Genre: Science Fiction

I was very close to dropping this in the first part but stuck with it as I heard the story picks up quickly. Furthermore many fans often consider Red Rising to be one of the weaker books in the series and thematically different due to its culling game-focus. I’m glad I stuck with it though as I thought Red Rising was ultimately great (with a few reservations), a 3 that progressed to a 4.5 rounded up. A mesh of different genres and styles, Pierce Brown is a certified fantasy sci-fi action nerd irl and it shows in his work. The writing style is no-nonsense laced with some advance vocabulary while the plot is fast-paced and furious. The book often takes pleasure in going where the reader wants/or doesn’t want it to go. Case and point if someone commits a terrible act, the book will gleefully and gruesomely execute some sort of twisted judgement on them. But if there’s a character who you are getting attached to and seems to be thriving, you know they’re going to meet an unfortunate end. There are elements in the narrative that are familiar and comfortable to fans of the genre such as the focal…

It’s done purposely to avoid giving away spoilers and the core plot of this novel, but honestly the synopsis of this novel really doesn’t do a good job at selling how ambitious and high-concept this sci-fi thriller novel is. Minor spoiler alert but the synopsis fails to mention the multiverse-hopping quantum mechanic physics that makes the plot far more interesting than what it says on paper. However in retrospect I see that it was probably done this way for fear of alienating certain readers who may be off-put by a synopsis sounding big brain (it’s quite easy to follow and not big brain at all). Dark Matter is for sure a definite page turner especially once things get going once Jason Dessen is kidnapped by a mysterious man and I can see this making an excellent movie/tv-drama; the plot is excellent. As a novel though, I had some minor nitpicks holding this back from a 5-star read. What I loved about Dark Matter is its explanation and mechanics to the alternate reality/multiverse plot. Instead of just throwing in a random portal to another world or futuristic device (cue most time travel stories), Dark Matter uses an interesting interpretation of Schrodinger’s Cat…

For two hundred pages I questioned why I was reading Klara and the Sun which for the most part, is a introspective and quiet story of an AF (artificial friend, think of M3gan without the horror malfunctioning) observing and learning from human activity around in her adopted household. An artificial friend resembling a doll of sorts, Klara spends an awful lot of time thinking about the sun (yes there’s reasons for that) and watching over a young but weak girl named Josie and her childhood life. However, there are signs and a slow foreboding sense that nothing’s is quite right but it takes a close look to notice it under Klara’s well-meaning yet unreliable narration. (On an unrelated note this book was an absolute pain to get and read for me locally, I had to wait 6 months on a library hardcopy waitlist and the ebook copy I had a hold for still currently has a 20+ week wait). To say anymore would potentially give away the surprises and dark developments left in the last 100 pages, but needless to say things go dystopian really really fast. I’m accustomed to the more stereotypical takes on the dystopian genres such as…

Tom Hazard has been alive for four hundred and thirty nine years and over the course of history has spent many of them caught up in the past, protecting himself and loved ones from potential harm in the future, all while rarely truly living in the present. How to Stop Time is a unique read that presents the reader vignettes across Tom’s life (sometimes in and out of chronological order) loosely divided between five arcs that each focus on a particular theme and state of his life. While there are a lot of fun cameo appearances by famous historical figures that pop-up in the narrative (my personal favorite is William Shakespeare, I wish I was more cultured to have appreciated other cameos more), most of the bulk content involves Tom in a state of existential crisis. The overall story reminded me a lot of the 2015 movie Age of Adeline in concept while executed in a more introspective manner. While Age of Adeline was firmly focused on a romance drama, How to Stop Time’s romance serves more as a foundation and event pushes Tom to be the person that he is… hundreds of years later. This is first and foremost…

A Hugo award winner, this novel is classic sci-fi through and through and a fond callback to when sci-fi stories were less focused on immense world-shattering or convoluted epics and were instead more grounded while presenting various “what if’s”. While there is a plot involving the status and future of Way Station, an intergalactic stop/rest point similar in purpose to a bus transfer station, the bulk of the book is more abstract in nature. Rather than immediately delving into Enoch Wallace’s tale of an “immortal” Civil War veteran chosen as a caretaker for this Way Station, it presents various short stories of Enoch’s counters with both the extraterrestrial and (surprisingly more threatening) humans that encourage you to think about what it is that makes up the human existence and frame of mind. As an 120+ yr old veteran (returned my library copy, can’t recall exactly what yr this took place) who has had more interactions with intergalactic travelers vs humans, there’s a lot of interesting commentary layered with each story that cover topics from language, isolation, culture, bits of existential crisis, and the self-destructive nature of of human kind and war. Despite the topics, Simak’s writing style is still an…