Category Archives: Reviews

books, Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, Zombies

Z2134 by Sean Platt and David Wright

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Stars: 1 out of 5

This is the second book I try by these authors, and I am less then impressed once again. Though to tell the truth, this seems to be a reprint of a much earlier work, which is probably why it is so bad. I mean, I gave Pattern Black 2 stars where this one barely scrapped a single one.

This book is tries very hard to be a cross between 1984, The Hunger Games, and the Walking Dead. Unfortunately, it does this very poorly, so neither of those three components really work. On a personal note, I was there for the zombies. Unfortunately, there are too little zombies in this book. They barely serve as a plot device. So that added to my disappointment with the book. If you come to it with a different lens, you might enjoy the battle of the “little man” against the tyrannical regime. I didn’t.

Probably because those parts of the story are also rather poorly realized. Subtle this book is not.  The author has to telegraph every action, every plot point, and every plot twist in the book. It’s like he doesn’t trust the reader to get it, unless he is hammered on the head with it. This gets annoying really fast. I can get a hint. I don’t need everything spelled out for me. 

It also devalues the events in the book, because that plot twist about City 7? That could have had such a big impact if it wasn’t telegraphed from a high mountain several chapters ago.

I also couldn’t care less about the characters, so nothing that happened to them was particularly shocking to me. I know I was supposed to root for Jonah in the Darwin Games, but I didn’t know him from Adam at that time, so I didn’t really care if he won or if Bear killed him. Honestly, the little we had of Bear’s backstory made him a lot more compelling as a character. And the least said about Ana, the better, because she is a typical YA dystopia heroine, and I stopped reading YA years ago precisely because I couldn’t stand that stereotype. 

I would also like to point out that this book is not a complete story. It ends in a cliffhanger. Nothing is resolved, nobody is saved or even achieved their goals. There is no resolution or even payout for investing hours of your time into this story. If you want to know what happens to the characters, you will have to pick up the next book, I guess. Unfortunately, I don’t care enough to do so.

PS: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, science fiction

Souldier (In the Shadows of Eternity 1) by Andrew Dahms

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Stars: 2 out of 5

DNF at 50%

I am honestly amazed at all the 5 stars reviews on Goodreads. Have I read a different book than everyone else? They talk about a good story and gripping action… Well, I had to force myself to read to halfway point, and I honestly saw neither. Maybe things get better in the second half of the book, but if I have to wait until then for the story to get interesting, something is wrong. Plus, I don’t have that much patience. 

I think the biggest problem is that the author doesn’t know how to show anything. All he does is tell. We have paragraphs upon paragraphs of descriptions of everything from buildings to uniforms, to what is happening to the character. But it’s all tell, tell, tell… I mean, he even managed to make the basic training sequence boring as fish. And it lasted way too long, by the way. I mean we are barely out of basic training and actually on the Line by the halfway mark. 

It doesn’t help that Vivian’s character is a non-entity. Because the author tells us everything instead of showing, we are never privy to her inner thoughts or find out how she actually feels about the things that are happening to her. I mean we have several chapters describing how grueling her basic training was, and how the drill sergeant did everything he could to break her… but that’s just words. I have no clue how she felt about it. I don’t see her exhaustion, her frustration, her determination to continue. None of that is there.

And why is she here anyway? Yes, she wants to find out what happened to Sally, but again, apart from what the author tells us, nothing shows us just how much she meant to the protagonist. Show us some flashbacks. Show us their interactions when they were friends. Show us how Vivian felt when Sally left to join souldier, or how she felt when she received the news of her friend’s death… then I will believe that she could drop everything and travel half the world away to seek some answers. As it stands, I don’t care.

And that’s the trend in this book. We are told that the characters are doing something or reacting to something, but we aren’t shown that. And often, we aren’t shown any reactions at all where there should be something. 

For example, when Vivian and her fellow enlistees are sent to help load and unload planes during the new wave, the pilot of one of them has a mental breakdown, literally saying that he brought his squad back in boxes. They were unloading coffins. Surely, there would be a reaction to that? We get nothing. No horror at the realization, no desperation, no fear even. Nothing but the description of how grueling it was to work for such long hours for several days. NOT the thing you want to put the accent on in this kind of story. That was a lost opportunity to immerse the reader in the world and show just how bleak the situation is. 

