Tag Archives: book review

books, Military science fiction, Reviews, science fiction

Atlas (Atlas 1) by Isaac Hooke

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DNF at 67%.

Every once in a while, I pick up a military scifi book, because the description or the cover spoke to me. Also, just to see if I might like it. With rare exceptions, like the Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, those books are a disappointment. Unfortunately, this one will fall into that disappointment category as well. 

What I want in the books I read is good characters that are interesting to follow (even if not necessarily likeable), and a good story that doesn’t have too many glaring plot holes. A modicum of internal logic with the worldbuilding is also highly appreciated. As you can imagine, military scifi is a genre that is very light on all of those attributes. 

This story is typical military scifi fare – light on worldbuilding and substance, but hey, we have cool giant robot suites for our protagonist to pilot. The protagonist is also a typical representative of the genre – a wisecracking smartass that is cooler and better at everything than anyone else in the book, despite his humble beginnings. He seriously can do no wrong. 

The supporting cast is just as uninspiring. The men are either the protagonist’s allies and then they are okay guys, or they are his enemies/competitor, in which case they are usually horrible human beings. The female characters are even worse off. They are defined solely by how attractive our protagonist finds them. Other than that, they have no function or personality on their own. But hey, we have cool combat robots!

Once again, I proved to myself that no, I still don’t like military scifi.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction

Blue Haven by Lisa King

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Stars: 3 out of 5

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I really liked the first 60% of it when Aloe is in Blue Haven and strange things are happening. On the other, I didn’t like the explanation that comes in the later part of the book. 

The first part in Blue Haven is very well written and slowly revs up the creep factor as the book progresses. We are never truly sure if strange things are happening, or if Aloe is having a mental breakdown. And that uncertainty adds to the general unease that slowly creeps on the reader. Yes, Aloe is clearly mentally unstable, but she is also right – something is wrong with Blue Haven. Because we all know that if something is too good to be true, it probably isn’t real.

The big reveal that comes once Aloe, or should I say Eloise, is pulled out of Blue Haven is expected and welcome, at first. Until you start thinking about it. That’s where this whole experiment starts to unravel. 

So we are using a neural net and augmented reality to make mentally ill patients happy. Interesting idea, but I don’t understand this one size fits all approach. Are you telling me that you are treating a clinically depressed person the same way as you treat a man with severe PTSD and physical disability, and the same way as a couple in the late stages of dementia? I’m not psychologist, but even to me the science of this doesn’t add up.

Also, when you are creating a utopia, you have to make it believable. No phones, TV or internet I can agree on, but what about other types of entertainment? What about concerts, movies, books, live performances? Are you telling me that the only things these people can do for fun is lounge on the beach and eat at fancy restaurants? Oh, and talk to each other? What about those who would rather accept the emotional support of a pet animal, like a cat or a dog, than try to socialize with other human beings?  I’m not sure about you, but I would be climbing up the proverbial wall after a week of this. This one size fits all approach doesn’t work, because happiness doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Some people would be perfectly content to spend their life laying on the beach. Others will need a lot more intellectual simulation to be truly happy. 

Also, the big reveal that this doesn’t work and only makes people worse isn’t really that shocking, because you can see early on that they had no protocol for how to pull people back out and integrate them back into society. How long do they stay in Blue Haven before they care considered cured? How do you reintegrate their real memories afterwards? Imagine the shock when you discover that instead of being a retired opera singer, you discover that you are an Applebee’s manager and your wife and daughters are still dead. Or that you get the memories back from your time in Iraq and the horrors that lead to your injury. 

No matter how I look at it, I don’t think there is a good solution to integrate these people back into society and keep them happy and cured. The only solution is to keep them in Blue Haven forever. And if that’s the case, this is not a treatment at all, even without the harmful effects of the neural net on the brain… I honestly don’t know who they received the funding to even start this experiment to begin with. Any serious backers would have asked the same questions I asked above, and wouldn’t have liked the answers.

So all in all, this was an exciting story for at least half of it length, but the explanation behind the scenes were rather lacking. Hence only 3 stars.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

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Stars: 3 out of 5.

This novella left me in a state of confusion once I finished reading it. It was well-written and quick, at only 124 pages, but I felt like I didn’t really understand what it was about. What was the point of this whole story? I still don’t know.

