Superbly read by the author, who has a side gig if he ever needs it. This has a lot of deadpan British humor, so if that’s your jam this is your jellySuperbly read by the author, who has a side gig if he ever needs it. This has a lot of deadpan British humor, so if that’s your jam this is your jelly. Or something. I’m not British.
It’s about a robot butler named Charles trying to find meaning in a post-apocalyptic world with no one to serve, and by the way would like to solve a murder that he almost certainly committed but definitely has no memory of. He meets interesting and unusual robots along the way and teams up with a mysterious character named The Wonk. It’s a snarky look at life.
I particularly chuckled at sentences like this: “His previous triangulation data informed him that they were come nigh upon the Kingdom of Heaven. Which Nietzschean compass indicated that God was dead ahead.” ...more
Space adventure leaning toward the Hard SF end of the genre. It’s halfway between a Tom Clancy technothriller and more blue sky sci-fi, which is a lesSpace adventure leaning toward the Hard SF end of the genre. It’s halfway between a Tom Clancy technothriller and more blue sky sci-fi, which is a less-explored part of the genre. So it’s got that going for it. Overall I liked it. Chiles adds little touches like casually slipping in a reference to “like a leaf on the wind.” IYKYK. (view spoiler)[I also enjoyed when the Chinese ship blew up the sports car Elon Musk put in outer space. (hide spoiler)]
I read Frozen Orbit earlier, not realizing it’s a sequel to this book. These really aren’t clearly numbered or anything and they look like standalones, making it easy to read them out of order. But this is turning into an interesting future history....more
Very enjoyable, quite funny at times. Well-realized characters with a tidy plot. I would classify this as “horror lite”. It’s almost a cozy Southern GVery enjoyable, quite funny at times. Well-realized characters with a tidy plot. I would classify this as “horror lite”. It’s almost a cozy Southern Gothic — I say “almost” because it’s set in a typical suburb with the usual nosy (and sometimes odd) neighbors alongside the helpful ones. So not quite the dour isolated mansion these usually occur in, and not quite cozy given the ending. But if you like those sorts of books, this is adjacent to it.
It’s also nice to have a plus-sized protagonist who isn’t constantly bemoaning the fact she isn’t a rail-thin model but is comfortable in her skin and is a professional doing solid work in her field. In this case bug archeology. I’ve never seen that job portrayed before in anything.
The humor is well done, too. I laughed aloud a couple of times. Bonus points for that.
I did this in audiobook and Mary Robinette Kowal does a spectacular job. It helps, I think, that she’s also an author as well as an actor and grew up in a similar locale....more
A little too much romantic angst for my taste. Every other page the gay paladin was like, “I wonder if the sexy coroner likes me?” Then every second pA little too much romantic angst for my taste. Every other page the gay paladin was like, “I wonder if the sexy coroner likes me?” Then every second page the gay coroner was like, “I wonder if the handsome paladin likes me?” JUST KISS ALREADY!
Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it’s only slight.
Other than that, the story of the murder investigation was really well done, and the resolution was satisfying… until the bureaucrats get involved in a CYA situation combined with a heaping helping of speciesism. Then it becomes Medieval Law & Order.
My favorite character was the gnole named Ear Stripe. Kingfisher has really hit on something cool in the creation of these guys. D&D’s gnolls (different spelling) are based on hyenas while Kingfisher’s gnoles resemble badgers, but more important than that is the fact that Ear Stripe is drily humorous but he isn’t the comic relief.
I do like the fact that each of these books are set in the same location but feature different characters. The background characters in one book are the main characters in another. That’s pretty rare, but I enjoy it when it comes around. Other examples include The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett (The Warded Man), the Oklahoma books by S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), and the Pelbar Cycle by Paul O. Williams (The Breaking of Northwall)....more
Pro: set in the same world as the first book but focusing on a different paladin this time. Also, solves the mystery of the bizarre clay-headed corpsePro: set in the same world as the first book but focusing on a different paladin this time. Also, solves the mystery of the bizarre clay-headed corpses killing people from the first book. Plus, we get to visit an entirely different city that operates under very different rules.
Con: despite two new characters, has the exact same stumbling romance as the first book, where each partner makes assumptions about what the other is thinking. This goes on foreverrrrr. Genuinely aggravating.
Decent enough overall, but it could be shorter. I did like the traveling snake oil salesman character, though. Don’t get too many types like that these days....more
I didn’t hate this book, I just kind of lost interest in it once the tone shifted.
This steampunk adventure is almost charming enough to overcome its bI didn’t hate this book, I just kind of lost interest in it once the tone shifted.
