Laith

I've heard good things about Blake Crouch, this is the first novel I've read by this author, and I am impressed. I recognized this name from thriller shelves, but I have to say his Sci-Fi is fantastic. This is a time travel loop story, always a favorite with me. It's very specific about what kind of time travel it is, which I always appreciate. What really impressed me was just how much story is crammed into 326 pages, I think there are longer books with less plot development than this book has by its halfway point.The premise of this book is really cool to me, part of it is how unique the science aspect of this book is. Most time travel stories have physics come up with the time portal/chair/chamber, but in Recursion time travel is a function of memory. This is a dual perspective narrative: The story follows a New York detective who gets sucked into some time travel shenanigans while investigating the outbreak of FMS in NYC. False Memory Syndrome is afflicting people seemingly at random, with the victims waking up to find complete sets of alternative memories from a different life. Our second MC is Helen, the scientist who's misused Alzheimer research into memory is twisted to create an invention that is wreaking havoc across the timeline. I don't want to give away any more of the time travel stuff As far as logically sound time travel goes, I think this qualifies, as for its level of complexity: this is a better thought out Tenet (2020). Not only that, but I wasn't super focused on figuring out the minutiae of the time traveling in this book, the way the time travel works enables the narrative to jump tracks without confusing the reader. This quirk of the story reminded me of old fix up novels. I will note that unlike fix up novels, there is a distinct plan that the narrative is following. Reading through this felt like being attached to a rope at the bottom of a well, and with each leap the story takes it tugs you towards its ending. Very Nice. A+This is totally spoiler territory, but I did not like the romance that develops between Barry and Helena. I understand that given the time loop in the story, there needed to be a second person to break the loop. I can also see that it's super convent if they're married and soul bonded. That kind of sucks, fine; they're soul bonded, that's got to be pretty cool and intense and beautiful, right? It really wasn't, it sounded excruciating and didn't at all focus on the romance as a factor in what is effectively a hundred-year time skip. Just one smooch in all that time, that's all we get. Maybe I'm just a little freak but like if you're going to have your characters spend like 133 years married to each other, maybe let us know how that sex life is going. I think that instinctively I know that what would have made this story perfect was a more intense connection between Helena and Barry. This is a great time travel story, someone should sell this to Nolan. The science/sci-fi speculation is also top-notch; it's cool to know that even as we learn more about the surrounding universe, that we are still able to find fields of study where much is unknown and imagine the possibilities. I am giving it monster bonus points for being a good time travel story and having a type of speculation that's unique. This came out the same year as [b:This is How You Lose the Time War 43352954 This is How You Lose the Time War Amal El-Mohtar https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1653185078l/43352954.SX50.jpg 58237743] and it surprised me that of the two time travel stories that year, this isn't the one getting the buzz because this book is a much more entertaining and interesting read.This is on the border between 4 and 5. A little romance would have gone a long way, so I'm going to be a conservative on this one just as a matter of personal taste.

I won't do a full review of this book, I think my review for book 1 covers this just as well. In my mind, this is just part 2 of a novel called Monk & Robot. In Part 1 we escape to the forests and have tea among the trees, this book is about the return to civilization.

All the charm and coziness of the first book is in here, but I think this entry is more about discovery or rather, re-discovery. The majority of this book is about Mosscap's interactions with the larger population of humans, the players of the first entry have traded places. Dex shepherds Mosscap across the countryside in the same way that Mosscap leads Dex through the forest. I already loved Mosscap as a character and this book is all the better because of the pointed focus on it. It's not only lovable, it's a fantastic lens through which to examine humanity. There are some amazing thoughts and observations on the everyday lives of human beings in this book; common behaviors and interactions are all parsed by Mosscap as it seeks to learn what it is that humans need.

I appreciated the balance between philosophy and narrative that Chambers strikes here, and they haven't lost the thread they were onto between books. There is a fantastic contrast struck through the setting despite the continued naturalist focus, it really crystalized for me as I read through the titular passage (and that gets an A+ from me). I expect we might see a third and possibly final installment of this series and I hope that it ties in just as well as this one did.

TL;DR: Out of the forest and into the woods. Second verse same as the first.

For a while there all I would read were LitRPGs but I had to take a break. I figured I would treat myself to this very well-reviewed series after finishing up a spate of fairly challenging reads. I liked this book, it is far from perfect but I would say that this execution of the formula meets par, which is impressive for a new author debut. I would not recommend this as a jumping-in point for LitRPG, but if you're a fan of/familiar with this genre I think you'll find this enjoyable.

I am giving zero points for originality here, the premise is ripped straight out of any high school set fantasy game anime produced in the last 15 years. Jason is an intelligent but misunderstood kid attending a prestigious high school on scholarship, he is bullied by antagonist Alex (A rich 17yo psychopath) and expelled by a corrupt school administration. He dives into a VR MMO called Awaken Online, a cutting-edge game that's run by an intelligent AI called Alfred. This first book tackles the origins of Alfred and Jason's rise to power in the game and his efforts to crush Alex (Alexion in-game) under the heel of his boot.

If you've seen Sword Art Online this is straight-up ripping off that premise with minor changes, like the bullying subplot and an expanded plotline for the sentient AI game controller/DM. I don't fault it for being SAO-inspired, SAO is the framework on which many LitRPGs extrapolate, but that doesn't mean that this isn't one of the most blatant rip-offs of that premise I've ever read (the last chapter is total SAO bait).

Before I start tearing this book apart further I do want to give credit where it is due. This is the most litRPG a litRPG can be, it hasn't strayed from the formula one iota but it is still better written than 99% of the web novels that I've read (Take that with a grain of salt, this is competing in a space-crowded with non-English speaking authors and machine translations). I think the core strength of this story is how much attention and care has gone into building out the details of the game world. Unlike many other competitors in this space, the game that's described here is something I would want to play. There are no improvements I would offer to the setting of this book, it's perfectly executed. The game makes sense, the skills are well-defined, and the systems have been thought over. While there is power creep I would point out that this book, like nearly everything else in this genre, is an escapist power fantasy and this is just the first volume so it's hard to comment definitively.

On to the plethora of flaws:

This is a self-published debut book and it probably wasn't professionally edited so there's screwed-up grammar, tense, and just generally lacking prose. There is a clear lack of polish but I wouldn't say that the lack of polish is what's killing this book. What's killing this book is that the characterization and plot structure is a dumpster fire, these are critical flaws that go well beyond the technical details.

Let's start with Alex, our foil to Jason: He gets maybe 10 lines of dialogue in 500 pages and the bulk of his characterization happens in the last 15% of the story. He is a contrived one-dimensional villain stereotype and I wonder why he's featured so prominently when he's written like a henchman in a Saturday morning cartoon. If he's supposed to be the source of any of the tension in this story, and the second half of the book is written like he is, then this is a failure of a character. I would note that nearly every other author in this genre is guilty of writing flat villains that are meant to be stepped on to progress the power fantasy, but typically those characters don't stick around for an entire volume.

Well, what about the MC? Jason is maybe one bad day away from shooting up his school and that characterization seems to have been largely done by accident. I think that this first volume was supposed to be about Jason getting over his anger issues, but his redemption falls flat, and feels forced. This story is supposed to be about Jason but outside of his anger issues and his obsession with the game we really know next to nothing about him and that's not okay when what most of this book does is question his morality. To pile on, the bullied at school by rich kids gimmick really shouldn't be the first thing we grasp when we want a compelling character in a video game world. I've seen every variation of “poor and lame in real life, but rich and powerful in the game” and IMO there are so many more compelling archetypes. I think that this characterization is supposed to justify the choice of playstyle/in-game character and highlight the influence of the AI, but a bullied kid rolling a Necromancer-Assassin is not a new thing, it's like the author picked one generic trope to underpin a second and equally generic trope.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the plotting. The bulk of the tension in this story is not coming from the A plot at all: Instead of caring about character growth and gameplay, I spent most of this read dreading what kind of a monster Jason was going to turn into just to have that narrative thread cut out abruptly. Jason goes through something resembling redemption or at least a change in his attitude, but that change is largely unexplained. This commentary on/change in his nature is what the AI subplot seemed to be designed to deliver but if that's the case why did that subplot seemingly disappear? Every chapter has a split structure: There's the opening passage in Italics which delivers the B plot about how the AI has slipped its reins and is reading and altering the memories of its players, while the remainder is the A plot which focuses on Jason as he gets increasingly homicidal in the way he plays the game. This isn't a bad setup all things told, it raises some interesting questions about the AI as it enables the worst aspects of Jason's personality. But for some unstated reason the passages that were delivering the B plot suddenly time skip to the present and become POV from the game company as Jason rampages. I'm guessing the AI's influence is what the next volume will focus on, but if that's the case why is the introduction of this plotline the dominant source of tension in this volume?

