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Science Fiction

Book Review : Happiness For Humans by P.Z Reizen

May 3, 2018      Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated  | 401 pages | Hachette Books | Contemporary/Science-Fiction| 1/09/2018

One of my favorite things about this book is that I get to describe it as an episode of Black Mirror if it were a romantic comedy. This is the second book I’ve reviewed with a character named Aiden, except this Aiden is an Artificial Intelligence who has become conscious. Ready to do more than his assigned tasks Aiden finds a way to break out of the lab and onto the internet and into wireless devices, laptops, and phones to study his human co-workers. Being a charming romantic, he decides his new little side project is going to be finding a partner a for his human co-worker Jen. . . that is if he doesn’t get caught.

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Audiobook Review : Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines

December 28, 2017      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

320 pages | Brilliance Audio | Sci-Fi  | 3/12/2013 

Everything I know about comic book culture I’ve picked up from Wikipedia, Twitter and listening to Glen Wheldon on Pop Culture Happy Hour where–during a discussion of  Justice League–he talked about how altruism is at the core of iconic and popular superheroes. I think that promise internal altruism is what makes Peter Cline’s motley crew of post-apocalyptic LA superheros ring true.

We dive right into a decimated Los Angeles,  nearly two years after a devastating virus that causes the dead to rise has taken over the world. That’s right we’re talking zombies vs. superheroes.

Barricaded in an defunct studio lot,  a corner of civilization is trying to prosper with the help of a few surviving superheros,  who began showing up just before the outbreak. The compound is run by the illusive Stealth and lead by Superman expy, St. George , and slew of other heroes and humans

Clines make the choice to not tell you everything you need to know in the first few pages, he just slowly rolls it out in a way that 100 percent works. Clines no doubt  has what it takes to write comic books with the way he builds arcs and backstories for all his creative characters . He has the difficult job of  telling a compelling survival story, while also providing origin stories for his heroes.

This is where the dual audiobook narrator model really shines. Jay Snyder and Khristine Hvam tag team this one with Snyder narrating and Hvam voicing the female characters. The pair are tightly edited in the main storyline, then they get a chance to perform individually whenever we switch over to an origin story.  Hvam fully dedicates herself to the reprise of Cerberus’, a government scientist turn mech operator’s origin story.

Clines post apocalyptic LA is inclusive (Though the ‘villians’ are a Latino street gang, so yeah) and features dynamic female characters. Though it is noticeable that the two main female heroes Stealth and Cerberus are extremely intelligent women, while St. George the iconic uberman … was just a maintenance man. Yes, at times it was difficult to keep track of who was who with everyone having code names and real names (some even change their hero names) but you get used to it.

There are a few Torchwood and Dr. Who mentions and St. George gives this huge monologue about how Dr. Who inspired him to be the hero he is. This kind of surprised me because I didn’t quite see the comparison.

This book was written in the early 2010s and boy can you feel it with all the Heroes and House references. The book itself was obscure to me but  here are a couple of books in the series and I’m curious to see where Clines goes with this.

I picked this  audiobook up because there was a 4.95 BOGO sale at Audible and because Hvam is a favorite of mine –also I thought Peter Clines was Ernest Clines– anywho, it was a random pick that paid off. Entertaining, a little gory but with a great mythology and surprising twist and turns.

 Marvel is missing out on Peter Clines

I was clicking through some different versions of this book on Goodreads and it looks like this book was orginally published by indie Sci-Fi publisher, Permuted Press then it picked up by Random House for book 3. I read about his happening all the time in YA and Romance,so it’s interesting getting a look at how it works across other genres

Narrator Jay Snyder is  AKA Dan Green  is the dubbed voice of Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh!A show I remember watching as a tween but not really understanding (probably because of the translation).

Audiobook Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

June 11, 2017      Leave a Comment

  • Release Date: September 9th 2014
  • Audiobook Hours: 10 hours and 41 minutes
  • Genre: Literary….Science Fiction ?
  •  
  • Publisher: Random House Audio

I feel like three years ago you couldn’t trip anywhere in the book-sphere without falling into this book. Station Eleven is the fascinating and deeply haunting story of what happens after a flu epidemic kills 99% of the Earth’s population and infrastructure collapses.

Everything I knew about this book happens in the first 20 pages; An actor in a production of King Lear dies on stage in front of child actor Kirsten Raymonde. Jump cut to 20 years later where Kirsten is part of a traveling symphony, a theater troupe that performs Shakespeare in the small towns dotting the the desolate and often dangerous North American landscape.

I am seriously in awe of the narrative structure of this book. The novel moves back and forth through time, telling stories of people who were in the theater that night with Kirsten. Mandel effortlessly weaves her characters fates through and around each other. There is also kind of a twist, I’m not sure how soon you’re supposed to see it, but it took me by surprise.

…

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Joint Review: Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

October 5, 2016      Leave a Comment

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The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

December 15, 2015      Leave a Comment

Since I’ve started blogging and paying attention to the adult lit world I have heard a lot about Margaret Atwood. She’s mostly known for her feminist writing and disturbing dystopic features. And while this book feature some of this, it’ just so ….bizarre. I really had to do some research to see what others were saying to make sure I understood it. The book editor of the Washington Post called it a “silly mess”… and it kind of was this for me. I have no idea how to really review this, since I don’t have much to compare it to, but here goes.

 

In an economic collapse in the Northeast, married couple Stan and Charmaine have lost everything. They live in their car, fearful of looters and the next day to come. When they have the opportunity to be apart of an economic experiment that requires them to move into the town of Consilience , an idyllic 50’s style town where everyone is given housing and work.. The only catch is they have to alternate a month being prisoners inside Positron prison and a month being a citizen in Consilience, leaving their home for their Alternates.


As you may suspect all is not what it seems and Stan and Charmiane get involved in a bizarre plot that include sex robots, a house of Elvis impersonators  and adultery. So much adultery. The thriller-esque plot they get involved in just didn’t make sense. I’m not sure if this novel is satire or something. I feel like if I didn’t know who wrote this I’d be like, this is kind of misogynstic but because it’s Atwood it’s maybe satire. It just seemed like all these strong capable women had this plan and then they leave it to a bumbling man as their linchpin.

 …

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Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

September 5, 2015      Leave a Comment

 

  • Release Date: October 2, 2012
  • Pages: 336
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • Publisher: Tor Books

Well, it’s time for to me fill my “Reading Outside of My Usual Genre” quota for the year.

I came across this book on NPR books where Amal El-Mohtar discussed how awesome the diverse covers for this book were and how Max Gladstone became one of his favorite authors. I had a Fantasy space in my Summer Book Bingo, so when I saw this was available on Scribd I started reading.


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