Tag Archives: ARCs

books, Horror, Reviews, science fiction

Paradise-1 (Red Space) by David Wellington

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

I was fully onboard with this book for the first 50% or so of the story. Granted, one of the main characters was too stupid to exist, and some of her choices were that of a braindead child. But the story moved along at a good pace, things were happening, there was a big mystery about, so was happy to overlook an annoying character or two. But then the book kept going… and going… and going with no end in sight. Episodes started repeating themselves without bringing anything new to the story, and I was quickly losing interest. 

As I had mentioned, the characterizations in this book are… rather lacking. And forget about character growth. I think the only character that has any is Rapscallion, and he is a sentient robot. Which tells you everything you need to know about the other characters. So if you are looking for a character driven story, move along. This ain’t for you.

But the mystery of what the heck is happening around Paradise-1 and why all ships sent there stop responding was compelling enough to have me turning the pages for about half of the book. And I admit that the idea of an alien contract that can invade our minds by planting a destructive idea is rather horrifying, because our bodies have no defense against a virus that isn’t biological in nature. I also really wanted to discover what was on Paradise-1 that needed to be guarded so fiercely, and why was it worth so many human lives and so many ships to try and get it.

Unfortunately, this book is at least 300 pages too long, so the story started repeating itself. We get to yet another ship that’s infected with different version of the Basilisk. We encounter yet another crazy AI and see the horrors that happened to the human crew. We don’t learn anything that we didn’t know by reading the first half of the book. The characters flee the ship, or are saved, or take the ship over… then the action switches to yet another encounter with another infected ship. Honestly, I think the story should have ended after their attempt to run the blockade to land on the planet. The 200 pages after that were just filler, with a few exception, like actually encountering the Basilisk, and even that could have been incorporated into the story differently. 

Oh, did I mention that the book ends on a cliffhanger? No? Well, it does. 700 + pages end with no emotional payoff whatsoever. We still don’t know what happened on Paradise-1 and why it was so important to get there. The story ends mid-action.

I guess the reader would have to pick up the next book in the series to find out what happened to the colony on Paradise-1, but guess what?  I won’t be along for the ride. I am not willing to sit through another overlong book and follow annoying characters just to find out that the story isn’t finished and there is another cliffhanger. No thanks, I’m out.

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

books, Dystopian, Reviews, science fiction, YA

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

I rarely read fairy tale retellings, because I think that retellings are rather pointless. I’d rather read the original and decide for myself what the morale of the story was, instead of reading about what the reteller thinks the story was about. So I’m really glad that I didn’t know that this was a retelling of Pinocchio when I picked up the book, or I would never have given it a try. And I would have lost out on a wonderful story.

And honestly, you don’t have to know anything about the original Pinocchio book to enjoy this story. Yes, there are parallels, but In the Life of Puppets stands on its own two feet pretty well and doesn’t rely on knowledge of the original.

It’s a story of Victor Lawson, the only human in a world of robots. And of his quest to save his father. And him and his friends have some adventures along the way. 

For a fairy tale this book has surprisingly a lot of heart. Because the characters, human and robot alike, are fully realized individuals with their own quirks and dreams. And their interactions are hilarious at times, and at times very touching and heartfelt. Nurse Ratched is my favorite character. Yay for sociopathic nurse robots with a heart of gold. 

The world our group of misfits travels through is wonderous and terrible at the same time, like it should be in good fairy tales. And all of the characters grow and progress along the way, especially Victor, who has to come to terms with a lot of hard truths. Like the fact that his father was the engineer of the extinction of his whole race. Or that you can still love someone even if you can’t forgive them for what they did, even if you aren’t sure you have the right to forgive them.

Or that you can love someone even if they don’t remember you from time to time. This last one hit particularly close to home, since I am dealing with a relative slowly loosing his battle with Alzheimer’s. That is a truly horrible disease that transforms a loved one into a completely different person. A bit like what happened to Gio once he was taken back into the City of Electric Dreams.

And even though the situations our characters find themselves in are horrible at times, the overall message of this book is one of love and hope, which makes it a very heartwarming story. I would definitely recommend this to adults and young adults alike. It’s rare that I read a book in one sitting and come out of it with a content and warm feeling.

