"Minecraft: The Island" by Max Brooks

This is actually one of the better-done Minecraft books I've read. Unlike The Woodsword Chronicles or Winter Morgan's books, it takes both Minecraft and itself seriously; it also manages not to insert things into the story that aren't actually in Minecraft, unlike Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior or Mark Cheverton. (Not to say that Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior and Mark Cheverton aren't good books; they are.)

So, plot synopsis, it starts out basically the same as half the Minecraft books out there. Some normal person is suddenly INSIDE Minecraft, and has to figure out how to survive because we don't know if respawning works or not and aren't eager to test it. 

The main character handles himself about as well as I did the first time I played Minecraft with mobs on: running around screaming, almost dying about eight times, digging myself into a hole, making fifty-two rookie mistakes in five minutes, et cetera.

My main annoyance with the guy is, while most of it can be excused by him waking up with amnesia and not remembering how to play Minecraft (actually, it's unclear if he ever did or not, unlike the Woodsword players or Winter Morgan's protagonists, there's no excuse for them): whenever things are going really well, he'll get overconfident and accidentally incinerate important stuff or make an extremely dumb mistake.

But that aside, it's a well-written book. This is actually the first of the official novels I've read (Woodsword doesn't count, they're not novel-length), and it didn't disappoint me.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence. Which is convenient, as Minecraft itself is rated E10+ for fantasy violence.

The book itself gets four stars; I didn't dislike it enough to give it three or two, but it's also not good enough to get five.

I don't have any favorite lines; the (unnamed) main character is the only sapient being in the story, and the only dialog is him talking to a cow. Nothing particularly interesting.

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"The Prince and his Ants (Ciondolino)" by Luigi Bertelli

(Sorry for the appalling picture quality; I couldn't find an image on the internet, so I scanned it in, and I had to do some amateur touching-up after it deteriorated when I shrank it. At least it's readable now!)

Sooooooooo, yeah. Let's begin with what I liked.

All the details about ants! Those were good. I seem to have a sort of passion for the non-gross members of class Insecta. Ants, bees (particularly bees), dragonflies, Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths); all that is great. I'm happy to report that the book got most of its details right (though bombardier beetles' attack is more of an acid spray, not poison gas).

Also, the horntail! It's so helpful, and it always shows up right when you need it. Got to be my favorite character.

But the main character, Gigino/Ciondolino, was an irrepressibly idiotic schoolboy. Remember Proverbs 6:6, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise"? Gigino was a sluggard, went to the ant, considered her ways, was like "nah my ways are better", and tried to insert his ways into the ants. He ends up |winning a decisive battle with his understanding of basic tactics, only to be catastrophically defeated when his ant enemies are like "thanks for the tactics bro"|. The guy had two major lessons to learn: "There's no such thing as a free lunch" and "Don't be an egotistical maniac". Near the end, once he got that down, I finally started liking him.

Also, I get that this was originally in Italian, but could it maybe have some actually pronounceable names?

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for mild violence. However, were the player not an idiot who |got his whole anthill killed/enslaved|, it would turn into an ant-farm-managing simulator fairly quickly. 

This thing gets 3 stars. You're not going to go any higher than that if I hate the protagonist. The book probably would have felt preachy at times, except that I was too busy being like "yes! this idiot needs to be taught a lesson!".

Favorite lines: 

   [Grantanaglia, Gigino's second-in-command] scurried away up the tree crying: "A caterpiller sister of an ant who is her brother; well now, this time he really is crazy."

   Page 273.

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"The Great War: Perspectives on the First World War" edited by Robert Cowley

So, as you can see, I don't review much nonfiction. (Caveat lector: the newer, smaller "nonfiction" tag is for nonfictional stuff that I have reviewed since 2021. The older "non-fiction" tag is for nonfiction reviewed before then; I don't quite disown anything under that tag, but it's kind of terrible.)

Anyway, this book is rather obviously about World War One, aka the Great War, aka the War to End All Wars. It's a collection of essays on various WWI topics ranging from the Battle of Jutland (Jutland, by John Keegan; pages 154-177) to the Red Baron (The War Lover, by Robert Wohl; pages 271-285) to the First Battle of the Falklands (The First Battle of the Falklands, by Ronald H. Spector; pages 124-140). The essays are of varying quality, ranging from 2 to 4 stars. I'll summarize particularly notable ones below.

One of the earlier ones (possibly even the first; can't remember which) had an approximately 3-page documentation of the etymology of the phrase "no-man's-land". It was super boring. If you ever read the book, just skip that, unless you're into 3-page etymologies.