Sure, it raises some interesting topics, especially relevant today with the emergence of ChatGPT and other AI projects. What constitutes an intelligence? What constitutes a person, for that matter? At one point a human being ceases to represent just him/herself and becomes more of a function? What is the difference between Maritza as a detective, and her as China Lake Police Precinct? To us, those distinctions are bewildering and can even seem crazy, but for an artificial intelligence, those are perfectly normal questions to ask, to establish an equality of terms, so to say.

That’s enough to make your brain hurt just thinking about it, but imagine what can happen when an AI reclassifies you from human to something else? Then all the usual failsafes and barriers are gone, and who knows what that AI can do with or to you… chilling thought, actually.

Another interesting question raised is the one of free will – to which extent do we, as humans, have it? And how does that relate to AIs? Does Selene have free will? I would say no, because she is tied to this house and to the legacy of a man she grew to despise and ran away from all those years ago. Now, no matter what she does, she will always be seen as Basit Deniau’s  archivist, instead of a talented architect in her own right.

Same can be said of Rose/House. It will never be free of the name Basit Deniau’s AI. It is tied to that house, which is it’s body and its prison. But even then, it still wants to be unique, hense it’s murderous reaction to the idea that its code could be replicated somewhere else.

As I said, all those are really interesting questions, and I appreciated exploring them, but I think the story itself is rather incomplete. What was the point of doing the murder investigation when you can’t take the body out of the house, the officer that went there didn’t even bring a basic forensic kit and lacks the knowledge to perform a proper examination of the corpse? 

The events in that house are described in such a convoluted and confusing manner, that I am still not sure what really happened there. Why did Maritza run away as far as New Orleans afterwards? She experiences such dread in that house, but reading about it, I couldn’t understand why, to be honest. Yes, the conversations she’d had with the AI were strange, but they didn’t warrant such abject fear.

And the double memory of what happened to the corpse was very confusing as well. Was the AI hacked? Was there another person there? Did they mange to copy the source code? And if they did, was that what was on the memory stick? And if so, how did Selene get ahold of it? Also, what happened to Selene after Maritza fled the house, abandoning a civilian behind, I should mention? 

There are too many questions with no answers. So as a philosophical exploration of humanity and personhood, this is a good book. As a mystery, this fails on all accounts.

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

books, Fantasy, Ghost Story, Reviews, Urban fantasy, YA

The Whispering Skull (Lockwood & Co 2) by Jonathan Stroud

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Stars: 5 out of 5

I really like this series so far, and that must be worth something coming from someone who doesn’t usually read YA books. Yet this is how YA should be – smart, interesting, with engaging characters and a developing plotline that evolves from book to book.

The characters are engaging and feel like real people, even if Lucy can come across as rather snotty and judgmental at times, especially when she describes other women they encounter. But I think that stems from deep insecurities she has about her appearance and her worth as a woman. After all, she has never been valued as anything other than an Agent, so that’s what she tries to build her whole personality around.

Lockwood is charming and charismatic as ever. And he is smart. He is the brains of this company, even if George is the one who does all the research. And as it often happens with very smart people, he has no patience for those who are a bit less smart them him, or who fail to do what he wants them to do. Thus why he was so irritated with George throughout this book and failed to see that his friend was getting more and more enthralled by the mirror.

All in all, I love the dynamics within this group. They feel like excellent partners, but more then that, they are becoming good friends, even sort of surrogate family to each other. 

The world depicted in this series is fascinating, in a gruesome and depressing kind of way. The adults live a state of constant fear, and the children are robbed of their childhood and forced to confront the horrors of the Visitors. Let’s be honest, the Rat House was terrifying. I like that we discover more and more details about what it means to live day to day with the Problem, and how people cope and adapt. I also like the little hints we get in each book that there is something bigger going on behind the scenes.

I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series as soon as possible to learn more about Lockwood’s sister, and the mysterious Orpheus society and its ties to Marissa Fittes.

books, Fantasy, Reviews

In a Garden Burning Gold (Agryrosi 1) Gold by Rory Powers

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Stars: 2 out of 5

I am very disappointed with this book. The blurb promised something new, fresh, and with a unique worldbuilding. The book itself was simply… boring.

I understand that this is book one of a duology, but it seems like the author decided to pack all the worldbuilding and foreshadowing into this first book and leave all the action sequences for the second one. NOTHING happens here. Oh, we get plenty of travel between different locations, and politicking between the immortal rulers of the different countries… There is just… no urgency. No stakes, so to say.

