Tag: SF Page 10 of 31

DETAILS:
Publisher: Crimson Cloud Media LLC.
Publication Date: June 20, 2022
Format: eARC
Length: 186 pg.
Read Date: June 11-20, 2022

What’s Love and Other Monsters in the Dark About?

I have no idea how to answer this question in any but the most annoying way—it’s a collection of forty-two short stories and flash/sudden fiction (however you want to refer to them). Learning that this is only 186 pages long emphasized just how short these stories are.

As far as this collection goes—the stories are about love and monsters, basically. The fact that the title says “Other Monsters” suggests a little about what kind of love stories will be told. Let’s just say that none of these will be fodder for a Hallmark movie.

The genres these stories approach the subjects from are varied—there’s some Science Fiction, some Horror, some Crime, and a little General Fiction—there’s even a Zombie story (a Zombie story I liked—despite my frequent claims that I don’t like the genre).

Self-Depreciation

Jensen does not have a lot of good things to say about writers in these pages, those comments both ring true and are some of the funnier lines in the book. In one story, a character cites a line in an earlier story and casts aspersions on it. It’s a small moment, and if you don’t recognize the call back you will miss absolutely nothing—but if you do catch it, you’ll enjoy it.

(yes, it’s possible that there are other self-referential moments that I missed. Which would only bolster that point about missing the one I caught not making that much of an impact)

There are not many lighter moments in this book—it’s about monsters, after all. So it makes those that Jensen provides all the nicer.

So, what did I think about Love and Other Monsters in the Dark?

It’s even harder to answer this question than the first one…the short version is, that I really liked it and was more than impressed with Jensen’s skill and versatility. I could list names of stories that wowed me, but that wouldn’t be useful to anyone (and my list would be really long—and incomplete). If I told you a little about the stories or why they were so effective, I’d ruin the experience for you. My hands are tied on being too helpful here.

If I did this as a profession, I’d take the time/effort to give you numbers here, but I’m not, so you’ll get impressions. A little more than half of the flash fiction aren’t complete stories—they’re the beginnings of stories, the introductory page or two for a short story, and then they end. Oddly, with one exception, that was enough for me—I was satisfied.

Well, I say I was satisfied, but I’d have loved to turn the page and get the rest of the story. Yet in a way that I cannot really understand (or, evidently, explain), what Jensen gave was enough. And that one exception had nothing to do with the brevity, it was the piece—I don’t think it would’ve resonated with me no matter how much content was provided.

Now, when she told a whole story in either the flash or short fiction? Some of the best short fiction I’ve read in a dog’s age. Sure, there were two or three stories that didn’t work for me, but that’s about my taste, not Jensen’s writing.

There are moments of sweetness (frequently deserving the prefix “bitter”, sure, but the sweetness is what I remember), there’s some heartbreak, too. There are just some horrible people and worse outcomes. I’m not sure there’s a “happily ever after” to be found, but maybe a few “better than it could’ve been” endings. Sure, there are also the horror stories or the SF that tends in a horror direction. Those might have been my favorites.

I’m going to stop flailing around, trying to describe my impressions of this book. In short—this is the kind of short fiction I want to read more of, and the kind I don’t find that often, which is why I read so little of it. Fast, well-written, impactful—these literary snacks will stay with you longer than you’d think they will based on the length.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author and Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book Club in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.

4 Stars

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Audiobook) by Dennis E. Taylor, Ray Porter (Narrator): Big Laughs and Big Ideas Litter this SF Adventure

By HCNewton

On June 21, 2022

In Audiobook, Science Fiction

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

by Dennis E. Taylor, Ray Porter (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: Bobiverse, Book 1
Publisher: Audible Studios
Publication Date: December 26, 2016
Format: Audible Original
Length: 9 hr.,  56 min.
Read Date: June 10-5, 2022

What’s We Are Legion (We Are Bob) About?

Bob Johansson is a nerd—he’s both into SF and actual space travel, and the technology we’re developing to study space—he’s also come into some pretty good money by selling off his software company. Just as you start to like the guy, he’s killed in a freak accident—and he wakes up 117 years in the future.

