centuries. Using Scheherazade’s The Arabian Nights as a guide, Flynn must outwit the thieves. In 2016, the new team of Librarians heads to Las Vegas to find out why a man winning the lottery is cause for concern. And they might just run into an artifact from Flynn’s past.

Let me first state that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. Though I haven’t been able to find definitive proof of where in the show this book takes place, I’m calling it between seasons 2 and 3. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Considering that half of the book takes place while Flynn was the sole librarian, a knowledge of both the movies and the show might be best.

I liked that we kinda got some of both—solo Flynn and the dynamic of the group. The movies with Flynn tend to be more epic, big-budget adventure, with him trying to track down some kind of relic that could be a huge problem in the wrong hands, and his side of the story in this book is just like that. The TV show episodes, at least the filler/MOTW (monster of the week) episodes, involve more mystery as the team has to first track down who and what is causing the problem and then figure out how to stop it. Their side of the book continues that trend.

At its best, The Librarians is campy fun, and at its worst, it’s illogical hand-waviness. This book had all of that, and I commend the author for doing a pretty good job capturing the characters pretty well. I know not everyone agrees on that, but I literally just finished watching season 3 of the show before reading this book, and I never felt like any of the characters acted all that out-of-character. And that’s considering that I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator definitely did not sound like any of the main characters (especially Stone). In fact, her tendency to be breathy during the non-dialog text and make every character sound like they were gasping at the end of every line could have ruined the story for me. But I was caught up in it enough that I was able to ignore it most of the time, and I’ll even give the audiobook another chance as I continue the series.

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Book Review: The Mummy Case

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The Mummy Case
Amelia Peabody #3
by Elizabeth Peters
read by Barbara Rosenblat

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Historical mystery

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank.

After some time away, the Emersons are returning to Egypt for a dig, this time taking their young son Ramses along. When Amelia suspects that a suicide might actually be foul play, her husband doesn’t agree. Then strange things begin to happen in the area around their not-so-exciting dig site, and Amelia sees connections where Emerson just sees random misfortune. First Amelia has to convince him that something is afoot, and then they have to solve the mystery before anyone else gets hurt.

My synopsis probably doesn’t do the story justice, but I found myself equal parts lost and bored while listening to this installment in the series. And I think the reason I got lost at times was due to my mind wandering, because the story simply didn’t capture my attention as the books before it did. I’m not completely sure why, either; maybe I’ve already grown tired of the formula of this series? But I also think it’s partly because the mystery was super slow in getting going. After the death that Amelia suspects is a murder, it’s mostly just them getting on with their dig and meeting lots of new people for quite a while. Little things that keep the mystery in mind happen, but nothing all that exciting.

I think part of my issue is with Ramses, though. He’s an amusing character, but only to a point. I don’t honestly know how old he’s supposed to be in this book, but I’m guessing around 7. And he’s super smart, can translate ancient languages, solves much of the mystery alongside (or ahead of) his parents, and speaks with a speech impediment. And he always obeys his parents, but finds loopholes in what they tell him to do (or, more accurately, in what they neglect to say he can’t do). I also grew quite weary of Emerson’s (and Amelia’s, to a lesser degree) disdain for Christianity and Christian missionaries. There were a few humorous moments in the book, but not as many as I remember in the first two. Since much of my dislike of this book was personal preference, and it’s clear that many others enjoyed it, if you’re a fan of cozy mysteries or Egyptology, you might want to check this book out. If you’re considering listening to the audiobook, I highly suggest finding Barbara Rosenblat’s version, if you can.

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Book Review: The End

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The End
A Series of Unfortunate Events #13
by Lemony Snicket
read by Tim Curry

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Children’s fiction

Upon reaching the end of The End, I had a lot of thoughts. But my first thought was this: I should have just re-watched Clue if I wanted to hear Tim Curry’s voice, rather than go through this series that never interested me from the beginning and interested me even less as I was listening to it.

