Coffee & A Chat – Science Fiction Month

It’s a new glorious day folks. We spent last night having a very small going away party for a friend and celebrating the results of the election. So I come to you this morning, slightly hungover and slowly sipping this coffee. Oh, the wonders that are coffee. I was sick this last week (not covid, I was tested), and threw up coffee. It only put me off for one day. My love of coffee knows no bounds.

Okay well, I don’t see myself ever getting into coffee enemas, so I guess there are SOME bounds.

As many of you are already fully celebrating, November is Science Fiction Month. Usually, I hop on board another blog’s hosting of a sci-fi extravaganza, but not this year. I’m just not feeling the commitment this go-around. If you wish to join in those festivities however, check out Imyril’s blog. It is a great time.

I did decide to take on a sci-fi giant and since it’s a thicker book, I didn’t want to feel rushed reading to make blog content.

I’m already 344 pages in and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I look forward to a lazy Sunday and getting more of this in.

What are your plans for Sci-Fi Month?

Sci-Fi Month in Review

Okay, so I didn’t have the most successful sci-fi month. I mean, I always plan to do a LOT more but life is hectic these days so I’m proud I managed this much. *Stands with chest puffed out, fists on hips, imaginary cape blowing in the wind*

Book/Comic Reviews:

Bombshells, Vol. 1: Enlisted – Comic Review

Old Man’s War – Book Review

Ready Player One – Book Review

Gotham City Sirens, Vol.1: Union – Comic Review

Two novels and two graphic novels ain’t too shabby. Plus, that’s two new authors I’ve never read. The funny thing is, I’ve saved about 5 books in the last year to specifically read this month and only read one. Hah. Guess I’ll just have to squeeze those in in the new year. (Which is right around the corner, holy crap!)

Old Man’s War – Book Review

3.5 out of 5 stars

“How do you like your peace now, mother fucker?” she cried as Bender’s liquified organs stained the lower half of her legs.

War is hell. Now imagine shipping off to war at the age of seventy five. That’s what our elderly main character, John Perry, does when he hits that ripe old age. Launched into space, never to return to Earth, to become a soldier in the war against aliens.

Humans are desperately trying to colonize other planets, but then again, so are other sentient races. Habitable planets are rare and the fight to claim them is an interstellar war. To prolong the human race, drastic measures are needed.

Which, brings us back around to the state of affairs on Earth. At the age of sixty five, people can enlist into the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF), they give a sample of DNA, then wait to see if they make it to the age of seventy five. They have the option to back out if they so choose, should they decide to follow the plan, they are launched to a space station where they begin their training. Most people assume that the CDF must have the technology to make you young again. How could elderly soldiers possibly be useful?

They’re not physiologically, but mentally, they have seven and a half decades of experience to help them cope with radical changes. The simple solution is, to put them in new bodies. If they survive two years active duty, they have the option to re-enlist or retire to a new colony and live out the rest of their days. The trick is surviving two years of alien warfare.

This was a fun, action packed introduction to a series. There was minimal drama and the characters were not deeply fleshed out but they were still enjoyable. If you’re looking for fast action in space, this is a good place to start.

Retribution Falls – Book Review

4 out of 5 stars

I have a GR friend who is always suggesting new books to me, we shall call him, Sir Lancer. I have this wonderful habit of adding said books to my TBR pile, or even purchasing them outright based on his suggestion. This wonderful habit evolves into myself not reading them for quite sometime, despite the recommendation. So this past week, I decided that it was time to break my own habits and crack open a Sir Lancer novel!

I am most pleased with that decision.

If you find these things fun: steampunk, swords, guns, cannons, smuggling, piracy, rebellion, daemonism, golems, people with mechanical body parts, airships, sky battles, and alcohol just to name a few things; then you should quit reading this and sign yourself up for adventure immediately!

The crew of the Ketty Jay are a mixed bag of nuts. All hiding from their pasts, all keeping their secrets to themselves, all while attempting to function as a decent crew.
But when they take a job that ends in unintended massacre, set up by an unknown enemy, they must come together quickly to clear their names for neither side in this brewing war believes them.