 

The Christmas Truce (pages 50-64), by Stanley Weintraub, was about the Christmas truce of 1914. It was a weirdly heartwarming episode in the middle of an otherwise super horrific conflict, and almost assuredly one of the more... kid-friendly essays in here. Pretty sure I smiled all the way through it, only to stop smiling again when the next essay was about the Battle of Aubers and had a horrifically huge death toll again.

(Side note: You may notice I use the word "horrific" twice there. This was World War 1, it killed 15 to 22 million people.)

Section 3 was the polished jewel of the collection, containing only 25% lackluster essays and some of the book's best. (Note: I am biased to essays/books/what-have-you describing large machinery, so bear that in mind.) I mentioned Jutland and The First Battle of the Falklands earlier, and the only other noteworthy one was The Wreck of the Magdeburg (pages 141-153) by David Kahn. 

The German warship Magdeburg was a normal small cruiser (smaller than a light cruiser), which went aground off an island in the Gulf of Finland. It was carrying important stuff and they couldn't let it get captured, so they blew it up. 

Except it didn't work completely, and Russia was able to recover some stuff. This included what they termed "Codebook 151", which they sent to the British codebreaking agency, and... well, they broke it. Knowledge ensued.

On pages 215-216 (territory of Kut, by Robert F. Jones), there's a description of a death march. I don't actually know how graphic it was, because I saw the words "death march" and skipped to the end of the essay. Let the prospective reader beware.

 

"These Hideous Weapons" (pages 307-319), by Bruce I. Gudmundsson, is about flamethrowers. I learned some interesting stuff about them, including that they were mostly operated by former firemen (remind you of anything?) and that the French ones were manufactured by a maker of cigarette lighters.

 

Die Pariskanone (pages 404-409) was about a giant cannon capable of firing shells 65 miles and hitting Paris with them. It was broken up at the end of the war, but then some guy in the 60s "[left the Canadian government] to pursue his real interest: very big guns." That line just cracked me up. (The guy ended up going to prison and eventually being assassinated for supplying very big guns to various less-than-savory countries who could pay for them.)

 

Were this a videogame, its subject matter would get rated: M. Possibly AO. It was WWI.

However, the book handles it in a way that's more: T15+.

Overall, this book gets 4 stars. It had its boring parts.

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Videogame ratings guide

Another non-review, this time explaining the ESRB videogame ratings (which I use in my reviews). Should be pretty short.

EC: Early Childhood. This one's been retired due to infrequency of use, but it was videogames for little kids. I don't read many books that would have been rated it.

E: Everyone. Similar to the G rating for movies; nothing objectionable here.

E10+: Everyone 10 or older. Contains "more cartoon, fantasy, or mild violence [than E]; mild language".

T: Teen. It's like PG-13 for movies. May contain "violence, crude humor, minimal blood, and the infrequent use of strong language" (their words, not mine).

T15+: Teens 15 or older. It's in between T and M becuase I realized the scale needed another shade of grey between those two. This is usually the upper limit of what I read.

M: Mature 17+. Basically R, except for videogames instead. I read almost no books that would get rated M, and for good reason.

AO: Adults Only (18+). There have only ever been 27, and it's for games that shouldn't exist but do for some reason (or involve gambling with real money, I think). I read exactly no books that would get rated AO, and for better reason. Probably the equivalent of an NC-17 rating for movies.

There you have it. I will probably never link to this page; linking to Rating System with all the star ratings is enough.

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"Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon" by Torben Kuhlmann

This is an extremely adorable book. I picked it up off the library shelves because it caught my eye and was about mice. In space. Mice in space. Pretty sure you can see why I like it. (I'm not going to bother with spoiler tags for the plot because you can read the whole thing in like 5 minutes; thou hast been warned.)

It's basically a retelling of the moon landings, but with a mouse instead. The titular mouse discovers, via telescope, that the moon is a giant ball of... stone. Nobody believes him, because obviously cheese is round and has holes, and obviously the moon is round and has holes, ergo the moon is made of cheese. 

But then, one mouse (who lives in the Smithsonian) believes him, and that sets our mouse hero on the path of FLYING TO THE MOON IN A TINY SPACESHIP!!! But first, he tries to fly to the moon in a converted alarm clock launched from a catapult... which, obviously, doesn't work. 

...aaand then he actually lands on the moon, and here I pull a bait-and-switch and talk about physics within a spoiler tag. 

|Obviously, a mouse going to the moon in a rocket made of tin cans isn't going to work. But you have to suspend disbelief, because come on, cute mouse. It's a picture book. Enough physics.|

And now, a public service announcement, from my country cousin. THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY CUTE!! I could say this at least eight more times and not get tired of it, so without further ado, THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY CUTE!!! THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY CUTE! [remainder truncated for brevity]

This book will join my other two recent reviews, Howl's Moving Castle and Fahrenheit 451, in getting four stars. 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. (It would be rated EC, for Early Childhood, but I looked up the ratings and apparently EC has been retired due to infrequency of use.) I found it in the picture books section, y'all.