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

books, Fantasy, Reviews

A Blade Through Time (Desolada 1) by Louis Kalman

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DNF at 48%

This book started so strong. The first chapter was intense and full of danger and tension… Unfortunately the rest of the book that I managed to wade through before I gave up wasn’t as good.

We start with a vicious attack and a young boy who lost everything in the space of a day, almost died, and discovered that he can rewind time. So he flees the city and vows to master his time-shifting gift enough to come back and save his family. Wonderful premise for what could have been a great story. 

But that potential is wasted, because absolutely nothing happens for the next half of the book. Leones gets to the philosophers… and the story comes to a grinding halt. We have pages upon pages of Leones training with weapons, or drinking and gambling in an opium den, or just brooding around. He does nothing productive. He doesn’t even explore the city he ended up with beyond the philosopher’s gardens and the gambling dens. He doesn’t try to find out what happened in the city he fled. He only uses his time rewinding ability when it’s convenient for him. And he mops around and he feels sorry for himself. It’s boring.

I think I wouldn’t have been as boring if this part of the book was populated with interesting characters, but Leones is so self-absorbed that he barely pays attention to anyone besides himself, and only if those people can serve him in some shape or form. As a result, the other apprentices are barely described. I don’t know anything about them beyond their names and physical appearance. And because Leones never bothers to ask, I don’t know anything about their pasts or their aspirations. Heck, I don’t even know what most of them do outside of the philosophers’ gardens. 

As a result, they seem more like cardboard cutouts then real people that I should care about. Even when Leones’s maybe girlfriend is assassinated, which should be a big traumatic discovery for him, my reaction was very lackluster. Probably because Leones didn’t particularly grieve for her either. 

Speaking of which, Leones as a character didn’t work for me at all. He is depicted as being completely detached from his feelings. He is either a sociopath, or so traumatized by what happened in chapter 1 that he can’t allow himself to feel anything for anyone. If it’s the later, it’s not made clear enough in the book, so he comes across as self-absorbed, selfish, and unfeeling. Not a character I want to spend a whole book with.

By the time the action finally picked up in the book, and things were finally starting to happen, I realized that I simply wasn’t interested enough to continue. I mean one of the characters seemed to have been erased from existence, but I couldn’t’ are less. So I decided to call it quits, because I didn’t care how this story ended enough to invest any more time into it.

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

books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

I was a little apprehensive starting this book, because I loved Foundryside so much and there is definitely a dreaded middle book in the trilogy curse going around. So I was afraid to be disappointed. I shouldn’t have worried. RJB has never let me down before, and he didn’t this time. This is an excellent book that grips you from the first page and doesn’t let you go until the last. It makes you care for the characters and cheer them on… oh, and it rips your heart out in the process. I should have known, I’ve read the Divine Cities trilogy, after all.

The story starts about seven months after the end of the first book, and our Foundryside crew are doing well, plotting and scheming the downfall of the great scivener houses of Trevenne and accomplishing daring heists. And it seems like they have all found some modicum of peace and happiness, not to mention friendship. Well, all except Gregor, but can you really blame him after the revelations at the end of last book?

So the reader prepares for a book centered around our friends basically giving the finger to the big scrivener houses of Trevanne and bringing about the revolution… but if you think that’s what this trilogy will be about, you don’t know the author very well. Soon freedom for the people of Trevanne takes a whole different meaning, and the stakes become sky high. And our unlikely heroes are left scrambling, trying to stay ahead of the tsunami that is bearing their way, and there are no good choices only bad and less bad ones. 

I loved all the characters from book one and I’m glad we got to explore their relationships more in this book and see them work together as a unit, but also see that they have become the found family all of them needed. It was heartwarming… and we didn’t get nearly enough of it. I would have loved to see them in their compound, sharing scrivening definitions with other scriveners, answering questions, collecting definitions for their library… Unfortunately, we will never get that, judging how this book ended, and that’s sad.