For most of the book, I enjoyed the other characters more than the MC. However, towards the end even the Cap’n was growing on me. The entire book was entertaining, spunky and at parts hilarious. If you happen to be stuck in a book rut, like I was when I picked this up, it will easily turn the tide for you.

Mighty fine suggestion Sir Lancer.

Top 5 Favorite Sci-fi/Dystopian Novels

(I had to do sci-fi/dystopian because that is how little science fiction I read. I’m working on correcting that though so give me a break!)

1.  Red Rising by Pierce Brown

A rebellion is rising on colonized Mars. I mean do I really need to say more? Oh, I do? Stop being lazy and go look it up!

2. Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

This is considered a YA but I don’t care! It would go on my favorite YA novels of all time if that’s the case. This is set 15 years after the zombie apocalypse, with the main character living in a small, chained off town with his older brother. The town hires mercenaries to savage the land for things they need, but the mercenaries have been up to no good. The town tries to ignore it but the mercenaries begin turning on some of the town members. There is rumor that they are dragging children off to some place called, “Gameland.”

3. The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

Also set after zombies take over the planet, 15 year old Temple wanders the United States alone. She comes across small pockets of humanity but you never know if they’ll be kind or dangerous. But Temple is dangerous too. She doesn’t survive on her own by being gentle. (There is NO punctuation in this book. It takes some getting used but then adds a unique flavor to it.)

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I really don’t need to describe this one do I?

5. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Character driven space opera. Never have I been more interested in relationships in space.

 

 

Station Eleven – Book Review

3.5 stars out of 5

If you’re looking for some high octane dystopian adventure, then this may not be for you. That isn’t to say that it isn’t good, it’s just character driven more than anything else.

The story hops back and forth between the life stories of several characters (before the epidemic), the weeks leading up to the flu outbreak and anywhere between five to twenty years after the end of civilization. An actor, his ex-wives, his best friend, a paparazzo that followed him and a child actress that he once shared the stage with.
Each character is interesting on different levels and where they came to be, if they did in fact make it, twenty years later adds a commendable factor to the telling.

The best part of the novel is following the Traveling Symphony. A group of actors and musicians who travel the country to the last pockets of humanity and share their talents. I wish that this had actually had more part in the story itself as I found this notion much more interesting than how all the different characters knew a famous actor before he died just before the flu outbreak. The crazy prophet and his followers were a more intriguing faction as well. I think that the whole point of the novel, leading up to the reveal of who the prophet was, was supposed to add suspense to the big revelation. But it wasn’t all that suspenseful. I figured it out long before the reveal.

I sat and absorbed how I felt about this book for several days before I sat down and reviewed it. I enjoyed it, I think it’s worth the read but I don’t think it would ever make my list of top dystopian books. My major problem was that I didn’t feel there was a cohesive point to this entire novel. *shrugs shoulders*

Vicious – Book Review

5 out of 5 stars

“He withdrew the paper and unfolded it gingerly. It was a stick-figure drawing. Two people holding hands. A thin man in black and a girl, half his height with short hair, and wide eyes. The stick-girl’s head was cocked slightly, and a small red spot marked her arm. Three similar spots, no bigger than periods, dotted the stick-man’s chest. The stick-man’s mouth was nothing more than a faint grim line.
Beneath the drawing ran a single sentence: I made a friend.”

This story is basically about two best friends who become arch nemesis’. Each having their own extra other worldly power. Each thinking differently about people with extraordinary powers. Each betraying the other and spending the next ten years plotting revenge or massacring other people with powers. Each seeking to end the other.

Damn was this a fun ride! The first half of the book I was really worried about myself. I mean, I was siding with a sociopath. Turns out both of the main characters are sociopaths. So I started feeling a little better about things, but then I thought it through some more. I was still siding with a sociopath one way or the other. Then the guilt of that went away and I was firmly rooted in the camp of one, Victor Vale.

I know I really condensed my feelings and summary down on this one but don’t let that deter you. I merely wish to not ruin a single thing for you.

Because this book leaves you feeling a little something like this: