Having finally watched Babylon 5 for the first time (check out my posts for that series at my Babylon 5 Hub), I decided to dive into the novels. I’ll be reading them largely in publication order and reviewing them individually as we go along. Please do not spoil later books for me. There will be SPOILERS for the book reviewed going forward.
Final Reckoning is the conclusion of the Psi Corps Trilogy, which started with the origins of Telepaths in humankind and the beginnings of the Psi Corps and now, with the third novel, takes us to the end of the Babylon 5 show and beyond into the Telepath War. Babylon 5 fans who are curious about what happened in the Telepath War finally get answers, but the book is good enough that I think even science fiction fans in general would enjoy the trilogy.
The book doesn’t fully detail the Telepath War. Instead, readers delve into the minds of Bester and Garibaldi as the face off across light years of space, the former trying to elude the latter. Each has their own perspective on what happened in the Telepath War, but the long and short of it is that the Psi Corps was ultimately destroyed and Bester was forced into running.
Much of the book follows Bester on the run, with numerous flashbacks to earlier in his life. Bester becomes an even more fleshed out character, and just like the first two books have it, he is more complex than one might think. But, and here’s the real genius of Keyes’s novel, Bester is not a reliable narrator for himself. He has convinced himself that the narrative the Psi Corps told him as a child is correct. For Bester, the Corps truly is Mother and Father. This total self-deception is central to understanding Bester’s perspective and many of his actions not just in this trilogy, but also in the TV series. Bester is not some kind of demonic evil; he is just totally convinced by people whose job it was to manipulate–even telepathically–their charges that he is in the right.
The novel has Bester coming so close to realizing the truth and possibly even having a redemption arc. That would have been an interesting and perhaps satisfying story, but Keyes doesn’t tell us that story. Instead, Bester continually moves himself back away from the light. When confronted by evidence that he might have been wrong, or that his past has been manipulated, he continues to cling to his alternate reality. And he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. It’s a masterful move for storytelling, and one which makes so much sense for Bester as a character. It’s not a happy story here; instead, it is one that feels more truthful to Bester’s character.
The story ends with Bester rotting away in prison, dying in delight over his belief that he has conned all humans with his superiority by keeping from them the truth of his past. But what he doesn’t understand is that he has made his past into its own construct, a fascinating fact made literal as Keyes writes about Bester writing his memoirs, pleased to make his history into whatever he wants. A final gesture from Garibaldi at the end is a humorous note, one of the few lighter moments in what is an almost relentlessly dark story of Bester.
Final Reckoningabsolutely nails the character of Bester, in all his tragic, sometimes self-deluded glory.
All Links to Amazon Are Affiliates
Links
Babylon 5 Hub– Find all my Babylon 5-related posts and content here.
J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!
Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!
I’m a judge of the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest. This is the third year for the contest, and I’ll be sharing many full reviews of books as I get to them. Check out my group’s slush pile (the books we were assigned) here. Also note that I’ll be reviewing whatever books strike my fancy from other group’s slush piles.
Petre Mercy didn’t want to be royalty. He emphatically tried to avoid his royal lineage, going far from home in order to live out his life with a few retainers and his cyborg horse. But events conspired to interrupt his avoidance of responsibility and he is summoned back to help figure out lines of succession. Are his siblings out to get him, and can he avoid the royal drama he’s been running from?
I mentioned in my first impressions of this book that Petre’s narrative voice is the real star of the book, and that remains true having finished it. Being inside Petre’s head is a fascinating world full of snark, genuine wit, and ways of looking at the world that are neurodivergent. The strange inventions layered on top of the genuinely personable Petre make the whole world feel like anything can happen.
Petre’s body is helped along by injections that give his muscles memory–literally–of how to do actions, and this sometimes interferes in his own determination of what he wants to do. It’s like there’s a possibility of a bad trip with the injections, and Peter could find himself strangling someone in self defense when he really just wanted to threaten them. There is a thyroid-powered sword (not a typo!), the aforementioned cyborg horse, and so much more zany tech here. And it somehow all makes sense in the world, which is a testament to Caplan’s writing.
The ending of the novel wasn’t as strong as I was hoping, though. The first third of the book felt like it was a travelogue leading into a big confrontation with the Mercy family, but then the second third and even third third were just more travelogue. It began to feel a bit anticlimactic because the climax I had anticipated and that was foreshadowed at the beginning just never materializes. While Petre does confront several family members, it all feels less dramatic than I’d thought would happen. I realize the book is the first in a series, but I think this one could have been served better by either committing fully to being a travelogue and giving more hints of that at the beginning or by cutting the travel time down quite a bit to get to the meat of the familial and game of thrones-ian drama.
