[Review] How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Thorne Chronicles #1

Release Date: 8 October, 2019

Publisher: Daw Books

Genre: Science Fiction/Fairytale Formula/Space Opera/Fantasy

ISBN: 9780756417499

Edition: Paperback/Audio (also available in Hardcover and eBook) Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 22 March, 2021
Warnings: Confinement, Violence, Kidnapping, Bullying, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Xenophobia, Blood, Cursing, Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Summary:  

Now in mass market, the first in a duology that reimagines fairy tale tropes within a space opera--The Princess Bride meets Princess Leia.

Rory Thorne is a princess with thirteen fairy blessings, the most important of which is to see through flattery and platitudes. As the eldest daughter, she always imagined she'd inherit her father's throne and govern the interplanetary Thorne Consortium.

Then her father is assassinated, her mother gives birth to a son, and Rory is betrothed to the prince of a distant world.

When Rory arrives in her new home, she uncovers a treacherous plot to unseat her newly betrothed and usurp his throne. An unscrupulous minister has conspired to name himself Regent to the minor (and somewhat foolish) prince. With only her wits and a small team of allies, Rory must outmaneuver the Regent and rescue the prince.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse is a feminist reimagining of familiar fairytale tropes and a story of resistance and self-determination--how small acts of rebellion can lead a princess to not just save herself, but change the course of history.

See more by K. Eason at her website.

[Review] Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Terra Ignota #1

Release Date: 10 May, 2016

Publisher: Tor Books

Genre: Science Fiction/Futuristic/Political Science/Thriller/Suspense

ISBN: 9780765378002

Edition: Hardback (available in audiobook, eBook, and paperback)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Review Written: 8 September, 2020
Warnings: Strong language, graphic description of violence and murder, cliffhanger

Summary:  

Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life... 

See more by Ada Palmer at her website.

[Review] Neuromancer by William Gibson

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Sprawl #1

Release Date: 11 June, 2011 (originally published in July of 1984)

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Genre: Science Fiction/Adult Fiction/Cyberpunk/Technothriller/High-Tech Science Fiction

ISBN: 9780307969941

Edition: Audiobook (available in paperback, ebook, and hard cover)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review Written: 2 March, 2020
Warnings: A lot of technobabble, scenes of torture, a lot of NSFW content

Summary:  

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards

Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

See more by William Gibson at his Website.

[Review] The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Hainish Cycle #5

Release Date: 17 March, 1972 (audio 7 December, 2009)

Publisher: Audible Frontiers

Genre: Science Fiction/Colonial Science Fiction/Adventure

ASIN: B00304MW0Y

Edition: Audiobook

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review Written: 3 February, 2020
Warnings: Racism, Character Death, Mentions of Rape

Summary:  

The planet Athshe was a paradise whose people were blessed with a mystical awareness of existence.

Then the conquerors arrived and began to rape, enslave, and kill humans with a flicker of humanity. The athseans were unskilled in the ways of war, and without weapons. But the gentle tribesmen possessed strange powers over their dreams. And the alien conquerors had taught them how to hate....

See more by Ursula K Le Guin at her Website.

[Review] Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 30 July, 2001

Publisher: Audible Frontiers

Genre: Science Fiction/High Tech Fiction/Contemporary Science Fiction

ASIN: B00005NZJA

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Kindle, Hardback, and Paperback)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Review Written: 5 October, 2019
Warnings: Death, Gore, Sexual content

Summary:  
In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately. 

See more by Neil Stephenson at his Website.

[Review] The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Wayfarer Series #1

Release Date: 29 July, 2014

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Genre: Science Fiction/Space Opera/Adventure

ASIN: B07DFNC9Z8

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Kindle, Hardback, and Paperback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 30 September, 2019
Warnings: Death, Mentions of War

Summary:  
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain. Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

See more by Becky Chambers at her Website.