I'll probably read on to see if and how this is going to improve as Bagwell matures as an author. I can tell from this first book that he cares about this project and there is some seriously nerdy attention to detail being paid to the game-focused elements. Despite this book having some serious flaws I am interested in the game world and if I can make a big-time generalization: no one reads LitRPG for the prose or plot. These books are like rollercoasters or bags of chips; they're pure entertainment and filler- and this story is sufficiently entertaining with a lot of room for growth and improvement. To quote my real estate agent, “This has good bones”.

From an enjoyment standpoint this is a 3.5/5, from a more global quality standpoint this is a 2/5 at best. Overall 2.75

A full length novel for Murderbot! My main complaint through the novellas was that each story was just too short and finally I got an uninterrupted full length story to sit in MB's passenger seat. I love reading from MB's perspective, I love how we never leave its side and all the information we receive is coloured by its particular brand of paranoia. Of course it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

It's fun to see Murderbot grow as its own conscious entity and giving it a full novel to interact with some of its favorite humans (and its favorite ship) has done a lot to enhance the human element of their character. This is not the same Murderbot from All Systems Red, its growth has been subtle so far and in this novel we see how these new relationships have made their impact. But make no mistake, this story at its core is basically the Brave Little Toaster gets downright murderous. I eagerly await the next full length novel in this series, I am curious to see Murderbot evolve even further.

This is where my journey with this series ends. I noticed this with the last book, but it was very apparent here, this could not grasp my attention. I did a fair bit of travel over the holidays and figured by the time I got back home I'd have finished this series, but I got through just one entry. These books are getting longer without really including any more story. The pace of the narrative is fixed to the progression of the game and that progression is broken up book to book; of which there are 7 mainline entries, 4 or 5 “side quests”, and a whole three book spin off series. I am not invested enough for all that, I barely got through this book!

It's not that things don't happen in this story, there's always something going on, but this reads more like gameplay commentary than it does a narrative. The bulk of this book is about Jason unlocking some race specific skills in order to overcome a new/powerful enemy. This in-game progression is mirrored by a high profile and lurid congressional hearing concerning the oversight of the VR tech and Alfred the AI. But maybe mirrored isn't the right word, the trial does take its share of pages, but it doesn't move the story along one bit. Everything that “matters” as far as the story is concerned is what's happening in the game; and like I said for book 3, that's not the unique and interesting part of this story to me.

I gave this a shot, but it's getting a little too long-winded and repetitive for me. There's just not enough development in here to justify the page count, I know the focus is on the game but dude I've played DnD, and I've already read/seen/heard about this game in a million other stories. I'm just not interested in this campaign dungeon master, I want to go outside.

Here's the book club pick for August, and I found it to be much better than the last two picks ([b:Planetfall 24237785 Planetfall (Planetfall, #1) Emma Newman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1424627926l/24237785.SX50.jpg 43823353], [b:Fourth Wing 61431922 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) Rebecca Yarros https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1666994927l/61431922.SY75.jpg 96945623]). Ninth House is a masterfully written piece of Dark Academia/Urban Fantasy, it's also a multilayered ode or dirge to Yale- I'm not sure exactly how to take it. If you like that spooky girl shit this will be right up your alley, and if you like the Dresden Files well congrats because this is very similar (with less misogyny and a tighter plot to boot). Also right at the top here's your mature content warning: This book has some pretty visceral scenes of sexual violence/rape/date rape, it's not in there for no reason but it will make your skin crawl.Ninth House is set in the modern day and is about Galaxy “Alex” Stern, a girl who possesses the ability to see ghosts and is granted a full scholarship to attend Yale and become the Dante of Lethe. her job? To monitor the activities of its secret societies. You heard it right, Yale is Hogwarts, the secret societies that pump out modern-day elites? Magic. Definitely not nepotism or the hidden mechanisms of an Oligarchy.I found the pacing to be excellent, there's a good mix of suspenseful fast-paced sections and slower contemplative passages that Bardugo uses to fill us in on the workings of Lethe and Yale. I loved those quick sections they have that “just one more page” quality that all the best books have. On the other hand, the slow sections do kind of drag as we get the intricate details of the magical world and secret societies. While these moments might slow down the overall narrative pace, they contribute to a richer understanding of the characters and the complex dynamics at play. I can see other readers disagreeing on pacing, particularly if they are more invested in the action and suspense.I didn't get a ton out of the prose or the writing for this one, it read neutral to me. I guess atmospheric is a good word to describe the vibe here, Bardugo pays careful attention to the world-building and tries her best to fill the air with mystery. I think I'd have been more impressed if I'd read this before I read The Dresden Files.I think I would have put this book down if it had just been a 1:1 Yale is Hogwarts kind of a story, but thankfully it isn't. Ninth House is a very complex, very aware kind of story; it trades in magic and mystery but it's careful to include a particular focus on power, privilege, and the weight of one's actions. The best books reflect the real world in their subject matter and Ninth House does a great job on that front. The world of secret societies serves as a metaphor for the unchecked privilege and entitlement that can permeate certain (cough Elite cough) spheres of society. The members of these societies often come from privileged backgrounds, and their actions are shielded from consequences due to their status. In the real world, the secret societies at Yale wield immense influence and authority, creating a microcosm where power struggles are often concealed beneath a veneer of tradition and exclusivity. I don't think the layman knows just how much power originates from Yale, take a look at how many Yale grads wind up running the country. This dynamic is paralleled in the magical world, where different characters possess varying degrees of supernatural power, leading to questions about control, exploitation, and responsibility. I really resonated with this lens that the Ninth House views its world through, it asks all the right questions and it's enormously satisfying to see someone holding the elites responsible (even if it's just fiction). The story serves as a cautionary tale about the consequences of unchecked ambition and the importance of critically examining the systems and structures that govern society.I can't pinpoint exactly what kept this from earning 5 stars for me. I found myself reading this book and enjoying it but constantly waiting for it to lock me in the way [b:Babel: An Arcane History 57945316 Babel An Arcane History R.F. Kuang https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1677361825l/57945316.SY75.jpg 90789229] did, but I made it to the back cover without ever fully connecting with this story. From my perspective Dark Academia is a touchy subject, it's been done to perfection so many times that a new entry in the genre has a very hard time distinguishing itself. As much as I loved Alex taking the privileged students of Yale to task, the college setting didn't do much for me; I think that the unique elements of this book would resonate with a slightly younger audience. TL;DR: Yale is Hogwarts, and Harry is an ex-junkie who sees ghosts. If you've ever wanted to cave Jared Kushner's skull in with a marble bust and you liked the Dresden Files this might be exactly what you are looking for.

This is How You Lose the Time War is a Novella that is unique in the SF genre, it puts romance and prose ahead of all other elements, and it manages to deliver a compelling narrative with minimal world-building and hardly any emphasis on plot. It's fair to say that most SF works place their priorities in exactly the opposite configuration, so to call this book intriguing is an understatement to be sure.

To frame the premise, this is a queer-enemies-to-lovers story centering on two spies/agents on opposing sides of a war across time. Is there a little bit of the ol' “tick-the-boxes- this is Steven in marketing and he's going to help you sell this puppy,” razzle dazzle? Yes. Is the Novella content to let its premise dictate the direction of its narrative and structure? No way. The story is delivered through alternating passages, ingenious love letters from Red to Blue, and vice versa, each crammed full of literary reference and prosodic suggestion. If there were ever a novella that needed an annotated edition it's this one. I think that for each hour I spent reading a chapter I spent another hour looking things up, especially for some of the more literary references. Allusion rife abounds, and it's a double-edged sword- if much of the meaning is caught up in allusion and reference to other works, then the books run the chance of having that meaning lost. Thankfully despite how much reference is crammed into each letter, the sentiment and narrative manage to punch through.