Indeed, the traveling portion of the book, which is the overwhelming majority of it, starts to drag. The first few locales were interesting, but it all started to feel a bit like an endless series of a vaguely apocalyptic landscape with dire machines and inventions that meant almost anything could happen. The latter part of that sentence made the exploration worth reading, still, but it did feel like it could have all been cut down to a more digestible size, again, in order to get to the meat of what feels like the real story–Petre and the nation figuring out who rules next.
None of this is to say I didn’t enjoy the book. I did, I just wanted more from it. I am hopeful the rest of the series can put to rest my objections here. Caplan has created a genuinely fascinating world that I want to dive into again. I am so curious about the next book in the series and the rest of Petre’s life. Will Petre have to take up a crown, or will someone else? Will the nation fall apart? What’s going on with this plague-thing happening? There are so many intriguing questions and I’m ready to find out more.
The Fall is All There Isis a deeply character-driven story that ultimately serves as a setup for a series. Readers looking for something very different from “the usual” will find a lot to love.
I’m a huge science fiction fan, and, having read a list of what are alleged to be the top 200 science fiction novels, I decided to next tackle a read-through of all the Hugo Award winners and nominees for best novel. Let me know your thoughts and favorites. Here are the nominees and the winner of the 1992 Hugo Awards. I’ve marked the winner as well as my own choice for which novel would win, had I the choice among the nominees.
Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (Winner, My Winner)- Grade: A+ Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga continually addresses surprising topics in science fiction. I recommend reading the series in chronological order, starting with Shards of Honor and working your way forward from there. I read this one a second time for this post (I listened to the audiobook, this time), and I was blown away a second time by this fantastic novel. At one point, I was driving down the interstate, tears streaming down my face, as I tried to contain my emotions from a particularly poignant scene. Bujold here confronts questions about parenthood (specifically motherhood, but certainly also fatherhood), adult child relations (father-son), PTSD, and more in ways that are both absolutely real and true to the fictional characters she’s made. It’s rare to have characters so true to life while also being set in a far future a long ways away. Barrayar is top shelf science fiction and any fan of the genre should give it a try at least once.
The Summer Queenby Joan D. Vinge- Grade: C+ The Summer Queen is a mix of incredible brilliance with sometimes mind-numbingly lengthy scenes and descriptions. Like the previous work, there is no denying Vinge’s skill as a writer. The prose is powerful, the dialogue well-written, and the overall plotting is good. It gets bogged down in the details, though, and many, many scenes in excess of what was necessary for the plot. And there’s so much plot here. The book weighs in quite heavily in a very literal sense. One may be able to skip gym sessions after hauling it around. But more seriously, readers who are looking for sci-fi with serious literary meat on its bones will love this. At times, I loved it. But overall, I found it a bit too complex and drawn out for my taste.
Xenocideby Orson Scott Card- Grade: C- Xenocide picks up right where Speaker for the Dead left off in the Ender series. However, it isn’t nearly as polished as the first two books in the series. The novel should be at least 150 pages shorter. It would easily convey the same characterization and plot. So many scenes involve characters animatedly shouting or talking about “what are we gonna do next?” We get it, the family has a ton of drama. It got to the point, however, at which I started actively disliking all the characters. They all just seemed unpleasant to be around, and certainly did not enjoy being around each other. There remains much of Card’s dedication to speculation about morality, religion, and big questions, however. That makes the book readable despite the rather incessant arguing of the characters. But honestly, it’s only barely readable. The more I think about it, the more I’m aggravated by the characters themselves. The first two books in the series are probably the ones readers should stick to on re-reads.
Bone Danceby Emma Bull- Grade: D Sparrow sells stuff and makes Deals for a living, selling especially videos from the World Before. It’s got a kind of cool post-apocalyptic 80s/90s vibe going. Bone Dance rides upon that feeling for a while, but then it just gets stale. The characters simply are not strong enough to sustain the plot. The plot itself becomes a kind of ho-hum adventure story post-amnesia. There are many tropes of sci-fi and fantasy in this cyberpunk novel, but the biggest trope is the plot twist at the end that I saw from miles upon miles away. I honestly found myself saying “uggh” at the end. Yes, originality is overrated, in my opinion. There really is nothing new under the sun, as the Ecclesiastical author says. But–and this is a big “but”–doing the same thing in ways that are totally predictable is still tiresome. I found Bone Dance an intriguing premise with a tiresome set of plot points that ultimately had me just riding it out at the end.
