Book Reviews

I’d been looking for a new Greg Rucka book for a while now and had begun to lose hope until I found out about this series. Space opera and Greg Rucka’s writing is an automatic “YES” for me! I love the plot and the art for this series so far. I love how it’s confusing to follow at first, but knowing how Greg Rucka’s writing style, will be explained later on because everything is important in his works. I love the camaraderie between the main characters – especially the banter that goes on in the bay for their mechs. That was classic! I’m interested in seeing where this will go, so I’ll stick with it for now.

We get to see how our characters spend their time off-shift in this volume. One has to prove herself to the leader of the government, while the others try to relax, enjoy a drink, or go out on a date. It was great. Sometimes, even in space operas, when done well, it’s nice to have these moments where you have a break from the action and just see how people live. I think I get a lot of this from manga, where you get to have a general break from life before things go back to the major plot once again. And I loved this. It also sets us up for what comes next in the war our characters are fighting in. Looking forward to what we’ll have in the next volume.

I got this from a Zenescope Kickstarter after hearing it’s a collection of stories about one of my favorite characters. I enjoyed reading this and it filled in some of the gaps I had in my graphic novel collection. Looking forward to seeing what else Zenescope had in store.

A lot easier to follow the story now that we are in the Spice Islands. I think we’re going to have a lot of action in the next volume since this one answered a lot of questions….and yet gave us more questions to ask. I do like the cliffhanger at the end, so of course I’ll keep reading to see what happens.

Favorite Quote
” But of all the perils that one may encounter…none are more treacherous than the monsters that lurk within the mind…”

My Thoughts
I feel like many of these stories end in either heartbreak or are super bittersweet. This was a bittersweet one this time around. I did like the story, but had hoped it would dive more into the presence of the folktale characters and use them more. It feels like the main focus is on one folk character and a very short description of the other two. I love Lady Mechanika for its fantastical stories with fairy talk and folk tale elements, but I felt this focused too much on the mystery of the story with little influence from folk tales unless the plot needed it – so I ranked it down 1 star because of this. I’ll still continue reading these stories, I just felt this one was lacking with the background on the fantastical characters that I’m used to getting.

Favorite Quote
” We need friends to help us see ourselves as we truly are.”

My Thoughts
Adventures under the Big Top for our family of three as we now see how they’re getting along working with a traveling circus. Hazel meets a new friend and Squire was sent off to help him deal with his feelings about how the world views his family. Things aren’t going so great for some of our side characters either. Some are adrift in life, some are in a jail of their own making, and some are numbing the pain with drugs. It felt like this volume was more exposition than major plot points this time around. I’m hoping we get some more action and movement plot-wise in the next volume. But if we need to pace things as they are for a while, that works too. I’m just glad to have a new volume of Saga in my hands.