When I realized that at halfway mark the book wasn’t getting any better, and that I was just getting more and more frustrated with the writing, I gave up.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Reviews, science fiction

Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture 1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I love discovering a new series that I thoroughly enjoy and knowing that there are still at least two more books I can look forward to. Strangely enough, the only book by Tchaikovsky I have read before this one was One Day This all will be Yours, which is a novella about the consequences of time travel and a time war. And I had loved it as well, but I hadn’t tried his scifi series until I found this one on my TBR list. Well, Mr. Tchaikovsky, I’m a convert now. You write it – I will read it!

The premise of this book is interesting. Sixty years ago, humanity stood united with other alien species, locked in a desperate battle with an alien treat that destroyed entire planets in a matter of hours. They were desperate, they were on the brink of extinction, and all they could do was evacuate as many people as possible before the Architect showed up and destroyed yet another planet. Then an Intermediary, a specially modified human, managed to make contact with the vast consciousness of the Architect, and the Architect just… left. None has been seen since.

It’s been 60 years, and none of the desperate unity remains. humanity is squabbling for power and dominance. The war’s heroes are now humanity’s pariahs, mistrusted and hated by regular humanity. Who aren’t much fond of other alien species as well. Tempers are high, and the known galaxy is on the brink of yet another bloody war, until the crew of a small salvage freighter uncovers proof that the Architects might be back. Now the whole galaxy is after them, and not everyone’s intentions are friendly.

Most of the time, characters are what makes or breaks a book for me. I had been known to read stories with wobbly worldbuilding and giant plot holes because I was in love with the characters. I’ve also been known to walk away from a wonderfully constructed story with a lot of thought put into the structure of the world because the characters were one-dimensional or I simply couldn’t connect with any of them.

Fortunately, it’s not the case here. I LOVED the crew of the Vulture God! Idris was damaged and confused a lot of times, but loyal to his friends, and with a strong sense of what is right and wrong. And willing to die for humanity when that was needed. Solace was wonderful as this grizzled soldier who started caring about the crew of the Vulture despite herself. She could also relate to what Idris was going through because she experienced the war with the Architect first hand as well.  And I am still so  so salty about Rollo. That particular death really packed an emotional punch. 

This book answered some questions, but left a lot for the following books. Even though the wreak was a hoax, the Architects are back, and they will continue exterminating inhabited planets. Not because they want to, but because they have no choice. So all sentient life in the galaxy is in danger. Everyone would have to band together if they want to survive what’s coming. And the crew of the Vulture God will be right in the middle of it. And I will be along for the ride.

PS: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, science fiction

Wool Omnibus (Silo 1) by Hugh Howey

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

This book has been languishing on my TBR list since 2013. Thanks to the Cleaning out your TBR list challenge, I finally decided to read it, and I don’t understand why I waited so long. This is excellent storytelling and excellent science fiction. 

I loved how well thought out the world of Silo was. At no point in the story did I have to suspend my disbelief or cringe because the science didn’t add up. The author laid out the rules of his world and followed them rigorously throughout the story. And I love that. I am willing to suspend my disbelief when I pick up a book. Heck, that’s why I read science fiction and fantasy in the first place. But I need to believe in the world I am introduced to. I need to know the rules, and I need the author to follow those rules or have a good reason or explanation for breaking them. I’m glad Hugh Howey does all that and does it brilliantly.

I am also impressed with the large cast of characters introduced in these books. Some you love, some you love to hate, but none will leave you indifferent. Which hurts even more when the inevitable confrontation happens, and blood is spilled. I loved Juliette. She is a force of nature. No matter how dire her circumstances were, she never gave up, she always found a way to go forward. I was frustrated with Lucas, but I understood why he behaved like he did. He is not leader material. He had never wanted the responsibility, and the enormity of the secret IT was hiding pushed him almost to the breaking point. Solo really surprised me. He was mildly irritating when we first met him, but I guess he just really needed someone to take care of. It’s the solitude that drove him crazy. And of course, I loved to hate our main villain. And like all the best villains out there, he didn’t believe he was actually evil. In his mind, he was doing the good work to keep the silo safe and to burn out any signs of disease before it infected the whole silo. But by disease he meant any ideas that went against the doctrine he was taught.

The story is also very compelling and terrifying, to tell the true. The decision of one man to stop living with a lie and join his wife outside the silo has a snowball effect that creates an avalanche that almost destroys the whole silo and buries a lot of lives along the way. It also shows how small actions can quickly escalate to a point of non-return, and suddenly you are staring at the barrel of several guns wielded by people you used to eat dinner with in the same cafeteria, and now blood is spilling and people are dying. And you can’t even understand where things went so horribly wrong, and what you could have done to prevent it. 

