Tag: Science Fiction Page 9 of 34

Catch-Up Quick Takes: A Few Words on a Few Books

On May 5, 2022

In Audiobook, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy

I tried to write a full post on most of these, and I just wasn’t able to come up with enough to say. So, I guess it’s time for another one of these quick takes posts. The point of these is to catch up on my “To Write About” stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness. It wasn’t until I was well into writing this one that I realized there was a theme throughout this one. I was underwhelmed to varying degrees by all four of these books. On the plus side, my “To Write About” stack is a bit smaller.

Fight and Flight

by Scott Meyer, Luke Daniels (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: Magic 2.0, #4
Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance
Publication Date: March 11, 2019
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 10 hr., 26 min.
Read Date: April 4-7, 2022

(the official blurb)
Okay, sure, this was amusing. Luke Daniels is great. I enjoyed spending time with these characters again.

But…

This was a thin excuse of a story, were this a novella, it’d probably be pretty good—but stretched out this far, it just didn’t work.

However, the last chapter made the whole thing worthwhile, and what it introduces/sets up for the future makes me pretty excited to see what Meyer has up his sleeve.
3 Stars

Goodbye, Things:
The New Japanese Minimalism

by Fumio Sasaki, Eriko Sugita (Translator), Keith Szarabajka (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Publication Date: April 10, 2017
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 4 hr., 32 min.
Read Date: April 18, 2022

(the official blurb)
Ummm….yeah, so this was a thing I listened to. A friend was pretty excited about the book, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

Sasaki didn’t convince me—the picture he painted of himself—as well as his readers/listeners—is of a pretty shallow person. I don’t think he is—or was, before he went through this period of self-improvement—but he sure did a lousy job of depicting a person who had any depth.

He describes an interesting way of life, but didn’t make me at all interested in trying it. I didn’t hate the book, but I can’t find anything to commend about it.

Szarabajka’s work was fine, I should add—nothing too flashy, which fits the book. I’d listen to other books he narrated.
2 Stars

Taming Demons for Beginners

by Annette Marie, Cris Dukehart (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: Guild Codex: Demonized, #1
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Publication Date: December 30, 2019
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 7 hr., 52 min.
Read Date: April 26-27, 2022

(the official blurb)
While I was listening to this, I said, “this protagonist is doing nothing but making foolish/stupid moves—I have to pause occasionally just to growl at her.” I’m used to protagonists making foolish mistakes, that’s not the problem. But this woman seemed to be deliberately choosing the worst thing to do at every moment.

I’m not sure that she really got past that, but at some point, it stopped being annoying. I’m not sure why. Part of it has to do with the way that this book tied into Demon Magic and a Martini—Marie’s done this before, but the way she pulled that off in this case was plenty of fun. I don’t know that I’m sold on this series, but I do want to see what happens next, and that’s good enough.

Dukehart did a fine job—maybe a little bit too close to her work in The Guild Codex: Spellbound, but it’s easy enough to get past that.
3 Stars

Rosebud

by Paul Cornell

DETAILS:
Publisher: Tor
Publication Date: April 25, 2022
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 112 pg.
Read Date: May 3, 2022

(the official blurb)
I…I just don’t know what to say about this. It’s a clever premise, and Cornell (as one expects) writes well—there are some nice sentences throughout. Basically…I should be singing the praises of this one.

And yet…

I can’t. I don’t know why, but I could not convince myself that I was enjoying this. I just didn’t respond to any of it. I’ve been a fan of Cornell’s for years, this is just a blip, I’m sure, and I’ll be gung-ho about his next work. But this just wasn’t for me.
2 1/2 Stars

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase from any of them, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.
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Constance Verity Destroys the Universe by A. Lee Martinez: Saying Good-Bye to this Hero

By HCNewton

On April 13, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Constance Verity Destroys the Universe

by A. Lee Martinez

DETAILS:
Series: Constance Verity, #3
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press
Publication Date: March 7, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 290 pg    
Read Date: April 6-8, 2022

She pushed a chair into a corner of the room not visible from the street and sat. There was a feel to her life. Danger didn’t usually feel this dangerous. Danger was just background noise. But this was a lot of people trying to kill her. More than normal.

What’s Constance Verity Destroys the Universe About?

This book starts off with Constance Verity doing something almost unbelievable for her—normal things. She attends a dinner party to celebrate her best friend’s/sidekick’s upcoming wedding, she spends a day hanging out with her fiancé at a park and museum—sure, there’s a duel with an alien in there, as well as dealing with an international crisis, etc. But for Connie, that’s pretty sedate.

Then things stop happening—no death rays, mad scientists, pan-dimensional threats—not even a kitten stuck in a tree. It’s unnerving to all who know her well. On the plus side, Tia and Hiro’s wedding should go off without an interruption, right? And it does—the reception, however…

When things start happening again, there’s a distressing trend—people from all over the universe and time show up because they’ve been told that Constance Verity is going to destroy the universe, and they’re going to stop her. The assassins are plentiful enough that Connie’s getting nervous—so she does what she can to keep her loved ones safe and then sets out to see why people are saying she’s going to destroy the universe. All she’s ever done is save it, why would she change?

