Review: Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Dead Reckoning--Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
June 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
336 pages--Goodreads

Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why?

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A steampunk, wild west, zombie horror, gender bender adventure.  A book like this will either do really well or fail miserably.  Thankfully, Dead Reckoning did not fail.  It's nothing terribly serious, just a fun romp through all the genres.  It's not too gory, even for a zombie book.  No unnecessary romances.  Just sleuthing and sciencing and exploding, and escaping and actually very little gun slinging.  It is quick paced, easily read in just a day or two.

The characters are fun.  Jett is strong and lives her disguise.  She is always the gambling gunslinger outlaw.  Only every now and then does her femininity manifest, like when she fusses over her horse when he returns unharmed after a run in with zombies.  Gibbons is annoyingly committed to science and rationality even when the pursuit of science could get her killed, but that's what makes her fun.  White Fox, he actually isn't really fleshed out.  Side note complaint:  Why didn't Lackey and Edghill just make White Fox Native American?  I get the whole child-of-two-worlds-so-he-belongs-to-neither thing.  But seriously, why not just make him Native American?  Gibbons and Jett would have been fine with it.  Does the entire cast have to be white?  Don't start going off on whether it would be plausible or not; you have zombies, for crying out loud!  Plausibility no longer applies.

There is some major villain monologuing explaining just exactly how and why he accomplished his master scheme.  That could have been handled more skillfully.  And some loose strings are left hanging.  You inject Jett with a vial full of poison and we're not ever going to address that again?  That should have some effect on her even if it doesn't kill her.

Dead Reckoning is genre blending done well.  It's not the book for you if you're looking for a pure western or pure steampunk or a pure zombie horror, but it's a light combination of all three.  I see potential for sequels and would probably have to pick them up.

Review: Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale

Rapunzel's Revenge--Shannon and Dean Hale
Illustrated by Nathan Hale
August 2008 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
144 pages--Goodreads

Once upon a time, in a land you only think you know, lived a little girl and her mother . . . or the woman she thought was her mother.

Every day, when the little girl played in her pretty garden, she grew more curious about what lay on the other side of the garden wall . . . a rather enormous garden wall.

And every year, as she grew older, things seemed weirder and weirder, until the day she finally climbed to the top of the wall and looked over into the mines and desert beyond.

Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale teams up with husband Dean Hale and brilliant artist Nathan Hale (no relation) to bring readers a swashbuckling and hilarious twist on the classic story as you’ve never seen it before. Watch as Rapunzel and her amazing hair team up with Jack (of beanstalk fame) to gallop around the wild and western landscape, changing lives, righting wrongs, and bringing joy to every soul they encounter.

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Rapunzel's Revenge is a lot of fun.  I love the western/fairytale mash up, though that setting takes a little getting used to.  Rapunzel is great.  No damsel in distress, she is proactive in rescuing herself from towers, sea serpents, and giant henchmen.  I love the little touches of tomboyishness the illustrations give her, like leaves in her hair after she has been climbing trees.  Jack is also a lot of fun.  He is shameless, but lovable.  He's a scoundrel and a thief without being a jerk.  Like Han Solo, but less rude.  He and Rapunzel play well off each other.

I love the little chunks of humor sprinkled here and ther, things like Jack saying, "We'll have to wait until nightfall," and in the next frame the narrator textbox says "Night fell."  Little quirky things like that make the book not take itself too seriously.

This is not the book you're looking for if you want a complex villain or developed relationship between Mother Gothel and Rapunzel.  I love the mother-daughter dynamic in Tangled, but that is not part of this book.  And I'm okay with that; it's out of the scope of this particular retelling.

Some reviewers have said the plot is too slow before Rapunzel escapes from her tower.  I can agree that the story picks up that once Jack comes in and Rapunzel starts lassoing things with her hair, but I liked the backstory.  Either way, it's a graphic novel, so it's a quick read.  The plot does feel a bit disconnected as we move from one adventure to the next, but it each adventure is still fun.

Rapunzel's Revenge is a fun, quick read, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.