Sean Cummings

Give me pulp cowboy-mafia fiction, but make it sci fi - thanks! You would think that, considering my tastes, there’s no way that I would be into the ridiculous mash-up of genres that is Cowboy Bebop, but somehow I can’t get enough of Spike Spiegel and his motley crew of space age bounty hunters! Sean Cummings went a little bit off book with this story, since it is far removed from the original manga/anime storylines, and takes us back to a time before Spike was the man we know. In this story, we see him during his era as Fearless, cleaner/gopher for the Red Dragon Cartel and partner in arms to Vicious, his later rival. It’s definitely a bit weird to see the two men as comrades, but Cummings does a decent job of painting a gritty but brilliant picture of their time in the slums of Mars as low level mafiosos. Considering that we don’t get a lot of their backstory in any of the original Cowboy Bebop, it was fun to see a base storyarc building towards the events of the Netflix live action series that seemed pretty plausible. Cummings stayed on brand with an action-packed storyline, fight scenes that skewed towards the ridiculous, and a well-balanced blend of high- and low-tech – all of which continues to make the franchise so unique and appealing. Even if his writing was a little scripted and camp, it’s an easy thing to forgive within the Cowboy Bebop universe, since high brow style writing would seem out of place, and we are looking instead towards driving storylines and light character development for our kicks. It’s too bad that the Netflix series that got this book published tanked with viewers, and this ended up being the only associated novelization, since I actually quite enjoyed the easy action of the story and revisiting one of my favourite anime settings. Until they decide to remake it again I guess this is it… see you, Space Cowboy!… (altro)

This book felt a little bit younger than what I usually read but it was enjoyable. It was kind of like Nancy Drew meets Veronica Mars. Cummings had some really good dialogue and humor in the story. Plus, there were some geeky references thrown in that had me laughing. I liked Julie and Marcus a lot and thought that they seemed like normal teenagers. I would like to see how the characters grow in future books (which I assume there's going to be more). I'm also really digging the relationship between Julie and her mother. You can tell that there's going to be more there. I liked that she's an actual mother to Julie and tries to protect her instead of be Julie's best friend. And Julie really wants her mother's approval. That desire to please her mother is what got Julie involved in the mess in this book to begin with.

Cummings has a lot of room to grow with this series and the potential for character and world development is there. This is a good building block for what could become a great series.… (altro)

This review can also be found on my blog The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-Something Year Old Girl.

Poltergeeks by Sean Cummings was such a light, refreshing read. I won this book off of a blog competition, and I'm so glad I did. I absolutely loved it!

Julie Richardson is a 15 year old witch. She's her mother's apprentice. However, when her mother's soul is stolen by something evil, Julie must step up and try to do everything in her power to save her mother. In the process, she is also putting her own life in danger as an evil poltergeist is after her, one who hates witches. This poltergeist will stop at nothing to make sure Julie is dead.

I love the title to this book. I don't think it suits the book 100%, but it's a funny title. I don't really understand where the geek bit comes in as there was no mention of any kind of geek. Julie's best friend Marcus is a bit of a geek but that's about it.

The cover of the book is awesome! I think it matches the story very much. Julie looks to be levitating (which she seems to do a lot in this book against her will), and she's got her trusty amulet that helps her to focus her magic. The cover of this book reminds me of the scene when she's in the old lady's house trying to rid it of poltergeist activity.

I love the pacing of this book!! It kept my attention throughout every chapter. I don't think there was one chapter where I felt bored. The pacing of the book is on track all the way through.

The world building and setting were great. I loved how it took place in a normal town in normal Canada. The setting of the high school where the poltergeist activity takes place is my favourite. =)

The dialogue was easy to understand. However, there are quite a bit of swear words in this book so be warned if you're not big on swearing. I don't think there were too many swear words, nothing over the top or anything. I think the swearing fit in with how 15 year old kids would talk.

I loved all the characters!!! Julie was such a funny character, and I mean funny in the haha sense. I loved her comic timing!! I thought it was brilliant. I loved how Marcus was always into his science how how shocked he was when he couldn't scientifically explain the paranormal goings-on. Betty brought in some humour as well, and I thought she represented a guardian quite well. As for Marla, I don't really like the way the author portrayed her as the stereotypical goth. I've always been irked when goths are stereotyped so that's one thing that got on my nerves.

The plot was really good. I felt it was semi-original as well. It was a bit predictive though, and I already had it figured out who the bad guy was, but it was still a great story nonetheless.

Overall, I felt that Poltergeeks was a great read, and I'd definitely recommend it for those ages 15 . I'm looking forward to the second book in the series coming out!

I'd give this book a 4.5 out of 5.… (altro)