Tag Archives: scifi

books, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews, science fiction

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

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Stars: 5 out of 5

This is by far one of the best books I’ve read in 2020, and I have read over 90 books so far this year.

Here is the premise: multiverse travel is possible thanks to the technology discovered by a brilliant inventor on what is called Earth Zero. Unfortunately, in order to traverse the space between worlds and survive the integration into the new reality, the traveler needs to be dead on the other side. So basically, you can only travel to worlds in which the local version of you is already dead, otherwise it would be like trying to push yourself into a space that is already occupied. The results are… bloody and definitely fatal to the traversee.

So even though scientists are biting at the bit to go and explore different versions of reality, most of them come from wealthy backgrounds, which means they are alive in almost all those realities. So people from disadvantaged backgrounds make the best traversees. People who live in poverty and hunger, in war thorn villages, and places ravaged by disease.

Cara, our protagonist, is one of those people. She is dead in all but a handful of the 300 or so worlds that can be visited from Earth 0. She is worth something to the company she works for precisely because she is so worthless to the rest of reality that it’s a miracle she survived at all.

I loved Cara as a characters. She is deeply flawed and has a huge chip on her shoulder. She is convinced that she is worthless, that she is scum, that doesn’t deserve love, affection, or even happiness. Part of it is because of her upbringing, part of it is because she studied how all of the other versions of herself died, part of it is because she has a secret she is ashamed of.

This perception of unworthiness taints Cara’s view of everything in the world as well as her relationships with people she loves. And it’s infuriating and painful to watch sometimes. She immediately assumes the worse in any situation and acts on that assumption, often creating conflict where there wasn’t any or hurting people who didn’t mean any harm to her.

A lot of times I just wanted to shake her and tell her to just stop assuming and actually TALK to people. Especially when it comes to her relationship with Dell. She loves Dell, but she had decided that Dell doesn’t reciprocate the feeling, that she is either indifferent or flat out hates her instead. And she decided that without even talking to Dell about it. Really? A lot of hurt feelings and misunderstandings could have been averted if those two had sat down and talked things through at least once.

It was very interesting and satisfying to see Cara grow as a person. She starts the book as someone only looking out for herself. Someone who is trying so hard to fit in with the citizens of the City that she is shunting everything that remind her of her roots. It’s very fulfilling to see her realize that those roots make her who she is now. That she is worthy of love and admiration as a person she is, not just as a commodity that can hop between worlds.

I like that by embracing those roots she realizes that there is only so much that her moral compass would let her do, and when she stumbles into a dangerous plot and has a choice to make between going along and living in comfort and being ashamed of herself for it, or going with her conscience and trying to stop the people responsible, and probably die in the process, she chooses the later.

There are a lot of important themes in this book. What is the value of human life? What length would you go to to pursue your dream? Can people change, and more importantly, can your perception of people change based on their actions?

And the most important message of all, I think – you can find happiness if you accept yourself fully, flaws and all.

2020 has been a difficult year for all of us, and I found that message of hope was extremely timely and uplifting.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction

Recursion by blake crouch

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Stars: 4 out of 5.

I requested this book from NetGalley on a whim. The blurb was interesting and I had enjoyed the first book in the Wayward Pines trilogy, but I didn’t have many expectations. It could have gone either way for me. Boy, am I glad that I got to read this!

It’s hard to review this book without giving away too much of the plot, so I will avoid talking about the story itself. Let’s just say that Blake Crouch raises interesting questions about how humans perceive time and space and that our memories define who we are. He also suggests that if our memories of past events become unreliable, humans will most likely unravel. 

If you have memories of two distinctly different lives suddenly pushed into your head, what do you do? Both feel real. You can remember seeing your daughter die in a hit and run when she was 16, but you ALSO remember going to her college graduation. In fact, she is sitting next to you right now. Worse still, SHE remembers dying as well… but she is still alive. What is real? What isn’t? What if you suddenly have 4 or 5 different lives in you head? All yours. All real. No wonder there are mass suicides all over the globe.

This story is told through the eyes of two protagonists: Helena, a neuro-scientist obsessed with creating a memory reactivation device that would save her mother from the slow deterioration of Alzheimer’s disease, and Barry, a NY detective who witnesses a woman jump off a high rise after she claims she a case of FMS or false memory syndrome. At first, it seems that those stories aren’t connected, but they meet and interweave together nicely. 

I loved both protagonists. Barry is believable as a man who has nothing left to live for, so he clings to the mystery of the jumper with FMS and continues investigating it even when everyone rules it out as simple suicide. Then, when he gets a chance to rewrite his past, but has to face the consequences of that act, I fully understood why he wanted to destroy the people who put him through that heartache again.

Helena is even more tragic. All she wanted to do was help her mother keep at least some of the memories that were being eaten away by the horrible disease. Instead, she precipitated the destruction of human civilization. And she has to live with it… over and over again.