The danger they are facing is very real, very urgent and rather terrifying in its sheer disregard for human life. And the more the book progresses, the worse it gets for our friends and for Trevanne in general. I won’t get into any spoilers, but the ending really rips your heart out. 

I really want to know what happens now and how this story will end for our friends, so I will be definitely picking up the last book in the trilogy.

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

books, Military science fiction, Reviews, science fiction, Space opera

Centers of Gravity (Frontlines 8) by Marco Kloos

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DNF at 45%.

I love me a good space opera from time to time. Heck, I’m both a Star Wars and a Star Trek fan. I watch and read plenty of scifi. Problem is, I want my space opera to be, if not smart, then at least entertaining, with a good story and relatable characters I want to invest my reading time into. Not the case here.

The characters here are absolutely lifeless. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are not characters at all, but cardboard cutouts with a series of threats needed by the author to progress the story. Heck, even the protagonist is so bland that I can’t remember his name a week after I gave up on this book. We don’t know his motivations, we don’t know his needs or wants, or even his fears. Yes, we are told that he is married and misses his wife, but it’s told in such a clinical manner that there is no sentiment behind it. The side characters are even less defined.

My other problem is that there really isn’t much of a female representation in this book. And the little we have are either guys in skirts, or a guy’s wet dream. Which we often see in books written by men, unfortunately. It takes talent to create tridimensional characters, especially those of the opposite sex. And effort. In my opinion, the author simply didn’t put in the effort here. Which might be okay for some if action is all they had come for. Unfortunately, action is usually not enough for me.

Speaking of action, this book takes way to long to set up the stage for it. The first 30-40% is basically set up where nothing happens. Characters fly through space. Characters talk. Characters walk. Characters make plans. It can be made interesting if the characters were interesting which is not the case here. 

The writing is… serviceable when it comes to description and action scenes, but sucks when it comes to dialog. All characters sound the same, which, since they have no personality to speak of, is not surprising. But the dialog also doesn’t sound natural. People don’t speak like that, even in the future. This is when I’m glad that I don’t listen to audiobooks, because good luck trying to instill life into those conversations. 

In summary, this is definitely not for me. I mean, the action might be phenomenal in the second half of the book, but I didn’t care enough to stick around for it.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction, Time Travel

Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle

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Stars: 1.5 out of 5.

Pfew, glad I’m finally done with this book. It’s not particularly long, but boy it dragged. 

Truth be told, I only picked it up because the blurb promised time travel and dinosaurs. Unfortunately, there is precious little of them in this story. And that timeline is completely ignored for the last 50% of the book, much to my disappointment. Also, how can you make a story of survival at the time of dinosaurs boring? I thought that was impossible.

The characters are also nothing to write home about. And what I mean by that is that they are lifeless. They are just concepts with a few distinct traits and flaws to differentiate them by, not real fleshed out characters. Adeline is the worst offender in this department. Too bad she is the one we follow the most in this book. By the time the author completely drops Sam’s story at the time of the big reptiles and focuses solely on Adeline and her valiant attempt at making her life even more boring than it was, I was sorely tempted to just DNF this book. But I had already read about 67% of the story, so I felt bad for my time investment and wanted to at least see this through and find out what this murder mystery was all about. 

Spoiler alert – it makes no sense whatsoever. Turns out the murder is not really a murder, so all the pain and suffering for Sam and Adeline was for no good reason at all. Also, that whole plot twist with Adeline’s time travel served no particular point either. 

And the ending… don’t start me on the ending. Are we really supposed to think that his little utopia island of theirs is supposed to be a paradise on earth? These people are effectively prisoners there until they die. How long before some of them decide they had enough and stage an insurrection? 

Also, what was the point of this story? The murder wasn’t really a murder, so the driving factor behind all this is moot. The end result is also deeply unsatisfying. 

The writing stile was also very dry and impersonal. That coupled with one-dimensional characters made it very hard to stay engaged in the story or to care about what was happening at all. I don’t think I will pick up another book by this author.

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

books, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews

The Last Storm by Tim Lebbon

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Stars: 2 out of 5.

