Stephen Cole (1) (1971–)

Well two average Young Bond books and two fantastic ones feature in Steve Cole's Young Bond. Red Nemesis concludes the series with an action packed treasure hunt and a Russian sleeper cell plot all tying back into something Bond's father stumbled across. Teaming up with Anya Kalashnikova, James and Anya work to avenge their families and protect Britain from treachery.

This was really enjoyable. I would've liked to see more of Charmian and Perry but at least they appeared. I loved the treasure hunt game James and his father used to play and that he keeps it going with Perry. Anya was yet another strong, fierce girl character - this series only has those types which is beyond awesome. I would've loved to see more of the ballerina angle but I enjoyed what there was.

The author notes at the end were interesting and enlightening as to Steve Cole's thoughts while writing. I found it interesting that he was trying to show the transition of Bond's isolation and kind of prepare readers for reading the original series in a way. Since I will be reading the original series next it can only be a plus.

4 stars, a great end to a great series.… (plus d'informations)

This past weekend, I epic roadtripped by myself to Indiana. Why? I asked myself that same question - no, seriously, it was to see some friends who had fled the Midwest but had returned to celebrate their one-year anniversary with family and they invited me, and so I made the 10 hour trek there and back in one weekend.

Anyway, this was the first audiobook up for the drive. It had been an Audible daily deal recently and I picked it up, like any good Whovian who was offered cheap Doctor Who stuff. And since it was short, I figured it would be a good start to the epic roadtrip.

So I've read and listened to a few Doctor Who media tie-in novelizations and they've all been middling of the road at best, and this was not much of an exception, though it is definitely better than some others. The author had great descriptions and I could actually picture this as an episode. However, as with all of the novels, the length limitation made it seemed a bit rushed at points.

Still, not a bad listen for $2.… (plus d'informations)

The First Doctor, Ben, and Polly land on a frozen moon that is being used for a military training exercise. But the drill rapidly becomes a real emergency when they find the frozen corpses of ten aliens…and then one of the corpses disappears…

This story is told in a particularly interesting way: toward the end of the book, the narration moves from linear to a “choose your own adventure” sort of format where you are given instructions to move around the storyline and see things from different perspectives. This must have taken a LOT of work to set up properly, and part of me thinks I should read this again and try to read that last bit in a different order to see if there are any changes. I did find some of the members of the training group a bit interchangeable, although part of that could have been due to my starting this in early December 2021 and putting it down for over a month before finally finishing it.

And as you may have guessed from the title, the plot of this book riffs somewhat on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and each chapter is titled for a Christie novel. So that gets a few extra points as well.… (plus d'informations)