Book #3 of 2015: The Planet Thieves

The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)

Book received free for review from Macmillan.



I can't remember the last time I did such a 180 on a book.

The story started out great: A space ship full of a regular crew and a team of cadets getting their first chance to go into space is attacked by an alien enemy. This enemy has refused all attempts at contact in the past, and seems bent only on destroying humanity. The writing seemed realistic and exciting at this point.

Then, maybe 40% into the book, we learned the cadets were all 8-13 years old. That made me frowny, as their actions thus far seemed very mature and experienced -- I would have bought them in the 18-22 range, with all the schooling and ground-training a crew getting ready to go into space would have by that point.

Then every single adult on the ship was killed, and these children had to take over the ship. Based on one single class about how all Earth spaceships work, these 8-13 year olds were not just successfully able to fly the ship, they took it into battle.

Up until this point in the book's history, no one had won a fight against the aliens. These kids beat a boarding party of more than a dozen of them...

Then we learned that these horrible aliens weren't so alien at all. ( Cut for spoiler, just in case this review somehow makes you want to read this book... )

At the 60% or so point, I started skimming, then I skipped to the end to read the last chapter. Everything I had guessed was right, and I had wished I had stopped reading it sooner.

Side note: This book was one of the first books I ever received to review, but I was so new at it, I hadn't realized that some offers came with deadlines. This was the first and only deadline I ever missed. Since I couldn't submit a review, I just never read the book, and it sunk to the very end, the last page, of my to read pile in my Kindle.

The Good Dinosaur

I've been in an odd mood lately. Bored as hell, but at the same time I don't feel like doing anything... thus I get even more bored. As the evening drew on and I continued to do nothing, I decided if nothing else, I could watch a movie. Not one single movie caught my interest though, so I picked the one I hoped I'd like: Good Dinosaur.

I had heard many bad things about the movie. I HATE (HATE HATE HATE) the ultra-fake character designs.


"What? You mean dinosaurs didn't really look like plastic toys?"

Thankfully all that set my expectations very, very low, so I ended up not hating the movie overall. I didn't like it, there's no way in hell I'd recommend it to anyone over the age of five or so, but I don't feel like writing an angry letter demanding two hours of my life back.

It had a few nice moments, very rare and very far in between. Most scenes with the human worked well. I did like the world they set up: dinosaurs never went extinct, so they evolved language and culture. Herbivore dinosaurs became farmers, while carnivore dinosaurs became ranchers. All mammals were "critters" -- pests. Cavemen included.

The highpoint of the movie was the voice actor who played the father t-rex. Mmm his voice made me all melty.

So all in all, the movie was a little sweet, but mostly it was shallow as a puddle. The character design was horrible, especially when the backgrounds were all realistic and beautiful.