A Plethora of Ideas

Connie had a problem with Nebraska. And that problem was that it was too close to Kansas.

Kansas, where dark gods waited to rise from their forgotten tombs and bring about the extinction of mankind.

Kansas, where all time travel led to a black void where a pale, wizened figure would greet you, playing a banjo and singing endless choruses of “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Kansas, where Connie had come the closest to death on more than one occasion.

Kansas, her kryptonite.

In a sentence or two—or five brief paragraphs in the above quotation—Martinez is able to tell a whole story—or at least hint at one. Most of these little stories could be fodder for a novella or a novel, but in this trilogy, they’re given anywhere from a sentence fragment to a page. And then he moves on to something else so the plot can be advanced.

Every A. Lee Martinez novel has a surfeit of ideas that come flying at you, that’s nothing new. But I think in these Constance Verity novels that he’s outdone himself. Martinez treats these all as throw-away remarks, with no real investment of time on the reader’s part. But it has to be the kind of thing that would drive your average novelist to exhaustion just trying to come up with them all.

You get just a taste of a fantastic adventure or death-defying feat that Connie’s pulled off (frequently with Tia at her side) in these. You add enough of these together and you really start to see all the things that Constance has done and you understand how much is riding on her successes and how she’s become a legendary figure throughout the universe.

Sorry, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus*

It probably says something about the way my brain works that my favorite writing on Free Will vs. Determinism comes from Science Fiction—particularly those prone to a comedic tone. Okay, it says a lot about me, but that’s for another time.

Constance Verity Destroys the Universe plays with those ideas a lot—even knowing (after being told repeatedly from reliable sources) that she’s going to destroy the Universe, Connie refuses to believe it and flat out says she won’t. This idea is treated with derision by some (rightly) and supported and echoed by others (also, rightly). The mostly retired demigoddess of destiny that has moved into Connie’s apartment building cannot muster up the desire to weigh in on this, and of anyone, you’d think she’d have a lot to say about it.

I’m not saying that I think Martinez has penned a well-developed treatise on the idea in the middle of this SF/Fantasy Action novel—I’m just saying he has a lot of fun playing with the idea and that anyone who enjoys that sort of thing will find the Free Will vs. Determinism discussion a tasty side dish to accompany the SF/Fantasy entree.

* Okay, not really sorry.

So, what did I think about Constance Verity Destroys the Universe?

“I don’t have a lot of other leads, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that when in doubt, point myself toward the nearest adventure and let it work itself out.”

I hate that this volume is the end of the road for this trilogy—but I’m not sure what else he could accomplish in this world. When the series started, Connie was an adventurer/savior-of-the-universe wanting a normal life and being unable to; and we wrap up things up with her finding her own brand of normal, which she’ll be able to enjoy if she survives the assassination attempts and doesn’t destroy the universe. That’s a pretty decent arc.

I think I like the arc that her side-kick/best friend Tia goes on a smidge better, but that might be because Tia’s a bit more relatable to those of us not burdened with cosmic destiny. Either way, it’s a good run.

The ending of this is perfect on several levels—exactly how a novel (or a series) like this should end.

Could you read this apart from the other two novels? Yeah, I suppose. But I don’t think it’d be a great stand-alone, but you could get away with it. Why you’d want to, I don’t know—the first two books in the series are a blast.

On Twitter and his blog, Martinez will insist that he doesn’t write humor or comedy, that he’s not that satirical. I’m not so sure, but let’s take him at his word. His SF/Fantasy adventures (this one and all his others) are so funny that you can see why people would make that mistake. But when you ignore the humor, you get a very satisfying SF/Fantasy story that takes tropes and themes you’re very familiar with and presents them to you in a way that makes you see them with fresh eyes and frequently makes you re-evaluate the trope/theme to come at it with a new appreciation. If you happen to chuckle along the way, consider that a bonus.

Obviously, I recommend Constance Verity Destroys the Universe to you—and everything else Martinez has penned. Thank me later (if you remember to).

4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

REPOSTING JUST ‘CUZ: Constance Verity Saves the World by A. Lee Martinez: Connie Verity is trying to have it all — a personal life while saving the world on a regular basis

By HCNewton

On April 12, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fiction, Science Fiction

Like I said earlier, I’m not having any success with my post about the third book in this series. So I’m reposting what I said about the previous two books to 1: To Have something to post today, and B. To hopefully use this as a way to get my brain in gear.