It’s clear that there are plenty of people that this type of fiction appeals to, and it’s also clear that I’m not one of those people. What others see as depth in the “moral” that the series brings out, I see as ambiguous and even lazy writing. I came to the realization by the end of the series that what it’s really been about is the loss of innocence and understanding (the hard way and at a young age) how complicated and difficult life is. But I feel like it was all a bit abstract and complex for the target audience; for goodness sake, it was all a bit too abstract for me, especially since I went into it expecting it to be more for kids.

I’m definitely not the right audience for the purposefully dark tone of the series. I like some good things to happen in my fiction. Life is hard enough, and I read fiction (especially children’s fiction) to escape it for a little while; why do I want to read about a world that’s even darker (not to mention ridiculous)? The whole thing reminds me a bit of Charlie Brown and Lucy—I get that it’s tradition and expected and maybe would be a let down if he finally got to kick the football, but dang it, I wanted him to finally get to kick it! And I just wanted something good to happen for the Baudelaires. What I got was a giant, cringe-inducing question mark. If you’ve enjoyed these books, I’m happy for you. I’m also happy to put the whole thing behind me.

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Book Review: Peril at the Top of the World

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Peril at the Top of the World
Treasure Hunters Book #4
by James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein
read by Brian Kennedy

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Children’s adventure

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with Treasure Hunters.

Now that the Kidd parents are back, the family can get back to the business of hunting treasure. When some high-profile paintings are stolen from a prestigious art museum in Russia and it appears to be just the latest in a string of major art crimes, the Kidds jump into action to save the priceless art!

This series has been mostly okay for me so far, but this one was less than that. With the parents back, the kids just get led around in this book. I was glad that the arc of the parents both being missing ended in book #3, rather than being dragged on for a while, but I really expected some kind of (hopefully different) plot device to happen to leave the kids on their own. Because the kids aren’t really the treasure hunters anymore, and in fact, often get told to stay put or stay with the parents. It’s not that I’m wishing for a story where the kids constantly disobey their parents and sneak away, but I feel like, for a story aimed at kids, the kids should really have some way to be the heroes of the books, not just sidekicks.

On top of that, this book takes a decidedly left turn away from the adventurous treasure hunting in the previous books (and in the series name) into a heavy-handed environmentalism, climate change agenda. Yes, there is still some action and adventure, and even some interesting locales. But treasure? Nope. That’s hunted “off screen,” so to speak. Plus, eldest Kidd kid Tommy, who was my favorite in the first book, has started to be a bit much with his girl infatuation, talking about making things “hot” with a girl who has shown no interest in him and doesn’t even speak English. He’s becoming more creepy than amusing.

So here is where I have to decide if this series is worth continuing with or not. For now, I think I’ll stop listening to the audiobooks, because while I appreciated the narrator initially, his tendency to say lines of dialog in a tone that’s contrary to the context is starting to bug me. And his (maybe too good) pre-teen boy voice makes the Twin Tirades (which already annoy me) even more childish. We’ll see how things go from here.

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Book Review: The Penultimate Peril

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The Penultimate Peril
A Series of Unfortunate Events #12
by Lemony Snicket
read by Tim Curry

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s fiction

The Baudelaires have reached the Hotel Denouement, where they will take their places as volunteers and try to distinguish friend from foe. Old acquaintances, both friend and foe, appear at the hotel, and the Baudelaires have to make some (hopefully) tough decisions.

I can’t say this is exactly what I would have wanted from the second-to-last book in such a long series, but on the other hand, it’s pretty much what I should have expected from this particular series. The hotel is laid out in a way that is probably supposed to be clever, but I only found it silly. I did appreciate that Sunny kept being the one who figured things out and that it so often went unnoticed by others, or at least unmentioned. It added humor to what otherwise, for me, comes across as the author trying too hard to be funny.

I started listening to this series for only one reason: Tim Curry. Though I had to live with a different narration for 3 books earlier in the series, Tim Curry has been wonderful, even given some of the crazy things he’s had to say or do for the sake of the narration. I’m not particularly excited about the conclusion of the series and, Tim Curry or not, I know I’ll never re-read it.

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