[Review] Cleo Porter and the Body Electric by Jake Burt

Cover image from the TheStoryGraph Site.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 6 October, 2020

Publisher: Squarefish, an imprint of Macmillan Kids

Genre: Juvenile Fiction/Children's/Science Fiction

ISBN: 9781250802729

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

Rating:★★★★★

Review Written: 7 February, 2022
Warnings: Mentions of Death, Fire/Fire Injury, Animal Death, Minor Violence, Panic/Anxiety Attacks

Summary:  

A woman is dying. Cleo Porter has her medicine... and no way to get it to her.

Like everyone else, twelve-year-old Cleo and her parents are sealed in an apartment without windows or doors. They never leave. They never get visitors. Their food is dropped off by drones. So they're safe. Safe from the disease that nearly wiped humans from the earth. Safe from everything. The trade-off?

They're alone. Thus, when they receive a package clearly meant for someone else - a package containing a substance critical for a stranger's survival - Cleo is stuck. As a surgeon-in-training, she knows the clock is ticking. But people don't leave their units.

Not ever.

Until Now.

See more by Jake Burt on his website.

[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] Seveneves by Neil Stephenson

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 19 May, 2015

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Genre: Adult Science Fiction/Alternate Time Line

ASIN: B00WNBHNWW

Edition: Audio CDs/Hardback (also available in audiobook, eBook, and paperback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 14 December, 2020
Warnings: mass death, destruction of the moon, space race

Summary:  

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain...

Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown ... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

See more by Neal Stephenson at his website.

[Review] Will Save the Galaxy For Food by Yahtzee Croshaw

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Jacques McKeown #1

Release Date: 14 February, 2017

Publisher: Dark Horse Books

Genre: Space Opera/Science Fiction/Parody

ISBN: 9781506701653

Edition: Paperback (available in eBook, and audiobook)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 6 August, 2020
Warnings: Death, Violence, Sexual Tension

Summary:  

A not-quite epic science fiction adventure about a down-on-his luck galactic pilot caught in a cross-galaxy struggle for survival! Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!

See more by Yahtzee Croshaw at his website.

[Review] Old Man's War (Old Man's War #1) by John Scalzi

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series: Old Man's War

Release Date: 15 January, 2007

Publisher: Listening Library/Tor Publishing

Genre: Adult Fiction/Science Fiction

ISBN: 9781524767105

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

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 9 July, 2019
Warnings: War, medical science fiction, a lot of pointless killing

Summary: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

See more by John Scalzi at his Website.

[Review] House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series: Crescent City Trilogy

Release Date: 3 March, 2020

Publisher: Audible Studios/ Bloomsbury Publishing

Genre: New Adult/Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic/Action and Adventure

ASIN: B082YHJS14

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Kindle and Hardback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 19 June, 2020

Summary: Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. By day, she works for an antiquities dealer, selling barely legal magical artifacts, and by night, she parties with her friends, savouring every pleasure Lunathion—otherwise known as Crescent City— has to offer. But it all comes crumbling down when a ruthless murder shakes the very foundations of the city—and Bryce’s world. Two years later, her job has become a dead end, and she now seeks only blissful oblivion in the city’s most notorious nightclubs. But when the murderer attacks again, Bryce finds herself dragged into the investigation and paired with an infamous Fallen angel whose own brutal past haunts his every step. Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, wants nothing to do with Bryce Quinlan, despite being ordered to protect her. She stands for everything he once rebelled against and seems more interested in partying than solving the murder, no matter how close to home it might hit. But Hunt soon realizes there’s far more to Bryce than meets the eye—and that he’s going to have to find a way to work with her if they want to solve this case. As Bryce and Hunt race to untangle the mystery, they have no way of knowing the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents, and down to the darkest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir... 

See more by Sarah J. Maas 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] 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.

[Review] War Storm by Victoria Aveyard

Series: Red Queen #4

Release Date: 15 May, 2018

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Dystopian Fantasy

ISBN: 9780062422996

Edition: Audiobook and Hardcover

Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 16 June, 2018

Summary: Victory comes at a price.

Mare Barrow learned this all too well when Cal’s betrayal nearly destroyed her. Now determined to protect her heart—and secure freedom for Reds and newbloods like her—Mare resolves to overthrow the kingdom of Norta once and for all… starting with the crown on Maven’s head.

But no battle is won alone, and before the Reds may rise as one, Mare must side with the boy who broke her heart in order to defeat the boy who almost broke her. Cal’s powerful Silver allies, alongside Mare and the Scarlet Guard, prove a formidable force. But Maven is driven by an obsession so deep, he will stop at nothing to have Mare as his own again, even if it means demolishing everything—and everyone—in his path.

War is coming, and all Mare has fought for hangs in the balance. Will victory be enough to topple the Silver kingdoms? Or will the little lightning girl be forever silenced?

In the epic conclusion to Victoria Aveyard’s stunning series, Mare must embrace her fate and summon all her power… for all will be tested, but not all will survive.

See more by Victoria Aveyard at her Website.

[Review] Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Series: Children of OrÏsha #1

Release Date: 06 March, 2018

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co - Macmillan Publishers

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fairy Tales & Folklore / Social & Family Issues / Prejudice & Racism / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery

ISBN: 9781427295507

Edition: Audiobook

Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 20 March, 2018

Summary: They killed my mother.

They took our magic.

They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

See more by Tomi Adeyemi at her Website.

[Review] Book to Movie Comparison: A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle

Series: A Time Quintet

Release Date: 1 January, 1962/9 March, 2018

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Disney Movie Studios

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Science Fiction & Fantasy/Time Travel

ISBN: 9780312367541 (book only)

Edition: Audiobook/Movie

Rating: ★★★★☆ (book)/★★☆☆☆ (movie)

Review Written: 24 March, 2018

Summary: It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.

A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.

[Review] Gilded Cage by Vic James

Series: Dark Gifts #1

Release Date: 14 February, 2017

Publisher: Penguin Random House 

Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction/Political fiction/Contemporary Fantasy

ISBN:  9780425284155

Edition: Ebook

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 23 September, 2017 
Summary: In modern-day Britain, magic users control everything: wealth, politics, power—and you. If you’re not one of the ultimate one-percenters—the magical elite—you owe them ten years of service. Do those years when you’re old, and you’ll never get through them. Do them young, and you’ll never get over them.

This is the darkly decadent world of Gilded Cage. In its glittering milieu move the all-powerful Jardines and the everyday Hadleys. The families have only one thing in common: Each has three children. But their destinies entwine when one family enters the service of the other. They will all discover whether any magic is more powerful than the human spirit.

Have a quick ten years. . . .

See more at Penguin Random House's Website.