Constance Verity Saves the World

by A. Lee Martinez
Series: Constance Verity, #2

Trade Paperback, 385 pg.
Saga Press , 2018<br/
Read: August 18 – 20, 2018

“It’s a problem I have. When you’re ten years old and dangling from a cliff while rabid hyenas circle below, you learn to be stubborn. You can’t quit, because quitting isn’t an option. You dig your fingernails and pray that root doesn’t come loose. And if it does, you plan how best to fend off hyenas when all you have is a Pez dispenser and a priceless diamond in your pocket. I fight. It’s what I do. It’s how I survive. When people turn and run, I go forward. It’s kept me alive so far, but it’s skewed how I look at things.

“Somebody tells me I can’t do something, I want to do it more. Want isn’t a strong enough word. I need to do it. Give me that big red button labeled DO NOT PUSH in bright neon letters, and I’ll push it every time.”

Having fought for the ability to have a normal life in The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Connie’s out to try to have one. Which is harder than saving the world a few times a week. She’s still saving the world regularly, as well as having all sorts of adventures. She’s trying to settle down with her boyfriend Byron the accountant, while relying on her best friend/sidekick Tia some more (all the while, Tia is trying to strengthen her relationship with her ninja-thief boyfriend, Hiro). There are evil geniuses, aliens, robots, and vampires living in her condo — all of them behaving themselves, thank you very much.

One of the activities that takes most of Connie’s time right now is trying to help out an old friend cleanup the supercriminal organization that he’s in charge of now that his mother has apparently died. There’s a lot of rogue agents, assassins and experiments that need cleaning up if the organization is going to be come a legitimate force for good — or at least not a force for evil and chaos in the world. Connie’s tempted to spend more time doing that than she should, to the detriment of her relationship with Byron. Thankfully, Tia’s there to help keep her priorities in order. Hopefully, that’ll be enough.

You ever find yourself eating something — say, some cake — and you’re not sure if it’s too rich, if the frosting is too sweet? And then you realize how stupid you sound? Wondering if the cake is too good? Well, that’s the experience I had with this (and, I’m pretty sure with the previous Constance Verity book) — where there too many quips? Too many (seemingly) random ideas, aliens, evil masterminds, robots, henchmen of a variety of stripes, strange occurrences? What a stupid thing to ask. Yeah, there’s a lot going on, but it actually doesn’t get to the overload status. It may come close, but it stays on the right side. It’s like asking if there are too many animated personages in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, if there are too many Easter Eggs in whatever your Super-Hero movie of choice is. No, there’s not — there’s a lot of good things that are fun. Shut up and enjoy.

Really, that’s the worst thing I can say about the book — occasionally, there are too many fun things happening. The pacing is great, the characters are rich, lively, and well-developed (including many of those only around for a page or so), you’ll laugh, you’ll be moved, you might even have a thought provoked. It’s just a charming book set in a delightful world.

Do not make the mistake of thinking this is a romp, just a free-wheeling ball of fun, snark and self-referential humor. It’s an A. Lee Martinez book, so yeah, there’s a lot of that — but laying underneath that is a good story, some interesting ideas about relationships, about trust, about fate. A whole lot of other things, too, I’m sure, but let’s stick with those. Too many people will read this, focus on the “fun” stuff and will miss the very thoughtful portions — it’s Martinez’ strength and weakness that it’s so easy to do with his works. There’s nothing wrong with a silly adventure story, and there’s nothing wrong with a book that’s about something. But when you have a novel that’s both — you should pay attention to both.

I knew Martinez could write a series if he wanted to — I had no idea what it was going to look like when he did. I’m glad I got the chance to find out. Constance Verity Saves the World is equal to its predecessor in every way that it doesn’t outdo The Last Adventure of Constance Verity — which is no mean feat. It’s fun, the characters are better defined and have grown some, and there’s never a dull moment. Constance Verity, the caretaker of the universe, the Legendary Snurkab, possibly the only woman with more titles than Daenerys Targaryen, is a character you need to get to know. Her sidekick Tia is, too. I cannot wait to see what the two of them do next.

—–

4 Stars

REPOSTING JUST ‘CUZ: The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez

By HCNewton

On April 12, 2022

In A. Lee Martinez, Constance Verity, Fiction, Science Fiction

I’ve spent a couple of hours trying to say something about the third book in this trilogy, but haven’t come up with more than “this is good.” So I’m going to repost this (and then what I said about Book 2 later on) while I go back to the drawing board.

The Last Adventure of Constance Verity

by A. Lee Martinez
Series: Constance Verity, #1

Hardcover, 384 pg.
Saga Press, 2016

Read: September 8 -12, 2016

“I didn’t think you believed in jinxes,” said Tia.

Connie didn’t.

But she wasn’t so sure that jinxes didn’t believe in her, and they’d had a long, long time to build a grudge.

I go in to a Martinez book assuming I’ll like it, this one took less time than usual for me to know I liked it. Lines like that are just part of why.