I also liked the way Blake Crouch portrayed the time paradox and the effect altering timelines would have on people. I don’t think I have seen this particular take on time travel before. It was original and it made sense, in a horrible kind of way.

So why did I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 if I liked it so much? It mostly has to do with the ending. More precisely, the theory that changing one event would undo the whole string of time paradoxes. I won’t go into any details on that, because this book shouldn’t be spoiled, but I will just say that that sounded like an easy way out to me. 

In any case, I highly recommend this book for fans of time-travel, sci-fi and “what if” stories. It’s fast paced and smartly written, and it’s thoroughly enjoyable.

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

books, Reviews, science fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Space opera

Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells.

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

I’m always excited when I find a new book that makes me stay up all night reading because I simply can’t put it down. I’m doubly excited when that book is the first in a brand new series. Hunger Makes the Wolf is both those things. Needless to say that I’m absolutely in love, but I promise to keep my fangirling to a minimum and try to explain to you why I thought this book was so good.

Humans have conquered the stars and colonized countless planets. All this was made possible thanks to Rift travel. But the secret to successful rift travel is in the hands of TransRifts Inc, the company that has absolute monopoly over both rift ships and the weathermen who make sure that they make it through the rifts in one piece and unaltered. Needless to say that nothing moves around the universe without TransRifts’ approval.

Tanegawa’s World is a closed planet owned by TransRifts and corporate law is the only law that exists there. Tanegawa is barely terraformed enough to sustain life, and would not be inhabited at all if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s the only known world that produces minerals needed to build transrift ships. Those who live on this harsh and unforgiving desert world have two choices: work in the mines or become a farmer. And if you don’t keep your head down and do exactly what TransRift officials tell you to do, you get blacklisted, which means you can’t work anywhere, so your choices are to die of hunger and exposure or join one of the rowing bands of brigands which, in most cases, means die a violent death in the near future anyway.

Hob Ravani arrived on Tanegawa as a stowaway on one of the rift ships when she was a kid. Luckily for her, she was taken in by Nick Ravani, leader of a bikers gang called the Ghost Wolves. For ten years, she’d managed to stay under the radar from TransRift authorities, as much as a band of mercenaries can stay under the radar, but when they discover the body of Nick’s younger brother in the desert, Hob knows that things are about to change. Because he’s been hot in the back and left to die in the dunes, and his daughter is missing. The Ghost Wolves are on a war path, but even they can’t imagine the consequences of their revenge and the ugly secrets about TransRift, the Weathermen, and Tanegawa that they are about to drag into the light…

First things first, I have a confession to make. I absolutely love Hob Ravani! She is the perfect embodiment of this harsh world she lives in – stubborn, tough as nails, ragged and half starved, and fiercely loyal to those she considers family. She can be hard and unyielding, just like the desert she lives in. She will not run from danger but meet it head first, with a defiant grin on her face and her guns blazing…

I also love that this impulsiveness and unwillingness to compromise and listen to reason has landed her in trouble before. In fact, she starts this book as the lowest man on the totem pole with the Ghost Wolves because one of her impulse decisions almost had them all killed three years prior. What makes Hob a good protagonist is that she acknowledges her mistakes. She doesn’t try to blame her shortcomings on others or on the circumstances. In fact, nobody is harsher on herself than Hob. She knows she screwed up. She swore to never be that stupid again. And even though most of the Ghost Wolves have forgiven her transgression, she hasn’t forgiven herself yet. But even though that mistake makes Hob doubt herself at times, I love that when push comes to shove, she takes the reins of command and does what needs to be done. But she does it after weighting the pros and cons and fully aware of the consequences.

Mag Ravani, Hob’s adopted cousin, couldn’t be more different, but is a strong woman as well. Unlike Hob, Mag is calm and thoughtful. She doesn’t rush into things head first. She sits down and analyses the situation from all angles before she decides on the best course of action. Where Hob is fire, Mag is water. The kind of water in an underground river – a lifesaver for desert dwellers but can drag you under and drown you in its dark current as well. And nobody will hear you screw underground.

I love the fact that Hob and Mag genuinely love each other. They are sisters and they are friends, and even though the events of three years ago cast a shadow over their relationship, they talk about it like adults and manage to move past it. And they have each other’s backs. They work together.

Even though Hob and Mag are the main protagonists of this book, the story is full of other interesting characters that I enjoyed following. All the Ghost Wolves, and especially Coyote. The special agent who infiltrated TransRift and bit more than he can chew. The Bone Collector… I want to know more about them. I want to know more about Tanegawa and I want to know what happens to Hob and the Ghost Wolves after their epic confrontation with TransRift at the end of the book. So I pray and hope that there is a second book somewhere in my near future, because I’m in love with this world.

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