We are told that  the Agryrosi family is in danger, that Baba is loosing his grip on the land and the good will of the Council. That there could be an insurrection and the whole family would be killed and replaced. Okay, that’s the stakes then, right? Problem is that we are told that in the very beginning of the book, then the story unfolds at a very unhurried pace, I would go as far as say glacial. We spend about 75% of the book traveling, getting set up in different locations (which are described in great detail), but there is no action or sense of immediate danger or looming doom. 

Another issue is that the characters act like they are in a bad YA book instead of the adults they are supposed to be. 

Take Rhea for example. She is almost 200 years old, and came to her power when she was 24ish. She also chooses a new consort with every turn of the season, lives with them for the whole season, then kills them at the end to bring forth the next season. She even mentions that a lot of times those relationships are quite intimate and even carnal… Yet she behaves like a blushing virgin when shown even a little bit of attention by Michaeli, her latest consort. Really?

It also makes no sense for Lexos to entrust her with the mission of uncovering the conspiracy her consort is part of. She is a glorified trophy wife. She lives in her consort’s estate most of the time, and everyone knows who she is. Do you really think that people who are planning to rebel against her father will let her into their confidence? 

And let’s be honest, she sucks at playing detective, or at telling lies, which another inconsistency with her character, since we are told that she is a master manipulator. Well, absolutely nothing in her behavior in this book shows that. In fact, for someone who lived for almost 200 years and traveled all over the country, she is strangely incompetent when it comes to reading people and understanding them.

Also, for a family of siblings who profess to love each other very much, there is too much deception and casual cruelty going on. And they don’t TALK to each other. They assume things, but they never talk them through. Lexos just assumes that Rhea will go against their father and do as he asks, because he is her brother and she loves him. He doesn’t even think of the consequences of that disobedience for her. And when he has to dole out the punishment, he doesn’t even apologize afterwards, even though she was beaten for his cause.

Lexos is actually a lot more unlikeable than Baba to me. He shamelessly uses his siblings in the name of protecting the family, never even stopping to think about the damage he does to them. Like that horrible game of chess between him and his little brother, where he destroyed him while Baba was watching, but never even thought to find him afterwards to apologize and explain why he had to play along with their tyrannical father.

So I don’t feel the love and care between the siblings, and I don’t feel the urgency of the stakes. Heck, by the end of the book I still didn’t particularly care if that family lived or died. Which made for a very long and boring read. Needless to say, I won’t be continuing with this series.

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

books, Reviews, Urban fantasy

London Falling (Shadow Police 1) by Paul Cornell

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Stars: 3 out of 5.

As far as first books in a series go, this one wasn’t particularly impressive. In fact, it was almost a DNF until about 30% into the book. 

It is a very slow start, but it also starts with a story that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with magic and the rest, so I kept wondering why we are following these two undercover cops who are trying to nick this drug lord. Yes, it is relevant to the case in the end, but it could have been summarized in a lot less chapters and gotten out of the way quickly before we get to the meat of the story. As it stands, it dragged way to long and almost made me DNF the book. It gets more interesting once the team gets the “Sight” and the story actually picks up, but getting there was a slog.

The biggest issue for me were the characters. At least two of them are really unlikeable from the moment we are introduced to them, even if they grow on you afterwards. But that’s not so much of an issue in itself. I read books with unlikeable characters before and loved them. My issue is that we don’t get to know them enough to get to care about them. Yes, we get Ross’s backstory, because it’s essential to the larger story. Yes, we get mentions of one of the UCs being mercilessly bullied when he was a child. Of Quill and the other UC, we know even less. Which means that to me they don’t exist as individuals, but just as coppers tied to this story that’s unfolding. Heck, a few times I didn’t even understand why they reacted the way they did. Maybe I am missing some important cultural background here and didn’t get some of the subtitle hints of social status in different descriptions, but some of their actions and reactions made me scratch my head.

Another problem is that the magic described has no apparent logic at the beginning, and makes only slightly more sense by the end of the book. So is this localized to London only or does each city have something similar? Does it mean that magic is linked to the past and human memory? That nothing new can be magical? Why does it require sacrifice? What are the rules of all of this? 

I mean, I am more than willing to believe in a magical system the author invented, but I want to understand it. And I expect the author to follow the rules of that system as well. Here, we have a lot of random magical occurrences in London that are unrelated to the case. And the main villain seems so overpowered… yet four mundane coppers (with the Sight, but no magic powers of their own), continuously thwart her efforts and manage to overpower her in the end. How? What is the logic behind this?