Thanks to a gift from a fairy godmother, since she was 7, Constance Verity has been saving the world as she goes on unbelievable adventure after unbelievable adventure — she travels the galaxy, time, alternate realities and all over (and under) the Earth. She’s run into demons, aliens, wizards, killer robots, mad scientists and many more threats — and overcome them all. A couple of decades later, she’s starting to think that she’s missing out on something despite all the excitement. She’s missing out on being ordinary.

Haven’t you saved the world on multiple occasions?”

“That’s what people tell me, but I’m beginning to think that the world isn’t as fragile as all that. The universe got along just fine for billions of years without me. I don’t think it needs me to save it. I think it all works out about the same in the end. Sometimes, I like to think of myself with a dead-end job that I dislike, a husband who is letting himself go, and some ungrateful kids I take to soccer practice. It sounds dreary, but at least it would be my life.”

Connie doesn’t stop to consider if she’s really cut out for ordinary, but if anyone can rise to the challenge of normality, it’s Constance Verity.

So she and her ~~sidekick~~ best-friend, Tia, head out to get that normal life for her. Step 1: Kill her fairly godmother.

I really don’t know what to say about the book beyond this without getting into more details than I ought. I guess I could say a few things about character. Connie is a great character, for someone who’s lived a superhuman life, she’s really human. Tia is incredible — wise, funny, caring, a real good friend. The relationship between the two is almost perfect.

This is a typical Martinez — a strange combination of loony and thoughtful. You can laugh and then be struck by a profound thought within a couple of pages. This is a fun adventure (a handful, really), and a bit of a commentary on heroes, villains, tropes and themes in SF stories (particularly the pulp-ier variety).

This is the first installment in a series — which is something Martinez hasn’t done before — I have no clue how he’ll pull this off, the book ends like I’d expect a Martinez stand-alone to end, so I have no idea how he’s going to follow this up. But I cannot wait to see.

—–

4 Stars

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi: Delivers Everything the Title Promises

By HCNewton

On April 7, 2022

In John Scalzi, Science Fiction

The Kaiju Preservation Society

by John Scalzi

DETAILS:
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: March 14, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 258 pg.
Read Date: April 1-4, 2022

You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not say, ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park!’ to all of you just now.”

“Jurassic Park didn’t end well for anyone in it,” I pointed out. “Book or movie.”

“Well, they were sloppy,” Tom said. “We’re not sloppy. And, they were fictional. This is real.”

What’s The Kaiju Preservation Society About?

Jamie Gray drops out of his Ph.D. program (writing a dissertation on utopian and dystopian literature) thanks to a quarter-life crisis that gets him to want to make a lot of money. So he goes to work for a tech startup, starts to make decent money, and gets fired just as COVID lockdowns start. He starts scraping by on his savings and meager work for a food-delivery app.

Until he delivers shawarma to Tom one day—the two were acquaintances in college, and they have a brief conversation where a couple of things come out—Jamie hates delivering food, and the NGO that Tom works for has an immediate need of someone on his team. He doesn’t give Tom a lot of information, but that the work involves travel and large animals. His team is set to depart soon, and they can’t without a full team. They just need someone who can, and is willing to, lift things. Tom points out his nice condo as proof that they pay well. Jamie signs on.

A few days later, Jamie and a few other new people on the team find out what the initials in KPS stand for—after it’s too late for them to back out. They’ve traveled to a parallel Earth populated by Kaiju for a six-month stint at one of the human bases.

Obviously, like the book and movie referenced above, things go wrong. They just have to for the sake of a novel, right? (but up until then, I think I could’ve made a case for this being an entire novel without that—it exists as one for longer than I expected—and I would’ve liked it just as much as the one Scalzi delivered).

The Science Fiction-y bits

Given Tom’s work, and Jamie’s, Scalzi’s able to gloss over a lot of the how-they-eat-and-breathe (and other science facts…la! la! la!) stuff, but he does reference things like the square-cube law when it comes to enormously big creatures. Jamie’s new friends include scientists who can deliver some of the biology, chemistry, etc. that are needed for the story—but when it’s needed, they’re always explaining it to the liberal arts guy on their team, so the reader doesn’t have to wade through the heady stuff (something Michael Crichton could’ve used, for example).

It’s not a perfect way to deal with these things, but it sure works well, and Scalzi feeds it to the reader in his usual charming way, so I embraced it.

Pop. Fiction

In his Author’s Note, Scalzi states:

KPS is not, and I say this with absolutely no slight intended, a brooding symphony of a novel. It’s a pop song. It’s meant to be light and catchy, with three minutes of hooks and choruses for you to sing along with, and then you’re done and you go on with your day, hopefully with a smile on your face. I had fun writing this, and I needed to have fun writing this. We all need a pop song from time to time, particularly after a stretch of darkness.

I’d been describing it as a popcorn movie in a book. He says pop song. It’s pop-something.