When I first picked this novella up, I ripped through the first quarter like it was a white powdery substance and I was Carrie Fisher. I was immediately impressed by the presentation and the language, and I was excited to see where and how the plot would develop alongside the romance. I guess I didn't know what I was in for, because the further I went the less engaging I found it to be. This book subverted my expectations, where I thought I was getting Terminator meets The Lake House, what I actually got was Jane Austen writing Primer, and I thought Jane Eyre was a snooze fest best relegated to the back halls of the Library of Congress. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the story; for as little experience as I have with the romance genre, even I could appreciate how carefully crafted and beautiful each missive between agents is. But this isn't just a romance novel, it's Romance, it's poetry.

Never has a story transported me back to my collegiate writing seminars quite like this one, the more I read, the more I thought to myself, “This would totally kill in a workshop.” That's a backhanded compliment; I won't go so far as to say that this book is all style and no substance because it is substantial, it's just not my cup of tea. This book read to me like a collegiate exercise, a Capstone publication, impressive and exquisite for sure, but lacking in the pulpy flavor I crave from my SF. If I'd wanted to read Dickens, I'd have read Dickens, if I'd wanted to read Austen, I'd have read Austen, and if I want to read a book about the Time War well maybe it should BE about the Time War. Jake Brookins' review put it best,

“even if SF stories don't follow their worlds' particular Chosen Ones, it's customary to fill the reader in on the larger picture—at least beyond short story lengths. So, it's startling, for those used to at least a strong whiff of monomyth and systematic subcreation, to spend so much time with characters losing interest in the war, and a narrative that seeks to escape rather than explain its world.”

I think I'm a Becky Chambers fan. I've only read [b:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet 22733729 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) Becky Chambers https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405532474l/22733729.SY75.jpg 42270825] so maybe that's premature but I really liked that book, and spoiler: I loved this book. This is a spoonful of sugar, a warm cup of something on a perfect fall day; and I read this at the perfect time, peak spooky season, the leaves have turned and it is nice and cool and rainy. What a cozy and comfy vibe. I feel like expounding on how cozy this is might actually undercut some of the coziness and I would hate to take the full blast away from anyone. Just trust me when I say the cozy element of this book is there and it is perfectly done, and if that's what you want to key in on: it's in there go read it. I also don't want to give too much of the actual plot away so I'll be extremely reductive. A Tea Monk named Dex and a robot named Mosscap go on a hike and have a cup of tea in the woods. What really stands out about this book is the world-building. This world has lore and it rocks, it's a utopia where humanity frees the sentient robots and gives them half their world. It's like Terminator but with tea-1000s. The joy is in exploring a world and culture so foreign as to allow that kind of outcome, what the people are like, what the robots are like. It's hopeful.It's actually more than hopeful, this book is an optimistic supernova ball of sunshine of a science fiction story. If it were just perfectly executed cozy it might not rate super high with me, but it's such a breath of fresh air. Not only for me as a reader but for the SF genre. It could just be the books that I have been choosing to read - not to complain about some excellent books- but it seems like anything that is popular and well-reviewed tends to be dark/hard/violent. I love it when I run across a book that scratches that SF itch in a different way. I have caught myself thinking about TLWSA a fair few times and for much the same reasons. I think this book will stick with me in much the same way. While these are two very different stories, I think it's proved that Becky Chambers can write some absolutely lovable characters. Dex and Mosscap are kind and thoughtful and are so good to each other in a way that not only subverts SF convention but fills you with warmth. I did have one gripe, and I did debate docking a point for it. This book is a little short, and the way it ends absolutely demands a continuation. While there is a complete story told here, I feel like maybe this didn't need to get split into two books. Part 1 and Part 2 as a thing of economy. But then again, this did come out in a pandemic year so the content demand probably had something to do with it. This won't crack my favorites list on its own, so the sequel better rip.TL;DR: A Tea Monk named Dex and a robot named Mosscap go on a hike and have a cup of tea in the woods.PS: 2021 really had some great books

Oh man, this book came really close to perfection, it's as if Hurley added [b:Starship Troopers 17214 Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1614054412l/17214.SY75.jpg 2534973], [b:1984 61439040 1984 George Orwell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657781256l/61439040.SX50.jpg 153313], [b:All You Need Is Kill 6255949 All You Need Is Kill Hiroshi Sakurazaka https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568911292l/6255949.SY75.jpg 6439033], 3oz of grain alcohol, and [b:Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut Jr. https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1440319389l/4981.SY75.jpg 1683562] into a Nutribullet. Delicious, but you know, for a book not a smoothie. Before I outline the story, I have to shout out some really ambitious and successful world building. This book is set on a far future Earth that we (as in modern day people) have predictably devastated. The states of the modern day have collapsed, and in their place rise the corporations. Much of corporate controlled earth was left an infertile irradiated mess and the people of earth were slowly starving their way to extinction. In come the Martians. I'll try not to elaborate here lest I spoil anything, but the Martians offer to fix the ruined Earth in return for the right to settle. The corporations are in disbelief and agree to those terms; a conflict quickly arises as avarice for the reclaimed territories sparks a war between the Corporations and Mars. At least that's what the war appears to be on the surface.The story follows Dietz, a new recruit to the Corporate forces. Dietz is inspired to join the war after a catastrophe called the Blink hits their birthplace of São Paulo, evaporating millions of people. The Corporations blame the Martians, and unveil a new light based technology that will allow them to prosecute the war in every corner of the solar system. Dietz trains as one of these light soldiers, genetically modified to be able to disassemble their atomic structure and travel along beams of light to “drop” into combat. But the tech isn't all that safe, some soldiers jump and come back with their heads literally up their asses, and others return whole but forever changed. In Dietz' case, their jumps don't just carry them across space but across time.Yep, you guessed it, we've got another non-linear narrative here! The plot is non-linear, and Dietz experiences time in a fragmented and disorienting way, and it works exceptionally well here as that experience is mapped onto the experience of a soldier. I know that I'm a sucker for non-linear anything, but this mechanic adds a level of much-needed complexity to the story in this case. I was really engaged with trying to piece together the puzzle of Dietz's experiences, so hey yet another win for non-linear stories.There is so much more about this book that I want to gush about, but I don't think I can without spoiling it. Hurley skillfully explores profound themes such as the dehumanizing effects of war, the manipulation of truth, and the consequences of conflict. There is an entire psychological aspect to this book that addresses war's toll on individuals, it's a raw and honest portrayal of the harsh realities of war. It's extremely compelling and offers a lot of the same style of commentary as is present in 1984 and Slaughterhouse V. What kept this from perfection for me was just how broad the commentary is. This might be a non-issue for other readers, but I get really put off when authors offer up passage after passage of social commentary on issues that are at best in the periphery of the story. This book takes a really loud and wide stance when it comes to its political philosophy, there's a line for everything. Yes, this book is clear about what it wants to say, but my issue is that it says too much and doesn't let the reader mull the thing over. As a direct comparison to Starship Troopers, this is the one aspect in which this book falls a little flat for me; I felt like this was holding my hand, whereas Starship Troopers just trusted me to get the message and to make up my own mind.This was up for the Hugo in 2020, I think it totally deserves the nod. This was fun and engaging, and you know what? It might be saying a lot, but it's saying some good stuff.

Been a while since I finished this so I might be a little bit fuzzy on the details, but we're 3 books deep and it's safe to say that the watermark on this series continues to rise with each entry.

This book picks up after a fairly large cliffhanger at the end of book 2 and proceeds to kind of bury that development while Jason and the gang progress the in-game story line. After the events of the last book Jason is working on his race change quest and expanding his kingdom, these tasks ultimately take us to the coast and the water temple (of course there's a water temple). I think that if you're the type of litRPG reader who is all about the game progression this might be the perfect series for you, because these stories are consistently 80% game and 20% life as far as the balance of content goes.

Book 2 v. Book 3: This entry is the best yet from a techincal writing standpoint. I think the name of the game for this series is gradual improvement because this entry continues the trend of tightening the pacing and expanding the antagonists presence in the story. That's right Alex is still here and while he largely develops seperate from Jason's story there is so much more personally focused content for him this time around. Overall this book is fairly tight and focused, much more so than the previous two, I just wish that there was more of a content balance between the SF elements and the Video Game elements.

