Done and Done:
Red Noise, John P. Murphy. An unexpected pleasure! This is a straight-up tribute to Kurosawa, which reminded me of the unjustly underappreciated Last Man Standing. Except instead of Bruce Willis, we are treated to “The Miner” (I feel like that should be capitalized) who reacts poorly to being taken advantage of on a lonely space station, and goes to town on the scummy gangs tearing the place apart. Read again factor: This should be a comic book!
The Rush’s Edge, Ginger Smith. A former super-solider with outsized abilities and an outsized self-destructive streak searches for a future, purpose, and even love in a fast-paced and well-written novel. Smith does a great job of highlighting the joys and pains of life, in a deft and nicely paced effort. Read again factor: Super-likely.
Sentenced To War, J.N. Chaney and Jonathan Brazee. The hero is conscripted into a war that’s going very badly after comitting...minor traffic violations. It’s a rough world, and gets harder by the moment. Bog-standard mil SF which neither enthralled nor repelled. Predictably or inevitably, there are many further volumes to read. Read again factor: So, about that?
The Last Watch, J.S. Dewes. Whoa! Possibly another new favorite author! This is two in one month, after reading Tim Pratt’s Fractured Void, see below. Taut writing, an interesting plot with plenty of adventure and nuanced, believable characters (ok, for sci-fi anyway...) combined to make the two volumes (The Exiled Fleet and The Last Watch) fun and engaging reading. Oh, and the ending was the right amount of closure and hints at the future to be satisfying without needing to tack on six more hastily-written volumes. Well done! Read again factor: Adding Dewes to the essential list.
Operation Brushfire, Rhett C. Bruno and James Wolanyk. A fascinating take on future dystopia. Henry Stasyk is a straight-arrow internal affairs agent for a world government, brought into a case which seems odd at first--and quickly becomes deadly as he and his partner fight their way through a globe-spanning conspiracy which unravels their understanding of everything they held sacred. Good writing and a clever, unusual plot keep this dark alt-history moving fast. A superb read. Read again factor: ready to clone it.
The Predator and The Prey, K.C. Sivils. Thomas Sullivan is a police inspector, posted to a backwater planet which needs some serious clean-up action. Sullivan battles a serial killer, bent cops, and his own past in a nicely-paced, solidly-written adventure in future noir. Read again factor: absolutely!
Fractured Void, Tim Pratt. Apparently based on a best selling boardgame, Twilight Imperium, which I now want to check out. The captain and crew of a starship pulling security in a distant backwater stumble over a kidnapping which leads them into the heart of a galactic twilight struggle with cosmic implications. This was super-entertaining, a fun read that was well-crafted without taking itself too seriously. Read again factor: Adding Pratt to my list.
Good stories, cheap cover art.
Starbound: A Shelf Space Sci-Fi Anthology, Various. To paraphrase Dickens, they were the best of stories and the worst of stories.
Captain’s Making, Scott Bartlett: interesting premise about time paradoxes and aliens was undercut by only thinly-descriptive writing and wooden characters.
Final Mission, Jonathan P. Brazee: a retired galactic Gurkha goes out in a blaze of glory in this compelling story of failure and redemption from a veteran mil-SF writer.
The Switch, Nathan Hystad: rollicking whodunit from another prolific author, loaded with twists and satisfying to the end.
Self Improvement, Joshua James: a clever take on a couple of classic themes (boy-gets-girl, girl’s-ganster-father-cleans-house) which meet biohacking, let down by a cliched ending.
Descent, Christian Kallias: one of the weaker entries. Put off by the wordy, run-on foreword I only got through a few pages of the main character’s unsympathetic emoting before moving on.
The Rabbit Gambit, Craig Martelle. I’m not familiar with the Free Trader universe, but judging from the pastiche of characters--which requires a dramatis personae up front--it’s not my cup of tea. Couldn’t get past the rabbits demanding justice for their plundered veggie patch.
The Serapis Mission, James David Victor: a tightly-written and interesting short story from the Outcast Marines universe, this was an entirely decent little adventure.
Cassie, Jonathan Yanez: the editors saved the best for last, closing out the series with a short look at a put-upon waitress who takes the first tenative steps into a world of challenges and danger.
Read again factor: Some, maybe.
Red Screen, Stephen King. First read from King in years and years. A very short story (17 pages) looking at how conspiracies get into our heads, something King probably could have written in his sleep. Read again factor: Worth the $5.
First Light (Resonance #1), Casey E. Berger. First in a new series, received as an ARC from Aethon. This is solid, enjoyable space opera. Varied cast of characters with vivid stories and a story arc which was fun--if a bit conventional. Well-written, nicely-paced debut from Berger that kept me avidly turning pages. There were a few moments that shook my immersion in the story, but none serious enough to turn me off or break my engagement. This was a solid, enjoyable book. Read again factor: Looking forward to more!
Thrall, Mary SanGiovanni. More horror than SF, this was still a good read. Jesse left his home town of Thrall, New Jersey, and planned on never looking back--until a call for help from the mother of his child brings him back to explore the twisted reality that makes the town so much worse than he, or anyone else, had ever expected. (I should write blurbs, no?) A fun piece of horror. Read again factor: Do we really have to go back to New Jersey? Really?