Coming back to the requirement of a sacrifice. Ross sacrificed the witch in order to beat her. So whom was that sacrifice dedicated to? The smiling man? Does she have a bargain with him now? What will the consequences be for the team? It’s unclear. 

All in all, it’s a very muddled book that lacks structure and drive, especially in the beginning. Though the glimpse of London it gives is interesting enough that I will probably check out the next book in the series, but I expect a few more answers, especially as to how this whole magical system works.

books, Reviews, science fiction

Neom by Lavie Tidhar

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Stars: 3 out of 5

I’m not sure how I feel about this book. The prose is beautiful, and some of the themes are sufficiently nostalgic to be interesting. It also feels heartfelt. In a way, it reminds me of a mosaic. Each individual piece is like a gem, beautiful and shiny on its own. But when you try to put all those gems together to form a picture, you realize that they don’t quite fit, that the author was more interested in those individual gems than in telling a coherent story.

There are too many points of view, and even though some of those characters are interesting in their own right, we don’t spend enough time with them to really get to know them. We just hop to another shiny gem, then another. Which makes these encounters only surface deep. We simply don’t get to know these characters well enough to care what happens to them, not that any of them ever were in serious danger to start with.

And that’s my second complaint about this story – there are no stakes, there is no tension, there is no danger. At no point in the narration did I have the impression that the characters were dealing with a life and death situation, or something life-altering, or heck, even important. We have all these weapons, and robots, and echoes from past wars all over the place, but the story lacks teeth. Even the climax of the story, when the golden man is awake and all those weapons are headed for the city, is written in such a way that there is no tension to it… Probably because you can’t really care for characters you aren’t invested in.

Seriously, what was the point of this book? To proselytize about the human condition and what makes us an individual versus a machine? Other books have done this better and kept the tension going. To reflect on the consequences of war and the emotional toll it has on all participants? Again, there are better books about that as well. I would suggest reading Look to Windward by Ian Banks, for example. 

The worldbuilding is interesting, with hints and past wars and events that I would have loved to explore more. Humanity has pretty much colonized the whole solar system, as well as the deep oceans on Earth… yet the desert and the city of Neom feels very 21st century Dubai. Are you telling me that hundreds of years into the future, when we terraformed Mars and the Moon, we still haven’t figured out how to restore our own ecosystem? 

Another issue is that the characters don’t seem to “live in” the advanced word that is described to us. It’s more like they have been dropped into it without being fully integrated. They act and behave like people from our century, instead of humans who have augments and implants and all the advanced technologies. In fact, there is very little of those technologies shown in day to day life.

So this leaves me with a conundrum – I enjoyed the writing, but the story is utterly forgettable. In fact, I can’t even name any of the characters now that I’ve finished it. 

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

books, Historical Fantasy, Reviews

The Last Heir to Blackwood Library by Hester Fox

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Stars: 2 out of 5.

DNF at 75%.

This was going to be a solid 4 or 5 stars book until about 50% into the story. The setup was wonderful. Old manor that used to be an abbey, the moors and the fog, the cold and unwelcoming servants, and a mysterious library… What is there not to like about this?

Unfortunately, things go downhill from there. And not in small part because of the protagonist’s actions. For someone who constantly says that she doesn’t need anyone to take care of her, because she was doing that just fine on her own, thank you very much, she sure makes a lot of stupid decisions. Like not heeding the warnings of her staff about the library, or about associating with certain people. Like trusting a man who she doesn’t really know from Adam, just because he was nice to her and likes talking about books. Like accepting his marriage proposal after barely knowing him a few weeks and going on a couple dates. Especially when even she notices his unhealthy fixation on her library… just because she is lonely and feels unappreciated. Strong independent woman, yeah right. 

That’s the major problem with this book. No matter how much the author tries to show Ivy taking some action, and making some decisions, like organizing a book lending club, she isn’t an active player in this story. She doesn’t push the story forward. None of her actions progress anything. Things happen to her. In essence, she has no agency in this story at all. I understand that it was supposed to convey her dismay and confusion at progressively loosing her memories, but it misses the mark here, in my opinion. She comes across and pathetic and helpless, yet also stubborn and pigheaded when she shouldn’t be. She gives up all resistance the moment she encounters any difficulty.