I am a little split on the series. I find the in-game universe of this series entertaining and engaging and I am enjoying the character progression as well as the backstory/evolution of the game world itself. The progression is good but I wouldn't continue reading on if that's all there was to these books; what I find myself being increasingly interested in is the overworld and AI storyline. I don't want to spoil much here but memory editing + a rogue AI is so much more compelling than a water temple adventure to me. The problem is that the AI plot progresses gradually across the series and it's a little maddening. There is this fascinating subplot that doesn't develop at the same pace as the main plot and I am realizing that's been my problem this whole time. There are a lot of conceptually interesting ideas that this story includes but does not capitalize on because of the intense focus on the game.

TL;DR: Water Temple episode. Very game focused. More Alexion than ever before.

Lucky Jim.

Someone else likened this book to growing up with The Beatles; they were this big thing that was a total change of pace for their contemporaries, but to a generation that grew up with them they aren't anything exciting or special. That's such an apt description I couldn't put it better myself, this is like the Beatles if you were born well after Beatlemania; it's great stuff but your parents (and maybe even grandparents) listen to it.

I think I could stop the review there but I think that would turn off potential readers, after all, who wants to read a nearly 70-year-old book after being told it's “something your parents listened to”. Even more so, why would anyone want to read a comedy from 1955, everyone knows they invented humor in the 70s. Well if you're still with me, here's why: this is still just as funny and well-written as the day it was published. Like seriously there are some moments in this book that seem straight out of Monty Python or even American works like Caddyshack and for good reason, it's books like this that helped to define the tradition of British Humor. I'm not saying that this is the birthplace of modern comedy or satire, but this book comes from and is itself a part of a shared cultural backdrop rather than a direct influence on modern comedy.

I think what makes it read so well in 2023 is just how relatable it can be. Jim Dixon is a professor at a provincial university and it's clear that he cares just as much for his subject of study as I do, which is to say not at all. He's stuck in a situationship with a girl he doesn't remember ever initiating with and is scared to end it for fear of how she'll take it. He spends the whole of the book trying his best not to be fired while simultaneously doing as little work as humanly possible. That sounds like college if it's ever been described to me, and even if my personal experience wasn't exactly the same Amis hits enough notes on the register to play a recognizable tune. The same social commentary that this made in the 50s, the experience of the first generation of common folk to enter into the elite circles of higher ed still rings true. Modern higher ed has done away with a lot of the pomp and snobbery but I think the experience of trying to get into your doctoral advisor's good books can't have changed much.

All of this is to say that the humor translates well enough over the 70-year culture gulf, this reads like the bones of those classic 80's National Lampoon comedies. Dixon himself is an agent of chaos and a delightful screwball, his approach to the stodgy and alien environment of higher education is what I can only describe as social judo and it is genuinely funny. Having said that it needs to be noted that the social landscape of this period is by modern standards mind-blowingly antiquated and so some of the subtext/satire is lost in translation since everything seems old and out of fashion. As an example, early in the book, Jim is invited to the home of Professor Welsch for a night of madrigals and “culture”. The setup here is a satirical one as even by 1950s conventions, hosting an evening of madrigals is preposterously old-fashioned and a kind of elitist bullshit. From the perspective of a modern reader, the idea of an evening of singing/live performance of any kind in a residence is a totally alien concept so what does it matter if it's madrigals or caroling or whatever else.

This might be the only book that's a part of the English canon that is genuinely still entertaining to read. It goes to show that just because it is old doesn't mean it isn't gold.

This book is sad, it's probably the saddest thing I've read since Zlata's Diary. Heart-breaking page-turner is an apt description; I didn't put it down until I was done. That said, if I am honest with myself, I wish I could unread it. That's not to say that this book is bad, there are strong characters and a gripping premise, it's well written, sweet, and profound, but it's also a devastating exploration of subjects I prefer not to grapple with (namely infertility).

I'm not sure if I have this right since I am essentially a virgin to contemporary romance novels but it seems to me that the genre is split down the middle. There's spicy romance replete with extended and explicit sex scenes, then there's whatever this book was. Let's call this other half sad romance, where the sex is beside the point, and it seems like the author is doing their best to make you cry. I am sure some readers really appreciate emotional catharsis, and I'm guessing that those people are die-hard Colleen Hoover fans. Call me out of touch with my feelings, but I don't really enjoy books whose main purpose is to make me sad regardless of quality. It seemed to me to be sadness for sadness' sake, I read depressing and bleak stuff all the time but I guess it hits differently when it's grounded in reality like this book is (as opposed to more cosmic/general sadness, or the horrors of a bleak future, etc.).

Let's talk tropes. It seems to me that when it comes to Romance novels the quality of the writing isn't the main appeal, there's a baseline for quality obviously, but what separates these books from their peers is largely a question of which tropes and themes the author chooses to incorporate. This applies generally, across most genres, but when it comes to Romance the tropes are the MOST important indicator of whether or not a reader will like the book. If I had to tag this novel I would probably say that this is a “love-conquers-all” story with a little bit of “second chance at love” mixed in there. There is also an undercurrent of “fated lovers” going on here which is a trope that personally hate because of how it undercuts the believability of the story. Thankfully it's only mentioned a few times and is never a viewpoint that the narration adopts.

I read this book because of Fourth Wing. It was mentioned in a discussion that there was a correlation between people who thought that book was average and the male audience. The implication is that boys + romance is the reason it was mid and not a reflection of the quality of the book. I chose this Romance novel from the Best of booktok list at random and gave it a read. I can safely say that I didn't have an issue with the quality of the book at all, this is head and shoulders above 4W in almost every way. The characters are real, the premise is grounded, the prose is consistent and unambiguous, and most importantly the whole scenario is generally believable. The difference between this book and 4W is stark, where this romance is carefully crafted and well thought out, 4W was lazy, horny, and all too fond of taking shortcuts.

This is a sad romance. If you like sad romance you're probably the reason Colleen Hoover keeps making the best-seller list and you don't need me to plug this. If you're in the mood for a good cry, or the idea of a grounded romance about two people working their way through something awful sounds amazing to you, give this a read. Points for quality, but I didn't really enjoy it.

PS: This book is set in new england, the MC is the estranged daughter of an irascible and wealthy mother who really only cares about wealth and standing. If this is ringing any bells it's because this is the setup to Gilmore Girls. The MC is Loreli, Graham is Luke, and her mother is Emily.

This was another book I read on a recommendation and wound up enjoying more than I thought I would. Discworld has always been a bit of an intimidating series to me so I was a little hesitant to pick this up on my own. First of all, it's sprawling, there are 41 entries, something like 5 or 6 different storylines, and a reading order that gives me a headache. More importantly, it's foundational, this is a series that apparently everyone but me has read and loved, it parodies and has been parodied in a million other works- and here I was, worried it might read a little dated, and then I'd be the only person I know that doesn't like Discworld.

Thankfully my worries were unfounded; The Color of Magic is like reading a rollercoaster. This book was only 228 pages but I had to take my time with it because almost every page had something insanely interesting and imaginative on it. Rincewind and Twoflower are a whirlwind that tears through the Discworld, at such a breakneck pace that I had to take a moment to remind myself of the setting and context with every new development. I can safely say that I was never once bored reading this, and if I find out that someone was, I would strongly recommend they donate their body to science. That said, the pacing is definitely a double-edged sword, I could totally see some readers being put off by the sheer volume of insane developments and the sudden changes in setting/plot/narration/universe.

Every time this series has come up in conversation (usually they're Brits) it's always been something along the lines of, “This is such a killer series, I absolutely devoured it as a kid.” I'm jealous! I wish so desperately that someone had plopped this book down in front of me as a wee lad, I think that I would have dropped everything and finished the series given the chance. As an adult, the humor agrees with me, and I really enjoyed the non-conformity of the story structure. For a young and impressionable mind, it's books like this that are the kind to really open a door, and for me in particular this could have been something akin to The Animorphs or Harry Potter.

I'll definitely work my way through the rest of the Rincewind storylines, and I am keen to read Mort as well!

I have difficulty believing this book was over 500 pages because it went by in a flash. Some litRPGs kind of cheat by spamming the status screen every other chapter to pad out the page count, but that's not what's happening here. I consider this a significant improvement over the first entry in the series, a lot of the issues I had with the balance of the narrative and the overall characterization have been addressed or wallpapered over in some way. It's still not perfect, and it is guilty of bulldozing past the issues of the first book, but if the series had started like this, I think I'd be stoked on it.

