Judicator Jane by Brian Rouleau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fun, different kind of LitRPG. Instead of fighting, or any kind of fighting for our Jane, it's a hilarious take on min-maxing. I immediately fell in love with the setup. And with everything that happened soon after, it's absolutely absurd and I loved it.

In fact, I couldn't stop chortling whenever high-level characters built up their fears of the demon army. The terror of the demon lord.

I could almost see a little sweat drop down Jane's brow each time.

Delightful. Utterly delightful. And how she goes around leveling up in her particular way? I swear it's like we're watching Domino from Deadpool 2.

If that tells ya'll anything at all.

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Butterfly Effects by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interestingly, we get TWO main PoVs in this. Antimony and a greater amount of Sarah. As far as I can tell, this is a break from previous installments. We generally keep things simple. But here, I suppose it's kinda necessary to have a new queen be both the heroine who saves herself AND be the one needing to be saved.

That being said, it was pretty fun. We go off-world again and see ALL the wasps in their natural territory and make new friends along the way. And, very nicely, we get a wrap-up for a poor character who's had it pretty bad up till now.

Well worth the wait.

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Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

More Mary. Which is never a bad thing. But ghost babysitter turned major hero that got herself scattered to the winds and needing a new deal with the crossroads COULD have turned into something rather big.

As it is, it's a lot about wrapping up the post-lives of some other ghosts, more Covenant crap, and grief.

The grief, I get. A lot has happened in 14 books. But I also want to see some serious growth with all the setbacks, too. There is some, mind you, but this particular book isn't my favorite. I'm looking forward to the future, however.

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Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Funnily enough, I haven't read any of Alexis Hall's other novels, but I've heard of them. Wild romance. Well, here's some great news, romance fans: this will wrap a hand around your neck and pump away at you, too, for this novel can honestly claim to be a wild, obsessional, utterly MAD and tragic romance.

And it also has lots of sex.

Let's get real here. I've read a couple of great SFs that do real homage to Moby Dick, even brilliantly, like Delany's Nova. But this one? It's probably one of the closest translations to the original, only done up as a crazily-sexed sapphic self-destructive ride in Jupiter's lively kaju-infested ocean, complete with massive amounts of fanaticism, profit-insanity, madness-ichor...

and pure, pure obsession.

I'm a fan of the original novel, so I'm telling you that I'm mightily impressed at the SFnal scope (cyborgs, poverty dystopia, and wild leviathans) overlaying such a beloved classic.

It's rich. And wild, I say. Wild.

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The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dafyd has really grown into a complex and compelling character for me. I feel the true horror of the human captivity, the scale of the loss and what they have to do to survive, but for me, Dafyd hits the hardest of all.

It's the overwhelming nature of the Carryx empire. They just don't care. They're the ultimate totalitarian boss who can't be bothered to know your name or whether you need time to grieve or eat or sleep. It just needs you to be useful, to breed, and bring forth something useful to their war effort or you'll be written off. Fired. You know... as a race. Set on fire as a race.

It really puts everything in a truly bleak light. But survival does what survival does, right? And when survivors actually make a little headway under the yoke of an alien empire, who's to blame them if they start feeling like they ought to have a little reward or think they have a little power just because they're finally BEING useful?

But that's just it. We're just animals. Beasts. Only as good as we are useful. And perhaps... we're only useful in a certain way.


This novel really made me feel. It took me through so many stages of grief, but for humanity itself. Denial, bargaining, rage, depression... and even acceptance.

This is some serious SF, but I won't deny that it's some hard stuff. Hard stuff to process. It's not light in the slightest. But it IS very good.

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Sweet Harmony by Claire North
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I read this, I saw nothing but our very real dystopia of debt and health care. And of course, that's entirely the point, dressed up in nanotech health services and a beauty-industry on much more than standard steroids.

It is, of course, a Claire North novella, and so it is also, of course, hard-hitting.

All those bad choices are far less of a real issue than the system that sucks you and and sucks you dry on the promise. And oh, the promises are everywhere and hard-baked into society's expectations. No worse than needing to get more and more expensive clothes to be on the good with your peers, and infinitely worse because the debt directly affects not just your health, but your senses.

It's rather rage-inducing. But so very plausible.

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The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Huxley.

Of course, it would take a phenomenal writer of his caliber to spearhead the romance of the '60s, the American Enlightenment, the spiritual revolution that eventually went nowhere because that's humanity.

And yet, it was a good dream. A dream of artists and changing one's perceptions with or without hallucinogens, of touching the true nature of reality, of getting down to the true platonic idea. Of seeing the terrain. And not just the map.

No matter who you are, it's still a worthwhile read, if not just for its place in history, then for its place in developing human consciousness.

It's something we've just about lost.

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