Tag: SFF (Page 7 of 8)

February Round Up

March 2, 2020 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Golden in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen – B+ Can you even believe this is book 50 in the In Death series?? That must be some kind of record. Normally, I bail out of a series at about book 12 or so but I’m still up for stories about Eve Dallas, Roarke and the rest of the crew. I am desperate for Morris to get a HEA – maybe next book??

Golden in Death has the trademark characters I care about in a very short time. The families of the victims, most of the victims themselves were all well drawn as usual.

This book had many twisty turns and red herrings so it took a long time (in terms of listening, not in terms of days of investigation by Eve and Peabody) to get ID the who-did-it. I liked this. It felt like the kind of thing that might occur in a real police investigation. I also liked that Roarke had a part to play in the investigation but it wasn’t massive. Most of the work was Eve and Peabody. While McNab and even Feeney were involved, it was mainly the core two detectives and that was a little different to previous books as well. Continue reading

November Round Up

December 3, 2019 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Vendetta in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen – B Book 49 in the series takes place in about 4 days from start to finish and is obviously heavily inspired by #MeToo. At first I was a little worried about the killer being a woman who calls herself “Lady Justice” and abducts, tortures and kills men she has judged as being lacking. The first victim was certainly someone who inspired little sympathy (very much a Harvey Weinstein/Roger Ailes type character, albeit in a different industry). I didn’t want to read a story where the victims were all horrible men – I felt like that would have been too on the nose for me. However, after a while I saw that Robb did something clever here. There were a couple of victims/targets who did little more than divorce their wives (we aren’t privy to all the circumstances, though in some cases we can guess) and this served to illustrate that Lady Justice wasn’t really about “justice” at all. It was not a case of the punishment necessarily fitting the “crime” – in some cases, there was no crime. There were also multiple stories about women who had been assaulted by men, sexually or otherwise. Their stories were (sadly) more familiar and here, justice bent toward them – actual justice; because Eve Dallas and Delia Peabody were on the case. There was a a strong believe women vibe and no endorsement of toxic male behaviour. So it wasn’t the book I feared at all. Continue reading

Review at Dear Author

October 2, 2019 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Aurora Blazing by Jessie Mihalik. A slowish start but once things get going, it’s a cracker. Recommend.

August Round Up

September 3, 2019 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

To See The Sun by Kelly Jensen, narrated by TJ Clark – B Gael Sonnen is a young man living in the undercity of his home planet, Zhemosen, never allowed to see the sun which is only for the wealthy and privileged who live above ground. He’s also beholden to a bad guy because reasons. When said bad guy requires Gael to murder someone, he is unable to go through with it. With the help of a friend, Gael flees to Alkirak as a kind of “mail order groom” on a “companion contract”. Alkirak is very far away from Zhemosen way out of reach of the commonwealth law; a kind of wild west frontier planet, still being terraformed. Abraham (Bram) Bauer is an older guy who is lonely and looking for more than just hook ups. He can get hook ups easily enough but he wants more.

His friend suggests a companion contract and when he sees Gael’s “holo video” he is smitten. Bram is a farmer and a miner and life is fairly hard where he is but as difficult as things are, for Gael it is a paradise compared to where he grew up (even though he doesn’t immediately see that is the case).

I don’t want to give too much way but I will say there is a strong found family vibe and I was here for it.

I liked the gradual slow burn of the romance and how Gael and Bram made a family together. The last section felt a bit out of left field and I wasn’t convinced the narrative had truly set up the scenario but it wasn’t the main part of the story and I guess things had to come to a head somehow. Continue reading

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

June 20, 2016 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: My buddy Sirius reviewed this book at Dear Author – I was intrigued so I requested it from the library.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): The blurb above really tells readers all they need to know going into the story. I think it’s a book that is best experienced with little expectation (other than a hopeful, satisfying ending of course!) so I don’t plan to talk much about the plot here. It kept me guessing right up until the end, there were numerous twists and turns I wasn’t expecting even though (because while Sirius told me the ending was upbeat I still got nervous) I peeked at the end.
Continue reading

March Round Up

April 1, 2016 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

All Seated On the Ground by Connie Willis – B I saw this short story mentioned in a thread where posters were saying it was the best of Connie Willis’ short stories so I looked it up. I couldn’t buy the story on its own because geo restrictions, but I found it was available in a library book as part of The Best of Connie Willis and placed a hold so I could read the story.

Meg Yates is a humour columnist who unexpectedly finds herself on a committee trying to communicate with the six Altairi aliens who arrived on the doorsteps of Denver University nine months before. Many experts before her and on the current committee have failed to find a way to break through the Atairi glare of disdain before her but her particular history and a chance encounter with some Christmas music and choir director lead to a breakthrough. Continue reading