This picks up right after Book 1, and it kind of veers off into kingdom builder territory for a while as Jason consolidates his bounty from the previous book. This entry is different from the first in that it introduces, or rather re-introduces, previous side characters into Jason's party. The theme and focus this time is the party, we're establishing the relationship between these characters and discovering the importance of friendship.


Characterization was a big weakness of the first entry, I'm glad to say that this book is much closer to the neutral baseline this time around. The characters may have started off seriously flawed, but I think one of the goals of the book is to reflect changes in their behavior/character as they continue to play the game. That's kind of what is going on here, Jason's character is about a thousand times less violent and edgy than he is in the first, and we can chalk it up to the events of the first/effects of the helmet changing him for the better (No more wholesale slaughter of cities, Jason's a good boy now). It might feel like kind of a large scale change, but it's for the better, so I'm going to look past how complete of a change it is.

Alex also improves dramatically a foil, a lot of this is really just because he actually gets the whole book's worth of introduction sections. He's still fairly weak as a character, but this book does a much better job as we continue to get his backstory and there are much more (more than the zero in the first) passages directly from his perspective. I think my problem with Alex is that he's neither sympathetic nor fearsome, he's kind of more like... evil toilet paper with a tragic backstory. There's not enough context to why he's a threat (outside some fairly blasé bullying and being a 1%er douche) and we already saw him get his ass kicked in book 1. I am surprised that the side story after this book wasn't one for him specifically.

This is a cleaning house kind of book for the most part, I would describe it as tweaking the foundation before possibly letting the story finally rip? There's a touch of second book syndrome here, there's a big focus on development, but ultimately the narrative has progressed satisfyingly enough. The ending of this book is probably the best part (if a little sudden and a major cliffhanger), it seems like maybe book three is going to seriously advance the story outside the game and that's a storyline that I am interested in. This is getting a 3 just like the first, but this is closer to a 3.5.

TL;DR: Skeleton boy gets some friends and that fixes all the problems in his personality. 3.5/5

Book Club For December.

Do you remember the first time you listened to Zeppelin III? Maybe 13 seconds into Immigrant Song, you were like “THIS SHIT ROCKS!” and then proceeded to reach musical nirvana? That's this book. Like holy crap, I didn't even know I wanted a story like this, but here it is! A Rock/Metal themed Fantasy adventure; some bards, bands, and battles. We've got a nicely put together fantasy world and some veteran characters to guide us along a fantastical journey. It's the First Law but written by Terry Pratchett with music by Led Zepplin. There's actually a Spotify playlist to accompany this book, and if you're reading this (as opposed to listening) I think it's kind of mandatory. (The audiobook is narrated by Jeff Harding and is excellent, so that's another valid choice)

This book was previously on my radar, but I skipped it. I must have been judging books by their covers at the time (the cover does bear a striking resemblance to Gwyne or Abercrombie at first glance) and I was under the mistaken impression that this was yet another grimdark story. Rest assured, dear reader, this is not grimdark. What this book is: a high energy high fantasy rollick; a weird but kick-ass mishmash of Andy Weir, Guns n' Roses, Conan, and Rimworld. This book is about “Saga” the world's greatest mercenary band that's been ten years retired. We follow Clay “Slowhand” Cooper and Saga's frontman “Golden” Gabe as they work to reunite the band to bring Saga out of retirement for one last mission: Saving Gabe's daughter Rose, who is trapped in the under siege city of Castia.

If I haven't given it away yet, this book is decidedly Metal, at least to me. The mercenary bands are this world's analog for our Rock/Metal bands. I guess Rock is more the more ubiquitous label, but I just kept getting a serious Metalocalpyse vibe from characters like Ganelon the axe wielding warrior who's spent the last ten years trapped in stone, Larkspur the black winged Daeva with DID and/or head trauma, really every character in the band rocks. I think that's why I liked this so much, it's kind of like a novelized Metalocalypse (which for my money was the best thing Adult Swim was making in the 00s) with less “heavy” in its flavor of metal and the “fantasy” knob is turned to 11. This book was really playing to its demo in my case, and if the reception to this debut is any indication, I am not alone in thinking this combo was Metal as fuck.

On the subject of music, I don't want to make this review nothing but me calling out the references, but I need to address this point somehow. This work is Referential, capital R; EVERY character is a reference, EVERY location is a reference. Honestly, pick a detail, and you will find it referencing a band, a song, a line in a song, or something else entirely (I'm 90% sure there's a Final Fantasy 7 spinning away transition reference). I'm not knocking this aspect of the book- I was grinning ear to ear when I realized that the villain, Duke Lastleaf, is a White Duke era Bowie reference- but I can see this wearing on some readers. I mentioned Andy Weir at the top and this is what I was talking about, there are just so many references that it seems like Eames read The Martian and then tried to do the same thing just in Azeroth but then realized he had to name everything from scratch. In all likelihood, the average reader isn't going to catch all but the most obvious of these references and given the decided “rock fantasy” theme here, all the people/places/things aren't at all out of place or jarring.

Beyond the referential nature of this book, there is a really stunning world paired with an entertaining and jaunty yet emotionally grounded story that takes its time showing you how its insane universe functions. I was so surprised to learn that this was a debut because I really felt like I was in the hands of a veteran author with how steady and confident the pace of the book was. I came to love the characters, and while some of the dialogue was a little corny, I think that there's a certain point where you get what this book is trying to do, and you are either on board and in the spirit of things, or you are a reluctant passenger missing the forest for the trees.

Let's talk about rollicks for a second because that's kind of where I am torn on this book, I don't usually care for stories like this. A rollicking adventure is a lively, typically light-hearted or low stakes, humorous journey. A lot of things fall under the umbrella of a “rollick”, it's not always swashbuckling pulp or fierce barbarian warriors a-la Conan but more often than not I find that a lot of books like this tend to fall victim to the “make-em-up” criticism. Things always wind up working out! The dragon turns out to have a toothache, the earth was made in a factory, and they happen to have back-ups, etc. For a while there, it seemed like a lot of popular Fantasy stories were forced into a happy ending framework; even stories that took themselves fairly seriously fell victim to fantastical deus ex machina endings and story beats that undercut character progression.

Maybe there's been a little bit of an over correction. We're the spoiled generation that gets to read 5/7th of A song of Ice and Fire and as much Abercrombie as we can consume before traumatizing ourselves. I don't want to come off like a self serious fuddy-duddy, there are rollicks I have enjoyed: Hitchhiker's Guide is the prime example. It's smart, it's funny, it's absurd and unpredictable, and somehow it's still so relatable that you can't help buy into the ridiculous story. On the whole I get the criticism, I wouldn't apply it to Fantasy writ large, but hey there sure are a lot of fantasy rollicks that just fall apart at the end (especially in YA). Thankfully, Kings of the Wyld doesn't confuse a light-hearted tone as a license to tell a weak or uncompelling story. Honestly, some of the themes and character moments are pretty heavy, and it made it a lot easier to push through some of the heavier chapters when you could think back to a sword fight double entendre or other moment of levity.

This book managed to sell me on a world where cool shit is constantly happening, it convinced me that it rocks without pause. There is a whole universe of books that don't take themselves too seriously and are fantastic, and I am 100% on board with books like that, books like Kings of the Wyld.

Anathem is a mixed bag of a book, a real doozy if you will. On one hand, Stephenson has managed to deliver one of the most intelligent and eloquent series of ideas I've ever had the privilege to read. On the other hand, I think it's best to be up front about the plot not starting until you're 150-200 pages in. This is a book with middling characters, some downright awful pacing, and some of the most indulgent tangents i've ever read. This is also a book that I feel smarter for reading, and managed to snowball into something that I could not put down until I finished it. I think this is very much a you-have-to-read-it-yourself book, I can see why opinions vary wildly depending on the reader. To anyone looking to read this for the first time I can safely say that you are not wasting your time, and if you can look past the obvious flaws there is a fairly large nugget of gold in here.

I usually try to start a review with a summation of the book, but Anathem is very strange in that what it is about factors heavily into the plot; to describe the premise is to spoil the book, so instead i'll try to describe the world. Anathem takes place on an Earth-like planet called Arbre; Arbran civilization is much older than ours on Earth. Their society is organized around Mathic Concents and the Saecular world a system that has been in place for ovcer 3000 years. The Concents are scientific monasteries/hermitages where the “avout” live in isolation from the outside world. These concents take the form of massive clocks, and the avout who live within are separated by their maths (orders). Depending on the math they join, either a unarian, decenarian, centanarian, or millenarian, the avout can only leave the concent when the gates of the maths open for 10 days during apert every 1, 10, 100, or 1000 years respectively. We join a young decenarian avout named Erasmus on the eve of his first apert.