All the Weyrs of Pernby Anne McAffrey- Grade: A- I’ve enjoyed reading the Pern series over the last several years. All the Weyrs of Pern is deep into the series, and it has much more of the science fiction aspects than any of the previous books had. It’s through-and-through science fantasy–you have some hard science questions about how the “thread” might actually be generated set alongside time traveling dragons dispatched to stop the threat. I especially enjoyed the AI and the idea of lost technology. It’s been done before, many times, but I’m a sucker for it and having it be so prominent in a world I’ve grown to love so much was great. The only real complaint I have with the book is that it seems a bit too long. I don’t mind lengthy works, but this one felt like it could have been edited down by about 100 pages or so. It’s a delightful read that I think I’ll be happy to experience again whenever I decide to do a re-read of the whole series.
Stations of the Tideby Michael Swanwick- Grade: B+ A bureaucrat gets sent planetside to investigate illegal seizure/use of technology and a strange, thought-provoking journey ensues. Our nameless protagonist, the Bureaucrat, goes on an incredible journey of discovery not just about magic and technology, but also about himself. This somehow involves quite a bit of sex along the way. Anyway, following our Bureaucrat through his journey is a surprisingly revealing way to explore the world Swanwick created in the novel. The world itself is a bit unclear, because the lens through which you see it is the Bureaucrat, and the narration almost assumes you have some of the knowledge of that character. The whole thing adds up into a sometimes bewildering journey. Swanwick’s prose, however, makes that journey enjoyable all the way through. The style in which he writes invites the reader in to enjoy the path just as much as the characters along it. It’s tantalizing. Readers who enjoy New Wave sci-fi will want to pick this one up, in particular.
1992- The reign of Heinlein is ended. The age of Bujold has begun. Okay, technically that turnover began more like 1989 with Bujold’s first nomination, but still. From 1989-now (writing in 2023), Bujold has been nominated 10 times for the Hugo Award for best novel. Ten. Times. She won 4 of them. It ties Heinlein (not counting retro Hugos) for the 10/4 count. NK Jemisin might be the next, with 5 nominations and 3 wins already. Anyway, it’s fun to read through eras like this. And, frankly, I prefer the Bujold era to the Heinlein one so far as the books are concerned. Barrayar is an all-time great. The rest of the year’s slate is okay. Swanwick’s book is intriguing. McAffrey delivers dragons in science fantasy if you’re into that kind of thing. ’92 isn’t bad. But Barrayar is the obvious choice and a year the voters definitely got right.
Links
My Read-Through of the Hugos– Read more posts in this series and follow me on the journey! Let me know your own thoughts on the books.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!
I am so pleased to announce the Quarterfinalists for SPSFC3 from Team Red Stars! While Quarterfinalists is not an official category in the event for every group, Team Red Stars has historically narrowed down the slush pile to a smaller group to fully evaluate before announcing official semifinalists. This smaller group is our group of Quarterfinalists, and I am excited to show them to you!
When their ship crash lands on the wrong planet–wait, is “crash” the right word or is something like “unexpected landing event”?–the crew of a ship for hire in exploring new planets must figure out how to survive with an AI that can’t even remember that it is damaged.
Weaver creates a story that involves the crew trying to survive against the odds even as their AI struggles to figure out how to best assist them and the rigors of unfettered capitalism try to choke out every penny even from the stranded crew. Want to figure out how to do something not in the “Complete Guide”? You might need a different guide, the price of which will need to be deducted from our paychecks.
I’ll have a full review of this one coming in the future, but suffice to say I thought it was a funny, entertaining read from start to finish.
Kwelengsen Storm is set on the planet of Kwelengsen–and yes, you do find out why it’s named that and it is cooler than you might think. There, humans have found the first planet that is capable of human habitation. The problem is that humanity is divided over who should have the rights to settle, as the united governments think they should settle, but the Corporate powers try to stake a claim as well. When Logan Twofeathers is forced to fight for survival against those malevolent Corporate interests, he finds that there’s seldom easy black and white answers in such conflicts.
This novel hit all the right notes for me, whether it was the critique of unfettered capitalism or the subtle look at how colonization hurts not just the colonized but also the colonizers. I have a full review of the novel here.
Kwelengsen Stormis a worthy quarterfinalist that I am happy to recommend to other readers.
The book starts intentionally with an overused trope- a princess has gone missing. In their attempt to find her, a ragtag crew of mercenaries get wrapped up in a sort of lacksadaisical’s god’s machinations with the universe.
I wrote about this book already in my first impressions post, but now that it’s on our quarterfinalists, it’s going to get a full read and review from me. I’ll likely be restarting it. I think the ideas behind the story have a lot of promise, so I’m curious to see what Howard does with those ideas.
The Fractured Godhas a promising premise. I’m excited to dive in and see where the story takes me.
Petre Mercy is a prince who doesn’t especially want to keep being a prince. He’d prefer to hop on his cyborg horse and get outta Dodge. His life among nobility calls him back, however, after his father the King dies. Petre is one of a set of quadruplets who must now be considered for the throne–along with his sister. But does he want to go along with the game of thrones?
