The author described this book as wanting to experience what Guardian’s of the Galaxy felt like. If he meant a wild ride with a fast-paced plot and a varied collection of aliens working together, then I think he succeeded. The story is principally a story about a collection of three aliens who work on the same ship. One is a human from Earth (Max) who accidentally stepped on a portal and got teleported to a…
This book popped up on my “recommended reading list” on Amazon and I read the preview. I am a big fan of military SF and the first three chapters hooked me in, so I bought it. I ended up reading it in one day while on a quick start of summer vacation. The book is action packed, following the exploits of a young space marine, Cam Alvarez, who joins up to avoid a lengthy “hibernation”…
I decided to review these two together, having read the first of the series about a month and a half ago. Overall, I really enjoyed this trilogy. It was good “fluff” reading, by which I mean, I could read it during an extremely busy time at work and still get a good story out of it. The main character, Hail Bristol, is a former gunrunner who has now become the empress of Indrana. But her…
This book has received an enormous amount of press (at least I’ve seen a lot) and accolades for a first novel, so I went in expecting to really love it. There is a lot to like about this book, but I found some aspects of it less convincing. This book is set in a universe (possibly even our universe) that has bubbled off smaller universes at its growing edge. these universes are covered by “rinds,”…
It was bittersweet to finish the book today. I really love this world, and you could sort of begin to see how he was going to tie it all up and end the novel (and series) about halfway through. That is when my interest began to peak, and I read the last 150 pages or so in one sitting… I wanted to know how it ended! I felt less connected to this book than the…
This story opens with a trope that I’ve been told you should never do… the POV character wakes up in a sleep/med pod and struggles to survive. I suppose that the lesson here is that “never” means that it needs to be done well. I have a story where my main POV character also wakes up in a sleep/med pod, but as I’ve thought about that story over the years, I realize it isn’t essential…
This book hooked me right in. A salvage crew is working on a wreck in orbit around a planet and they find something that gets right into their minds. Only later do we find out the truth. The main character is a non-citizen, an indenture, working to free herself to become a free citizen, but she has a terminal illness that she is trying to hide from her captain and crew, but it might be…
I read this novella on a short weekend getaway in the desert near Mono Lake. I had no idea what to expect, having read nothing about this book, but I saw the author speak at the Dream Foundry con earlier this year and I figured I would like her writing based on what I heard there. This is a space exploration story which is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about the future of the human race,…
This novella is by Nnedi Okorafor, known for Africanfuturism. This is a term she coined because she did not agree with how her work was being portrayed in reviews. She states on her website that “Africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. Africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative.” This was probably the first book I have ever read where…
This book is the first of a trilogy by Card and Johnston that predates Ender’s Game by about 100 years. I am going to assume that you have read Ender’s game, but like all my reviews, there will be no spoilers. This was a good book. Not as good as the original but it sets up the Formic wars. Very early in the book, an object is seen /decelerating/ towards the Earth from outside of…