 And now, time for me to boil for another 20 minutes while I make another video. What's up guys, my name is Glassfoot and this is a new type of video that I'm going to do every so often on the channel now. A book review. Because I like reading, I'm a massive fantasy nerd. I do read quite a bit, mostly through audiobooks and I know there are some of you out there right now who are going to tell me that that is not reading. Screw you. It counts. It is good enough for me. I am massive fans of books. I have only ever listened to the audiobooks for. My favorite book series, The Dresden Files I have never actually read a physical copy of the book. And I own a limited edition copy of the first book in the series, Stormfront. So yeah, don't tell me that this isn't my favorite book series because I've never actually read the books. I'm eventually going to be reading this actual book. And potentially reviewing it, I'm not sure. I've read through Dresden Files a bunch so I don't know if it's right for me to actually review them but I might, I don't know. Currently working my way again through the Harry Potter books. I read those a long time ago, haven't read them in a while. So it's really funny because I remember broad strokes what happens in the very specific events that I remember from the Harry Potter books. But like, there are also like smaller details that I don't remember. Partially because they were left out of the films which I've watched more frequently because it's easier for me to watch a movie than read a book. But all of that is beside the point. Today I want to talk about the book Peter and the Starcatchers. So Peter and the Starcatchers is a prequel to Peter Pan. Now, caveat here. It is not written by the guy who wrote the original Peter Pan. The guys that wrote it, I can't remember the names right now. I'll put them on screen somewhere. I'm assuming we're just big fans of it and wanted to give their take on how Peter came to the island, got his ability to fly, why he doesn't age, why the lost boys are there, the natives. Which is pretty much everything. Which is my assumption on how the book came to be. But the book follows Peter as four of his friends from the orphanage that he was a part of are being sent off to become slaves basically at this evil psycho king's court. But for the first trunk of this book, they're on a ship that is called the Neverland. And it's basically them trying to get food because they're being fed shit basically. Apparently they're being fed shit with live maggots in it, live rats and shit. Which... Yeah, I can understand why they would want good food. Over the course Peter discovers a trunk which has what is called throughout the book, star stuff. That is the world of these books' magic system. The star stuff, it can grant people the ability to fly, heal them, it can turn horses into centaurs, birds into fairies, fish into merfolk. The only mermaids actually appear in the book. Squids into apparently sea serpents, though I would have definitely gone with giant squid. Come on, they actually exist. That would have been amazing. Heh, the Lochmas monster apparently. But I personally really liked that magic system. With it being an otherworldly being, that isn't really understood by anyone. They just know what it can do overall. So, even the people that know how to use it still fumble in using it overall. Very, very fun. I personally love magic systems like that. Like soft magic systems where it's not really explained beyond it can do the thing. Personally, I'm a huge fan of those. I also love hard magic systems, but a good soft magic system I think always works. And in Peter and the Starcatchers, the soft magic system really, really worked for me. Again, I'm just magic in general fantasy. I'm a huge fan of. So, if you have a good system that works within your story, I'm all there for it. And I've gotten off track from the characters. But other than Peter and his mates basically trying to survive along the ship, you have Molly, who is the daughter and probably the most famous Starcatcher. And she's on the ship because political reasons. It's not really explained why she's on the ship. They say political reasons, but I can't help but thinking that the catchers had another reason for sending her on that ship as opposed to her being with her father. But that is all well beside the point. But you have her, which is really interesting. She gets a lot of Starcatcher stuff. She's the one that explains to Peter what the Starcatchers are. She explains to him how the Starcatcher stuff works, kind of. Again, soft magic system, so it's really hard to like... So there aren't a ton of rules. It's very loosey-goosey what this stuff can do. A personal favorite moment of mine that she does is she talks to porpoises multiple points throughout this book. And every time she does, she gives the customary greeting. But as opposed to saying hello, she says my teeth are green because she doesn't grasp porpoise completely. It's really