Let's talk about strengths because this book has quite a few. There has to be something said for the worldbuilding, this is an aspect that I value heavily and while the world of Anathem is a little austere and generally non-techy it is captivating, complete, and atmospheric. Somewhere in between the giant clock compounds and the in-universe dictionary (to which you will probably need to refer) I did start to lose my patience with the depth that's provided but that's complaining about too much of a good thing. More than anything Anathem's biggest strength is its delivery, there are a set of ideas that Stephenson wants to explore, and by god he explores them. This book is a physics, philosophy, art, and rhetoric class rolled into one, this book is definitely meta at times too. Finally, I have to shout out the humor because it definitely helps to break up the dense idea salad Stephenson is serving. This book is funny, and it's not afraid to riff on itself either. Whether it's giving all the tech silly names or commenting on the absurdity of a capitalist economy, or jokes buried in the footnotes/dictionary there's a light-hearted touch that carries on through the bulk of the novel.

This is my first time reading a Stephenson work cover to cover but I've been exposed to a number of excerpts from Cryptonomicon and a number of his short stories. I only mention this because of his style; Stephenson is fond of extremely complex plots & heavily detailed passages and if that sounds headache-inducing here's your first warning to pull the ripcord. Accordingly, Anathem has a very intricate plot that's centered around two schools of thought (I will be using their earth names): Platonic realism and Nominalism. To grossly simplify, Platonic realism is the idea that things outside of the body exist objectively, while Nominalism posits that anything outside the body is simply what we have observed, interpreted, and labeled. The book takes its time developing these concepts, and it does so with that patented Stephenson attention to detail, so to the reader: be patient and attentive.

Anathem is not flawless. It precluded itself from a perfect 5 when I had to learn a completely new vocabulary in the first 15 pages. I know I said that you can never have too much worldbuilding, and it is true that once you decipher the vocabulary it does serve to enhance the story (and in many cases deliver the humor) but there are almost 260 made-up words in this book and it's a burdensome ask. I don't think I would have had as much to complain about if the characters in this book were done better. Outside of their role in the story, they were flat and uninteresting, especially when compared to the emphasis placed on the ideas. It must be said that the characters are not the focus of this book.

What is really holding Anathem back is its pacing. For a plot to not get underway within the first 100 pages is inexcusable, there is very little to hook a reader aside from the worldbuilding early on. The mathic world is fascinating but I can see a lot of people putting this down after one or two, of seemingly endless philosophy lectures or the 10 pages of clock winding early on. Once the plot gets going Stephenson liberally applies the brakes every other chapter with one thought experiment detour after another. In my opinion, the constant distractions ultimately pay off, and understanding the ending is predicated on these philosophical detours. I may have fallen prey to the sunk cost fallacy but as I learned more I had more questions, and that slowly snowballed until I had to know what was going on. I could easily see it the other way.

I came away positive on this book, I saw it said somewhere else but I think I agree, “Anathem is the best book I would never recommend”. 7/10 (Closer to a 3 than a 4)

This was the book club pick for October and I loved it. That might be an understatement, this book alone justifies an entire year of meh picks and really highlights the value of reading books that are off of your radar. To my eye this is nearly a perfect book, it's got rollercoaster pacing, true-to-life dialogue, humor in spades, and the most cohesive/tight plotting of anything that I've read this year (and I finished The Culture this year). I cannot believe that outside of some technical manuals, this is Scott Hawkins' debut; this is a first try that has left me in awe. Before I dive in I usually do this for books that need one: Here is your mature content warning, this book has basically every possible trigger under the sun, there's graphic murder and gore, rape and sexual assault, there's mass murder and violence to animals. The story revolves around Carolyn, one of several orphans taken in by a mysterious and god-like figure known as Father. Each child is assigned a specific catalog of knowledge to master, and Carolyn's domain is the Library, a place that houses unimaginable secrets and powers. When Father goes missing, the children, now adults with god-like abilities, must confront the mysteries of the library and the past. If the summary left you glossy-eyed and uninterested I can't blame you, but this is one of those books that the blurb on the jacket won't ever be able to do justice to.As I draft this review I think I've written the phrase “unlike anything i've ever read” at least a hundred times only to delete and rephrase as I think about it a little more. The thing is that there are works that are similar to this in premise, atmosphere, or tone; examples from my list are [b:The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite 2795053 The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1 Apocalypse Suite Gerard Way https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327877097l/2795053.SY75.jpg 2820826], [b:The Wasp Factory 567678 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1434940562l/567678.SY75.jpg 3205295], [b:The Book of the New Sun 968868 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388595738l/968868.SX50.jpg 6965668], and [b:American Gods 30165203 American Gods Neil Gaiman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462924585l/30165203.SY75.jpg 1970226]. But from a writing standpoint, this book is wholly unique, I saw it written in another review and I cannot help but agree, that reading this book is an exercise in trusting the author. So let's talk about the writing for a second. This is a complex and challenging book, it is non-linear in structure and the story is fragmented, with flashbacks interspersed every few chapters to drip-feed the reader the backstory and context. There is a distinct feeling of unreliability in the narration, reading this gave me the sense that I never once had the complete picture and that there was something truly horrible looming just over the horizon. If you're someone who reads a lot of fiction that sense of mystery and unease usually dissolves as you get a sense of what type of story is being told, but that moment is never within reach in this novel. Just when you think you've figured out the rules of the world, Hawkins throws in a curveball that leaves you questioning everything.Part of that unpredictability is rooted in the characters, and we have a whole host of eccentric and terrifying characters, not least of all the main character, Carolyn. All I can really say is that she is one scary-ass lady. As more of her is revealed in each increasingly horrible flashback the tension of this book ratchets up another notch as you piece together the plot and Carolyn's role in the story. It's not just Carolyn, this book reveals more and more facets of each of its characters; the more we know the more we have to take into account. Characters that you thought you knew can change completely with a simple revelation, all of their actions and your reckoning of them completely upended and leaving you blown away in the chaotic swirl.I don't want to paint this book as overly serious and dark, Hawkins is a master at pairing levity with horror. As much as this book made me wince and shift uncomfortably it made me laugh out loud at just how fun all this madness can be. This story jumps from one horror to another but he never fails to use humor expertly as a relief valve; the president could be beheaded in one paragraph and his head would blow raspberries and kisses in the next. Much of the humor is in the banter and dialogue which I also loved, Hawkins writes these absolutely wacky characters but gives them frank and believable dialogue with much of the humor being couched in absurdity and wit. I've got two closing notes and that's a wrap. The first is that I loved how direct the prose was in this book. This isn't to say there is an absence of beautiful and flowery language, because there is, but it's only used when appropriate. The majority of this book is direct and brutal, people don't get shot or pierced through, people get “Half their guts blown out” or get their “heart and lungs obliterated, sending a good bit of tissue out a fist-sized hole in his back”. The second note is that I loved the ending, it felt like every little puzzle piece fell into place and the things I took note of were addressed in a complete and satisfying way.TL;DR: The best description I can give is that there's a team of super kids with an unfathomable and terrifying father, intense flashes of violence and mayhem paired with dark humor, and non-linear dream-ish storytelling.

