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Rick Riordan – Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief | Review

Title: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Author: Rick Riordan

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 376

Rating: 4*/5

Rick Riordan – Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

I suppose there are a few things to note here. The first is that I’m behind the times, because it seems like everyone under the sun has already read Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. I’ve read one of Riordan’s other books, and I didn’t think much of it, so I put off starting this one. I shouldn’t have.

See, this book is basically the best start to a series of this ilk that I’ve come across. It even beats out Harry Potter, because the first Harry Potter book was only okay. But this book drew me straight in, and while I couldn’t necessarily relate with the main character – Percy Jackson – I think that’s more because I’m not really the target audience, rather than a problem with how the character was written.

Of course, there were one or two one-dimensional characters, but that was largely intentional – and it played into Riordan’s unique take on Greek myths and legends. In fact, I’ve noticed a trend of late of authors imitating the approach, a little bit like what happened when Dan Brown released The Da Vinci Code. The funny thing is that it never really happened with J. K. Rowling – sure, people were influenced by it, but nobody reduced themselves to literally releasing an imitation.

Rick Riordan

Now, this might sound weird, but this book reminded me of a cross between R. L. Stine and Neil Gaiman. It has much of the world-building that Gaiman used in American Gods, and it has a similar feel, like an epic road trip. Stine, meanwhile, used simple language and near-childlike plots to hook his young readers into the story. But Riordan’s work feels in no means like a rip off – in fact, he has a new, original voice, at least in this book. Perhaps he becomes more jaded over time, but I wouldn’t know.

Overall, then, I’d definitely recommend Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, even if you don’t go on to read the rest of the series. It might not be for you – but if you like myths, magic and mayhem, I reckon you’ll probably like it.

Rick Riordan Quote

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Robert Galbraith – The Silkworm | Review

Title: The Silkworm

Author: Robert Galbraith

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 456

Rating: 4/5

Robert Galbraith – The Silkworm

The first thing to mention is that Robert Galbraith is J. K. Rowling’s pseudonym, and so in many ways you know what you’re getting here. If you’ve read Rowling’s work before – and let’s face it, you should have – then you know that her name alone is a guarantee of a certain level of quality right from the get go. Unfortunately, in many ways, that acts against her – it sets expectations high, and it also biases the reader before they get started. I suspect that that’s why she started using her pseudonym in the first place.

With that out of the way, we can start to talk about the story line. This book is the second of three that follows the adventures of private detective Cormoran Strike, and while I managed to read the three of them out of order, it doesn’t necessarily matter. Sure, the story of Strike’s life follows from one book to another, but seeing as the man is pretty much consumed by his work, it’s only a minor detail.

In this book, Strike – and his assistant, Robin – are recruited to investigate the disappearance of a writer called Owen Quine, who’s managed to offend almost the entire literary world with his constant shenanigans. Quine was gearing up to release a new novel and disappeared just when he was due to release it, and his long-suffering wife asks Strike and Robin to investigate his disappearance.

J. K. Rowling

And then Quine is found dead. Personally, I’d call that a spoiler because it doesn’t happen until about a third of the way through the book, but it’s revealed on the rear cover and so I guess I can say it. That annoyed me – it basically made me feel as though the first chunk of the novel was really just a long rehash of what was on the rear cover, and I was impatient for the body to be discovered so that I could find out what happened next.

It was also a little too meta for my preference – in writing about Quine, Rowling herself took the chance to take a few shots at the industry, and I’ve always felt a little bit weird about it when writers write about writers. Stephen King does it all of the time, to the point at which it starts to feel cliche or self-indulgent, but he also usually pulls it off and Rowling/Galbraith did it here, too.

Overall then, this is a very respectable crime novel and certainly worth a 4/5. However, I also thought it was the weakest in the trilogy, and not as good as some of the other books on the market.