Alice Payne Arrives
The Alice Payne series, Book 1
Kate Heartfield
Tordotcom
Fiction, Adventure/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: In 1788, Englishwoman Alice Payne leads a secret life. By day, she's the respectable spinster daughter of a moneyed colonel, crippled in mind and body by the conflicts in the American colonies. By night, however, she is the Holy Ghost, masked highwayman and terror of the nearby roadways, mystique further enhanced by a clockwork automaton assistant... and if the fact that the Holy Ghost only ever strikes monstrous, wealthy leches hasn't been noticed by the constabulary, well, that is their problem, not hers. Besides, it's not like she's a robber only for thrills or vengeance; between the upkeep on the estate and her father's drinking and gambling problems, her ill-gotten gains are the only boundary between the Payne family and utter ruin. But one evening, what should be an ordinary robbery goes strangely awry when the carriage inexplicably disappears on the roadway. When Alice investigates, she discovers a strange clockwork device - and when she and her special friend Jane start poking around, they make a most marvelous discovery...
In 1889, Major Prudence Zuniga races to prevent the Austrian archduke's son from committing a suicide pact - again. For ten years, she's relived the same disastrous string of events over and over again, and all she's managed to do is change the name of the young woman he takes to the grave with him. It's part of an ongoing time war between two factions, the Farmers and the Guides, who each exploit time travel to reshape history as they each believe it "should" have gone... and both are doing little but mess everything up until the far future is nothing but utter, unlivable chaos. Her own life keeps getting rewritten, as does every soldier's, changes she only knows of due to a diary she keeps sequestered away in a secret spot of uncorrupted time. And she is tired of it. Unbeknownst to her superiors, she has a plan to sabotage the entire time travel network - a plan that involves making contact with a tinkerer in 1788 England...
Or, at least it did, until Prudence opens her portal in 2070 Toronto and the Holy Ghost rides out of history.
REVIEW: I had a specific window of time to fill at work, and this audiobook looked like it would do the job. A little steampunk, a dash of swashbuckling, a sprinkling of time travel hijinks... it sounded entertaining enough. Unfortunately, it never quite comes together before it hits the cliffhanger ending.
Things kick off with some promise, with Alice in her "Holy Ghost" role anticipating the thrill of another ambush on a scoundrel nobleman who deserves to have his purse lightened - but, even early on, there's something just a touch off-kilter. The style and writing, the actions and reactions of the characters themselves, often feel more like they belong in a young adult novel, as though they're in their teens or (at most) early twenties. But Alice is in her thirties, and other characters we meet are pushing forty or more. I kept having to remind myself of their ages, because my mind kept trying to roll them back. Anyway, the tale establishes a few separate times and the overall concept. Alice and Jane, ignorant of time travel (at first), are just trying to keep Alice's father and estate above water, even as Jane (her household companion and, more recently, lover) provides cover, having crafted the automaton that's become the Holy Ghost's signature... an automaton who really doesn't have much of a plot purpose, except to show that Jane is a proto-gearhead and introduce a little steampunk flair in a story otherwise lacking in steampunk anything. When Alice encounters the impossible device after the inexplicable carriage disappearance, she and Jane are quick to figure out that it's not fairy magic or deviltry but some manner of science - and, given the desperate state of the Payne household, Alice hardly hesitates to try using it for her own advantage.
Meanwhile, Major Prudence suffers one defeat too many in her efforts to change the would-be archduke's fate; when she's pulled from the operation, perpetually thwarted by manipulations from Guide enemies (which she, as a Farmer loyalist, derisively call Misguideds, though to be honest the lines between the two are rather blurry and hardly seem to matter from the standpoint of a timeline irretrievably polluted by meddling across the board), she becomes more determined than ever to pull the proverbial trigger in her secret project to bring down time travel. But one of her first efforts (that we see) is bungled quite spectacularly, only salvaged when a bystander leaps into the fray. Alice Payne rather bowls over Prudence insofar as adapting on the fly and taking charge, which is probably why the series is named after her, but Prudence still tries to cheat and manipulate her into becoming another tool in her plan. Somewhere along the way I started feeling like the author was trying to cheat and manipulate me as a reader, too... and when the whole thing ended on a cliffhanger, I was more certain of that than ever.
