All posts tagged Warcross

Fangirling On Friday — On Sunday!

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

Yesterday on Twitter I saw that Books in The Sky was starting a new weekly prompt: Fangirling on Friday. It sounded like a lot of fun, and I typically don’t post anything on Fridays, so I figured I’d try it out. I think her first prompt was from last Friday, so I decided to jump in — on a Sunday!

This week’s prompt was Fandoms, so I decided to start with my favorite fandoms: Book Fandoms I have Written Fanction For. Writing fanfiction takes a lot of effort, so there has to be a reason for it. Even reading fanfiction takes time from all of the other amazing books out there. So these are kind of in order from my earliest fandom favorites to last month.

Divergent cover

The first two novels I ever wrote were band fanfics (that’s why I’m narrowing this topic to book fandoms). It took me a year to write both books. Then I stopped writing for a long time, as I went to college and got busy in other things.

But then I read Divergent. Probably the first book series I really fangirled over. I got to about page 50 in this book, and then… I read the rest of this book, Insurgent, and Allegiant in two days. I remember going to bed crying and heartbroken at 4 AM.

But at the same time, I thought “this is fiction. I’m not going to take this ending.” So the next day, I discovered fanfiction. I didn’t start writing it right away… and I really have to admit, I’m not very impressed by my first effort now. But my recent Divergent fusion fanfic with the next fandom turned out okay…

Legend cover

If we magically teleport forward to 2016, we’ll find the Legend fandom, which I’ve written the most fanfiction for to-date. My husband had to go to the hospital one evening (fairly routine for us because of his sickle cell anemia) and I had just reread Legend, and I thought, “what did happen to Day and June after Champion?” This was before Life after Legend or the Legend 4 announcement. I didn’t want to leave it at that, so I wrote my first Legend fanfic and… didn’t finish it. I only wrote 14 chapters.

Never fear, I got a note last February from someone who wanted to read the end of my story. I was missing writing by then, so I finished it. And I started writing more stories, in multiple fandoms. Which led to me starting my first original novel for last NaNoWriMo.

Young Elites cover

I write fanfiction because I want to tell a story about the existing characters that I already love. I fell in love with Adelina and Magiano. They’re so sweet together! After I read the ending to The Midnight Star, I didn’t want to leave it at that, but I saw a glimmer of hope at the end. So I started writing Saving Adelinetta. It’s on haitus at the moment, but so far it’s at over 68,000 words, and I have about 1/3 of the book left to write.

I also have a cute little modern-day AU that I set aside for NaNoWriMo where Adelina and Magiano meet over World of Warcraft. I was originally planning on a longer work, but I think this will make a cute short story. I can always write a sequel later. As a short story, I might be able to get this out in a month-ish. My non-fanfic work is taking priority though.

Carve the Mark cover

I just love Akos and Cyra from Carve the Mark! They’re perfect for each other. I was a little wary of The Fates Divide, especially with the tagline “He’d Die for Her, She’d Kill for Him” but I was pleasantly surprised about that end. So… I never felt the need to write a long novel or novella about these two, but I did write a very short story (only 618 words) about what happens to these two about five years after the end of the story. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I have to write more about their story, but you never know. I get ideas from the strangest of places.

City of Bones Cover
Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key cover

The last story I’ve actually written was a strange combination of fandoms that I’ve never written about before: Clary and Jace from the Mortal Instruments run into Brenna and Patrick from Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key while they are being chased by a demon. Clary, thinking that she’s going to get them to someplace safe and planning on getting backup, accidentally teleports them to the universe of the story that I’m writing. And then they have to find their way home.

I’m not really comfortable writing much Shadowhunter’s fanfiction yet. There is so much to that universe, and I try to be very detail oriented with my fanfiction, so I haven’t written anything else yet. Although I do like to read Shadowhunter’s fanfiction.

Warcross cover

The final fandom that I love enough to write fanfiction about is Warcross… kind of. I loved this duology, and I have nothing more to say about this particular story at the moment… however…

Marie Lu said that Asher Wing is related to Daniel Wing from Legend. That got me thinking: “how did the Wing family go from Asher being this mega superstar to Daniel’s family being dirt poor?” And “Why is June named June when she was born in July?” So, although I haven’t written a word to this story yet, I’ve been kicking around this story, about Asher’s grandchildren/Day and June’s grandparents (different sets of grandparents… I’m not going to make them inbreeding cousins or anything) that answers these questions. It’s going to be mostly original characters with cameo appearances from some people from Warcross.

So that’s it! Fandoms I fangirl over so much I write/read fanfiction of them! On Friday (no, I don’t plan on making the Sunday edition a thing) I plan on writing about Dragons!

Wildcard was a Wild Ride!