This steampunk adventure is almost charming enough to overcome its burden of cliches and tropes, but it starts losing steam (no pun intended) by the 3/4 mark. I don’t know why authors are so fond of the phrase “let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding” but they keep using it. There’s also a version of “she couldn’t believe something that big could move so fast” except it’s slightly disguised with the words “ample girth”. (Or something - I did this in audiobook so I can’t go back and check the exact verbiage.)
It’s cheeky part of the time, with the Action Girl heroine named Miss Braun and the stuffy archivist named Mr. Books clear signposts early on, but once the authors need to raise the stakes they go quite dark, and it’s hard to maintain a flippant tone once they start murdering people in gruesome fashion. (view spoiler)[Considering how many journalists have been murdered, executed and imprisoned in the past few years IRL, it’s kind of hard to recover from a scene where two journalists are brutally murdered The Most Dangerous Game-style. In a better book the intrepid heroes wouldn’t have just stood by and watched, they would’ve been forced to intervene. Blowing your cover in such an instance would’ve been the morally correct thing to do. This is not the type of book that requires grim and gritty realism, so the sudden dark turn doesn’t land well. It’s compounded later when an abused wife shoots her husband but then turns the gun on herself. That was a little too dark, but by that time the book had lost its charm. (hide spoiler)] There are those readers who can’t possibly conceive of any other way a story can go, so they argue that such things are inevitable. Except they’re not. This is an artificial creation and it can be bent into any shape one desires. These are the same readers who insist that Frodo couldn’t have ridden an eagle to Mordor because then the Lord of the Rings would be a short story. That’s a basic failure of imagination. It would be a *different* story but it doesn’t have to be a shorter one. I can imagine a half-dozen scenarios and predicaments that could keep the hobbits away from the volcano. I suppose it’s a good thing that most people can’t come up with alternate versions of a story; those are good consumers who keep the creative types employed. So it is here — the grimdark turn needn’t have been so brutal, and there are several alternatives to the scene I mention in the spoiler tag that could have accomplished the same story beats and reveals. A simple one would be a reshuffle of scenes, but another could be endangering our stalwart heroes while burdening them with the protection of innocent bystanders.
While I do appreciate the fact this is the rare Science Fiction version of Steampunk, it never comes up with anything new to add to the genre. That’s not a crime but at this late date it does end up with a “ho-hum, been there, done that” feeling. When you have books like A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djélì Clark out there bringing fresh takes to the subgenre, it’s hard to go back to the status quo. Unfair, perhaps, but there it is. It reminds me of all these serialized Space Marines MilSF novels being churned out. If you just want a quick, bog-standard divertimento for a couple evenings, here you go. Beyond that there’s not much here.
It doesn’t escape my notice the Miss Braun and Mr. Books are thinly-disguised steampunk versions of Mrs. Peel and Mr. Steed from the British TV series The Avengers, not to be confused with the Marvel superheroes. This book attempts the same flavor as that classic show, but the characters hew too close to their inspirations. (For those unaware, this compilation sums the show up nicely: https://youtu.be/idtYckLIZnI?si=h_WfV...-)...more
Unfortunately this really went off a cliff for me. The longer it went the more it felt like a direct rip-off of the “Three Robots” shorts in the Love,Unfortunately this really went off a cliff for me. The longer it went the more it felt like a direct rip-off of the “Three Robots” shorts in the Love, Death + Robots anthology on Netflix, except not nearly as humorous. As in “not at all humorous”.
I also didn’t buy into the pseudo-queer relationship between the teenage boy protagonist and the genderless killer robot. Why would Victor feel ashamed of any feelings he has, since he’s the last human on the planet? Granted, they watch an old film (stealing from Wall-E now), but that hardly seems like a strong enough social influence when he grew up alone with three robots, two of which he restored from scavenged parts in a junkyard. But also, why be attracted to what is essentially a talking mannequin. If this is supposed to be a metaphor, it doesn’t hold up.
There was also a sort of mash-up between Pinocchio and The Wizard of Oz that felt more like padding than anything else. Gotta get that page count up. And it’s not like it escaped my notice that the vacuum cleaner, killbot and nurse droid kinda map onto the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion.
All in all this was a huge miss for me, which is disappointing considering how much I enjoyed Klune’s other books.
BTW, here’s a clip from the second “Three Robots” installment. The the three robots Victor travels with are pretty much analogous to these characters. Except, you know, not funny.