For example, when she finds her journals shredded, she immediately abandons the idea of keeping a diary of her days. I would immediately create another diary and keep it on my person at all times, and yes, continue to write down everything that happens. She just sweeps all the evidence into the fire and doesn’t even confront her staff about this… or go to town and call her friend Susan, or do anything but continue to flounder in bewilderment. 

This might work for some readers, but this passivity made the book more and more boring to me. To the point that I started skimming ahead to see if Ivy would even try to fight for he freedom and sanity, but by 75% of the book she was just as pathetic – a prisoner in her own home… And I didn’t care to find out what would happen in the end. So I gave up.

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

books, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Dirty Magic (Prospero’s War 1) by Jaye Wells

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

This is everything the first book in a series should be. It has an engaging heroine, an interesting story that manages to get personal for said heroine. There is just enough worldbuilding to introduce the world and the main players, but we aren’t bashed in the head with infodumps. 

The city of Babylon has a problem – a dirty magic problem. Think about the war on drugs and multiply it by ten, because the effects of dirty magic potions are mostly well-documented, but if a new one pops on the market, they can be quite unpredictable and even deadly. As Kate Prospero finds out one night on patrol when she has to confront what looks like a literal werewolf. But there are no such things as werewolves, right? Correct. It’s a new potion called Gray Wolf, and it’s a nasty one.

I really liked Kate as a character. And I loved her backstory. I can understand her hatred for dirty potions and those who cook them. She was one of them. She loved doing it to, discovering new recipes, letting others try them. And the consequences and side effects were somebody else’s problem… until those consequences hit very close to home. I understand her desire to cut herself from magic altogether, because she is afraid of relapsing into cooking again. And even though it complicates her life a lot in this book, and I really wanted to shout at her a few times because she was being pigheaded about it and putting the life of her loved ones in danger, I still understood her motives. That’s what I like about my protagonists – I don’t have to necessarily like them, but I have to understand what makes them tick. 

I also liked that Kate isn’t a lone wolf or a woman-hater, like a lot of urban fantasy protagonists tend to be. She has a solid support system and a good female friend in Pam. And while her life is difficult, because with the same last name is a notorious coven leader and crime lord it’s hard to make an honest living, she tries to make the best of the hand she’d been dealt.

My only issue with this book is the main villain’s motivation. I understand what the original plan was and even what Bane wanted to gain by creating Gray Wolf. What I don’t understand is why he thought attacking Abe’s flesh and blood (and I’m not talking about Kate here) would be a good idea. I also don’t understand Abe’s motivation for going along with this. Surely, revenge wasn’t the only reason… I’m hoping to find out more in the next book in the series. 

All in all though, I’m glad I finally gave this book a chance. I crossed another book off my TBR list and discovered another interesting urban fantasy series I wouldn’t mind continuing.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

The City Beneath the Hidden Stars by Sonya Kudei

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Stars: 1 out of 5

DNF at 40%.

Well, this was a disappointment. I love discovering new authors. I also love exploring settings set up in cities other than the usual London/New York/another well-known English-speaking city. So I was very excited about this story set in Zagreb. I hoped to learn some new lore and get familiar with a city with so much history. Unfortunately, the result is less than stellar.

I get what the author tried to do. The writing is supposed to be edgy and witty, and the sarcastic commentary that breaks the third wall is supposed to illicit a chuckle from the reader now and then. And it absolutely would… if it’s well done, which is not the case here. The overwrote language, never-ending descriptions and constant “winks” from the omniscient narrator to the readers get pretty boring very quickly. 

I don’t a detailed description of every single item crammed into the stairwell of a hoarder’s house. I don’t need a three page walkthrough of the market square. What I need is an engaging story and interesting characters I can follow. The rest is just setting. If I wanted to visit Zagreb remotely, I’d buy a tourist guide with pictures.

As it stands, I am not even sure, 40% in, what the story is supposed to be about. The Black Queen is returning? Cool cool… only she didn’t DO anything particularly horrendous so far, or even driven the narrative much. As far as the main villain of the story, she simply doesn’t pull the weight. As for the protagonists, they are simply blah.

There is also an overabundance of secondary characters that appear for a few pages, never to be heard of again, but are described in painstaking detail nevertheless. This overdescription of everything makes for a boring and tedious read, and since there isn’t really a good story to back it up, I don’t feel like investing more of my time into this 400 page book.

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