Between cryogenics not really working out the way anyone intended, some change in governmental policies, and a bunch of other stuff better described in the book—Bob finds himself as a sentient AI, a possession of a post-USA government. Assuming he functions well enough to pass some training, Bob’s destined to control a space probe—one capable of making duplicates of itself (himself?).

Bob and his clones are charged with finding new planets for humans to colonize—a task made urgent after events that happen after the initial launch.

The Tone

What I haven’t said anything about there is the tone—this is a comedy. There’s interstellar travel, combat, death, destruction, and the threat of human extinction—but Bob and his clones are a hoot and they’ll keep you grinning and chuckling throughout.

It’s not a comedy like Adams—it’s more along the lines of John Scalzi or Scott Meyer—there’s a decent plot and a mostly serious story with actual stakes—but the characters are ridiculous and/or consistently funny and quirky.

How was the Narration?

I thought the description I read for this book had promise, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give it a try until I saw that Ray Porter was narrating it. A no-longer active book blogger had told me Porter was her favorite narrator, and I thought he did a fantastic job with Winslow’s The Dawn Patrol. His involvement convinced me.

I’m so glad it did—he was great. I think I would’ve enjoyed this with most narrators or in text form, but something about Porter’s narration and characterization of the clones added just the right element to an already fun book. Part of the conceit of the book is that the clones have slight (but noticeable)-to-significant variations in personality. I think making some of those with the slight variations noticeably different in the first-person narration is a great achievement—it’s hard to describe, I realize. You need to hear it for yourself.

So, what did I think about We Are Legion (We Are Bob)?

I don’t have a lot to say about this, sadly, it’s one of those I wish I could say a lot about. I had a lot of fun listening to it, and couldn’t wait to get back to it when I walked away.

It had just the right amount of seriousness to keep it from being nothing but jokes, and you really got invested in all/almost all the clones—that level of investment in AIs is rare for me. Bob (well, the Bob that woke up an AI) and his several clones are nothing but fun.

I spent most of the book thinking that as much fun I was having, I probably wouldn’t continue. But by the time I finished, I knew I’d be back for more. I’ve read/listened to a little more SF this year than I normally do, and it’s books like this that are fueling that.

3.5 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 expressed are my own.

Against All Odds by Jeffery H. Haskell: It’s the Chance He’s Gotta Take

By HCNewton

On June 17, 2022

In Fiction, Grimm's War, Science Fiction

Against All Odds

by Jeffrey H. Haskell

DETAILS:
Series: Grimm's War, #1
Publisher: Aethon Books
Publication Date: April 19, 2022
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 448 pgs.
Read Date: June 13-16, 2022

Chief Boudreqx rolled the ship until the belly faced Kremlin and the cockpit looed out into open space…open except for her.

The Interceptor. The front of her hull was painted like a shark’s head, but it was old and faded, scratched and worn.

Jacob had spent most of his life waiting for this moment, and in it, all his concerns about his past, his present, and his future faded away.

He didn’t care if she looked like a beaten prizefighter with her armored hull dented and streaked from action. Or if the turrets were scratched, streaked, and patched.

Only that she was his.

What’s Against All Odds About?

Two years ago, Lt. Jacob Grimm, did the right thing in a crisis situation. Sadly, the optics of his action were horrible and the political fallout from it turned a promising Naval career into a dead-end endeavor. He’s assigned to an obscure post—where he does well but is destined to fall into obscurity and having to leave the navy.

Then politics intervenes again—and he’s assigned a ship to command. The commander unexpectedly died of natural causes a couple of months ago, and Interceptor needs someone to get it back into shape. Grimm doesn’t know the politics behind this assignment—and doesn’t care. This is his last hope of doing anything with his time in the Navy that won’t be covered in scandal.

In the intervening months, the ship has fallen into disrepair (its major drive component is missing!), and there’s little-to-no discipline among the crew. Grimm has his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, a hostile (foreign) government, pirates, other criminals, and an obsessed scientist are at work in this sector—naval high command is up to something, too. Grimm and his crew only know about the pirates, so they don’t realize just how interesting/dangerous life is going to get.

The Technology of this Universe

He wasn’t in uniform, but the cap was a universal spacer adornment. Ships were almost always on the cold side, enough to be uncomfortable without warm clothes and a watch cap. If a ship was warm, something was terribly wrong.