This book was highly recommended to me and I have to say that I loved it. It kind of came as a surprise despite the high praise because I don't read a lot of horror; outside of the classics I've found a lot of horror books to be pulpy and one-dimensional, often they're so focused on the blood-and-guts that they ignore important narrative elements and come out formulaic. That is not the case for Bad Brains and I am going to gush about this book. I don't want people to think I am an easy grader either, my October TBR just happened to be stacked with killer books and this was the pièce de résistance. If I am guilty of anything it's loving books with unreliable narrators and maybe I am criminally attracted to anything with a beat or post-beat influence (maybe that's all a fancy English education is good for).Bad Brains is about Austen, an artist in the middle of a depressed slump. His art won't sell and his wife has left him. Instead of painting, he's working at a T-shirt shop and drinking himself into a stupor. One day his friend who curates an art gallery invites him to a party and tells him to grab some beers. On his way out of a 7-11, as he apes at the cashier, he takes a serious fall and wakes up in the hospital. Austen suffers from extreme chain seizures during his extended stay at the hospital and begins to see a horrible liquid silver monster thing on the edges of his vision. He is eventually released from the hospital with a clean bill of health, there is nothing physically wrong with him but he is still suffering from hallucinations and seizures. He seeks out help from a number of doctors but is too scared to tell them about the silver for fear of being labeled crazy. Turned away by all, he seeks out his mother who lives states away. While visiting meets a man named Russel who claims to know what's wrong with him as his father also had epileptic visions; the two of them seek out the answer as they travel across the country.The silver thing, itself a whorl, did not seem to care or notice; but that was because it was a creature of dream, an insubstantiality. Occasionally, in his less epileptic moments, Austen wondered if he should be frightened by it, frightened at least by the sheer number of its visitations; only his brain understood the secret omnipresence of that scaly mercury dance, and his brain was no true witness anymore. Which was maybe the most frightening thing of all.Clench. That's what it's like to read Bad Brains; you are physically clenched for the entirety of this book as you try to piece together what is going on. From the moment that Austen wakes up in the hospital you as the reader are right there with him, experiencing viscerally his struggle with his situation. I'm not doing it justice just by describing it, but watching Austen as he is consumed in an abyss of despair and fear of his condition, reading the descriptions of his pain and his longing for his ex-wife as he lays bound and alone in a hospital bed are some of the most moving things I've ever read in fiction, let alone in horror. This book is unique in its use of horror elements to progress the story, it delivers these powerfully moving, empathetic, and visceral passages that couldn't really exist outside of the genre. It's tempting to say that this book is good in spite of its genre, but that's not true, it uses its horror elements as unique tools to tell a story that couldn't really be told otherwise.I am standing here seeing this, I am seeing it and took off the top of its skull where the brain is and inside, the most delicate writhe, each lobe filigreed, threaded and girdled with silvery death in all its masques and manifestations, in all its irrevocable forms: the elegant pulse of an aneurysm, an extravagant clutch of tumors concealed like an oyster's pearl, clots like molded caviar and each molecule burning, shining silver light on the bone chips ragged and blood like the swirled center of a dubious treat; and nestled in the rich middle like eggs in a nest, eyes. Exquisite and long and barely there.I think that this book has some of the best prose that I have ever read, I am in no way understating it when I call Koja a master of the craft. There is a unique and intoxicating blend of lyricism and gritty realism that pervades this whole book. This is a stark and grimy read. Much of this book takes place in parking lots, gas station bathrooms, and seedy motels; we spend our time floating across this dark and desolate world locked behind Austen's eyes, seeing this disjointed world as he sees it. Koja perfectly describes an intensely claustrophobic, visceral, and emotionally charged journey across the urban wastes. Her descriptions are desolate and empathetic, beautiful in their grotesquery and dissymmetry. This book pushes the boundaries of conventional narrative structure and the prose is a powerful force, drawing readers into the gritty and tumultuous world she has created.I can safely shelve this as a favorite, and I already picked up a copy of her first book [b:The Cipher 341930 The Cipher Kathe Koja https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566122945l/341930.SY75.jpg 332292]. I wish more horror was like this, where the “horror” is used in some way to progress a larger narrative. Part of what made it work has to be how relatable the entire scenario is, we could all just as easily take a fall and see devils in the shadows. Maybe it's the unique appeal of internal horror, the “it's coming from inside the house” type of dread that really made this click for me. Another thought I kept having was how nice it would have been if this were given an illustrated edition, A big part of this book is Austen's art and I would love to see a rendition of the amazing visual descriptions that litter this thing. All in all, I am glad that dipping my toe back into the genre turned out so spectacular.TL;DR: Imagine getting sick and being told that the way you are is the way you're going to be forever. That's the most horrible thing of all.

This book has been sitting on my shelf for ages and I am so glad that I bumped it up in the reading order. I don't think I've ever read such a compelling introduction to a book; the first third of this book is solid gold. I love the premise: the dying embers of a forgotten earth making their way to a long promised Eden in their jury-rigged colony ship, earth's last hope, the Gilgamesh-only to find their Eden swarming with intelligent spiders and an insane AI construct babbling about its precious monkeys.

I find it hard to review books that I really enjoyed because I'm tempted summarize the whole thing. I will try to limit myself in saying that this is a fantastic space opera-hot house/dying earth-apocalypse story. It's a story that concerns itself with humanity as a construct, our hubris, and our place in the cosmos; more than anything this is a story of survival. Premise aside the real draw here is the writing, the prose is immaculate, and there is a quiet tension that builds to a terrifying crescendo as the story accelerates through the centuries. There is a very dry and sardonic humor which pervades the entire story that is most noticeable whenever Doctor Kerns is on the scene; the mad AI screams and the constant monkey-this-and-monkey-that were as hilarious as they were spine chilling (this was extremely well done in the audiobook).

I had a few gripes as the story transitioned out of its first act; personally I didn't agree with the direction the plot takes and some of the decisions made by the characters didn't align with what I would have chosen to do- but I don't think that's a knock against the quality of the book or the writing. What did bother me was that it seemed like these alternative courses of action were something a proofer asked after, and instead of accommodating them in the dialogue, we got a line or two of throw-away exposition to explain that choice away. The only major complaint I had was that the pacing isn't perfect and the middle section does drag as the crew of the Gilgamesh has their story backfilled. That means the crew sections of the story are dragging down the evolutionary world building but I think it's more than a fair trade.

TL;DR: Probably the best first act of anything I've read lately. A little slow in the middle but generally a fantastic read. Arachnophobes should probably pass on this series.

This was the book club pick for July, yet another book that was completely off of my radar. I had surprisingly few notes, Planetfall is a competent SF mystery with a mentally ill narrator. The novel is packed with interesting speculation and subscribes to the 3D printer future of the Bobiverse and Snow Crash. There's really only one thing holding this book back and that's Emma Newman's commitment to a “grand reveal” that managed to surprise no one. Oh and the pacing kind of sucks.

Planetfall is the first novel in the Planetfall series but I think anyone who picks this novel up will be forgiven if they feel the need to double-check since the bulk of this story is set 20 years after colonists land on a planet. These colonists have traveled an undisclosed distance to settle on this planet in the hopes of meeting god, who is implied to be resting at the top of a towering bio-mechanical structure that the colonists have called the City of God. I won't spoil the setup any further, but a wrench is thrown into the plan when the grandson of the missions' leader wanders into the colony from the wilderness, a descendant of survivors of one of the botched landing crews.

While this is an SF mystery the core conceit of the novel concerns personal tragedy and mental illness. This is yet another in a spate of books that I have recently read in which some type of disability has featured prominently. The main character and narrator in this story is suffering from an acute bout of hoarding. In Planetfall this feature is simultaneously the book's biggest strength and the source of its weakness. It is RARE that we get such a well-composed and sympathetic glimpse into the mind of a mentally disturbed person; Emma Newman takes us deep into this exploration, and I appreciated this spotlight on the mental element of space exploration. This thread begins and ends with the MC, so it might be a bit of a stretch to call it a larger theme, but most SF works jog right past mental health.

The problem I had with this novel was directly related to the depth of this personal exploration. This is a character-driven story, but we are locked in the head of the narrator to the point of claustrophobia. Call it a narrative device if you want to, but this book's singular focus on the MC's issues meant that details relating to the plot, the setting, and the cast were few and far between for the majority of the story. I don't need a book to spell things out for me, but this is a case where the author intentionally leaves us in the dark so they can progress a personal narrative thread. There are LARGE chunks in this book where nothing is happening. I wouldn't call it a pacing issue so much as an issue of focus, we get a lot of answers concerning the MC's condition but very little concerning the world and her mission past the basics.

I think this book could have redeemed itself with a strong ending, but this book ended just as things were getting interesting. I believe that Emma Newman's other writing gravitates more towards mystery and procedural crime, and her insistence on keeping details close to the chest really did not do this book any favors. The “big reveal” was more focused on the issues of the narrator (issues that we as the reader have known about since the halfway point), the problem being that this focus totally robs the reader of the larger and more interesting goings on of the colony.

I do like the writing overall, and there were moments in this book that captured my imagination (before moving on and leaving the thought half finished). I think that this book suffers a little bit more since it's the beginning of a series. I don't think I've ever read a “first book” with as few details concerning its world as this book does, and the next book in this series precedes the events of this book so it's not much of a setup or an incentive to read the next book. I must say that I am still interested in reading the next book in the series since it's a different flavor (more of a crime/mystery novel than an SF novel).

