SUBMERGED: A hacker thriller by John Wilander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Most books I read about hackers rather skim over the ways and means, assuming the reader either doesn't care or has a twitter attention span. I'm glad this one doesn't. It has that in common with the first book in the series.

And in case I'm not clear on this, I LOVE the fact that it geeks out on real hacking with all the ways and means. It's very informative, even if I can't confirm or deny that it's real. It FEELS real, and that's kinda the point.

But that isn't the real point of this particular novel. This is a true technological thriller. A crack team doing a more realistic mission impossible, complete with real consequences, massively researched Russian locales, and a quite plausible--and indeed likely--look at the real scope of cyber-warfare between nations.

Updated to today. Which is, as you know, messed up. As in, totally out of control. Misinformation central. But hey, being lied to has now become normal.

My only slight immersion break was the whole submarine part, but despite the cover, it's only a small portion of the goodies. No matter how it might bill itself as a mission impossible, it felt just a bit too mission impossible when dealing with the nitty gritty realism that the book does so well everywhere else.

But then, that may be just me. I really enjoyed the book, otherwise.

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Providence by TurtleMe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay. This book is kinda a hot mess. And while it DOES have enough good stuff to keep it afloat and cool and definitely worth reading, the bad stuff is still truly annoying.

Like the broken, broken again, broken yet again magic ass-pulls. This makes me think we're going back to the truly mysterious magic system days where it's all built on "if you just believe hard enough, you'll get it", but without faith. Just the plain old somehow Palpatine came back, but for magic rules. Like Cecilia. Or rather, all Cecilia. And while the whole fate mastery bit was cool on the surface and a bit deeper, it's still TOTALLY an ass-pull.

So yeah, between that and just a tad too many PoVs that I didn't care about--sorry, Nate--I just kept hoping to get through the main plot for the sake of just MOVING ON at last.

But fortunately, we do. And it was pretty cool, despite all the annoying bits. And so I'm not QUITE done with this series since there's another one coming out. :)

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Retribution by TurtleMe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bigger scale conflict on the horizon, dragons versus the end of the world. Or rather, our favorite dragons causing it. And all the Lessers are going to have to step up, train, and break their choke-hold once and for all.

Good thing our hero is so damn OP for the normal troops.

But now, it's training time for everyone else. Yay!

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Reckoning by TurtleMe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great comeback, or rather follow-up comeback that includes #8 and #9, but more importantly, we really get to know the enemy--by being the enemy.

Of course, it's kinda sly doing it this way, getting in good with some nobles, wiping out some others, and most importantly--BECOMING A TEACHER for young brats.

Just gotta make sure nobody finds out what you REALLY are. Right?

Right?

Muahahahahahaha this stuff can sometimes be so damn delicious.

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Ascension by TurtleMe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book changed the entire direction of the series, but I have to admit that was a good thing.

A reset of sorts. Of course, that's something that happens fairly often in these, be it Isekai or LitRPG or Progression. Sometimes there has to be a major setback after being utterly broken to break through to a new power plateau.

And that's exactly what we get here. Thrown across the world, core broken, a new awakening and a new friend, lost in a deadly dungeon.

It is pretty classic. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. I always like new skills in these kinds of books.

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Divergence by TurtleMe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So here I am, flying through these books and still wanting to continue on as hard as before, but I'm now reading it out of a sense of hopelessness and dread. Or rubbernecking an accident.

Sure, war is horrible, but this just goes all out of its way to show all the betrayal and stupidity and yet more betrayal it can.

It's pretty hard to stomach. I can't say this will ever be anything but the worst book in the series, but is it because of the storytelling or what happens?

Probably the latter.

Alas. At this point, I just have to hope it gets better.


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Radiant Star by Ann Leckie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The good: Large cast of characters supporting this fairly standalone tale in the Ancillary universe. It picks up on the consequences of the original trilogy.

More than anything, it shows the true consequences, the tragedies, and specifically, starvation. Religion and politics be damned.


The bad: I was frankly bored in the first half of the novel. The small amounts of intrigue and social injustice was rather just a small portion and the rest just circled religious politics. As for the characters, I felt rather disconnected and just kept praying for something exciting to happen.

It does, later, kinda, but starvation is hard to read about, let alone experience, and it was hard.

Others might get more out of this, but for me? I started imagining that Leckie was going through some hard times and it really shone through the text. I wanted to help her more than I wanted to get through the novel.

Maybe that's just me, but it is what I felt.

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