This book tried to marry two different ideas in the same story – a climate disaster story and a story about people with a special ability that ties them to a different world/dimension. I think the author wanted to pay homage to Stephen King and his many books that did the same thing.  Lisey’s Story comes to mind. That was one creepy and fascinating book.

Unfortunately, where Stephen King managed to marry the weird and the mundane into a seamless buildup of creepiness, this author failed, in my opinion. 

I think it stems from the fact that the power the Rainmaker family has is never truly explained or explored other than as a tool to rain disaster and death on an already ravaged country. That and the fact that it is described almost like a drug, an addiction, makes it really unpredictable and unattractive. 

Also, it is never truly explained how that power is tied to the horrible draught that is killing a vast part of the States, of if there is even a connection. And if there isn’t a connection, then what’s the point of this power in the story?

My other issue with this book is that all the characters are unlikeable, especially Ash. I mean, I was pretty interested and invested in her story while she was on a quest to assemble her device and make it rain… Until at about 61% in the book where she unleashes rains of blood and horrors upon this town, kills several people… and has absolutely no remorse about it. That’s where she lost all my support, as well as my desire to continue following her story.

I also don’t understand why everyone else is making excuses for her behavior. Oh, she is so special. She can make rain out of a clear sky… Yes, she can also unleash venomous creatures that attack everything in sight along with that rain. Oh, and by the way that rain will turn into a deluge that will make matter so much worse. 

Of the other protagonists we have Ashe’s father, who is a coward who’s response to a traumatic even had been to hide his had in the sand for almost a decade. Her mother who turned her whole life into an obsession. An ex-addict turned into Ash’s insta-groupie. And a psychopatic killer. Honestly, not a single one of them is likeable or even relatable enough follow into the story. 

I think I would have enjoyed this more if Ash wasn’t such an unrepentant addict who made excuses every time she messed things up. Or if the supernatural element was better tied into the rest of the story.

PS: I recieved an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in Exchange for an honest review.

books, Ghost Story, Reviews

Ask for Andrea by Noelle W Ihli

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Stars: 4 out of 5

This packs a surprising emotional punch for a ghost story and serial killer story. I hadn’t expected to get this emotionally attached to the characters, but the author did an excellent job making them unique, human, and lovable. Which makes this story even more tragic because all three main characters are ghosts haunting the man that killed them.

The first three chapters in the book describe how each of the three women was killed, and it’s visceral and horrible. I could really feel their fear and pain, and then confusion and hurt when the realization came that they were dead, but still stuck here. And it goes to showcase how different these women are because they choose to do different things when they realize that they are dead. Brecia immediately tries to follow her killer, to do something about it, to try to reach out into the world of the living and exact her revenge. Meghan is paralyzed by fear and spends months by her corpse, watching it decay and praying that she will be found. And Skye goes home and tries to let her mother know that she is still here.

And despite the fact that these three women area already dead, the tension in this book only keeps growing with each page, as they watch, helpless, as their killer prepares to kill again. I was especially heartbroken for Brecia, because she had to watch him kill Meghan, and realize that no matter what she tried to do, she couldn’t save her. She also had to live with the killer and discover that there are three more innocent lives that could be in danger – his wife and two daughters. 

In fact, the last part of the book, when the women follow them into the forest, had me at the edge of my seat and biting my nails.

This is definitely a very good book, and I recommend it.

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

books, Dystopian, Reviews, science fiction

Infinity Gate (Pandominion 1) by M. R. Carey

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This is another example of a book where the idea sounds great when you read the blurb on the back, but the execution is sorely disappointing. Honestly, the most I can say about this book is meh.

The idea of a technology that allows humans to travel the multiverse is amazing, and there are so many ways a story like that could go! One of the best examples so far was The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson . Now that story had a heart. Unfortunately, this one doesn’t. 

Oh, it has plenty of interesting ideas. The worlds of Pandominion are fascinating, and the idea that in some version of our Earth, primates might not have evolved to dominate the land is intriguing. The fact that most of those diverse races manage to coexist peacefully is also wonderful to see. 