TL;DR: Hoarders in space. It has its moments, and the subject matter is very unique and inspired. The story has long stretches where nothing is happening, and nothing is revealed. 2.5 /5(3).

This is my third dalliance with fanfic, and my second go at a piece of rationalist fiction. In my experience, reading these stories has been something of a Sisyphean task - they've been too long, they're too dense, and it feels like pacing is an afterthought. Thankfully, this story is reasonably sized, it's well paced, and mercifully absent is the long-form philosophical exposition. I have to say that I enjoyed this fic way more than [b:Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality 10016013 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Eliezer Yudkowsky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1659761696l/10016013.SY75.jpg 14911331]. This story is somewhat related to HPMOR, as the fan made audiobook is produced by the same fan group that did the HPMOR audiobook. It's actually very well produced for something that's completely free.This is an extremely divergent re-imagining of the Superman origin story. Set in the thirties, this story works from the framework of the golden age comics to re-imagine the world of Superman as it would be in reality. The story follows Lex Luthor after the sudden arrival of Superman to Metropolis; rather than simply being cartoonishly evil, the Lex of this world recognizes Superman as a walking Doomsday, and he works to free humanity from the threat of possible extinction should Superman ever go rogue. I will note that this story is still true to the original; I've never been so fortunate as to read any of the golden age Superman comics, but I have seen enough pages and stills to recognize iconic scenes and characters that are faithfully reproduced, albeit somewhat twisted from the original. If we have any Kill Bill fans reading this, you may remember the Superman monologue.; this story is an extension of that idea. The Superman of the comics is a force for absolute good, an incorruptible paragon whose humanity is his defining trait. But for those of us living in reality, to be human is to be imperfect, and since Superman is in some respect human he must be also be imperfect. Lex realizes the danger of an unstoppable semi-omniscient god with human emotions and sets the comic book morality aside in order to stop him, regardless of the cost. I would say that reading this requires you keep an open mind to the developments because they will diverge, and diverge HEAVILY from what you know. For my money, this is the most interesting exploration of Superman's character that exists. This book manages to explore all the fun theory craft topics: Is Superman a disguise for Clark Kent, or is it vice versa? Why doesn't Superman kill, what is his personal philosophy? Surely there's some better way in which he could use his powers? What if Superman gets it wrong? What would it take to break Superman? How about Lois Lane, what would she really think about Superman/Clark Kent? It's a weakness of the book that not every avenue is explored in depth, but it manages to at least acknowledge these popular subjects whenever they are tangentially related to the narrative. If you come to this book looking for answers to questions like that, I think you'll seriously enjoy this story. If you're like me and are tired of superheros, these “rational” stories are the perfect way to interact with these characters. I don't actually need another story where Superman fights some previously unknown foe who somehow has a new variety of Kryptonite (I think at this point in the comics there's a type of Kryptonite that just makes Superman gay, to which I shrug say why not, but the formula sure is getting stale). What I want, and what this book delivers, is a willful and direct exploration of the character and the consequences of his existence. These rational stories are purposefully heady and anticlimactic, they have a tendency to destroy the story beats that underpin whatever subject they're about, but unlike Harry Potter here is a character/IP that needs a little deconstruction.I think that the ending is where this book is going to lose a lot of people. We experience Superman from behind suspicious eyes, and that carries through the whole book. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that there's a less than pleasant ending for Superman. What that means for the story is that the conclusion rings exceptionally hollow, you could even consider it nihilistic. Personally, I can see how and why we get there, but it must speak to decades of conditioning by the comics because I despised the last chapter of this story. But hey, that's the emotion that I think this story was trying to evoke in me, so I wouldn't call it a wash. All in all this is much better written than HPMOR, way better paced, and it deals with a much more interesting subject. Oh, and it's actually short enough for sane people to read. That said, you may not like how some of the characters are portrayed, and the ending is polarizing. I thought this was pretty good, but your mileage may vary.

I am a fan of short stories, but it's kind of rough picking through anthologies to find gems. I have to say I love when authors take advantage of modern publishing and publish their short stories independently, it makes it less daunting to find good short stories. This book is one of those, and it's currently free on kindle, as well as just 23 pages, so give it a read. It'll only take 30 minutes max.

This short story is a part of Almeida's spiral worlds, an illustrated short story collection that spans two volumes and tells an interconnected story. Model Organisms is a stand-alone story, but it does connect to that body of work, so there's more to check out if you wind up liking what you read.

Okay, so what is this about? Well, to start, this seems to be set in some kind of virtual world/collection of interconnected worlds. The story is told from the perspective of Scout, who is one of an entire school bus of pregnant clones. The bus is driven by the Devil, at least that's what Scout thinks, the woman at the wheel is wearing glowing horns. This bus is hauling ass trying to escape what appears to be the collapse of civilization or possibly even the world around them.

You aren't given a lot of context for what is happening, but there are a ton of interesting details concerning consciousness, the nature of reality, and inherited memory. I imagine reading the rest of spiral worlds will illuminate some of the more wacky stuff that's going in this story, but I should say that there is a lot of wackiness, and I'm not sure if I like it that much as a stand-alone work.

I should also mention that there is some pronoun stuff going on in here, zir gets thrown around some and there is exposition on personal identifiers (oh great heavens). It didn't necessarily bother me, but this story was only 23 pages long, and you've got a bus full of costumed and pregnant clones doing 100 on the freeway-tell me more about that stuff, please.

This has sparked an interest in the larger spiral worlds series for me, but this story did read like random happenings when divorced from the context of that series.

I read The Grace of Kings earlier this year, and it was an imperfect book that I came to enjoy immensely by the end. The Wall of Storms is the second entry in the series, and it made me realize that while The Grace of Kings was competent as a standalone book what it was really meant to do was load the bases for this grand slam of a story. This is Epic Fantasy at its very best, and this entry in the series personally ranks itself next to The Wise Man's Fear as among my favorite “second books” and more generally as one of my favorite takes on the genre.

The Wall of Storms directly follows The Grace of Kings and brings us up to speed on the last few years of Emperor Kuni's (Ragin) Reign. The title of this story is a reference to both the tumult of a young dynasty as well as a geographic feature of the world of Dara, Kuni Garu puts it best himself, “a young dynasty must pass through a Wall of Storms before the first succession.” This is a story about succession but more than that, this story serves to expand the world and introduce us to new characters that will carry the remainder of the series. I don't want to give away any more plot than that, if you liked GoK chances are you're going to love this book.

More generally I want to say that while I appreciated the prose in GoK, Ken Liu really put some effort into this book to take it to the next level. Often, I find that fantasy novels like to inject in-universe poetry and philosophy to introduce chapters or backfill the world; rarely if ever does the story directly reference those tidbits. What Ken Liu has done is bind the poetry and philosophy of his world directly into the plot, the people of his world really do follow this in-universe philosophy and every piece of poetry is not only beautiful wordplay but chock full of puzzles and foreshadowing. Nothing that bloated the first half of GoK has gone to waste, with the solid foundation GoK provided Wall of Storms has built something magnificent.

I did a little research and found out that the author considers this book and its sequel The Veiled Throne to be two halves of one entry in the series, so I am very excited to see where the story goes from here. Ken Liu has also gone on record to explain that this story is a fantastical retelling of the Han foundation myth (the chu-han contention, for anyone trying to google up), and the series is more generally a de-westernized interpretation of the “narrative of modernity”. This is a new flavor for a lot of fantasy readers, and I personally can't get enough of it. I mentioned this in my GoK review, but I really love the infusion of different tropes and ideas; this series has done a fantastic job of repurposing what was for what will be.

I only had one small critique if you can even call it that: for all the time we spent with Kuni in the first book this second entry largely bypasses his character. While we never get another glimpse from his perspective Kuni still features in this novel, he does not take a prominent role and is not the center of the story. I haven't read the third book so there could very well be amazing flashbacks to his perspective still to come but I was still disappointed with how distant he was from the readers' perspective. If you opt to read this story it will make sense why this is the case, but I largely signed on to read this sequel in the hopes for some quippy badassery from everyone's favorite low-born bandit emperor.

TL;DR: If you liked No. 1, you'll love No.2. On a macro level it seems this is everyone's favorite entry in the series and it's for good reason. Do not sleep on the Dandelion Dynasty.