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Book Review: Assassin’s Creed: Heresy by Christie Golden (Dueling Reviews)

Two for the price of one, today: Aaron Fletcher and I both reviewed Assassin’s Creed: Heresy. Read on to see what we thought!


Assassin’s Creed: Heresy by Christie Golden

Ubisoft Publishing, 2016

ISBN:  978-1-945-21002-0

Available:  Hardback, paperback, ebook (Kindle, Nook)

Review #1

Assassin’s Creed: Heresy is set in the universe of the Assassin’s Creed  action-adventure video game franchise produced by Ubisoft, and has been published recently, in order to take advantage of the soon-to-be-released Assassin’s Creed movie (note, this story is not a novelization of the movie but an original novel). The game takes advantage of real-world historical events and individuals, and sets up two opposing organizations, the Assassins and the Templars, who influence these events and people, and attempt to collect unique objects called Pieces of Eden. The Assassins fight for peace with free will, and the Templars fight with peace with control. I haven’t played the game, and read the book without knowing this, but it is my understanding that typically, players see what’s going on from the Assassins’ point of view.

Assassin’s Creed: Heresy is written from a Templar’s point of view. The Templars are able to send a person back in time to view history through an ancestor’s eyes. Simon Hathaway, the new head of Abstergo Industries’ historical research division and a recent initiate into the Templars’ inner circle, has an ancestor who knew Joan of Arc, who was the last person to wield the legendary sword Piece of Eden 25. When he requests time to show that a wider exploration of the time period will be more successful than the current approach, he is given one week to learn what happened to the lost sword and how to reactivate it.

This is where the book gets really interesting– Simon travels back to observe his ancestor’s interactions with Joan, and we get to experience his interactions with her, and the events around her.We get the impressions of both Simon’s ancestor, a French peasant boy who was her steadfast friend, and Simon the Templar historian, which means we get background and commentary while also immersed in the interactions with historical characters and events in the life of Joan of Arc. Christie Golden manages this without ever making it seem intrusive, and it’s like getting history without the slow parts. The present-day storyline wasn’t terribly interesting– the characters seemed flat, and I felt like I had been dropped into the middle of an ongoing tangle of intrigues that weren’t well-explained– but Golden’s handling of the historical sequences was very well done.  Despite having never played the game, I got into the book. With a little more background, this could have worked well as a stand alone novel  for a wider variety of readers. Assassin’s Creed: The Essential Guide (not reviewed here) was released at the same time as this book, and together, I am sure they make for a much more complete experience. With or without the additional background, though, both new and old fans and players of  Assassin’s Creed should enjoy this book. Recommended.

Contains: violence

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Review #2

Joan of Arc is rumored to have possessed a sword that made her invincible: one of the legendary Swords of Eden, Piece of Eden 25.  Imbued with unique properties, little is known of its history.  Templars and Assassins alike have owned it over time, as they fought over control of mankind.  Now it is safely ensconced in the office of Alan Rikkin, CEO of Abstergo Industries, but its incredible powers of invincibility no longer function. Somehow, before Rikkin acquired it, it was damaged, and now it is just a sword.  Rikkin wants to make it whole again, for the Templars.

Simon Hathaway, the new head of Abstergo Industries’ historical research division, is determined to prove to his boss that his new approach is better than past techniques.  The Templars have a technique available that allows them to travel back in history at different points in the life of one of their ancestors, in order to track the location of Pieces of Eden. Instead of fast-forwarding through the life of Joan of Arc to the historically important parts, Simon will live alongside her as much as possible to get the maximum experience he can.  He follows Joan and finds out how she got the sword, what happened to it, and how to get it working again.  For history, for the Templars, and for mankind.

