After the death of his daughter and learning the true enemy of the war, Trent joins the battle again, this time with his new friend Hido, as well as the remaining members of the 1st Legion. Things get pretty complicated as politics get in the way of fighting the Kitright, and Amanda joins in on Trent’s need for revenge. But even now, things are not always as they seem. Battle after battle slowly satisfies Trent’s bloodlust and Continue reading
Tag Archives: science fiction
The Zombie Apocalypse Is Here
Image from the movie “Night of the Living Dead”
With the virus AM13 racing through the streets, the government has officially announced the Lockdown a failure and is trying to get people to go to the airports so they can be flown to a safe haven. But when Alyssa shows up too late to the airport, she knows she needs to face the zombie apocalypse alone. But unlike most people, she finds that exciting. After all, she had grown up preparing for it by watching just about every zombie movie out there. She knows that she has what it takes to thrive out there with the zombie apocalypse. She knows she’s not alone because she keeps finding notes around town from this person called “E”. But before she can find him, she finds another group of survivors that she teams up with. Even though they are all nice, she forms a special bond with a girl named Emily that both scares and excites her.
Why The Aerling Series Reminds Me of the Hunger Games
I just finished the first book of DelSheree Gladdens’s Aerling Series, Invisible. It is a science fiction story about Olivia and her invisible friend, Mason, who has lived with her and her family since she found him on the street when they were kids. She is the only one who can see him and it isn’t until they are in their final years of high school that they find out he is an Aerling, part of an alien race. Not only that, but he’s being hunted by Sentinels, who consider Aerlings impure, and if anyone finds out that Olivia found Mason on the street instead of him being assigned to her family by Caretakers, then they will take him away from her, and she is not ready for that, even though it will put her own life in danger.
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How This Sci-Fi Book Moved Me To Tears: The Last Hero Review and Interview
For Trent Maxwell, he wouldn’t give up the quiet life he had with his daughter and wife for the world, even if he did miss the life of a soldier. But with the world at peace, military was a thing of the past and he would have to settle for selling life insurance. Until two people from the government come to his office and tell him he’s being reactivated. An alien species never seen before ripped apart a human colony and now the world needs soldiers and fast. They need Trent most of all, because he was the Last Hero.
Nobody’s Hero by Roz Marshall
Based off of Hugh Howey’s Half Way Home, Nobody’s Hero tells the story of Peter and Mica to show why they took such drastic actions. Peter and Mica live in a colony on a planet where gold is so common that it’s used for even everyday dining ware. They think this will cause Earth natives to come in and mine the planet, killing unnecessary people in their search for gold. But they are also worried about the growing hostilities of the authorities in the colony, who are now making guns and are helping humans from Earth come for a share in the profits. The only thing they can do is escape and hope they can survive on their own.
This was a good short story. After reading the “Secrets in the Snow” series, I was pretty surprised to see Roz Marshall writing science fiction, but at the same time, I enjoyed it a lot. It was well written and very intriguing and I love the fact that it’s based off of Half Way Home which sounds like a good book to say the least. Nobody’s Hero is a great story for science fiction and romance fans for sure.
You can find the book at Booktrack and on Amazon as part of Hugh Howey’s and Booktrack’s competition
UPDATE: In my original review, I wrote Daniel instead of Peter, but that’s the character’s name. Roz was kind enough to let me know, and I was (finally) able to edit that. Sorry about that.
A Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey…. Stuff (The Here and Now)
For Prenna, having the cute, nice and very smart and funny guy at her school like her isn’t a good thing. In fact, it could be her death sentence for both her and the boy. After all, she is from the future and is most likely carrying diseases that no one has immunity to, and as long as she is in the strict community of time travelers who track her every move, she has to watch her back to make sure she doesn’t disappear like others in her community who fall a little out of line. But when she receives information that could change the future from the hellish place she left to a place better, she knows she has to act, and hopefully save the boy she loves.
Definitely a good book. I liked all of the main characters as well as the plot. I also found it really relevant to what’s going on today, and what could happen if we keep destroying the environment. However, like most time travel stories, I get super confused easily. While this book kept the time-wimey stuff (my apologies, Stephen Moffat) to a minimum, some things still didn’t make sense to me. How did her father get that drawing when Ethan hadn’t given it to him? Are we supposed to infer that Anthony Balthos gave him the drawing? This was particularly frustrating because I really wanted Prenna’s dad to pull some sort of miraculous resurrection but instead there’s an incomplete explanation for the mystery of the drawing. And how did Anthony get the drawing in the first place? In the future he came from none of that had happened, so Prenna didn’t come back in time. There were a few others, but these were the most confusing. It’s hard for me to follow different and intersecting realities at once, so if someone can explain how this makes sense, then please, leave a comment ;-).
All in all, a fun read. Does it make the top ten books I’ve read this year? Probably not. This might not be in the top ten I’ve reviewed on here. But it’s definitely worth reading, for both the action-packed plot and the forbidden romance between Ethan and Prenna.
Wicked Wednesdays: A Wrinkle in Time
Wicked Wednesdays features books that have been banned and challenged in parts of the U.S. at different points of time, from classics to the dictionary (yep, you read that right).
http://www.indiebound.org/book/
It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.
“Wild nights are my glory,” the unearthly stranger told them. “I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I’ll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.”
