Genre: Thriller

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…

I’m starting to detest the genre and book descriptor “thriller” or “horror” as it sets an unfair expectation for a twisty, fast-paced, intense reading experience which doesn’t fit many books classified under it. And to be frank, Riley Sager’s Middle of the Night is NOT fast-paced nor intense (by my standards anyway), and even calling it slow burn might be a stretch at times. However, despite the slow pacing for almost 60% of the book (slow even by Riley Sager standards), I still found it to be a rewarding and surprisingly sophisticated read! This is my 3rd Riley Sager novel that I’ve had the pleasure of reading and it’s definitely not one that I would recommend if someone has never read any of his other books before. The pacing is deliberately slow and there’s a decently large ensemble cast of characters to keep track of. Constantly jumping between two time perspectives, the bulk of the story is told from the present day perspective of Ethan Marsh as a grown 40yr old, thirty years after the disappearance of his friend and neighbor Billy. Despite much of the past perspective taking place over the course of a few days and the present…

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…

Before you even consider picking up any Grady Hendrix novel, you need to ask yourself if off-the-wall zany hijinks and ironic pulp fiction is for you. If you’re not prepared to have an open mind for this type of experience, this should be a hard pass without looking back. I was somewhat familiar with Hendrix’s distinctive style of hysterical horror but even I found myself surprised and amused by how silly it can be all while delivering the plot with a straight face. We’re talking about a FUNeral service hosted by the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers, a rousing rendition of The Saints Go Marching On played on kazoos only, protesting the 9/11 war by making paper mâché missiles shaped like penises, and countless pop culture references from the Shining to Freddy Krueger. And yet due to the commitment and execution, it somehow coherently works. The “Haunting” or supernatural elements in this book are also entirely of the possessed dolls (or more specifically, puppets) variety. While certainly creepy on its own and surprisingly quite violent at times (potential mild triggers of bodily harm and impairment), this can be a light-hearted haunting compared to other more sinister flavors. This style and content…

Much like Darrow facing impossible odds against the forces of the Sovereign, Morning Star had the daunting task of concluding an epic that is monstrous in scale. Breaking the chains and political hierarchy introduced in Red Rising then replacing it with a fair society in a 500+ page book is a tall order but Pierce Brown’s decision to extend the originally announced trilogy to a saga (albeit announced after Morning Star was published) smartly avoids a rushed or worse, contrived conclusion. Disclosure upfront, Darrow does not fix the political system in place (that is continued over the next four books) but does attempt to overthrow the powers that be within Morning Star. As a side note, this review will be spoiler free but I will lightly detail a few specific plot arcs that do not take away anything from the read. If you want to go in completely blind I would recommend not reading my review past this paragraph. Summarizing the rest of the review, t I thought the 2nd half of the novel was great and very much a continuation of the general feel and action of Golden Son. The 1st half is an entirely different being that’s introspective,…