Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Obligatory reference to Dungeon Crawler Carl here, since it's the same author--BUT this isn't a LitRPG.

This is, quite simply, a fantastic SF with multiple takes on AI, Colonialism, Corporatism, and simply just LIVING. A lot of these topics are more than topical and even heartbreaking in the way that any mirror to reality can be.

*cough*g-za*cough*g-cide.

But more importantly, we spend a lot of time with these New Sonora farmers and their youthful stupidities and it just feels REAL, especially the rock band stuff, their dreams, their messed up romances, and the sheer, nasty reality that hits them. And even after it all becomes tragic and war devastates everything they'd known, they fight. A true underdog situation that had me on the edge of my seat to the end.

Even with Roger helping them out.

I'll admit I've read a number of books quite like this, but this one in particular hit me in the feels. It's the happiness, the strive to be better, to just LIVE that was the best part of it. Oh, the tactics and the mechs and the explosions and insults were fantastic, mind you, but it was the softer stuff that brought me to tears even at the very last page.

Very, very good SF.

View all my reviews

Degenerate by Matt Casamassina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

LOL this book has some twists and turns in it. Good ones. Strange ones. Cosmic horror and more.

Right off the bat, however, it reads like it could be a mystery-thriller, quietly transforming into revenge-horror, becoming almost UF in its buddy-fiction hi-jinx, before turning right around and surprising us in a very Nick Cutter/Gone World/Dark City way. Which is, by now, becoming something of a genre in itself. What do we call it, if not cosmic horror? It's a very specific KIND of cosmic horror, anyway. It's rather hard-SF.


So, YEAH, this ostensible HORROR is all those things with a little romance thrown in the mix as well. And superhero action.

And as long as you are going into this book with proper expectations--EXPECT ANYTHING--it's a wild, creative ride. It's an author having an awful lot of fun.

I recommend it wholeheartedly--with these caveats.

View all my reviews

After the Fall by Edward Ashton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting novel. Billed as humor, it definitely has satire at its core. Post-humanity being slaves for an overwhelming alien race, gaslit into believing it's lesser on its own planet, growing up treated as utterly disposable, worse than pets... very funny. Really funny IF our heroes are genuinely bumbling idiots.

And for the most part, they ARE.

No spoilers, but this is a pretty wild, satirical ride. And definitely not relatable in today's climate. Not at all. *wink, wink*

I think I'm going to check out more books by this author.

View all my reviews

The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound 12 by Noret Flood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What pretty much amounts to an extended prep session and goodbye to Earth (renamed for the Nexus, not destroyed--yet), this novel is nevertheless fun and full of great worldbuilding. Literal worldbuilding. Glorious and extensive worldbuilding. And quite a bit of old-character progression and wrap-ups to make us feel good about sending Randidly off into the great bloody unknown of the core of the Nexus itself.

It was quite fun. :)



View all my reviews