While the ending gives a good resolution to the story started in this book, it still leaves a lot of questions. Like who are the people in Silo 1 who seem to dictate the policy for all other silos. Will Juliette be able to connect Silo 18 and Silo 17 and rescue Solo and the kids? What happens in other silos? Will there be retaliation for Silo 18 insubordination and killing of the head of IT? I am definitely picking up the next book to find out the answers!

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

A Murder of Crones (London Bones 2) by S.W. Fairbrother

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I am loving this series so far! The world is so unique and well-integrated. I mean, I can “see” something like that really evolving if supernaturals lived alongside us. 

The first book introduced the world and our protagonist and had her solve a murder mystery involving one of her co-workers. This book goes a lot more personal. It dives deep into Vivia’s childhood, and I can tell you that’s stuff nightmares are made of. We finally discover where the hags came from, who her mother was, and why her sister had to die. 

Since the story is more personal, it had more impact, at least on me, because I happen to like Vive as a protagonist. She tries really hard NOT to be like her mother. And seeing how Desma behaved with her daughters (and everyone else that wasn’t Desma for that matter), I can understand why. Had her family been fully human, child protective services would have taken the two girls away immediately and charged Desma with aggravated child abuse. But as it stands, nobody cares what happens to some supernatural kids. It’s a reminder of what often happens to children who aren’t part of the main demographic in our world right now, sadly.

I found Vive even more relatable in this book than in the first one. She is faced with impossible odds – trying to solve a decades old murder before her time runs out, and trying to undo the hex that is killing her sister… again. And to accomplish either of those things, she is forced to dig through her often painful past. Also, the revelation about the origins of the hags are rather heartbreaking. It’s horrible to discover that you were just a means to an end, that you were never loved by the person who created you.

And while I’m glad that this situation was resolved in a (sort of) happy ending, it seems to me that Vivia lost more than she gained in the end. She lost her mother, she all but lost her sister, and she lost her youth. Yes, she gained freedom, but that seems like a very high price to pay for that, especially since she was paying for the sins of her parents. Literally, as it turns out. 

I will be interested to see where the series goes in its final book. Now that Vive finally paid all the karmic debts her family had accumulated over the millennia, I would like to see her build a life for herself that is not dependent on her mother’s teachings and abuse. I want to see her happy and accomplished in what she does.

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

Equinox by David Towsey

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Stars: 3 out of 5

There is a fascinating premise in this book. What if all humans have two souls inhabiting one body? One has the reigns during the day, the other one during the night? And those are completely different people. They have different names and personalities. They want different things in life. They have different professions. Heck, most of them are even married to different people either night or day. Or married at night but single during the day. Or the night-brother had committed a crime and stays in prison during the night, but their day-brother is released to live their life every morning because it’s not fair to punish both souls for the mistakes of just one. 

Some people are lucky enough to live harmoniously with their night or day sibling. Some even hold the same profession on both sides of the ettienne. Others are not so lucky. In fact, it seems like a horrible way to live, if you think about it. You wake up every morning/night next to a stranger that your day/night sibling is married to. How awkward is that? It also seems like one sibling will be more dominant over the other.

Like in the case of our protagonist. The night brother is a special inspector, so his job takes precedence over his day brother who is a musician. When the inspector has to leave town on an investigation, the day brother has no choice but to follow, no matter how inconvenient that is for his professional and personal life. 

I would have loved to explore this fascinating world a bit more. Like what happens to the children of those married couples? If the night sister is the mother of the children, but the day sister is unmarried and leads a completely different life, who takes care of the children during the day? Especially when they are babies? Does the day sister have a choice in the matter or is she forced to care for them no matter what? Wouldn’t that create resentment between the siblings? Wouldn’t the children suffer because of that?

The mystery itself is rather complex and progresses at a very leisury pace. In fact almost half the book is setup, and even though the story picks up in the second half, it can still be a slog. There are also some leaps of logic that I found hard to follow. And some plot holes that were rather glaring. Like we are expressly told that the father packed up his family and left town after his wife was arrested. Yet, both the oldest and the youngest children are conveniently present to be sacrificed for the ritual. How did that happen? Also, where is the middle sister and the father? Also, this horrible murder of children isn’t even mentioned or addressed in any way afterwards. And the mother doesn’t express a single ounce of grief or regret over it. And that is the night-sister that gave birth and raised those children. 