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

Wildcard coverFinally, the wait is over!  Today was Wildcard‘s release day and I was so happy to get to read it.  The wait was worth it, though, it was a great book.

As with all of my reviews that deal with sequels, this may contain spoilers to the first book.

Our book starts right after Hideo downloads a program that takes away a person’s free will to commit crimes.  This causes some trouble right off the bat.  People are turning themselves in for crimes they committed but got away with, crime was prevented… wait, how could that cause problems?  We don’t all have the same standards about what is right and wrong.  Some countries have different laws that they want enacted.  Other wealthy people want exceptions for them (isn’t that the way the world works?).  To quote page 106 “Everyone’s going to want something different from Hideo.”

Emika quickly finds herself getting tangled up with Zero.  For a long time here, it’s hard to figure out who is the bad guy and who is not.  Hideo is trying to do something good by ridding the world of crimes like those that caused him to lose his brother, while Zero wants people to be able to make their own choices.  There seemed to be nobody in this book that had power that was actually good.

Time is ticking away for those that are trying to fix everything.  The beta version of the Warcross lenses (which Emika and most of the Warcross players have, and doesn’t take away your free will) will be upgraded on the final day of the Warcross season.  Emika must rely on her friends (and put faith into people she’s not so sure of) in order to figure out what’s going on and how to set things straight before the lenses upgrade and nobody has free will anymore.

Eventually, we find out the truth… which I won’t give away… but I really wasn’t expecting that.  There is a satisfying ending to it all.

One of the things that I’ve loved about the Legend series and The Young Elites trilogy were the love relationships.  I’m a big Day/June and Adelina/Magiano fan.  While this book does have a love interest, it’s a fairly minor part of the storyline, and I was fine with that.  The Warcross/Wildcard story takes place over a span of only a few months, while Legend and The Young Elites both cover a time span of over a year, so perhaps it is more realistic for the characters to not develop a deep love for each other anyway.

This book caused me to feel anger and happiness and cry, sometimes all in the same chapter.  In chapter 20, we find out what actually happened to Sasuke, and I found myself thinking, “oh, that’s sad.  Oh, how sweet.  I’m in tears now.  I’m so angry!” And then shock.  Later on, in chapter 32, I was really tearing up.  Especially when they were talking about loved ones… about how Emika missed her father and she says “And that’s when I realize that, at the end, we’d all wish for the same thing.  Just a little more time.”  I was thinking of my grandma as I read that:  how she seemed to be in remission from cancer, and then one day I got a phone call, and the next day she was gone.

The book says a lot about artificial intelligence and computer technology, and delves into some of the issues that we may have to deal with in the very near future.  Ray Kurzweil believes that one day we’ll be able to upload ourselves into the cloud and live forever that way.  Is that something we want to do?  Is that life?  Do we live on in people’s memories?  What role should technology play in our lives?  These questions popped up in my mind as I was reading Wildcard.

This was a great story that I highly recommend.

Previously on this blog, I reviewed Warcross.

Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t)

By Brookelorren on 34 Comments

Today is Top Ten Tuesday, sponsored by That Artsy Reader.  Today’s theme is Series I’ve Given Up On, but since I don’t really have many of those, I’m modifying it a bit, and am doing Series I Want to Finish Someday (And One I Don’t).  Since a lot of the series that I have been reading have recently finished, I don’t have a full 10 to give you, but I’ll give you what I have.

Ace of Shades CoverI just recently finished reading Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody (I hope to review it next week).  This is the first book of a planned trilogy.  Since the other two books in the series aren’t out yet, I can’t exactly read them yet.

I don’t know if I will buy the follow-on books or get them at the library yet, however.  I only paid $1.99 for the first book on my Kindle; although I do plan on reading the remaining books in the series, I don’t know if it’s a book I want to read over and over and over again, like some of the books that I buy.

City of Bones CoverCity of Bones is a series that I am currently on the waiting list for at the library.  I’m currently #7 on the waiting list for the next book, City of Ashes.  At some point I’ll get to the top of the waiting list and I’ll probably review a bunch of books from these series in quick succession.

While I didn’t give this book a five-star review, I did enjoy it, and (I peeked ahead) I’ve read some excerpts from her later books and am looking forward to getting to them.  Someday…

An Ember in the Ashes CoverAn Ember in the Ashes is the first book of Sabaa Tahir’s tetralogy.  I just read her first three books for the first time this month, and I absolutely love them!  I’m looking forward to the last book coming out next year, especially since the characters are still in distress, and I’m hoping that Ms. Tahir helps them save themselves and at least lets them be a little happy (if not, there’s always fanfiction).

I definitely plan on pre-ordering this one as soon as it becomes available.  Since the last book in the series A Reaper at the Gates, just came out, I don’t know when that will be.

