"Dragon Thief" by Blake & Raven Penn

To be clear, the titular Dragon Thief is a thief who steals dragons, not a thief who is also a dragon.

This may be the only book in which I've ever seen someone use the "reckless and flirtatious protagonist" trope and actually pull it off. I think it helps that Asher (the dragon thief in question) is funny, and he does have some character depth to work with. His various crushes do get a bit annoying at times, but it's not constantly, and he's not an annoying person overall. Plus he does prove himself able to crush on only one person at a time.

It also helps that Asher never does anything outright stupid. And whenever he does things that would seem to be outright stupid, he usually can almost make them work through sheer Asherness.

Oh, and Asher isn't an orphan! One (1) of his parents is still alive! It's his dad. And his dad isn't even the annoying kind of parent who doesn't want the kid/teen protagonist to do the plot. He's just as invested in the plot as Asher is, albeit also a bit more cautious.

Dragon Thief's setting is basically a fantasy world trying to be a Western. Sort of. It uses a lot of the Wild West tropes; no trains :<, but there's random tumbleweeds and things, and there's one character (Boone) who would absolutely be a cowboy except he's in a fantasy world.

But the setting is also full of dragons, to the point that most of the animals are replaced with dragon versions of those animals. So jackalopes exist but they're drakalopes instead, their buffalo are replaced by dragon buffalo, raccoons are replaced by draccoons, et cetera. Also people ride kirin instead of horses. And there are, y'know, actual dragons.

The magic system in this is very well thought out. And you don't need to flip back to the setting guide every time they mention something (coughHandofSteelcough), which means they did the worldbuilding naturally. And there isn't a single "as you know, Bob" to be seen!

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Ha!" The newer Mage Hunter pointed at me. "Caught you. Who ever said the Keeper's treasure was dragon eggs?"

    There was a moment of silence as I blinked back at him.

    "Um... you did," I said.

    "That's true, you did," Dad added.

    "Did I?" the Mage Hunter looked at his older companion.

    "Yes, you did. Come on Lothar," she grumbled.

    Page 77. Lothar is Dragon Thief's resident Comic Relief Villain.

(Endnote: There's a character in this whose name is Solrac. "Solrac" is "Carlos" spelled backwards. I have no idea whether or not this is intentional, but it's funny either way.)

"M Is for Magic" by Neil Gaiman

This is a collection of ten short stories in various genres, plus one poem. Some of them I liked; some of them I didn't really. My favorites, in roughly this order, were:

"The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds," about private detective Jack Horner investigating the death of Humpty Dumpty. This one's full of random nursery rhyme characters that pop up at unexpected moments, and it's also hardboiled detective fiction. That doesn't sound like it would work, but it does.

"The Witch's Headstone," which is just basically chapter 4 (I think it's 4, anyway) of The Graveyard Book. This collection was published a year before The Graveyard Book, though, which makes me think it must have made a lot less sense to people who read this when it originally came out.

"Instructions," the poem, about what to do if you find yourself in a fairy tale. Also, it has a reference to the next one,

"October in the Chair," where personifications of the twelve months get together and tell stories. The main story-within-a-story in this one, October's, is honestly rather scary; not because it tells you what's going on, but because it doesn't.

Also, honorable mention to "Chivalry," about an old lady who buys the Holy Grail for 30 pence at a thrift store and then meets a somewhat hapless but rather nice Sir Galahad who keeps trying to trade her various other mythological objects for it.

Were this a videogame (maybe a collection of minigames?), I'd rate it: T15+ for sexual references.

4 stars. I liked it fairly well, and unlike some other things (coughItWasn'tMecough) (coughRiley'sGhostcough), it's got a YA content level while also being YA.

Favorite lines:

    "I see that you are all looking at me doubtfully. Gentlemen, consider: of course the ancient Egyptians made beer cans; where else would they have kept their beer?"

    Page 188. It's in "Sunbird," about a group of people called the Epicurean Club whose mission is to eat everything that's even remotely somewhat edible.

(Endnote: I think this collection has horror, detective fiction, sci-fi-ish, fantasy, con artistry, and magical realism [?]. I'm honestly not sure what genre "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" should be.)

"City Spies" by James Ponti

Yep, it's the first one of these. It provides backstory info on Brooklyn (everyone on this team has a tragic backstory of some sort, otherwise they'd have parents), as well as introducing Charlotte as more of a character than just her cameo in book 3.

Overall, I had the hardest time suspending my disbelief with this one. Its plot isn't any more outlandish than book 3's (which involved a bunch of stolen nuclear warheads), but this one just kind of rubbed me wrong.

I think part of the problem was the characterization of the character "Mother" was rather off compared to the rest of the books. ("Mother" is the man--yes, a man named "Mother", it's an in-universe long story that I've forgotten--who basically acts as the mission control for the team, as well as the adult to accompany the main characters whenever they have to go somewhere that unaccompanied children couldn't realistically go.) He seems to be making it up as he goes along in this one, as opposed to in the other three books where he acts with a lot more forethought. Actually, a bunch of the characterizations were off, most notably with Kat (but that might just be because I like her best).

All in all, I'm glad that this is the first book in the series, because that means the plotting and character portrayals and such get better as the series goes on. Book 5 is out now, as well, which means I'm going to have to get it from the library.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for some mentions of child abuse (remember how I mentioned Brooklyn's tragic backstory?) and tense scenes.