The story moves relatively fast (most of the time, at least), and has some nice parts and ideas. The time travel problems and politics, though, get a little convoluted and don't quite mesh well with the swashbuckling, vaguely steampunk parts. I just plain didn't like Prudence, though I ultimately wasn't especially attached to anyone, and don't feel compelled to find out what happens next.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Sky Coyote (Kage Baker) - My Review
Recursion (Blake Crouch) - My Review
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland) - My Review
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Resurrection (Derek Landy)
Resurrection
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 10
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Five years ago, the impossibly powerful sorceress Darquesse devastated the magical city of Roarhaven before ascending to near-godhood and leaving this dimension behind... and Valkyrie Cain, who was once part of Darquesse, was left a shell of her former self. She still has magic, but of a wild and erratic sort never before seen by Sanctuary scholars, a magic she herself barely understands and controls. Not that she really wants to control magic anymore. She spent five years hiding out in rural America until assassins tracked her down, drawing her back to Ireland and the company of her one-time partner, Skulduggery Pleasant. A shadow organization known as the Anti-Sanctuary has been working for centuries to trigger war with the mortals; now, they're seemingly on the verge of success, potentially resurrecting a powerful new leader from the days of the war against Mevolent. The world needs saving again, and when the world needs saving Skulduggery and Valkyrie are expected to step up to the task - but can the traumatized young woman remember how to be a hero in time to stop disaster?
REVIEW: Apparently, the series originally ended after the previous installment, but Landy realized he had more stories to tell. However, even though Valkyrie has aged out of the Young Adult protagonist category, this book still pitches itself as being in that category, justified by the introduction of a "next generation" would-be hero: fourteen-year-old Omen Darkly, the overlooked brother of a prophesied "Chosen One", attending Roarhaven's first boarding school for young sorcerers, Corrival, in a not-so-subtle jab at a certain famous wizard-based series. This gives Resurrection a slight split personality, as on the one hand it wants to continue growing up and growing darker with Valkyrie as she struggles with PTSD and her wild magic, while on the other it's trying to be a light reset/reboot with younger characters who can't help but be bowled over by Skulduggery's sheer force of personality and the weight of series history. The two more or less work together, but at times can't help conflicting, and this (plus a matter of one subplot and bad timing) help explain the slight drop in the rating.
In the beginning, Valkyrie has returned to Ireland and her late uncle's estate, along with the dog Xena, but is still far from recovered, and far from eager to jump back in the world-saving game. She has trouble even visiting her family after six months in the country, still guilty over what she had to do to her kid sister Alice in order to secure the scepter of the ancients and still traumatized by the danger she put them all in. She also can't exactly stroll down the streets of Roarhaven without being the object of stares and hatred, as many still blame her for Darquesse's rampage (though there are a few who still worship the ascended sorceress - almost one subplot too many, here, as very little ultimately comes of that in this volume). Roarhaven itself is not the town it used to be, as China Sorrows has used her new power and influence to amass even more power and influence, even granting legitimacy to a "reformed" Church of the Faceless Ones and diminishing the role of the council and others who might stand in her way. Skulduggery, now an independent Arbiter working with Sanctuaries worldwide, could very much use his partner and friend Valkyrie Cain again as he seeks a missing undercover agent who tried to infiltrate the Anti-Sanctuary, but the Valkyrie he needs is not the one he has, and she may never be that person again... though that doesn't mean she's entirely helpless, even as she grapples with her traumas and growing list of enemies.
Necessity makes them reach out for more allies beyond China's reach, which leads them to Corrival and Omen. The boy used to try to live up to the example set by his brother Auger (a Harry Potter-like savior, if one who grew up in the magical community knowing full well that he was intended to be the hero, whose extracurricular exploits are glimpsed and hinted at but not explored in depth), but eventually gave up trying when even his own parents dismiss him as the "also-ran". Being contacted by no less a celebrity than Skulduggery Pleasant gives him hope that maybe, just maybe, he can be someone, maybe he can have his own adventures and be his own person, giving him the courage to step up and try even when the skeleton detective himself tells him he can go back to his safe and unseen existence. He is not a second Valkyrie, being his own character, though he's so much tied into the clearly-riffing-on-Harry-Potter Augur that he sometimes feels slightly out of step with the greater series universe.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Sanctuary mages progress their dark plot, which involves the literal resurrection of a former powerful mage - helped by a sorcerer with the power to turn anyone they touch into a temporary psychopath under his control, which leads to some serious complications and dark moments when he gets his hands on Skulduggery Pleasant (another development that forces Valkyrie to stand up and resume her reluctant heroine mantle, as her friend and partner becomes an enemy). As is typical for the series, the action just keeps coming, interspersed with some sharp dialog and humor and some dark twists. I just couldn't help wondering throughout what the series would've become had it been allowed to shake off the last ties to its young adult category.