The narrative voice of Petre is one of the most engaging, even when off-putting, narrative voices I have encountered. It makes the book compulsive reading all the way through. I will be looking forward to the sequel. For now, my full review is coming soon, so be ready!
The Fall is All There Is is a unique, fascinating story that stretches what I expect in science fiction.
Wistful is a space station that’s like Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5 in the diversity of peoples passing through, but with an ancient AI directing it. Meanwhile, Rohan is a half-human with superhero powers trying to lay low to avoid his troubled past, there are kaiju-like monstrosities on the surface of the planet Wistful orbits, there’s a wormhole spitting out aggressive space bears, and there are people hunting for Rohan for other reasons than he might think. The novel has a lot going on, and what makes it such a delight is how Berne manages to hold all the threads together and tie it all up in a satisfying package.
I said it already in my first impressions post- Wistful Ascendingis a fantastic read that I am super excited to hype up for other readers. Check out my full review for even more!
Alina must resort to illegal Raves–hunts of Aelf–a kind of elf or monstrous creature (I haven’t quite figured out which defines it yet) in order to pay her bills. When she learns of a major threat in the Capital that would give a huge payout and perhaps end the cycle of bad choices she’s been forced to make, she jumps on the opportunity, but to do so she has to face a horrible terror.
Traas has clearly put a lot of effort into worldbuilding here, and in my first impressions on the book I was especially interested in the setting. What is it that makes the world tick? What are these Raves like? What will Alina do to pay off her bills? Some reviewers loved the setting and the characters. Others thought it took a bit too long to get going. I’ll be fully reading and reviewing the book now that my team has it as a quarterfinalist, so I will have some answers soon!
The Ravehas quite a lot going on. I’ll be curious to see if Traas cashes in on the potential of the setting’s depth to make a great story.
What do you get if you throw together a multiverse that takes over random planets to create game worlds, Magic: The Gathering, a cozy shop, and a quest? You get this book.
Judges in my group loved the magic system and the way it kept introducing new concepts to keep the plot going. Some disliked those elements. Others mentioned how it takes a bit of a hard turn away from the cozy shop when Jake goes questing. Let’s just say there are many opinions on this one, and I think readers who are interested in the premise will want to explore for themselves. I have a full review coming soon.
Jake’s Magical Market is a fascinating read that went in some directions I didn’t expect. Readers of LitRPG should run to check it out.
I’m writing little reflections on every book Team Red Stars is cutting in the slush stage. We wanted to give feedback on every book so that readers could see both things we enjoyed about the books and reasons we didn’t move them on. Some of the books cut were books individual reviewers or even sets of reviewers enjoyed. I will still be publishing my own “first impressions” posts on every book in our slush pile, as well. Follow the blog for more!
Bellona must deal with her people’s expectations of behavior along with hyper evolved threats like massive hyena-like creatures even as she struggles against the hated s’orne.
The idea of figuring out why and how humanity has come to be simultaneously threatened by the mysterious s’orne and breeding enormous prehistoric creatures to herd across vast swaths of land had a lot of appeal for me. For me, though, this was a case of expecting the book to go one way while in reality the author wrote an entirely different book. I found the multiplicity of viewpoints and scenes to be unwelcome, as I was much more interested in what was happening to Bellona and our prehistoric critters than I was in any of the other scenes.
And as I read on, I also started to wonder if my initial impressions of the book were all wrong. Was it even set on Earth? Was I just assuming that because it mentions people groups who exist on Earth, that was the setting? Did I miss something about why they have brontotheres (the prehistorical megafauna)? Maybe I did miss all of this; perhaps I was too uncareful a reader. But I didn’t feel like I was being uncareful, just totally confused. And the constant stepping in of other viewpoints made it difficult to focus on what I felt was the main plot. Even still, I was interested to read more, but not so much that it could displace the books that ended up as our quarterfinalists.
The Great Migration has some fascinating world building, and readers interested in the plot hook should check it out.
Kaylee, a native of Cadorie, finds herself thrust in the midst of a possible rebellion when she engages with an interruption of the propaganda-laden programming her people are forced to watch. Will she believe the gaslighting that suggests the rebellion is all a hoax to trap people like her, or is there a broader conflict going on?
The novel has a bunch of interesting elements jumbled together, with questions of colonialism, the way reality can be distorted by what information we have access to, and a somewhat rigid societal system. However, for myself I was put off by a scene of attempted assault that rubbed me the wrong way. Another judge noted the author clearly loved what was being written, but perhaps allowed that love to get in the way of some difficulties with how the plot was structured.
Freedom Hold promises readers some space opera and rebellion against the baddies -type goodness.