It’s the movie you escape to in the middle of a heatwave and forget about the oppressive weather, the sun, and everything else to enjoy the heat and some pure entertainment. It’s the song you find yourself overplaying because it’s just so catchy until you get sick of it (although you can’t help singing along) and abandon it for years until it comes up on some random mix and you become obsessed with it again for a couple of weeks.

What I found striking about Scalzi saying that is that it reminds me of Seanan McGuire’s comments about the last Toby Daye novel—she needed to write something like that (and I enjoyed it for similar reasons to this one). Are we going to see more books like this from other authors soon? Did 2020/2021 gift us a slew of authors writing happy books as a way to shake it off? (I wonder if Winslow’s Free Billy fits here).

Frankly, I hope so.

So, what did I think about The Kaiju Preservation Society?

“Why isn’t he eating us?” I asked. We were now close enough to Edward that this was not an entirely irrelevant question.

“He’s asleep,” Satie said.

I glanced over at him. “Asleep?”

“They sleep, yup.”

“How can you tell when he’s asleep?”

“He’s not eating us, for one,” Satie said. “You can’t see his eyes, for another.”

I love popcorn movies, I love pop songs like that…and well, you can probably see where that’s going. I’m not the world’s largest Kaiju fan (don’t actively dislike them, either), but it really doesn’t matter, this book skips all that and jumps right to the pleasure center of the brain the same way a catchy tune can.

Reading The Kaiju Preservation Society reminded me of the first time I read Ready Player One (before the movie, distance, and the sequel made me take a second/third/fourth look at it). Or Snow Crash (a wise reference for Scalzi to make early on). It sort of reminded me of the first time I read High Fidelity, too. The catchy, irreverent narrative; the snappy dialogue; the first-person narrator you click with right away*…it just took me a few pages to know that I was going to find nothing but joy in these pages.

*or probably never.

And really, I don’t have a lot to say about the book beyond this. It brought me joy for a couple of days. Thinking about it now is doing the same thing. Go get your hands on this text-based dopamine hit in your preferred medium (I bet Wheaton’s audiobook narration is perfect), sit back, and enjoy yourself.

5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair: No case too tough. No case too crazy.

By HCNewton

On April 5, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Science Fiction

After you finish this, take a minute to go register for the Giveaway!

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire

by G.M. Nair

DETAILS:
Series: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire, #1
Publisher: dS-dF
Publication Date: June 30, 2019
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 302 pg.
Read Date: March 30-April 1, 2022

What’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire About?

I have been dreading this day for a little bit now, because I have to answer this question, and I’m not sure I can. At one point, Stephanie Dyer describes their
experiences as:

It’s like Quantum Leap, but if Scott Bakula had a concussion.

I’m tempted to leave it there and move on, but you’re going to want a little more than that.

So, Michael Duckett shares an apartment with his best friend since childhood, Stephanie Dyer. Shares is being generous—he pays the rent, utilities, and food bills. Stephanie tries not to cause trouble for him. Sometimes.

Michael hates his/their apartment, his job, and his life in general. What he doesn’t hate is flirting with a particular woman at the laundromat. There’s really not much more to say about his life—until a woman accosts him on the way home from the laundromat, demanding that he takes her case. He’s confused, and she presents an advertisement for his detective agency.

He has no idea what she’s talking about or where the advertisement came from. Stephanie doesn’t, either. Soon they’re hired to look into a woman’s disappearance by that woman. Somehow, she knew she was about to disappear and wants them to find out what’s about to happen to her/has happened to her by the time they get on the case.

Clear as mud? Yeah, I know.

Meanwhile, a grizzled detective is trying to take down a drug dealer—until he disappears in a way he can’t explain. It’s not long before he crosses paths with Duckett and Dyer and things get stranger for him (by this time, they’re already pretty strange for the detectives, but it gets worse for them, too).

The Multiverse of Madness

(with apologies to a certain franchise)

“That’s it?” Michael scowled. “It looks like you took a stopwatch and glued some extra stuff on it.”

Matteo slammed the box closed and yanked it away. “You make your own dimension hopping device on a grad school budget and see how it looks.”

Without giving too much away, the duo finds themselves bouncing from parallel universe to parallel universe—some have a slightly asynchronous timeline, others have bigger differences—some have differences that are so small, like people’s hair color.

The explanation for both their travel and the research that led to it being possible (and how they’ll stop, I should add) is slightly more coherent than a certain someone’s “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” speech. Coherent, but goofy and entertainingly explained. The jumping from universe to universe is a great joke delivery mechanism, Nair was able to let his imagination run wild here—and it was worth it.

The Humor

“You’re kidding me. You’re traveling across dimensions using black holes?”

“Yeah. Plus I made the whole thing light up blue. Took me a whole weekend to figure out how to do that. I think it looks cool,” Matteo was quite pleased with himself.