Warcross coverWarcross is the first book in Marie Lu’s latest series.  I pre-ordered this on April 10th this year (only reason I know is because it was the day that The Fates Divide came out, which was another book that I eagerly looked forward too).

Out of the three series that I’m looking forward to reading, this is the one that I’m looking forward to the most.  Fortunately, I only have to wait until September to read it (less than 3 months now!).

The One Series I Don’t Plan on Continuing…

I won’t say that I will never read the rest of the Illuminae series, but I don’t have any plans to do so any time soon.  If I do continue reading these, it will not be on the Kindle.

This book was really difficult to read on my Kindle.  The concept is pretty cool.  There are different files to read, and it is very graphic.  It doesn’t translate to the Kindle well at all, because I wasn’t able to resize the pages, making it hard to read.  There were graphic pages where the words swirled around, which were also difficult to read on a Kindle.

I think what disappointed me the most about Illuminae, however (the Kindle visual problems are quite easy to fix by reading these books in hardback) was how in the very middle of the book, the story completely pissed me off.  I can’t say why without giving away spoilers, but I went to google the ending in order to find out whether it was worth finishing or not; even then, I put down the book, went to bed, and finished it the next day.

As far as I know, the next books aren’t continuations of this story, but tell the story from a different angle, I don’t think I’m going to finish.  I’m not interested enough to continue reading this book at the moment.

Warcross: The Best Book I Read in 2017

By Brookelorren on 22 Comments

Warcross coverIt isn’t often that you can say that a book was the best book you read that year.  In fact, you can only say that about one book a year.  Warcross, by Marie Lu was the best book that I read in 2017.

The whole premise of Warcross, for me, was exciting.  A book about gaming and hacking and tracking down criminals?  Yes, please!  I already knew that Marie Lu could write in more than one genre and make them good: j’adore the dystopian world of 100 years from now in Legend (words in English can’t even express how much I love it, so I have to switch to French 😉 ), and the medieval fantasy world of The Young Elites was amazing too.  A book about a hacking bounty hunter should be great as well, right?

I was not disappointed.  Warcross kept me enthralled from the first chapter until the end.  Then I wanted more.

The main character, Emika Chen, is an amazingly complex character, like so many of the other characters that Lu has created.  Emika is brilliant, but she can’t use her genius to create a comfortable life for herself because she has a criminal record.  Before you go on judging her for that, you have to read the book, because there’s a really good reason for it.  Her past has been difficult, really for no fault of her own, and you just want to root for her and wish for her best.

In this world, everybody likes to play a game called Warcross.  It’s not only a virtual world where you can hang out and chill, it’s also a world where you can join a team and battle against other teams.  Like the real-world game of Overwatch (which my daughter likes to play) there are professional teams that people will root for; only in this book, Warcross is way more popular than Overwatch.  Everybody is involved.  Warcross is so integrated in society that your level in Warcross can determine whether you can get into fancy restaurants (much like the real-life social scoring program, Zhima Credit, can get you perks in China).

In this world, Emika is on the verge of homelessness.  In a moment of desperation, she initiates a hack that will change her life forever.

As she tries to hack into the International Warcross Championships, she accidentally is seen by nearly everybody in the world.  Whoops.

She thinks she’s in trouble.  The creator of Warcross, Hideo Tanaka (whom Emika has been fangirling after for years), gives her a call.  He wants her to come to Tokyo.  This creates one of the best lines in the book:

“I’d love to, but my roommate and I are actually about to get evicted from our apartment tomorrow, so…”

A billionaire that you’ve been fangirling over for years wants to meet you in Tokyo and that’s your reaction?  It seems like something I would say.  In fact, once when I was in Jack in the Box, my boyfriend said to me “let’s go get married” and my response was “I thought we were going to go buy a computer today.”  We ended up getting married, and never did go buy that computer, LOL.

Instead of getting in trouble, Emika gets a job.  She goes on adventures.  Finds danger.  Maybe finds love.  You’ll just have to read it to find out.

This book almost feels like it could happen in the next five or ten years.  Even today, there is a Dark Web.  There is an assassination market.  Artificial intelligence and virtual reality are already here, and they are getting better every day.  The world of Warcross is one that has all of these elements, which are already here, and are only getting more prevalent in our lives every day.

In addition to being a great book, Warcross asks ethical questions, although not overtly.  Is giving up freedom for security worth it?  Who determines right from wrong?  Should we let the powers that be keep us from doing what “they” think is wrong?  It’s not just a fun book, it’s a fun book that makes you think.

I don’t think I can say enough good things about this book.  If you haven’t read Warcross, get it now; and while you’re at it, pre-order Wildcard, which comes out September 18th.  While I can’t say that Wildcard will be the best book I read in 2018 (I haven’t read it yet, and there’s still 6 months left in the year), I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a great book as well.