A House Reborn by Mark Arrows
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well, I wanted to like this more than I did.

What I did like was the tech and magic and a bit of the exploration of it. What I didn't really connect with was the whole clan stuff nor the baddies of the book. It was just okay, but rather generic.

Paradoxically, I miss the deep exploration and the mystery and the machines which took up the majority of the first book. This one was... building a legend that I didn't quite believe? Alas.

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Fearless by Jack Campbell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While this is pretty solid for a MilSF, packaging an old-timer defrosted to deal with the young whipper-snappers who no longer know how to point a gun in the right direction as a space-opera, I'm afraid it's just becoming a bit... dull to me. Especially when another old man (or rather, another young man out-of-time's-waters) comes out to butt-heads with another old man in different clothing.

I mean, what are we trying to say, here? Old ways are best? Okies. New tech is just meant for old hands. Got it. Isn't this supposed to be warfare, though? Innovation... ah well, innovation is only true for the best generation. Right?

At least, that's the lessons I'm learning. And it's... kinda dull.



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BORUTO―ボルト― 8 ―TWO BLUE VORTEX― by Masashi Kishimoto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a bit more annoying than usual to have an incomplete story arc for this volume. The action ramps up and the conspiracy is almost blown and now, everything seems hopeless.

Grrrhhh.

Okay. Must wait longer.

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BuyMort: 30,000 Leagues: How I Merged to Become Nu-Earth Affiliated (BuyMort - The Shopocalypse Saga by Joseph Phelps
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I remember the previous book being less good than the first two and I couldn't quite place my finger on it. But now? The fourth helped me figure it out.

It's the scale. I tend to get more and more invested in a series as long as there's a sense of real location no matter how big the scale actually is. In this case, we're all over the Earth because it's all-out consolidation time and the survivors need to prevent further corporate takeovers of the market that is the biomass of our poor planet.

I didn't mind the whole Kraken or Beholder angles, but even those battles need to have decent anchoring and I thought proper emotional anchoring was kinda up in the air. Sure, we have Molls and protecting his massively-expanding community and refugee affiliates (read aliens), but I'm missing the whole WHY does he fight so hard, too.

I want to love this. I really do. It's close enough to Dungeon Crawler Carl to generally be right up all those DCC lover's alleys. But aside from the whole capitalistic nightmare vibe (which is great) I'm just hoping it grounds itself a bit before hightailing it right out of the system to brand new markets.

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The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well now. I guess I had some high hopes for this book or something. I'm not saying it's bad, but it wasn't quite as interesting as I hoped it'd be. It's a throwback to old treasure hunting with mildly ominous magical artifacts as the goal. With a slightly uninteresting villain.

And as a kid, I used to stay up late watching Friday the 13th, the TV series. I loved the hell out of that, and that was definitely as a stupid kid from a stupid kid's PoV, and yet, the memories of THAT was probably two times better than what we get here.

It's probably just a me thing. I guess I wanted to be more than minorly, just slightly entertained.

And perhaps I am just expecting a bit too much out of magical realism. The realism should ground it, but the magic should massively elevate it. In this case, the realism is just a bit aggravating and the magic is rather ho-hum.

Sorry. It's me, not you.

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Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I waffle between 4 and 5 stars on this one, but probably not for the usual reasons.

This 1982 book is RATHER fascinating in that it feels almost like a homage to PKD and it could ABSOLUTELY live comfortably in the world of Cyberpunk 2077 while also being a solid SF exploring the nature of humanity and isolation and belonging while Friday is a literal Courier who is happy to do a little or a lot of wetwork as she travels the Earth and several times off-planet.

It's a true SF in that it's a fiction of ideas as well as a techie adventure, and it's obvious as hell that Heinlein was giving a massive nod to all his SF peers and their wives in his dedication. But beyond that, it's a careful and glorious cyberpunk novel right at the cusp of the true cyberpunk revolution.

So why would I waffle on stars? Because the old man Heinlein is super sexed up, and while that's not a problem in general, and indeed, it's true for ALL the later works, there IS one single point of fact that's just... shit, man. Friday, herself doesn't define rape in a normal way. As in, violence. She just lets it roll off her as a part of doing business, which, to be fair, is usually deadly. I can understand it her position, but it just irks the hell out of me. I guess my morals and ethics are getting the better of me. If I were Friday, I would never be so forgiving after being raped, or be so philosophical. It's not just a variation on swinging, after all.

But this IS a character choice, after all, and probably a position of Ginny's mindset (RAH's red-headed wife) that he was happy to incorporate. But without that kind of context, a cold read of the text could seem a bit weird.

Or perhaps it's all just me. Most femme fatale characters are truly flexible when it comes to these kinds of things, and my girl Friday is absolutely one of those.

Great novel, either way.

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The Primal Hunter 15 by Zogarth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everything I wanted at this particular moment. Done with the mini-arc of the locked-off universe? Clear winners? Clear losers? Check. Now, let's knock on some doors and start up some of that other unfinished business with a certain god of hunters.

Hell, yes.

Diplomatic mission, tons of powerful peeps with good-will and an unhealthy obsession in other's sex lives? Hell, yes.

And as icing on that particular cake, we get what this series is really known for, hunts and battles and even more battles, skill-ups, levels, and monsters well above Jake's pay grade? All in a private hunting reserve of the very god of Life, itself? For fun?

Again, hell, yes.

It doesn't promise anything more than it gives, and it keeps on giving exactly what we want. Power fantasy. Friendships. Being on an equal footing, or at least the beginnings of an equal footing, with primordial gods?

Yes, please. Fun stuff.

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