As the title says, this is a history of the first American women astronauts chosen to fly on the space shuttle, and it is excellent. Since their recruAs the title says, this is a history of the first American women astronauts chosen to fly on the space shuttle, and it is excellent. Since their recruitment began in the 1970s, they naturally were met with skepticism and sexism, but they persevered and overcame all that, proving themselves the equal to their male counterparts.
Even though I avidly followed the space program, there was a lot of information I didn’t know, particularly the behind-the-scenes stuff and family histories of the astronauts.
When I was in college I happened to be passing through the student lounge between classes, heading to my mailbox before meeting some friends for lunch. The TV was showing a space shuttle lift-off, so I stopped to watch. Two minutes later Challenger exploded. Like everyone, I was absolutely stunned. The student lounge was a big echoey room, able to hold a hundred people, with enormous 2-story windows overlooking the quad. Being a Midwest school, a dozen euchre games were constantly being played, which were often raucous because teenagers. It was dead silent as the footage replayed.
That was 1986 and I’ve never been able to watch that footage in the 38 years since. I can’t even look at the photos.
It’s always bothered me in the same way 9/11 did 15 years later, but I didn’t realize it was more traumatizing than that until today as I listened to this book. When it got to the Challenger disaster, I suddenly and unexpectedly burst into tears. I did not see that coming. What got me was one little detail: (view spoiler)[I’ve always known that the Challenger crew didn’t die in the explosion. They survived that, only to die when the cabin hit the surface of the Atlantic Ocean at several hundred miles per hour. We know this because most of the seven astronauts had activated their emergency oxygen masks, which operated for a couple minutes until impact. But the detail that broke me was that mission commander Richard Scobee’s emergency oxygen mask control was on the back of his pilot seat. Which means that Judith Resnick’s final action was to fight against the g-forces to reach out and flip that switch to try and save his life. Which means she was fully conscious and aware of what was happening. Goddamn. (hide spoiler)]
The narrator Inés del Castillo is very good....more
This is fine. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny but I did chuckle once. It’s Greek gods fallen on hard times while living in the modern world - London, foThis is fine. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny but I did chuckle once. It’s Greek gods fallen on hard times while living in the modern world - London, for some reason. I don’t know if this is a subgenre in literature that’s as active as Fairytale Retellings, but I’ve seen a lot of these types of stories in comics over the decades. There are a fair number of new-writer cliches on display, such as lines like “he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding”, but overall it’s okay.
I listened to the audiobook and the narration by Rosalyn Landor is solid....more
I enjoyed this but it’s on the same level as the movie Speed where we have a busload of stock characters who are basically stereotypes behaving stereoI enjoyed this but it’s on the same level as the movie Speed where we have a busload of stock characters who are basically stereotypes behaving stereotypically in order for the plot to move along. In this book, it’s stock stereotypes in a hotel. Fortunately for both that movie and this book, it’s charming enough to let me look past that and just enjoy the ride. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s pleasant enough, particularly for a debut novel.
There are constant references to the TV detective Columbo, which was kind of an interesting red herring in itself. This is a standard mystery of the “whodunit” variety, but Columbo was never that. In Columbo — which was a great series of movies and TV shows — the viewer always knew who did it. The fun was in watching Columbo figuring it out. Not a whodunit but a howcatchem.
I will add that I listened to the audiobook as performed by Lauren Ambrose, who really elevates the whole thing with a terrific performance....more
Highly entertaining and informative. I especially enjoyed how she used pop culture (movies, TV, etc.) as examples. Definitely recommended for your GreHighly entertaining and informative. I especially enjoyed how she used pop culture (movies, TV, etc.) as examples. Definitely recommended for your Greek goddess knowledge.
This feels like that episode of the TV series Boba Fett that starred The Mandalorian, where the main character was sidelined by a more popular charactThis feels like that episode of the TV series Boba Fett that starred The Mandalorian, where the main character was sidelined by a more popular character from another series. It also really underscores how Hearne simply did a search-and-replace on characters from the Iron Druid books. Instead of Earth magic we have Ink magic. Instead of an Irish Druid we have a Scottish wizard. Instead of a snarky talking dog obsessed with sausages we have a snarky hobgoblin obsessed with cheese. And so on.
In the first book this wasn’t as obvious, even with the cameo by Atticus and Oberon, but when you put all these characters next to each other for half the story the similarities are all too obvious. I kind of wonder if this was a marketing decision. Did the first book not sell as well as the Iron Druid series, so they brought him in to bolster sales? Don’t get me wrong, a crossover is cool, but save it for book 5. Let these characters stand on their own first.