However, a long story like that can’t win on worldbuilding and concept alone. It needs engaging characters to carry the narrative and keep the readers engaged. And the characters in this book are extremely unlikeable. They are selfish to the extreme, unable to take responsibility of their own actions. They make often horrible decisions and commit atrocities and manage to justify it. I couldn’t stand most of them. The only character I could more or less relate to was Paz, because she was mostly an innocent bystander at the beginning, and any actions she took afterwards were fueled by her sense of right and wrong. But we meet Paz a lot later in the book, and for the first 35% I really had nobody to root for, so this story was almost a DNF for me.

Also, we have an empire that spans countless parallel universes and includes a diverse variety of “selves”, who manage to coexist even though some of them evolved from primates, others from wolves/cats, and even others from herbivores. But that empire itself is a repressive regime, where the only political actions seem to be strike first and annihilate the (possible) treat and ask questions never. Are you telling me that with all the bright minds available in all the multiverse, the Pandominion couldn’t come up with a better form of government?

Why is it that this mighty and very technologically advanced empire didn’t even try to communicate with the machines when they stumbled upon the mechanical civilization? Seriously, not a single attempt at communication was even considered. Or, you know, just leaving them alone. There are infinite Earths in this multiverse, so why not just blacklist this particular one and go explore somewhere else? No, the solution is to invade and annihilate. Without provocation, mind you. And they wonder why they get pushback? Or that they are being destroyed in response?

Finally, even though this book is about 500 pages long, it doesn’t even resolve part of the story that is hinted at in the first chapters. It just sets up the stage and brings all the main characters together. Yes, I understand that this is the first book in a series, and that there is an overarching story. But you need to give the reader some kind of payoff for investing hours of their time into this book. At least one story arc should have been satisfyingly concluded by the end of this book. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. And honestly? I won’t stick around for book 2 to find out what happens to the Pandominion.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction

System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries 7) by Martha Wells

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

Disclaimer before I get into the meat of this review. In order to understand what’s happening in this book, you must have read Network Effect. This story picks up almost immediately after the ending of that book, and the events in NE have a direct impact on what’s happening in this story. Of course, I’m assuming that not many people would start a series on its seventh book without reading the previous six, but you never know.

As I said, the events of this book are a direct continuation of Network Effect. They are still on the planet with the alien infestation. The corporation is still there as well. And Murderbot… Murderbot is not okay. Oh, he is fine physically speaking, but his mental state is in shambles to say the least.

And you know what? I’m really glad that the author chose to portray it this way. She could have easily just swept the events of Network Effect under the rug, and left Murderbot continue like nothing happened. To be his sarcastic and highly efficient paranoid self. But that would have diminished the impact of what had happened in those ruins. 

Murderbot had been through a horrific and traumatic experience. He was almost assimilated by a malignant alien entity, not to mention the mental violation that took place. If he had just shrugged this off, it would only have reinforced the point that SecUnits are just machines, because only a machine could walk away unscathed from something like that. 

But Bot is more than a machine, and he has a severe case of PTSD, even if he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He thinks he is broken, that something in either his organic parts or his programs is malfunctioning. So we get this very hesitant Bot, who second guesses all of his hunches and reactions, who doesn’t trust his own risk assessments, and who spends so much time checking and double-checking his conclusions that he seems slow on the uptake. 

This shows us an oddly vulnerable side of Murderbot. He isn’t used to being this hesitant. He isn’t used to not being in control of the situation or of his own reactions to those situations, and he isn’t used to not being able to have several plans of attack/retreat going at once in his head.

I also loved that Bot’s attitude towards the humans he is with (the ones who came with him and ART’s crew) has drastically changed in this book as well. Yes, he can still be sarcastic about them, but he truly considers them as friends, not just charges he has to keep alive often despite their best efforts. Bot even starts to trust them to accomplish things without his input or help. He relies on them more and he thinks of them a lot more fondly then before. This is huge character growth for Bot, and I am very happy about that.

My only complaint is that due to the limiting factors of the setting, we don’t get nearly enough interaction with ART prime or Three, which I was really looking forward to. But seeing how this book ends, I have hope that we will get a lot more ART in the future. I would also like to know what will happen to the SecUnits Bot freed in this book. It would really be interesting to see how each of them evolves.

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