Unlike the other three, this book gets 3 stars, for reasons I talked about above.

(Endnote: I've gotten fairly used to the fact that Paris is a guy, but I still can't make myself remember that Kat is short for Kathmandu, not Katherine.)

"City Spies: Forbidden City" by James Ponti

After reading book 4 a while back, I've gotten book 3 of this series out of the library as well. This one has less hacking and explosions and more sneaking around and playing chess. Actual chess, as well as metaphorical chess.

Basically, there's this guy from North Korea who's made it as plain as he can that he doesn't want to be in North Korea while maintaining plausible deniability. Both the good guys and the bad guys want to recruit him. Also there's a bunch of stolen nuclear warheads, and chess. (I don't know tons about chess. Like, I can usually hold my own against other relative beginners, but I don't know the names of any openings or tactics or anything, or even how to do them.)

There's one plot point that revolves around a social media account that occasionally posts the same picture of St. Basil's Cathedral. However, something's off: the colors on the domes are slightly different each time. My guess as to a possible way of decoding it was, "Why don't you check how the computer encodes the colors and see if that gives you any clues?" |Guess how they cracked it.|

There's another character who's peripherally in this, and who's apparently a former member of the spy team: Charlotte. Her name is both a person name and a city name, so it didn't trip me up. Kat (Kathmandu) still does, though; I keep wanting to call her Katherine. 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for kidnapping and some chase scenes. Like the next one, it would be a fairly fun stealth game. Unless they made a few alterations or had the chess take place in cutscenes, though, it would get a bit tedious doing all that, especially since most of the people chessing at each other are supposed to be really good at it and most of the people who would play the game aren't.

This one is as good as the next one, which is to say, I give it 4 stars.

(Endnote: I think I'll get book 2 out of the library next, and then book 1, and then I'll have read the entire series in reverse order.)

"City Spies: City of the Dead" by James Ponti

Turns out this is like book 4 in a series, but I didn't know that at the time I grabbed it off the library shelf. However, as with good books-in-series, I wasn't totally lost. True, I didn't know who anyone was, but that didn't matter; the story held up without prior series knowledge.

Anyway, it was fun! I did have a bit of a hard time believing that MI6 would actually hire a bunch of teens and tweens as spies, but it's the series premise, and it wasn't too much of an ordeal to suspend my disbelief. The plot involves cyberattacks and museum heists and a lot of hacking, which seems to be portrayed more realistically than most times; instead of videogame hacking minigames or anything like that, it's more "stick a virus-laden thumbdrive into the computer".

Also, all the main characters have code names that are just city names. The one this book focused on is called Kat; it's short for Kathmandu, but I kept thinking it was short for Katherine. The others are Paris (who's a boy, despite his code name tripping me up a lot), Sydney (a rather loud girl with strong opinions who carries around both hairspray and explosives), Rio (who's good at sleight of hand and stuff like that), and Brooklyn (le hacker). Also, they add another member partway through the book: Robert, the actual child of the guy who adopted all the rest of the main characters.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for scary-ish scenes and explosions. It'd probably make a fun stealth game, although they'd probably de-realistic the hacking because "stick a virus-laden thumbdrive into the computer" just isn't as fun as a hacking minigame.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I liked most of the characters, and the plot kept me engaged, and that is almost assuredly the single most stereotypical-book-review sentence I've ever said on this blog. All of this is a long wind-up to make the fact that I rated it 4 stars a tad more interesting.

(Endnote: I kind of want to go read the other three books in the series now.)

"Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code" by Eoin Colfer

Yup. I read book 3 of Artemis Fowl. Imagine a heist movie, as a book.

Basically, Artemis cobbles together a computer from various stolen bits of fairy technology. Then he uses it in shady business dealings with an American electronics tycoon. Unfortunately, this goes sideways, and the tycoon guy's henchmen end up stealing the computer. Since it's made out of stolen fairy tech, the fairies want it. So does Artemis. Basically, the computer is a MacGuffin.

Artemis gets enough character development in this one to become someone you could actually like in real life. He even |seriously considers not being a criminal mastermind, and going legitimate like his father wants|.

Mulch Diggums seems to be unable to come up with good pseudonyms. I mean, really? Mo Diggens? (He had a similar bad pseudonym in the last one, but I can't remember it.) Of course, since we're pulling off a heist, he gets brought along, since he can go into human dwellings without permission (due to him not actually caring if he loses his magic or not, since he already lost it). The protagonists pull some extremely clever tricks to get Holly around the "fairies-can't-enter-human-buildings-without-losing-their-magic" thing.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T, probably. It'd be hard to make a book about a single heist into an entire game, though. 

I'm going to give this one 4 stars, like the last one.

Favorite lines:

    The sarcasm made a slight whistling noise as it flew over Loafers' head. 

    Page 131.

(Endnote: I laughed so hard over that ending. |Artemis got his memories erased by the fairies, who are absolutely positive that the good influence of his newly-reformed father and his never-evil mother will stop him from becoming a criminal mastermind again. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Artemis decides to become a criminal mastermind again, discovers safeguards he'd planted so he could get his memories back, thinks he's the victim of a conspiracy, and declares his past self to be his enemy. I seriously hope he gets the memories back in book 4, because I liked Artemis-with-character-development better than Artemis-with-all-his-character-development-erased.| Sorry for the uber-spoiler-tag, but I wanted to say that and it's a huuuuuuge spoiler. Hey, my endnote was about the ending!)