Scott Jann

I don't think anyone who grew up in the 1980s and played video games could not enjoy this book. I didn't play all the games the author references or even see all the movies, but I know them and loved to see them fit into the story. The future of VR was exciting to read about, even if a little scary. Also a future where companies can enslave people to repay debts is frightening and eerily plausible.

Some parts were predictable but the story was exciting and I very much enjoyed the book.

I was left with two questions: Did Wade ever tell his friends about the kill switch and did he give them superuser powers?

I should have written my comments earlier, a few months later and I can't precisely remember which parts happened in each book since they all fit together in the same story. I started reading Leviathan Wakes based on the recommendation by John Moltz on The Talk Show.

As you can see by the fact that after the first book I continued through the rest of the series, I liked the books. I kept wanting to read more about the compelling characters who make up the crew of the Rocinante. Besides the crew I also loved the characters of Avasarala and, in Abaddon's Gate, Reverend Doctor Annushka Volovodov.

I enjoyed the future that the authors write, especially that it is not all rainbows like Star Trek. Except for the Nauvoo, which was intended to be a generational ship used by the Mormons (I love that idea!), the future was pretty bleak. And then that one glimmer of hope was hijacked and stolen.

Another thing that jumped out at me is that, with the exception of the Epstein (fusion) drive, none of the human technology in the books is magic. Even the fusion drive doesn't challenge our knowledge of physics, a few hundred years of new technology makes everything seem very plausible. Well, the gates are magic, but they're alien technology, so I give them a pass.

Last item of praise for the series: the aliens are alien! We don't understand the alien technology, we can't communicate effectively with it (Miller shows just how much we can't) and it is just so weird. I don't recall a story that presented such truly alien aliens. And, despite that, the second book covers how we tried to exploit their technology, even though we don't understand it at all.

Leviathan Wakes starts out strong, dumping you into the mystery of Julie Mao and the destruction of the Canterbury. I was captivated immediately and loved how the mysteries progressed and intertwined.

After fighting with type 2 diabetes, I started feeling better after starting to lose weight, but I wanted to learn more about why. I thought this book sounded like it might help, but I had no idea how much. Reading this introduced me to a whole new way to think about food and has changed my life ever since. This was the first book that introduced me to the role of hormones with obesity. This book was comprehensive and did a great job explaining his case. This book should be required reading for anyone who eats.

This book wasn't what I expected. I've read other books about UFOs which always have a (conspiracy) theory about them that they push as fact. This book was different, the author was very articulate and well-researched and didn't push anything beyond eyewitness observations, mostly through interviews and letters. Some ideas of the origin of the phenomena were presented, but never pushed. This is top-notch reporting on the subject, presented clearly. The one thing I found, because it didn't push any answers, just a multitude of mysteries, that the book was more frightening and real than anything I've read.

This book confirmed my suspicions about the author's obsession with the sense of smell. From the title, I had the question “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” in my head from another book, but that has very little to do with this story. I enjoyed the twists, mystery, aliens and future as told by John Scalzi. Although, I'm not sure a future with lab-grown meats is ideal.

This book had a lot of insight into how devastating agriculture has been to our planet, humans and in particular, the author. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who thinks eating vegan is a good idea. However, I don't think all of her proposals at the end are really the answer, but the earlier points in the book are certainly things we need to answer as a civilization if we want to survive.

This one was a little tough for me to get through and is my least favorite book from this author so far. That said, I didn't think it was a bad book, just maybe not for me, and maybe it would have been a better trilogy than a book. The story was certainly ambitious, maybe too ambitious, as it encompassed thousands of years and generations of people and really had three distinct stories within it. I liked quite a few of the characters and loved the imagination behind the world.

This is not quite what I expected from the title. I found the idea in the book of being able to put your consciousness into an artificial body compelling. I appreciate the near-future where we might actually have a moon base. The social aspects of the artificial beings was something I didn't consider and the book really did a great job of conveying the issues.

Another good book from Andy Weir. I really liked his previous books (and the movie for the Martian was not too bad either). This one does not disappoint. It has more of the inner-monologue from the main character and problem solving that made me like The Martian. It has well-researched, plausible science like his other books as well. Plus it has an interesting set of characters and a fun story... combining into a book that I enjoyed! I listened to this book on Audible, Ray Porter was an awesome narrator and the voice for one of the characters was really cool in the audio book.

As with all of the Expanse books, I loved this one. Two things occurred to me while reading this: I am glad I've gone through all the previous books and there is no need to spend time on setting up the story, we already know the background, so it is nice to jump right in. Secondly, I hope that, even after the main novels are done, we get many of these little stories into the colony worlds, there's endless opportunity for them, I would love to hear more of them.

This was another great addition to the Wayfarers series. All of the books have been so different from each other, only sharing their universe. I feel this book had more references to all of the other books, but still had its own unique story and characters. Speaking of characters, it had a mix of alien species that just happened to come together for the story and shows off my favorite thing about Becky Chambers' books, how well she writes her characters and from their perspective.

The audiobook was narrated by Rachel Dulude and she was great, I loved the unique voices for Pei and Tupo.

An enjoyable story and you get to learn something along the way. I had to look up some details and was surprised how accurate the book was. I kept thinking the story wouldn't have enough room to wrap up the way I expected as I got half and 3/4 through it, low and behold, it did not wrap up the way I expected.

This is, thus far, the only science fiction book by Robert J. Sawyer that I've read that had much set in space. I enjoyed reading this book and I would love to read more stories from this universe. The aliens in this book were great, I loved that they were so different and creative. The author must have a great respect for other creatures that share our planet, I've noticed this in other books but I like how dolphins were a part of this story. I also like how the action took place without violating everything we know about physics like having to wait for things to move at the speed of light.

I wasn't sure what to think of the author's theory about what Oumuamua was, and after reading the book, I don't think I agree with him, but the journey he took me on to explain it was an exciting and worthwhile read. The author is pretty critical of the scientific community, and reading the book just for this would be worth it alone.

There were some really cool things in this book... I really liked the concept of the machines and using geology. As good sci-fi does, it also was a startling look at our culture from a perspective that shows just how fragile some of the things we take for granted can be. I listened to the audio book for this on Audible and I did not care for the narrator (Laura Nichol), but the addition of music in the audio book was awesome.

This short story got my attention right away and kept me curious as the narrator traveled through and explained how they ended up in the crypts. Some of his survival techniques ended up being a little surprising and gross. To keep this spoiler free, I'll close with just saying that I recommend this book if you enjoy science fiction.

I enjoyed the first book in this series, but not a tremendous amount, it was fine, but seemed a little unexpected and disjointed. Well, all that was worth it to get to this second part of the series. I liked this one way more. It helps knowing the characters from before, but even then, it had been a while so I felt like I forgot a lot of the details, but coming back into this book felt comfortable and I really liked reading about the adventures of Mosscap and Dex.