Favorite lines:

   "Next stop, the moon!" he announced in a loud and cheerful voice, although there was no one to hear him.

   (The book doesn't have any page numbers, which is my main quibble with it.)

Also, the extremely cute artwork, because as previously stated, THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY CUTE!!!!!! [remainder truncated for brevity again]

"Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones

 

 

I don't actually have a good opening sentence for this post, so now it's this sentence. Oh well. 

 

That aside, Howl's Moving Castle is a really good book. It's about a girl, Sophie Hatter, who's the eldest of three daughters (in the land of Ingary  cool name  where fairy tale tropes are true, and so the eldest is doomed to fail if she goes out to seek her fortune). Aaaaaaaaand then she gets turned into an old lady by the Witch of the Waste. I wasn't expecting that the first time I read it, and it was still a bit of a shock the second time even though I knew it was coming.

Sophie decides "you know what, even though this mysterious Wizard Howl is rumored to eat babies/steal girls' souls/have a jar of hearts lying around, I'm an old lady anyway, YOLO" and goes walking up to the titular Moving Castle. She then threatens it with her stick until the Wizard Howl's apprentice Michael lets her in. 

When I first picked up the book House of Many Ways and mentioned that it was the sequel to Howl's Moving Castle, my mom said that she'd heard Howl's Moving Castle was a Beauty and the Beast retelling. I read it with that in mind this time around, and...

There is a guy named Gaston, but he doesn't really do Gaston stuff. Beauty (Sophie Hatter) is a normal Beauty-aged girl turned into an old lady, and the Beast (Wizard Howl) is |basically a dissolute teenager, but a dissolute 27-year-old instead|. So... maybe? I could see it as a BATB retelling, but it also stands up on its own. On the other hand, it's got an Evil Stepmother(tm)... who isn't evil, but still.

 

I really liked the magic system. It's more like taken-seriously fairytale magic than videogame, D&D, or LOTR magic, and if you do the "fairytale magic taken seriously" thing right, it outstrips the first two and is as good as the third.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T. Fantasy violence, redacted swearing (as in, "followed by a hurriedly bitten-off swear word" and suchlike), creepy turnip-headed scarecrows. If done right, a Howl's Moving Castle videogame could be good, but the narrative isn't really one that would adapt well to videogame format. The best type of game for it would probably be visual novel. (I wonder why...)

I'm rating this book four stars. 

Favorite lines:

 

  The biggest jar had a name. It was called DRYING POWER in crooked letters. Sophie was not sure whether there should be a D in that or not.

  Page 67.

  Howl shrugged. "What an outspoken old woman you are! I've reached that stage in my career where I need to impress everyone with my power and wickedness. I can't have the King thinking well of me."

  Page 77.

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"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

 

Going into this book, I was predisposed to not like it. I suppose having a book suggested to me makes me think "oh, this book was recommended by someone I know, therefore I have to pretend I like it to them, therefore I'm going to resent it and not like it". Couple that with the fact that it's dystopian fiction (which I don't tend to like), and... I wasn't super not enthused going in, but I also wasn't super enthused.

It's hard to actually describe the plot without breaking my "don't spoil anything you wouldn't find in the first few chapters [though this one doesn't really have short enough chapters for that] or the cover blurb" code and/or covering the page in |spoiler| tags. If you want a better description, go to my mom's review here. If you want to hear what I thought of it, though, stay on this page.

I spend most of the first half of my initial read-through going "gahhhHHHHhhhh why do I have to read this book for school???". Had I not been reading it for school, I probably would have just DNF'd it and chucked the whole thing into the 2-star wall incinerator, there to be wall incinerated. (Wall incinerators are a thing within the book; it's an incinerator in your wall, not an incinerator for incinerating walls.)

Thankfully, I was reading it for school, which meant I had to finish it. It gets better, sufficiently enough to rate it 4 stars; the ending was appropriately foreshadowed and yet completely unexpected, and it was good.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T to M, depending on how realistically you depict the violence. Leans a bit more toward the M side of the scale, in my opinion. I don't think a Fahrenheit 451 game would sell very well at all.

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"The Mystwick School of Musicraft" by Jessica Khoury

I read this book in about 2 hours, which should give you some idea of how much I liked it. (Hint: a lot.)

