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.

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