Speaking of joke delivery mechanisms—Nair has quite a few of them at work here. Some of the humor is quiet and observational, some is the classic situational kind of thing that comes from the Odd Couple-esque pairing of Michael and Stephanie, and then there’s the ridiculous SF/Multiverse stuff—I don’t even know how to describe that.

This story felt like the love child of Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency and Comedy Central’s Corporate, but sweeter. The humor is sophisticated and juvenile, subtle and broad, cynical and sentimental. Not only was the story unpredictable, but so was the humor—Nair almost never went where you thought he would go with the jokes.

So, what did I think about Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire?

“I can’t believe there are people who actually want to hire a couple of detectives with no experience.”

“Don’t doubt the power of internet marketing,” Stephanie said.

“Also, the ad said we’ve been in business since 1989.”

“We were born in 1989.”

She shrugged, “So, technically, I guess. It’s true.”

This was just absurd (in the best way). It’s not novel to combine any of the genres involved in the novel, but the way Nair does it makes it feel fresh and original—why didn’t anyone think of this before?

Both Stephanie and Michael are hard to like sometimes—okay, Michael is difficult to like as a person more than sometimes—mostly you take him because Stephanie likes him. Actually, just about every character is realistically human and flawed—very flawed. That’s not something you often get in such a comic novel, it’s nice when you do.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire is a great start to this trilogy—it’s an SF romp with just a touch of Detective Fiction. Once things get moving, it’s one of the faster-paced books I’ve read this year, and the jokes keep the story moving well. You’re not going to find a lot of books like this one—you’d better pounce on it (and the sequel) when you can.

4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

EXCERPT from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

By HCNewton

On April 5, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Quotations, Science Fiction

For the next part of my stop on The Escapist Blog Tour for Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair, I have this nifty excerpt. Enjoy!

from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

It was dark outside by the time he left. Michael couldn’t see his watch, but it was definitely around 9:30. He walked down the street past a row of cars, neatly angle parked. At the end sat Michael’s 1982 Mercury Zephyr, a car that he lovingly referred to as “the Garbagemobile.” The otherwise red car had a canary yellow passenger’s side door that failed to function since its previous owner had opted to weld it shut for undisclosed reasons. Still, the trunk worked well enough. Michael thumped his fist on the corner and it popped open, allowing him to toss in his laundry. Or was it clothes, now? When did your laundry stop being “laundry” and become “clothes”? When you folded it? When you brought it home? Or when you put it in your dresser? Michael enjoyed this pointless line of questioning brought on by the euphoria of his potential date with a beautiful woman, as it distracted him from overthinking about said date.

Michael slammed the trunk shut and turned to find the crazed blue eyes and wild hair of an entirely different, entirely angrier woman who had definitely not been there a second ago. He jolted backwards and tumbled onto the asphalt. A jeep whizzed by his head at what felt like 50 miles per hour, but was probably more like 5.

“Oh my God! What the hell, lady?” A situation in which panic was natural. Michael almost felt at home.

“You’re Michael Duckett!” The woman declared in a voice so far from Terri’s melodic tones, it would need a GPS to get within striking distance.

“Uh . . . yeah?” was all he could muster. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

“I need your help!” She seemed less interested in his questions than her own agenda, whatever that was.

“You need . . . my help?” Michael pulled himself to his feet by leaning on the Garbagemobile’s rear bumper, which shuddered against the rusty nails holding it on. “For what?”

“I saw your ad. I need to hire you. It’s urgent.”

“Sorry. My ad? I think you have the wrong guy. I’m not for hire.” Michael brushed himself off and, being certain his life was no longer in any significant peril, took stock of the situation. He sidled past the woman, who was wearing medical scrubs beneath the folds of a long brown coat, and onto the sidewalk. If she had escaped from a mental hospital, killed an orderly, and stolen his clothes, that would explain the scrubs. It was a bit of a reach, but not an unreasonable conclusion given the circumstances.

“I have a case for you,” she said. Her eyes had a cold fire behind them that complemented the harsh red lipstick that popped against her dark olive skin. She would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been completely off her rocker.

“Yeah, a . . . nut case,” Michael winced. Another joke that didn’t land tonight, but there really wasn’t much time to workshop it. “Lady, I can give you bus fare or . . . uh . . . whatever you need. But I’m pretty sure you have the wrong person.”

“No. I definitely don’t. You’re the detective!” Despite her manic motions, the woman’s frizzy, curly blast of bright blonde hair refused to move very much.

“Detective? What the hell are you talking about?” Michael inched toward the door of the Garbagemobile. “I’m not—”

The woman slapped her hand on the door, blocking his escape. With her other hand, she removed a smartphone from her purse and thrust it at him. “I recognized you from your photo.”

Michael left the smartphone in her hand and awkwardly scrolled down with a single finger. It was not often that Michael got to use a fancy smartphone. His own was an elderly flip affair with a creaky hinge. The screen on this one was brighter and boasted a higher resolution which allowed the bold black headline to leap out of the bright white background in all-caps, silently yelling at him:

“MICHAEL DUCKETT AND STEPHANIE DYER – PRIVATE EYES FOR HIRE – NO CASE TOO TOUGH, NO CASE TOO CRAZY – REASONABLE RATES – ANY TIME DAY OR NIGHT.”