One of the subplots, as mentioned, also helped contribute to the drop in the rating. It involves a mortal American president who was clearly inspired by the one currently occupying the nation's highest office (whose first regime coincided with its writing and release), using clandestine sorcerous connections to gain power and turn the nation into his own personal evil empire. The fact that the same occupant has returned, with more power than ever, destroying institutions and ideals that used to actually mean something to the very people gleefully and gloatingly kicking them down... As I mentioned before, timing made it very hard for me to even listen to a fictitious version of said occupant, facing the very real and not-fictional long-term damage and terror unleashed... I want to continue the series at some point, but now, today of all days, as a major portion of that cruelty is codified into law and literal actual not-in-an-Onion-satire-article merchandising is being sold glorifying a concentration camp on American soil... I just can't. (And if this is too topical and political for a book review, well, I'm livin' this nightmare and it's my blog, and I don't experience literature in a vacuum so my reality can't help bleeding into my reading.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 10
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Five years ago, the impossibly powerful sorceress Darquesse devastated the magical city of Roarhaven before ascending to near-godhood and leaving this dimension behind... and Valkyrie Cain, who was once part of Darquesse, was left a shell of her former self. She still has magic, but of a wild and erratic sort never before seen by Sanctuary scholars, a magic she herself barely understands and controls. Not that she really wants to control magic anymore. She spent five years hiding out in rural America until assassins tracked her down, drawing her back to Ireland and the company of her one-time partner, Skulduggery Pleasant. A shadow organization known as the Anti-Sanctuary has been working for centuries to trigger war with the mortals; now, they're seemingly on the verge of success, potentially resurrecting a powerful new leader from the days of the war against Mevolent. The world needs saving again, and when the world needs saving Skulduggery and Valkyrie are expected to step up to the task - but can the traumatized young woman remember how to be a hero in time to stop disaster?
REVIEW: Apparently, the series originally ended after the previous installment, but Landy realized he had more stories to tell. However, even though Valkyrie has aged out of the Young Adult protagonist category, this book still pitches itself as being in that category, justified by the introduction of a "next generation" would-be hero: fourteen-year-old Omen Darkly, the overlooked brother of a prophesied "Chosen One", attending Roarhaven's first boarding school for young sorcerers, Corrival, in a not-so-subtle jab at a certain famous wizard-based series. This gives Resurrection a slight split personality, as on the one hand it wants to continue growing up and growing darker with Valkyrie as she struggles with PTSD and her wild magic, while on the other it's trying to be a light reset/reboot with younger characters who can't help but be bowled over by Skulduggery's sheer force of personality and the weight of series history. The two more or less work together, but at times can't help conflicting, and this (plus a matter of one subplot and bad timing) help explain the slight drop in the rating.
In the beginning, Valkyrie has returned to Ireland and her late uncle's estate, along with the dog Xena, but is still far from recovered, and far from eager to jump back in the world-saving game. She has trouble even visiting her family after six months in the country, still guilty over what she had to do to her kid sister Alice in order to secure the scepter of the ancients and still traumatized by the danger she put them all in. She also can't exactly stroll down the streets of Roarhaven without being the object of stares and hatred, as many still blame her for Darquesse's rampage (though there are a few who still worship the ascended sorceress - almost one subplot too many, here, as very little ultimately comes of that in this volume). Roarhaven itself is not the town it used to be, as China Sorrows has used her new power and influence to amass even more power and influence, even granting legitimacy to a "reformed" Church of the Faceless Ones and diminishing the role of the council and others who might stand in her way. Skulduggery, now an independent Arbiter working with Sanctuaries worldwide, could very much use his partner and friend Valkyrie Cain again as he seeks a missing undercover agent who tried to infiltrate the Anti-Sanctuary, but the Valkyrie he needs is not the one he has, and she may never be that person again... though that doesn't mean she's entirely helpless, even as she grapples with her traumas and growing list of enemies.