Also, a little of the hobgoblin goes a long way, turns out. His name, Buck Foi, is a bad spoonerism joke, but he feels simultaneously dumber and smarter than in the first go-round. I’m reminded of the episode of Two-and-a-Half Men where the police detective (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) asks, “So you and your dumb son moved in with your brother?” And Alan says, “He wasn’t dumb originally but it turned out it was funnier that way.” Meta jokes, we love ‘em, right?
But there are good things here. I quite liked the reveal of who Gladys the Receptionist is. (view spoiler)[ “Gladys Who’s Seen Some Shite” is an avatar of Gaia. (hide spoiler)] I really liked the solution Al came up with while fighting the mother of demons. (view spoiler)[She slashes herself open in order to use blood magic to instantly birth demons, so Al uses a sigil of healing to immediately close the wounds, thus giving them all time to defeat her. (hide spoiler)] And of course Luke Daniels’ performance in shifting between several different accents is impressive. I even kind of liked the whole “let’s tell stories while trudging through this trap-infested area” which basically dropped short stories into the middle of the novel.
But overall it was merely okay rather than great. The magic system is very cool, so I hope there’s more of that in the next one....more
This is an okay debut novel but it’s held back by a couple issues. The first being that I never really got a decent sense of what the kaiju monsters wThis is an okay debut novel but it’s held back by a couple issues. The first being that I never really got a decent sense of what the kaiju monsters were like, and second that it feels a little too derivative of anime, specifically Darling in the Franxx. To be sure, Zhao mixes in elements from other stories as well as real life, and there are slightly more adult scenes, but overall I kept visualizing Franxx.
In Darling in the Franxx, it takes both a male and a female to pilot the giant mecha. The pilots are teenagers who are artificially created and indoctrinated into the system and are seen as disposable. When the pilots are in sync, the mecha achieves its ultimate form. In the anime’s first episode that form is called the Iron Maiden. To be in perfect sync, the pilots need to be a love match. The kaiju are giant metal creatures. The humans are the last survivors of a war against them. One of the pilots of the Iron Maiden is dubbed the partner-killer.
Except for the kids being artificial with limited lifespans like the replicants of Blade Runner, a lot of that stuff in Franxx is present in this book, too, and I could never shake it. It feels like this is essentially fanfic that’s been slightly altered, with a few additions and a slight twist at the end. (view spoiler)[In DitF, the giant metal monsters called klaxosaurs were peaceful until the alien VIRM came to Earth 60 million years ago. The VIRM lost the war, but so did the klaxosaurs, who retreated to the core. Eventually humans evolved and the surviving VIRM used them to go after the surviving klaxosaurs. In this book, the epilogue reveals that it doesn’t take place on Earth but rather a different planet and the humans are the invaders. It’s a cool twist but not enough to distinguish it from Franxx for me. (hide spoiler)] I’m all about remixes, but this just wasn’t remixed enough for my taste.
I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by Rong Fu. If you’re a fan of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, you’ll recognize her as the navigator who sits next to starship pilot Ortegas. She does an excellent job here....more
Big things happening here, and some clever use of worldbuilding to solve problems, plus cool things and neat places are added. Granuaile Gets a staff Big things happening here, and some clever use of worldbuilding to solve problems, plus cool things and neat places are added. Granuaile Gets a staff that has both silver and iron in it to fight all manner of supernatural baddies, and it can also turn her invisible. Atticus shows her an island where different areas run at different speeds. Some people look like blurs while others appear to be standing still.
(view spoiler)[Atticus’ apprentice Granuaile is challenged to a friendly duel by one of the greatest fighters of the gods where the wager is that the loser has to remove all their clothes - she does lose, so she shucks off all her clothes, but not before turning invisible. The sticklers for details never said she had to be visible. And when Atticus is attacked by the insane god Bacchus in a no-win scenario, Atticus and Granuaile outmaneuver the immortal regenerating god by tripping him into a portal to a land where time passes incredibly slowly. Bacchus will take a thousand years to fall on his ass. (hide spoiler)]
I was listening to this as I was driving 14 hours back home today and one line Atticus tells Granuille while training made me laugh because it was appropriate to my situation:
“You have to train yourself to ignore the sensory input of these peripheral bindings, the way freeway drivers ignore billboards and speed limits and so on.”
If Trike leaves his house at 6:37 am to drive 850 miles to his mom’s house to arrive at 8:11 pm in order to be there for her 87thMath problem for you:
If Trike leaves his house at 6:37 am to drive 850 miles to his mom’s house to arrive at 8:11 pm in order to be there for her 87th birthday, which audiobook did he listen to?