All in all, it was interesting mostly for the unique concept and worldbuilding, but I wasn’t totally onboard for the story itself. And while I liked both Christophor and Alexander, I wasn’t as thrilled with the other characters in this book. And I would have loved a few more answers to the day-to-day conundrum that having two souls in one body represents, because from where I stand, this is the definition of hell.

PS: I received a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Reviews, Soft Science Fiction

Murder Under Another Sun by Colin Alexander

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DNF at 25%.

I expected a tight thriller and murder mystery in space. Instead I got a high school trip vs junkies story on a new space colony.

And the premise itself is so stupid that I simply can’t suspend my disbelief that much.

Instead of sending conducting an extensive geological, meteorological, and biological survey of the newly discovered planet, we will just throw a bunch of settlers on it and expect them to start a fully self-sustaining colony.

Oh and the first colonists will all be criminals with not many useful skills between them… and the second wave will be a group of boy and girl scouts barely out of high school. Surely they at least know how to operate the machines that will keep them alive and help build said colony? No? Cool, that’s cool.

That’s the perfect recipe for a successful colony! What can go wrong? Seriously, the person who came up with that mission plan on earth must have been high as a kite. End sarcasm.

Oh, and at a quarter of the book in, still no sign of the murder that is supposed to be at the center of this story. Sorry, I’m out.

PS: I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, science fiction

Hell Divers (Hell Divers 1) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

If you like fast-paced military scifi, then this book is right up  your alley. The action is non-stop and the stakes are high. Don’t get attached to characters, because not many will survive this literal hellscape. If the action is enough to entertain you, and you are willing to overlook some glaring plot issues, then you will love this book. And again, if you are here for the action, and don’t particularly care about good characterization, this is definitely your book.

Unfortunately, there are limits as to how much I am willing to suspend my disbelief. And the glaring plotholes in this book are bigger than the craters in Hades, sorry, Chicago. The war was 200 years ago. Since then Earth has been a radioactive husk blasted by giant electric storms. Are you telling me that any machinery or supplies survived that long in such a hostile environment and are still usable? They would be corroded beyond repair. At one point, the hell divers come across an electric lock panel… that still has juice… after spending two hundred years in a nuclear wasteland swiped by electric storms.

The whole societal structure inside the ship makes no sense either. You are telling me that the entire population of the Hive is 560-some people. You should have all hands on deck, working around the clock to keep the derelict ship functioning. You should have excellent education for everyone and cross-training, so that each person can perform several different functions inside the ship as needed. What do we have instead? A stratified society where the upper decks get all the perks, education, food, etc. and the lower decks are basically uneducated cattle. In what apocalyptic world does that make sense? Especially since it’s pointed out several times that the Hive and Ares are the last two ships afloat. Meaning, that’s it for humanity on Earth.

This brings me to the second complaint I have – the unnecessary plotlines. That whole insurrection storyline served absolutely no purpose. It accomplished nothing but take page time from other storylines. It also makes no sense. As I mentioned, there are only 560 people on board this ship. All of them should be needed to keep this thing afloat. So it is essential that everyone knows what’s going on so that problems can be addressed and troubleshooted. Instead, the captain and the upper decks upper class choose not to tell anyone that their ship is basically sinking and they might have days left to live unless hell divers pull out a miracle. This societal structure crumbles into dust with the barest amount of scrutiny. This ship wouldn’t have survived a year after the catastrophe, yet alone 200.

Finally, don’t get into this book if you are looking for believable characters, or even characters with more depth than skin surface. There aren’t any. Again, this is about on part for the military scifi genre, where most of the characters are just names on a page and inevitable cannon fodder.  This is also why I don’t usually read that genre. I like my protagonists with slightly more substance than a carboard cutout. But this is partly my fault. I misread the genre when I picked up this book. I thought it was a post-apocalyptical story, not a military scifi.

I will still probably check out the second book in the series, just because I already own it, but I doubt I will go past that.

books, Reviews, Romance, Space opera

Grimspace (Sirantha Jax 1) by Ann Aguirre

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Stars: 3 out of 5

This was a decent first book in a new series that kept me interested enough to read it in a couple days. I hadn’t realized that it was also a romance however, so that skewed my perception a little, because the older I get, the more cynical I get and the less tolerance for romantic tropes I have.

