Genre: Science Fiction

Don’t let the page count and novella length fool you, Martha Wells is a literary wizard for packing so much action and content into All Systems Red’s 150 pages. I kept seeing The Murderbot Diaries popping up in book lists and booktuber recommendations, and winning a Hugo Award certainly helps give it some critical street cred. Despite its short length, I thoroughly enjoyed this and breezed right through in one day. This is a pretty short read so I’ll try and keep this review appropriate short. While many sci-fi works get bogged down with heavy exposition and detailed world-building, All Systems Red doesn’t have the luxury of length and immediately takes off running from the get-go. This novella is pure plot, though surprisingly a bit light in terms of fighting/gunfire action. Despite being called Murderbot, Murderbot isn’t a killing machine (at least on paper) and acts as a defensive security unit for hire. And they’re a weaponized tool that could care less about what happens to their human clients, at least initially. The premise of an indifferent narrator is clever in concept, allowing the book to get away with skirting heavy world-building with an effective mechanism of “I never bothered…

Easily one of the most creative and whimsical novels I’ve read in many years. Simon Stephenson’s Set My Heart to Five is a thoughtful (and occasionally edgy) commentary on human behavior and societal culture wrapped up in a seemingly light-hearted, meandering AI bot adventure. Despite being compared to Vonnegut’s ideologies and writing, the book’s content reminded me a lot of Daniel Keye’s Flowers for Algernon (which is one of my all-time favorite novels) in which both stories feature an innocuous narrator who does not understand the complexities of human behavior and terrible people around them. Set My Heart to Five’s premise of an AI bot developing feelings admittedly isn’t new territory, but the style of delivery and humorously dry character voice puts it in an entirely new area. First and foremost, Set My Heart to Five is not going to be for everyone, nor does Stephenson make an attempt to be mass-appealing. Jared’s character voice is somehow both frank and dry, yet also entirely comical in a witty, dark humor kind of way; you know that one friend who always talks about the unspoken elephant in the room that’s not socially acceptable, yeah that’s Jared. Full of fun wordplays and…

The Last Murder at the End of the World feels like it should’ve been something directly catered to my taste which is a murder mystery investigation wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic, science fiction (borderline dystopian) dressing. This one is hard to talk without giving away crucial spoilers that would heavily affect the reading experience. The novel had all the right elements and pieces to work with and Stuart Turton had a lot of creative and intriguing concepts included. In an alternate universe with some tweaking, this could’ve been a knockout hit. Unfortunately for me, the novel’s science fiction flavor gets a bit out of hand and is frankly a mess. Numerous unexplained apocalyptic elements weaken what should’ve been a well-done murder investigation story. Set on a protected island where the last survivors of an apocalyptic fog inhabit, the setup for the plot was good. There’s a clear timeline of events dictated by a countdown to extinction that separates each section of the book. The first 40% of the story focused on introducing various villagers on the island, their relationship with three revered scientists, and the dynamics of the island. The book has a long-running metaphor of equating the villagers to…

I wrote in my review of Morning Star that Pierce Brown had a monumental task then to conclude the staggering uprising premise introduced in his original trilogy in a decisive and satisfying manner. Perhaps an even bigger challenge is to build on the original trilogy’s work and segue the series into its next arc; rebuilding and running a society after it was torn down. As such, Iron Gold had dual purposes to transition the series to a new direction as well as recapture the page-turning intensity that made the first three novels impossible to put down. I consider Iron Gold a resounding success at the former by somehow expanding the solar system society further and using many clever strategies to jumpstart new plot threads. When it comes to the latter however, I found Iron Gold to be competently solid but a bit touch and go with its pacing and reader interest. I was initially hesitant when I started reading Iron Gold, expecting an extended lull and flood of information dumping to bridge the ten years that pass between Morning Star and Iron Gold. I also expected Darrow to experience a shift in priorities or mindset, similar to the beginning of…

The Ministry of Time is an ambitious, creative, and wonderful blend of different genres that could’ve easily ended up as a convoluted misfire if not for Kaliane Bradley’s thoughtful and carefully executed prowess with the various elements involved. Despite the obvious science fiction time-traveling elements, when you strip the story of its otherworldly themes, The Ministry of Time feels like a straight contemporary fiction drama novel that heavily explores the immigrant experience and assimilating into the Western English lifestyle. The five individuals pulled into the 21st century across time is a clear metaphor for the immigrant experience. TLDR, you do not have to be a fan of science fiction to enjoy this book. On a more basic level, The Ministry of Time was a homerun for me with a tone and sophistication I’ve been severely missing in most recent trending booktok novels (not that I would consider this one booktok’s norm). Right from its synopsis, the summary highlights its genre-bending elements well. The Ministry of Time is 100% part historical Fiction due to Commander Graham Gore being a real-life figure who was deemed lost as part of John Franklin’s Lost and tragic 1845 expedition to the arctic. Familiarity with the…