Genre: Science Fiction

After the largely self-contained All Systems Red, the second novella in Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries series Artificial Condition had a lot to cover within <160 pages. As the sequel in a now extended series, this novella needed to function both as a standalone story as well as a transitional piece for the rest of the series. While it ultimately accomplished both tasks, I personally found Artificial Condition to be slower and less exciting to read compared to All Systems Red (still a great overall read however). While All Systems Red featured functional, albeit limited world-building that was just enough to be functional for its story, Artificial Condition greatly expands on the Murderbot universe and spends most of its first half setting the scene for what’s to come later in the series. This story introduces several new types of bots, expands the scope of the series to other stations and moons, and introduces new characters for the hilariously dry and sarcastic Murderbot to interact with. One of my favorite elements of All Systems Red was Martha Well’s great sense of humor and witty dialogue. Artificial Condition continues the humor and cranks it up a notch with the introduction of ART. Murderbot…

Understated, quietly moving, but absolutely brilliant nonetheless, upon finishing Scott Alexander Howard’s debut novel The Other Valley, it immediately shot to the top of my favorite reads of the year. This had everything I love in ambitiously written novels, including my love for time jump/continuity based speculative fiction elements. But what set apart The Other Valley from other similar books for me was its reserved and meticulous character work with its poignant tone and reflections on the choices one makes in their lives and morals behind it. It’s also a coming of age story that’s equally successful at portraying Odile’s life as a teenager as well as an adult in her late 30’s (coming of adult age) that felt so relevant despite the science fiction premise. I have nothing bad to say about The Other Valley which was a home run for me but as per the norm, I will attempt to write a detailed review that’s far too long to describe why I found it amazing. First and foremost, there are two important things that need to be discussed upfront which are potential deal breakers in this book. The first is Howard’s deliberate choice to forgo the use of…

Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police is a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of loss masquerading under a dystopian premise. With the concept of an unexplained totalitarian regime and the premise of police taking objects and people at random intervals, many would expect this novel to be a psychological thriller or mystery. That is not the case at all as Ogawa merely uses the plot elements as framework to discuss and reflect on how people process loss and memories over time in an abstract manner. While subjectively The Memory Police wasn’t quite for me, I still appreciated the beautiful prose and can easily see why this book is critically well respected and worthy of literary analysis. Despite having some similarities initially to other established dystopian works (a lot of people compare it to 1984), at its core I would not consider The Memory Police to technically be a dystopian novel. While there is a plot to the book, it’s quite abstract and not the focus. The female narrator is a writer who enlists the help of an elderly unnamed old man to hide away her editor referred to as “R” from the Memory Police who mandate things and memories associated with them…

The fifth book in Pierce Brown’s Sci-fi epic, this review assumes you have read the previous four books in the series. Spoilers specific to Dark Age will be hidden with spoiler tags, but any content covered in the previous books will not be hidden. Besides, why in the world would you be reading a review for a book in the middle of a long-running series, go read Red Rising first, it’s really good. Now on to the actual review- The 2nd book in what’s considered the 2nd phase of Pierce Brown’s series, Dark Age needed to be solid to maintain the series’ momentum. Despite being an overall great book, I found the previous entry Iron Gold to easily be the weakest and most inconsistent book thus far. I acknowledge that a good portion of its length was required to both bridge the big time jump from Morning Star and to introduce what was perceived to be the new set of main characters. While Iron Gold accomplished what it needed to do, the reading experience for me felt disjointed with its jumping between three different plot threads and the overall direction felt lacking. Picking up after a short time jump, Dark…

This is my fourth Matt Haig novel that I’ve read (though I have another three that I already own but keep putting off) and The Life Impossible is both somewhat on-brand for what you would expect yet also quite out there in the back half of the book. If you are a fan of The Midnight Library but have yet to read his other works or are picking this up as your first Matt Haig novel, I would strongly recommend trying out his other books first and coming back to this one later. While The Life Impossible is filled to the brim with introspective reflections and lengthy internal monologues that are to be expected for Haig’s style, I found the fantasy/magical realism plot elements in this one to be quite bizarre, random, and less effectively incorporated into the character work of his previous books. That’s not to say that The Life Impossible isn’t well-written; it’s very ambitious and complex. It’s that the presentation and the plot devices are nowhere near as mass appealing or accessible as the Midnight Library and even as a fan of Matt Haig’s books and slower reads, even I had trouble staying invested in this one…