It was a simple internet classified ad—the Hail Mary of desperate schlubs seeking used leisure suits or unlikely missed connections. Below the headline was a picture of him and his oldest friend – and roommate two years running – Stephanie Dyer, standing side by side. It was cropped to focus only on their chests and heads, so Michael couldn’t place where or when it had been taken. Stephanie was making overenthusiastic gun fingers at the camera, while Michael seemed aloof in an attempt to appear cool. It had not worked.

Read the rest in Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair.

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT & GIVEAWAY: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

By HCNewton

On April 5, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Science Fiction

I’m very pleased to welcome the Escapist Book Tour for G.M. Nair’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire to The Irresponsible Reader this morning! In addition to this little spotlight post, I have an excerpt to share and then I’ll share my take on the novel coming along in a bit. Be sure you scroll down to the bottom of this post for the Giveaway! But first, let’s start by learning a little about this book, okay?

Book Details:

Book Title: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair
Series: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire
Publisher: dS-dF
Release date: June 30, 2019
Format: Hardcover/Paperback/Ebook
Length: 302 pages
Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery/Comedy
Intended Age Group: Adult

About the Book

Michael Duckett is fed up with his life. His job is a drag, and his roommate and best friend of fifteen years, Stephanie Dyer, is only making him more anxious with her lazy irresponsibility. Things continue to escalate when they face the threat of imminent eviction from their palatial 5th floor walk-up and find that someone has been plastering ads all over the city for their Detective Agency.

The only problem is: they don’t have one of those.

Despite their baffling levels of incompetence, Stephanie eagerly pursues this crazy scheme and drags Michael, kicking and screaming, into the fray. Stumbling upon a web of missing people curiously linked by a sexually audacious theoretical physicist and his experiments with the fabric of space-time, the two of them find that they are way out of their depth. But unless Michael and Stephanie can put their personal issues aside and patch up the hole they tore in the multi-verse, the concept of existence itself may, ironically, cease to exist.

Book Links

Amazon ~ IndieBound ~ Goodreads

About the Author

G.M. Nair is a crazy person who should never be taken seriously. Despite possessing both a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering and a job as an Aviation and Aerospace Consultant, he writes comedy for the stage and screen, and maintains the blog MakeMomMarvel.Com. Now he is making the leap into the highly un-lucrative field of independent book publishing.

Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire is his first novel, and in a world with a fair and loving god, it would be his last. Alas, he tends to continue.

G.M. Nair lives in New York City and in a constant state of delusion.

Twitter ~ Instagram

Giveaway

Prize: An eBook, Paperback, or Hardcover Copy of Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire!
Starts: April 4^th, 2022 at 12:00am EST
Ends: April 10^th, 2022 at 11:59pm EST
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/79e197ac17/

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

The Friday 56 for 4/1/22: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

By HCNewton

On April 1, 2022

In Currently Reading, News/Misc., Quotations, The Friday 56

This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find a snippet, short and sweet.
Post it

from Page 56 of:
The Kaiju Preservation Society

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

From the platform, a walkway stretched up and over into a gathering of sequoia-size trees. Among the trees were wooden platforms and walkways and buildings, the whole affair swaddled in what looked like fine nettings and coverings.

“That’s Tanaka Base?” I asked.

“It is.”

“Did you mean to make it look like an Ewok village, or was that just an accident?”

“Well, technically speaking, Tanaka predates the Ewok village by a couple of decades. So it looks like us.”

“Does George Lucas know that?”

“He might.”

Catch-Up Quick Takes: Some Audiobooks from Feb. & March 2022

By HCNewton

On April 1, 2022

In Audiobook, Don Winslow, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy

Here are some audiobooks that I’ve listened to in the last couple of months, and I really don’t have much to say about them—all are worth the time to listen to (or read, if you prefer), I just don’t have enough to say to make up a typical post.

Hard Reboot

by Django Wexler, Morgan Hallett (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: Recorded Books
Publication Date:  May 24, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 3 hrs., 57 min.
Read Date: March 14-15, 2022

(the official blurb)
This just seemed like a lot of fun when it was published last year, so when I saw it on the library site, I had to jump on it. And it was fun.

But it was a bit too short—I know that’s by design, but it felt too abrupt. You got fighting robots on the cover, I want more than two major fights. Sure, the fights we get are pretty cool, but I wanted more.

If this was 20 percent longer, I’d have been happy. As it was? I was satisfied.
3 Stars

Demon Magic and a Martini

by Annette Marie, Cris Dukehart (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: The Guild Codex: Spellbound Series, #4
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Publication Date: April 22, 2019
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 7 hrs., 15 min.
Read Date: March 9-10, 2022

(the official blurb)
So, um…yeah. This was okay.