Necessity makes them reach out for more allies beyond China's reach, which leads them to Corrival and Omen. The boy used to try to live up to the example set by his brother Auger (a Harry Potter-like savior, if one who grew up in the magical community knowing full well that he was intended to be the hero, whose extracurricular exploits are glimpsed and hinted at but not explored in depth), but eventually gave up trying when even his own parents dismiss him as the "also-ran". Being contacted by no less a celebrity than Skulduggery Pleasant gives him hope that maybe, just maybe, he can be someone, maybe he can have his own adventures and be his own person, giving him the courage to step up and try even when the skeleton detective himself tells him he can go back to his safe and unseen existence. He is not a second Valkyrie, being his own character, though he's so much tied into the clearly-riffing-on-Harry-Potter Augur that he sometimes feels slightly out of step with the greater series universe.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Sanctuary mages progress their dark plot, which involves the literal resurrection of a former powerful mage - helped by a sorcerer with the power to turn anyone they touch into a temporary psychopath under his control, which leads to some serious complications and dark moments when he gets his hands on Skulduggery Pleasant (another development that forces Valkyrie to stand up and resume her reluctant heroine mantle, as her friend and partner becomes an enemy). As is typical for the series, the action just keeps coming, interspersed with some sharp dialog and humor and some dark twists. I just couldn't help wondering throughout what the series would've become had it been allowed to shake off the last ties to its young adult category.
One of the subplots, as mentioned, also helped contribute to the drop in the rating. It involves a mortal American president who was clearly inspired by the one currently occupying the nation's highest office (whose first regime coincided with its writing and release), using clandestine sorcerous connections to gain power and turn the nation into his own personal evil empire. The fact that the same occupant has returned, with more power than ever, destroying institutions and ideals that used to actually mean something to the very people gleefully and gloatingly kicking them down... As I mentioned before, timing made it very hard for me to even listen to a fictitious version of said occupant, facing the very real and not-fictional long-term damage and terror unleashed... I want to continue the series at some point, but now, today of all days, as a major portion of that cruelty is codified into law and literal actual not-in-an-Onion-satire-article merchandising is being sold glorifying a concentration camp on American soil... I just can't. (And if this is too topical and political for a book review, well, I'm livin' this nightmare and it's my blog, and I don't experience literature in a vacuum so my reality can't help bleeding into my reading.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Monday, June 30, 2025
June Site Update
2025 is half over and I still can't find anything good to say about it. Anyway, the month's eight reviews have been archived and cross-linked over on the main Brightdreamer Books page.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Dinosaurs (DK Smithsonian)
Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Life from Dinosaurs to Humans
DK Smithsonian
DK
Nonfiction, YA? Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: By the start of the Mesozoic - the "Age of Dinosaurs" - life in some form or another had been proliferating on Earth for several hundreds of millions of years, until a mass extinction event (not the first, but one of the most iconic) that ended the Permian Period. From the devastation would rise many grand, diverse plants and animals that would define an era... and the same would happen at the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the Cenozoic began. Using numerous diagrams, fossils, and reconstructions, this book charts life on Earth from the start of the Triassic to the appearance of modern humans.
Material in this volume was previously in Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life from DK Publishing.
REVIEW: I picked this up in the Barnes and Noble discount section because it included many non-dinosaur life forms (plants, insects, and invertebrates, as well as covering Cenozoic times) that are often glossed over in other books on prehistoric life I have... well, that, and I had a gift card that made it free to me. Considering what I paid for it, and the new-to-me material it covered, I can't say I'm entirely disappointed, but I can also say that I would've liked more.