Lovecraftian cultists, a swashbuckling brigand, an enslaved man who escaped to become an airship captain, a dangerous actress, frickin’ Charles Dickens, and more make up the panoply of personages in this thrilling read.
Yes, frickin’ Charles Dickens is in this novel. I knew at that point it would be one I loved, and I did enjoy this one quite a bit. So why is it cut? I’m not the only judge on my team, and this was one book that had us pretty divided in opinion. One judge said they had several problems with the way it so easily advanced from point to point. Others didn’t enjoy the steampunk aspects as much as they enjoyed other science fiction. That’s the nature of a contest like this, especially on a team with so many judges–there’s going to be books that divide us, and this is one of them. Suffice to say that if any of the description above, or taking an adventure on an airship to stop the annihilation of our planet by Elder beings with a motley Firefly-esque crew in a Steampunk world appeals, you really ought to check it out.
I have a full review of this book coming, and I gotta say I thought it was very good. Readers interested in steampunk adventures with a strong cast of characters that you as a reader will love rooting for as they fight against horrible menaces to our universe should check out The Beckoning Void.
The United Systems Republic is just emerging from a long period of war when another threat looms. Now, Jason and his fox-like Holdren crew must go back into the fight to see if they can retrieve peace.
One reviewer noted how the book kept using powerful emotional moments to drag them back into the plot, even when they had other issues with the narrative. Another reviewer said the book had too many generic points and naming conventions to draw them in. Others discussed how it was fine to have fox people, but the explanation of why they are so similar to humans and some of their abilities stretched credulity.
Fog of Waris worth checking out for fans of military sci-fi who want something that feels both familiar and emotionally deep.
Sabra Kasembe lives in a world broken by the rigors of rigid capitalism and superheroes who may not be as heroic as one might think. When her father is shot on an attempted heist, she wants to find out what happened.
Right away the book splits into several narratives, and several reviewers found themselves interested in only one or two of them, hoping the book would focus on just that point of view. Other reviewers were engrossed by the novel and at least one plans to finish and review it. Overall, the book had several judges split on it, and the group opted for choices with more unanimity of opinion.
For me, this was a tough elimination, and a book that I’m hoping to circle back to to read more. I was super interested in the character, but less so in the others. That said, this is an absolute chonker of a book so maybe the other characters would grow on me. I am hoping to continue and eventually get a full review once my other reading schedule has calmed down a bit.
I also love the description on the book’s Royal Road page- “This is a story for those who want to answer the big questions: can superheroes reconcile the contradictions within capital and themselves, does power corrupt, and is it gay if you’re a woman and she’s a goth-rock robot?” Readers who find those vibes interesting should check out In Sekhmet’s Shadow.
Guilt feels like a central theme of the book. The rebellion that’s building is not out in the open or shouted; it is quiet. It feeds upon guilt. The guilt of a soldier who performed his duty such that he feels corrupted by it. The guilt of others for the alleged sins they commit. Thaung has created a subtle world with a building rebellion.
Our reviewers largely thought the writing was clean and the prose had depth to it. This was one of the most polished books in our slush pile. Some reviewers questioned it as sci-fi because the story seems to be a straightforward novel. We decided early on that we would just trust any books submitted as sci-fi counted as sci-fi until proven otherwise, though, so that wasn’t a major issue. Some judges thought the plot took too long to get going.
My own impressions were that Thaung has a well crafted world and characters. I did think it took a bit too long to feel like anything was really happening, but the introspective nature of the “quiet rebellion” certainly has its own appeal. I’d be curious to read more in the future.
A Quiet Rebellion: Guiltbrings mysterious magic and deep characterization to the table. Readers looking for that kind of depth should check it out.
I’m writing little reflections on every book Team Red Stars is cutting in the slush stage. We wanted to give feedback on every book so that readers could see both things we enjoyed about the books and reasons we didn’t move them on. Some of the books cut were books individual reviewers or even sets of reviewers enjoyed. I will still be publishing my own “first impressions” posts on every book in our slush pile, as well. Follow the blog for more!
This post-apocalyptic story about humans bred to warn of impending deadly chemical clouds has much to commend it. The post apocalyptic setting feels fresh. The impending sense of doom is almost visceral at times. The characters feel dynamic. Where some of our reviewers struggled was with the pacing and lack of details filling out the background of the story. At times it was difficult to discern the how and why for what characters were doing or how the setting was supposed to work.
Beating the Apocalypsehas several intriguing ideas, and readers interested in climate-catastrophic sci-fi will want to check it out.