For the second book in a row, we get to peel back the mysterious backstory of one of Tori’s new best friends while they’re battling a new magical threat. This time it’s demons—and rival guilds. One of which is pretty ethically challenged.

It was a bit too similar to the previous book for me. But it delivered the same kind of quippy UF action that characterizes the series. It’s entertaining enough to keep going with the series—and to recommend them—I just want to see a little more out of them.
3 Stars

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead

by Elle Cosimano, Angela Dawe (Narration)

DETAILS:
Series: Finlay Donovan, #2
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: January 31, 2022
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hr., 20 min.
Read Date: February 25-28, 2022

(the official blurb)
I was a little worried how the premise would carry over to a sequel, and I clearly shouldn’t have—largely because Cosimano didn’t just repeat the way the first book went. It was very much an “okay, so now with that finished, what comes next?”—assuming that Finlay and Vero don’t just wholly abandon their new revenue stream.

We get some important new information about Vero—making a lot of what she did in the first book make sense. Finlay makes some smart romantic moves—and there’s some decent movement on the divorce front.

All in all, a solid sequel that shows that this can be a series with legs, not just a quirky one-off.
3 Stars

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

DETAILS:
Publisher: Brilliance Publishing
Publication Date: September 13, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hrs., 17 min.
Read Date: January 31-February 1, 2022

(the official blurb)
So this is about what happens when animals and humans have a hard time co-existing—which basically means when animals being animals inconvenience (or worse) humans. Was that hiker killed by an animal, or did they die of other causes and become food for an animal? What happens when we put a building where an animal expected to be able to be?

I don’t think it was as amusing as Roach tried to make it. It was interesting, but it went on too long and therefore became less-interesting the longer it went on. I don’t remember anything more specific than that—which says something about the book. It just didn’t hold my attention for long.

This is my first Mary Roach book—and maybe would’ve been my last if I hadn’t run into a couple of other bloggers who are Roach fans that were as tepid as I was about the book. Still, I’m going to get a bit more distance between this book and my next.
3 Stars

Murder Under Her Skin

by Stephen Spotswood, Kirsten Potter

DETAILS:
Series: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery, #2
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: December 6, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hrs., 40 min. hrs and 40 mins
Read Date: March 28-29, 2022

(the official blurb)
The circus that Will used to be in is in trouble—one of their performers has been killed and another has been arrested. Will’s mentor, to be specific. So she and Lillian Pentecost head down south to see what they can do.

It’s a culture clash (both the South and the circus) for the duo—Will learns the hard way that maybe she’s been gone too long—as well as a fish out of water kind of thing for Pentecost. Although not as much as Will and the reader might expect.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than the predecessor—it’s still a bit too much about Will and her current love interest than it is about Pentecost and the case they’re supposed to be working on. The mystery was clever, the character arcs were solid and Will’s narrative voice is strong enough to keep the reader/listener locked in.
3 Stars

Free Billy

by Don Winslow, Ed Harris (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: The Dawn Patrol 
Publisher: Audible Originals
Publication Date: 2022
Format: Audiobook
Length:1 hr., 6 min.
Read Date: March 30, 2022

(the official blurb)
This is a silly, fun, and sweet story in the world of The Dawn Patrol (one of my top 5 All-Time books), all our favorites get a quick appearance and we’re introduced to a couple of new characters.

Despite being in the same world as the crime novels that introduced Winslow to me, there’s no crime to be found here.

Which is fine—it’s not needed in this short story. It’s just a fun story about one of Boone’s friends. I laughed audibly more than once, and just enjoyed the story as a whole—I just wish it was longer so I could spend more time in this world. The story didn’t require it.

Ed Harris gives exactly what you’d expect from him in an audiobook narration—near perfection. I thought his stuff was great.
5 Stars

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase from any of them, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Tag: Science Fiction Page 9 of 34

What’s Constance Verity Destroys the Universe About?

A Plethora of Ideas

Sorry, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus*

So, what did I think about Constance Verity Destroys the Universe?

Like I said earlier, I’m not having any success with my post about the third book in this series. So I’m reposting what I said about the previous two books to 1: To Have something to post today, and B. To hopefully use this as a way to get my brain in gear.

I’ve spent a couple of hours trying to say something about the third book in this trilogy, but haven’t come up with more than “this is good.” So I’m going to repost this (and then what I said about Book 2 later on) while I go back to the drawing board.

What’s The Kaiju Preservation Society About?

The Science Fiction-y bits

Pop*.* Fiction

So, what did I think about The Kaiju Preservation Society?

What’s Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire About?

The Multiverse of Madness

The Humor

So, what did I think about Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire?

from Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair

Read the rest in Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair.

Book Details:

About the Book

See Also:

Book Links

About the Author

Giveaway

Pop. Fiction