So, the book is set in an alternate Earth where music is magic and you can play music to do magic. Different songs are different spells (so "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" is a spell for drying stuff, Beethoven's 5th Symphony is a spell for making a force field, etc).

And seriously, they use magic for everything. Want to move a trolley? Play music at it. Want to move a train? Play music at it. Want to grow a plant? Play music at it. Want to deliver people's cafe food? Play music at it. Your apartment's too hot? Play music at it. Have a cold? I kid you not, get someone to play music at it. As long as you know a song that does what you want, and are competent enough to play that song, how do you solve your problem? Play music at it.

But anyway, enough exposition. The main character is a twelve-year-old named Amelia Jones, who auditions for the titular Mystwick School of Musicraft. (It's 'music craft', not 'music raft', and it's the music-magic-whatnot.) |She fails|, which is played for laughs at the time (|her sending a plant-growing spell at one of her audition-judge people, causing his moustache to grow super much instead of the plant|). Nevertheless, she still gets into Mystwick.

At first, The Mystwick School of Musicraft seemed like it was going to pull the "Your Leaders Are Secretly Evil" trope, especially when I learned about "black spells": spells that are banned. (Normal spells have colors, which are green, yellow, blue, and white; don't ask me how.) In actuality, the black spells are banned for a very simple and logical reason: they're necromancy, which never works and tends to have unpleasant consequences like you dying. Mystwick doesn't use the trope.

Favorite lines:

"Only sixteen people in the world are licensed to teleport anything bigger than a refrigerator."

  Page 65.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for mild jumpscares, a couple ghosts, and the main character accidentally burning herself on multiple occasions. Don't know how it would be a videogame, but I'm sure it could be made to work. Visual novel, maybe, or something more RPG-like. If someone managed it (and didn't royally mess it up), I'd play it.

This one joins Kiki's Delivery Service and The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes in getting five stars. This also means I recommend it.

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"Your Leaders Are Secretly Evil" trope

[Edited to remove the giant blank space at the top.]

[This one contains some spoilers; highlight between the |spoiler| bars if you want to read them]

This isn't so much a book review as a trope review, and I'm reviewing/explaining the trope I call "Your Leaders Are Secretly Evil". As you may surmise, this trope (YLASE for short) is about your leaders being secretly evil.

Now, it doesn't have to be your leaders who are secretly evil. It can be anyone your main character respected or looked up to, such as a mentor/father/fleet admiral/whatnot, although it most often is the leaders. They also don't have to be actually evil; being misguided into doing evil, or simply being unsavory, is enough. 

Normally I hate this trope. It can be done well, or it can be subverted, but most often isn't. An example of pure, unadulterated YLASE is in Ice Wolves by Amie Kaufman (unreviewed, it's awful); the book is about people who can turn into wolves and use ice magic, fighting people who can turn into dragons and use fire magic. Of course, the dragons turn out not to actually *be* evil, and the having-to-fight-them was a misunderstanding, etc etc etc.

(As an aside, Ice Wolves is pretty much the embodiment of stereotypical bad middle-grade fantasy: you have a decent idea, then you shoehorn in a forcedly "quirky" but entirely blandly sterotypical cast and a pack of useless adults. Don't forget the main character kid who has some sort of hidden power that makes them (him in this case) special, some YLASE, and that stupid "nobody's actually evil, we can all get along except people don't want to" thing that always feels like bad social commentary. Gah. Hated that book; I recommend never reading it.)

This is, however, not to say YLASE can't be done well. The Bounders series by Monica Tesler has hints of YLASE in book 1 and fully springs it in book 2, and then the three further books are "yeah, our leaders are secretly evil, deal with it bro" and the bro in question trying to deal with it. Don't be fooled by my description, it's a good book with an actually quirky cast (who manage to be quirky by being the stereotypical gamer dude and genki girl and laid-back reckless guy and a couple others, no less!) and decent plot. Plus you have some proper evil bad guys.

It also can work well when subverted, as in |The Mystwick School of Musicraft| by |Jessica Khoury|. The author's other book that I've read (|Skyborn: Sparrow Rising|) does YLASE well, because you inwardly always know the leaders are secretly evil, but the main character refuses to believe it. |In Mystwick, I was prepared for it to do the same thing... which it didn't. I was so happy.|

In conclusion, I don't actually hate "Your Leaders Are Secretly Evil"; I hate it when used badly. I suppose it doesn't help that the types of books that use it badly are also the ones like Ice Wolves that are just lame all around, which all sort of merge in my head under the heading "forgettable Ice Wolves parallels" (probably because, as previously stated, Ice Wolves is the epitome of lame stereotypical fantasy).

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