First off, the title of this one is a doozy. It certainly suggests a wild, over-the-top monster romp. What is delivered with Psycho Hose Beast is a huge helping of ’90s nostalgia, complete with a video store as a major part of the setting. Some reviewers talked about the Lovecraftian vibes and that heaping helping of nostalgia. Some had issues with the tone, saying that it oscillated too much between horror and attempted silliness or nostalgia to the extent that it was difficult to figure out how to take the book. Overall, if the intersection of horror/comedy/90s sounds good, it’s probably a good thing to check out.
A major cyber-attack on global banking systems leads to activation of sleuths across the globe in this fast paced cyberpunk-esque story. In the near future, cryptocurrency has become quite popular and powerful, but has also lead to some instability in markets, banks, and even entire countries. When the crap hits the fan, the action is turned up to the nth degree.
Reviewers liked the pace of the book, but that was also sometimes to its detriment. As characters and hacking scenes flew by, it was sometimes hard to gain footing and figure out how things worked or why the characters named were important. The shifting perspectives early on didn’t help as it made it more difficult to stay grounded in the story.
For myself, I thought this was an extremely fast moving sci-fi thriller. It was incredibly easy to just keep flipping pages. I don’t have time right now to finish it off, but I have it on my stack of books to circle back to and read more, because it’s such easy reading that it’s also easy to forgive some of the faults listed.
Bitcoin Hurricane will appeal to readers looking for fast action, hacking, and a look at some questions about how markets might be impacted in the future if crypto gains popularity and acceptance.
The main draw of this for some reviewers was the main character, the last surviving (maybe?) human, named “Cockroach” (yes, really!). The draw was the mystery of what happened to Earth set alongside why Cockroach was not sharing anything about that mystery. For some reviewers, the writing dragged it down with decisions like substituting words. The mystery shrouding the main character and setting also made it difficult for some reviewers to get into the story.
Caught in the Vortexlooks to be an intriguing look at a post Earth universe. Readers wanting to know how a human author might handle a post human world should check it out.
What if you had Batman, except Batman was set in the future and Bruce Wayne wasn’t a billionaire but rather a somewhat helpless dude transported into events he doesn’t really understand who happens to be an okay guy and so gets the super-suit to begin his justice-driven campaign? You’d have Vigil.
On a personal note, it was maybe 10 years ago when I was lamenting that there weren’t really any superhero novels. Now, there is an absolute firehose of superhero novels coming to the extent that readers can be pretty choosy about how to spend their time. Vigil as a hero is interesting in some ways, with a backstory that begs for exploration. After an opening in which our main character, Jett, gets beaten by the big bad guy, readers are transported with the main character forward in time to a world confusing both to readers and Jett. Lewis Knight does a good job setting the stage, but some of our judges thought the book took too long to get into the action and super-heroing part. Others thought the superhero story didn’t stand out much.
I personally wanted more exploration of the what happened to get Jett to where he was. I ended up finishing this book myself and I think it has potential, especially as a series (and it is a series), but kept wanting more oomph from the first novel. Too often, it felt like Jett and/or Vigil were just pulled along by events rather than decisively guiding them. I also thought we could have used more insight into Jett’s personality and background before he encountered the OG (maybe?) Vigil. It’s like I was torn between wanting to go back in time and find out the story that happened before the story we got while also wanting the story we got to move more quickly and have Vigil really shine as a superhero. All of that said, though, any story that leaves you thinking “I’d like to read more” clearly has done some things right. With its robust setting, Vigil does that, even if I’d have liked to see more from it.
Vigil is a fairly straightforward superhero comic in novel form. It sets the table well for lengthy adventures of its titular character.
Eddie Rush’s town is under invasion from monsters and suddenly he finds himself with stat charts and inside an apparent gameworld. The novel combines elements of post apocalyptic and LitRPG to make a unique feeling experience that ultimately sticks the landing.
Some of our reviewers were turned off by LitRPG elements, while others liked those elements. One judge didn’t like the prose, noting that it read like “This happened, then this, then this” as opposed to flowing like a story. Another judge noted that it read like a great plot for a short story dragged into a novel length. For myself, I finished the book and have a full review coming. The story took elements of LitRPG and used them in a way I’ve never experienced before, though I have admittedly only read like 20-30 LitRPG books. The unexpected way LitRPG invaded the “real world” and a pretty excellent ending had me curious despite some of the faults some of my team mentioned. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.
Crimson Gauntletis a fun journey, and readers who are into LitRPG will likely enjoy the spin on the genre Adler brings.
I’m a judge for the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest (SPSFC or “Spacefic”) and I’ll be writing first impressions for every single book in our slush pile. To refresh the reader, the slush pile is the randomly assigned set of books each group gets from which they’ll select semifinalists. I have book covers, blurbs, links, and initial thoughts for our entire slush pile here. My group chose the judging method for our slush pile in which we each read 10-20% (minimum) of every book in our slush pile, then vote on whether we want it to advance to our next round in which we read them entirely and then choose semifinalists. These impressions, then, will not necessarily be based upon the whole book, but will be enough of the book to give at least a fair idea of whether I want to continue or not. In some cases I may have read the whole thing, and will likely make note of about how far I got in each book.