After the overview at the start - giving a quick look at what evolution is, what fossils are, and how we know what we know about biomes that died out long before our own ancestors began walking upright, let alone writing science books - this book starts with the Triassic. I admit I'd hoped for a little on the pre-dinosaur life forms, which I have found frustratingly little on in armchair-accessible works, but at least this volume covers something more than the usual suspects, offering fossils and a few reconstructions of plants, invertebrates, and several non-dinosaur (or non-dinosaur-ancestral, as the "terrible lizards" themselves took some time to rise to dominance) entries. Some were interesting, but most feel like quick post-it notes that only tantalize, that don't always explore what's significant about this particular entry to justify inclusion over others... and a few are just plain irritating, showing only fragments while others that claim in the text to have excellent fossils aren't show well, or at all. More than once, I found places where text contradicted itself, likely the result of incomplete editing as content was revised over subsequent editions. And there are several scientific terms that the book throws around without including a glossary. Those frustrations aside, books like this rest largely on visual appeal, and Dinosaurs does deliver fairly well there. In addition to the bite-sized entries, there are several insets comparing extinct life forms to modern counterparts. This may not be the only book on dinosaurs and prehistoric life one will ever need (no such book exists that I'm aware of), but it's not a bad entry point or addition to a layperson's library on the matter.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dinosaurs Rediscovered (Michael J. Benton) - My Review
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs (Riley Black) - My Review
Dinosaurs (Carl Mehling, editor) - My Review
DK Smithsonian
DK
Nonfiction, YA? Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: By the start of the Mesozoic - the "Age of Dinosaurs" - life in some form or another had been proliferating on Earth for several hundreds of millions of years, until a mass extinction event (not the first, but one of the most iconic) that ended the Permian Period. From the devastation would rise many grand, diverse plants and animals that would define an era... and the same would happen at the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the Cenozoic began. Using numerous diagrams, fossils, and reconstructions, this book charts life on Earth from the start of the Triassic to the appearance of modern humans.
Material in this volume was previously in Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life from DK Publishing.
REVIEW: I picked this up in the Barnes and Noble discount section because it included many non-dinosaur life forms (plants, insects, and invertebrates, as well as covering Cenozoic times) that are often glossed over in other books on prehistoric life I have... well, that, and I had a gift card that made it free to me. Considering what I paid for it, and the new-to-me material it covered, I can't say I'm entirely disappointed, but I can also say that I would've liked more.
After the overview at the start - giving a quick look at what evolution is, what fossils are, and how we know what we know about biomes that died out long before our own ancestors began walking upright, let alone writing science books - this book starts with the Triassic. I admit I'd hoped for a little on the pre-dinosaur life forms, which I have found frustratingly little on in armchair-accessible works, but at least this volume covers something more than the usual suspects, offering fossils and a few reconstructions of plants, invertebrates, and several non-dinosaur (or non-dinosaur-ancestral, as the "terrible lizards" themselves took some time to rise to dominance) entries. Some were interesting, but most feel like quick post-it notes that only tantalize, that don't always explore what's significant about this particular entry to justify inclusion over others... and a few are just plain irritating, showing only fragments while others that claim in the text to have excellent fossils aren't show well, or at all. More than once, I found places where text contradicted itself, likely the result of incomplete editing as content was revised over subsequent editions. And there are several scientific terms that the book throws around without including a glossary. Those frustrations aside, books like this rest largely on visual appeal, and Dinosaurs does deliver fairly well there. In addition to the bite-sized entries, there are several insets comparing extinct life forms to modern counterparts. This may not be the only book on dinosaurs and prehistoric life one will ever need (no such book exists that I'm aware of), but it's not a bad entry point or addition to a layperson's library on the matter.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dinosaurs Rediscovered (Michael J. Benton) - My Review
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs (Riley Black) - My Review
Dinosaurs (Carl Mehling, editor) - My Review
Thursday, June 26, 2025
The Great Texas Dragon Race (Kacy Ritter)
The Great Texas Dragon Race
Kacy Ritter
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For all thirteen years of her life, Cassidy Drake has loved three things: her family, her home state of Texas, and dragons. She grew up on her parents' sanctuary for the beasts, who are too often misunderstood, hunted, or - even worse - abused and exploited, particularly by the world's energy corporations. Many of the rescues on the Drake ranch were former "workers" for FireCorp, the biggest company and the one with the worst reputation for how they treat dragons, for all that their public relations people sweep it under the rug. Corporate money keeps buying up small ranches and sanctuaries, but her father has held out... only now bills are piling up faster than donations are coming in. When Grandma falls ill, that may be the last financial straw on the sanctuary's back - unless Cassidy can pull off a miracle.
Like her mother before her, Cassidy is a talented rider, tamer, and racer. She has the stats to enter the biggest challenge in the state: the Great Texas Dragon Race. Part speed race, part endurance trial, part scavenger hunt, the Race draws competitors from across the country, with a prize purse big enough to end the Drake ranch's financial problems for years... only, ever since Cassidy's mother died from a venomous dragon's bite, her father's been reluctant to let her take risks, not even for the good of the family and their dragons. Besides, the winners are almost always the corporate sponsored riders, with the best training and the best equipment, not outsiders - and especially not outsiders riding scarred, undersized dragons like her favorite mount Ranga. But Cassidy Drake doesn't see another choice, and she's never backed down from a challenge - not even a challenge that has claimed the lives of far more experienced dragon riders, with far more experienced dragons.