One thing every book about interstellar travel has to deal with is how both travel and communication are handled. I appreciated Haskell’s approach, it feels as grounded as any series that’s not going to force generation ships on everything can be.

The way he designed the technology/construction/etc. of the ships really appealed to me. There’s a very Star Trek-feel to the whole thing, but without the shiny panels and great lighting, the physical aspects of the ships are more Firefly-like. Think Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, just slightly less advanced.* There’s also a feel of 20th Century Navy ships and submarines—unforgiving metal everywhere, a focus on function over comfort/aesthetics; cold temperatures everywhere; worrying about what could happen to things that aren’t bolted down while the ship moves; food that’s nutritious, but not necessarily appealing.

* I’m a little annoyed with myself here. I spent the entire novel thinking about the Star Trek/Firefly comparison and only got around to BSG because I wanted to throw on some Bear McCreary as I wrote this. BSG is a better way to envision the tech/atmosphere. There’s a very non-subtle Star Trek homage in the novel, so I feel okay getting it stuck in my mind.

So, what did I think about Against All Odds?

I’ve enjoyed the first two novels in Haskell’s Full Metal Superhero series (and have been kicking myself for years for not reading more of them), but this? He’s clearly been working his craft since 2017, and it has paid off here.

I spent a good portion of the novel wishing he’d spend less time on the subplots—assuming they’d end up being important, but all I wanted to do was get back to the Interceptor. It made me question several of my reading choices over the last couple of years—why didn’t I read more things like this? There was a brief spy vs. spy thing, too, as part of a subplot—I could’ve used more of that. But once the subplots started converging on the Grimm/Interceptor story? It was like having my cake, eating it, too—and not caring about my A1C levels.

My impatience aside, this was skillfully paced—he kept the tension mounting as you become more invested in the various crews and characters, and as the layers of the plot get pulled back to reveal Haskell’s game plan. The combat scenes—the ship vs. ship scenes in particular—were great. There are times I feel shallow and adolescent for enjoying that kind of thing the way I do, but I get over that pretty quickly.

I would say the Epilogue felt unnecessary—if the reader didn’t assume most of what we got there already, I’m not sure they were paying attention. I think it’d have been better for Haskell to trust the reader to assume the Epilogue and/or to see the effects of it play out over the next book or two without spelling it out quite the way he did. That’s my major beef with the book, and if it takes until the Epilogue to get something like that? That’s a pretty good sign. There were a couple of other choices I questioned, but I want to see what Haskell does with them before I spend too much ink on them.

I’ve got Book 2, With Grimm Resolve, scheduled for mid-July—and at least one too many books on my June schedule—but it took all my discipline not to dive into it after finishing this. Do yourself a favor, grab some popcorn and settle down with this for a couple of hours—you’ll have a whale of a time.

4 Stars

The Friday 56 for 6/17/22: Against All Odds by Jeffrey H. Haskell

By HCNewton

On June 17, 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 55 (because 56 was blank) of:
Against All Odds

Against All Odds by Jeffrey H. Haskell

“Don’t worry, sir, you’re in good hands. I’ll take care of everything so you can focus on your research,” she said with a smile.

She was certainly chipper. An optimist to keep him company wasn’t a bad idea. Not to mention, nothing made an old man feel young like a beautiful girl at his side. He sighed. Those days were long past, but the reminder would be nice. Not that she would think of him that way, nor would he ever try anything. It would just be nice to have her along.

Yes, this was going to be the best year of his life.

The aircar swooped out of the sky and came to hover next to them. Iker picked up his bag and loaded it in the trunk with a smile, daydreaming about how the future of the galaxy was about to change.

EXCERPT from There Goes The Neighbourhood by S Reed

By HCNewton

On June 9, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Quotations, Science Fiction

For the next part of my stop on The Love Books Blog Tour for S Reed’s There Goes The Neighbourhood, I present to you this little excerpt from the novel. Enjoy!