funny to me personally that she just... she says my teeth are green over and over and over instead of what she means to say. But beyond her, you have the character of Slank, who he's the captain of the Neverland, effectively. And he doesn't get as much time until the latter half of the book because all of his really important bits kind of intertwine with Peter and Molly's up until the end or up until they're on Neverland. He is a very sleazy, conniving son of a bitch and he worked really, really well as this just major asshole. I'm not going to reveal that much about him but he is one of the bastard antagonists of this book. But speaking of antagonists, the other antagonist that we have in this book is the one that we all know and love Peter Pan's greatest enemy Black Stash. So you know how in Peter Pan Hook has that mustache? Well, according to this book, before he lost his left arm and became Hook, he was known as Black Stash. The one thing he kept groomed about himself was his black mustache that he basically described as he just did what he does with it in the movie where it's like, all thin out to here. But he's a pirate and he is also after the star stuff because, you know, of course he is. It's not explained how he heard about the star stuff. It's implied that he's one of the others but it's not really explained how he knows about it, especially because there are a couple characters comment that he shouldn't have known about it which I personally find hilarious that he just knows everything. But yeah, no, Hook, Black Stash in this book is pretty much how Hook is always. Great bastard. He doesn't give a shit about his crewman. He's perfectly willing to sacrifice them if it means that he'll get nudge. He's very, very willing to just, to just massacre an entire ship by starvation. I think he steals a ship and he literally leaves the crewman of the ship on his old ship when he takes over the new ship because you know, it's easier to let them die. He swings his sword at his own crewmates at multiple points. He throws two of his fatter men overboard because their weight will slow down the ship. Yeah, right, their weight's not going to be that incremental in your shit, jackass. But it makes a very believable villain. He's not necessarily the most believable villain, but I believe he's Hook. A personal problem that I had with the movie Pan is Hook did not feel like Hook to me. Hook has always come off as this sleazy bastard of a character who will do anything to get ahead, lie to anyone, lock them up, kill whoever gets in his way, and while I love Hugh Jackman, his portrayal of Hook didn't feel right to me. He didn't feel like the bastard that I know Hook to be personally. So it just felt odd. But this book, it felt like Hook and so I personally liked it. This book also explains who the native tribesmen on the island of Neverland are. It also explains where the fuck the giant ass crock comes from because, holy crap, you know, the crocodile is the scariest thing on the island, hands down. Yeah, Peter and the Starcatchers, like I said, is a prequel to Peter Pan. I know that there are two more books after this, Peter and the Shadow Thieves and Peter and the Something Roller. This is the only one that I've actually read. When I was in fifth grade, it got read to me in English class and I remember really enjoying it then and I thought I'd read it again now, see if it's still holed up, at least for me and personally I think it did. I enjoyed the plot, I enjoyed the characters, I thought the story flowed and it makes sense overall. The explanation of how Neverland came to be the magical island that it is, how Peter doesn't age, how he can fly, how he got his mates, the Lost Boys onto the island as well, why they're there with him, where Tinkerbell came from. All of that is explained in the book and while some people might not enjoy that, I personally thought that it worked really well and I thought it was a lot of fun but yeah, if you're a fan of Peter Pan I would probably suggest picking a book and give it a go. If it's not for you, it's not for you, I'm not going to fault anyone if they don't think it's for them but I loved it, I very much enjoyed it and if you pick it up you probably will as well. Hey guys thank you so much for watching the video, I know this is a little bit different, this felt a little bit odd for me to do, I've never tried reviewing a book before so that's new. If you want, leave a comment down below, tell me how I did, if you thought I did good, what I can improve on when it comes to reviewing books and what not, just your general thoughts. If you'd like to follow me on Twitter or Instagram, links to both of those are going to be in the description down below as always. If you'd like to watch more reviews from me, my playlist of critical reviews of movies that I watch, playlist is going to be right here, some of the videos are going to be right there but that's all that I have, have a great day guys and as always peace out.