Player Manager by Ted Steel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What if a famous soccer video game became a novel? Well, yep. Instant stats, skills to buy with XP earned by watching games, using tactics, etc., but still a story about a kid with love for the game but low confidence, a bad job, and nothing more than the love (and the system).

It's pretty decent, but not fantastic. Above average, entertaining for exactly what it is, and that's football. Or soccer for you yanks. A description of this yells out to Ted Lasso, but it just doesn't have the same heart as that. But that's okay. It's a fun start.

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World Walker by Plum Parrot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one is pretty much a book establishing a beachhead on a vampire world with a few encounters plus a whole lot of catching up with peeps he's been neglecting. I won't say it wasn't entertaining, because it was, but for the amount of true meat it actually has, I think I would have preferred a novel twice as long with some actual inroads on the planet. I like good long books and a slow burn is fine as long as something epic happens at the end.

This one just happens to be a loose thread coming back to get snipped. Which is fine. But it's not that epic. Alas.

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He Who Fights with Monsters 13 by Shirtaloon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well worth the wait. I absolutely adore a good consolidation, personal healing, get your shit together book between massive conflicts. I especially love a book of conflict that pits your sense of rightness against the full ongoing idiocy of a whole planet. You know, Earth. And just because Jason is not a god, but kinda has those qualities, it doesn't mean there's no drama. And I cherish every single happy moment... because the stakes are STILL as high as they've ever been.

The gods are coming. Earth is not prepared. Cannot, frankly, be prepared, and Jason has been set up. Set up hard.

The end of this book gave me massive shivers. So yeah, it's a great book. I can't wait for the next.

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Monsters of Ohio by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scalzi always kills it. Or rather, he doesn't kill unnecessarily. Or rather, he kills but he's fundamentally incapable of actually truly harming his fellow peeps in Ohio. Or maybe he is, but at least in NOVEL form he just goes all cryptid on the folks and carries off a truly neat commentary on how we really shouldn't be dicks.

I mean, seriously. Stop it. Just don't be a dick. Explosions might happen. Haven't you people taken sex-ed courses? Oh, wait, all the funding got cut. Oh, well, you're bound to figure out the facts of cryptid life sooner or later. May as well be in this book. Enjoy your tentacles.

Seriously tho, what did those poor Ohio people do to deserve Scalzi? They really ought to thank him.

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BuyMort: Closing Time: How I Crashed the Multiversal Market (BuyMort - The Shopocalypse Saga by Joseph Phelps
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What it does well: it shows capitalism to be the monster it truly is. And when violence is a way to cheat within it, it's going to be VERY popular.

Also, this is pretty fun as a space opera with lots of ships pew-pewing each other. A sharp departure from how it began, to be sure, but we love our power-scaling, no?

That being said, I loved the war but NOT the end. That kinda... sucked. Not enough to make me swear off the series if it ever continues or the author because of that decision, but damn. That sucked.

I wonder if I'll be saying the same thing about DCC when it ends. The similarities are very much there.

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Polostan by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 10/6/26:

Getting myself prepped for the sequel with a re-read. Really enjoying Dawn/Aurora's tale, the tragedy and the sense of fun. But like Stephenson's other historical novels, I'm even more impressed by his sense of milieu. For example, young Patton and the early days of what tanks might become, side-by-side with horses and their continued cultural significance. Shown, not told.

And, of course, there are some really great cameos of the science world of the 1930's as a perfect mirror to Stephenson's other historicals.

I'm really excited for the new book.



Original Review:

Polostan is definitely one for Stepensonstans. While I'll never call this one a top 4 for his copious awesome-making bibliography, Neal definitely delivers on a wickedly wild alt-history ride taking us through great spycraft-grooming from the Lenin's revolution to the United States, from Bonnie and Clyde to Montana gunslingers to DC revolutionary activity to the Chicago Fair to the first glimmers of the science that will lead to the Atomic Bomb. Let's not forget the gangsters, the Gilded age, and Comrades, galore!

Seriously, this is a tour-de-force of funky fun, written like a cyberpunk (hello Stephensonstans) meets historical greatness. Of course, this just reminds me of Neal's other historical trilogy, but this hits closer to home, with all the great walk-ons of the age.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's smart and wild and insanely political.

Not OUR political, mind you, but let's just say the 1920's and 1930's have a LOT in common with today.

Well worth the read!



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to DM requests. I think it's about time I get some eyes on them.

Arctunn.com

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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first read this back in the day, I was REALLY enthusiastic in how it combined SO many different fascinating characters from all over his other books in a timey-wimey reality-breaking kind of way. It was something of a capstone to a long career of fascinating people. Especially after Number of the Beast and Stranger in a Strange Land and, of course, Time Enough For Love, and Moon is a Harsh Mistress, this one really revels in not only deep-seated nostalgia, but a love of pure adventure, easygoing sexuality, and the deepest love of all: for myth.

Not traditional myth, but the myth that we, as readers of the fantastic, bring to the table when we think about the things we truly love and geek out about. Which, if you are a fan of Heinlein, means that Lazarus and Hershaw and Manny ALL deserve a place in the pantheon not just for OUR love of them, but for the author's love of them. And that goes the same for the Oz books and Barsoom.

So who is the quantum cat who's walking through walls? None other than the World As Myth.

I will mention one thing: something like 5/6ths of the novel is pure adventure. The last bit is truly WILD, however. Wild the way Job was wild at the end. So, if you LOVE time travel craziness, becoming as free as the free love and turning into a true SF spaghettification of characters, you're going to go nuts for this.

Heinlein, that old courageous man that he became in his old life, really just put his writing chops on the line and let it ALL hang out. Damn, old, spry curmudgeon. To think he was right at the end of his life, dying at 80, and yet he was still this young at heart, too.

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