A tesseract (in case the reader doesn’t know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L’Engle’s unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem. A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.
Being one of my favorite books from fifth grade, I couldn’t believe it when I found it on the banned books list. Of course I should have remembered the time period it was published in and how much of a scandal it was for a female hero. Also, for some reason, it was criticized for being too difficult for children and dealing too much with evil. Don’t ask me why, I don’t get why that’s a problem either. But it was mainly banned for religious reasons: it’s too Christian and it’s not Christian enough. Even though Madeline L’Engle doesn’t consider A Wrinkle in Time a Christian book, she puts in a lot of biblical references and religious undertones to make her religious viewpoints known. However, her views were considered too liberal by many. Even though this is a story about good vs. evil, and about friendship, loyalty, love, and family, some have said it has Satanic undertones (can I just say right now– I hate people sometimes). The school system of Anniston, Alabama challenged it in 1990 as well because the book apparently implied that Jesus wasn’t divine because the book roped him in with other religious and political leaders as well as philosophers and scientists. (Frankly, I don’t get it. He’s only divine in Christianity and I don’t find it an insult to use him in the same sentence as Ghandhi), and the Citizens for Excellence in Education challenged it for similar reasons.
I even after researching it, I still don’t really see it. Here’s what I took away from the story: conformity and evil bad, individualism and peace, good. Maybe it was the anti-conformist views. I thought it was a great read, though, that has some very smart concepts and is a challenging but not impossible book for young readers, and it’s very entertaining. And yes, I’d recommend this book to anyone.
(Netgalley Review) When Technology Comes Back to Bite Us in the Butt
http://www.indiebound.org/book/
For Anana, it’s perfectly normal for her to use her Meme for everything, and to have it read her thoughts. In a world where technology has taken over, taxi drivers, doctors, and schools have been nearly obliterated and print books have gone the way of the dinosaurs. However, for her father, one of the editors of the last dictionary still in print, it’s terrible. Always wary of memes, Doug refuses to use them, even though they control everything. Still preferring print books to “limns” on memes, and willing to use pen and paper in public despite the stares from people unused to seeing such old school technology, he hates everything about memes, and especially the popular program called the Word Exchange, which provides words and definitions and two cents each. He’s convinced that the program will hurt language and spread a virus and after he disappears, his daughter Anana realizes that her father’s predictions are becoming true.
I loved this book. The concept was very interesting and I thought it was a very smart and well-written book with great characters. Me being pretty wary of technology myself (even though I still use Kindle and I spend an unhealthy amount of time on my phone) I thought it was a good cautionary tale about what can happen if we use technology without thinking about the consequences. The only problems I would have with this book is that it wanders quite a bit, especially when it’s from Bart’s point of view. However, I am writing this review based off an advanced reading copy so this might have changed. Aside from that, I thought it was well put-together and it’s definitely worth reading.
Teaser Tuesdays: The Word Exchange
I got this idea from The Roaming Librarian, who’s blog I would highly recommend reading.
Here are the rules (again, from The Roaming Librarian. I couldn’t have explained it better myself).
– Grab (one of) your current read(s) and open it to a random page
– Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
– BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
– Remember to include the title & author, too, so that your followers and any Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their reading lists if your tease has captured their attention!
So, I’m reading The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon. I’ll try and have a review for it later this week, so I’m not going to say much, but it’s a dystopian/science fiction/mystery book that’s definitely worth picking up.
“But something stopped me in the doorway. Sticking out from beneath Bart’s desk was a pair of skinny legs.” (Loc 377 of 6489)
Update: I know Roaming Librarian isn’t the first to do this, as she has listed off other bloggers who have in her TT. I’m mentioning her, though, because I thought the rules were easy to understand, and I got the idea off the Roaming Librarian blog. If you do your own TTs, feel free to leave links in the comments and I’ll be sure to check them out.
(Netgalley Advanced Copy) Don’t Even Think About It
Have you ever wished you knew what people were thinking? How about those moments when you’re really grateful that no one can read your mind? I know I’ve had both of those moments. Many times.
Well, in Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mylnosky, almost an entire homeroom (with the exception of two people) gets the ability to read minds when they’re injected with an impure flu vaccination. And as the secrets come out, a lot of shit hits the fan, like when everyone knows Mckenzie cheated on Cooper, and Tess has a crush on her best friend. And no one wants to read the mind of B.J., who has a perverted sense of humor and is not at all ashamed of it. They must learn how to cope with the mind reading, from shielding their thoughts from their fellow Espies (their self-given nickname) to living with the lies other people tell them, as well as find their own identity while permanently linked to other peoples’ minds.
I thought this was a really well-done book. It was funny with a touch of darkness as the students run into trouble with their new abilities. It also deals with things teenagers go through everyday, like breakups, disappointment, ambition, and parental problems.
I couldn’t put the book down, and read the entire thing in one sitting. The writing is very powerful and I ended up crying at one point, and then started to wonder if one of my friends had ESP (granted, my paranoia was more likely caused by lack of sleep and my own insanity than the book. Actually, just forget I said anything). I’d recommend this book to anyone who has thought at one one point or another, “What if we could read each other’s minds?”
You can find the book here: <a href=”http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385737388?aff=KaraSkinner”>http://www.indiebound.org/book/</a>
Ink and Paper 