Chuckles Mini Review Catchup

I review everything I read, on my blog and on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! So lets catch up with reviews from through last year.

1) Anne McCaffrey-Dinosaur Planet (Dinosaur Planet #1)
THE MISSION
The Exploratory and Evaluation Corps of the Federated Sentient Planets had sent ARCT-10, with its mixed crew of shipbred and planet-bound technicians, to Ireta to catalogue fauna and flora and search for new energy sources. It was a simple mission. A standard crew.

THE PROBLEM
Kai and his beautiful co-leader Varian, the best xenob-vet in the business, followed all the standard procedures -- but the results of their investigations were totally unexpected. Not only were the planet's creatures larger than anyone had anticipated and the geological finds smaller, but the rescue ship had inexplicably disappeared.

THE NIGHTMARE
Then suddenly on a world of giant swamp creatures and deadly predators, a curious change had come over many of the members of the ARCT-10 crew... a change that would lead all of them, in one way or another, into the primitive darkness of a future world

I first read this book many years ago and wasn't loving it purely because I had expected dinosaur rampages and deaths all over the place which is not what happens in the book. I decided to re-read it to judge it on the writing and plot, knowing this time what to expect. It is about a scientific exploration of a planet with dinosaurs and a wide range of flora and fauna, and the relationships between the crew, mainly the scientists and the manual workers. The manual workers are starting to resent taking orders from weak scientists and start working to their own agenda, feeling that they can have a life on this planet if they can get of those who order them around. The book is slow paced, following the scientific exploration and crew mood swings and it is only towards the end that the actual revolt begins. I found it decent enough to read this time round but not greatly exciting in any way. 

Read Nov 2018
3 stars.

2) Anne McCaffrey-The Survivors (Dinosaur Planet #2)

Kai and Varian awoke from their forty years of coldsleep only to discover that mutineers had taken over Ireta. But they were determined to save their planet and its unusual dinosaurs. All they had to do was solve the planet's myriad mysteries and gain the trust of the most dangerous beings in their Universe.... 

I thought the first book was slow but parts of it were interesting in their own way, especially the golden flyers. I started this book wanting to know what happened to everyone from the first book and expected it to pick up reasonably soon after everyone going into the cryo-sleep to conserve their resources. I was ready for a battle as the heavy-worlders try to hunt down the scientists. I can't say how disappointed I was with this offering.

The book starts 43 years after the other book ended and all of the heavy-worlders with one exception are dead. The decendants have no idea that the scientists are on the planet, believing that they died in an accident that destroyed the colony, a lie told to them by their relatives when they were born. So the conflict and tension I was expecting for this sequel just weren't there. For most of the book, most of the scientists remained asleep while a handful, helped by the golden flyers, look after their injured colleague. As interesting as I found the fliers, this book was just so dull. I wasn't greatly interested in the descendants interaction with Varian or all the food gathering that endlessly went on, and even the resue wasn't very interesting.

This book disappointed on every level sadly.

Read Nov 2018
1 star.  

3) Curtis Richards-Halloween
Tricked by his cunning ... Treated to his savagery ... Annie, Linda and Laurie ... fresh, pretty, ready to be taken ... stalked by a sadistic power who has returned to claim new victims, on this ... the most frightening night of the year. 

Six year old Michael Myers, like his relatives before him, telling him to kill his sister Judith. Halloween presents him with the opportunity to murder her and he is locked up for it. Dr Loomis can see how dangerous the boy is from watching him in the asylum and is determined to keep him locked up. Things go wrong and Michael heads home, becoming fixated on three girls he sees in the streets. As Halloween rolls around again, he has chosen his next victims.

This book follows the same basic plotline that the film does but it does delve more into the events surrounding the events that killed Judith Myers. It is obvious that young Michael is suffering from mental health issues and delusions and his family, despite being aware of mental health issues within the family, seem slow in doing anything about it. I liked getting the thoughts of Dr Loomis as he tests how dangerous Michael could be and resolves to keep him locked up. There is also a bit more back story to Laurie going about her business and Michael stalking her. It does stick with the main plot which makes it a decent read for anyone interested in the film and I read it quite quickly. Enjoyable horror read.

Read Oct 2018
3 stars.

4) Cynthia Hand-My Lady Jane

Edward (long live the king) is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d much rather be planning for his first kiss than considering who will inherit his crown…Jane (reads too many books) is Edward’s cousin, and far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately for Jane, Edward has arranged to marry her off to secure the line of succession. And there’s something a little odd about her intended…

Gifford (call him G) is a horse. That is, he’s an Eðian (eth-y-un, for the uninitiated). Every day at dawn he becomes a noble chestnut steed—but then he wakes at dusk with a mouthful of hay. It’s all very undignified.

The plot thickens as Edward, Jane, and G are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, our heroes will have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it’s off with their heads? 

Eoians (shapeshifters) are persecuted by society in Tudor England and they like to keep their afflictions hidden, while young people like Edward and Jane dream of being that kind of different. Edward is annoyed to be dying and agrees to swindle sisters Mary and Elizabeth from the throne and give it to friend and cousin Jane, while arranging her marriage. However, Edward's loyal servants believe that he is actually being poisoned by Dudley to get rid of him and crown his son G as King, and vow to get him out of the palace to safety. Jane is cross at the idea of marrying G even before finding out he is a shifter as all she wants to do is read her books in peace. Having to become Queen as well is just really annoying but perhaps she can do some good for the country.

"I'm marrying off my cousin to a horse."

I went into this with concerns as I don't generally do well with books that are meant to be funny. I found the overall humour in this book to be ok-some of the daft horse jokes had me groaning in despair a bit but that aspect of the book was fine. I liked the idea of the shifters in a Tudor world where everyone is expected to conform to society so that was interesting to read about. There were several shifter main characters which I liked. I liked seeing something different for Jane's story and the poison plotline with Edward was also interesting as a change from the usual. There were certainly good things in the book that entertained me, perhaps not as much as I had hoped though.

The main problem was Jane. While I get her devotion to her books, her attitude to other people was annoying. She gets the wrong impression about G being a ladies man and just refuses to entertain that she might be wrong about him, putting him down at every opportunity and being so nasty to him that I wanted to slap her. I just wanted her to ASK him about the rumours like a normal person instead of sulking about it. She was supposed to be intelligent! It takes her a long time to give him a proper chance. I liked G. By day he grazes in the meadows as a horse and at night he reads his poetry in local pubs. He tries to be nice to Jane but gets it thrown back in his face. He tries to protect her but it makes her huffy. He was way too nice for her. As they become a couple things improved but I couldn't see me reading the book again to get to the best bits.

The other thing I found really annoying was that the so called story narrators kept barging into the story to talk, give so called witty little japes and comment on what was happening. I found this frequent rubbish really annoying when I just wanted to get on with the story. Overall it was a decent enough read but not as good as I'd hoped it would be.

Read Aug 2018
2.5/3 stars.