REVIEW: This is far from the first story to riff on the classic "underdog girl and her overlooked horse" formula with fantastic creatures and wild competitions. The alternate Earth it creates, with various sizes and species of wild dragons alongside mundane critters, also isn't a first, and in this case is probably best not poked at too hard for plausibility holes. But The Great Texas Dragon Race does present a decent, high-energy story with a protagonist who isn't flawless, in a world that isn't as morally black and white as she first imagined... and it has dragons, who may be only a step or two removed from "scaly puppy" or "scaly pony" territory (where dragons are just bigger, scalier, and more incendiary pets/companions/mounts), but still make for some nice peril and adventure.
From the start, Cassidy Drake is a bold personality, more at home in the saddle of a dragon than anywhere else. She already dreams of entering the big Race, both because of her inherent competitive nature and because her late mother Aurora was once a victor, and much of Cassidy's young life has been spent trying to live up to Mom's reputation (spurred in part by grief and childhood guilt; she was there when Aurora was struck by a venomous wild drake, but was too young and scared to get help). She has less than a week to convince her father, though, and he's stubbornly overprotective of her. When an executive of FireCorp starts poking around the ranch, she's initially confident that, once again, the Drakes will keep the wolves at bay and protect their many charges... but when her beloved grandmother, the glue that holds their little family together, falls suddenly ill and needs expensive testing and treatment, the girl only grows more determined (aided and abetted by Grandma, who believes in the girl more than she even believes in herself). There's a touch of plot convenience here and there to even get her, a late entrant, into the race to begin with, but once she's there she has to find her own way through and fight her own battles - and fail, more than once. She resists making alliances or friends among other competitors; eventually there can be only one winner, but the early stages at least can go easier with a little help, or at least knowing that not everyone else is actively looking to stick a knife in her back. Plus the FireCorp sponsored riders are clearly working together from the beginning, leaving those without corporate backers at a disadvantage right out of the gate if they can't pull together. Worse, one of the FireCorp riders, a boy named Ash, keeps trying to befriend her - and letting her guard down once almost costs her everything. But there's more to his story than she knows, just as there's more to the other racers and the Race itself than she knows, and one of the many things Cassidy has to learn is to listen now and again. This is a whole different league than the regional races she and Ranga have run, and Cassidy is in over her head for some time before she learns to tread water, let alone swim. Along the way, she has to re-evaluate just what she stands for and why she's competing, and whether victory should be something more than just a prize purse at the end.
More than once, there's a sense of other characters existing to help or hinder the main character specifically (particularly most of the "baddies" in the FireCorp riding group). As mentioned previously, there are also some issues of plausibility if one looks too closely or too critically at the world in general and the race in particular; the often-potentially-deadly nature of the challenges feel like something one would find in a Harry Potter world where wizards with magic are not far away and can potentially bespell an antagonized wild dragon in an emergency (or can at least possibly magick up a cure to critical injuries inflicted along the way) or in a more dystopian place like Panem from The Hunger Games, where the amped-up spectacle and deadly nature of the competition is the point, not in a world that's more or less our own but with dragons. But on the whole the story doesn't slow down enough for too much introspection or examination, and Cassidy's a bold enough personality, undertaking a wild enough adventure, to generally make things work, especially for the target audience.
You Might Also Enjoy:
House of Dragons (Jessica Cluess) - My Review
Dragonsdale: Skydancer (Salamanda Drake) - My Review
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves (Meg Long) - My Review
Kacy Ritter
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For all thirteen years of her life, Cassidy Drake has loved three things: her family, her home state of Texas, and dragons. She grew up on her parents' sanctuary for the beasts, who are too often misunderstood, hunted, or - even worse - abused and exploited, particularly by the world's energy corporations. Many of the rescues on the Drake ranch were former "workers" for FireCorp, the biggest company and the one with the worst reputation for how they treat dragons, for all that their public relations people sweep it under the rug. Corporate money keeps buying up small ranches and sanctuaries, but her father has held out... only now bills are piling up faster than donations are coming in. When Grandma falls ill, that may be the last financial straw on the sanctuary's back - unless Cassidy can pull off a miracle.