NOTE: These first impressions are only MY OWN and do not reflect the entire group’s consensus.
Rohan is a half-human whose other half makes him a possible pawn for a powerful, mysterious alien race. It also gives him powers far beyond those of most mortals. For now, though, he hides from his past, using his superpowers to be a tugboat–literally by himself–for massive spaceships at the sentient space station Wistful. Events start to spiral as unknown aliens show up through a wormhole, scientists come to study said wormhole, and Kaiju-like beasts planetside raise more questions about the broader universe. How will Rohan deal with it all?
There are a surprising number of plot threads that JCM Berne ties together here, and at first I was skeptical that they could all make sense when thrown together. Each chapter seemed to unlock a new piece of the world around the space station Wistful, and while each was interesting, I was worried that there would be too much going on. Berne, however, delivers the goods. He serves up a story that somehow manages to be a compelling superhero novel, a Deep Space Nine/Babylon 5 type setting, a Kaiju thriller, and more all rolled up into a satisfying conclusion. I was blown away.
Wistful Ascendingis a fantastic read that I am super excited to hype up for other readers. Check out my full review for even more!
Last year, Reynolds-Ward surprised me with one of the more unique science fiction novels I’d encountered. Broken Angel somehow combined a rancher love story with a conspiracy-laden sci-fi novel. I was excited to see another book of hers land in our slush pile this year, and anticipated something unexpected.
Reynolds-Ward delivers that. The world of Beating the Apocalypse has a United States under a dome, with toxic clouds rampaging the land. Rianna and Bobby are genetically modified human canaries, whose sensitivity to the toxic gases makes them valuable early warning systems for other humans. They don’t die first like canaries in mines, though, instead, they have such heightened abilities that they can forecast the Clouds and what might happen from them. If they’re so valuable, though, why do the leaders seem to be wanting to kill them?
I’m at 20% in this one and I’m a little torn on it. The plot skips ahead in spurts, which makes it difficult in these early stages to get a grounding in the world. There are also several introduced concepts–the canaries, the Clouds, whatever international incident caused the United States to get trapped where they are, etc.–that are largely unexplained contextually that it becomes jarring, especially alongside the way the novel doesn’t pause much in the early stages between timeline shifting. There is some explanation, but it is largely only in tiny snippets. While I’m not advocating for huge info dumps, some kind of info dumping–whether via dialogue, a news story, or the like–is occasionally necessary. Instead, I felt a bit disconnected from the world in the novel, unable to figure out the mechanics of the world or why it was working as it did. All of that said, there is a lot of promise in these early stages of the novel, and the fact is that I am into the book enough that a primary complaint is “I want to know more” is a good indicator of the quality of writing here.
Beating the Apocalypsehas a promising start, though I’d like to see its world filled out more in the early going. Readers looking for a unique take on the post-apocalyptic may want to take a look.
I love judging the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest, but one of the sad duties of a judge is to cut books. While we don’t have a requirement to specifically announce cuts, I find it is one way to give authors feedback on books and that that is usually appreciated. It also gives a chance to talk about books group members may have liked but that we couldn’t select for a quarterfinalist (an unofficial round) this year. Team Red Stars started with 25 books and we’re going forward with 7 quarterfinalists, which unfortunately means 18 books had to be cut. I’ll be posting these cuts with some comments on each, including thoughts from the group. Note, this doesn’t preclude these books getting read and full reviews by individual group members; we just don’t have time to read and review every one, so we wanted to give each book some feedback no matter what. Second note: the order I’m posting these cuts aren’t based on our scores or how much we liked/disliked them. Final note: I still have some first impressions posts coming, because my publishing and writing schedule is packed. I intentionally wrote up a first impression for every single book in our slush pile in order to try to give feedback on them all, so keep following the blog for those, a bunch more SPSFC reviews upcoming, and all kinds of speculative fiction, history, and other random topic posts.
Judges liked the multiplicity of interesting stories here united around a somewhat central idea. Some of the stories in the novel are truly gripping. The book was poorly edited, however, which made it difficult for some judges to continue reading. Another problem was that the central idea–that there was some kind of elitist vault of knowledge kept from the horrors of modern life–didn’t feature prominently in the rest of the stories. There’s potential here, but the judges in Team Red Stars went in other directions.