Our protagonist is likeable enough, and I truly feel for her. The trauma she went through, not to mention mental and psychological torture, as no joke. No wonder she is a hot mess for most of this book, unsure of what really happened on her last flight, wracked with guilt because everyone died and she survived. In fact, I would have loved for the author to explore this aspect a bit more in the book. As it is, the other characters kind of shrug it off. Yes, it’s horrible, now get over it and take us places. That was rather irritating.

Speaking of other characters, none of the other members of the Folly’s crew are developed sufficiently for me to care about them. In fact, they feel more like placeholders than real people. The butch mechanic with a foul mouth but secretly a heart of gold. The pacifist doctor who cares more about his experiments than people. The strange alien boy that suddenly imprints on our protagonist, etc. 

In fact, that last character was woefully underutilized. There could have been such a good story there. We could have explored their relationship, and how Jax would have had to cope with having someone dependent on her for his survival. As it stands, this storyline is downplayed, and the character is promptly disposed of, so we don’t get to witness character growth for either of them.

That was my other issue with this book. There are a lot of plotlines that were introduced… and them simply dropped after a few pages without rhyme or reason. Like the whole story with Baby-Z. Again, this was a storyline that was woefully underutilized. It could have served as a bridge of sorts between Marsh and Jax, having them care about an alien baby they inadvertently hatched. It would have made their developing relationship more organic. Instead – baby is gone and forgotten a few chapters later.

You could argue that those sudden deaths are there to reinforce Jax’s belief that she is toxic and that she destroys everything and everyone she touches, but that is the simple way out. 

That’s the biggest problem for me – this book seems to always take the path of least resistance when it comes to resolving its storylines, whether it’s the relationship between Jax and Marsh, or her guilt about the crash and death of her previous pilot and lover, or the situation with baby-Z. 

And let’s not even mention the ending of this book, because it’s laughable in its simplicity and wishful thinking. I’m sorry, but a megacorporation won’t fall apart just because of an unsubstantiated broadcast. Not when it has a monopoly on fast space travel. Yes, it’s a giant PR blunder, but that’s what the Corp has a PR Department for. Oh, and call me a cynic, but Jax and her friends wouldn’t have walked out of that building alive, or if they did, they wouldn’t have remained so for long.

All in all though, this book interested me enough to check out the rest of the series, mostly because the glimpses I got of the world are interesting and I want to learn more about Grimspace and why certain people can navigate it. And I also managed to cross another book off my TBR list.

books, Reviews, science fiction

Saturn’s Children (Freyaverse 1) by Charles Stross

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

What a fascinating idea for a story – what happens when mankind creates a whole civilization of intelligent robots and gives them the directive to colonize space and prepare it for human habitation… then dies out? Now we have a whole interstellar civilization of robots still fulfilling those directives, but their masters are long gone. And in case of Freya, whose sole purpose had been to be an escort and concubine to their dead masters, the lack of purpose becomes a full-blown existential crisis. Can robots get so depressed they become suicidal? Why yes, yes they can.

I found the worldbuilding fascinating. Humanity, with the help of their robotic slaves, managed to colonize the entire Solar system and even send starship toward the neighboring stars. Only humanity isn’t there anymore to reap the rewards of this conquest. What’s left behind is a horrifyingly brutal society of broken dolls who all had been conditioned to obey their human masters and where owning others is a commodity. The more slaves you have, the richer you are. It’s brutal and ruthless on a whole other level.

I understand why the idea of resurrecting a human being seems so terrible for some of them. Yes, their society is brutal right now, but at least some of them have free will and agency in their lives, unless they have a slave chip installed. Well, if humanity is resurrected from the ashes, EVERYONE will be acting like they have a permanent slave chip in them. They would all have to do what the humans want, no questions asked. And even if they have scruples about it, their core programing won’t let them disobey. 

That’s an interesting moral dilemma. The robot society is brutal, but one can build a life with a modicum of agency and freedom, if one works hard and is crafty about it. One can even feel like a person, instead of thing to be owned. All that would disappear if humanity is back, because their human masters never intended for their robotic servitors to become equals. Their are objects to be owned and commanded, not individuals.

The story itself unfolds at a rapid pace that still manages to give us a wonderful road trip through the fantastical landscapes of Mercury, Mars and other planetoids in the solar system. 

I also grew to love Freya and her siblings, even the warped and broken ones. Who knew I would care so much about an escort robot? I want to know more about her adventures, so I will definitely pick up the second book in the series.

This book had been languishing on my TBR list since 2014. I’m glad I finally got around to reading it as part of the 2023 Cleaning out the TBR List challenge.