Like her mother before her, Cassidy is a talented rider, tamer, and racer. She has the stats to enter the biggest challenge in the state: the Great Texas Dragon Race. Part speed race, part endurance trial, part scavenger hunt, the Race draws competitors from across the country, with a prize purse big enough to end the Drake ranch's financial problems for years... only, ever since Cassidy's mother died from a venomous dragon's bite, her father's been reluctant to let her take risks, not even for the good of the family and their dragons. Besides, the winners are almost always the corporate sponsored riders, with the best training and the best equipment, not outsiders - and especially not outsiders riding scarred, undersized dragons like her favorite mount Ranga. But Cassidy Drake doesn't see another choice, and she's never backed down from a challenge - not even a challenge that has claimed the lives of far more experienced dragon riders, with far more experienced dragons.
REVIEW: This is far from the first story to riff on the classic "underdog girl and her overlooked horse" formula with fantastic creatures and wild competitions. The alternate Earth it creates, with various sizes and species of wild dragons alongside mundane critters, also isn't a first, and in this case is probably best not poked at too hard for plausibility holes. But The Great Texas Dragon Race does present a decent, high-energy story with a protagonist who isn't flawless, in a world that isn't as morally black and white as she first imagined... and it has dragons, who may be only a step or two removed from "scaly puppy" or "scaly pony" territory (where dragons are just bigger, scalier, and more incendiary pets/companions/mounts), but still make for some nice peril and adventure.
From the start, Cassidy Drake is a bold personality, more at home in the saddle of a dragon than anywhere else. She already dreams of entering the big Race, both because of her inherent competitive nature and because her late mother Aurora was once a victor, and much of Cassidy's young life has been spent trying to live up to Mom's reputation (spurred in part by grief and childhood guilt; she was there when Aurora was struck by a venomous wild drake, but was too young and scared to get help). She has less than a week to convince her father, though, and he's stubbornly overprotective of her. When an executive of FireCorp starts poking around the ranch, she's initially confident that, once again, the Drakes will keep the wolves at bay and protect their many charges... but when her beloved grandmother, the glue that holds their little family together, falls suddenly ill and needs expensive testing and treatment, the girl only grows more determined (aided and abetted by Grandma, who believes in the girl more than she even believes in herself). There's a touch of plot convenience here and there to even get her, a late entrant, into the race to begin with, but once she's there she has to find her own way through and fight her own battles - and fail, more than once. She resists making alliances or friends among other competitors; eventually there can be only one winner, but the early stages at least can go easier with a little help, or at least knowing that not everyone else is actively looking to stick a knife in her back. Plus the FireCorp sponsored riders are clearly working together from the beginning, leaving those without corporate backers at a disadvantage right out of the gate if they can't pull together. Worse, one of the FireCorp riders, a boy named Ash, keeps trying to befriend her - and letting her guard down once almost costs her everything. But there's more to his story than she knows, just as there's more to the other racers and the Race itself than she knows, and one of the many things Cassidy has to learn is to listen now and again. This is a whole different league than the regional races she and Ranga have run, and Cassidy is in over her head for some time before she learns to tread water, let alone swim. Along the way, she has to re-evaluate just what she stands for and why she's competing, and whether victory should be something more than just a prize purse at the end.
More than once, there's a sense of other characters existing to help or hinder the main character specifically (particularly most of the "baddies" in the FireCorp riding group). As mentioned previously, there are also some issues of plausibility if one looks too closely or too critically at the world in general and the race in particular; the often-potentially-deadly nature of the challenges feel like something one would find in a Harry Potter world where wizards with magic are not far away and can potentially bespell an antagonized wild dragon in an emergency (or can at least possibly magick up a cure to critical injuries inflicted along the way) or in a more dystopian place like Panem from The Hunger Games, where the amped-up spectacle and deadly nature of the competition is the point, not in a world that's more or less our own but with dragons. But on the whole the story doesn't slow down enough for too much introspection or examination, and Cassidy's a bold enough personality, undertaking a wild enough adventure, to generally make things work, especially for the target audience.
You Might Also Enjoy:
House of Dragons (Jessica Cluess) - My Review
Dragonsdale: Skydancer (Salamanda Drake) - My Review
Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves (Meg Long) - My Review
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