Judges liked the intensity of the narrative and the way the author poured so much feeling into the story. However, as one judge pointed out, the intensity of emotion also strips the narrative of content. There’s very little explanation of the “why” for the events occurring. I wrote in our group: “We don’t really get a sense of why anything works the way it does. I’m a quarter of the way through the book and still am figuring out why Disrel’s people are targeted. So far as I can tell it’s barely explained or touched on at all. There’s a sense he’s born from ‘scars,’ here meaning not just his traumatic personal past but the traumatic past of his people. But why are they hated and blamed for everything?” Readers looking for a dystopic story with intensity of feeling and action should definitely check this one out, though.
Hall of Skulls is a fun romp with a kidnapping and pursuit that crosses space–and, eventually time. It has a lot to love, and at least one judge liked it quite a bit. Others weren’t fans of the lightness of the plot or the way the prose was written. For myself, I finished the book but had some difficulty with a major plot introduced about 2/3 of the way in that pulled me completely out of the story. All of that said, though, there’s no denying this is a great effort at a YA-friendly space opera.
Several judges enjoyed the lighter elements of the plot (like having the main character playing modern-feeling video games in the near- or far-future) while others felt like those elements pulled them out of the narrative. The heist-based story intrigued several judges, though it was light enough on details that others wanted more explanation of how things evolved so quickly when the action happened.
The story asks engaging questions about humanity and how humankind might be destructive towards itself in ways several judges enjoyed. Some content was disturbing to at least one judge, however, to the extent they stopped reading most of the way into the story. Another judge enjoyed the concepts involved, but felt that those concepts were only touched upon without every being elaborated in the plot.
Several judges bounced off this one early on due to some comments made about women (describing women as “The fertile, plump, life-giving humans once known as Women disappeared from the Earth forever” is a real thing that happens in this book). Another noted that this is an author who, above all else, loves Texas. For better or for worse, that’s a good summary of what readers are in for in this book.
I’m a judge for the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest (SPSFC or “Spacefic”) and I’ll be writing first impressions for every single book in our slush pile. To refresh the reader, the slush pile is the randomly assigned set of books each group gets from which they’ll select semifinalists. I have book covers, blurbs, links, and initial thoughts for our entire slush pile here. My group chose the judging method for our slush pile in which we each read 10-20% (minimum) of every book in our slush pile, then vote on whether we want it to advance to our next round in which we read them entirely and then choose semifinalists. These impressions, then, will not necessarily be based upon the whole book, but will be enough of the book to give at least a fair idea of whether I want to continue or not. In some cases I may have read the whole thing, and will likely make note of about how far I got in each book.
NOTE: These first impressions are only MY OWN and do not reflect the entire group’s consensus.
Bitcoin Hurricane starts off with a bang. There’s a global attack on banking systems again, and observers have noted it’s coinciding with weird market trends on cryptocurrency, which suggests the two are linked. Various banking execs and cybersecurity experts wake up to find the world has been shifted again, and expert hackers need to come in to figure out what happened and counter the attack.
The novel takes off running and I found myself shocked when I’d already turned the page at the 23% mark. It felt like only a few moments had passed as I read about the swiftly advancing cyber-threat to the global economic system. On the flip side, my description above and in this paragraph is already about the level of explanation readers get of the events. Technobabble swirls past at an alarmingly fast rate, making a reader like me who’s unfamiliar with coding and programming wonder whether it’s accurately depicted about the speed at which its moving or whether it is accurately portrayed. Characters make appearances, but feel overwhelmed by the pace at which the story moves forward. Which characters are major influences? Which are just names on the page floating past? It’s hard to determine even at about a quarter of the way through the book.
The concepts behind the story are fascinating. As cryptocurrency gets more popular, what kind of impact could that have on traditional banking? What about ATMs? What about the divide between people on the cutting edge of economic innovation, and those who are just trying to make it by. What about entire countries across that same spectrum? This forms the background for the events of the novel, and while these questions are only briefly hinted at in the beginnings, they’re a powerful incentive to keep reading.
Bitcoin Hurricaneis a frenetically paced cyber-thriller that’s light on the details. Readers interested in cyberpunk near-future thrillers will likely want to check it out.
In Sekhmet’s Shadow by JD Rhodes
Superheroes, capitalism, and corruption, oh my! The world of about 40 years in the future is a hot mess with superpowered people running around messing stuff up. Are they truly a good thing to have around? And who’s controlling the superpowered people?
Sabra was by far the most interesting viewpoint to me. I am very curious to know what happens with her storyline as she tries to figure out what happened to her dad and possibly make recompense. The other viewpoints, though, I couldn’t get into right away. But Leopard and Fisher each have enough tantalizing ideas behind them that I think I want to know more.
The book is a chonker, clocking in at something like 1000 pages if my Kindle locations are a good estimate (to be fair, they usually aren’t). I am curious enough to dive further into this one and see where it takes me.
Eclectic Theist 