This is a very enjoyable story: a fun action-adventure with a historical setting that tied in perfectly with the video game franchise.  The plot and pacing were fast and kept me turning pages.  The descriptions were well done. I felt like I was right there with the characters! Christie Golden gives readers enough to keep them in the world, but still guessing what will happen next.  The suspense built very well, and I especially liked the ending.  I was pulled in from the first page and did not emerge until the last word.   I look forward to reading more from this series and this author.  I have not read any of this series or this author’s work in the past, though I have played a few of the video games this was based on. Highly recommended.

 Reviewed By:  Aaron Fletcher

 


 

Posted on December 17, 2016 by , Reply

Book Review: Summer at East End: Double Eclipse by Melissa de la Cruz

Summer at East End: Double Eclipse by Melissa de la Cruz
G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0399173561
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Double Eclipse is the second book in Summer at East End,  a YA spinoff series of Melissa de la Cruz’s adult urban fantasy series Witches of East End, which was about three sisters who discover they are Norse goddesses with witchy powers. Summer at East End  takes place ten years later and focuses on their teenage nieces, twin daughters of Thor, Mardi and Molly, who are human/goddess hybrids. As background, Norse gods and goddesses live as humans, and when they die they are reincarnated in another human body without memories or powers; these manifest in their teen and young adult years in a process called Reawakening. Mardi and Molly are brand new goddesses in their first lifetime, so they’ve never had to go through this and won’t acquire “grown-up” memories like the other gods do, because they don’t have them.  The premise of this book is that the girls learn their mother is the famous tennis player Janet Steele, who moves to East End after purchasing their family home and throwing their relatives out of the house, on the pretense of developing a relationship with her daughters.

I wasn’t sent Triple Moon, the first book in the series, but Double Eclipse does a fairly good job of standing on its own (although I have read the original Witches of East End books, and without that background I might be lost, so for teens unfamiliar with the previously written adult series or the television show, it might be more important). Unfortunately, even given the background from the previous series (which I enjoyed) I found this book to be disappointing.

I think a large part of the problem is that it’s difficult to relate to the characters. The sweet twin/bad twin trope can work and even be kind of fun, which is what makes the Sweet Valley High books work. It can even work when the girls in question are ridiculously wealthy (like the sisters in Hotlanta) but on some level, the characters have got to be relatable, and have at least a semblance of a believable relationship with each other. Twin Molly is the sweet one interested in fashion, makeup, and boys. She’s also easily bought by Janet, instantly loving her and moving in without a second thought, especially after she’s offered expensive shopping trips and the use of a Maserati. Mardi is the cynical one, suspicious of Janet’s sudden interest, particularly since she’s evicted Mardi’s boyfriend (yes, there’s an ick factor there, in dating one of your relatives who just happens to be reincarnated into a seventeen year old boy’s body). Caught in the middle is cute boy Rocky McLaughlin, who is carried away by Molly’s sweetness (and her Maserati) and baffled when she stops texting him. Due to misunderstandings over said cute boy and a spell cast over everyone’s cell phones, disaster ensues.

Molly, as the “good twin” is supposed to by a sympathetic character, but she was totally insufferable and so superficial and self-centered she almost forgot that her boyfriend was grieving his mother. Mardi was slightly more likable, but her rebelliousness basically consisted of “I don’t wear makeup” and grudgingly working in a sandwich shop while hitting on her sister’s boyfriend, after she spent most of the book moping over her boyfriend breaking up with her when he realized the essential “ick” factor of his dating a teenager. Also, much of the plot hinged on a lack of communication between the two girls. While they weren’t in constant contact through texting, nobody ever suggested they meet face-to-face, although they actually lived on the same small island, interacting with the same people. It also seemed unrealistic that their only same-age peer was the boy they were fighting over. As a side note, these two girls were constantly being offered alcoholic drinks by their relatives, and sucking them down as if this were no big deal. Even in fiction, yes, it totally is. They aren’t in school anyway, so why not just make them 21?