WOW, you’re good! You’re right, it was Tricked by Kevin Hearne! Are you a wizard?!
Yes, I did that yesterday. I loaded two of our dogs into the car and drove from New Hampshire to Ohio. We planned it as a surprise and it worked out. When I got here I called my mom and asked if she had checked the front porch for the special birthday present we’d had delivered, so she sent my brother to go look. As he opened he door I put my finger to my lips to keep him from saying anything as Wabash and I came in, while I kept talking to her. She was like, “Wow, this signal just got a lot better,” then realized I was behind her with her favorite granddog. Cue the crying.
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62.9 mph average, if you’re wondering. 2 stops for gas. 36.1 mpg. $3.37/gal at Angola service station on NY Thruway, $3.35 just north of Columbus. Wabash threw up once.
Oh, this book? Yeah it’s good. Luke Daniel’s narration is spectacular. I don’t know how he does all those voices....more
Pretty good, but a few too many trigger warnings to earn more stars from me. Take out the rape and mass murder and this would’ve been a 5-star comedy.Pretty good, but a few too many trigger warnings to earn more stars from me. Take out the rape and mass murder and this would’ve been a 5-star comedy.
The audiobook narration by Michael Murphy is superb. Full marks for that....more
Very well executed horror sci-fi. It’s Space Battleship Yamato if the titular ship were a Lovecraftian creature.
The 1997 movie Event Horizon is terribVery well executed horror sci-fi. It’s Space Battleship Yamato if the titular ship were a Lovecraftian creature.
The 1997 movie Event Horizon is terrible for many reasons, one of them being that it manages to get both astrophysics and metaphysics wrong at the same time. Sigler has created a universe that corrects those issues by sidestepping real-world religion and science with imaginary analogues.
There are two big factions at war here: an extremist religious empire on one hand, opposed by an equally brutal society apparently modeled on 17th century England. In the ultra-religious society many “deviant” things are banned, such as homosexuality and drinking alcohol. In the less-religious but still repressive opponent, one can be executed for cowardice under fire, or severely punished for antagonize wrong military leader. There is corruption and hypocrisy on both sides, so it’s impossible to pick a favorite.
This allows more mundane horrors on top of the supernatural ones - those of combat, a sociopath who delights in murder, double-crosses that get people killed… Sigler has concocted quite an unpleasant horrorshow.
If that’s your jam, have at it.
I did this in audiobook and narrator Ray Porter delivers a solid performance. ...more
My last read of the year and it goes out with a bang. When I heard that Baldree was going to follow up the superb Legends & Lattes with a prequel, I wMy last read of the year and it goes out with a bang. When I heard that Baldree was going to follow up the superb Legends & Lattes with a prequel, I was skeptical. Prequels are hard to pull off, but I shouldn’t have worried: he delivered, easily.
He equals the cozy aspect of the first book and manages to include a terrific action finale that is both engaging and clever. It’s also a paean to the love of books and reading, and we’re all down for that. Plus it has Potroast the gryphet, as delightful a pet as has ever been conceived. Basically a feathered Pug, and only the meanest heart would dislike that.
I bought the dead tree edition but waited for the audiobook from the library because Baldree is a professional narrator and does an excellent job. Either way one peruses this book, it’s a delight.
You don’t really hear much about Big Sky country outside of Westerns, so a supernatural horror story “History is simple, but the past is complicated.”
You don’t really hear much about Big Sky country outside of Westerns, so a supernatural horror story set in Montana in 1915 featuring a black woman is unusual indeed.
Back in the 90s I worked with a woman who grew up in Montana - she couldn’t wait to get out because there was nothing to do there. And this was someone who lived there in the 1940s through the 1960s, nevermind the early nineteen-teens when it was basically just wide open wild country. (She lived on a farm that was 1500 acres, minnowish by Montana standards. It was bought by a neighbor who had 30,000 acres, so he could put in a shorter driveway. A driveway that was 5 miles long. Montana is big and empty.)
Like any good horror story, this makes excellent use of the landscape. Montana is half open prairie and half rugged mountains. In the open plains there’s nowhere to hide from monsters, whether they be supernatural beasts or fellow humans. In the mountains there are too many places for monsters to hide. And there are a lot of human monsters preying on ordinary folks in both locations. That certainly keeps the tension up.
There are a couple things I didn’t care for, such as our main character Adelaide being somewhat sidelined during the denouement, and the fact the finale could’ve been tighter. But Lavalle ties it all up in the last few paragraphs, rendering these issues fairly minor overall.
I listened to the audiobook for this one, and Joniece Abbott-Pratt does an excellent job....more
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