Armageddon – DaneCobain.com

Title: Thunderball

Author: Ian Fleming

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 264

Rating 3.5/5

I thought I’d read all of the Bond novels, but apparently not! I’d somehow missed this one, but the good news is that while I have seen most of the films, I don’t really remember them. That meant that I could read this as though I was experiencing the story for the first time, which was fun.

It’s interesting because it shows its age, especially because of the fact that it reflects the fears of the cold war and the threat of a nuclear Armageddon. And yet even though it seems a little dated, it still holds up pretty well. A lot of the ideas in here could still happen today, even if they came about through a different diplomatic landscape, and the action is pretty good too.

Some of the Bond books have bored me, especially when they’ve contained lengthy paragraphs about a single game of bridge or golf or something. There wasn’t really anything like that to worry about here, although there was a casino scene. Mostly though, the action was pretty quick and it never felt as though the story was slowing down.

The only thing I would say is that the ending almost felt as though it came out of nowhere, and so because of that it was a little bit of a let-down. That happens a lot with the Bond novels though, and so don’t worry too much. If you’ve read and enjoyed the Bond books before, you’ll enjoy it.

Click here to buy Thunderball.

Rick Riordan – Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer | Review

Title: Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer

Author: Rick Riordan

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 498

Rating: 8/10

Rick Riordan – Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer

Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.

This is the second Rick Riordan book that I’ve read, the first being Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus, and both of them have been sent to me for review purposes. It’s kind of strange, because I’m under the impression that these books are huge, and that they’re well-loved by the generation that came after me, the millennials. I don’t really understand why they’d need to look for reviewers – there’s a lot of love for Rick Riordan already!

Still, I’m not complaining, and this book takes me to extremes – the last book that I read was the last in a series, and so I wasn’t particularly involved in the story line. This book, by contrast, is the first in a series, and it’s certainly an interesting start. Loosely speaking, it follows the story of a homeless teenager called Magnus Chase, who dies and promptly appears in Valhalla. There’s a heavy focus on Norse mythology here, because that’s what Riordan specialises in, but it’s well executed and it’s a pretty cool structure for the story – the main character is dead from the outset, but he returns as an einherjar. In Norse mythology, an einherjar is a warrior who died in battle and was summoned to Valhalla by the Valkyries – spoiler here: Magnus escapes.

I don’t want to give too much away about the story line, but I can say that Chase finds himself tasked with finding the sword of summer and trying to stop Ragnarok, the Norse equivalent of Armageddon, from happening. Along the way, he’s joined by a diverse cast of characters who either want to help him or to kill him – interestingly enough, whilst the two extremes remain the same, the motivations often change, and you can’t deny that this is a well-crafted page turner. The problem that I had with Riordan before was that it felt too much like a Dan Brown novel – it wasn’t like that this time, and because it was the first book in the series, I actually got quite excited about it. I’d certainly be interested in reading book two, when it comes out.

Overall, then, this book comes recommended from me – I suspect that if Riordan had been around ten years earlier then I would’ve read most of his work and grown up with him. As is, I feel like I can look at his books objectively – he’s a decent writer, and the Nordic feel to his work lends a certain something that other writers can’t really compete with. Besides, in The Sword of Summer, you’ll get to meet all sorts of famous folk, from Odin and Thor to Loki and Ratatosk, the giant squirrel that lives on the world tree. Fear the squirrel.