Honestly, having read both her adult fiction and her children’s books, I expect better from de la Cruz. She had a great opportunity here to take advantage of a growing young adult interest in books with mythological settings, thanks to Rick Riordan’s expansion into the world of Norse mythology, the Loki’s Wolves series by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr, and Kate O’Hearn’s Valkyrie, and I feel that she really squandered it by turning it into a series about two material girls who also happen to be goddesses, rather than digging deeper into the mythology and providing a little more action, character growth, and connection to the mythology, or even just exploring more of their family connections. I hope there’s more to the next book than there is to this one. However, with Melissa de la Cruz being as popular as she is, and with the interest in Witches of East End, it probably will be in demand.

Contains: mild sexual situations, violence

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski


Posted on November 4, 2016 by , Reply

Book List: Schools for Peculiar Children

      

 

Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children hits theaters this week, and it will be interesting to see how it measures up to the book. It looks cool– click here for a link to the trailer. For me, the letters and the real photographs used, and the scrapbook-type format, were much of what made it intriguing, and I can’t imagine how that will translate to the screen. But the trailers look pretty awesome, so even if the movie doesn’t turn out to be just like the book, perhaps it will stand well on its own.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is far from the first book to be set in a school or home intended for particularly unusual children, though– some really excellent books for middle grade and teen readers exist in this category.  Here are a few you might check out.

 

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

Kit Gordy is attending an extremely exclusive, isolated, boarding school. Spoiler: it’s also haunted by ghosts who take possession of the students to create amazing works of art. Nothing could possibly go wrong here, right? This is a good one for tweens and middle schoolers, although, in my opinion, you don’t outgrow Lois Duncan.

 

 

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire LeGrand

This is a disturbed fairy tale of a book. Victoria, a perfect 12 year old in every way, living in a picture-perfect community, has chosen just one friend, the very imperfect, messy, and musical Lawrence. When Lawrence disappears, Victoria goes on a search for him, uncovering some very unpleasant things. As more children disappear, and creepy creatures start invading, Victoria becomes even more determined to solve the mystery. She discovers that the orphanage across the street is actually a deeply disturbing, magically operated facility with the mission of turning all the imperfect children that have disappeared, including Lawrence, into identical, perfect children, Stepford-style. Mrs. Cavendish, the headmistress of the school, is truly diabolical, and the school itself is creepy, disquieting, and disorienting. This one is not for the faint of stomach, but people who liked Coraline  or the more nightmarish writing of Roald Dahl might very well like this. This is Gothic children’s horror at its best– highly recommended, but for no younger than age 10.

Contains: body horror, cannibalism, insect hordes, torture.

 

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Speaking of Roald Dahl, Matilda is surely every book lover’s favorite story of a peculiar child. While her school isn’t specifically for peculiar children, the people who work there certainly qualify as peculiar, especially the headmistress. You can’t help cheering for Matilda as she uses her unusual powers to defeat the sadistic Miss Trunchbull.

 

The Grounding of Group 6  by Julian F. Thompson

What’s a parent to do when a child repeatedly breaks the rules, gets thrown out of school again, or breaks that last straw? You send them to the school of last resort– Coldbrook County School– and then never worry about them again. That’s right, the school will take care of your problem child for you, in a permanent way, while the students are out on retreat in a wooded area full of sinkholes. Nothing supernatural in this book, all the horror is in the way humans treat each other.
I’d wait until high school to read this one– it’s got some harrowing moments. There’s also an implied sexual relationship between one of the students, in her late teens, and her “counselor”, who is in his twenties.

 

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

After the death of her mother, Gemma Doyle is sent from her home in India to a young ladies’ boarding school in Victorian England. Gemma has visions, and her unusual upbringing and uncanny knowledge mean a chilly reception from the other girls. Gemma learns to control the visions so she can visit magical realms. As she makes friends, she involves them in her journeys, but while the girls enjoy the power and escape they have in the realms, Gemma learns there is also a darker side. This is the first book in a trilogy: the other two books are Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing. Recommended for middle school and up.


Posted on September 28, 2016 by , Reply
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