Underappreciated

Poppy Field Lane is like any typical American suburb of the 50s… but it’s the mid-90s and the (mostly) terrible fashion notwithstanding, the Lane is a time capsule of life in Upstate New York before the feminist movement. The men go to work, and the women stay home and look after the house. The men have all the fun, and the women clean up afterwards. The men set all the rules, and the women abide by them… except when the men are out of town. None of these rules apply to eccentric widowed billionaire Ignatius Feltrap who is as young as she is rich.

She lived in the biggest house – a mansion, really – the biggest in all of Poppy Field Lane, but one day, she decided she no longer liked her neighbors, so she paid an extortionate amount of money to have her house moved to the beachfront.

Not because she liked the view, but so it would spoil the stunning vistas for her abhorrent neighbors, Carol and Frank, the Lilinsters (there are better names that Ignatius likes to call them by, but none of them are polite). Ignatius is convinced they have risen from the fiery depths of hell just to try and ruin her life; try to, anyway. It also gave her a chance to throw even wilder parties without the worry (not that she did) of a noise complaint from said neighbors. In fact, if it weren’t for them, most of the town wouldn’t mind her. And don’t think she doesn’t take pleasure in their indignation. Carol, especially, lived for calling the cops to Feltrap Manor, although she would never give it that name. She’d usually say something like “That woman, I believe her name is Ignatius, yes, the widow, well, she’s throwing an illegal party again”, and she would purr over the word ‘widow’ and let it hang in the receiver’s ear like a moldy piece of fruit. Ignatius hoped taking that power away from the vile witch would make her melt, but it only seemed to exacerbate the tension between the two of them. To Ignatius’s disdain, Carol and her brusque husband tick on. How she loathes the ground they walk on. If you ask her, the Lilinsters are to blame for her being outcast from the rest of Poppy Field Lane. If it weren’t for them, she would be accepted by the town, despite being ‘new money’. And despite her rambunctious attitude, she does want to be accepted, but she will not conform to the Lane’s outdated ways.

There is an unspoken understanding that they and Ignatius are civil toward each other in the street… However, only one of them got the memo and read it. The other, it seems, set it on fire… with a flamethrower.

Read the rest in There Goes The Neighbourhood by S Reed.

My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this Tour.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: There Goes The Neighbourhood by S Reed

By HCNewton

On June 9, 2022

In Book Tour, Fiction, Science Fiction

Today is the day for The Irresponsible Reader’s Book Tour Stop for S Reed’s There Goes The Neighbourhood—an eccentric SF with a lot of heart.

Book Details:

Book Title: There Goes The Neighbourhood by S Reed
Publisher: Lake Country Press
Release date: April 26, 2022
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Length: 258 pages

About the Book:

They say there are only five kinds of alien contact…

But what if there is a sixth kind?

Befriending one…

Poppy Field Lane is the place to be in the ’90s. It’s a quiet, affluent New York suburb filled with a few eccentric residents. One, in particular, Ignatius Feltrap.

Ignatius doesn’t abide by the snobbish rules of her cliché cul de sac, but when she stumbles upon the secret of a lifetime while walking on the beach… her life is thrown for an out of this world loop.

Turns out, extra-terrestrials are real.

Enter Væson, a sassy alien on the run from their home planet. Væon has blended in for years, while trying to evade capture from their own evil government along with Earth’s mysterious agency until, of course, Ignatius and her trusty Labrador, Alfie, blunder upon them. It doesn’t take long for a once in a lifetime friendship to form, and Ignatius vows to protect Væson at any cost.

Can they solve the mystery of Ignatius’s late husband’s death before the alien government and Earth’s top-secret one find where Væson is? And more importantly; can they do it before the annual Neighborhood Fete…

Purchase Link:

Amazon UK ~ Amazon US

My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this Tour.

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

By HCNewton

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.

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.

Tag: SF Page 10 of 31

What’s Love and Other Monsters in the Dark About?

Self-Depreciation

So, what did I think about Love and Other Monsters in the Dark?

What’s We Are Legion (We Are Bob) About?

The Tone

How was the Narration?

So, what did I think about We Are Legion (We Are Bob)?

What’s Against All Odds About?

The Technology of this Universe

So, what did I think about Against All Odds?

Underappreciated

Read the rest in There Goes The Neighbourhood by S Reed.

Book Details:

About the Book:

Purchase Link:

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?

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?

Pop. Fiction