Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
I’m going to be honest; I picked this one up based on the cover alone. And like they tell you not to do, I did sort of judge this book by its cover. Well, the cover and the first section of the book. And I thought I’d be dealing with a short set of vignettes about pulp horror monsters in space. Turns out that was a bit of a lowball there—there is actually a story arc that we follow throughout the book. Poor Dementer, has […]
Moonbound by Robin Sloan
I’ve had Moonbound on my TBR shelf physically for a while. It’s also been long enough that I don’t remember hardly anything about Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (first big hit, by this author). I remember that I really enjoyed both Mr. Penumbra and the follow-up, but not direct sequel, Sourdough. I vaguely remember both of the earlier books as vaguely magical realism, and overall entertaining but Moonbound seems to be something a little different. The power of story and narrative is major theme, and it […]
Driving the Deep by Suzanne Palmer
I enjoyed the sequel to The Finder even more than the first book. Initially, I thought Fergus had another unwilling partner in Zacker, a NY cop who attacks Fergus when he returns to Scotland to make amends for deserting his family as a teenager. In typical Fergus fashion, he’s at the wrong place at the wrong time and is mistaken for a murderous art thief. In The Finder, Fergus took a job on the other side of the galaxy to find and retrieve an almost […]
Pixels of You by Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, and J.R. Doyle
I’ve been following Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota’s work for years (I really love their autobio comics), so I preordered this and promptly forgot I did that until it showed up in the mail today. It’s nice to give yourself little presents in the future like that, and preordering really helps the authors. Overall, though, I found this to be a bit of a disappointment when compared to their other work. Fawn and Indira are interns at a photography gallery, and their first meeting is […]
The Plus One by Sarah Archer
Kelly needs a date to her sister’s wedding. But Kelly is terrible with men. Conversely, she’s really great with robots. So in a fit of insanity, she turns her current work project “The Conifbot” into the “perfect man”. It’s so simple, she can write a program that gives her exactly what she’s looking for in a man and make him look exactly the way she wants. A few key strokes and she has what would take her months if not years of dating in the real […]
Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells
Forgive the late Valentine, but Tor posted this last week and I forgot about it until RIGHT NOW. Oops! The best thing about finishing this book (of course I did not want it to end!) is that now I can read all of the CBR reviews. Hooray! I had to stop myself from peeking at your reviews before I even started listening to Network Effect– the temptation was strong! Now I can continue to bask in the Murderbot blow despite having no new adventures to […]