Battleship: Leviathan, Craig Martelle. This was an Aethon advance reader copy. What do you do if your hope for defeating the deadly Blaze Collective and saving humanity come down to the abandoned hulk of an ancient starship? What if turns out it’s not a hulk, is intelligent, advanced...and a pacifist? Decent space opera with a military twist, first of a three book series. Writing was good, plot solid if not spectacular, and the characters--especially the AI--were enough to keep the pages turning. Read again factor: Against stiff competition, but maybe.
Assassin Hunter, Drew Brinery. Vanya Sage wakes up to find himself drugged and tied up by a beautiful, mysterious, deadly woman. And it gets better from there! Sage cannot trust his memories, perceptions or the people around him -- and there are deadly consequences. The initial chapter was a bit slow and pretentious, but the writing improves steadily over the course of the story. And the story itself is original and creative. Read again factor: Absolutely.
Nemesis, Sam J. Fires. This is awkward. The last update I published was on August 2nd, which means I finished reading this within the last six or eight weeks, take or give a few days. And I remember...nothing about it. Usually the blurb on Goodreads helps jog a few memory cells. Not this time. Bad sign for the prequel to a post-apocalyptic series which spawned another series. Flipping through the actual book rekindled memories of stiff writing and my inability to understand how the main character’s bad luck relates to the apocalypse. Read again factor: Vanishingly unlikely.
Tartarus Gate, Matthew P. Gilbert. Joshiah Bleys and Ragnar Kane have nothing in common, don’t particularly like each other, and meet because Bleys is in prison. And they’re the galaxy’s only hope for fending off a relentless tide of death-dealing xenos--and the warped family dynamics of the AI leadership of a “retirement planet”. Entertaining and fun, well-written and a decent plot. Read again factor: Higher than average.
Lucky’s Marines, Joshua James. 2,504 pages of combat, nanobots, improbable regeneration, aliens, genocide, intrigues within intrigues, and a snarky but lovable AI who keeps the protagonist in line. Nine seperate novels, accounting for the excessive length. James achieved solid consistency across the series’ epic story arc, although by the end things were getting a little stale. Not sure I’m up for the follow-on series, in which the team become mercenaries. At least not yet. Still digesting. Still, this may be the standard against which I’ll judge future self-published SFF, and may be worth a stand-alone review. Read again factor: Surprisingly...low.
There’s a lot of luck floating around out there…
Abandoned:
Story did not live up to cover, sadly.
Strange Angels, Kathe Koja. Grant is a burned out photographer who defies his therapist SO by cultivating a relationship with one of her patients, whose drawings captivate him. This reprint of a 1994 novel never gelled with me, as I kept looking for the “so what?” Great cover, though. Side effects got to be too much 23% of the way in.
The Infinite Noise, Lauren Shippen. The blurb on Goodreads quotes the Vox review: "What if the X-Men, instead of becoming superheroes, decided to spend some time in therapy?" Nice summary of why this was not my cup of tea--not into the X-men--as well as why I don’t get reading recommendations from Vox. Went back into denial 11% of the way through.
Brain Trust (The Complete Series), Marc Stiegler. The Braintrust, Crescendo of Fire, Rhapsody for the Tempest, Ode to Defiance, Requiem--good titles. The actual first volume, not so promising. In a messed-up world, the best and brightest take to the seas off California in a floating utopia. I couldn’t get traction with the leaden and long-winded wind-up or the promise of endless badly-camoflaged political commentary. Scuttled at page 52 of 1470, or 3.5% in.
Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders. Zero progress since the last update. Teenager who contains a beacon summoning aliens both friendly and not so much, goes on an adventure with a friend. Not my thing. Turned off the transmitter 10% of the way through.
Set sail for…something.
Dismantling Vindictiveness, Lillian Melendez. Another venture outside my usual genre, but this mystery had trouble attracting and keeping my focus. I found the dialog and writing style stitled, and didn’t get far into the actual story. Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly at 11% through.
A House of Hollow Wounds, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. Not sure quite what to make of this. It’s either unstructured poetry or overly literary narration. Either way, I missed the “evocative melding of horror and plangency that makes Pulver the most distinctive voice in modern weird fiction” promised by the blub. Retreated to normcore 28% through.
In Stasis:
The Philosopher’s Stone, Colin Wilson. This book and I were both published in 1969, and we’re both creatures of our ages. The difference is that I have aged perfectly, while Wilson’s tome--a very 1960s (at least from my perspective) exploration of conciousness and human nature--hasn’t. Finding it ponderous and lethargic, but keeping alive some hope for improvement.
So is a trilogy three or five? We don’t know either.
The Crimson Deathbringer, Sean Robins. Advertising your work as “An Epic Space Opera/Alien Invasion/Time Travel Adventure” raises expectations. This is a hard one; the series wants to be funny and epic, but so far--40% of the way through book one of the four on my Kindle (and five in the series)--it’s looking mildly amusing but difficult to see wading through