Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mathemagics is pretty good., November 19, 2001
Okay, so the characters are a little uni-dimensional, and the storyline kind of meanders, but aside from all that it's a pretty good book for light reading. I liked the subtle in-jokes about popular science fiction that Margaret Ball threw in. Some of them sailed clear over my head, thanks to my not being a rabid reader of hard sci-fi, but the ones I got had me chuckling out loud. I like Reva Konneva's live-in boyfriend Dennis and his brainy (instead of brawny) heroics and the fact that he's got a huge collection of science fiction books. I like the fact that Reva's daughter Salla is such a precocious and spunky little kid who can do just about anything with an enchanted Palm Pilot and three spare minutes. And for all their one-dimensionalness, every one of the characters is pretty darned unique. For example, Reva's friend, mother of an ADHD child, who takes it all in matter-of-fact stride on discovering Reva is a warrior woman from another dimension. Or the ADHD child (my apologies to Ball, I cannot for the life of me remember his name at the moment -- was it Jason?? -- sorry, it's been a while) who notices everything when he's off medication and consequently is able to provide Reva and Salla with crucial clues to stopping the evil bad guys. Or Reva herself, tough, no-nonsense, and naive all at the same time, who takes it as a compliment when a bunch of knife-wielding thugs try to jump her (key word here is 'try') in her own living room.
One thing that pulled the book down, however, was an odd attempt to bring more serious matters to light with an underdeveloped child sexual harassment subplot. It's a serious issue, but the rest of the book was so light and fun that that part of the story was really out of place. Aside from that, everything was fantastic.
I picked up this book because I'd read the short stories about Reva Konneva in the Chicks 'n Chainmail series and I thought the book version would prove to be as interesting. I didn't expect any greater depth or a huge amount of development; I just wanted a bigger dose of Reva Konneva and her unique perspectives on the Planet of the Paper-Pushers. I was looking for light humor, fun characters, fairly simple solutions to complicated problems, and great entertainment. And that's what I got! A+
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Subtle As A Sledgehammer, December 13, 1999
By A Customer
I had high expectations for this book after reading Ball's short stories with the same characters in the 'Chicks in Chainmail' series of anthologies. That's probably why I felt so betrayed. The Riva short stories are fun to read, lighthearted romps. This one isn't any of those things.You've got good guys: Riva, the warrior woman who commutes to Austin from another dimension for the good schools, her daughter, her teacher boyfriend. And you've got bad guys -- her wizardly ex, various bad teachers, and a Fundamentalist preacher who wants to remove pretty much everything from school textbooks. You don't have to hang around pondering who the good guys and bad guys are. The good guys have no faults, except the occasional low self-image. The bad guys, on the other hand, have no virtues. Ever. The fundie preacher especially. About midway through the book, with no motivation, he's revealed to be a felon. It's certainly true that incest is a particularly disgusting crime which deserves public awareness and concern. However, making it the latest rubberstamp marker for villains -- the modern equivalent of twirling moustaches and tying maidens to railroad tracks -- is not a good way to raise consciousness. Especially in a book billed as light comedy, and especially when minimal contact with a fantasy universe makes the problem completely go away like, well, magic. Parent and student problems with public schools are handled with only slightly more tact and understatement. There are a few fun scenes which hark back to the short stories, but you have to sit through a lot of preaching (in the secular sense) to get to them.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great light fantasy, June 25, 1999
By A Customer
After reading about Reva in the 'Chicks in Chainmail' books, I was glad to see that she had her adventures continued in a novel. This book is very tongue in cheek and does get a bit cliche at times. With this book, it's better not to think too much and just let it take you along. True, this book isn't the most intellectual (except maybe for the chapter numbers), but it's very entertaining. And if you study the appendix in which the chapter numbers are explained, you might learn something!
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