#11: Artemis Fowl

Because I did see "Scoob!" and it was not worth watching besides looking very good.

But WHOOOOO BOY WE'RE FINALLY HERE.

After more than 15 years in development hell, Artemis Fowl is finally a movie!

And it is-


It just is.

Book Look: Queen's Peril By E.K Johnston

Yes, a sequel (prequel) to last year's "Queen's Shadow".

First, the first 60 pages alone focuses on the points of view of;

• Panaka
• Palpatine
• Sidious
• Obi-Wan
• Tsabin
• Padme
• Padme's Parents
• Each of the handmaidens as they're picked for the position
• Shimi Skywalker
• Maul
• Mariek Panaka (Whom I actually love and wish we saw more of)

The book is called "Queen's Peril", not everybody else. I do remember that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are involved with Naboo during the events of whatever stupid bullshit they were dealing with. The only acceptable POV outside of Padme's would be Tsabin (Sabe).

It feels like even the author was bored by the Trade Federation nonsense because it appears out of nowhere. I've always had the idea that George created it but no one else knew what the fuck he was getting at, and so here we are.

The problem is we know (Somewhat) about the actions of Phantom Menace. We didn't need to hear it again. If this was about the second year of Padme's reign after that, it would be more tolerable.

And that's all this book is; Tolerable. I didn't think the first one was the best Star Wars novel or anything, but it did give us new insight.

Book Look: The Poppy War by R.F Kuang

It almost has the same problems as "Songbirds" - The establishing 2/6ths is great, then there is a lot of slogging for about 250 pages. And this book is about 580 pages long.

I have no idea if we can call this a YA novel, simply because of all that happens. There are graphic depictions of drug use, murder, torture, rape, and while it's not every other page, it does hit you hard when you read it.

This is essentially a book about war and mythology, and I'm glad there was no shying away from the war aspect. It was made clear that Rin, the main character, could be sold off to some old man to be a child bride. No shying away from it, no "we have to use coy language".

It took me weeks to read it because there is just so much of everything besides the actual violence. The explanations. The inner monologue. It started off so well and now I'm just going "Where is an editor?"